Luke (Cocky Cage Fighters, Book 8)

I fell for Megan Warner years before my older brother Eli ever noticed her, before he asked her out and made her his.

During the two years they were together, I would’ve given anything to be with Meg, anything except for losing my brother, my best friend, in a horrible accident when he was only eighteen.

Not a day goes by that I don’t miss Eli or think about the stupid mistake Meg and I made after his funeral, before she disappeared.

After four long years without a word, Megan has moved back to Cary, North Carolina but she’s not alone.

She has a three-year-old son.

My mom swears the boy with golden curls and blue eyes is Eli’s, and she’s so damn happy to get back a piece of the son she lost. But I can’t help but wonder if she’s wrong.

In fact, I think there’s a pretty good chance that Megan’s son is actually mine.

Megan Warner



“Sing it again, Mommy,” my little man says from the front of the buggy as I push him up and down the aisles of the grocery store. 
Glancing around, there’s no one within earshot, so I do what my son asks to make him happy, even if it means looking like a fool. Not that it really matters. We just got back to Cary, North Carolina a week ago for the first time in almost four years, so no one probably remembers me. And if they do, they likely wouldn’t recognize me. 
“Okay, here goes,” I tell Lennox as I grab a box of Cheerios from the shelf and throw them in the buggy behind him. “Lennox, Lennox, bo bennox, banana fana fo fennox, fe fi fo fennox. Lennox!” 
My three-year-old son throws his blond, curly head back, giggling until he snorts. He’s the cutest thing in the world, and he’s the absolute center of my universe. While I never planned on being a single mother at nineteen, now, three years later, I wouldn’t change a thing. It would’ve been nice if my parents hadn’t shunned me, but living with my Aunt Pattie in Phoenix wasn’t all bad. She supported me every step of the way and helped with Lennox so that after I graduated high school, I could get my nursing degree from a local university. And of all the places in the world, now I’ve ended up back in Cary to start my first real job as a Safety Education and Reproductive Health teacher. This town unfortunately still holds a lot of old ghosts…
I’m so preoccupied with my thoughts that I nearly ram into another shopper as I turn the corner for the next aisle. 
“Whoops! I’m so sorry,” I tell the lady when our buggies miss each other by about a centimeter. 
“Megan?” the woman asks with an audible gasp. 
Shoot. I had hoped no one in this town would remember me. 
Pasting on a fake smile, I look up at the woman’s face to see who’s unfortunately spotted me. It takes several seconds for recognition to dawn since she’s aged so drastically since I last saw her. Wrinkles surround her tired hazel eyes, her frame is much leaner, and her long blonde hair is now streaked with gray. 
“Oh my God. Nancy?” I mutter as my jaw drops. Of all the fucking people…
“It’s so good to see you! How have you been?” she asks sweetly before her eyes drop to Lennox in the front of the buggy. I would give anything for an invisibility cloak for him to wear right about now. “Oh, is this your son?” 
“Ah, yes. Lennox, can you say hi to Mrs. Campbell?” I ask him. 
“Hi,” he says with a wave of his small hand and a broad smile. 
“He’s adorable. How old is he?” she asks. 
“Now I’m three!” Lennox answers before I can lie to her. He counts, holding his fingers up one at a time until he has the correct amount, just like I showed him this past weekend when we celebrated his birthday. 
“Three? Wow,” Nancy says with a warm smile before her forehead creases. I can see the wheels turning in her head as she looks at Lennox and does the math. Her hand comes up to her mouth that falls open with a shocked intake of air. 
“His hair,” she says, her voice and fingers trembling as she runs them through Lennox’s curls. “And my baby’s beautiful blue eyes!” 
Fucking hell. 
Coming back to this town was a mistake. 
“Nancy, I know what you’re thinking, but he’s not Eli’s,” I assure her in a quiet, calm voice. Her oldest son Eli and I dated for over two years. He was my first love, and he was supposed to be the man I married and started a family with. That dream abruptly ended the night of his eighteenth birthday when a horrible car accident took his life. The same night he lied so that he could spend the night celebrating with his lover instead of me. 
“Don’t you dare lie to me! This is my grandson, and you’ve hidden him from us the whole time! How could you?” she exclaims, her face turning various shades of red to nearly violet.
“Please calm down, Nancy. He’s not Eli’s,” I tell her with tears threatening to overflow from my eyes as I see her pain and longing to get back a little piece of the son she lost.
“I want a DNA test!” she demands. “Now. Right now!” 
“Ma’am, is everything okay?” a bald, rotund man asks when he approaches us wearing a white dress shirt and tie with a name tag that says he’s Ed, the store manager. 
“I’m really sorry about the groceries. I-I need to go,” I tell him, grabbing Lennox up from the front of the buggy and hoisting him on my hip, despite the fact that he’s already nearly half my size. It’s amazing the feats of strength a mother can have when her son is in danger. 
“No! That’s my son’s boy! My grandson!” Nancy yells from behind me as I race out of the store. Lennox is upset and crying before I get him strapped into his car seat, either from the argument or from just sensing how freaked out I am. My hands are shaking so badly that it takes three tries to get the harness over his chest to click into place. 
“Shh, baby. It’s okay,” I tell my son. “Everything’s fine,” I assure him. 
Although, I know without a doubt that it’s absolutely not.

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