by Tasha Black
She felt the exact moment when he let go. One moment he gazed down at her with flashing eyes and tensed jaw, the next he smirked like a spoiled prince and slammed into her, finally assuaging the aching need that she’d felt for an empty year.
Her nipples tightened against his chest and she felt herself lifting up again, impossibly, her whole body quivering on the edge.
Max slid a hand between them, grazed her with a calloused finger and she cried out and came for him again.
Max growled out her name and then she felt him let go, filling her, completing her.
The room seemed to grow warm around her. A silent hum fizzled under her skin, radiating from her fingers and hair.
24
Sarah
When their tremors had ceased, Sarah knew her life would never be the same.
Max lay beside her, resting his head on her chest, stroking her belly.
Sarah smiled down at him and ran her hand through his hair.
“Do you feel any different?” Max asked, his voice rumbling through her rib cage.
She thought about it.
“Yes,” she said. “It felt good, the way you’d expect, amazing. But also in another way, something I’ve never felt before. It was almost like… like something was coming out of me. Does that sound crazy?”
“Look at the flowers,” he said.
She wrenched her gaze from her mate to look.
The small round pot of mums was unrecognizable.
Bright yellow blossoms spilled out of the flower pot and onto the table and the bed, trailing to the floor like English ivy.
“Did- did I do that?” Sarah asked.
“I think you did,” Max said. “I certainly didn’t do it, I’m just a shifter.”
“Is that supposed to happen?”
“My rediscovered siblings at the farm told me that some kind of magic portal has opened in Tarker’s Hollow and things are changing,” Max said musingly. “People with latent magical powers are having them awoken.”
“Latent magical powers?”
“They told me Adrian’s mate’s power awakened just after his three hundredth moon,” he explained. “Everyone thinks the residual magic cast off when his spell was broken was the reason.”
“This was in me all along?” Sarah asked.
“Maybe,” Max said, nodding. “I’m not surprised your power nurtures plants. You always smelled like rain on a thirsty field.”
“I- I did?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “You did. Are you okay with this?”
“Yes,” she said. “Are you kidding? You just gave me a super power and you want to know if I’m okay with it?”
“It’s a lot to take in,” Max said.
“That’s true,” Sarah said. “But it’s all good stuff. I mean I guess my lawn care bill might be going up…”
“I thought you lived in a co-op in the city,” Max said.
* * *
“That was a joke,” Sarah explained. “Although I’m not sure I want to live in the city anymore.”
He stretched out beside her on his side and smoothed a piece of her hair off her forehead.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said gently.
“Do what?”
“Pretend that you want to change your life,” he said. “I can easily sell the rest of the business and we’ll live in Glacier City. Company’s not worth a king’s ransom or anything, but it’ll be enough to cover us until I can find a job out west.”
“You would do that?” Sarah asked.
“Of course I’ll do that,” he said. “I don’t want you to change a thing about your life. Except that I don’t want you to have to work so hard that you never see our son.”
Sarah sat up.
“What are you trying to say?” she demanded.
“I’m saying that I love you and I want you to be able to spend time with Orson, and any other kids we might have. I’m okay with working more than one job if I need to do that to cover our bills,” he told her.
“First of all, I spend a lot of time with Orson, I don’t like you implying that I don’t,” she said. “And secondly, are you really so proud that you’d rather work yourself to an early grave than spend my money?”
“Your money is stuck in those trees back in Asheville,” he retorted. “Unless you’re planning on using your new gift to grow those trees a lot faster. And the reason you locked your inheritance up was for safe-keeping. That was a good plan, not something you should change.”
“Wait, what?” she asked, incredulous.
“I said that I don’t want you spending your inheritance on an easy lifestyle for me,” he said. “I can provide for us. Save that money for the kids one day. Please.”
Sarah stared at him for a moment, the pieces clicking together.
“What?” he demanded.
“Oh Max,” she said. “You really don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“I thought you would have googled me by now,” she said. “The money I invested in the timberland, it’s not an inheritance, it’s mine. I earned it.”
“Okay,” he said.
“I’m a software developer. You knew that, right?”
“Yes. You work for a big company,” he said.
“But I didn’t used to,” she explained. “I wrote my first big software program when I was in high school. My parents are teachers. They spent a lot of time entering data on their students into different programs - one to take roll, one for school breakfasts and lunches, one for standardized testing, one for who has to leave early or arrive late for music or newspaper, and on and on. There are thousands of students at the school, and hundreds of thousands in the state. It hit me that if everything went into one system they might be able to use the data to predict things.”
“Like what?”
“Like whether providing a free breakfast made it more likely that a student’s test scores would improve,” she said. “Or even whether a particular student was likely to do poorly on a particular section of the exam, so that the teachers could spend time coaching the exact material that might help that particular student.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” Max said.
“I thought so,” Sarah said with a smile. “I implemented the program as my junior project, just at our school. And the predictive algorithms worked. The local paper did a story and then a national news outlet picked it up.”
“Wow, Sarah, that’s great,” Max said.
“Then we got a call from a headhunting firm,” she went on.
“They wanted to hire you,” Max said.
“No,” she said. “They wanted my software. They liked the idea of gathering diverse data on candidates and then predicting whether they would be a good match for a job, what mix of salary, benefits and flex-time might lure them in, that kind of thing.”
“That’s crazy,” Max said.
“What’s really crazy is how much money they paid me for the software,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t want that money to ruin my life. I wanted to go to college and work and have a real life. So I did some research. I love the outdoors, I always have. Putting the money into a forest was the perfect idea.”
“So you locked your own money away from yourself,” he said slowly. “So it wouldn’t spoil you.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Except that my reputation kind of precedes me. At least in my field it does. I guess I’ll never know if they used my own software to work it all out, but I got some pretty amazing job offers when I finished college. And the one I took has been paying me obscenely for years. And they give me flex time. Since Orson was born I’ve only gone to the office four days out of seven. And I’ve got enough savings built up again that I could retire today if I wanted to.”
“Do you want to?”
“Until this week I would have said no,” she told him thoughtfully. “I like my work.”
He nodded and smiled. He liked his work too, of course he would understand.
“But after finding out that Orson is a shifter I don’t know anymore,” she said. “I don’t think he can live in the city.”
“The spell worked for me,” Max said. “And when he’s an adult he can live wherever he wants.”
“I don’t want to put a spell on Orson,” Sarah said. “I like him the way he is.”
Max’s eyebrows went up. He opened his mouth, and closed it again.
“Sarah,” he said at last, “you know we can’t just have our kid turn into a bear in the middle of the grocery store.”
“You said you could build a cabin in our forest,” Sarah said. “Is that true?”
“Well, yes,” he replied.
“And your parents are shifters, right?”
“Yeah, they are,” he agreed.
“Then we’ll hole up for a couple of years, until Orson understands his power and how he needs to handle it in public,” she said. “He’ll have us, and your parents, and any Harkness kids that want to come out to visit and camp.”
“What about school?”
“By the time he’s old enough for school I think he’ll be able to control his shifting,” Sarah said. “And if he can’t, we’ll figure it out then.”
They sat quietly for a moment. He was taking it in. She hoped he would see it her way.
“This is a big change for you,” Max said finally.
“Not really, I already do a lot of work from home,” Sarah smiled. “Maybe I’ll develop my own software to help with the logging business.”
“I’ll bet you could,” he said. “Though I don’t think I can outbid the other companies just yet.”
“You could pay me in other ways,” she suggested, raising an eyebrow.
She didn’t anticipate that Max would pounce on her, but as soon as his lips touched hers she was a goner.
She just had time to notice that the flowers were crawling up the walls toward the ceiling before she was lost in his arms once again.
25
Sarah
Sarah cuddled Orson close, but he was fussy after a whole day inside.
She couldn’t say she blamed him. Since arriving back at the farm, they’d been spoiled with outdoor activities. They had only been gone a few weeks, but everyone fawned over him like they hadn’t seen him in years. She was willing to bet that no city baby had ever been on more hayrides or apple picks.
But most of today had been spent setting up the big tables in the downstairs of the octagonal barn. Kate had baked and cooked up a storm along with about a dozen family members assisting, shouting out instructions about how to set up the dining area to anyone who would listen.
When Sarah agreed to a simple wedding on the farm she expected it would actually be simple - just those of them who were already there throwing a quick wedding and maybe ordering a pizza afterward so Kate wouldn’t have to cook.
But from the moment she’d agreed to it, the whole family had been barreling non-stop toward something more like an event at Martha Stewart’s estate.
The tables were set with beautiful dishes that had been handmade by various Harkness kids over the years in the local elementary school’s third grade art class.
The hutch full of these dishes was a striking testament to how many misunderstood shifter children had been fostered on the farm. Kate caught Sarah gazing at the stacks of plates, teary-eyed.
“I know, honey,” Kate said gruffly. “Can you imagine how much I miss them all?”
Sarah burst into tears and Kate caught her up in one of her rib-crushingly satisfying hugs.
“They all come back to see me eventually,” Kate said with a smile in her voice. “Your fiancé included. Though I think he owes me some flatware.”
“I’ll make you a plate, Kate,” Max yelled from the other room where he was stirring something on the stove as Darcy chopped mushrooms next to him.
“Just don’t burn those onions and we’ll consider ourselves even for now,” Kate hollered back.
Darcy laughed her head off and the others joined in, and the day rolled on.
The moon was high in the sky and the stars were twinkling by the time they all began to gather under the sycamores.
Sarah, Orson and Mandy waited in the farmhouse kitchen. It was old-fashioned to make Max wait to see her when they had literally cooked their wedding feast together, but somehow the traditional thing felt just right tonight.
Darcy was a bouncer at the Stackhouse Casino in Philly and had to dress in formal wear each night for work. Earlier in the afternoon she had loaned Sarah one of her more modest white evening gowns for the wedding.
Sarah was shorter than Darcy and had curves where Darcy had muscles. Somehow the dress looked completely different on her and just right for a farmhouse wedding.
“That’s amazing,” Sarah had murmured into the mirror.
“No,” Finn said from the doorway, with his arm around Darcy.
Darcy nodded in a smug way. “It’s magic.”
As Sarah, Mandy and Orson waited in the kitchen, there was a knock at the door and Mandy went to see who it was.
“Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds,” Mandy’s voice carried into the kitchen.
Sarah stepped in with Orson, excited but a little nervous to meet Max’s parents. She wasn’t sure they were going to make it, after their flight was delayed for some bad weather.
Max was going to be so pleased.
Sarah had offered to postpone the ceremony, but Max wouldn’t hear of it, insisting his parents would be mortified if they thought everyone was waiting just for them.
“Sarah?” Mrs. Reynolds asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said.
“Well, if you’re going to run off like Cinderella again, I hope you’ll let us have a look at our grandson first,” Mr. Reynolds quipped.
“Hugh,” Mrs. Reynolds scolded, giving him a good shove.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” Mr. Reynolds winked, rubbing his arm.
Mandy laughed.
Orson chuckled and held out a hand, fingers wiggling, to his grandparents.
“Oh,” Mrs. Reynolds sighed.
Just then the back door slammed.
“Are you ready?” Hannah asked, panting.
“Yes,” Mandy said. “She’s ready.”
“We’d better get out there, Hugh,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “I don’t suppose you need someone to hold the little fellow while you get married?”
Sarah looked helplessly to her sister who had been looking forward to holding Orson during the ceremony as the unofficial baby-sitter-of-honor.
“That was going to be my job,” Mandy said smoothly. “But frankly I’m exhausted. Let’s grab a seat together in case he fusses.”
Mrs. Reynolds clapped her hands with delight.
“I love you, buddy,” Sarah whispered into Orson’s warm little fluff of hair.
26
Max
Max stood beneath the sycamores, watching as his mother embraced Kate Harkness with one arm, the other arm hugging his son to her hip.
His father winked at him but Max just grinned. There was no way to play it cool. He was the happiest man alive.
Jack Harkness began to play the guitar. It was a pretty, folksy melody that somehow fit with the shifter’s pleasant demeanor.
Kate had mentioned Jack must be lonesome for a mate, and Max hadn’t seen it. But now the tender expression on Jack’s face belied his longing.
Max had enough of his own experience with loneliness, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. He found himself hoping one day he might be attending Jack’s wedding.
Max’s own happiness was big enough to encompass them all today, not just the Harkness family all around him but the very orchard and the trees beyond. He could feel his benevolence spreading as wide as Tarker’s Hollow.
And then the melody of the guitar slipped into the wedding march and he lost track of himself, eyes riveted on the back door of the stucco farm house as it opened slowly, so slowly.
Sarah came to him softly as a cloud, radiant
in a white satin gown that looked like it had been tailor-made just for her. Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she grew closer.
Max hardly heard the words of the ceremony. He repeated the phrases he was supposed to, though in his mind they all meant only one thing:
I love you. I will never leave you. You are mine and I am yours. Forever.
At last it was time for their kiss.
He pulled her close, the bear growling with satisfaction in his head as he pressed his lips to hers.
Their friends and family cheered.
Orson promptly began to cry.
“Jealous of the spotlight, huh, buddy?” Max asked, taking the boy from his mother.
Orson stopped crying and looked up at Max, wonder on his tiny face, his bow-like mouth open in a ponderous “o” as he explored his father’s already-stubbly cheek with a tiny hand as soft as a flower petal.
When Sarah wrapped an arm around Max’s shoulder he realized he’d been so enraptured with his son that he hadn’t taken a breath.
“I love him so much,” he whispered, still gazing into the boy’s bright eyes.
“He’s one lucky boy,” she whispered back.
“No,” Max said, turning to her. “I’m the lucky one.”
Sarah smiled, her eyes sparkling with tears. “I guess we’re a lucky family.”
“Kiss her again, or let’s go eat,” Max’s dad called out to them. “You can’t stare at her all day.”
Kate Harkness laughed her belly laugh and the others followed suit.
Sarah grinned and Max pulled her in for another warm kiss.
For the record, he was pretty sure he could stare at her all day. But today there was home cooked food to be eaten, a baby to be fed and changed, funny stories to be told, and the life he’d always dreamed of, ready to begin.
* * *
***
Thanks for reading Crave This!
Keep reading for a sample of Charm This!: A 300 Moons Book.
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