Crossbred Son Read Online Free

want to finish the discussion? Would it be easier to do it now?”
    Abby buried her face in her hands.
    His hand stroked at her shoulder.
    He moved. He’s so quiet. I forgot how silently he moves.
    “Abby?”
    “How can you be so nice to me, all things considered?”
    When he didn’t answer, Abby looked up at him.
    His brow was furrowed, and his head cocked to one side. “Shouldn’t I be?”
    She shrugged.
    “Do you want to discuss it?” he offered again.
    “Better now than later, I suppose.”
    Michael fussed from his highchair, bouncing and slapping his hands on the wood top impatiently. Gabe returned to the meat and vegetables he’d been feeding their son. Gabe didn’t question her, leaving Abby to decide where to begin.
    “I did want to become your mate,” she assured him. Why she thought it would make a difference was a mystery to her, but it needed to be said.
    “And you left me because you couldn’t give me children.” It was stated as a fact. “How long after you left did you find out you were pregnant?”
    Gabe popped another cube into his mouth and chewed in precise little movements of his jaw, his muscles bunching and releasing. He pushed the meat onto his fingertips.
    “Three weeks or so. I was sick. I was exhausted, falling asleep at odd times...It never even occurred to me that...that I was.”
    “Of course.” He scooped the food into Michael’s mouth and turned to look at her. “And why didn’t you contact me then?”
    She shifted uncomfortably and pushed her plate away.
    “Abby? Why?” He hesitated a moment. “You didn’t think I would turn my back on you, did you?”
    “No. I did consider that you might think I was just coming back because of the baby, though.”
    Gabe sent her an incredulous look. “But?”
    “But what?” It had been a straightforward comment.
    “That was only part of your reason.”
    “How do you do that?”
    He scowled. Gabe put a piece of broccoli in his mouth next.
    Spitting the words out was harder than she’d thought it would be. How many times had she practiced this speech? Now she couldn’t untie her tongue.
    Gabe looked at Michael long enough to poke another mouthful of food in. That freed her tongue.
    “They said I’d lose the baby. One of the human doctors... He wanted me to abort, because there was no way I could carry to term. I never went back to him and don’t intend to,” she hastened to add.
    His head swung toward her, his expression horrified.
    “I couldn’t do it. A-abort, I mean. I had to try to carry Michael, but...”
    “But?” he repeated.
    The rest stuck in her throat, and Abby swallowed hard. Tears stung at her eyes. “I couldn’t do that to you.”
    His eye slits narrowed, and his ridge plates stirred. “Do what to me?”
    “Give you hope of having a baby, when the chances of delivering one were so hopeless. I had to try, but you... I couldn’t do that to you.”
    “You didn’t think I would want to know?”
    “What could you do?” she wailed.
    “Be there for both of you.” There was a bite of something harsh in that.
    Unforgiving. Abby hoped she was reading him wrong.
    Gabe fed Michael another bite of meat, visibly calming himself. “And when Michael was born?”
    “I don’t know. I picked up the phone so many times, but I how could I tell you? How could I even begin?”
    “You seem to be doing well enough now,” he quipped.
    “Now you know we have a son. I’m not telling you that. All I have to tell you is why it happened this way. Pitiful as it is, I’m trying to do that, because you deserve to know the truth.”
    “I deserved to be there from the day you found out you carried.”
    “Yes... Yes, you did.” He’d deserved to be there before that, but Abby had screwed that up.
    He didn’t reply to that.
    Her nerves jumping, Abby searched for something to say to fill the silence between them. “You should know that Doctor Rayn never gave up for a minute. He was determined that Michael would survive.