Page 41 of Targeted By Love

There was an urgency in my wolf’s thudding through the forest, though Rhodes would be asleep when I arrived home in the middle of the night.

You can make a loud noise and wake him. My wolf’s intention was informing Rhodes about the baby, not that he’d have broken sleep.

It can wait until morning. I would lie by his side until he opened his eyes

I was careful not to break the speed limit, but when I turned off the street, heading into our parking garage, Boaz emerged from the shadows before I punched in the code.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “Ezra told me you were away all day, and I was checking security guys were doing their job.”

Boaz had been the last of my brothers to accept Rhodes. Perhaps because he was so invested in becoming number one in the pack and he witnessed how finding my fated had changed my life.

“Coming in?” It was late for a visit, but I was used to my family’s comings and goings.

“Nah. Got a date with a baker.”

What? Bakers got up at like three in the morning, but when I checked my watch it was two AM. Boaz was about to get early morning delight.

“Go, and stop leading the baker on.”

“You know nothing. He’s married, and I’m his side piece.” He waggled his butt and took off.

Humans! Nothing could break my bond with Rhodes, and I nodded at the guards as I made my way up to the apartment.

But when the lock scanned my retina and I tiptoed in, a lamp was on and my mate was waiting on the couch.

“I’ve got something to tell you.” He grinned.

21

RHODES

“Mate, you okay?”

I turned around to see Maynard standing in the doorway of our bedroom, his eyes on me, concern flowing through our bond. I was still getting used to the way we could communicate emotions without even trying like that.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I’ve been calling you.”

“Sorry.” I hadn’t heard him at all. “I guess I was in my head.” I placed my hand on my stomach. “I was just thinking about things.”

He crossed over to me, wrapping his arms around me. “By ‘things,’ do you mean our growing family?”

“Yeah, things like that.” If you had told me even two months ago that I would rekindle my first love and be starting a family, I wouldn't have believed it possible, and yet, here I was doing exactly that.

“Good things?”

When we first realized I was pregnant, we were thrilled. We hadn’t intentionally been trying to conceive, but also, we hadn’t done a single thing to try and stop it either. I guess in our subconscious, we were ready for this step. Now that the baby was coming, good old-fashioned pregnancy anxiety was starting to settle in. I wasn’t a fan.

“Yes. No. Maybe.” I sighed. “Honestly, I was getting myself all worked up. There’s so much to do and so little time.”

I was barely a month along, but we had nothing prepared for this child. And it wasn’t just that there was still unresolved drama with my brother, and I was surrounded by bodyguards everywhere I went. There were so many big changes in my life all at once, and balancing them was fine most of the time, but when I stopped to think about it too long, the stress settled in.

Ever since I found out about Maynard’s career—or his second job, or side hustle, or whatever you wanted to call it—I knew our life wouldn’t look like the one I had imagined as a child. His day job was confusing to me but brought in money, and he was animated when he talked about it which was a huge win in my book.

It was the hitman part that messed with my head, but not in the way I’d originally thought it might. His ties to the mob were something I was oddly okay with, even if I wanted to stay away from it. It didn’t even freak me out too much that he killed people for money, and the not freaking out was what had me freaking out.