by Bianca D’Arc
They followed, and she led them to another office, just next door. It was the assistant manager’s office. Her brother Ken’s, actually. But Ken wasn’t in today. He usually worked the night shift, leaving Tracy to deal with the daytime hours.
She took the strategic chair, behind Ken’s desk. There were two visitor chairs, and the men took those. She was glad to have the wide desk between them, if only as a symbolic barrier. She expected her father to have a few things to say, and she didn’t have to wait long to hear them.
“When, exactly, were you going to admit her father wasn’t a wolf? You’ve been playing word games with me at every turn, keeping me guessing. I’ve been eyeing every non-Pack shifter I see—wolf or not—with suspicion for the past two years!” Her father’s voice rose, making Tracy feel guilty.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I knew if I told you for sure that her father wasn’t a wolf, you’d track down every non-wolf shifter who’d come through the airport or town in the right timeframe, and it wouldn’t be long before you found Hank.”
“Do you hate me that much?” Hank asked, his expression hard, but his tone bleak. Damn. This wasn’t going well.
“No! Don’t ever think that, Hank,” she said quickly, trying to fix what she’d done and knowing it was going to take time. She had to at least make a start right here and now. “I love our daughter, and I enjoyed my time with you, but I don’t know enough about your life to know what you’d have done if you’d known about her from the beginning. I didn’t want to give her up.” She wanted him to understand, but she sensed it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I would never have tried to take her from you. Never!” Hank replied, shocked. “A baby needs its mother.” He settled those sky-blue eyes on her. “And its father.”
She didn’t have an answer to that.
“He’s right, you know,” her father said into the silence. “What you’ve done here wasn’t right, Tracy. Not for any of you. Emma needs—especially now—her father.”
Tracy shook her head. “I was hoping she’d be a wolf. I didn’t expect her to start shifting so young,” she had to admit. “I thought I had more time.”
“She is a bit young for shifting, even among my people,” Hank told her. “The fact that she’s started already means she’s going to be a very powerful jaguar, as long as she learns what she needs to know to earn her rank in the Clan.”
“And only he can teach her that, Tracy,” her father reminded her. “Now that you know for sure she’s a cat, you’re going to have to make some changes. For Emma’s sake.”
“I…” Tracy was only just realizing the implications of what had happened. “I’m beginning to see that. I just… I need some time to think about all of this.”
“I can give you some of that.” Hank’s expression was grim. “I’m only here today on a stopover. I’d intended to look you up and see how you were doing. Maybe have lunch together, if you were free. But I’m on an important mission for my Alpha. I have to fly on and fulfill my duty to my Clan.” He looked at his watch. “Within the hour, actually. I propose we spend the next little while talking about things, so you have some facts to mull over while I’m away. I’ll be back in a few days, maybe a little longer, depending how my mission goes, and we can talk more then. I’m going to try and arrange some time off, and I’m going to spend it here.” There was no room for argument in his tone. When Hank made up his mind, apparently, that was it.
Good to know.
Tracy didn’t see any alternative but to agree to his plan. It made sense. Even if it scared the bejeezus out of her.
“All right.”
CHAPTER THREE
Hank flew away from Big Wolf Airport with a pang. He knew, for sure this time, that he was leaving a part of himself behind. He’d felt it before—more than two years ago, when he’d left Tracy the first time—but he hadn’t trusted the instinct that said the wolf woman was important to him. Now, he knew differently.
For a jaguar, he’d been very pigheaded, back then. Somehow, he hadn’t been able to accept the idea that his true mate might be a wolf, and not at least a big cat of some kind. Even his furry side had been in denial all this time, but the signs had been there.
Why else hadn’t he been with another woman in all that time? Sure. Work. Blah. Blah. Blah. It was all just a big excuse, distracting him from the truth. His mate was a werewolf. Suck it up, Hank. She was a canine shifter, and he was a feline. There had been stranger combinations, though he wasn’t sure when. Everyone knew cats and dogs didn’t mix.
Why, then, was his perfect woman a werewolf? The Mother of All had to be laughing Her ass off, watching him struggle with the concept. Hank banked the small jet he was flying onto the new course and felt physically ill at the separation from the woman and child he now knew were his.
The moment he’d seen Tracy, he’d felt like something had slammed into his heart—his very consciousness. He’d missed her. More than someone should miss a mere one-night stand. He’d missed her in his heart. In his soul.
He’d been dealing with that revelation when another had hit him out of left field. The little girl. Emma… His.
She’d shifted, and he’d known immediately. There were no resident jaguars in Big Wolf, Texas. He’d checked. He’d had some kind of misguided idea that, if he knew someone in the area, he could ask them—casually—how Tracy was doing.
Hank kicked himself mentally. That should have been a big red flag. He’d never gone to that kind of trouble to track down an ex-girlfriend. Not even Pamela, and they’d dated on-and-off for years. The fact that he’d even thought to check up on Tracy should’ve given him a clue that she was more important to him than he realized, or was willing to admit.
He’d been an idiot. And because of his willful blindness, he’d missed out on the first two years of his precious daughter’s life. He’d been angry at Tracy, at first, but then, his inner jaguar had stopped him. It couldn’t be angry at Tracy over even something as huge as this—not when she’d given him the most perfect little child he’d ever seen. The cat knew he couldn’t stay mad at Tracy. Not ever. That’s just not the way he was built.
A shifter loved its mate without conditions. Shifters didn’t hold grudges with their mates. Neither did they stay angry with their mates. They got the emotions out and dealt with them as a couple, then it was over and they went back to thinking their mate hung the moon and stars, and could do no wrong. The mate was paramount.
And Hank was starting to realize that Tracy was all of that to him. He should’ve seen it those years ago—and in the empty years since their brief encounter. How could he have been so blind? And how could he ever forgive himself for being that stupid and missing out on the first two years of his daughter’s life? If he was going to stay angry at anyone, it was himself.
While he’d never really thought about himself as a father before, he found the role wasn’t alarming. His inner cat wanted to play with the kitten and teach it how to be a jaguar. His human side might’ve taken a little longer to accustom itself to the idea of fatherhood, but once he’d held the little girl in his arms—felt her tiny heartbeat under his hands—he was hooked.
Hank had been looking forward to his mission to Arizona, but now, he just wanted it over with. He had to get back to Texas and work on convincing a certain sexy werewolf lass that she should let him into her life…forever.
*
Tracy watched Hank’s plane fly away and felt a tugging in the region of her heart. She’d left work at the restaurant to go to the airport with Hank and see him off. Funny how she hadn’t wanted to let him out of her sight until the very last moment.
She’d thought she was over him. She’d thought she’d gotten all those dreams out of her system. Dreams where he asked her to fly away with him on his jet. Where he whisked her away from everything she’d ever known and into the mysterious world of the secretive jaguar Clan.
Not because she had any real interest in jaguars themselves. No, she’d only ever been intere
sted in one particular jaguar. Sexy Hank, the pilot with the mysterious eyes as blue as the sky he roamed and the killer smile.
And now, of course, she had a vested interest in another little jaguar…Emma. Tracy still couldn’t quite believe her baby was already shifting. She’d been so cute in her kitten form. Just adorable, if a bit alien to a woman who’d been raised among werewolves…who had pups, not kittens. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.
The rest of the Pack had better figure it out, too. Tracy would brook no harassment of the area’s only big cat shifter. She wouldn’t let the other kids hassle her daughter for being what she was. Protective mama wolf instincts were clamoring for her to shield her daughter from any possible problems, but her human side knew she had to let her baby grow and survive in the human world, too. And sometimes, humans—and shifters in human form—could be real jackasses.
“Hey, Trace. Hey, Em.” A familiar voice called out, finally drawing Tracy away from the window overlooking the runway and the far off speck that was Hank’s plane in the sky.
She turned to find her youngest brother, Kevin, walking closer. He was crouching down to show Emma something in his hand, which turned out to be a little rubber super ball he must’ve had in his pocket. Emma like to chase them around, and Kevin always seemed to have one on him, just for her. He was a good-hearted soul for a stinky little brother.
“Hey, Kev. Doing deliveries?” Tracy returned her brother’s greeting. Kevin worked part-time for the restaurant delivering food in the local area during the busy lunch rush.
“Just finished. So, is it true? Our Em is a wildcat?” Kevin looked intrigued by the possibility.
“Who’d you hear it from?” Tracy asked, instead of answering.
“Does it matter?” Kevin gave her a long-suffering, grown-up look, despite the fact he was still very much a teenager. Still, he was growing wiser all the time, which was kind of scary to her. “It’s all over the Pack already. She turned into a leopard or something?”
“A jaguar, actually,” Tracy corrected her little brother, not realizing until she said it, how proud she was of her clever little girl.
Emma had managed her first shift to and from her beast form with casual aplomb. She made it look easy. The teens attempting their first shift to wolf form didn’t always manage it so easily. Every year, a few got stuck in battle form for a while, which could be excruciatingly painful. And some made it to full wolf, but then couldn’t make it back to their human shape for a day or two. First shifts were notoriously awkward for werewolves.
Not so for young jaguars, apparently. Maybe it had to do with them being so little when they started shifting. At Emma’s age, there wasn’t much life experience to interfere with her instincts yet.
“That’s pretty cool. I guess her dad is one of them, huh?” Kevin was trying and failing to sound nonchalant, but she didn’t mind. She knew anything she told Kevin would be kept in confidence. He wasn’t a gossip. He was asking because he cared.
“Yeah. A pilot. He just left.” She walked away from the window. Even with her sharp vision, she could no longer see Hank’s small private jet. He was well and truly gone. At least for a while.
“Jaguars are really cool. They’ve got their own secret lair and stuff, according to my friend, Josh,” Kevin offered. “And their Alpha is, like, a gazillionaire.”
“Mark Pepard.” Tracy nodded. Just about every shifter had heard of the man who was trying to lead the resurgence of the jaguar people. “Hank works for him. He’s on a mission for his Clan, right now, he said.”
“Cool.” Kevin fell into step beside her as Tracy picked up Emma and began walking through the small terminal toward the doors that led to the parking lot. “So, when’s he coming back? I assume he wants to get to know Em a bit, right?”
“Yeah.” Tracy grimaced. “I suppose he has a right to see her, now that he knows about her. He said he’ll be back in a few days or maybe a little longer, depending how his mission goes.”
“Would you have told him about Em, eventually?” Kevin asked, surprising her with the tough question.
Tracy sighed. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I suppose with Emma shifting now, I would’ve had to seek his advice sooner or later.”
Kevin held the door for his sister and niece as the three of them headed into the parking lot.
“I had no idea they started so early,” Kevin commented as he helped Tracy with the door to her vehicle while she put Emma in the child safety seat.
“Me either,” Tracy mumbled, fussing with the straps that would help protect her baby while in the car. Emma smiled at her, playing with the ball Kevin had given her. She rolled it down her little arm and flipped her hand up to catch it, demonstrating her cat-like reflexes.
“Are you afraid the other wolves will go nuts and attack her, being a cat and all?”
Out of the mouths of babes…
Suddenly, fear struck Tracy’s heart, followed swiftly by righteous anger.
“I’ll bite anyone who so much as looks at her funny.” She couldn’t help the growl in her voice, and both Em and Kevin looked at her with wary, wide eyes.
She reached down to kiss Emma’s little forehead, reassuring her that Mama wasn’t upset with her. Kevin was old enough to understand, but when she finished tucking Emma into the car seat, Tracy brought her little brother in for a quick side hug. He hadn’t meant to rile her protective instincts, but he was right to wonder.
Wolves had strong instincts about hunting and chasing anything that wasn’t wolf. Heck, they even chased each other for fun, when they were in their fur. Tracy would have to be super vigilant with Emma going furry all of a sudden. If the little miss escaped her mother’s watchful eye, she could end up in trouble all too easily in the middle of wolf territory.
Not that any Pack member would deliberately hurt her daughter, but some of the younger werewolves hadn’t mastered the fine control needed over their beasts’ instincts yet. Kevin was part of that young group of wolves, which was why he’d probably thought about what would happen if some of his less-stable friends encountered a jaguar kit in the middle of Pack territory.
“I’ll spread the word. Subtly, of course,” Kevin assured her with a lopsided grin.
He was growing up to be quite the charmer, and Tracy fully expected him to be beating the girls off with a stick in a year—or maybe less. He had a good heart, and he wasn’t bad to look at either. He was at that lanky stage where he was just coming into his full adult height. Kev was probably one growth spurt away from topping six feet, and he was filling out, too. But not too fast. He was still her little brother, and she wanted to keep that sweet childhood friend for a little while longer.
“Yes, I know. You’re the king of subtle.” Tracy rolled her eyes as she ruffled Kevin’s hair then moved toward the driver’s door.
“Do you think Emma’s going to change again soon? Can I come over and see when she’s a jaguar?” The eagerness in his tone made him sound younger than his years, but she understood the excitement.
“I honestly don’t know when she’ll shift again, Kev, but you’re always welcome. You know that. Tell you what. I’ll order a couple of pizzas, and you can come over and watch the game with me tonight.” She climbed into the driver’s seat and hitched up her seatbelt as she spoke to her little brother.
Tracy had moved out of her father’s house soon after Emma was born. She’d needed space and time alone with her baby. Not to mention a nursery she could set up and decorate for her daughter. She’d recovered from the birth at her dad’s house, then set about fixing up a much smaller house nearby that the Pack owned and rented out.
Tracy could easily afford the rent out of her salary from the restaurant, and once she had the place decorated to her liking—with a whole lot of help from her father and brothers—she moved herself and Em over. They never lacked for company, especially in the early days of their tenancy. Family members and Pack mates dropped by all the time to check on them when they
were just starting out. Wolves were like that. Always in each other’s business. But Tracy enjoyed it…most of the time.
Once it was clear Tracy and Emma were doing very well on their own, the checkups lessened. People still dropped by and socialized, but it was less frequent now. Tracy usually enjoyed the alone time with her daughter, when they could play together while Emma was still young enough to enjoy her mother’s protective presence. It also gave Tracy plenty of time to think.
Tonight, though, Tracy didn’t really want to be alone with her thoughts. Or worse—cornered by her father or some other well-meaning Pack mate. If Kevin was already at her place, he could at least run interference if anyone else dropped by.
“Deal. But if Em shifts before that, you need to text me a pic, okay?”
Tracy just shook her head. Kevin had always had the ability to cheer her up, even on her worst days. Today didn’t quite rank up there with the worst days of her life, but it had definitely been a shocking sort of day so far. Hopefully, with Hank’s departure, things would settle down a bit, so she could think and make decisions and plans, before he returned.
*
Tracy should’ve known it was too much to ask for a little peace once her daughter had shown the world—or at least the Pack—what she really hid under all that cuteness. Over the next few days, people started phoning to check how she was doing and dropping by her workplace or home, just to say hello. More than one Pack mate seemed to stare at Em in fascination, and a few rather tactless old biddies tried to question Tracy about Hank, but she was having none of it.
When some of the bigger males offered to hunt down the cat who’d done her wrong, Tracy knew she had to put a stop of the rumors, once and for all. She picked her time and showed up at the Pack house for the general assembly they held just before every full moon. Most of the Pack would be there to discuss plans for whatever party they were planning to celebrate the howl, as they called it, when the entire group got together to run together under the light of the full moon.
