Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Jaxon

Rena directs me to the nursery as soon as I arrive for my weekly visit with Skye and our unborn pup. She doesn’t walk me through, assuming I know the way. Odd, since normally I’m treated like a spy attempting to steal state secrets the minute I show up to the gate.

The nursery door is partially open when I make it upstairs. I hear them before I see them-Skye’s voice, dry and patient, and Nicolai’s, which carries the tone of a man arguing with an inanimate object and losing

I push the door open quietly. I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop, should announce myself. I don’t.

Skye is in the nursing chair, both hands resting on her belly, watching Nicolai on the floor with the expression of someone managing a situation they find equal parts frustrating and entertaining. 1

Nicolai is surrounded. A baby swing, it appears, in component form. Pieces arranged on the floor in what might be an attempt at the diagram’s layout, or might be the aftermath of something that started organized and devolved. He has the instructions in one hand and a piece of hardware in the other and his expression-

This man makes other Alphas step carefully. Right now he looks like he’s being personally insulted by a Phillips head screw.

“The diagram is physically impossible,” Nicolai says.

“It’s a baby swing,” Skye replies. “They sell it to the general public.”

“Public with engineering degrees, apparently. It requires a third hand.” He laments.

“You have two perfectly functional hands.” Skye quips back.

“I’m excellent with my hands, as you’re well aware. The diagram is the problem.” Was that a double entendre? I don’t think I want to know if it was.

Skye leans forward slightly in her chair, as far as her rather large belly will allow, studying the pieces on the floor. “You’re holding piece C where piece F should be.”

“I am not-” He looks at the piece in his hand. Looks at the diagram. Looks at the piece again.

“The label is on the back,” Skye directs. “Flip it.”

He flips it. Reads the label. Sets it down with the deliberate care of someone who would like to throw it across the room but is choosing not to.

“You could have said that twenty minutes ago,” he grumbles.

“You seemed very confident.” The words are restrained, like it’s costing considerable effort to not laugh.

He growls playfully then picks up piece F from a different pile, examines it, and fits it where piece C was. The mechanism clicks into place with the satisfaction of something that has been wrong for twenty minutes suddenly being right.

He holds it up. Not triumphantly. Just-presents it, like evidence. “Piece F,” he announces.

“Piece F,” Skye confirms with a satisfied nod.

She’s laughing. Not at him exactly-it’s warmer than that. The laugh of someone who has watched a capable person be confounded by something small and finds it genuinely endearing. I’d laugh with her if I wasn’t so

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heartbroken by the scene.

Nicolai stands, moves to get the next component, and his hand finds her shoulder automatically as he passes her chair. Not a gesture. Not a statement. Just contact. Casual. The kind that happens between people who seek each other naturally.

Skye doesn’t track it consciously. That’s the thing. She doesn’t notice it the way you notice something unfamiliar.- She just continues existing, exactly as she was, with his hand on her shoulder and then not.

It’s not passion that guts me. It’s not romance in any obvious sense-no lingering looks, no charged silences. It’s the ease.

you already know the answer to?”

Because I need to hear it.” I answer honestly.

“You can smell him on me,” she says. “You saw us just now. What exactly are you hoping I’ll say?”

I don’t have a good answer for that.

All I have is hope for a response I’ll never get.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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