by Zoe Chant
"What do we do?" Remy asked. "Boil water, right?"
"No, that'll come later. This isn't like what you've seen on TV. The most useful thing you can do right now is go unpack Alec's truck so I have my things. And, you—" She pointed to Axl and Tara. "Go get some blankets from your house. We're going to need extras. Er, no, wait ..." She paused, realizing a few sentences too late that she'd just started ordering everyone around, and looked at Alec. He was the alpha here. She needed to start getting used to that.
Alec smiled one of his little half-smiles. "You're the expert," he said. "That means you're the boss. What are your instructions, boss?"
She returned his smile, finding it contagious as always. "You two, unpack the truck," she said, pointing in turn to Alec and Cody. "Remy, while Axl and Tara get blankets, you can help me and Saffron get the house ready to be a comfortable place for her to labor."
"What sort of things do we need to do to the house?" Saffron asked, her eyes wide.
Looking at her, Charmian could see that she was scared. Most first-time moms-to-be were.
"There will be a lot of work for you later," Charmian said gently, squeezing her hand. "But right now, the most important thing is to stay busy doing something you enjoy. What I mean, Saffron, is that we are going to decorate your house."
***
In the growing light of a spring dawn, Charmian sat on the half-finished porch of Remy and Saffron's house, swinging her legs, and watched the sky turning pink over the mountains.
She was buzzing with energy as if she'd just had twelve cups of coffee, but she knew from past experience that she was still riding the tail end of a long, busy night. Soon she'd crash and sleep.
But right now, she watched the clouds above the mountains begin to develop a limning of gold on their eastern edge. Inside the house, Saffron and Remy were both fast asleep with their new baby boy. He was a big baby, as befitted a bear shifter's child, although it was much too early to know yet if he would take after his father or his mother in shifter type. Saffron and Remy hadn't settled on a name yet.
There would be time for that.
There would be time for everything.
The rest of the clan had drifted off to their respective houses. Charmian wasn't sure where Alec was. The guys, aside from Remy, had stayed out of the way during the actual birth, but as the baby's thin wail split the air, Alec had come into the room. Neither Remy nor Saffron seemed to find it odd for him to be there, so Charmian decided it must be a shifter thing. She was sure of it when Alec knelt beside Saffron's bed and took the newborn baby, the newest member of his clan, into his arms for a long moment. And for that moment, the newborn stopped crying, as if the two of them were sharing an unspoken communion.
Alec had given the baby back to Saffron and got up without looking at anyone. Wordlessly, he'd left. Charmian hadn't even thought of going after him; she had been much too busy measuring and weighing the baby, testing its reflexes, and going through all the other small tasks that were a midwife's job to do.
But now her job was done. There would still be things she could help with in the days, weeks, and months to come, but for now, there was nothing more she needed to do—nothing more she could do. The baby was with his parents, and Charmian sat on the porch in the dawn chill, watching the sky brighten and waiting for the sun.
Movement in the yard drew her attention away from the sky. Someone was walking toward her. For an instant, she thought it was Alec, but immediately discarded the thought, even before she got a better look. She had come to know Alec so intimately by now that she could pick him out at any distance by his stance and the way he walked. This person was a big guy, like Alec, but he moved all wrong to actually be Alec.
She didn't know him, but as he got closer, she guessed who he might be. He was wearing a rawhide vest, open over the chest, and his dark hair was long and loose, falling to his shoulders. A twisting scar slashed across his face. There was only one member of the clan she hadn't met yet, and this had to be him.
As he walked toward her, the sun slipped over the edge of the world, and suddenly he was haloed in wan, cool morning sunshine. He stopped ten feet or so from the porch, and gazed at her, head tilted slightly.
"Hi," she said. "I'm Charmian, Alec's mate. Are you Gannon?"
Gannon gave a small nod. There was something about him that reminded her a little of Alec, Charmian decided. He had a similar economy of movement, a similar sense of coiled power or, perhaps, anger, hidden under the placid surface. Still, she also sensed there was nothing in him to be afraid of.
"I heard Alec had found his mate." His voice, when he spoke, was rough, the voice of someone who didn't talk much. "And there was a baby born tonight."
"Remy and Saffron's baby, yes." Charmian smiled. "It's a boy."
"A boy." Gannon's smiles were even more subtle than Alec's, barely touching his lips at all, but warming his dark eyes. "This clan's got a lot of boys. Need to have a girl next time."
"Hey, don't tell me that," Charmian said, laughing. "Talk to Tara. She hasn't said anything yet, but I think she might be expecting now, too." She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh, God. Forget I said that. It really isn't my place, and I might be wrong anyway." Although she didn't think she was. She'd spent most of her adult life around pregnant women, and she recognized the subtle signs of a woman who was carrying around that kind of secret, not quite ready to share it with the world yet.
"I won't tell anyone," Gannon agreed, his face serious. "I'm good at keeping secrets."
She'd just bet he was. "Well, anyway, if you came to see the baby, everyone's asleep right now. You could come back a little later today, when they've had some time to rest, and I'm sure they'd be happy to let you hold him."
He actually took a physical step backwards. "No. I'm not good with babies. But ..." He hesitated. "Tell them ... it's good. I'm happy for them. Tell the baby, welcome to the world."
"I will," she promised. "And it's nice to meet you at last."
Gannon's head moved in an acknowledging dip, and he started to turn away.
"Gannon?"
He looked over his shoulder.
"Do you have any idea where Alec might have gone? I'd like to find him, and I'm not sure where he is."
Gannon was silent in thought for a few moments. "Try the river. He goes there a lot to think."
The river. Come to think of it, they'd driven along the river canyon getting up to the ranch, so it must be around here somewhere. When she listened, she could very faintly hear the sound of rushing water amid the other morning sounds of bird songs and distant lowing cattle, but she couldn't identify where it was coming from.
"How do I get there?"
Gannon pointed. "There's a path, over there."
"Thank you."
He gave another of those little nods, and strolled off.
Charmian got up and stretched her aching limbs. She was starting to feel her exhaustion, but her desire to find Alec was more pressing than the need for sleep. She should probably check the house first, though, before she went on a wild goose chase down by the river.
When she looked around for Gannon, he'd vanished like a wraith in the morning mist rising from the pasture.
Charmian wandered up to the main house. "Alec?" she called softly. There was no response, and the house had an empty, unlived-in feeling. Cody didn't seem to be here either. He must be out tending to the cattle.
Brisk scratching from the bathroom let her know that she wasn't completely alone. Charmian let Bucket out. The little dog danced around her feet and raced off to the front door, wagging his tail.
"Yes, okay, you need a walk. Let's try a walk down to the river, why don't we?"
She retrieved his leash and let him out. There was no sign of the other dogs, but she still kept an eye out. Bucket, perhaps reacting to the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, stayed near her feet even without the leash, so she didn't bother clipping it to his collar. The nearest highway where a car might hit him was
miles and miles away, and he wasn't the kind of dog who was prone to running away.
She walked around the back side of Saffron and Remy's house, looking for the path Gannon had mentioned. There were a number of paths cutting across to various outbuildings, but the sound of the river was louder here, and eventually she followed that, rather than any particular path, until the ground dropped away under her feet.
"Oh dear," she murmured, and clipped Bucket's leash to his collar after all. The cliff wasn't completely sheer, but she really didn't want to try to climb down it. Peering over the edge, she saw rocky outcrops, tangles of brush, and far below, the whitewater of a small mountain river dancing over boulders.
Did Gannon mean all the way down there? Maybe Alec just came here to sit on the edge and look down ...
"Are you looking for something?"
Charmian flinched and gave a tiny yelp. "You, actually," she said as Alec emerged from a grove of low, wind-stunted trees. "Gannon thought you might be at the river."
"Gannon's here?"
"He was. Earlier. He came to see the baby. I don't know how he knew."
Alec leaned down to scruff between Bucket's ears when the little dog ran up to his feet, tail wagging. "He probably heard or smelled something. Gannon spends a lot of time prowling around the ranch as his bear. Keeps predators away from the cattle ... and other threats, too. Some hired thugs came here last year looking for Axl's mate, Tara. After that, Gannon stepped up the patrols, I think."
"Thugs?" Charmian said, surprised. Tara seemed so inoffensive, she couldn't imagine who would want to hurt her.
Alec waved off the question. "Long story. She'll tell you someday, if she wants you to know. It's over now anyway. So don't be surprised if you see a big dark bear with a scar on his face somewhere around the ranch, is what I'm saying."
After what she'd seen Alec heal from, she wondered what on Earth could have happened to Gannon to leave a scar like that. It wasn't her place to ask, though, even if Alec knew.
Instead she said, "Good to know." She leaned against him and looped an arm around his waist. "And how are you?"
"Me?" Alec looked down at her. "Why?"
"Most people don't go off to brood if they don't have something to brood about. It's none of my business, though. You don't have to talk about it."
After a moment without a reaction, he pulled her more tightly against him. "Want to see the river?"
"I ... guess?"
Alec released his hold on her, but took her hand and led her back the way he'd come. Bucket ran around them, tangling the leash with their legs until Alec reached down to unclip him.
"Are you sure he'll be okay?" Charmian asked.
"He'll be okay. You'll see."
The grove of trees turned out to be the start of a well-worn path that led down into the canyon. Alec had a point: it didn't seem very dangerous. Brush and rocks sheltered them from the drop-off, and the path was wide and clear. It was evident that someone came down here frequently. Or ... perhaps not people, Charmian mused, noticing the many small, cloven-hoofed tracks on the path in front of them.
"Deer?" she asked.
"Deer, occasionally cattle, whatever needs a drink."
The roar of the water grew louder as they descended. It was even chillier down here, shadowed from the sun, and Charmian wished she'd thought to pick up a jacket back at the house.
But it was worth it when they emerged onto a broad sandbar beside the river. The air smelled incredibly fresh, filled with the spray from the cascading white water. Charmian tilted back her head, looking up the twisting canyon that seemed to go straight back into the mountains' heart. The upper peaks were in sunshine, the lower parts shaded with deep blue shadows.
Bucket ran yapping to the water's edge. He tried to dip his muzzle into the water, but got a splash of water in the face and started snapping at the whitecaps instead. Charmian watched him for a moment to make sure he wasn't going to try to wade in, but he seemed to be wary enough of the rushing white water not to try. With his usual flea-sized attention span, he dashed off to sniff some rocks instead.
Alec leaned down and picked up a rock. "You find fossils down here sometimes, washed down from higher up the canyon. And all kinds of interesting rocks. There's a fireplace in Tara and Axl's house that's made with river rocks. There used to be one in the main house, too, but my dad tore it out and put in the modern stove for more efficient heating."
"I dunno, I'd rather have the fireplace." She crouched down and poked at the beach rocks. Alec was right; they were lovely—an infinite diversity of shape, size, and color.
"You might think that, 'til you try going through one of our winters with nothing but a fireplace for heat."
She looked up. "The wood stove isn't your only source of heat, is it?"
"No, there's also a furnace, but the stove is just about the only thing that can really knock the chill off the air in that big, drafty house."
Charmian couldn't help laughing. "Okay, so now that I've agreed to move in and moved all my stuff up here, now's when the caveats come out, huh?"
Alec looked briefly startled; then he slowly smiled back. "Well, you already know the road's terrible and I'm going to come back to the house smelling like cows on a regular basis."
"Somehow I think I'll survive."
She sat down on a wide, flat boulder beside the river. Alec joined her, and idly tossed rocks into the whitewater. Having gotten tired of sniffing around, Bucket jumped up onto the rock next to her and flopped down alertly by her leg, with his ears pricked.
"It's taking some getting used to," Alec said.
"What is?" Charmian asked. "Me?"
"No! No. Never you." He reached for her hand and took it, rubbing his thumb across the back. "Okay ... maybe a little, just because I'm not really used to sharing this much of my life with someone. But I've never really felt that way about you."
"What way?"
"Unsure," he said. "No, that's not the right word, either. The thing about you is, from the time I first saw you, I knew exactly what I wanted. I just had to convince myself it was all right to go for it. With Tara and Saffron, though ..."
He fell silent, gazing at the water. Charmian gave his hand a gentle, encouraging squeeze.
"I resented them," he said at last. "Isn't that terrible? They're both wonderful women, and they make Axl and Remy so happy. It's not that I was jealous. It's that I resented them for coming into my neat, well-ordered life and turning it upside down. I wanted everything to stay exactly the same as it had been, ever since ..."
He trailed off again. "Ever since your parents died?" Charmian supplied gently.
Alec nodded slowly. "And the worst part is, over the years I've come to recognize that my father wasn't a good man. He was a brutal, abusive tyrant. Oh, he was never that bad. Not the kind of thing that would get the county involved, or anything. But he enforced his will with his fists, and he never tolerated anyone disagreeing with him or criticizing him. That was the only model I had for what a man was supposed to be like."
Charmian leaned her head against his shoulder and clasped his hand between both of hers. "You're not your father, Alec. You're so much better than that."
"You make me believe that I can be," he said slowly. "You ... and my clan, who've been willing to put up with me as I've figured out, one step at a time, how to be an alpha that doesn't mean relying on everything I learned from my father. Or, I guess I should say, how to take the best parts of my father and make something better out of them. It was always easier for Axl and the cousins. They don't have to be in charge. I do. And the only way of being a leader I ever learned was to beat people senseless if they wouldn't follow my orders. I sometimes wonder if I'm still doing it wrong, if I've given them too much slack and they don't respect me because of it."
"Alec," she said, tightening her hands around his. "Can't you see how much they respect you? How much they like you? Maybe you didn't see the looks on Remy and Saffron's faces when you approved of
their baby, but I did. If your clan argues with you, it's only because they care about you and don't want to see you make bad decisions."
"It is a little different for shifters than for humans, you know," he reminded her. "You don't have alphas or clans. We're instinctively programmed to obey the clan alpha. And, for those of us who are the alpha, we expect to be obeyed."
Charmian laughed. "Obviously you haven't seen me around the clinic often enough, if you think that's a shifter-only thing."
"I know you're trying to make me feel better, but it is different."
"I'll take your word for it," she conceded. "But you have to take my word for it that it's not that different. Humans still have leaders and hierarchies. I was an only child, and I was on my own most of the time since my dad spent all his time running his veterinary practice and Mom helped him with it. For me, being part of a close-knit family like yours is hard. I don't know how I'm going to deal with having other people getting up in my business all the time."
Alec pulled back his thousand-yard stare from the mountains and glanced down at her. "I didn't know you felt that way."
"I haven't really wanted to admit it, either. We're so happy, just the two of us. But I know that you're a package deal. You come with your clan. I've managed to learn to bend enough to let you in, and not try to be the boss all the time. But I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with them."
"And now?" he said quietly.
Charmian smiled up at him. "Now, I know I can. I might need space sometimes. I'm glad I've still got the clinic to get away to. But last night, with Remy and Saffron ... you know, Alec, I've delivered a lot of babies over the years. And there's always a certain energy to being part of the birthing process. But then I leave. I might see the mother and child around a little after that—follow-up appointments, and chance meetings in town. But I've spent my whole life being an intimate part of a lot of families' lives for a few short months, and then moving on. Last night, Alec ... last night was the first time I stayed. This is the first time I'll actually be part of the baby's life. I'll get to see him take his first steps, and go to his birthday parties, and watch him grow up. I never realized how much I've missed being part of that with the other babies I've delivered."
