Page 53 of Bad Blood Panther

Chapter 20

It turned out Xander really did love being a dad. He was still pretty sure he sucked at it, but damn, he loved it.

If he hadn’t been Bearcat’s worst employee already, he would have plummeted to the bottom of the charts. Flynn had to practically drag him away from the trailer every morning, because Brandon was always doing something that was totally fucking adorable, even if it was just turning the kitchen into a disaster area while he ate breakfast. Or watching squirrels and chipmunks run by and saying excitedly, “Kill it?” Which slayed Xander every time.

Once Xander was at work, he spent half his time blowing up Jenny’s phone with texts, wanting to know what Brandon was doing now, and annoying her to take pictures of it. And trying to get her to send him naked pictures of her, which she for some reason refused to do.

After the third time he almost fell off the roof they were replacing, because he was scrolling through pictures of Brandon as a panther rolling in a mud puddle instead of looking where he was going, the whole site crew threatened to take the Skilsaw to his phone.

Not that the crew wasn’t going gaga over Brandon too. They all spoiled him rotten when they thought Jenny wasn’t looking. He seemed fascinated by Tank and Flynn—maybe because they were the most dominant. Or just the biggest.

The first time Brandon saw Tank’s bear, his eyes got the size of dinner plates and he said, “Too bib! Too bib!” “Bib” being his word for “big,” which was also too fucking cute for anything. Brandon followed the two of them around constantly, when he wasn’t following Xander. He called Tank “Bib Bear.” Flynn was “Alfacat.”

Which made Flynn smile, when he thought nobody was watching. Sucker.

The only thing that bothered Xander was the fact that Alton was still out there. If they were lucky, he would be happy with the evil Cindi and her little demon child, and he’d forget about Jenny and Brandon.

Or maybe he’d be pissed off that Jenny had lied to him for so long, and made a fool out of him in front of his clan, and he’d come after her.

And there was no way Xander was going to let fucking Alton Raines touch his family.

That was the other reason he hated leaving them every day. He couldn’t protect them if he wasn’t there. He knew Jasmin and Brody were around in the daytime—their restaurant was only open for dinner. It wasn’t like Jenny was there alone. But his hackles still rose every time he thought about Alton. Something in his gut told him this wasn’t over.

Jenny was worried too, though she tried not to let Xander know it. Alton had let them go too easily. Maybe he preferred Cindi and her baby, but it wasn’t like Alton to just give up.

She’d seen him kill other panthers who he thought made him look like a fool, or who he decided didn’t respect him enough.

She just hoped he didn’t know where they’d gone—or that if he did, he was too busy with his own wars to come after them.

At least Anthea was safe, for the moment. Jenny had gotten a few messages from her, but she was staying under the radar too, visiting relatives in New Orleans.

They were safe for now, but it was like living in Hurricane Alley. Everything might look bright and sunny, but sooner or later a storm was going to sweep through—one that could destroy everything.

The other thing that made her nervous was Xander. He’d thrown himself into being a dad, and seemed to enjoy it—but it had only been a couple of weeks, and Brandon was mostly on his best behavior.

She didn’t know how he would react when Brandon turned back into his normal two-year-old self. When he was annoying and frustrating and a lot of work. She’d been running interference, handling all the day-to-day maintenance and letting Xander have the pleasure of playing with Brandon when he was home from work, seeing him at his best.

She knew eventually he would have to deal with the not-so-fun part of being a parent, and she would have to let him. But she was too used to walking on eggshells around Alton, arranging things so he didn’t get annoyed or lose his temper or want to punish her, or Brandon.

Alton’s punishments could be brutal.

She wanted to trust Xander. But it was a lot of stress on him, having an instant family. She wanted to wait a little while before she let his dad illusions come crashing down.

It bugged Xander that Jenny wouldn’t leave him alone with Brandon. In his head, he got it. He had no experience Dadding, and there was a good chance he’d fuck it up. But how was he ever going to learn if she did everything?

He tried to convince her to leave Brandon with him on a Saturday, and go shopping in Nashville with Lissa and Caitlyn. “But I don’t need anything,” she protested, which was a total lie.

“Number one,” he said, “shopping with the girls isn’t about needing things. It’s about spending my money on shit you don’t need, just because it’s pretty or you like it. And number two, you do need stuff. Because that dipshit Alton practically kept you in rags. When was the last time he gave you money to go shopping?”

He already knew the answer—never. She’d gotten an allowance from the clan budget for Brandon—that was it. All her clothes were over two years old—some of them a lot older than that. Even her sexy satin panties had holes.

“Exactly,” said Xander, even though she hadn’t answered. Her silence said it all.

“But I don’t want you to have to watch Brandon all alone,” she said. “And you know he won’t sit inside watching hockey.”

Last part, truth. Which was fine with Xander—he’d rather chase squirrels with his kid any day than watch hockey, even if it was the Stanley Cup. The first part was true too—just not the way she pretended to mean it. She didn’t trust him to watch Brandon. It frustrated him, although he knew that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t had an incident of panthermania since he’d accepted Jenny as his mate, and his cat had stopped talking schizo most of the time.

But that didn’t mean the crazy shit was totally in his past. Not that he’d ever hurt Brandon; he knew all the way deep down in his gut his cat would never do that. But if he went nuts when they were alone, nobody would be watching his kid. And she knew that as well as he did.