"The minute you said you needed my blood, I knew you were more than a soldier. You really are a genius, aren't you? Both you and Nonny, and along with that, you're chemists and deal with toxins all the time."
Wyatt nodded slowly. "The swamp has many plants that cure and take away pain, but it also has plants that can kill in minutes."
Pepper made a small sound in the back of her throat, her large eyes on him. Fringed with impossibly long feathery lashes, her eyes pulled at him. They were filled with fear, and this time she didn't try to hide it.
"You're risking your life, Wyatt. Whoever this man is, he's after you."
Wyatt shook his head slowly, once more bringing her hand to his mouth. He nibbled on her fingers for a brief moment, holding her gaze, enjoying the fact that she was worried about him. "No, he's too cold to make anythin' personal, babe. He's all about science. I'm all about famille. He just thinks I'm all about science."
He had a full lab in the garage. He'd had one since he was a child, experimenting with the various plant extracts in order to perfect the drugs for the people in the bayou that couldn't afford medical care. Maybe all along he was using the things Joy had said to him as his excuse for joining the GhostWalkers, when it really was the science. Whitney would certainly see it that way.
Dr. Peter Whitney didn't understand families, and he'd never be able to understand a family like Wyatt's. His grandmother had sacrificed everything, including an education, to take care of her parents. She had taken on the four boys when their mother and father had died in an accident. She'd done so instantly and without a thought to what it would cost her. She gave herself selflessly to the people in the bayou, helping the older ones who couldn't hunt or fish by bringing them food and clothing. And her pharmaceutical field was magnificent.
In Whitney's eyes, Nonny was uneducated and backwoods. That's what he saw when he looked at her, not any of the rest of it. Wyatt doubted if the man even knew the boys got their high IQs from their grandmother.
"We've got only a few days to pull the house together, childproof it and put in extra security. I don' want to leave the children there any longer than I have to." He shot a glance at his grandmother, wanting her to understand. "I'm goin' to call in a couple more of my friends. They'll help build up our security and the lab. Once I sort out a way to ensure if someone is accidentally bit that we can minimize the damage to them, I'll call Flame and ask her to help." He made that concession to his grandmother.
The truth was, his brother's wife would be a huge help. Flame could get in and out of places few others could. But she was his brother's world and he'd nearly lost her to cancer. Whitney had repeatedly given Flame cancer. She was one of his throwaways.
Wyatt loved her as if she'd been born into the family. It broke his heart that she couldn't have children and he knew she would love nothing more than to help them, but he wasn't going to risk her no matter what Grand-mere or Flame said.
"Let's get to work," Ezekiel said. "Ma'am?" At Nonny's sharp glance he cleared his throat and tried again. "Grand-mere, do you mind if I go exploring in your attic? If the high chair was up there, we might find a crib or two. I'm handy with tools and if they need repairing, I can do it."
"I'll go up with you, Ezekiel," Nonny offered. "It would be nice to bring life back to some of the things I've cherished in my lifetime."
Wyatt finally turned his head and looked at Ginger. He'd been avoiding her gaze throughout the conversation. He didn't know the first thing about babies, but something told him this one was very sensitive. "Ginger, I know you're sick of people pokin' and proddin' you, but I'd like to take a look in your mouth and take a few samples of your saliva."
The child turned her head to look at Pepper, her little fingers signing.
Pepper signed back, reassuring her. "Her saliva isn't venomous, as one would think it would be. The doctors in the first lab were shocked by that. If she were made like a snake, she would be secreting the venom in her saliva."
Wyatt frowned. "That's interestin'." He caught Pepper's look. "Don' be thinkin' I'm goin' to turn my daughter into a guinea pig. She isn' a test tube for me. I'll need to study her to see how I can keep others safe and maybe reduce the risks to her as well. However, I will be askin' you to help me out quite a bit. You know what the danger is in havin' three baby vipers around."
"Don't call them that." Pepper glared at him.
He grinned at her, unrepentant. "It was said with affection, woman. Get a sense of humor. You're goin' to need one around my Cadien famille."
He didn't take his gaze from hers, feeling her through their connection, the slow, smoldering burn that was more sexual than angry. She was fighting her attraction to him, and he'd already decided they weren't going to fight it, they were going to go with it. She just hadn't caught up yet.
Havin' a hard time keepin' your hands off me, aren' you? Must be the famous Fontenot charm at work.
A faint smile curved her mouth into a woman's secret weapon. She could take his breath away without half trying. Images of her mouth wrapped around his cock rose up fast and hot, her hair spilling around him, brushing his bare skin. The image was so vivid he could actually feel the sensations.
He blew out his breath and stretched his legs out in front of him to give himself some relief from the instant tight agony of urgent need.
Is that what you call it? Fontenot charm? I don't think so, bayou man. I think you're used to getting your way with the women and you don't have to try very hard.
He had to get up, just for a minute, ease away from her just enough to function. She would be addictive. He already knew that and was past caring. He would crave her every day, every minute, but he had all the confidence in the world that he could make her feel exactly the same way.
When he'd managed to breathe away most of his hard-on, he winked at her and got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. He was just going to have to get used to the idea of walking around semihard all the time. It wasn't a bad way to live, at least he knew he was alive.
He held up the coffee cup. Hot. Just the way I like it.
She rolled her eyes at him.
"If you two are finished making googly eyes at each other," Malichai said, pushing himself away from the table, "I'll do the dishes and get the kitchen clean while Grand-mere and Ezekiel go up to the attic."
"Pepper, you should lie down for a while," Nonny said with a small, telling glance at Wyatt. "I don' think we have toys for the baby, but maybe she could play on your bed for a bit."
"She wouldn't know what a toy was," Pepper said. "They don't have the babies playing. Not like you mean. Everything they're exposed to is to educate them. They're learning six languages as well as sign language. It's crazy the accelerated program they're on."
Nonny's eyebrows shot up. "Surely they had playtime for them."
Pepper shook her head. "Braden even had a martial arts instructor come in and start working with them. Everything they've been shown on the television has been instructional videos on hand-to-hand combat, weapons, or things like mathematics, of course the beginnings, but they know the alphabet or characters of all the languages and at night, not only are they read to, but the words, as they're being read, are up on a screen."
"That's not right." Wyatt glared at
her as if she'd been the one to make the decision to give the babies only educational material. "What's wrong with a little fun while they're learnin'?"
He was asking her questions, but she had to stop using that soft, sultry, I'm-so-ready-for-bed voice. It didn't help to think of her in bed - his bed. He stood across the room from her, just looking at her. Beautiful. A work of art. She was as perfect as a woman could get with her face and flawless body, with her brain and her courage. And the knife he knew she had on her right now.
Pepper frowned. "It wasn't my decision. I was raised pretty much the same way. It definitely made me a good soldier, but when I got out into the real world, I had no idea what people were talking about. I didn't know the movies they referred to or the characters in cartoons. I didn't know fairy tales or anything but history and what Braden considered appropriate literature that would further my education. The lack of that made me feel socially awkward. I don't fit in anywhere."
Wyatt went very still. He felt a flash of her pain, of hurt - not physical, but a kind of anguish at the knowledge that she was different and would never be normal. She would never fit in anywhere. She felt absolutely alone, a terrible, almost emptiness that had been filled for a moment when Wyatt had poured himself into her. For that moment, she had felt whole. Content. Even happy.
He had been caught up in the way he felt. The sexual tension building between them. Fitting her into his family. Keeping her from tempting his friends so he wouldn't be a fool and do something he'd regret. All about him. He hadn't stopped to consider what she felt, trapped in his home, her child claimed by a man she didn't know or trust. She was biding her time - waiting until she was at full strength before she made her move to leave.
He went to her, ignoring the others, and gently helped her to stand. Handing her the nearly empty bag of fluids, he lifted her into his arms. "I'm not goin' to hurt you, Pepper," he murmured softly, needing to give her reassurance even more than she needed to hear it. He couldn't bear for her to feel afraid, or lonely or a misfit.
She pressed her lips together tightly and gave a little shake of her head. She knew what he meant.