Enid, Oregon 2015

 

 

 

“Dean, I’m pregnant.”

 

“Dean. We’re pregnant.” Cassie paced along the wooden floor of the lake house’s covered porch, the peeling blue paint of the planks blurred before her eyes. No matter how she said it, it didn’t portray the emotion she wanted – abject happiness.

 

“It just sounds stupid.” She sat down on the top step and inhaled the crisp and slightly chilled air of the early June morning. Far different from the oppressive heat she’d left behind in Texas and yet, she couldn’t take a deep breath without a stutter.

 

What had begun as I’ll see you in a few days had turned into one and half months apart from Dean. It had been six more weeks of waking up each day wanting to tell him about her morning sickness, her first ultrasound and the elation of hearing two heartbeats. Twins! She smiled at the thought of them.

 

I told you. One day, I’d be happy when I was here! She wanted to shout into the fog swirling up from Lake Innisbrook.

 

As a child, she’d spent her summers on the lake with her grandmother. Each year, Eugenia Wilthew gathered her grandchildren in the house for a summer of swimming and campfires and sing-alongs. On paper, it would seem like a good idea but…then there was the reality of those long days and nights.

 

She and Laura had spent countless hours on the porch listening to the other cousins laughing inside the house. The two of them didn’t fit in with the bony ginger-haired Wilthews. They called Laura portly and warned her about the number of cookies she ate. And they called Cassie dark and told her to stay out of the sun whenever possible.

 

Those few months each year had sparked a fear in her. She was too different to be loved outside of her hometown in Missouri. She’d carried that fear throughout her teens until that one night when they’d proved her wrong.

 

And now in the swirling mist and the towering trees, her heart thudded with the love of her children and the man who first stole her heart.

 

Hopefully, he’d feel the same way once he knew.

 

Cassie forced herself up from the porch and headed out to the rental car. Since Dean and Sam had ended their hunt in central Oregon, she was more than delighted to suggest they meet at the lake house along the coast.

 

No matter his reaction, this was the perfect place to tell him. If he was pleased then they could enjoy the beautiful area together. And if he freaked out, the dense forest could hide his body.

 

With that thought, Cassie began the drive into the town of Enid.

 

 

 

~~~

 

The tinkle of the bell on the front door of Orchid’s Café drew Dean’s attention again.

 

Not her. Damn it, Cassie.

 

She was never late. Dean checked his watch and then glanced over at Sam. “What?”

 

The dumb grin hadn’t left his brother’s face for the last thirty minutes. “I’m just wondering if you figured out what you’re going to say.”

 

“It’s a pretty standard question.” Dean said and sipped from his coffee, scanning the street aside for any sign of Cassie.

 

“But women like a little more showmanship. I found this video.” Sam whipped his tablet around. “Maybe you can take a look.”

 

“I’m going to shove that thing down your throat.”

 

Sam chuckled and clicked the play button anyway. Classical music in the background, ice skating rink and the guy down on one knee professing his love to the gushing girl. “It’s not every day that a hunter asks someone to marry them. And definitely not you.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Dean, you’ve actually escaped Hell and Purgatory and now you’re eating a breakfast burrito. That’s not normal.”

 

“Yeah. She knows that.”

 

Cassie knew and it didn’t diminish the sparkle in her eyes. Three months since he’d seen her and that light still heated his skin.

 

The nest of vampires he’d tracked and killed hadn’t been able to douse it.

 

And the ring? Well, it only accelerated the lick of the flames.

 

While investigating, he and Sam had entered a pawn shop owned by a former hunter and the simple black pearl set between two squared diamonds on a gold band had garnered his full attention. There was no hunt only that ring. After a day and a half of hustling pool, he’d come back to buy it.

 

His version of an engagement ring for the woman who’d made him believe that he was more than a hunter - a human being who had a chance at love. “She knows.”

 

Dean pushed up from the table as the door opened once more and Cassie walked toward him. Hopefully this pounding in chest wasn’t an illusion, wasn’t a dream or a cruel spell. If she needed the one knee thing then he would give it to her. “Hey, Sweetheart.” He hugged her, nuzzling his cheek against the soft curls at the top of her head.

 

“I missed you.” As slender as her body was, her grip seemed much stronger than his. “So much.”

 

“I missed you, too.” He breathed her in and everything disappeared around him. He’d once laughed about guys like this, holding some girl in a public place- no hot kissing. Just some ass clutching some girl like he’d been thrown a life line.

 

And he had been. “I missed you more than you know.”

 

Cassie gazed up at him with her soft brown eyes. Maybe she responded, but it was Sam he finally heard.

 

“Guys, you’re blocking the aisle.”

 

“Sorry,” Dean ushered Cassie into the seat next to window, smiling at the man who looked like he’d stepped out of a Land’s End cataloge and was late to a clam bake.

 

“Hmmm.” The man gave him a quick smirk disguised as a smile and then zoned in on Cassie. “Aren’t you Eugenia Wilthew’s granddaughter? Cassie?”

 

Cassie straightened in the chair. “Yes.” Her voice deepened and a strange sensation flowed from her into him. Cassie was always…always welcoming with a huge smile, arms opened wide. So why did he feel a tremble in her limbs at the nearness of the man?

 

“Bernard Haynes. From across the lake.” Bernard raked his hand through his dark brown hair and puffed out his chest. “I’m sheriff now.”

 

“That’s wonderful, Bernard. Um, these are friends of mine. Sam and Dean.” Cassie slid her hand down his leg and the slight shiver stopped.

 

Bernard didn’t look in their direction. “If you’re staying out at the lake, I warn you to be careful. Two hikers have been killed in the area in the last week. They had their hearts ripped out.”

 

“Some kind of animal?” Sam asked.

 

“Bear attack, but I’ve lived here my whole and never saw anything like that. Almost forty years and no bears attacking and then this.” He shook his head. “I can help you find other accommodations if you like.” He out a card bearing his name and the town’s logo.

 

“Thanks, Bernard.” Dean plucked the card from between the man’s fingers and handed it over to Sam. “But bear or no bear I can take care of Cassie. Agent Young with the DC division.” Dean flipped the card from his pocket

 

“I’m sure you can.” Bernard’s gaze remained solely on Cassie. “You call if you need me though.”

 

“Thanks, Bernard. But I’m sure Agent Young is going to keep me safe from anything out in those woods. And I mean anything.”

 

Dean turned to face her and her soft brown eyes held him still for a moment before she kissed him.

 

Somewhere in the distance, the bell tinkled, Sam cleared his throat, and the sheriff mumbled something else. But for him, he was lost in the sweet kiss of the woman he loved.

 

 

 

~~~

 

Cassie flipped on the lamp next to the mirror in her bedroom. It didn’t matter that the curtain was open and the sun shining, the room was always dark. It had been the only thing she hadn’t figured out how to change in the room.

 

Since she and Laura had purchased the house from the rest of the Wilthew grandchildren three years ago, they had redecorated. Their grandmother’s scratchy plaid furniture had been replaced with soft deep red chenille and the framed watercolors of wildflowers had been replaced by large vibrant cityscapes from all over the world.

 

The city she’d chosen for her bedroom was San Francisco on New Year’s Eve – fireworks exploding over the bay. If she hadn’t fallen asleep as soon as Dean had driven them back to the house, the photograph would have finally come alive in her mind. Yet, she’d been too tired after breakfast to do anything except sleep.

 

She combed through her hair, added lipstick and a small amount of bronzer to her cheeks and forehead. Cassie groaned wondering when she was going to get that pregnancy glow and walked out into the main room of the house.

 

It was one large room which served as a kitchen, dining area and living space. And today it was apparently command central. When Dean had mentioned that he and Sam may research the hikers while she slept, she hadn’t imagined this.

 

Dean and Sam huddled around a laptop screen and Bernard poured over a stack of photographs. “This looks like working,” she said as she crossed through the space not waiting for Dean to respond.

 

Damn, it. She needed to tell him and she wanted to do it without the audience. “I may make a few phone calls.” She mimicked his voice as she opened the refrigerator and took out the Cobb salad she hadn’t been able to finish from dinner. “Doesn’t he understand vacation?” she mumbled before shoving a sliver of cold ham into her mouth and slid the container across the countertop. “It doesn’t involve crime scene photos.” Cassie flung open an upper cabinet to search for a fork.

 

“You’re right.” Dean’s squeezed her waist, then her hips, and then her ass.

 

Mmmm. She immediately relaxed into the hard contours of his body. They’d been together for almost two years, was he always going to have this effect on her? She moaned softly as he began the process again.

 

“They’re leaving.” He turned her around to face him, his eyes blazing with mischief. “And we’re going to enjoy our afternoon.” He bit into his bottom lip and then whirled around to face the others. “Guys, I’m going to start my vacation now.”

 

She snaked her arm around his waist and felt a quiver across his abdomen.

 

“Now.” Dean intertwined his fingers with hers and he sucked in air between his teeth. “I’m starting now.”

 

“Ah, Dean, one moment. Please.” Sam stood up, holding his hands in front of him. “Cassie, two minutes and he’s all yours.”

 

“I don’t think--”

 

“Go ahead.” She gently pushed Dean forward. Two minutes? She could wait two minutes so that no one else had to die alone in the woods. “I can catch up with Bernard.”

 

Dean looked over his shoulder at her and whispered, “Just make sure he understands that the good ole days are over.”

 

“Go,” she said with a laugh. One of the many things that she and Dean disagreed on was that she had enough normal in her life and just needed him. “You only have two minutes.”

 

“Alright, Sheriff, Sam is going to head over to the coroner’s office with you in a few minutes.” Dean patted Bernard’s arm as he left the room with Sam.

 

“Thanks.” Bernard smiled then stood watching her. “I heard you own a magazine.”

 

“We aren’t going to do this.” Cassie crossed her arms and shook the curls from her face. “I said the whole catching up bit for him. So he could do his job.”

 

“I know that.” He stared down at the floor for a few moments and then met her gaze once more. “It’s been a long time and I’m glad I have this chance to apologize for what happened that summer.”

 

“Great. Leave. Sam can meet you in town.”

 

“Okay.” Bernard backed toward the door, but made no move to open it. “Cassie, I really liked you. I really did. I was just a--”

 

“A kid?” Cassie fought to keep her voice quiet. Bernard didn’t deserve the fury that swirled within her. “I was fifteen years old when Brittany and my cousin decided to throw me in the lake. I was a kid screaming that I couldn’t swim.” The memory of the moonlit night flooded back to her but now there were no tears, just a white hot anger. “And you just watched them do it. But it’s okay because in those moments of thrashing around until my feet touched bottom. I fell in absolute love with myself. And I knew that I didn’t need you or Brittany or anyone else to make me feel that. So thank you and get out of my damn house.”

 

Bernard froze. His mouth moved but he was silent.

 

“Dean, I’ll call you later.” Sam propelled a dazed looking Bernard through the door and pulled it closed behind them.

 

“You almost drowned?” Dean stood in the bedroom’s doorway. “Why would come here?”

 

“Because I own it now. It’s my version slaying a dragon and all I can think about is you kissing me.”

 

“Then come here and I’ll kiss you all over.”

 

The mid-afternoon snack was forgotten, as was lunch and an early dinner.

 

 

 

~~~

 

“We’ve lost them! Be ready in case they come your way.”

 

Even with the noise in the background, Dean heard the tremor in his brother’s voice before Sam disconnected. His heart thudded to a stop as he looked over at Cassie. She curled into the arm of the sofa balancing a bowl of spaghetti on her knees, laughing at whatever flickered across the screen, unaware of the chase going on outside.

 

“Stay here.” He rushed into the bedroom and grabbed his bag.

 

Earlier Sam had found evidence of shifters combing the woods surrounding Lake Innisbrook. While Bernard had never seen anything like the mauled bodies of the two hikers, the deaths had occurred each year up and down the coast from Canada to Mexico since the early sixties.

 

The death toll had reached nineteen in a small Washington town in 1969 and since then the kills had dwindled. Now there were only one or two murders in a town, three at the most. The pack, Sam had surmised, was dying but there were two left to follow in the family business.

 

And those two were dangerously close to Cassie.

 

“Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone except for me.” He shoved a gun into her hand. “Do you know how to shoot?” Other would-be-fiancés weren’t asking that question and yet he had to.

 

“I used to practice with my Dad. But only with a shotgun. What’s wrong?”

 

“Sam lost the trail. About the gun, it’s the same premise, both hands. Just don’t open the door. This is holy water and I’m putting it outside. Tell me to drink it before I come in.”

 

“And then what?”

 

“You’ll know if you have to shoot or not.”

 

Dean swept out into the night on the trail the shifters.

 

 

 

~~~

 

“Oh, shit!” Cassie leapt from the couch and ran for the windows at the front of the house. For hours she had sat holding the gun to her chest and then nearing eleven at night, shouts rang out in the silence. And an inhuman growling that seemed to shake the walls.

 

At first she could only see Sam and Bernie running into the clearing in front of the house and then she saw it.

 

The beast – part hairy clawed pig and part dog – tore at Sam’s back until he fell back into the woods. The thing then turned toward Bernard and swiped at his legs so that he dropped inches from the porch. Without thinking she opened the door, aimed and fired a shot.

 

“Oh. My. God.”

 

The thing fixed her with a yellowed-eyed stare. Dragging its wounded paw, it took a staggering step toward her.

 

“Hey,” Dean yelled from the clearing in the woods, limping toward the house. His face was streaked with blood and dirt but his cocky grin was unmarred. “I’m the one who just burned your boyfriend, bitch.”

 

The thing turned as if it understood and then took off running. Dean walked towards it, stumbling to the left and the right as if to embrace the beast.

 

“Nooo…,” she screamed and fired.

 

The thing cried in pain as blood poured out of its back, but not before it had clawed Dean’s shirt open.

 

“Baby?” Cassie dropped the gun and ran towards Dean’s crumpled body, bypassing the twitching half-animal / half-human who lay gasping for breath. “Baby?”

 

She laid her body across his, not bothered by the trickles of blood from the scratches, listening to his heartbeat and his hitching breaths.

 

“Are you alright?” he asked as his eyes opened and closed.

 

 

 

~~~

 

“Those weren’t bears.” Bernard shook so hard that he flung beads of sweat in every direction.

 

“No. And we’ve got to get rid of that body. Can you understand me, Bernard?” Sam pulled the sheriff up from the porch and led him over to the nude body of the female lying in the dirt.

 

Dean watched them drag the body into the woods, all the while Sam quietly explaining to the sheriff what exactly had happened. “Are you sure that you’re alright?” Dean hugged Cassie to his chest and stretched his legs out so that the porch’s swing rocked them gently.

 

“I’m okay.” She pushed out of his hold and held up the ring box. “You dropped this.”

 

Dean patted the pocket of his jeans finding that it had been torn away. “This wasn’t my plan. I want you to know that.” Dean shook bits of drying mud from his hair, tried to straighten what was left of his tattered shirt, and then opened the box.

 

“Cassie, I love you and you know that’s not easy for me to say. Especially considering tonight.” He whooshed out a long breath, clearing his mind of the shifters and the guns and the blood. “But, uhm, I think we have something special. Something more than the hunt and I think you believe that too.”

 

Cassie nodded and her mouth opened into a wide o.

 

He laughed. After saving his life from a shifter, she still had the capacity for surprise. “Will you marry me, Miss Cassandra Robinson?”

 

“Yes,” Cassie squealed as he slid the ring onto her finger. “I’ll marry you! Oh, my God. I’m getting married and I’m pregnant. How wonderful is this?” Cassie threw her arms around his neck, pushing him awkwardly back into the arm of the swing.

 

Pregnant? His mind spun around the word while Cassie gushed in his ear.

 

“We’ll have a simple ceremony. I’ll have to wear off-white or cream. Laura can plan it. She likes that kind of thing. Which last name will we use? Can I be a Winchester?”

 

Dean grasped Cassie’s arms and held her away from him. “You’re pregnant?”

 

Cassie covered and uncovered her face with her hands. “This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you either, but yes. We’re having twins. We’re going to be a family.” Cassie pushed her lips against his.

 

My family, echoed in his head as Cassie’s body melted into his.

 

In that heat, he smiled. His wife and his children.

 

 

 

~~~

 

“Are you having any strange cravings like those women on that show who eat detergent?”

 

“No.” Cassie finished braiding her hair and then snuggled down next to Dean. “What do you watch when I’m not around?”

 

“Different things,” he chuckled. “Twins? We have to get two of everything.” He continued talking with a faraway look on his face and a curious smile like he actually could see them both.

 

“Do you know something I don’t?” Cassie popped up on her elbow and his little smile grew into a wide grin.

 

“I’m just happy. I didn’t think I was this was going to happen. Ever.” He pecked her lips and then drew her into a tight hug. “But first we have to get married. Do you want to see the JP tomorrow?”

 

“We’re having a wedding. I was thinking maybe a vineyard in California. Something small.” Cassie snuggled in closer to Dean, relishing the warmth steaming from his freshly showered body.

 

“I’ll have to see if I have any felony counts in California pending.”

 

“Oh.” Perhaps, marrying a hunter wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d envisioned two hours ago. “We could get married on an island. It’s still legal but without the warrants. Of course that will have to be soon because I can’t fly after the fifth month.

 

“Whatever you decide,” Dean yawned and flipped off the bedside light. “I’m not going anywhere until they’re born. Until I see their faces.”

 

“What are you going to do for six more months?” Cassie laughed. For the life of her she couldn’t grasp the concept of Dean without the hunt.

 

“I’m going to be a regular guy who is about to get married and have two amazing kids. But right now, we’re going to get some sleep and have a normal day tomorrow. I promise.” Dean kissed her forehead and then turned over, dragging her arm around his waist as he did so.

 

Soon she alone was awake, listening to his soft snores, the birds calling to each other along the shore and the lap of the waves against the battered canoe. I’m just happy, played in her head like a lullaby.

 

So very happy.