The Knight (Stolen Duet 2)

I was scooping eggs on each plate when I heard a small voice say, “Are those blueberry pancakes?”

I paused before turning with a spatula full of eggs. Standing in the doorway, dressed in thermal Iron Man pajamas was a three and a half foot tall boy with light brown bed hair and blue eyes watching me curiously.

“Buttermilk,” I answered ruefully. “But maybe next time?”

He inched closer, his curiosity getting the better of him while caution kept him back. “I don’t like scrambled eggs.”

“No?”

He shook his head and moved closer. “You got boiled?”

“Afraid not, but I can make some.”

“Mama lets me peel it myself when it’s not hot anymore.”

“Yeah?” I returned the frying pan to the stove and filled a pot up with water to make his boiled egg. I heard him take a seat while my back was turned and felt him watching me.

“Are you Angel?”

I froze from dunking the egg in the pot and turned to face him. “You know who I am?” He was only one the last time I saw him. He couldn’t possibly remember me.

“Uncle Lucas showed me a picture.” That would explain why he hadn’t been afraid to find me here. “He said…um… he said…” His eyebrows bunched as he fell quiet.

“What did he say?” I prompted.

“He said I couldn’t tell anyone because it’s a secret.”

“Yeah?” He nodded, sure of his answer this time. “Well, Uncle Lucas is my best friend, so his secrets are my secrets.”

He fidgeted in his seat as he seemed to think it over. I was ready to turn away and give him time when he said, “So are you?”

It was my turn to frown as I looked back. “Am I what?”

“My dad.” His head was down when he answered, and I was grateful. I wasn’t sure the look on my face was one any kid should see.

I was going to kill Lucas.

“Did he tell you I was?”

He shrugged his small shoulders. “He said you were the only one I was going to get.”

I made a mental note to make Lucas’s death slow and painful.

I stepped away from the stove and took a seat across from him. This was not a conversation I wanted to have two minutes after seeing him again. If I could change the past, Caylen would be mine, but I couldn’t, and he wasn’t.

“I’m not your father, kid.”

“Oh.” He looked up and his blue gaze collided with mine. I wanted to erase my words and tell him Lucas had been right. That I would be the only father he ever needed, but I couldn’t go behind Mian’s back. Getting Mian to agree to a future with me was as unlikely as catching a shooting star. If I didn’t win her heart, this kid would still expect a father. I selfishly wanted to claim them both, but I couldn’t do that to them.

“I’m sorry, Caylen.”

He shrugged as if it were no big deal and looked away. Reluctantly, I moved back to the stove and turned off the boiling pot before draining the water and setting the egg aside to cool. I then slid a pancake on his plate and helped him cut it into pieces.

“Your mom still sleeps late, huh?”

He nodded and shoved a piece of pancake in his mouth, smearing syrup at the corner of his lips as he did and making sounds that told me he like buttermilk pancakes too. “It’s Saturday, so I don’t have school today. She’ll wake up soon to make me cereal.”

As soon as he said it, I could hear her moving around upstairs. I forced myself to stay seated, ignoring the light fluttering in my stomach when she called out for Caylen. “In here, Mama! Angel made pancakes.”

Shit. The kid was a snitch.

I braced as I heard her coming down the stairs. “Who made panca—” She stopped mid-sentence when she saw me sitting at the table as if I belonged there. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Mama, you’re not supposed to curse.”

“Caylen, go upstairs and brush your teeth,” she ordered without breaking our stare.

He pouted and stuck his elbows on the table defiantly. “Listen to your mother,” I ordered gently. He sighed and climbed down from his chair before running to the stairs.

“No running!” she called out after him. We could hear his steps slow almost immediately.

“Why are you here, Angel? How did you even get in here?”

“Broke in,” I said as I stabbed a pancaked. “I made breakfast.”

Her laugh held no trace of humor. “I’m still sleeping, and this is a nightmare,” she muttered to herself.

“Pancakes might still be warm.” I shoved more food in my mouth to keep from saying something else stupid.

She shoved her fingers in her already messy hair, and when she freed them, she looked even sexier than she already did in her small short and thin shirt. Her nipples were poking through the pale pink top, which made it hard to keep my gaze on her face.