“Options? You’re twenty-seven years old, Riley. When are you going to stop wander-lusting all over God’s creation? Put down roots somewhere and stay put.” The silver cutter went flying from her mother’s hands and clattered onto the island counter top.
The other two women stopped what they were doing and stared from her mother to her.
Riley wasn’t tucking her tail and slinking into the corner as she always did when her mother berated her. “It’s my life. I can choose to do with it what I want. You have dad, both Stevie and Danny have their spouses, besides work I am trying to find—”
“Find what, Riley? You’re always searching. Ever since you were younger. If I didn’t keep my hand firmly on you…” Her mother slapped her hands together and then pushed one forward in the action of something shooting off. “There you’d go in a flash.”
“So, I was an adventurous child.” Riley looked from her mother to the other women’s faces in the room, seeing pity. She steeled herself against it. “Okay, maybe even a wandering adult, but I’ll find my place somewhere.”
“When?” her mother countered.
Den County. Her heart reminded her. Riley wanted to agree but that wasn’t an option for her.
“I don’t know.” Riley answered honestly as she stared down at her unfinished work on the cutting board.
Molly and Stevie went back to their breakfast jobs. The room was quiet for a while, until her mother’s voice broke the silence.
“You know, Riley, I thought when you were seven and you’d gone off while we were camping and got attacked, it would have kept you grounded.” Her mother shook her head. “It didn’t. Seems as if once you became well you were even more restless.”
“I remember that day. You scared us.” Stevie stared across the room at her.
Riley was glad her sister remembered it, because she sure didn’t. Like always, she recalled camping with her family, chasing an early morning butterfly through the woods, a twig snapping behind her and then nothing until she awakened in her own bed. Her family telling her she’d been feverish for almost a week. “I don’t remember.”
“Still after all these years?” Stevie frowned.
“Nope.” Riley picked up the knife and started in on the tomatoes again. “If it wasn’t for the scratches on my wrist I would think it didn’t happen.”
“Not scratches…a bite,” Stevie informed her.
Perplexed, Riley turned her right hand over and stared down at the mark on her wrist. For the first time she noticed similar impressions, combined with longer marks on both sides of her arm as she rotated it back and forth. Rarely did she look at it, always hating that it reminded her that there was a hole in her memory.
“I told your father not to take you to the reservation. I’m sure that sha-woman put some kind of voodoo hex on you.”
Riley set the fork down. This was all news to her.
“Mom, Native Americans don’t practice voodoo. Just herbal healing and blessing of various spirit gods.” Stevie sighed as if she’d had this discussion with their mother more than once.
“Doesn’t matter what they do, Riley should still remember. Maybe it would make her see things differently.” Her mother placed the rest of the biscuits on the pan and set it on a rack in the oven.
“What sha-woman? When was I taken to the reservation?” Riley asked, moving her gaze from her mother to her sister, waiting for whoever wanted to fill her in.
Stevie began. “We took you to the hospital. You were there for days. They couldn’t get your fever to break and said you suffered from severe shock. After a while, Dad became frustrated and carried you out of the hospital against medical advice. But dad told them frankly to go to hell. That if they couldn’t cure you, he’d find someone that could. Next thing I know we were driving into the reservation.”
“Only thing that quack did was put a thick poultice and wrap on your wrist and gave your father some wooden coin. She told him to take you home, put the coin in your hand, and allow your body time to heal.” Her mother stared out the kitchen window toward the backyard with her arms wrapped around her waist.
Stevie crossed the room and placed her arm around their mother’s shoulder. “But, she woke up, Mom. That is what’s important.”
“But different.” Lacey glanced up at her oldest daughter and then over at Riley. For the first time Riley noticed the sadness in her mother’s eyes.
All the years of her life Riley had thought it was only disappointment in her that her mother felt, now she saw it was something more, much more. Riley wasn’t sure what her mother meant by different. She walked over to where her mother and sister still stood. “How, Mom? How could some attack and illness change me?”
Riley held her arms out, showing her mother and sister that she was still the same person she’d always been. However, a part of her heart seemed to align with her family’s words.
“You were always adventurous, but you seemed restless after you awakened. Always staring off in the distance as if your soul was somewhere else.” Her mother reached up and cupped her cheek, stroking it briefly with her thumb.
The first compassionate touch from her mother in years almost caused Riley to break down. In that moment she was beginning to understand why it seemed that her mother was trying to restrain her life. Lacey Gold was only trying to reclaim the daughter she felt she had lost.
Not knowing what else to say, no way to refute the words, Riley followed the women back to the center of the kitchen to complete the breakfast.
~YH~
“Here’s my little girl.” Raymond Gold, a tall thin man with cinnamon brown skin tone stepped out onto the front porch, two drinks in hand and gave her a warm smile.
Riley could not help but return his grin even though she didn’t feel much like smiling. She and her father had always had a better relationship than she and her mom. Her dad always seemed to “get her” even more than her brother.
“Hi, Dad.” She scooted over so he could sit down on the antique white swing beside her.
“I brought you a glass of lemonade.” He passed one to her and sipped his own.
They sat there for a moment, just staring out at the street as cars drove through the neighborhood in the afternoon sun. Her siblings and their families had already gone home shortly after the breakfast meal. Now there was just her and her parents. Her mother had gone to lie down for a nap and she’d left her father watching the Game Show Channel.
Lifting the glass to her mouth, she took a slow drink and enjoyed the familiar taste of her mouth’s lemonade, however she couldn’t help but think about how much better it could possibly taste with honey instead of the traditional simple syrup her mom used. Maybe later she would look up on the internet and see which of her local chain stores carried honey from Den County farms. Her mouth salivated with the thought.
“So, what’s on your mind?”
Lowering the glass, she traced the condensation with her free hand. “Nothing much.”
“Ah, come on, baby-girl, who do you think you're fooling?” He bumped her shoulder with his and caused the seat to squeak and rock.
She glanced at him then to the street again. “Not you, I guess.”
“Nope.” He drank liberally and made a loud sound of satisfaction. “You know I married your momma because of her lemonade making skills.”
A small laugh came out and she didn’t attempt to restrain it.
“Now, there’s a sound I like to hear.”
The smile she gave him the second time was more genuine. They were silent again as both of them used their feet to propel the swing into action. In the quiet, the thoughts she’d tried to sort out all morning, things she’d heard from her mother and sister, rose back to the surface. The person who sat beside her now held most of those answers, Riley had to determine if she wanted to ask the questions. Maybe her father would reveal more things about herself that she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.
Hell, she’d just discovered that her fa
mily believed something was off from her after the attack in the woods. Did she really need another bombshell in her lap today? Yes, a little voice inside of her whispered.
She leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Your Mom tells me you all had an interesting conversation this morning.”
Thank God for dads. Riley was so relieved she wasn’t the one that had to bring the conversation up, because she still wasn’t sure where to start.
“Yes. I learned a lot of things I didn’t know and frankly hadn’t bothered to ask.” It shamed her to admit it, but she had to be honest.
“Why do you think that is?”
She shrugged, a silly childish response, but she felt like a little girl sitting with her father like they did when she was younger. “I don’t know, Dad. Maybe a part of me was too afraid to face the truth.”
He grabbed her free hand from her thigh. “Hey, my daughter isn’t a coward.”
Looking into his eyes, his light brown gaze held hers. “Are you sure, Dad? I seem to have spent my life running from things. What is that if not a coward?”
“Maybe you weren’t running away, you were running to something.”
The first to break the eye contact, feeling unsure of his confident words, she drank more of the lemonade. “What?”
“You’ll have to be the one to discover that part.”
She knew he was right, but she didn’t even know how to find those answers. Especially when she couldn’t see past the ache in her heart from leaving Theo and the boys. Not my life.
“Dad, will you tell me about what happened the last time we went camping?” Maybe understanding when and how she had ‘changed’ would go a long way to helping her establish what she was in search of.
Her father took hold of her hand, rubbing his thumb along her knuckles. He was quiet for so long, she figured like her mother it was something he didn’t want to discuss.
Then he began, “Back then your mother and I would go into the mountains camping every spring when you kids were on break from school. Nothing was particularly different that last year. Except you had awakened before all of us in the camping trailer and had decided to go adventuring. That’s what you and Danny would call it when you’d play around the backyard or neighborhood park. However, you were alone this time. When your mother awakened to start preparing breakfast you weren’t there. She awakened me in a panic.”
He squeezed her hand; Riley could feel the slight tremble in her father’s touch.
“We woke your brother and sister and went in search of you. When I found you, you were lying against the side of a tree, you were pale, cold, and your hand was bleeding. In the distance I saw two bears, one large and one smaller. I could only assume that maybe you had come upon them and one had scratched you.”
He took a breath and drank more than half of his remaining drink. Her father had become a little pale himself beneath his brown tone. She wondered if he would have preferred to have a stiff drink over the tangy-sweet beverage.
“What happened at the hospital?” she prompted.
“The doctors gave you shots, treated you for shock, and watched you for two days. They said they didn’t see any infection or any reason why you were not waking up. I couldn’t take it. Haunting those shockingly white halls and not having any answers about my baby girl.”
She imagined that it had to be an unbearable situation for any parent.
With a heavy sigh, her father continued, “As you know my great-grandfather was a Karok Indian. Even though I was raised with modern medicine, my family also held faith in the healing power of herbs wielded by a shaman. So, when the doctors at the hospital ran out of options I took you and left. It wasn’t easy but I got you out of there. I took you to the reservation. Your mother was pissed to say the least, but I wouldn’t listen to her reasoning. I was willing to try anything.”
Enthralled in her father’s recounting, she set her drink on the porch rail and turned on the seat and faced him.
“What did the woman shaman do to me? Mom said something about wrapping my wrist and giving me this coin.” Rifling into her pants pocket, she pulled out the wooden coin with the bear carving and held it up to her father.
Pulling it from her fingers, he rubbed his thumb along the worn carving. “When she gave this to you it was still rough, course from her fresh carving. Your mother refused to come into the woman’s house. She stood outside and waited with Danny and Stevie. The woman did more than just those two things. She meditated, spoke to the spirits, and prayed over you. After that was done she carved the coin, braided your hair around a raven feather, and wrote a letter to you.”
“I don’t recall any letter.”
“I still have it. After bringing you home, you had a fever for days, like she said would happen, but when it broke, you just opened your eyes. I don’t know why I didn’t give you the letter at the time. Maybe because you didn’t remember anything that happened when you awakened.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to traumatize you all over again. I told myself that I would know when the time was right. I guess the time has finally come.”
When her father began to rise from the seat, she asked, “What is the significance of the bear, Dad? They’ve always fascinated me, but I’ve feared them as well.”
Then I ended up in an entire town filled with bear shifters. What are the odds?
“The shaman said you were bitten by the bear. The reason for the raven feather was that Raven Spirits seem to connect to bears in some Native American folklore. Apparently it was a younger bear that got you, why the minor damage. I reported that to the rangers but they never found the elusive bears, just tracks that led nowhere.”
As her father went into the house, she sat there in a mental shock of sorts, as her mind tried to piece together the knowledge of her attack. A bear.
Staring down at her right wrist, she saw those marks again; small teeth had cut and marked her flesh so deeply that the scar never went away. Doing something that she’d never allowed before she traced the scratches and odd shaped impressions and felt the raised flesh beneath the pads of her fingers, heat seemed to surround it. At the same time, she began to feel a pulsing in her shoulder.
Theo’s bite.
Images and flashes of present and past events began to flood her mind. Her pulse rate increased and her breathing became fast and broken. It was as if her father’s words had been some sort of key to unlock her memories. However, the mental pictures were so fractured she couldn’t get a clear image of what had happened in the woods. Sweat began the run along her face and spine as she struggled to make sense of so much at once.
“Riley?”
She could only imagine how she looked to her father when he came back out. His eyes were stretched wide and filled with worry as he raced to her side.
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“No, you’re not.” Kneeling on the porch in front of her, he took her hands. “You’re like ice. I shouldn’t have told you what happened.”
“No.” She cupped her father’s face. She could feel his advanced age against her palm in the supple loose skin around his jawline. “You did the right thing. Now please read the letter to me.”
Nodding, he slipped the leather tie from the rolled, yellowed paper then opened the letter.
There is a myth and legend among the Karok people that a spirit will search the world for its mate. There is no form barriers that will stop the connection of the two; animal or human. Human becomes animal. Animal becomes human. Once the spirits are linked nothing on Mother Earth’s soil can keep one from the other. The gods will guide the two to a complete one.
Her father stopped reading and looked up at her. When he used his thumb to brush the tears from her cheek, Riley realized she was crying.
“I’m sorry if this upset you. I’m not completely sure what the meaning of this is. I’ve tried to figure it out over the years as you moved from one job to another, one city to another. I knew you searc
hed for something, or someone. However, this letter still remained an enigma to me.”
“Because it wasn’t meant for you, Dad. But for me.” Holding her hand open, she took back her coin and the letter that her Dad placed in her hands.
He gave a dry chuckle. “You’re probably right.” Getting up, he sat next to her again. “So what do you think it means?”
Smiling she looked at her father. “It means that I should never have left.”
“Home?”
“Home.” She smiled and almost became giddy with joy. “But not Sans Town.”
Her father frowned. “Where? Oregon?”
“Den County.” She rose from the porch swing and felt that her future was clearer at that moment than it had ever been her whole life.
Rising, her father stepped to her and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s in Den County, Riley?”
“The man I love. Two boys and my life.”
She could see the clouds of confusion in her father’s eyes, then they became clear again and he smiled.
“Whatever it is, claim it, Riley, and don’t let it go.”
Throwing her arms around her father, she hugged him with all the love and understanding he’d shown her through her life. “I will.” Pulling away, she said, “Tell Mom I love her and I will call her in a few days.”
Rushing down the steps, she went to her car and climbed in. Her things were still piled high in the back. She hadn’t unloaded it. Through the day she kept putting it off, telling everyone and herself that she would get to it later. However, now she realized she had never been meant to stay. As she backed down the driveway, her heart began to lift with assurance of her decision.
Looking at her watch, she realized that she barely had four hours before night fall and the start of the Bear Run in Den County. If she was going to get the man who had claimed her heart, she needed to get to him before he settled for another.
On the drive, she rolled down the window and allowed the wind to blow into the car and the memories of the past to take over her mind. She recalled that day. The excitement she had felt going out into the mysterious forest. That day she hadn’t realized how far from her family’s camper she’d traveled. At some point she had climbed a tree with a low hanging branch, just like her big brother had taught her. She’d taken a moment to look out of the land and had been taken by all the beauty she saw.
Bear's Gold (Erotic Shifter Fairy Tales) Page 13
