“Where do the children come from?” George asked. When he’d come up here the first time with Thorn, a bear shifter who worked at the museum, they had witnessed the children putting up a teepee, but George couldn’t tell if they were local schoolkids or from out of town. Or maybe an organization such as Scouts.
“The local schools make good use of us. They sometimes come up here for a day or they camp out for one night. Other schools, those from more urban areas, come for four nights. Some of the kids have never run free in a forest before.” Luke’s enthusiasm shone through. “Some of them don’t know how to get dirty. But they soon learn.”
“If you have room for an old man like me, I’d love to get involved,” George said with a grin.
“You’re not old, George,” Luke said, placing his large hand on George’s shoulder. “I can see you’ve looked after yourself, and you’re a bear shifter, right?”
George chuckled. “According to my ex-students, I’ve been old since I hit thirty-five.”
“Hah! So that’s what I have to look forward to, talk about old before your time.” Luke turned to face George, a frown creasing his brow. “Are you all right, George?”
George rubbed the back of his neck, a prickly sensation crept up his spine and he shuddered as if he were coming down with something. “I’m fine.” He forced a smile on his face. “Where to next?”
Luke kept a close eye on George as he continued the tour. They walked around the perimeter of the large field and back toward the house. Luke spoke about the aims of the activity center and the role they play in helping disadvantaged kids. George focused intently on every word, but it was a challenge. The closer they got to the house, the worse the tingling along his spine became until his body ached to the core with every step.
“Let’s cut through Nana’s garden and go around to the buildings where we have the bathroom facilities and a large barn where we do various activities if the weather is really bad.” Luke opened a low wooden gate and they entered a meticulously kept garden filled to bursting with color. Although to the untrained eye it looked as if the plants were allowed to do their own thing, that was not the case. Everything was placed with incredible thought.
“Nana, she traced your family tree, right?” George asked. He forced the air into his lungs so he could speak. Perhaps he was an old man after all, and this would be too much for him.
Speak for yourself, his bear told him. Only last week we rode on the back of a dragon into the mountains. People don’t age overnight.
So what’s wrong? George asked his bear.
His bear mumbled something unintelligible and wandered out of his mind. George probed him for an answer, but all his bear said was, figure it out.
Figure what out?
“Yeah, well, our family tree. The Chance family tree. Nana is our adoptive mom. Although she always joked we adopted her.” Luke lifted his hand and waved at a woman who was knelt weeding the flower border. “She’s just gotten back from a vacation in China. She’s jet lagged, but I’ll introduce you.”
George hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “So she’s not your nana, you know, your grandma?”
Luke laughed. “No, she worked for my parents before...” His smile faltered. “Our parents both died in an accident. They were in a light aircraft when it came down in a storm in the mountains.”
“I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I taught Sage in high school, but she never spoke about it.” George dragged his attention back to Luke and forcefully kept it there, even though his senses wanted to run off in another direction like a stampede of horses.
“We don’t talk about it much. We’ve lived here all our lives, so all of our friends knew about it when it happened.” Luke’s voice weighed heavy with sadness. “We were lucky, Nana took us on. All three of us. Only now, as an adult working with kids, do I realize just how big a task that was. She sacrificed her life for us.”
George and Luke approached Nana, who climbed to her feet as they approached. A jolt of recognition hit George. It wasn’t reciprocated in Nana, who looked at him with a hint of suspicion before she smiled and approached the two men.
“You must be George.” Nana held out her hand, but George stalled, if he touched her, he wasn’t sure if fireworks would go off. Either in his head or if they would magically fill the sky as the universe rejoiced in the fact this old bear had found his mate.
“I am.” He looked at her hand, and then at her face before stuttering, “George, I am George.”
You sound like an imbecile, his bear told him frankly. As if he didn’t know.
“George, this is Nana.” Luke looked between them with some amusement. Was he aware of the effect Nana had on George? And if he was, did he understand why?
Nan frowned and cast a sideways glance at Luke before her hand dropped to her side. “Am I missing something?”
“I think we might both be missing something. Care to share, George?” Luke prodded George for an answer, even though George suspected he already knew.
“I…”
Man up, his bear told him.
“I think what George is trying to say is…you are his mate.” Luke put a hand on George’s shoulder. “Now I know what to expect when I see my mate for the first time.”
The small hand-fork Nana had been using to weed the flower borders dropped to the ground, bouncing on the grass. George instantly bent down, picked it up, and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” Nana swallowed hard before trying to force a smile onto her face, which failed. “Luke, you are such a romantic, we’re not mates.” Are we? her expression read, and George was certain she was praying the answer from his lips would be no.
He was about to disappoint his mate for the first, and probably not the last, time. “Yes. We are.”
Nana’s eyes misted with tears, but she blinked them away. “I never expected to be anyone's mate.”
“You deserve this, Nana, you truly do.” Luke hugged her close, holding her tight before he let her go and hugged George briefly. “You’d better look after her, George.”
“I will. I intend to.” George grinned like a fool. Nana must be wondering what kind of man she’d ensnared. Normally an eloquent speaker, George’s brain struggled to string two coherent words together and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Come on, we should go and tell the others. George, we can finish the tour later. I think it goes without saying that you will be a welcome member of the team. And the family.” Luke hugged Nana again and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You deserve so much happiness, Nana.”
George, transfixed by his mate, locked eyes with her over Luke’s shoulder, and her expression baffled him. If he had to guess, he’d say she didn’t believe she deserved happiness. But why?
He couldn’t ask her now, she obviously wanted to keep whatever it was hidden from Luke. But he swore he would convince Nana, a woman who took on three children and raised them as her own, that she was entitled to happiness. It now became his life’s work to make that come true.
Luke let Nana go and headed toward the house, calling his siblings. George smiled gently at Nana, wishing he could read her troubled mind. “Sorry, this happened so suddenly.”
Nana returned his smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “These things happen when they happen. Fate. That’s what shifters believe in, don’t they?”
“We do. Fate chooses a mate for us, and I don’t think fate has ever been wrong. If that’s any consolation,” George injected humor into his words. “You don’t believe in fate?”
Nana studied him for a moment as if trying to pierce his soul and see what was on the inside. See what made him tick. Then she yanked her gaze from him and looked across the garden to the young oak tree with its tired leaves. Summer was coming to an end. Fall would be upon them in a week or so before the sharp cold of winter took a firm grip and snow dusted the mountain and the bare trees slept.
“Your fate robbed three children of their parents.�
� Nana’s voice ached as she spoke. “Good people, loving people, who didn’t deserve to die.”
“Fate also gave those children you to look after them and raise them. From where I stand, you did an amazing job,” George told her. She hid her face from him…and more.
After years of teaching, George was a good judge of people. He’d developed a gut instinct that was near one hundred percent accurate at reading people. The sadness in Nana went deeper than she was willing to share. She might not believe in fate, but George had a sneaky feeling that very force had brought him into her life at the precise moment she needed him.
“I got lucky. They were already good kids, Kyle and Honor raised them well from the get-go, and I just held on for the ride.” Nana looked toward the house and then appeared to snap out of her reverie. “Why don’t you come and meet them all?”
“Nana.” He caught hold of her arm, the shock of recognition overpowering his senses. Nana’s head jerked back, and she locked eyes with him. If she hadn’t believed in the bond between true mates before, she did now. It was an undeniable force that connected them. “Your name means grace, doesn’t it?”
She inclined her head in agreement. “Not the most suitable name for a woman like me,” she said harshly.
“I don’t know about that. I don’t know about you. But I am here for you. No matter what.” He watched as her expression faltered and tears misted her eyes. An internal battle raged in Nana, and he wanted to reach inside her and make it right. However, trust had to be earned and she wasn’t going to pour her troubles out to a stranger, the set of her mouth told him that.
“You might wish fate had gotten this wrong,” she said cryptically. “You might wish we were not meant to be together.”
“But you do agree we are meant to be together. You felt it, too.” He cocked his head and smiled. “Admit it.”
A wave of relief swept across her face, which she instantly dismissed. “George, you seem like a nice man…”
His lips twitched at the corners. “I’m going to take that as a compliment, and as long as you are willing to give me a chance, us a chance, I don’t care what the but was you were going to say. I’m here for you, Nana.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek and she pressed herself closer, closing her eyes as if with relief that someone was there for her. He could not imagine how hard it must have been picking up three orphaned children and raising them alone.
But she wasn’t alone anymore.
Chapter Three – Nana
No one had ever known Nana. Not really known her. Not her parents. Not the Chances. And not the people she’d fallen into trouble with as a teenager.
It scared her to even imagine what it would be like to let someone in. To let them see the darkness that dwelled within her. With her barriers down she’d be exposed, open to judgment by a man who wanted to see the best in his mate.
She wasn’t worthy.
“Nana.” His touch, his voice, wanted to coax her away from the darkness and into the light. But the darkness would follow her. The darkness would taint her relationship with George. She’d tried to outrun it before. Until two weeks ago, she thought she’d succeeded. But the darkness had found her.
Vito Jerrell had found her. After more than twenty years, he’d found her, and threatened to blow apart the life she’d made here. A good life with people she loved.
“Let’s go inside.” Nana turned and walked away from the man who promised her happiness she didn’t deserve. How cruel was this fate he believed in?
The kitchen was buzzing with excitement as Nana entered with George following. He looked a little embarrassed when Marcus, Sage, and Luke descended on him with congratulations.
“I’m so happy for you, Nana,” Sage said, kind of wistfully, reminding Nana of all the shifters, in all the world, who desperately wanted to find their mate. A twinge of guilt twisted in her gut. If this had happened before her vacation, she’d probably have been happy, really happy, to have the chance to fall in love with a man who was tailor picked for her by fate.
But walking through the airport, on her way to a vacation of a lifetime, fate had sprung her past on her. Not that Nana had known in that instant, she hadn’t recognized the cruel heartless man who was about to bring her world crashing down around her.
“So when’s the wedding?” Sage asked as she fetched a bottle of homemade wine from the fridge and Luke got the wine glasses from the cupboard. “I know it’s early, but we need to celebrate properly.”
“We need to get to know each other first,” Nana forced herself to keep her voice light, while inside panic built until she thought she would explode. Her hand shook when Luke passed her a wine glass.
“Shaking with excitement,” Luke noted and winked at Nana.
“Shock, more like,” Nana replied, keeping her eyes averted from George.
Which she found increasingly difficult. Since that first touch. That first brief connection. Her body hummed with recognition as if they were perfectly in tune, resonating on the same level. A level so deep, it went beyond atomic. Unexpected, she wasn’t sure how to handle it. Not when she knew she wasn’t the right one for him.
But damn, he was a fine man. Silver threaded his hair, but few wrinkles creased his face, although he did have deep laughter lines. A twinkle in his eyes betrayed the reason. George was a man of light and humor. A good man. Too good.
“You’d better look after her, George,” Marcus warned. George put his shoulders back as if to square up to Marcus. Despite his age, George would be a formidable opponent, even to a much younger man. She suspected, if it came to a fight, George’s experience would compensate for Marcus’s youth.
Nana had no wish to see them fight and stepped forward, attempting to put herself between them. However, George thwarted her actions, thrust his arm out toward Marcus, and said, “If I don’t, you have every right to tear a strip off me with your claws and teeth.”
“You have a deal,” Marcus replied, grasping George’s hand and shaking it with enough strength to bring a lesser man to his knees.
“I am standing right here, you realize?” Nana huffed. Yet a warmth flowed through her body as she allowed the love in the room, aimed at her, to wash over her. If only she could be the person, they deserved.
“We know.” Marcus wrapped his strong arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “We all want you to be happy, Nana.”
George eyed Marcus with veiled jealousy as Marcus dropped a kiss on his mom’s cheek. This sure was going to take some getting used to. No man had ever loved her for herself before. Sure, the kids did, the love shared between Nana and Marcus, Sage and Luke was unconditional.
Or was it? If they learned the truth about the woman who raised them, they might pull back from her, disown her even.
Damn Vito, he should have stayed under whatever rock he’d been hiding all this time.
“Lost you again,” George said, touching her arm gently, but he might as well have slapped her across the face because she jumped as if she had been struck.
All eyes fixed on her. Had she yelped like a wounded animal?
“I was daydreaming.” She took a sip of wine to steady her frayed nerves. “This is all sudden and I’m struggling.” She put her hand to her head. “I’ll feel better once I sleep off this jet lag.”
“Of course,” George looked at her with concern and she could hardly bear it, it was as if he could look into her soul and see the blackness there. “I’ll leave. You need to rest.” He placed his glass down on the countertop. “Luke, maybe I should come back some other time.”
Luke frowned and studied Nana before his expression cleared and he said, “Sure, why not come back tonight? We can all have dinner together.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” George said, but the hope in his eyes was painful to see. She had to end this, crush his hope and make him see he would be better off alone than with her.
However, when she opened her mouth to tell him it wasn’t a good i
dea, she heard herself say, “I’d like that. I’m certain I’ll be feeling better by then.”
Time to face the truth, Nana thought as she walked George out to his car. She wanted him in her life, she wanted to take hope from his presence. More than that, she wanted to keep this life she adored with people she loved. Why should a man such as Vito Jerrell destroy her happiness?
George opened his car door and rested his hand on it as he took in their surroundings. “You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
“This was all already here, I don’t take credit for it.” Nana hugged herself as if clinging on to the person she’d become when she moved here to Chance Heights. She refused to let it slip away, she had to fight for what she believed in, for what she loved.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” George told her gently. “You raised those kids from a young age. Kids don’t raise themselves to be young responsible adults. Take credit where it’s due.”
Nana pressed her lips together and fought to stop the tears that threatened to roll down her cheeks. “Their parents set the foundations. I just added food and water.”
George let go of the car and closed the space between them. He stood so close she could feel the heat of his body, he smelled of pine forests and bear. Yes, she’d smelled that faintly musky scent enough to recognize it anywhere.
He reached to stroke her hair back from her face and cocked his head to one side. “You know you can tell me anything and I’ll never tell another soul.”
Nana jerked her head backward. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked defensively.
“It means if there’s anything troubling you. Anything that you don’t want to share with anyone else…I’m here for you.” His mouth turned up at the corners, but he didn’t smile. “Sorry, I shouldn’t pry. We’ve just met and I’m pushing you too hard.”
Silverback History Bear Page 2
