Shadow Men – 61 – Anders and Grant

"Daddy!"

Nicky raced out the back door of the house. Grant dropped to one knee to hug his son tightly, the rush of love for him so strong it almost overwhelmed him. "I missed you so much," he whispered.

"Missed you too, Daddy!"

When they finally relinquished their hold on each other, Nicky looked at his father and his eyes widened. "You're hurt."

"A bit, but I'm getting better."

"Like Rafe." Nicky nodded sagely. "He's better too."

From behind him Grant heard a gasp of surprise, then Steele ran past them into the house.

"Damn," Anders said, "I hope this means what he thinks it does. It'll undo him otherwise."

"Rafe's awake." Nicky tugged Grant's hand. "Come see. He woke up."

As Grant got up he looked at Anders. "Now if only he…"

"Remembers, yeah," Anders finished.

When they got into the house they found Corrie in the living room. She greeted the men with hugs. "Welcome back."

"I hear Rafe's awake," Anders said as he started toward the basement stairs.

Grant grabbed his shoulder. "Not now. Let them have their moment."

With a nod and a quick smile, Anders said, "Got ya." He changed direction, going into the kitchen instead. Nicky immediately dashed after him asking, "Can I help cook?"

"And what makes you think I'm going to do that," Grant heard Anders say with a laugh, before the door closed.

"So, what happened to you?" Corrie asked.

Grant smiled wryly as he took his eyes off the closed door to look at her. "I found out you guys don't play games with what you do."

"No we don't. Can you handle that?"

"What?"

"Nothing. I think I misread something."

"Explain, please"

"I've known Anders for a long time. He rarely smiles, or laughs, everything's business with him. But twice in the last minute he did both. And the way your eyes followed him…" She shrugged.

"Come on. He's just happy for Steele's sake that Rafe's out of the coma. And I was watching Nicky."

"Yeah sure, okay, makes sense."

Grant had the feeling she didn't believe it in the least but he wasn't about to make an issue of it with a woman he barely knew, even if she was way off base. Instead he excused himself and went into the kitchen to make certain Nicky wasn't driving Anders crazy.