Captive: a Paranormal Romance Read online

  CAPTIVE

  BY MARISOL LOGAN

  To my mother-in-law, the best romance reader I know. Thank you for all your support.

  Copyright © 2016 Marisol Logan

  All rights reserved

  Cover Design: Romacdesigns

  Editors: Jessica Evans and Jessica Young

  CHAPTER 1

  “ Mommy, can I have another chocolate donut?” my daughter asked with extra wide, pleading golden eyes.

  I laughed as I struggled with the straps on her booster seat. “No. We have to be at your dad's house in fifteen minutes, and you can't have chocolate frosting in the car. You're kind of a mess as it is,” I added, chuckling at the chocolate smears at the corners of her tiny lips.

  “Can I take a chocolate donut with me?” she tried, her voice as persuasive as she could make it.

  “Daddy can get you a donut tomorrow morning if you want another donut,” I answered, only half-aware of what I was saying as I worked out the bothersome twists in her buckle straps.

  “No, he can't,” she argued.

  “Fine,” I sighed. “Grandma Ruby will get you donuts if you want donuts tomorrow morning, okay Carly?”

  “Grandma Ruby hates donuts,” she pouted. “She always makes brown waffles and squishy eggs. And abocado.” She spat the last, adorably mispronounced word at me with disgust.

  Whole grain waffles were 'brown' waffles, and 'squishy eggs' were hard-boiled eggs, which I was surprised Ruby made for a three-year-old, as opposed to cheesy scrambled eggs, which she usually devoured for me. But, Ruby was a strange one. I had known that for years, but there isn't much you can say about the grandparents of your child.

  I had tried having conversations with Carly's father about some of Ruby's stricter rules and meal plans, that Carly would complain incessantly about when she came home from weekends at dad's, but he didn't seem to discuss them with her. That, or she didn't listen at all and didn't take her own son's co-parenting seriously. The latter was my suspicion, as Ruby was always one to behave like she knew all, and no else knew better.

  It had always made me sympathetic for Casey, who was stuck with it. But, he wasn't my problem anymore, really. Only when I dropped Carly off for the weekend did I have to deal with that family. Well, and when I had to hear complaints about the food.

  I understood it. I wished I could get Carly to eat healthier, too. Hell, I wished I had time to make healthier food to start with. But being a single mom, working full time and taking online classes for my dental hygiene certificate left little time for more than grilled cheeses or spaghetti, or store-bought rotisserie chicken most nights. I was lucky she loved pretty much all varieties of squash and, oddly enough, steamed kale, which I felt made up for the chocolate donuts and, her other favorite, Hawaiian pizza.

  I figured I was looked down upon in her father's household for my parenting 'skills'. On top of giving her occasionally not-so-healthy food, I yelled, and I bribed and I sometimes told her not to argue and not to cry and not to dawdle outside in the yard. All things I thought were normal, but apparently I was stunting her emotional development and ability to effectively communicate, according to Rex, Carly's grandfather, who reminded me repeatedly of his extensive credentials in psychology. I thought it was a bit ironic that I was seen as the 'mean' parent when Carly had a list of about a dozen inane rules she was supposed to follow at that house while she was there. The fact that she remembered them all at just under four years of age was impressive, and telling. They had obviously been drilled into her over the course of her time there, enough that she could quote them all back to me.

  “Please, Mommy?” she begged.

  “If I let you take the donut, Grandma Ruby is just going to throw it away,” I said.

  I watched as her little lip started to tremble. It never ceased to amaze me, the list of things that preschoolers would cry about. In adulthood, I rarely cried, and the things I cried over were immense and life-changing, not counting a few kid's movies and episodes of my favorite dramas that had gotten me over the years. But three-year-olds apparently became emotional over donuts, among many other things.

  I made a split second decision, partly, I knew because of my defiant side and need to constantly push back against Rex and Ruby.

  “I am going to get you donuts that Grandma Ruby will let you have, okay?” I said to Carly before shutting the door to the backseat and climbing into the driver seat of my used and rapidly aging Range Rover.

  “Yay!” Carly erupted from the back of the car.

  I whipped my phone out of my back pocket and hit Casey's number in the call log.

  “Hey,” he answered after one ring. “You guys on your way?”

  “Yes, and no,” I answered.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we are leaving the house and headed toward you, but I'm dropping by Whole Foods first.”

  “Whole Foods is ten minutes out of the way!” Casey protested.

  “And she's about to have a meltdown about chocolate donuts, so we are going to get some gluten-free, preservative-free, non-GMO donuts from Whole Foods so that I don't drop a tantruming three-year-old off at your door, okay?” I rebutted.

  “Okay,” Casey replied.

  “Or you could just talk to your parents about letting her have some donuts occasionally so she doesn't form an unhealthy relationship with food before Kindergarten,” I quipped.

  “Did you look that up on-line?” Casey teased.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “See you in thirty.”

  “Bye, Alex.”

  “Bye, Casey.”

  Carly stood next to me with her fluffy unicorn backpack strapped to her back, flopping around comically as she danced with excited impatience at her father's front door.

  “We're watching Dory this week, Mommy,” she said with pride. “Dad said he bought it.”

  “When did Dad say that?” I asked, knocking again.

  “On the phone.”

  “Did you call him yesterday?” I questioned. She nodded with pride. “When?”

  “When you told me it was too early to get out of bed and I should go back to sleep...” she admitted reluctantly.

  “I'm sure he loved that, I said sarcastically, just as the door flung open.

  “Carlito!” Casey yelled excitedly, holding his arms out for Carly to jump into them.

  “Daddito!” she shouted back and jumped.

  “What did I love?” Casey asked me after he had hauled her up.

  “Your complimentary wake up call,” I said with a smirk.

  “Oh, that,” Casey laughed, moving out of the doorway and gesturing that I should come in. “Well, she used your cell phone, so at first I thought it was you and there was an emergency. So, I guess once I realized it wasn't that, it wasn't so bad.”

  “Good point,” I said with a shrug.

  “When can we watch Dory?” Carly demanded, grabbing Casey's sharp chin in her tiny, chubby hand and yanking his face to hers.

  “Let me talk to Mommy for a bit, and then we will watch it, okay?” he offered. “There are some Dory and Nemo toys in the family room, too,” he added as he set her down. “Go see!”

  She squealed and ran off without a word.

  “More toys?” I asked, following him into the kitchen, which was right off of the foyer. “You know I have to fight her every time we are at a Target, right?”

  “Alex...” Casey sighed.

  “I don't have the money to keep up with you guys—”

  “I told you I could give you more money, Alex.”

  “I don't want that!” I argued. “I don't want your charity.”

  “It's not—Alex! It's not charity,” Casey said firmly, grabbi
ng me by the shoulders. “I already pay you child support. If it's not covering your expenses, then we adjust it. Easy.”

  “It would cover them just fine if I hadn't decided to go back to school, and that's on me, not you,” I sighed.

  “I am doing just fine at my job,” Casey assured me, rubbing my shoulders under his thumbs. “How much are you running short since you took on the tuition payments?”

  “Not much,” I answered. “I break even, with the exception of Christmas, where I had to beg my Aunt for a bonus to afford presents. But that's with no activities, no toys, no new clothes for me since starting school. I mean, Carly has been begging me to go to the zoo, and I'm terrified to do it, because she always wants fries, and an ice cream, and to rent the wagon, and buy a souvenir—”

  “Okay, okay,” Casey said. “So, I'm going to add three hundred a month to the child support—”

  “That's too much, Casey!” I protested.

  He shook his head and put a finger to my lips. “That is half of my recent raise,” he said. “And I'm also going to give you a hundred right now so you can go shopping, and a hundred when you pick her up tomorrow so you two can go to the zoo next week.”

  I sighed and my shoulders slumped forward in defeat.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I shouldn't have said anything...now I feel awful.”

  “Why do you feel awful?” Casey asked. “Alex, I care about you guys, and I'm beyond impressed that you work and go to school and raise our daughter Monday through Friday. I want the best for her, and I want the best for you,” he explained, his voice going soft and gentle.

  I looked into his steel-colored eyes, wide and alert as usual, but perpetually framed by dark, tired circles. Looking into them always brought about so many memories, especially of when we had first met...

  My hands suddenly alerted me that I'd been holding the box of frozen 'healthy' donuts the whole time.

  “Here,” I said, handing him the box, “they're, uh, vegan, too. Not sure if I mentioned that.”

  “You didn't,” he laughed, taking the box and setting it next to the fridge. “I don't think animal products are on Ruby's no-no list. Yet,” he added with a wince and an eye roll.

  “Well, I hope you two have fun,” I said. “She has been talking about it all week. As usual.”

  “You have plans today?” Casey asked, cocking his head at me.

  “Um, yeah, I...I was going to go out tonight. For drinks.”

  “With Amy?”

  “Yeah, I think so. We just finished a round of practicals, so, definitely need to blow off some steam.”

  “Have fun,” he said, walking me to the door. “You deserve it. And be safe.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and left, feeling slightly unsettled, like there was more conversation to be had.

  And, as I got into my car, I couldn't figure out why, exactly. Maybe it was the occasionally judgmental tones and remarks. Maybe it was that sometimes I felt like he treated me like a daughter, too, instead of a co-parent. Maybe it was that he could go from warm and caring to cold and distant in an instant, as if something inside of him remembered our history together, and then immediately wanted to block it out.

  I never knew why that part of it bothered me—there would never be anything between us. I knew that from the beginning, when I met him five years ago, at the age of eighteen. He was a home-schooled student who had signed up for an English tutor through the public school system, and I was the advanced English student who had been assigned to visit his house and tutor him weekly.

  From the moment I saw him I had a crush on him, lean and muscular, his hair long and slightly curly back then, always falling into his sharp, steely eyes. He was a genius at math, science and computers, already taking a full load of on-line college courses in some kind of coding, tech stuff...I didn't get it then and didn't care. He was gorgeous, and quiet and interested in my life, unlike all the idiots at my high school who didn't seem to think a poetry nerd and opinions editor of the paper was interesting enough to go out with.

  He was the first person I ever read my own poetry to, before my Dad, or Aunt, or Amy, my best friend since fifth grade. He was thoughtful, considerate, and not a self-absorbed wannabe jock or rock-star like every guy I had dated from age fifteen to eighteen. He was intelligent and insightful, and seemed so...adult-like and mature to me. I was smitten.

  And he was starving for anything from the 'outside world', because he wasn't able to leave his house...

  I always felt so much sympathy for him when I thought of it. Stuck in his house for basically all of his childhood—he was diagnosed with a rare immune disorder when he was five and Ruby and Rex adopted him after treating him while working at the Sunflower Children's Hospital. Rex had been brought in as a psychiatric consult as the pediatrician had grown weary and decided that Casey's problems were all in his head—a trauma-related anxiety from being abandoned by his parents.

  Ruby had been the one to crack the case after Rex told her about his newest case over a dinner where they had mourned yet another miscarriage, or that's how the story was always told to me, anyway. They immediately realized, once their diagnosis was confirmed by many tests and second opinions, that they may be the only people qualified to take care of Casey. Certainly no one in the system could, and his medical complications would likely keep him from ever getting adopted, especially since he was already five, and not a cute baby or toddler. They had told me they saw it as fate—something in the universe telling them that he was supposed to be their baby all along.

  Obviously they had done something right. Well, a lot of things right. At age eighteen, Casey was the most polite, mature, brilliant person my age I'd ever met.

  And I didn't know if he liked me, too, until one week I showed up for our study session for his American Literature curriculum, and he had filled the house with candles and rose petals and asked me to my senior prom.

  He had to beg his parents, incessantly, for days. Apparently, he had left the house a few times for procedures or specialist visits that couldn't be done at the house, and it had required a long round of shots and medications, for weeks beforehand. Finally, they saw how much it meant to him, and they agreed. I saw how much it meant to him, too...I knew that he wouldn’t have fought that hard if he didn't have serious feelings for me.

  So, naturally, eighteen year old me was thinking of some kind of 'forever love' because of how hard he had fought to be with me for such an important moment in my teenage life. And, as soon as prom was over and we were back at his house, we had sex. Not just any sex—both of us losing our virginity sex. Passionate, awkward, scared, emotional, meaningful sex that left us both wanting to hold and kiss each other forever and never let go.

  And then at my graduation, five weeks later, I vomited three times and had to use the bathroom half a dozen. Immediately, my Aunt hounded me about whether I had had sex recently and I broke down in tears in front of half of my family.

  There went college. Here came a baby. And by no fault of his own, the father couldn't come to appointments. Couldn't come shopping for clothes or furniture. Couldn't be there for the birth of his child. I think I cried the whole pregnancy, knowing that my baby would have a father who could never leave his house...

  CHAPTER 2

  “Wow, you look hot,” Amy remarked when I pulled the front door open.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. “New pants.”

  “You went shopping?” Amy scoffed. “Did you win the lottery?”

  “No,” I sighed as we walked to the fridge for some pre-girls' night out beers, “Casey gave me money...” I admitted with a tinge of self-consciousness.

  “Ah,” Amy nodded. “Do you think he'll lord it over you?”

  “I don't know,” I shrugged and took a sip of my beer. “Maybe, but it didn't feel like that. He was in a pretty good mood today and he seems to be doing really well at his job—just got a second raise. He said he wants to pay more child support, too, while I'm in school.”


  “Geez,” Amy said. “Wonder what Rex and Ruby will have to say about that...” she added with a roll of her eyes.

  “I don't really care,” I said plainly. “They're Casey's problem, not mine.”

  “Very true,” Amy said. “Man, this is so unlike you! Normally you rant and rave about whatever rude thing they said about you, or comment they made about Carly.”

  “Well, I didn't have to talk to them today, so that might have something to do with it,” I laughed.

  “Good point,” Amy chuckled and clinked her beer bottle to mine. “Okay, let's go.”

  My townhouse was a pretty close walk to a nightlife district with lots of restaurants and clubs. Usually, Amy just left her car at my house and we walked from there, and called a cab when we were ready to go home.

  First, we went to the Cajun restaurant, my favorite, for dinner and enjoyed a local jazz trio while we ate. Sipping my mint julep and enjoying my favorite comfort foods of seafood gumbo, cornbread and, of course, beignets, I felt more relaxed than I had in months. I was close to finishing my dental hygiene program and had done well on my recent practical exams, my money issues seemed relatively fixed for now, thanks to Casey, and the jazz music and julep were lulling me into total zen.

  We stayed for two more cocktails and headed to the dance club down the street around nine pm. It wasn't very busy when we arrived, but within an hour, the dance floor was full and the DJ had cranked the music to a chest-thumping full volume.

  I danced, wild and carefree, the music pounding in my ears and vibrating through every inch of my body. Suddenly, I heard a voice in my ear.

  “Hey, Alexia, right?” came the deep male voice. I turned around to see a face that was slightly familiar, and extremely gorgeous.

  “Yeah, um, Alex,” I said, shouting over the music. “You look familiar. Have we met?”

  “Not really,” he laughed. “I'm the DJ. DJ T-Bear. But you can call me Ted.”