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He watched her skip over to Cain. She’d gained a fraction of weight, a pound or two, since he’d last weighed her. It wasn’t much but it took the edge off her gauntness, the sharpness off her bones. His eyes narrowed when she bounced onto the recliner in her excitement and babbled to his brother.
He still couldn’t get over how her behavior toward each of his brothers was so dissimilar. Caleb sent her to the verge of a breakdown; Cain brought out the playful side of her. She was a ball bearing between two magnets—repelled by the force of Caleb, drawn to the magnetism of Cain.
When Cain arrived an hour earlier, she’d been in the bath—along with her rubber ducks and some floating hippo thing—singing to herself as she played. Sarah was spoiling her, he thought resignedly. He hadn’t yet dared use the pink glitter bath stuff his nurse swore would make Jenna’s day. He feared for the condition of his bathroom once the sparkly crap was released from its prison.
Jenna had come downstairs in her towel, pale skin rosy with heat and still wet where she’d missed spots, seen his youngest sibling in the kitchen. When she’d stopped dead in the doorway, Connor recalled wincing, fully expecting the hesitant step back and urination her body used as a warning sign of mental overload.
Instead, she’d dropped eye contact and sidled over to Connor, sneaking behind him and peeping shyly at Cain with a bashful smile.
Cain being Cain had answered her with a wide, flirty grin and matching wink, until Connor cleared his throat meaningfully.
From there, things settled into her normal routine. Back upstairs so he could dry her more thoroughly and wiggle her into her PJs, checking her back even though she was almost fully healed. The stitches and creams had worked wonders, and although she now had yet more scars to add to her vast collection, his work there was finished.
Dressed in her cotton candy PJs, feet snuggled into fluffy fleece slippers he’d found her online in a similar shade of pink, they’d retreated to the living room so she could watch Gru and his minions get up to their antics.
He missed Jenna the woman more than ever but hadn’t seen a glimpse of her since she gave her description of Sire to Hadley. That was okay, he told himself. Hiding away meant she was healing, right? Jenna the child was hard work, but she was worth it, every step of the damn rocky way.
His thoughts scattered when the woman in question crawled back onto his lap and curled contentedly into him with a happy sigh. “Did you thank Uncle Cain properly, Jenna?”
“I’ve shot myself in the foot with the uncle crap, haven’t I?” Cain muttered, but didn’t sound too displeased at the thought.
“Deal with it,” Connor replied, lips twitching.
“Guess I’ll have to,” he said cheerfully and polished off his bottle. “I’ll get another beer, you want one?”
“Please. I’m going to get this one to bed while you do that.” Connor nuzzled her ear, smelling the scent of vanilla and raspberry from her hair. “Say goodnight, baby. We have a quick stop to make on our way upstairs.”
“Night, Cain,” she told him dutifully, then her eyes sharpened. He peered closer, staring deep into them. Was that the woman he hoped to see staring back at him? But the instant passed, and the child frowned at him. “Where are we going, Daddy?”
He gave her a pat on the ass, urged her off his lap so she stood in front of him as he rose. He offered his hand, grateful she took it without hesitation, and led her out of the room as Cain followed them. “I just need to grab something from the exam room, Jenna. It’ll take two seconds, I promise.”
She balked, and the octave of her voice rose. “Not the needle?”
“Not the needle. I know how much you hate the needle.” His response was low and calm. He really did understand how deep her hatred of syringes went; the last time he’d taken blood from her, she’d almost knocked his teeth out with an inadvertent backhand as she resisted.
“Hate it, Daddy.Hate it.”
He flipped the light on in the exam room, heard Cain keep walking with a chuckle. The two seconds he’d promised her were all it took to find the sleeping pills in the cupboard; he popped one from the sheet, snapped it in half.
He wouldn’t risk giving her a full one just yet. If it mired her down and kept her pinned in a nightmare instead of helping her cruise beneath it, he didn’t want to fight against a higher dosage to fetch her back to reality.
“To the kitchen, baby. Let’s get your juice.” Light off, door shut, they continued to the kitchen where Jenna found her special glass—Hello Kitty—and filled it herself with juice from the refrigerator as Cain plucked a six-pack from the shelf.
Connor gave him an arch look.
“Hey, you just volunteered me to buy your girl a fucking expensive dog,” Cain murmured as Jenna put the juice bottle back into the fridge and shut the door. “I’m damn well cleaning you out of beer tonight, bro. I’ll just crash on the couch.”
That reminded him. He snagged the glass from Jenna’s hands, smiled at her wide-eyed look. “Who’ve you forgotten, baby?”
Puzzled, she frowned, then gasped. “Moose!”
She was off like a flash, a vibrant shock of pink on the move.
“You’re a lucky fucker, you know that, right? Please tell me you understand just how fucking honored you are to have that girl in your life?”
“Oh yeah, I know.” Connor nodded soberly. He did, he really did, and it was like waiting for an axe to drop on his head. Hadley’s team was still scouring the missing person’s list for a match for Jenna, and the agent had assured Connor they were narrowing possibilities down as fast as they could.
How hard could it be, he wondered. They had a description, photographs, DNA and a rough time period for her disappearance. How many women resembling Jenna had been abducted in that same time?
