“How did that end up for you?” I asked, looking back at him again. “Kissing the farmer’s daughter.”
“I married her, and she gave me my first son, who would stay by my side for two hundred and fifty years,” he answered. I saw the pain, could smell the pain now. It went on and on.
It made me think of Shane and how much I missed that man. How much I had wanted to spend my life with him and how much it had destroyed me to lose him. I had buried it, hiding it under the need to survive and learn to be a werecat, but it had always been there. It would always be there. The same way Heath buried his pain under being a werewolf and a father, focusing on everything else except the loss he had suffered.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I just need time. This is…this is new to me. I haven’t been with anyone in over a decade, then we kiss, but I’m not sure what that makes us, then there’s what we are…”
“I know. I shouldn’t have assumed there was more between us than what we have.” It looked as if it was hard for him to say those words, the way his muscles tensed, and his jaw was clenched.
“I would love to come over for dinner,” I whispered, looking down to avoid his intense grey-blue stare that was beginning to lighten up to ice-blue, his wolf eyes. “And you can take my car to whatever fae you want for that spell thing. For Carey’s protection, of course.”
“And now she learns how to bargain and bribe with an Alpha werewolf,” he mumbled, a rueful expression on his face when I looked up at him. “Let’s go. Bring your hatchback over, and I’ll drive you home after dinner.” When he realized I was watching him again, he smiled. “Do you think I could convince you to join me on the trip, and we can have a not-date?”
“We’ll talk about it,” I said, chuckling. The question made me realize we were fine. At least for the moment.
Chapter Seven
Carey ran to my car when I arrived at the Everson house. A picturesque thing with a wraparound porch, it was a beautiful home. Not that I had a moment to appreciate it since I got out of the car and was attacked by a thirteen-year-old.
“Dad beat you and told me you were coming!” she declared, grinning. “He said you were right behind him, but that was like an hour ago.”
“I wanted to clean up,” I said, giving her the hug I knew she wanted. We walked to the door together, my arm over her shoulder and hers around my waist. “I know we text, but you never told me how you were doing after Monday. Want to say something before we go inside?”
“Not really. They come, they leave. Everything goes back to normal. Dad would never let them take me, and I know you wouldn’t either.” Her nonchalant words carried more weight than I figured the young teen realized.
The loyalty and faith she had in us was heartwarming…and correct. There was nothing on this earth that could take her away from Heath Everson, who loved his daughter more than the sun.
And there was no one who could take her away from me. The world had tried that once before, when I had just met her, and nearly succeeded. I would never allow it again.
“Well, if you ever want to talk about it, you know you can, right?” I stopped her before we got to the door and turned, so we were face to face again. “I know it’s hard having people look too closely at your life and judging you for things that shouldn’t be their business. If you ever feel like you can’t talk to your dad or brother, you can talk to me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Her one-shoulder shrug told me she wasn’t taking this nearly as seriously as I was. Or she wanted to avoid talking about it in general. Carey was much like her family of werewolves. If topics were too emotional or vulnerable, they weren’t going to bring it up and made it seem like whatever it was didn’t matter. I was used to the act and had seen it falter on many occasions, but I never tried to force it. Not with brute force, at least. I knew how to fool Carey into talking to me.
“Fine, don’t talk to me,” I replied, lifting my hands up in defeat.
“Jacky!” The whine nearly made me chuckle. “It’s not easy. All the kids at school know I was raised by werewolves, and now, a lot of them know what happened in Dallas. Like, it’s not hard to search for me on the internet, and everyone has the internet. Some have really mean parents too and…” Her face screwed up into a pout, something I thought she had outgrown. Turning away, she looked to the street and kicked a small rock off the concrete walkway to the front door. “And they don’t even know about the people who come here and make Dad feel bad or worry Landon. I hear them talk! I hear how other people talk about us all the time…”
I glanced at the door, particularly at the windows on either side of it, seeing Heath and Landon each hanging out in one. They could hear her, definitely eavesdropping on the conversation. I narrowed my eyes, and Heath was the first one to notice he’d been caught. I watched him tap Landon, and they moved away from the windows. Once they were gone, I turned my attention back on Carey.
“I can’t imagine how hard it is for you—”
“It’s harder because I don’t have a mom,” she mumbled. “They all notice that, too. It’s whatever, though.”
Yes, you do. It’s not whatever, Carey. I’m right here.
My heart clenched. No. I couldn’t try to fill that role. I wasn’t her mother. I couldn’t be her mother. I could be a fun aunt or a friend, but I wasn’t her mother. The woman who had that responsibility was gone and had never come back. Heath had never lied about it, and she had never reached out to Carey as far as I knew.
Fucking bitch doesn’t know what she’s missing.
“What can I do?” I asked gently, squatting to be on her level. “Do you want me to help out?”
Her eyes went big…very big.
“Do you think you could…come to my school stuff?”
“Um…not parent-teacher conferences—”
“No, like the science fair!” She reached out and hit my arm. I pretended it hurt and rubbed the spot, but in reality, I had barely felt it. “Don’t be dumb. Or like…I want to start playing soccer in school or maybe softball. Or volleyball! I’m human, so they can’t stop me. You could come to my games! Last year, I didn’t do anything because Dad and I didn’t know anyone, and the year before that, I missed like half the school year, but this year, I’m going to do a lot. I’m going into the eighth grade. I need to start worrying about college.”
I tried my best not to be surprised by her ideas of college already. She was thirteen. I didn’t start worrying about college until I was sixteen. Then I remembered my twin. She started worrying about college when she came out of the womb.
If anything, Carey’s a good middle ground.
“I can definitely go to those,” I promised. Then I had to deliver the bad news to her plan. “Carey, it might not help with the fact your dad is a werewolf Alpha. Me showing up…To everyone here, I just own a bar. That might not have the effect you want.”
She shrugged even more. Somehow, only Carey could make one shrug seem even more impactful than the last. It was an entire language done with one simple movement of her shoulders.
“I know I’ll outgrow a lot of this stuff. I’ll get out of school and go to college. Maybe no one will know where I came from or who I’m related to at college.”
Unlikely.
“But maybe they’ll be cool with it if they do know. Right now, it’s just…” She sighed. “I’m fine, I really am, Jacky. It’s always been like this. It sucks, but I’m going to be okay. As long as I have you, Dad, and Landon, and no one is getting hurt, I really like my life, and everyone else sucks. It’s their problem, not mine. That’s what all the other human kids used to say. They said when they got out of high school, it all changed. College was way easier.”
“Okay, then.” I smiled and straightened up, looking to the door. The father in question was back at the window and gave me a weak smile before disappearing again.
Nosy wolf. He’s so protective but tries so hard to give her space.
I somehow got her through the door, and she went toward the kitchen. I turned to see Heath hiding behind the door as I closed it.
“Does she…talk to other kids like her?” I asked softly.
“Regularly,” he said with a tight smile. “She still messages friends she grew up with from the Dallas pack. Once she turned thirteen, I was ordered to create an account on some social media thing for her, so she could talk to them more. She never told you?”
“Nope.” I shrugged this time. “It’s not really my business, though, is it?” I chewed the inside of my lip, something about her having a social media account bothering me. “You monitor her online, right?”
“Me and Landon,” he answered, his tight smile becoming more genuine and relaxed. “Yeah, we would never let her talk to strangers on the internet. We don’t hover, but she knows we know her logins, just to make sure. And when strangers try to add her, we run a quick background check on them just in case, block them from her account, or monitor them other ways.”
“Wow. Okay.” I wasn’t expecting all that. My parents hadn’t monitored my sister and me on the internet. We were a little older when it became available to us, and no one really understood the dangers of it yet. Somehow, I had half-expected Heath not to understand either, though it was a stupid assumption. He wasn’t one of those ancients who was behind the times. He stayed up to date, just like my werecat family, and took advantage of everything new technologies made possible.
“I noticed when I looked into you years ago, your human accounts were still active,” he said slyly. “There are a lot of old pictures of you still on the web.”
“Yeah…” I sighed. “Hasan and I left them because of my human family. If I had suddenly disconnected everything, they would have noticed. Instead, I’ve let them go dead, killing them off slowly through the years. What about you?”