Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

“Oh, please call me Maggie. This is Paul.” The gray-haired guy at her left nods at me. “And we’re still waiting for Kaden and Hailey and the kids.”

I was right. So many people. I’m struggling to retain the names, and panicking a little. The kids are running in circles, the baby is wailing, everyone is talking at once.

A handsome stranger wanders into the living room, so different from Merc and Co. I bet he isn’t related.

“Hi, I’m Jarett,” he says and walks over to Gigi, wrapping an arm around her. Her eyes light up with happiness. “I’m Gigi’s.”

Aw shucks.

Matt wolf-whistles at them. Octavia snickers. Merc’s mom looks pleased.

And then Kaden and his family arrive, with cherubic little kids who start wailing like banshees, and in the hubbub, Merc pulls me aside and locks his arms around me.

“Everything okay?” he asks softly. “I know it can get a bit overwhelming. But they wanted to meet you. Gigi threatened me with bodily harm if I didn’t.”

“Gigi?” I lean sideways to take another look at his sister who has his eyes and hair and sly smile, granted, but who is a willowy girl, about my height. “Really.”

He grins, unrepentant. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“I like them,” I tell him, honestly. “You’re so lucky.”

They’re so cute. All of them. There’s so much love in this house, I can see where he’s coming from, how he can be so open, so affectionate, so awesome. He grew up among such nice people, he has them in his life.

“But I wanted you to meet them, too, because…”

I never find out why as the kids return to drag us to the dining room and the food-laden table. It all smells delicious and by the time we’re all seated, and the platters passed around, the moment to ask what he meant is gone.

“…and then we went to a diner and talked,” Octavia is telling Merc. She’s seated at the other side of him, the baby in her lap banging his fist in her food. She seems ob

livious. “Not that he said much. Jasper treated him like shit all his life. He’s jealous of us, for having a nice mother. Having a mother at all.”

She’s telling a story about a guy who was in prison and she and Matt went to pick him up the day he was released, and he was… angry? It’s hard to focus with everyone talking.

“He said that? Shit.”

“Did you call him?” Octavia asks. “Ross.”

Merc frowns. “No. I don’t know what the hell to tell him, Tati.”

To say I’m lost at this point would be the understatement of the century.

“Why are you two talking about Ross again?” Gigi calls from across the table. “And Jasper. Good god. Tati you managed to rope Merc into your conspiracy theories?”

“Conspiracy?” Octavia looks affronted. “I’m only concerned about our family.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Gigi waves a dainty hand, though a shadow passes behind her eyes. “Ross isn’t family, Tati. Blood ties don’t mean he’s family.”

“Besides,” Octavia says, “Merc is the one who started it.”

“Was it?” Gigi stares at Merc.

I lift my hand a little because I feel as if I’m the slow student in the classroom. “Um, who’s Ross?”

“He’s our brother,” Octavia says.

Wow, really? I turn to Merc. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Half-brother,” he mutters. “Same dad.”