“I know this won’t make any sense to you, but you have to listen to me,” he said.
He was right; it didn’t make any sense at first.
Chapter Three
One year later
FINAL NOTICE.
I groaned at the words in front of me. The electric was scheduled to be shut off in six days if I did not come up with nearly two months’ worth of payment. I threw the bill down on the coffee table and took a sip of my hot cup of store brand coffee, which I could hardly afford anymore.
What was I going to do? This was the third final notice I’d received that week. The gas bill and my rent final notices had already reared their ugly heads. And now I could add the power bill to that pile.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes, rubbing them hard with both hands. I felt that if I rubbed them hard enough then maybe I would wake up from this nightmare I found myself in. The money was gone. It was all gone and I was practically broke.
Damn Josh Thorn. Damn him to hell.
I sat there thinking about that night of the attack and how everything had just fallen apart since then. It was not my fault, any of it, but somehow, I was being punished for everything. Life was not fair, but this was beyond acceptable. This was just… punishment.
The night that Josh attacked me was just the beginning of a downward spiral in my life. After the attack, Derek comforted me and explained to me all about the fact that shifters were real and they were all over the place. Most were solid, good people like him, but some were evil just like regular people, and those evil ones did horrible things and abused the power that was given to them.
Derek was born a shifter. Several members of his family were bear shifters as well, but he also explained that there were wolf shifters, bear shifters, and rarer still multi-shifters who were able to shift into any form they wanted, as long as it was a living creature of course.
If I hadn’t been in such a weakened state of mind and I hadn’t been through what I had just gone through, then I never would have believed what he was telling me. It was bizarre, absurd. How the hell could things like that exist in this world we lived in?
But I had no choice but to believe him. Especially when he explained the severity of my injury that Josh had inflicted on me. I had forgotten all about it as I was being caught up in the story and the aftermath of the terror I’d just been subjected to. But when he mentioned it I noticed that it was no longer hurting. I looked over at my bloody arm, expecting to see the skin horribly mangled.
My arm no longer had a gash on it. It was perfectly healed. There was nothing there except some blood on my shirt.
Derek explained to me that if you were ever bitten or scratched by a shifter then the curse would be transferred on to you as well. I was a bear shifter now. There was no cure unless I wanted to die.
Over the coming weeks, Derek took me under his wing and taught me how to manage the shift and how it would impact my life. Parts of it were fascinating and some parts were terrifying, but really it was just like anything else that one learned to live with.
The horror Josh Thorn had put on me was far worse than the curse of the shift. With the damage done to the office and the fact that Josh had jumped out the window and survived a fall like that, there was no way to even get anyone to believe me that he had attacked me. Even without telling them he was a bear, which no one ever would have believed, except maybe his uncle but he would never have entertained such a story to anyone.
Josh was going to get away with what he’d done. It was our word against his, and there was no way that anyone was going to believe either me or Derek.
Josh was not to be denied. He did not want to come after me any longer, knowing that I was now a bear shifter as well, he was going to go after easier prey. But he would attack me in the Josh Thorn way.
I will never know how he did it, but he set both me and Derek up for embezzlement. We could have both faced twenty years in jail as he was hoping for, but luckily Walter Pierce had a bigger heart and he let us both go instead. But our careers were ruined. Walter and his team of attorneys had our law licenses revoked. On top of that, Josh blackballed us all over town so that we could not even get entry level jobs in any law firm anywhere.
We were through. And we were both lucky that we weren’t facing time in prison, mostly because the money was located still in our off-shore accounts that neither of us had set up. The firm got all of the money back and the punishments were dished out to us.
I’d been desperately trying to land a teaching job at a university or college, but not even community colleges were interested in us. The partners had tried to keep the story quiet, but Josh leaked it to the press and bloggers and reporters had a field day trashing our names.
My career was over. It took me a long time to accept it, but that was the truth.
Now I was just desperately trying to find any decent paying job. I was focusing more on my counseling degree nowadays, but it was not working out very well. I was just coming up empty handed repeatedly.
And I was out of options and out of money. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
If it wasn’t for Derek I probably would have gone mad. Ah ,yes-- Derek. He had been such a great friend to me through all of this and we had leaned on each other a lot over the past year. He was just about the best person that I knew.
I had actually known Derek for a while before the night of the attack. We first met when we were law students and hit it off right away. I knew that Derek had always had a crush on me, but I was happy to keep it just friendly. I did not really see Derek that way, which surprised a lot of my girlfriends.
Derek was sexy. He was about six feet one inches tall, broad shouldered, brown hair with a reddish tinge to it and a laughter that made him sound older than he was somehow.
He was so sweet, and he was as loyal a guy as you would ever find. But he was missing something that I could not put my finger on. He was missing the extra factor that drew me to someone. The factor that Frank had. You have feelings for some people and others you just don’t feel that chemistry with.
Luckily, Derek seemed to get that and he had never really pushed for anything more to happen between us, but I occasionally saw him gushing over me or checking me out a little inappropriately. It was pretty sweet and flattering, so I pretended not to notice.
I turned to my family photo album in my phone and pulled up the latest picture I had of my mom. She died of cancer when I was twelve and my dad left my mom and me when I was five. I wondered sometimes where he might be and what he was doing.
My mom was never able to track him down. I guess if you want to disappear badly enough in this world then you can do it. He might have been dead for all I knew.
But I had no family left. I was about to get kicked out of my place. There would be nowhere to go for me and baby Devon. The tears began to pour down my cheeks as I looked at the last healthy picture I have of my mother.
She was always so strong. Even with everything she went through she never complained. She always said it was like waiting for the circumstances of life to change and that never worked. You had to work with what you had and make your moves based on that.
I had always worked that way too, but right then I was about as low as I had ever felt and I felt completely alone.
The door opened right then.
I quickly wiped the tears away from my eyes with my hand. I never let anyone see me cry ever. That was another thing I learned from my mom. She always said if you didn’t act upset about things then other people wouldn’t either. Or at least they would never know what you were up to.
A second later Derek came bouncing into the living room. He was wearing his hooded sweatshirt and looked a bit sweaty. I didn’t know why he always came to my place after he finished training clients and was still hot and sweaty. I was on the way to his place and all, but it was still kind of gross I thought.
Derek had recently started his own personal training business. He had always been a bit of a
gym rat and he decided after every other door had been slammed in his face that he would try that. So far he was up to five clients and starting to see a bit of a profit.
I was impressed by his ambition. He was even toying with going back to school to study something else.
“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked as he plopped down on my couch.
“Oh, just looking at the beautiful world of late bills,” I said.
“Ouch, I’ve been to that world and it sucks.”
“Well, at least you have a job,” I reminded him.
“No, see I don’t have a job. I have an enterprise,” he said with a wide smile on his face.
I couldn’t help but laugh. The guy was such a character.
“Well, you have income at least. We can say that. But I’d hardly say you have an enterprise. When you own your own chain of fitness centers then you can say you have an enterprise.”
“No, I’m saying it now,” he joked. “You gotta think big.”
“And by thinking big you mean delusional,” I said.
“One man’s delusion is another man’s reality,” he replied.
“Only if they are sharing the same delusion. Which is most people when you think about it,” I joked.
“So, I take it you have not heard back from any of the jobs you applied for?” He asked.
“Nope,” I said. “Most of them won’t even inform you that you are not going to be selected. It’s pretty pathetic, if you ask me.”
“Yea, they could at least take the time to pretend to have the common courtesy to tell you that you were not selected. It doesn’t take that long and it is the right thing to do. You took all that time to apply after all,” Derek said.
I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic. That was Derek’s thing; you could never tell if he was joking or just being a bit of a sarcastic jerk.
“You could always work with me,” Derek said. “I know I could get a lot more female clients if I had a woman as a partner. We could cover a lot more ground that way and make way more cash.”
“I don’t look like a fitness expert; I look like your clients.”
“What are you talking about? You look great.”
“Well, I know I look great, but most women are not as comfortable as me being a sexy BBW,” I joked. “Most of them want to get rid of curves for some stupid reason, not accentuate the ones they have like I do.”
“True,” Derek said. “There are a lot of women who want to be stick figures.”
I’d always been happy with being a curvier girl. I had everything that thin women had, but much more of it. And as far as I was concerned I was attractive. I’m not conceited, but I do think that I am attractive and the looks I usually receive from all types of men have confirmed this to me.
“Well, it’s probably a good thing or you would be out of business,” I teased. Derek laughed.
He picked up a magazine and started thumbing through it. I couldn't help but smile. I knew that Derek often came over to my place because his roommate Charles was a total dingbat and never shut up. But the man let Derek live there for only paying one-third of the rent.
I think that Charles thought Derek was going to give him free legal advice. For some reason, Charles was constantly having issues with family members who had to be in court to fight going to jail over various infractions.
“So, you got any plans for Christmas?” Derek asked.
I groaned at the thought. I was lucky that Devon was only twenty months old and didn’t understand anything about the concept of Christmas or presents. But I still felt like the worst mom in the world. The holidays were depressing when you didn’t have a family anyway, even though Stephanie would always invite me to her house for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“I’ll probably just sit here in total silence, if I figure out some way to get the rent paid,” I said.
“Wow, I’d love to help you out, but I’m broke as it is.”
“I wasn’t asking and I wouldn’t accept anyway,” I said.
“You have to learn to accept help sometimes, Jackie. As a mother, you can’t say no sometimes,” Derek reminded me. I hated when he did that. But I knew he was right. I was sure that I could sweet talk the landlord into letting us stay until after the holidays, but I did that with Thanksgiving and I still hadn’t had any money to give him. But what choice did I have?
“Well, what about coming with me for Thanksgiving?” Derek asked.
“What? Where are you going?”
“Oh, my family has rented out a cabin at this really sweet resort in West Virginia. We go to it every couple of years with the whole family. It’s kind of a special thing. I’m sure they’d love to have you.”
I was intrigued by the idea. I had never really met Derek’s family and getting away from everything for a while for the holidays did sound like something amazing to me. I wondered if they were all as fun to be around as he was. A week of that was sure to improve my spirits and afterwards I figured I could tackle life a bit more head on and reevaluate a few things. But I still wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to impose.
“It might be fun,” I said. “But do you think your parents will mind?”
“Of course not,” Derek said. “They would love it. Besides Tony is coming,” Derek said.
“Who’s Tony?” I asked.
“Tony Davis,” Derek said.
“The lawyer, Tony Davis?”
“That’s the guy.”
“Why is he coming? I didn’t realize that you guys knew each other that well,” I said.
“We don’t, but he started dating my sister Beth. She invited him,” Derek said with a smile.
“What? He started dating Beth?” I asked my heart sinking a bit.
“Well, they just started dating,” Derek replied.
I tried to hide the fact that I was so disappointed that Tony was dating Beth, especially in front of Derek. I couldn’t help but notice how he became very uncomfortable if I ever mentioned a man I was even remotely attracted to. Not that I had dated anyone since the ice age. During the past year, other things had become much more important.
“Does that matter?” Derek asked.
“No, I was just curious. I haven’t heard that name in a while. I went up against him in court on one of my last cases. He is a good lawyer.”
“Yea, but you still wiped the floor with him,” Derek joked. “That should make for some interesting conversation at Christmas Dinner.”
"I did not wipe the floor with him, but I did beat him," I said. It had been a hard-fought victory.
I wonder if he'd thought about me much at all since then like I'd occasionally thought about him. A few weeks after everything came out in the papers he contacted me by email. It was great to hear from him. He said that he did not believe those vicious lies for a second. He knew I was a woman of integrity and that I would never have done anything that I was accused of. He said if I needed a friend or needed to talk then he was there if I wanted to grab that beer.
I did want to meet with him. I wanted to thank him for the kind words and for having faith in me even though he didn’t really know me that well. But I felt so ashamed. I didn’t want to drag him into it and risk Josh attacking him too. The man’s reach seemingly knew no bounds. He had destroyed my life and Derek’s among countless others over the years. One day he would pay, but I just didn’t know when that would be.
Tony was a good man, I could feel it. If I’d met him at a different time in my life, then things might have been very different. He reminded me of Frank in a lot of ways. They had a lot of the same mannerisms and way of speaking. I doubted it, but it didn’t matter anyway. He was dating Beth. I wondered if I could make it through Christmas dinner without strangling her for being with Tony.
“So, you gonna come?” Derek asked.
I was hesitant and I did not want to commit, but I found myself saying yes anyway. At this point, anything sounded better than spending the holidays with just me and the baby there.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
It felt good to commit to this trip. It was like taking a much-needed step forward on a brand new path.
I just had no idea where that path would lead.
Chapter Four
“Well, you didn’t say that friend of yours was so pretty!”
Those were the first words I heard as I grabbed my suitcase from the back of the car and sat it down on the ground. The voice belonged to a woman in her early fifties, whom I assumed was Derek's mother. She was a very attractive woman who had kept herself in great shape, despite having two kids. She was about five feet seven, slender but athletic, and long, flowing brunette hair. She was the kind of mom that I'm sure got Derek more friends than he ever did, simply because he was the kid with the hot mom.
I smiled at the compliment as the woman extended her hand. Her grip was smooth and yet strong. It was like she was one of those people who never really seemed to age.
“I’m Debra, Derek’s mother,” she said shaking my hand. “You will have to excuse my rude son for not introducing me.”
Derek was standing beside me with his mouth open as if he’d just been insulted.
“Mom we just pulled in. I haven’t even got my suitcase out of the car and you are already putting me down about my manners. I’m starting to remember why I left home.”
Before I could work out if he was serious or not he grabbed his mother in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground. She threw her head back laughing. I could tell instantly that was a common greeting with them and I felt a twinge of sadness for the fact that my own mom was not there. She had never even got to see me finish growing up. I often wondered if she would have been proud of me.
“I’m Jackie,” I said.
“Oh, yes. Derek has told us so much about you,” Debra said.
“Oh, well I’m probably in trouble now,” I joked.
“No, he only tells us the good things, I swear,” she joked.
Devon cried out just then. It was just a soft giggle of a whine. I imagined he was wet and needed to be fed. I grabbed him out of his car seat and held him close to me.
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