Craving Eden Read online

  Jake wanted nothing more than to feel his mate's supple body rocking beneath him as he slid into her wet, tight sheath and took them both to a heaven of their own making.

  Taking a slow, deep breath, he promised himself he would try to give her the time she needed to overcome her fears. As well as time to deal with what he was, and accept his wolf.

  God help them both if Eden couldn't find it in her heart to welcome him back into her bed.

  A shot rang out, Jake crouched low and spun around. He snorted when he realized it was just a backfire, not a gunshot, and watched as the two beautiful females pulled up in the rattiest looking piece-of-shit car he had ever seen.

  The vehicle appeared as though the rust was the only thing holding it together. Jake wondered when the woman planned to get around to replacing the sorry excuse for transportation. He hoped it was before the damned thing fell apart on her. Once he claimed Eden, he would see to it that she had a new car.

  “Aren't you afraid that damned thing will blow up on you one of these days?” he asked as soon as they parked and got out of the car.

  Eden shrugged. “What do you expect me to do? I don't have the money to replace it. Besides, it’s never failed to get me from point A to point B.”

  It probably never failed to smoke people out as they passed by, either. The piece of shit was more suited to be a teenager's first beater. He just shook his head instead of making another comment.

  “About our talk.” He held his arm out for her to take the lead. “I thought we'd best walk over to the wooden castle where your daughter could have some fun while we have our discussion.”

  “What's a wooden castle?”

  The little girl gave him a look that said she practically worshipped the ground he walked on. If only her mother would look upon him with such devotion.

  The girl’s reaction only cemented the views he passed on to his brothers while doling out advice to them about dating and marriage. Never underestimate the power of the wooden castle when dealing with mothers and their children.

  Jake had never thought to find himself with a ready-made family. All the lonely years, he hoped Eden would eventually come to her senses, and then get around to coming home. It never occurred to him that she would return to him in the company of a daughter, especially one appearing at least nine years old.

  Jake clenched his teeth and tried his best not to lash out with the rage and jealousy he felt. It hadn’t taken Eden long to replace him. Her daughter was too old to have been very long in coming after she left Haven.

  The question that kept ticking in his mind was whether or not Eden had been seeing the girl’s father while she still lived with Jake.

  The thought made him growl. Eden glanced back at him nervously. “Don't worry. I don't plan on eating you.” He smiled and leered. “Not here, anyway.”

  Eden's face turned beet red as her daughter gave her an inquiring look.

  “He won't really eat us, will he, Mom?”

  “Of course not.” She pointed to the structure the school kids called the wooden castle. Made of wood, it was huge. Big enough to accommodate all of Haven's forty-some elementary school students as well as a few more.

  With four sets of monkey bars, eleven slides, seven ropewalks, and two large climbing frames, it remained Haven's pride and joy for the last several years. The townsfolk prided themselves in it so much, no one, not even the children, left the place without cleaning up after themselves.

  “When did the city build this?” Eden walked around the side, inspecting the area, her eyes wide.

  “After I designed it, turned the plans in, and everyone in town helped with funding and the labor to give this to our children.” His idea that the people would be more likely to care for something they’d help build had been correct.

  Eden gazed at it with awe and the expression of someone who wanted to know the reasoning behind the design. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you design this, then suggest they build it?”

  “Because I wanted somewhere for my children to play. Somewhere safe, where parents would hang out to watch each other's offspring while the kids had fun.” He couldn't explain the way he'd felt back then.

  For some inexplicable reason, Jake needed to build the monstrosity for the town's children, for his children, even though, deep down, he'd suspected he would never have any without his mate in the picture. They'd finally finished it five and a half years ago. Right about the time, Eden's daughter would have been old enough to use it for the first time.

  “Oh.” Eden bit her lip, then cringed as her daughter climbed up the ladder of the tallest slide, waved, then dove down the thing, head first.

  Striding over to the slide, Jake grabbed the girl by her upper arm and glared down into her huge, fear-filled eyes. “If you can't use the equipment properly, you won't get on it again.”

  Harper hung her head. “I'm sorry, sir.” Tears ran down her cheeks. The girl jerked from his grip and ran to bury her face in her mother's shirt. “He doesn't like me.”

  Eden knelt and cupped the child's cheeks in her hands. She waited for her daughter to look up, then shook her head. “Of course he likes you, honey. He doesn't want to see you hurt. He wouldn't have said anything if he didn't like you because he wouldn't care.” She held her for a moment, then gently pushed her toward the wooden structure. “Now go play for a few minutes while we talk over there on the bench. Okay?”

  Nodding, Harper turned away, heading back for the large slide. “I'll go down on my bum, this time.”

  “See that you do that,” Jake reprimanded softly as the child he already felt too damned responsible for began to climb the ladder again. As soon as she was out of earshot, he turned on Eden. “Do you let her do that kind of thing all the time?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “She has never done anything like that before in her life. I think she wanted to impress you. I know she never expected you to jump down her throat like that.” She turned, stomped to the bench, then sat down. “Not that I wouldn't have jumped down her throat myself. But coming from you, it just seemed harsh to her or something.”

  “Harsh? Why in the hell should my opinion matter? I don't even know the girl.”

  He was beginning to wonder if he knew her father, though. For some reason, the girl looked familiar.

  “Your opinion matters because she knows all about you. She wants you to like her.”

  “What the hell for? And why would you tell her about me? Shouldn’t you be telling her about her father?” It wasn't as though they had any sort of connection, besides loving the same woman for entirely different reasons. “I would think your daughter would care more about the fact that you have taken her from her father and have no intention of going back.”

  That was Eden’s plan if he could use the condition of her car as an indication.

  This conversation wasn’t going the way he’d wanted it to go. And why the hell did he keep bringing up the other man in her life?

  “She cares about your opinion because you're her father, you ass.”

  Chapter Three

  Shit, shit, shit. Why in the hell did you break it to him like that? It wasn’t her intention to just blurt it out in such a fashion.

  Eden watched the emotions chase across Jake's face. It wasn't as though he should have known about their daughter. Hell, the last time he'd seen her, she had just found out she was going to have his child. She’d planned to tell him the night she left town.

  After purchasing three early pregnancy tests from the drug store, she sneaked them into the house and used them three mornings in a row. When all three came up positive, she knew she had to tell him they would soon have a child.

  Instead, he came home, his expression so serious she was sure he was going to tell her he'd fallen in love with another woman.

  Eden remembered it like it was yesterday. How she sat in the living room, twisting her hands together as he showered off the grunge from the
construction site where he spent most of his off duty hours. He’d always said that being the future heir to the family business wouldn’t keep him from his law enforcement responsibilities. She glanced at his badge. He had been right.

  Refusing to wait for him to tell her to pack, Eden tossed most of her meager belongings into her ratty backpack and set it by the door while he showered. She would hear him out and then leave when he asked. Begging to stay wasn’t an option. She refused to stay anywhere she wasn’t wanted.

  Listening to what Jake had to say was the only way she would be able to live with herself afterward. She had to hear him out at least. No one could ever accuse her of not facing the ugly truth.

  The truth had been ugly all right, but not what she suspected. What normal, red-blooded girl would have believed there were werewolves in the world?

  Eden waited until Jake fell asleep in his chair, exhausted, then stole out into the night with nothing more than the clothes on her back and what she had when he found her. She left everything else behind. It wasn't hers.

  Jake purchased the things for her, but Eden knew she had no right to take them when she slunk away in the night like an abused puppy.

  It practically killed her to leave him, but she knew she had outstayed her welcome when her host began to make up fantastic stories like that to get rid of her. No one had to hit her over the head with a rock. At least that was how she felt at first.

  What had finally convinced her to go was when he proved it to her. He hadn't been lying. He changed into a beautiful brown and white wolf while she watched with her screams stuck in her throat.

  Eden had been living on the streets for nearly six months and was practically starving when Edward found her and took her in. Her pregnancy had taken its toll. She didn’t have enough to feed herself, let alone the baby inside her, and she had lost weight. A lot of weight.

  She was just what Edward wanted. He'd expected her to be so weak and thankful that he'd taken the time to rescue poor little her, that she wouldn't ask too many questions.

  Unfortunately for Edward, Eden loved asking lots and lots of questions. It didn't dawn that he was a snake of the worst sort until it was almost too late to do anything about it.

  What would have happened if she had accompanied him on that flight to Croatia like he’d wanted? If he’d even gone there.

  She heard about horrible things happening overseas. Would Edward have sold both her and her daughter as she discovered he'd sold countless other women and little girls on the black market as hookers or sexual slaves?

  That month had been the most enlightening of her life. When Edward had reluctantly gone on without her, she'd stayed behind and found out exactly what kind of criminal her devoted husband was.

  The day before he was due home, Eden made a trip to the bank, cleared out the bank account Edward gave her for expenses, took the car he bought her as a wedding gift, and then disappeared.

  At least she'd thought she had vanished. It hadn't taken long for Edward’s private detectives to find her working as a waitress in Looker's bar and grill in Sedona. She'd been running ever since.

  Since then, the two of them never spent more than a few weeks in any one town. The running had gotten old a long time ago.

  Now, Eden was broke. She knew the money she'd started with was bound to run out sooner or later when she couldn’t stay in one place and get a job to supplement their resources. So, here she was, back in Haven, looking for the one person in the world she trusted to protect her baby.

  If Eden knew one thing about Jake, it was that he would never harm a child— especially his own.

  Financially at the end of her rope, she decided to come back to Haven to give her daughter and the man Eden had never stopped loving a chance to get to know each other before she left them.

  Eden refused to put either one of them in any more danger than she already had. It was enough that she knew Jake would care for Harper. It would have to be.

  At first, she’d planned to ditch her car and stay in Haven, but she wasn’t sure that was possible. Her ex-husband could find them here if his private detectives were good enough, and goodness knows they were good at what they did.

  Before they took Edward from the courtroom, he’d said she would wish that he’d sold her as a drugged-out hooker to one of his business associates the next time he caught up with her. She suspected that meant he would kill her for leaving him and turning him over to the authorities.

  She often wondered what went through her husband's mind as the police and government officers swarmed around him just outside his private jet when he arrived back in the states, but she'd never cared enough to watch the news.

  Jake glanced toward Harper and swallowed. “Mine? How can she be mine?” He turned back and pinned her with his dark-emerald glare. “And if what you say is true, why are you just coming back now?”

  Eden stiffened her spine and glared at him. “Don't you dare imply that I'm lying. You know damned good and well that it's possible.” Gesturing toward Harper, she added, “I dare you to take a good long look at that little girl and tell me you couldn't have fathered her.”

  Eden watched as Jake glanced at his daughter. He stood stiffly, hands clenched at his sides as he stared at the little girl playing by herself. Eden bit her lip, nervously shifting from one foot to the other as her ex-lover studied his child, and wondered what he thought.

  A breeze swept through the park, and she pulled her threadbare coat more closely around her. She knew he was angry. Who wouldn't be? Eden didn't blame him for showing his temper. After all, she'd been the one to leave him, running away like the child she had been.

  It didn't matter that he'd scared her half to death with his crazy talk and stories of shapeshifters and other paranormal entities. In his mind, she deserted him, knowingly left him alone while she carried his child.

  ”Jake, I—'' Eden clutched at her throat. It closed off when she tried to speak. I'm sorry just didn't seem like enough. It would never be enough. It didn't matter that he would never forgive her, never welcome her back into his life. All that mattered was that he welcomed his daughter within the circle of protection she knew he possessed.

  When he first revealed what he was, the youth in Eden thought him a monster. But not anymore. After so many years spent running out in the world, he tried to protect her from; she had seen the real monsters. Jake didn't belong in that category. Jake was just a man. A good man.

  “Do you think I wanted to leave you?” she asked, clasping her hands against her chest, her heart shattering all over again. “Think about it, Jake. I was young and pregnant. You scared the hell out of me with your talk of werewolves, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night. Didn't you think I would have rather remained blissfully ignorant?”

  Wrapping her coat tighter around her, Eden started to pace in front of him, occasionally glancing toward her daughter to make sure she was all right. That she wasn't showing signs of getting too cold, it might not get very cold in Haven, but the chill air was usually damp and tended to seep into one's bones. Though with werewolves, it probably didn’t matter. What did she know? She hadn’t stuck around long enough to learn anything about them, and that was her fault.

  Eden stiffened when Jake grasped her by the shoulders and draped his large coat over her. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. She couldn’t resist. She’d always loved the way he smelled.

  How would she ever find the strength to leave him again? Even though she’d left him, he still saw to her needs above his own.

  Pulling his warm jacket around her, she turned to face Jake. “Believe me, Jake, the last thing I wanted was to run from the only home I'd felt safe in since I lived with my real parents.”

  “Then, why did you?” He searched her face with his gaze, his green eyes boring into hers.

  His question seemed like an easy one, but if there was one thing she'd learned throughout the years, it was that very little in life was ever easy. Anything worthwhil
e was always difficult.

  “Because I didn’t feel safe anymore.” She gave him a level stare. “You tell me, Jake. If I came up to you and told you something you found completely unbelievable, then proved it to you, what would you have done?” She paused for a moment, then held up her hand. “Never mind. Don't answer that. You have no basis for comparison when you've lived with this weird crap all of your life. Besides, you wouldn’t understand what it feels like to want to protect the child you carry. You're a man, and you will never know the fear and awe that comes with knowing you’re carrying a miracle inside you.”

  Stopping for a moment, Eden stared across the playground and watched Harper in silence. She didn't know what else to say. By her estimation, they'd said it all already.

  “I suppose what you've said is true,” he conceded. “It still doesn't tell me why you ran to another man. Had you planned it? Was he there, just waiting for you to leave, or did you find him after you left me?”

  “I don't even believe you.” Eden shook her head. “Of course, there wasn't another man when I left. I loved you! I ran because I was scared. I was scared of what you would say about the baby, and I was horrified to think that underneath it all, you were some sort of monster.” She looked down at her clenched hands. “At least that's what I thought at the time.”

  “And now?” Pain radiated off him in waves. It rolled over her so thick she probably could have cut it with a knife.

  Eden actually felt his anguish as he stood waiting for her answer. She'd hurt him when she said she thought he was a monster.

  “Do you still think I'm some sort of fiend, and if you do, why did you bring your daughter here now?”

  “Because she's your daughter, too. You have a right to know her as much as any other man who has fathered a child.”

  “Is that all?” He turned to stare into her eyes.

  Eden felt as though he could see straight into her soul. He’d surely know if she lied to him, so she opted for the truth. “No.” She shook her head as he turned his attention back to his daughter. “That isn't all of it. I think my ex-husband wants me dead, and he wants to sell Harper into some sort of sex slave ring when she's old enough.” Snorting, Eden added, “Hell, she could be old enough for those sick bastards now. Who knows?”