Jackie spent most of the day with Franny and Heidi. Becky and Fletch shifted and went for a run with Charles. They had a great time playing in the snow. Robert stayed in his room.

As the girls talked, Heidi seemed preoccupied.

“Heidi, is everything alright?” Franny asked. “You’re never this quiet. I swear, Jackie, she’s usually a down right Chatty Cathy. Never stops talking. I’ve barely heard her say a word since breakfast.”

“Is something bothering you?” Jackie asked.

Heidi let out a long sigh. “I may as well tell you. You’ll find out eventually anyway, but you must give me your word you won’t say anything. Not to Becky or Fletch and especially, not Charles.” Both the girls stared at her. “You have to promise.”

“All right. We promise,” Jackie told her. Heidi looked at Franny and raised a questioning brow.

“Oh, all right. I promise not to say anything.”

“I think Robert and I are mates, and I think he does, too.”

Jackie and Franny were speechless. Jackie didn’t know what to say. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Has Robert said anything?”

“No. I don’t think he likes me. I think that’s why he’s been avoiding us, well, me. Just my luck, right. I find my mate and he hates me.”

“Heidi, don’t say that,” Jackie told her. “You have to talk to him.”

“I can’t. He knows, I know he does and he’s staying away. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me because I am damaged goods.” Heidi looked down at her hands and played with a clip that had been in her hair.

“I’ll talk to him,” Jackie told her.

“Noooo! You promised not to say anything. If you do, I’ll go home. I’ll leave today. I’ll take the bus. I’ll hitch-hike if I have to.”

“Alright, alright. Settle down. I’ll talk to Charles.”

“You can’t,” Heidi cried.

“Hold on. I won’t tell him, but I’ll ask him to talk to Robert and find out what is putting him out of sorts. He never behaves like this, staying away. I must agree, he is acting odd.”

“Do you think he’ll confess how he feels to Charles?” Heidi asked.

“I’m sure he will. It may take a while, but he’ll find out.” Jackie felt sorry for her. “Now, what you have to do is ignore him. Act normal and look sexy.” That made Franny laugh.

“Oh, Jackie, good luck with that. Heidi never uses make up or lipstick. She always wears her hair the same way and never dresses up. Look at her, yoga pants and a sweatshirt. That’s all she ever wears.”

“Well, we’ll just have to work on that. We don’t have to do it today, but we will have you ready by Thanksgiving dinner.” Jackie was already making plans in her head. She wasn’t about to let Robert ignore his true mate.

“Come on, you two. I need your help to prepare dinner,” Jackie smiled, trying to make the mood a bit more cheerful. “How about roast chicken, scalloped potatoes and corn?”

“Yummy, I’m starving already,” Becky said. “Potatoes, here I come. I’m an expert at peeling potatoes.”

“Wonderful. I hate peeling potatoes, I always make Charles or Robert do it for me.” The three headed for the kitchen.

As they walked into the kitchen, the back door closed like someone had just gone out. Becky looked out the door and saw Robert heading for the lake.

“You don’t think he heard us, do you?” She looked back at Jackie and Heidi.

“No, he was probably just on his way out.” At least Jackie hoped so.

 

                                                       *****

Dinner was great. Robert was polite and thanked Heidi for taking care of his burn, it was almost completely healed by the end of the day. He admitted to her that her salve had taken the sting out of it.

“I’d like to know how you make your salve, Heidi,” Charles told her. “It would be great having something like that during fire season. We get so many campers, and fire fighters for that matter, that get burned. I spoke to my brother and he said he would like to produce it. Would that be alright, you’d be paid, of course.”

“Really!” Heidi was surprised. “It’s just an old family remedy. I don’t think you can get all the ingredients here though. I have relatives send me what I need when my jar is almost empty.”

“You just tell me what we need and we’ll get it. My brother has connections all over the world, he can get what is needed. It isn’t a secret family remedy, is it? You’re not sworn to secrecy or anything?”

“No, nothing like that.” She gave Charles a big smile. She didn’t want to offend him by laughing. She though he was being totally silly.

“Let me explain. We must conform to manufacturing laws, so we have to be sure everything is legit. We don’t want to get sued by your family if there are any legal issues.”

“No, nothing like that, but I can double check if you like.”

“Yes, I would,” Charles replied. “Now, enough business talk. Time to eat.”

The rest of the meal was pleasant. Fletch and Becky told Franny and Heidi all about their run with Charles.

“Franny, you wouldn’t believe it, the lake was created by an earthquake. The lake wasn’t here when they first moved here.”

Franny looked at Charles. “You’re lucky your home didn’t end up under water.”

“It almost did.”

 They had had a great day. They had one more day before Thanksgiving. Charles offered to take Franny and Heidi out the next day.

“No, that’s okay,” Heidi told him. “I’ll stay inside where it’s warm.”

Robert snickered. “I thought you were a bear?”

“I am. Do you know anything about Pandas?”

“Not really,” was Roberts reply.

“I didn’t think so.” She instantly realized she was being bitchy. “Sorry. Giant Panda’s live in cool, humid, bamboo forests in China. Some live high in the Qin mountains. They don’t exactly live in cold snowy areas if they don’t have to.”

“Does that mean you can’t handle cold weather?’ He asked.

“No. It means we prefer warm to cold. But I can handle cold if I have to. I just don’t choose to be cold. I had enough of that before...” She stopped what she was about to say and took a bite of salad to avoid further comment.

Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever.” He continued to eat his dinner. Jackie and Franny gave each other a worried look. It didn’t go unnoticed and Charles decided he would find out what was going on later.

After dinner, the girls volunteered to do the dishes and clean up. It gave Charles a chance to kick back with Robert and Fletch in the den and watch some football. Jackie hadn’t had a chance to talk to him.

Robert sat shaking one foot which he always did when he was unsettled about something.

“Robert, you do realize that Heidi is one of the shifters that we found naked and nearly beaten to death in Oregon.” He gave his bother a glare.

“Ah shit. I did know, but I fucking forgot all about that. Sorry, it’s just something about her that puts me off. I’d better go and apologize for being rude.”

“No, let it go for now. Maybe at another time when the two of you have a chance to talk, you can apologize then.”

Robert had no intention of sitting down with Heidi and having a talk. She made him irritable and nervous.

 

                                                    *****

After everything was done, the girls sat in the kitchen and talked.

“Does Holly know we’re coming for Thanksgiving?” Becky asked. “I’d love to see her.”

Holly was another of the girls, a white wolf, that had been rescued in Oregon. She had come with Charles and Jackie when they returned home and met her mate, a gray wolf, ironically named James Wolf. James was one of Charles’ best friends and alpha of the wolves on the Peak.

“James and Holly are coming by tomorrow. Oh, and you’ll get to meet Amy, his sister. She’s the one that taught me all about shifters and how to shift. She can’t wait to meet you. I think she wants to see how good a job I did.”

“Are James and Holly planning on having a family?” Franny asked.

“I think they want to wait until they can build their own house. They don’t really want to raise kids in town. Holly got a job as a dispatcher with the forest service, that’s were Amy works. Most of his family work for the forest service.”

“Charles and Robert work for Search and Rescue, right?” Becky added.

“Yes, and hopefully they don’t get any calls in the next couple of days.” Jackie crossed her fingers on one hand and knocked on wood, the table, with the other.

“They wouldn’t make them work over Thanksgiving, would they?”

Jackie laughed. “Franny, of course they would. If someone needs to be found and rescued, it doesn’t matter what day it is.”

“That sucks, I wouldn’t work for them,” Franny told them.

“Well, they aren’t the only ones. There are lots of people that have to work on the holidays.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t think about that. Do people eat Big Macs on Thanksgiving?”           

That made Jackie laugh. “I’m sure people that don’t have families go out to eat.”

Again, Heidi sat without saying anything. Franny just shook her head.

“Heidi, what’s it like in China?” Jackie asked.

“It’s beautiful and green,” she said softly. “Things are so different there, slower, except for Beijing. It’s crammed packed with too many people. My family lives away from the city in the low mountains where it is quiet.”

“When was the last time you went home to visit?” she asked.

“I returned for a visit before it happened.”

“Before it happened?” It was odd the way she put it. “You mean what happened in Oregon?” Heidi nodded her head. Robert had gotten up to get a couple of beers and heard them talking. He stopped in the hall to listen.

“I can never go home, now. I have shamed my family and they will no longer allow me in their village. They would turn their backs to me,” Heidi said quietly, “to them, I no longer live, I am dead.”

“The whole village?” Jackie was shocked when Heidi nodded.

“That’s terrible and unfair. You didn’t have any choice in what happened.” Jackie couldn’t believe they would do such a thing.

“It is their way. I think I will go to bed now. If you will excuse me.”

“Heidi, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m alright, I have reconciled in my heart and don’t blame them.”

As Heidi got up from the table, Robert quietly walked down the hall before she could see him.

What he had heard made him angry. How could someone do that to her. It wasn’t her fault. If her family lived here, he would give them a piece of his mind.   Their customs were barbaric. Robert grabbed a few beers and returned to the den.