by Viola Rivard
Carly nodded and looked down at her hands. “It’s just… I was kind of hoping I’d be able to see him this morning. Maybe have breakfast with him, or something. I’ve been here two days and I’ve barely seen him.”
Taylor wasn’t sure what to say, and she was glad when Carly continued talking.
“I thought… Well, I hoped that he’d at least want to get to know me.” She waved a hand as if to banish what she’d just said. “Listen to me whining. It’ll take time. I know that. I just need to be more patient.”
Changing the subject, Taylor said, “So, you seemed to get along well with Silas last night.”
Carly’s lips formed a weak smile. “Yeah. He was nice.”
“Just nice?”
She shrugged. “Just nice.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, picking at her thumbnail. “I did like him, a lot. But he was… Eh, it’s difficult to explain. I don’t think you would understand.”
Taylor frowned. “Try me.”
Carly continued picking at her nails, not looking up as she spoke. “It’s like this. When a guy is being nice to you, it’s because he’s interested. For me, he’s just being polite. That’s what happened last night. Silas was being polite.”
Taylor had thought the same thing, but she couldn’t very well tell Carly that.
“I don’t know…”
“Believe me,” Carly said. “Guys that look like him aren’t interested in girls that look like me.”
“I said the same thing when I met Alder, but here we are. And believe me, I am not all that pretty. I’ve got scars and my stretch marks have stretch marks.”
Carly let out a small laugh. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you and I aren’t in the same league, Taylor.”
Again, Taylor found herself at a loss for words. She was so accustomed to feeling fat and plain next to her female pack mates that it felt weird for another woman to think she was beautiful. It also made her uncomfortable to hear Carly disparaging herself.
Carly said, “Henry’s dad was so good looking. Blonde hair, gorgeous eyes, perfect body. The kind of guy that just seeing him made you rethink everything you’ve ever wanted. Or maybe that’s just me.”
Taylor shook her head. “No. I’ve been there.”
Carly’s eyes turned distant as she thought back. “He was nice, too. Nice, like Silas. Like most other hot guys I’ve met in my life. He’d come into the bar where I worked every night, sit in the corner, and order himself a gin and tonic with mint. He was nice, but his eyes were sad. Not in a way like, where you ask what was wrong. It was a vague sort of sadness, the kind you get when life is just a little too much. The kind that every girl thinks she can fix.
“I think that, more than anything, was what drew me to him. I remember thinking, what does a guy who looks like him have to be sad about? Which is ignorant, I know. Anyway, I’d flirt with him sometimes. A lot of times. He was nice about it, but we both knew I didn’t have a chance. Still, I kept at it, because even though I knew it was hopeless, if felt nice just to pretend. And then, there’s always that thought in the back of your mind. Maybe I’ll wear him down.”
Carly laughed again, but this time it was bitter, and she paused to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes.
“I was obsessed with him. I thought about him constantly. I divided time between times when he was there and times that he wasn’t. Finally, after a few weeks, I couldn’t take it anymore. It was messing up my life, so I thought I’d just tell him how I felt and the worst that could happen was that I scared him off and then it would be over, I could move on. So one night, I sat across from him and I told him, I know what you are and I don’t care. I like you.”
Taylor cocked her head. “But, Sarah said you didn’t know. Or at least, you weren’t sure.”
“I was ashamed,” Carly said, resting her head in her hands. “It was easier to say that he’d taken advantage of my naivety than to admit that I pursued him, that I got myself into the whole mess. The truth is, I’d known all along. We weren’t far from the reservation and even though he was good at hiding it, he was just too different.
“After I told him that, he didn’t bolt. He stayed as I closed up the bar and he told me everything. Everything but his name, anyway. He told me how he grew up around humans. He was a few years younger than me, though he didn’t look it. His mother raised him on her own. He’d never met other shifters, or at least, he only had in passing. He told me how hard it was, always having to hide what he was, and how he was thinking about going to live on the reservation, but he was afraid he wouldn’t know how to live on his own. We drank as we talked, and before I knew it, we were in the back room of the bar. He was so…”
She paused to glance at Belle, and then lowered her voice as she continued. “I’d had sex before, but not like that. It felt like, like he actually cared about me. Like I was more than just some tool he was using to gratify himself. Afterwards, I remember thinking that I would never settle for anything less than what we’d just done.”
Carly closed her eyes. “I fell in love with him that night. Then, the next morning, he was gone. Every night, I waited for him to come back. Waited like a dog. I took extra shifts just so I wouldn’t miss him if he came back. He hadn’t even said goodbye to me, but I would have forgiven him in an instant if he’d walked through that door. Of course, he didn’t.”
Tears were leaking from Carly’s eyes, and Taylor put a hand on her back to soothe her. “I’m so sorry.”
“The most pathetic thing is that I still want what I had with him. My shining example of epic romance is a one night stand with a man whose name I didn’t know, and who left me pregnant.”
At that, Taylor couldn’t help but pull her in for a hug. Carly melted against her at once, at first embracing Taylor and then, perhaps out of concern for Belle, moving to rest her head in Taylor’s lap.
For the first time, Taylor saw Carly for what she was—a young woman who was desperately in need of love and guidance. She didn’t know Carly’s whole story, but it was plain to see that there were no shortage of people who had failed her. Taylor’s instinct was to tell herself that she had no responsibility for that. She had her own shit to work through, all while doing her best to raise her children well. How could she take on the burden of supporting Carly as well?
But how couldn’t she? Carly was family. If Hale, of all people, could see that and take it upon himself to help her, then Taylor had to step up as well.
She stroked Carly’s hair, waiting until Carly’s tears had subsided before she spoke to her.
“I think you could be happy here,” Taylor told her. “I get what you’re saying about Silas. Maybe he’s not totally into you, but if he’s willing to mate with you regardless, then you should do it. No matter how you both feel now, after you’re mated, things will be different. Having a mate is more than just a sense of obligation. It’ll change you both on a chemical level. It’s a really powerful bond.”
After a pensive pause, Carly said, “He did invite me to come to his den tonight, but I didn’t give him an answer. I wasn’t sure what he was expecting from me.”
“I doubt it’s sex, if that’s what you’re thinking. Wolves are nocturnal, so it’s not weird that he’s asking you to come over at night. He probably just wants to get to know you in his own den. I’d bet he was really uncomfortable last night, being in the den of another pack.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that. Well, I guess I’ll go, then.” She sat up slowly. “The truth is, when Sarah proposed this, all I was thinking about was Henry. I haven’t actually considered that I might be committing to a serious relationship.”
“You’ll have time to get to know him,” Taylor assured her. “If things are moving too quickly for you, you can always spend some time at Halcyon while you figure out what you want.”
Carly’s smile was one of pure gratitude. Looking at her in that moment, Taylor could still see all o
f Carly’s physical flaws, but she also saw a great depth of love and kindness. Carly was a good person, probably a better person than Taylor, she thought. She knew that if Silas could look past the surface and see what she saw, he might very well fall in love with her.
“There is one more thing we have to talk about,” Taylor said. She’d given it a lot of thought, and had expected to be nervous, but she wasn’t. “First, I want to tell you what it was like to meet my birth mother.”
She took a deep breath before continuing. “She gave me up for adoption right after I was born. I didn’t know why until I was almost an adult, but frankly it doesn’t matter. I ended up having a serious heart condition and I bounced around to a lot of different foster homes, until I landed with a foster mom named Mrs. Smith. I was with her for years and she was amazing. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anyone at that point. But, it was always in the back of my mind that she wasn’t my real mother.
“I thought about my real mother a lot. I wanted to know what she looked like, what she smelled like, and what her laugh sounded like. It was especially bad whenever Mrs. Smith and I were fighting, or when she had a rule I didn’t like. I always had this fantasy that my real mom wouldn’t make me clean out the barn before school or go to church every Sunday.”
Taylor smiled at her own foolishness. “Then, one day, when I was a teenager, I met my real mother. She looked just like me, she smelled like a million bucks, and our laughs? Exactly the same. I haven’t seen her in years, but I still think of her when I hear myself laugh.”
She reached over and put a hand over Carly’s, holding it as if to brace her. “The thing is, Carly, she wasn’t my mom. She was a stranger. Even years of living with her and getting to know her didn’t make her my mom. When I think of my mom, I think of Mrs. Smith, the woman who raised me. She doesn’t look like me, but she looks like family. She smells like home. The memory of her laughter makes me feel warm inside.”
Taylor stopped for a moment, as a fresh wave of tears rolled down Carly’s face. She waited to see if the other woman would try to refute what she was implying. When she didn’t, Taylor continued.
“Please, don’t misunderstand me. Henry is your son and you will always be his mother. But from the day I first told him that I was his mom, I was making a deal with him. A deal that I would always be there for him, that I would always protect him, and do what was in his best interest. That’s why you’re here Carly. I know better than anyone that there’s going to come a day when he wants to get to know you. And now, when that time comes, you’ll be here. But until that day comes, until he says he’s ready, I need to keep being his mom. Do you understand?”
Carly opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t get it past the sob lodged in her throat, so she just nodded. Taylor pulled her in for another hug, and was relieved when Carly reciprocated.
“It’s going to be hard,” Taylor said, her own eyes welling up now. “But as long as we remember that we’re not competing, that we’re both on Team Henry, then we can’t go wrong.”
Epilogue
“They’re mostly free-range,” Taylor said. “I have to keep them penned up at night, but they’re free to peck during the day when everyone is asleep.”
Everyone, including her children. During the summer, Shadow had made a full transition to sleeping on the pack’s nocturnal schedule, and one by one, his siblings had followed suit. Taylor had done her best to transition as well, but the most she could manage was staying up very late with them. There was something about the evenings, particularly the cool autumn nights, which had her craving the comfort of her bed.
At first, it had depressed her to think that she was missing an entire chunk of her children’s lives each day, not to mention precious time with her mates. But after a few weeks, she’d come to appreciate the alone time. It was something that she hadn’t realized she’d been lacking over the past few years.
“Thanks so much,” Carly said, gingerly accepting the basket of eggs. “I think these will go a long way towards improving those god-awful pinecone cakes.”
Taylor wrinkled her nose. “We’ll have corn in a couple of weeks. Don’t eat pinecones. That can’t be good for the baby. Hey, speaking of which, how are you holding up?”
She asked Carly the same question nearly every day. Sometimes, Carly’s answer was short and simple, but other times it was an opening for her to vent frustrations or express concerns that she had, either about her pregnancy, or pack life, in general.
“I’m tired a lot, just like I was with Henry, but I don’t mind it this time.”
Silas and Carly hadn’t exactly hit it off that summer. Though she’d spent a lot of time at the Whiteriver den, he hadn’t made a move to so much as kiss her for weeks. He had still seemed hesitant about mating with her right up until the day she’d become fertile, nearly a month after she’d arrived. Then, he’d flown off the handle at the mere suggestion that Carly spend the week at Halcyon. Alder and Hale had been prepared to intervene on Carly’s behalf, but she’d stopped them.
During her time with him, Carly had developed a massive crush on Silas. By her own admission, she’d hoped that mating with him and having a baby would foster a stronger relationship between the two of them. As it turned out, she was one of the few women in history to have been right about that.
Since they’d mated, Silas’s attitude had changed completely. He’d become attentive and doting, doing whatever he could to make Carly happy and comfortable. So far as Taylor could see, Carly was flourishing under his attention.
“When I was pregnant with Henry, I had to hide it. I was scared all of the time,” Carly told her. “Now, it’s like I’m sharing the baby with the whole pack. Everyone’s so excited.”
The baby would be Silas’s first pup, and the first one born into the Whiteriver pack since before Silas’s father had died nearly a decade ago. It was all anyone in the pack was talking about, and it reminded Taylor of when she’d been pregnant with the twins. This time around, the pack was excited, but had their hands full with the four, already present pups.
“Good. I’m so happy for you both,” Taylor said, and she meant it.
Hale slammed his hand down on the quail coops, startling the hens within and giving Taylor and Carly a start.
“Good,” he said gruffly. “Now, if you’re done here, take your dog home.”
Taylor turned around to fix him with a scowl, which Hale ignored.
He was referring to Silas, who was lurking in the woods nearby. He still wasn’t technically allowed in Halcyon territory without explicit permission, something that was complicated, given that he wouldn’t let Carly out of his sight.
Rebelling against her mate, Taylor continued to chat with Carly for a few more minutes. Then, hugs and goodbyes were exchanged. Carly left with a promise to see her tomorrow in the fields. She didn’t know the first thing about agriculture, but she’d found a place among Taylor’s team, coming mostly to make conversation with Taylor and Lark.
Once Carly was gone, Hale rested his heavy hands on Taylor’s shoulders.
Taylor asked, “What are you doing awake at this hour? It’s barely noon.”
“You thought he’d get into my territory without one of my scouts telling me?” Hale said dryly.
“He’s harmless.”
“Your face says otherwise,” he remarked, referring to her old scar.
“Silas wasn’t the one who hurt me, it was one of his wolves. That was a long time ago. Things are different now.”
As she waited for him to refute her, Taylor realized that she was almost hoping he would. When Hale didn’t respond, she felt herself becoming exasperated.
“You’re seriously not going to argue with me?” she huffed. “Come on, Alder’s been gone for weeks. You can quit pretending like you don’t want to fight with me.”
At the start of autumn, Alder had left to make his annual visit to his daughter, Snow. He’d left early that year, concerned by the very real possibility th
at he’d miss the birth of his pup.
By Taylor’s estimation, she wasn’t technically due for another two to three months, but if the size of her belly was any indication, she had a couple of weeks, at best. Thankfully, she’d maintained regular contact with Sarah as her pregnancy progressed. Her fears had been dispelled when Sarah informed her about the wide range of gestation for shifter pups. Most of Sarah’s children had been born at what humans would consider to be full term, but she’d had a few pregnancies that had progressed at a startling rate. The record was held by her first son, who had been born large and perfectly healthy at just six and a half months.
“I think you want me to fight with you,” Hale said. “You miss it.”
Ever since the day Carly had arrived, Hale hadn’t gotten into a single argument with Taylor. They still bickered, but whenever it started to escalate, Hale would instantly back down.
“Oh, please. If anything, I want you to be yourself. You’re being so weird and I don’t get it. You’ve never been afraid of Alder before. I know for a fact that you used to fight all the time. What could he have possibly threatened you with to—?”
“You think he threatened me?”
“What else could it be?”
Hale spat at the ground. “He didn’t threaten me.”
He looked her up and down, seeming to consider her. His hands moved down from her shoulders to rest on the sides of her belly.
“Alder told me that you were under enough stress, taking care of the pups, out working in the fields, and then everything that was happening with Henry… He said that we needed to just shut and support you. He implied that if I put any more pressure on you, you could lose the pup.”
Taylor’s hand went to her mouth. “He said that? And all this time, you were worried about stressing me out?”
Averting his gaze, he said, “It was rough for you, with the twins. You were bleeding all the time, and then they came early. I know it wasn’t my fault, but I know that I didn’t help and maybe I made things harder for you.”
