by Молли Харпер
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“It doesn’t matter. As long as there are people being hurt, I can’t see you.” He turned on his heel and walked away. I managed to skirt around him and put my hand against his chest, stopping him—for the most part.
“So, you love me too much to leave me and too much to let me be anywhere near you? Well, pardon me, but that’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.”
“You can honestly tell me that it’s never even crossed your mind that I could be the one doing this?” he demanded. “There’s not some little voice in your head telling you that you need to get as far away from me as possible? You know what I can do, Mo. You know I’ve killed before. You’re not stupid.”
I looked down, and I felt the tears coursing down my cheeks before I realized I was crying. “Yes, OK? Yes. Every once in a while, I think it’s possible that you could do this without being aware of it. But then I look at you, and I have to believe that it’s not in you.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Well, that’s one of us.”
“What do you want from me, Cooper, permission? My blessing to run off and leave me? Or do you want me to give up, to leave you because you might be hurting people? You want me to give you an out? Well, you’re not going to get it. Let’s just call this what it is. Instead of facing a problem, you’re running again. You talk this big talk about how hard it was to leave your pack, but the truth is that when things get difficult, that’s when you run. Running is easy.”
Cooper recoiled as if I’d punched him. And damned if I could find it in me to apologize for it. With one last look at me, Cooper took a few steps, his clothes landing with a subtle thwump as he shifted midair. After landing deftly on his paws, he disappeared into the woods, his long ululate howl echoing behind him as he ran away from me.
CHAPTER 19
Scrambled and Fertilized
IN MY HEAD, I’D understood that Cooper wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time with me. But somehow I expected to see him in town. I thought we would be carrying on the pretense of “parting as friends.” But he kept his promise to stay away. He told our neighbors stories about hunting trips, backpacking expeditions, fishing. Evie seemed to understand that something had happened, but she was too wise to ask me direct questions.
When I stormed back into town alone, our public spar became the topic of choice for gossiping saloon patrons, until Denny Greene sustained second-degree electrocution burns trying to rig up a TV/VCR on the lip of his bathtub and gave them something better to chew on.
Alan was the only one whose focus remained on me, even in the face of Denny’s oddly placed bandages. He took to squeezing my fingers in his while I took down his lunch order. He asked me to movies, to dinner at a new Chinese buffet that had opened in Burnee, to his place to play board games with Buzz and Evie. I appreciated it, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to be social after I left the saloon.
It was as if I’d scheduled my day in terms of “8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., generally pleasant person; 5:05 P.M. to 6:00 A.M., total basket case.”
I put on a brave face. I smiled, I served, I earned my living. I hurt. Either I couldn’t sleep, or I crashed and slept for fourteen hours. I couldn’t seem to eat anything, and the smells of the food I was cooking turned my stomach.
I was reminded of my parents’ more tragic friends, the ones who hadn’t quite gotten past the “if it feels good, smoke it” portion of the free-love era. They’d show up at the commune all jittery and stay long enough to get a decent meal and then amble away. When I looked into the mirror, I saw the same hollow-eyed stare, the unhappy twist to the mouth. Cooper had turned me into a strung-out love junkie.
Convinced I could still smell him in my bed, I bleached my sheets to bone white. I immediately regretted the loss, but it didn’t matter. Cooper’s scent was everywhere, in the mattress, the pillows, stubbornly resisting my efforts to drive it off.
I skipped over several stages of grief and got stuck at anger. In my more vindictive moments, I hoped Cooper was somehow worse off than I was, that he was somewhere curled up in a fetal position, twitching in misery, and I was just feeling an echo of it.
I don’t want him back, I told myself. I don’t need this shit. Even if he came crawling back on all fours, I wouldn’t take him. And an hour later, I knew that if he walked through the door, I’d fling myself at him and forgive him for everything. Back and forth I teetered until I worried that I’d finally cracked, that the depression Cooper’s presence had somehow delayed was flooding in. Maybe this was the life I would have had in Grundy if I’d never learned his secret, if I’d never loved him.
I know, even I wanted to slap myself a little bit.
Irony of ironies, my books on werewolf relationships arrived, having been delayed for weeks by some quirk of the postal system. I don’t know if it was morbid curiosity or a masochistic streak that had me thumbing through guides to successful relationships with were-creatures. But it proved to be a fascinating way to torture myself. For instance, I learned that the Grundy habit of offering a lady meat as a courting gesture was very much in line with werewolf sensibilities. Werewolves marked nearly every important gesture with food—dating, proposals, apologies. If Cooper came back and offered me a ham, I wasn’t sure I could keep from expressing my feelings with a cast-iron skillet against his head.
One night, while perusing Rituals and Love Customs of the Were, I found that most breeds of wolves mate for life. And if one wolf in a breeding pair dies, it can send the other into a depression. The mourning wolf wouldn’t hunt, wouldn’t do anything to take care of himself, until the pack had no choice but to let him die. This made no sense. I wasn’t a werewolf. And I certainly wasn’t part of a breeding pair.
Wait a minute. Breeding pair. Not eating, constant fatigue, nausea, mood swings . . . Mentally, I counted back to the last month.
Shit.
I was late, several weeks late, and I hadn’t even noticed. This didn’t make any sense. I was the contraception queen. To keep up with Cooper, I’d taken to storing condoms in every room of our house. Clearly, Cooper’s swimmers could not be contained by mere modern prophylactics.
Stupid werewolf ninja sperm.
“Oh . . .” My hand dropped to my stomach. I put my head in my hands and gave in to the urge to cry. What could I do? How could I be sure? I couldn’t run into town to buy a pregnancy test. The entire town would know before I checked out at Hannigan’s. Could I even go to the doctor? Would they be able to tell that the baby had a few extra furry DNA strands? Would I have a normal pregnancy? Could I have my baby in a hospital?
When exactly had it become “my baby”?
I wanted to call Evie. I wanted her to tell me that this was all a silly misunderstanding and I’d just skipped a period because of stress. Instead, I scoured the books for everything I could find on human women carrying werewolf babies. There were discouragingly few entries, most of them concerning shortened gestation periods and overwhelming food cravings. Apparently, wolves carry their babies for only three months, so women carrying werewolf babies split the difference at about six months. That sounded really fast. But it couldn’t be all that dangerous or rare, right? Cooper said the wolf magic was carrying on in fewer families because of mingling the bloodlines. Obviously, there were a lot of human women out there having werewolf babies. But somehow I didn’t see myself finding a chat room for them. There was no BearingWerewolfSpawn.com.
I checked.
Shaking, I went to the kitchen and forced myself to drink a glass of water. I hadn’t been taking care of myself for weeks. I couldn’t keep living like this. If things with Cooper didn’t change, I could end up raising this baby alone. Was I ready for that? Was I even remotely prepared? Given my parenting role models, I was going to guess not.
I had to make the conscious choice, right then, whether that would continue or whether I would keep this baby. Whether I would start eating or sleeping again, even if I didn’t feel lik
e it.
I reached into my cabinet for my daily multivitamins, which I hadn’t touched in I couldn’t remember how long. They weren’t prenatal vitamins, but they’d have to do until I could pick some up. I shook one out into my palm and stared at the little yellow tablet. I put it into my mouth, wincing at the stale, mineral taste, and threw back some water to help me swallow it.
Suddenly exhausted, I leaned my forehead against the counter and sighed. “We’re not off to a great start, kiddo.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I drove to the Crescent Valley to visit Gracie and Samson. I thought it would help to see their faces. But the moment Gracie opened her front door, the idea of discussing this mess with someone who really knew what was happening pierced me with a misery so acute I stumbled back.
“I shouldn’t be here.” I stepped back off the porch. “I’m sorry. I should go.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, pulling me inside. “I’m making some herbal tea. It’s a little strong, but it will make you feel better.”
She pushed me into a kitchen chair and put a mug of dark, teak-colored brew in front of me. “It’s strong,” she cautioned again.
“I’m the child of hippies. Your tea doesn’t scare me,” I told her, taking a small sip. The bitter flavors flooded my mouth, puckering my lips. “Gah!” I blew out a breath. “What’s in this?”
“You don’t want to know,” she said, topping off my mug. “Just drink. You’ll feel better.”
I winced as I brought the cup to my lips. Thinking better of it, I set it back down on the counter. “Cooper’s gone.”
“I thought as much,” she said, putting her arm around my shoulders. “It takes a strong woman to wait, Mo.”
“I can’t really leave. I mean, where could I go?” I said, pressing my fingertips against my cheekbones, as if the pressure would somehow keep my face from crumpling. “I’m going to—Oh, God, Gracie, I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, little girl.” She sighed, leaning my head against her shoulder when I started to cry.
“I don’t know what to do. We didn’t even talk about kids. And I don’t know anything about babies, much less werewolf babies.”
“You sound as if you’re going to go through this alone.”
“Do you see anyone else around?” I asked, waving my arm toward the empty kitchen.
“There’s me. And Samson, and the rest of the pack, for now, until Cooper returns, which he will.”
The image of Samson trying to strap on a Baby-Björn carrier was enough to make me chuckle. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t think I could if I tried. But the idea of the baby growing up without a father, it’s just too sad. Oh, crap, Gracie, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I’m just not thinking straight right now.”
“Don’t you be sorry,” Gracie told me sternly, lifting my chin so I had to meet her level green gaze. “Pregnant women are entitled to be a little weepy and blunt every once in a while. Raising my children without a father was sad and hard. And I wouldn’t do it that way again if I could help it, but I couldn’t.
“My husband died a strange, heroic death, but that didn’t make it any easier on Cooper. Sometimes I think it made it harder. I think he saw his dad as invincible, which I suppose all little boys do. My husband thought he had all the time in the world to show him what it meant to be a man, to be a wolf. Then my son had to become the man of the house, quickly. His grandfather tried to be there for the boys. But when Cooper became the alpha, he had to be his own man, far before he was ready, I think. And he had to deal with problems that no alpha had ever handled before—predator-control programs, aerial hunting. . . . We’d only heard stories about packs encroaching on other hunting grounds before the valley was attacked. We’d never considered it could happen here. And Cooper had to handle it all. He put on such a good front. I didn’t realize until later how much pressure he was putting on himself. He moves at his own pace, honey. You just have to outstubborn him. He’s trying to make you give up on him.”
“Well, you can’t really make me do anything. Just ask my mother.”
Gracie gave my hand a squeeze. “Good girl,” she said. “Have you been feeling all right? Is that grandbaby of mine mistreating you?”
“Well, I just kind of figured everything out recently. I thought I was just depressed over . . . well, you know. I haven’t been drinking and bungee-jumping or anything, but I haven’t exactly been Miss Conscientious Prenatal Care, either.”
“Why don’t I take you by the village clinic?” Gracie suggested. “Dr. Moder works with our pregnant women, helps the births look normal and human for the government paperwork. She’d be happy to take a look at you, get you started on the right track.”
“I don’t want anyone to know just yet. I know how small-town news travels. Someone will see me at the clinic, a few phone calls are made, and before you know it, everybody’s chewing this over with their dinner. I don’t want the whole pack knowing before I can tell Cooper.”
Gracie just smiled at me. It turned out Dr. Moder made house calls, Lord bless her. She was efficient, no-nonsense, and eager to get out of the clinic for an hour if it meant getting a piece of Gracie’s rum cake. She didn’t even mind when I burst into tears when the pregnancy test showed a blazing pink positive result. She just patted my shoulder and explained that shortened gestation meant my hormone levels were nearly double what a normal pregnant woman had to deal with. She drew my blood for tests, gave me a bottle of extra-strength prenatal vitamins and a hand-typed pamphlet titled “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Werewolf.” She said I should consider it a sort of appendix or special reference section for the actual book, which she also gave me. (And if anyone saw it, I was supposed to pretend it was a joke.)
I was due in just four months. Four months to prepare for another little person, who most likely would be able to turn into a four-legged creature. There’s a reason elephants gestate for two years.
I was just shrugging into my coat when Maggie came crashing through the front door with Eli at her heels.
“What is she doing here?” Maggie demanded, flinging her arm toward me and missing my face by a scant few inches.
“Mo is a friend and more than welcome to come for a visit whenever she pleases,” Gracie informed her coolly.
Maggie turned on me. “You don’t belong here any more than he ever did. Did he make promises to you? Did he tell you he loved you? Did he disappoint you? Join the club.”
I shot to my feet, advancing on Maggie. For a moment, shock rippled across her face, but she stood her ground. That, at least, I respected. “That’s it, Scrappy Doo. Do you know what you’ve done to your brother, someone you supposedly loved? Cooper won’t come home because he can’t face you. He’s cut himself off from everybody on the planet. He’s convinced he can’t be trusted to love anybody. Because you’re a spoiled, selfish little bitch who needs a good kick in the ass. You’re pissed off. Your brother disappointed you. Well, put your big-girl panties on and get the hell over it.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re not part of a pack. You don’t know what he did to us.” Maggie’s lip curled back from her canines. My fists balled up as she stepped close enough to bump her forehead against mine. Gracie pulled my arms, trying to drag me away from Maggie, and yelled at her daughter to sit down.
Eli slid between us. “Look, everybody, let’s just calm down.”
Maggie sneered as Eli pushed her shoulder away. “Don’t you tell me when to—”
“Step down, Maggie,” Eli told her, the quiet ring of command edging his voice.
His hands steered her away from me toward the door. She fought him, leaning toward me and taking a decisive swipe. I ducked back and was grateful for good reflexes.
Eli barked, “Maggie, I lead this pack. You will step down.”
After straining toward me for another second, Maggie snarled and stomped out of the door, slamming it behind her.
With Maggie gone, the tension eased slowly out of
the room. I sagged against the wall, wondering what good I’d thought would come of this visit. I would never regret spending time with Gracie or telling her about the baby. But some part of me had to have known that my presence would provoke Maggie. And then to take a verbal jab at Maggie was complete madness. Had I finally crossed into suicidal territory? This visit was an unqualified disaster, worse than the time my parents arranged for Kara to spend a week at the commune with us while their “naturist” friends happened by for a visit.
“I’m sorry, Gracie.” I kissed the top of her head. “I should get going before Maggie blows up my truck or something.”
She let out a shaky breath. “I’m going to have a talk with her, a long-overdue talk. Come back soon, Mo. Call me anytime. Take care of yourself. And be stubborn.”
I managed a laugh.
“Could I talk to you for a minute, Mo?” Eli asked. “Outside?”
I nodded, slipping into my jacket. Apparently still smarting from my comments at the saloon, Eli was now treating me with careful deference. He swept a dignified hand toward the aluminum lawn chairs Gracie had set out for nice weather. I accepted another mug of tea, which Grace had assured me was perfectly safe for me and my . . . pup.
I was contemplating how weird it was to think of my baby in animal terms when Eli cleared his throat. “We’re becoming concerned, Mo.”
“Regarding?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“Cooper. It’s unnatural for any wolf to be away from his home for so long. Most of the time, it means the wolf is hurt or dead. But since he abandoned the packlands years ago, we’re not sure how strong his tie is to the area anymore. Hell, he may not be able to have strong ties to anything anymore,” he said, sipping his tea. “We all thought he was attached to you, and look—” The expression on my face made Eli look instantly aghast. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at this sort of thing, Mo. Especially with women outside our pack. It’s different. I don’t mean to hurt you. I feel responsible for what’s happened. I put an unfair amount of pressure on you to push Cooper back home, and he ran.”
