EIGHT
A man who is good with his hands can always find work, and Grant Boone was at least as good with his hands as he was with another given part of his anatomy. So finding work upon returning to Talon Valley was not difficult.
At least, it was not anywhere near as difficult as what he was presently facing.
The remainder of the week, in the midst of work, he was consumed with one thought: How could I have done that? How could I have knocked her up?
Truth to tell, he knew exactly how he could have done it—exactly the way he did it. And it was the first time in his life that the memory of times spent in bed with a woman did not immediately turn him to wood down below. Grant was now learning in no uncertain terms the effects of unintended consequences.
Grant’s carpentry and building skills had gotten him hired onto a project renovating the Talon Valley Visitor’s Center, and he had odd jobs lined up as a carpenter and handyman in town, all of which kept him physically busy. After his phone call with Laura, he threw himself into the work he had secured in the forlorn hope of taking his mind off of what he had done to her—and his growing fear of what would happen when she came to visit and he had to tell her everything. When she had first told him, he had broken out in curses at the situation. Now, he turned his curses onto himself. During that weekend he had spent with Laura, when he had talked to Kendra on the phone, he had jokingly called himself a “bear-slut.” In all his sexually active life, Grant had never considered himself a common himbo. Yes, he slept around. Yes, he had sex with women—both human and his own kind—that he did not love. And yes, he had spent his time from adolescence to now having sex for its own sake because it felt good. But he was never callous, never unfeeling, never uninterested in his partners as people. He never bedded a woman he did not like. And frankly, he took a considerable pride in his body and the pleasure that he brought to every female with whom he lay. But casual sex had been his way of life, and he had never expected it to come to anything more than pleasure.
But life now mocked him. Life had other plans.
Over and over, he came back to one part of that conversation on the phone with Laura. He had told her, actually told her, that he did not expect her to go through with the pregnancy. The memory of saying that to her stung him to the bottom of his heart. He had actually told a woman pregnant with his cub that he approved of her not having it. This was perhaps the thing that made him curse himself most bitterly, for even though he had never been unfeeling toward any female, it must have made him sound truly callous. This was the thing that actually did make him feel like a selfish, low-down cad. How many men had gotten women in trouble and not wanted to deal with it? How many men had simply not wanted the responsibility of a baby they had made with a woman and simply told her to get rid of it, even given her the money or helped her obtain it to do away with the pregnancy? It stung Grant in the most grievous way to think that he had put himself in the same category as all those worthless men, and it was one more thing for which he was going to have to account when he saw Laura again. He was going to have to tell her the reason why he had made such a dire, dirty, selfish suggestion. And his explanation was going to take her into a world that she never knew existed. What would that do to her? The thought of it made him want to dig a hole, jump into it, and pull the dirt in behind him.
The world to which Grant belonged, whose existence Laura Winslow did not suspect, was one on whose fringes she had unwittingly put herself the night they met. When they talked at Scarlet and Crimson, she had asked him about what went on in the back room of the place, and of course, he had not told her. It was the covenant of his kind, the covenant of all shape-changing people, that under all but the most extenuating circumstances, they did not discuss with humans what went on in places like that or what hid in plain sight in towns like Talon Valley. His sex life was casual, but his obligation not to reveal the existence of beings like himself to ordinary humans was not. Going to and fro in Talon Valley, from his work sites to his sister’s house to the little apartment he had rented, he passed people like himself and shifters of other species on a regular basis. Sometimes, in places out of the sight of humans, they met and interacted and even mated in their other bodies. Talon Valley was home to a community of werewolves, werebears, werepanthers, and a few werefoxes. They all knew each other, or could identify each other by scent, and they all went about their lives, mostly without the knowledge of their human neighbors. Only a select and very trusted few non-shifters knew who and what shared the town with them, and these humans were part of the covenant. It was a trust not to be broken, a responsibility not to be shirked.
And there was also the matter of the real reason Grant had come home. There was also the approaching day of the Games.
Once every decade, in communities like Talon Valley, there came a time when the shifting clans would choose their leaders. They did not go about their selection the way humans did, with campaigns and political posturing. The leaders of the shifters were selected in trial by competition, a matching of physical skills against one another. It was in keeping with their animal side, a throwback to the way nature did things. They would shed their human forms and compete with strength, speed, and cunning, and the leadership would fall to the strongest and the fittest. It was all purely Darwinian, and they knew it. But it was in keeping with the duality of their lives. In human form, they lived as humans and kept to human ways. But as werebeings, they honored their animal selves. The leaders were chosen in trial by physical competition, and the leaders presided over the councils that managed and protected their lives and made the decisions for how they lived and how they dealt with humans. And it all went on out of human sight—mostly.
Now, when Laura came to Talon Valley, Grant would have to tell her everything. He would have to tell her why he had really come home, to compete in the Games and vie for leadership of the local Ursan clan. He would have to tell her what he really was, and why he had brought up the option of not having his cub. And he would have to hope that he did not drive this beautiful, gentle woman mad in the process. Which was what brought him back time and again to the question, How could I have done that?
The choice that he had suggested to her had brought up other implications for Grant. Laura was carrying his cub. His cub. His flesh and blood and fur. She was going to have to deal with not only being pregnant with a man that she had picked up in a bar, but with being pregnant with a being who was not even fully human. He had exposed her to something with which she might not even be able to cope, which might drive her insane. Perhaps he was underestimating her. Perhaps she was stronger than that. But the fact remained that she was human, and humans were riddled with fears and prejudices and loathing of anything not like themselves. And Grant Boone was about as different from Laura Winslow as he could get. It was up to him now to tell her everything that she was facing and to try to help her keep her sanity.
And then there was the choice itself, the choice of whether she would actually carry and give birth to the cub once she knew the truth. It was not only Laura’s sanity at risk. It was the little life that Grant had made inside her. If she terminated the pregnancy, that little thing, his cub, his flesh and blood and fur, would be gone. Grant had never seriously considered the idea of having cubs. He had never thought he wanted them. He only liked doing the thing that made them. He liked doing it every chance that came to him, and he liked doing it a lot. He had certainly loved doing it to Laura. But now, here it was, this thing he had never wanted. It was a reality. How would he feel if Laura, on learning that what she was carrying was both unplanned and only half-human, decided she did not want it? What if she got rid of it and removed it permanently from both of their lives? How would he feel? What would he do?
The days fell away, one by one. Saturday was coming. It may well have been on a Saturday that Grant had created the little werebear life growing inside Laura. Now, a very different Saturday lay in store for both of them. Grant had thought that when Laura came to visit, he would simply take her to bed and spend the time doing to her again what he had done to her that weekend. Now, she would be coming for a different reason, and three futures turned on whatever would happen when she arrived.
_______________
Driving into Talon Valley and making her way through the town, Laura ran through her mind all the adjectives that would describe a place like this. Charming. Scenic. Picturesque. Tranquil. Looking at the streets and avenues as she passed through them, Laura felt as if she were passing through a series of postcards. It was all perfect little houses, apartment buildings, restaurants, cafes, and shops; perfect tree-lined streets; perfect fences of white picket posts and black wrought iron; and perfect rows of trees. The people who lived here certainly knew how to keep their town looking good.
And as much as she could, while keeping her eyes on the road, she looked at the people. By and large, there seemed to be nothing remarkable about them. They struck her as perfectly ordinary small-town people—except here and there, she noticed something intriguing. Coming down one street, she found a group of joggers, all of them strikingly good-looking, especially the men. She thought they were all the most toned, buffed, and attractive-looking guys she had ever seen outside of a male physique calendar. They were not pumped up like weight lifters, but their muscularity was impressive. Does this place breed guys like that? she wondered. She realized as they passed that the men in the group all reminded her of Grant. They had Grant’s general kind of face and body. They must grow them here, she thought. Interesting…
Laura had a similar reaction when she passed by a park. Pausing at a stop light, she glanced into the park and once again found a group of people in T-shirts and shorts congregated, all doing workout routines. And again, they were all attractive, but the men in particular were pin-ups come to life with their lean, toned, hard bodies. Indeed, they were leaner and more sinewy than the joggers, but they were all figures of sleek muscle. She watched them do their squats and sit-ups and push-ups until the light changed and she had to move on, but in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if somehow this town had a particular interest in physical culture. This Talon Valley, she thought, seemed to be the best-kept secret in the region. Perhaps it was only her imagination, and perhaps it was only her reaction to seeing just small, isolated samples of the population, but her first impression of the place was that it held an unusually large number of great-looking people per capita.
She drove past the Visitor’s Center, a quaint-looking cottage with a 19th-Century vibe to it. She reasoned it must be at least that old, if not older. Remembering that Grant had told her that one of his jobs right now was to help with renovations on the place, she stretched her neck a bit and trained her eyes carefully on it. Perhaps she might catch a glimpse of him. Perhaps she might see him at work, carrying two-by-fours or a bucket. He might be wearing just a tank-top or no shirt at all, and he might be dusty and dirty in that sexy way that men in labor trades get-- the way that makes one just want to strip them, clean them off, towel them down, and get “dirty” with them in an entirely different way. Into Laura’s mind, memories flashed of just how very “dirty” Grant had been with her. She wanted nothing more at this moment than to peek inside that building, find him there hammering away at some boards, and hark back to the way he had “hammered” her, hour after lustful hour.
Of course, she thought, Grant’s “hammering” was the reason for her present predicament, which was what had brought her here to his town to talk about what they would do about it—and learn whatever it was he did not want to tell her on the phone. Whatever it was that he was not saying had filled her with foreboding for days, and that feeling was only keener now.
However, no work crews seemed to be on the premises at the moment; indeed, the place seemed not to be operating at all. It all looked closed down, no doubt until whatever repairs and maintenance had been contracted was finished. The crew may for some reason have had the day off. It was curious, but Laura made no other remark on it. She had other things on her mind.
In the back of Laura’s mind was one other thought--one that she half-acknowledged, which she did not really consider relevant to her present situation. It was just some stray notion that occurred to her, that she had no reason to believe meant anything at all.
The joggers and the people in the park reminded her in some ill-defined way of the people she had seen at Scarlet and Crimson the night she had met Grant.
_______________
The most curious thing about her visit to Talon Valley, Laura thought, was that Grant had given her directions not to his own place but to his sister Kendra’s house and had asked her to meet him there. Why would he ask her to come to see him at the home of his sister—the doctor? Did that have anything to do with whatever it was he did not want to discuss on the phone? Did that pertain in any way to the unstated reason she had driven three hours on a Saturday morning to a place she had never been to meet the man who had inadvertently gotten her pregnant? She would soon know the answer. Kendra Boone’s house of white wood and red bricks lay on the corner at the end of one of those immaculate tree-lined streets, behind an iron gate at the top of a gently sloping hill, and was isolated at the back end by a thicket of trees bordering on a larger forest. The gate was open, and Grant had told her just to drive up into the little parking inlet by the garage at the top of the hill. She did and eased into a space right next to a red pickup truck that she recognized as his. For a moment, Laura sat behind the wheel after turning off the ignition and felt much the same way she had felt in the parking lot at Scarlet and Crimson, marshaling her nerve to go inside. She did not know then that she was sitting not only near the threshold of a bar but on the cusp of the greatest turning point of her life. She had been anxious then. She was doubly anxious now.
The back door of the house opened, and he stepped out, looking much as he had looked that weekend, in a muscle top with his sleeves rolled up and jeans. Watching him stride toward her car, Laura’s every cell remembered the things his achingly perfect body had done to her--and her stomach flip-flopped a bit when she reminded herself of the effect of it. He had done so much more to her than just that. She opened the car door and stepped out to meet him, wondering what to say, what to do, at this reunion under such unintended circumstances.
Grant settled the question for her. One second, she closed the car door; the next, he gathered her up in his arms and pressed her firmly but tenderly against him. His body felt better than it had any business feeling right now. It was the way he felt, after all, that had gotten her into all this. In spite of that, Laura returned his embrace. It was all she could do. The fact was that the consequences were unintended. Neither of them had meant for it to happen. And Grant, for all his ravenous lust, was a good, kind man at heart. That much Laura knew.
Parting the embrace just enough to look into her eyes, Grant said, “Laura. Babe, it’s good to see you again.”
Babe. That was what he kept calling her. If any other man had called her that, Laura thought, she would find him condescending and patronizing. Coming from Grant, the epithet Babe was a token of fondness, even affection—and definitely desire. Even now, even with the dilemma facing them both, Grant could not help but radiate pure sex.
“It’s good to see you, too, Grant,” Laura said.
“How was the drive up?” Grant asked.
“It was okay,” Laura replied. “Nice town you have here.”
“Yeah, we like it pretty well,” he said. “Come on in the house; my sister’s got a little lunch set up.”
Grant kept one arm around her as he led her back in the direction he’d come from. It was a gesture of support and concern, she knew. And a show of kindness and familiarity. And was it only her imagination, or was it an expression of something more, of a deeper caring? Of course he would show her caring now, she realized. He was a good man, and she was carrying his child. But Laura sensed in him a caring not just for what was growing inside her, but for her as the one with whom he had created it. In her heart of hearts, she believed in his basic goodness as a person. She held fast to that belief as she turned her mind to the afternoon ahead of them.
And so, Laura sat down to lunch with Grant and Kendra in Kendra’s kitchen, with sandwiches and a pitcher of iced tea. Laura thought Kendra was nice enough, a warm and personable woman, and she could easily imagine her getting along and forming a fine rapport with her patients. Laura was sure that Kendra must be a very good doctor, well liked and respected by the community. She remained unsure of what she was doing here, talking with Grant and his sister about what was really as private a situation as it could be between her and the father of the baby she was carrying. From the questions that Kendra asked her about her life and her job—not overly prying, just general questions—Laura had the impression that Kendra was trying to put her at ease. This prompted her all the more to bring up her most basic concern.
“Not to be rude, because this is your home,” said Laura, “but I’m a little curious about why Grant asked me to come here to talk about…the situation.” She winced a bit inside at the way she spoke so euphemistically about their reason for being here. It wasn’t as if Kendra didn’t know what was going on. Still, it was the combination of her manners and her nerves that made her put it that way. “No offense, but this is kind of, you know, between him and me.”
Kendra and Grant exchanged the kind of look that passed between two people who shared an understanding that someone else did not, then Grant addressed Laura: “I wanted us to talk about this with Kendra because…she’s a doctor, and I thought she’d be helpful to us.”
Laura was more sure than ever that something more was going on than just Grant having gotten her pregnant. She felt as queasy from anxiety as she’d been feeling from morning sickness. “What do you mean, Grant?” she asked. “Are you sick, is that it? Or is there something in your family, some hereditary thing you think might affect the baby? Oh my God, is that it? Is there something that runs in your family?”
Grant and Kendra looked at each other again—that same look, but somehow even more apprehensive. “Um…something like that,” said Grant. “Actually…yeah. That.”
“Something about your family history,” Laura said.
“Yeah,” Grant replied. “It’s…kind of hard to explain. It’s not really the kind of thing that’s easy for people to hear.”
This was sounding more awful by the minute. Laura was now fighting waves of fear as well as nausea. As calmly as she knew how, she said, “Just tell me, Grant. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
Grant took a deep breath, then went ahead. “Okay. Well…you remember the night we met, right?”
“Of course I remember. Like I could forget.”
“Right. Well, do you remember that one room in the bar, off to one side in the back? That room you were so curious about?”
Laura furrowed her brow, frowning, confused. “Yes, I remember. The room you said was for special patrons only, where they had to really know you before you were allowed in. That was weird, but what has that got to do with you and me?”
“More than you’d think,” said Grant. “I’ve been in that room, like I said. As a matter of fact, some of the other women I’ve been with are women I met in that room.”
Laura tried to do the math. “And…you think you, what, caught something from someone you met there?”
“No,” Grant replied. “I didn’t catch anything from anyone. The people who are allowed in that room get to go back there because…you see…they’ve all got something in common.”
Laura rolled her eyes, even more confused. “Grant, what on Earth are you talking about?”
“This is kind of hard to explain,” Grant said. “See, the people who go back there…they all go there to…I guess you’d say they go there to slip into something more comfortable.”
Now, Laura’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “You mean it’s some kind of nude bar back there? Everyone goes back there…what…to see each other naked?”
“Not exactly naked,” said Grant. “That is, they do take some clothes off. Some of them take everything off; some of them just take off some…” He trailed off, frustrated. He looked at Kendra again, and she just shrugged at him. He turned his attention back to Laura and found her as frustrated as he was, and even more confused. “This isn’t going well. I’m trying to explain this in a way you’ll appreciate.”
“I’m not appreciating any of this,” Laura said, starting to sound exasperated. “You said you’re not sick, and it’s not some genetic problem. And then you went into this bit that doesn’t make any sense at all about what goes on in that room at the bar, which has nothing to do with anything you’re talking about. You’re right, I don’t appreciate this, Grant. I’m pregnant by you. This is serious. I didn’t think you were the kind to play games about this.”
“Believe me, Laura, I’m not playing games. And what I’m trying to tell you has everything to do with us and with you being pregnant. This just isn’t easy. Laura…there are some people who are…different. A lot of people in this town are…different. I’m sure when you were driving here, you saw some of the people I’m talking about. Laura, my sister and I are two of those people.”
Trying to hold her temper and not shout, Laura gripped the edge of the table and, in a measured voice, demanded, “What people, Grant?”
Grant answered flatly, “People…who change.”
Laura leaned back in her seat, totally flustered. “‘Change?’ What do you mean, ‘people who change’?”
“Laura,” said Grant, “there are people who have more than one body. More than one shape. The people who use that room in the bar, and a lot of other people who go to that bar, and a lot of people who live here in Talon Valley, including my sister and me—we have more than one body. We can change.”
Ever closer to shouting, Laura asked, “‘Change’ into what? Grant, this is nonsense!”
“No, Laura,” Grant said, “it’s not. I want you to just sit and be calm…and watch something.”
“What is it you want me to watch?” asked Laura, barely containing her anger.
Wetting his lips and bracing himself, Grant calmly answered, “Just look, Laura. Look at my arm.”
Grant rested one arm on the table between himself and Kendra, and Laura asked, “What about your arm?”
“Just watch,” Grant told her.
Laura sighed testily, not amused at any of this, and put her attention on Grant’s forearm, exposed with his sleeve rolled up. She watched, and Grant concentrated—and it happened.
Grant’s forearm, already muscular, grew thicker and heavier. Hair broke out all over his exposed limb--thick, dark hair. In a moment, his forearm was covered with fur. And his hand transformed from the strong hand of a man to the powerful paw of a beast, with long nails that could flay a human body to ribbons. What had been the forearm of a man became the forelimb of a bear.
A violent upheaval of shock beyond all expression, beyond all comprehension, wrenched Laura back in her seat, then out of it. She staggered to her feet, knocking her chair down and almost falling down herself. She tumbled back and landed against a kitchen cabinet, her entire body becoming a knot of horror and disbelief. The kitchen rang with the sound of her screaming. She clutched the kitchen cabinet for dear life, her eyes riveted to the animal limb that Grant rested on the kitchen table, and she screamed as if to pour the entire contents of her lungs into the sound.
A pained expression came over Grant. He concentrated again and willed his forearm back to human. But while he could take back his animal transformation, he could not undo the effect of it on Laura. As quickly as Laura had bolted from the table, Kendra got up and sped around the table to Laura’s side, putting her hands on Laura’s shoulder in an attempt to steady her. Laura, still screaming, batted Kendra away, glancing horrified between Kendra and her brother. “Oh my God! Oh my God, oh my God!” To Kendra, she cried, “And you…you’re like this too? Both of you? Oh my God!”
Kendra raised her hands but kept them human, trying to calm the terrified woman before her. “Yes, Laura,” she said. “Grant and I. This is what we both are. We’re Ursans. Or…you could call us werebears. We’re both human…and bear.”
Laura now leaned against the cabinet, hyperventilating, to prop herself up and stop herself from spilling onto the floor. “No,” she gasped. “No, this isn’t real. Things like this don’t exist. Things like this don’t happen. There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing…”
Kendra carefully took her by one arm and one shoulder, helping her whether she wanted it or not. “Yes, Laura,” she said, “there are such things. My brother and I…we’re both such things. And that’s why Grant asked you to come here to talk to both of us: so we could both try to help you understand.”
“Understand what?” Laura blurted. “That the two of you are something out of old stories, old fairy tales? That you’re both some kind of monsters? This can’t be happening! Grant, you’re a man! A man that I’ve been with! A man that I’m…” her voice started to crack, turning from shouts to sobs, “…a man that I’m pregnant by. Are you telling me I’ve been with a monster? That I’m pregnant with a monster?” She now truly was ready to fall onto the floor. Her voice completely melted into frightened and desperate weeping.
Grant, by this time, had stood up at the table, watching her reaction to what he was and feeling like what she was calling him. There was nothing like a human’s abject fear to make a shifting person actually feel like a monster. He came around the table to help her. He put his arms on her shoulders and at once felt the shock of terror and revulsion bursting through her limbs and into him. She wrenched herself free of him and batted at him with her hands. “Get away from me! Don’t touch me!” she cried.
Wounded, Grant let her straighten herself up in the midst of her tears. “Laura,” he said, feeling more feeble and helpless than he’d ever felt in his life, “I’m sorry. I tried to explain the best way I could. But this is what I am. I’m not a monster. We’re more like mutants. Or mutations. You mentioned it being genetic before, and that’s what it is. We’re…genetically different from humans. We have working genes that humans don’t. Animal genes. My sister and I are werebears. And here in this town, and at the Scarlet and Crimson bar, there are a lot of others like us. Werebears, werewolves, different kinds of shifters. We mostly don’t let humans know what we are. But with you…we don’t have any choice.”
“Maybe it would help,” said Kendra, “if we let you go and lie down.” She cocked her head in the direction of the living room. “In there, in the living room. You could go and lie down on the couch for a while. This is a lot for you to deal with…”
“You think?” Laura cut in.
“…and the stress isn’t good for you,” Kendra continued gently. “Let me help you…”
Laura waved off the helping hand that Kendra offered. “Never mind, I can get there on my own.” And she moved off out of the kitchen, with Kendra keeping herself at Laura’s shoulder in spite of Laura’s protestations of needing no help.
Feeling like a robot and moving like a zombie, Laura walked the short distance to the living room and somehow got herself lying down on the sofa. She felt as if she would sink into the upholstery and the pillow on which she rested her head. And she wished she actually could. Right now, Laura would have liked nothing better than just to disappear from a world that no longer made sense to her and to never be seen again. She closed her eyes as if to close out the insane new reality—or new to her—of people who could turn to beasts. Except, as her sinking heart reminded her, that reality was now growing inside her very body.
Grant pulled up a chair beside the sofa and sat watching her. Apprehension and a remorse such as he’d never known in his life knotted up inside him. For all that he was a proud, strong bear in his other body and a strong, confident man in this one, at this moment, he was possessed by a feeling of utter helplessness at the sight of a woman carrying his cub and thinking of him as a monster. “I’m sorry, Laura,” he said, his voice heavy with despair. “I’m sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry I’m putting you through this.” He wanted to reach out and touch her comfortingly. But he was afraid his touch would give her no comfort now, and he could not bear the thought of the woman to whom he had given such pleasure now flinching and recoiling from his hand on her. He folded his hands on his lap and kept his sorrowful eyes on her for want of his hands. “I’m sorry, Laura.”
Watching her brother watch the shocked human on the sofa, Kendra said, “I’m going to make Laura some tea. Stay here with her.”
Grant did not acknowledge Kendra but just sat with slumping shoulders, keeping his eyes on Laura. Kendra imagined him thinking, As if I’d go anywhere now. She turned and headed back to the kitchen.
Presently, Kendra returned with a pot of tea, some sugar, some lemon juice, and a cup and saucer. She poured out a cupful for Laura and sweetened and lemoned it for her, and softly said, “Laura, you should drink this.” Feeling detached from herself, Laura got herself sitting upright on the sofa and took the drink from Kendra. She sipped absently at it while Kendra pulled up a seat opposite Grant at the table.
Kendra said, “The two of you shouldn’t beat yourselves up and recriminate yourselves about this. Neither of you meant it to happen, and really, it’s an accident in every way.”
Looking up over her teacup, Laura wanly asked, “What do you mean, ‘in every way’?”
“What I mean is,” Kendra explained, “even though neither one of you used any kind of contraception, the chances of this happening at all were really remote. The chances were much, much greater of nothing happening at all.”
“She’s right,” said Grant.
“Why is that?” Laura asked.
Kendra explained further, “Laura, conception between humans and shifters is very, very rare. It hardly ever happens. Shifters and humans have had long-term relationships, even lifelong relationships—marriages, even—and never conceived. That’s the way it is in almost every case. The great majority of the time, we only conceive with our own kind. Our own specific kind. It’s because of differences in genetic makeup, body chemistries, and proteins. Usually, a shifter only breeds with the specific kind of shifter that he or she is—a werebear with another werebear, for example. And we almost never breed with humans. Grant getting you pregnant is a very, very rare exception.”
“Just my luck,” Laura half-muttered, Kendra’s words failing to put her at ease. She sent a bitterly ironic look in Grant’s direction. “You’ve had a lot of other human lovers, haven’t you? All these years you dodged the bullet. I guess nature finally caught up with you.”
Grant wanted to tell her he was sorry again, but it felt utterly futile. All he could offer was a remorseful, “Yeah.”
Kendra went on, “Obviously, you’ll have some choices to make now. It’s early on, and there’s plenty of time, relatively speaking, but it’s better to do something now than later. Grant mentioned to me that he brought up to you that you might not want to keep it.”
Setting the teacup down on the table and folding her arms, Laura said, “And now I know why he said it.”
Grant slumped his shoulders even more at that.
“There is that option,” said Kendra. “And you may want to give it serious consideration now. As a human mother of one of our kind, you’ll have realities to deal with that are just not part of a human experience.”
Laura shut her eyes and shook her head. “My God… My God, what I’m carrying. This can’t be happening…”
“I know it’s hard, Laura,” Kendra said. “But we’re here to help. We’ll get you through this, whatever you decide you want to do.”
Opening her eyes again and glancing between the two Ursan siblings, Laura asked, “What is it you want? I’m the one who’s pregnant, but this is your flesh and blood. Would you actually want me to…not have it? Are the two of you ready to live with that?”
“We’re more concerned with what you can live with,” Kendra replied.
Directing her attention to Grant, Laura asked, “Is that true? You’re the father. These days, fathers want rights. How would you really feel if I didn’t go through with it, if I decided not to have it?”
Grant frowned and gulped. “Laura, I’m no more prepared for this than you are. Sure, yeah, I’d be hurt if you didn’t have my cub. I’d be sorry; I’d be sad. I’d mourn for it. And it would haunt me for the rest of my life, knowing I’d gotten you pregnant and you didn’t want it. And I’ve thought a lot about this since you told me. I’ve always lived a certain way, Laura; we talked about this. I’ve always gotten with females and gotten what I wanted, and that’s been my life. Everybody thinks about being a father or a mother. It’s natural. And everything in the world says we’re supposed to want it. Most people seem to think breeding is what life’s all about. I’ve pictured myself with a cub, being a father, raising it, taking care of it, teaching it—loving it. But it’s always been just an idea to me, not something real. Now, it’s something real. And I’m not ready for it, but it’d hurt me to know it was gone.”
“You call it your ‘cub’,” Laura said. “Your ‘cub’—a human bear cub. That’s what I’m going to have to carry. That’s what I’m going to have to bring into the world. I don’t even know what that’s going to do to me, Grant.”
Kendra cut in, “Laura, even though it will have active Ursan genes and be able to become a bear, in the womb, it will be human and it will be born human. Physically, it will be a human pregnancy. Shifting doesn’t start until the baby—the cub—is about a year old. You’d actually have time to adjust to the idea of being the mother of a shifter.”
“And then, sometime after its first birthday,” said Laura, “I’d have to watch my baby—my child—turn into…into…” She closed her eyes and put her hands over them. “My God. Most mothers look forward to their baby’s first step, their baby’s first word. I’d have to look forward to seeing my baby turn into…” She uncovered her eyes and gazed hard at Grant: “…what its father is.”
“Laura, there’s another possibility,” said Kendra. “You could carry the cub—the baby—and deliver it. And then…you could give custody to Grant and me and let us raise it. You’d never have to go through any of what it would take to raise it. You’d never have to deal with it. Grant and I could take full responsibility.”
Laura turned her hard, deadly-serious expression from Grant to his sister. “You would actually do that? That’s something you would really be willing to do?”
Kendra nodded. “Grant and I have been talking about it. This would be a huge adjustment for the two of us, but…”
Before Kendra could finish, Laura turned back to Grant. “And what about you? Could you really deal with having to change your whole life for the…” she stumbled on the word, “cub?”
“It would totally change my life,” said Grant. “I’d have to live for something besides just myself. I’d have to give up a lot. I know that. But given the choice between changing my life and my cub not being born…”
Laura argued, “But you said yourself, Grant, you don’t do commitments. You and I were never going to be anything but…what we were. We’d hook up whenever one of us could get away for a weekend. Being a father isn’t like that. It’s something you commit to.”
For the first time, Grant sounded impatient with her, almost offended. “You think I don’t know that, Laura? You think it doesn’t scare me, knowing that? Knowing that I’m gonna have to become somebody I wouldn’t even recognize? Having a cub, sooner or later, I’m gonna look at myself in the mirror and not know who’s looking back. Hell yeah, I know it’s a commitment. But you know what? Finding out you’re gonna be a Dad is a game-changer. For any guy with a decent bone in his body, being a Dad changes the game. At least, it ought to.”
Kendra spoke up, “Laura, about commitments: there’s one other thing you ought to know.”
Laura shot a look of alarm at Kendra. She suddenly felt on the edge of panic again. “Oh God, no, there’s something else? What else could there be? I’m afraid to hear this.”
“It’s not about you,” said Kendra. “And it’s not even something bad. It’s important, yes, but it’s not bad. It’s more about Grant than anything else. It mostly affects him. It’s the real reason why he came home.”
Laura whipped back around to look at Grant. “What is she talking about?”
Grant answered, “It’s why I wanted one last fling in the outside world before coming home. It’s what I came here to settle down for. Laura, this town, this place, it’s like two different towns, two different worlds, side by side. Some of the humans, the ones we really trust and count on, know about us. We know they’ll help us and protect us, and sometimes we protect them. It’s the most serious trust in the world, and nobody breaks it. And there’s the human society that has all the human laws and human ways, and the Sheriff and the Mayor and the county offices and all that. And there’s the shifter society with all of our laws and our ways. And both things coexist here. But our ways are different from yours. We do things differently than humans. We choose our leaders differently. We have our own laws that aren’t on the books, and everybody respects them, humans and shifters. And we don’t have elections. Every ten years, we have what’s called…the Games.”
Laura blinked. “The Games?”
“Yeah,” said Grant. “They come once every ten years. All the different clans of shifters—the wolves, the bears, and the panthers—go out into the forest for the Games. They’re contests that we have—wrestling, racing, climbing, and swimming. We don’t choose our leaders by human laws. We choose them by something more like natural laws: ‘leadership of the fittest,’ the strongest, the fastest, and the most cunning. Every ten years, the winners of the Games from every shifter clan become the leaders of the shifter community. The humans we trust the most know about it. We let them watch, some of them. Or they look the other way and let it sort itself out. And life goes on. That’s what I came back for, to be in the Games. And if I win, I’ll be the Ursan leader of Talon Valley for the next ten years.”
Comprehending, but still mind-boggled, Laura said, “That’s what you’re committing to, or what you want to commit to: being the leader of the…bear people.”
“Yeah,” said Grant. “And we take it seriously. All the local Clan leaders represent their people to the human leaders and look out for the whole clan whenever there’s any problem. They’re responsible for seeing to it that everybody is taken care of. We keep a peaceful community here. We hardly ever have any real trouble. And the Clan leaders make sure it stays that way. We just want to live our own lives and have no trouble with humans because there are more of you than there are of us, and when humans get scared of what’s different from themselves, it’s the most dangerous thing in the world. If I win the Games, that means it’s up to me to keep everybody out of danger.”
“Grant wanted to do this,” said Kendra. “He wanted to do this because he’s lived out in the world with humans and he knows what humans are like. He knows how good you are…and how bad you can be. Being the leader of the Ursans, he’d be expected to protect our people with his life. And being a father…”
“…that would go double…triple…for my cub,” Grant finished for her, with a hard edge of deadly seriousness that Laura had never heard in his voice until now. “If you didn’t want to have our cub, it’d break my heart, Laura. A part of me would never get over it.” He leaned forward at her, looking and sounding more earnest than she had ever heard anyone else in her life. “But if you did have it and didn’t want to raise it, you could give it to Kendra and me. And I’d protect it with my life, and Kendra would raise it like her own.”
“I would,” Kendra said.
Laura put her head back on the pillow on the sofa, feeling as confused as she had when she had seen Grant transform his arm. “I don’t know about any of this,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. The two of you can talk about your commitments and your responsibilities, but I’m the one who’s going to have to carry…this. I’m the one who’s going to have to give birth to it. And I have to do it knowing what it is, knowing it isn’t human…”
“It’s part human,” said Kendra. “And it’s a part of you. Grant and you made it together. It’s yours. You’re its mother.”
“The mother of something I don’t understand, something I didn’t think was even real before today. I’ve never been pregnant before, but I know enough to know it changes everything about your life, everything you think about, and everything you feel. And I’m going to have to go through that twice over. My whole world isn’t what I thought it was any more. I’m carrying a life, and I don’t even know what my life is now. And I’m bringing a new life into a world I don’t know anything about. What kind of a world is it where people are animals or people change into animals? That’s nothing I ever learned about real life. And now I’m supposed to have a baby who belongs to a world like that? How can I even do that?”
Now, Kendra leaned in earnestly. “We’re here, Laura. Grant and I, we’re right here. We’ll help you. We’re not as different as you think.”
Laura hugged herself, as if to put up a barrier between herself and something alien closing in on her. “I just watched the father of the baby I’m carrying turn his arm into a bear paw. That’s different.”
“We’ve got all the same feelings you have,” said Grant.
“And that’s what counts,” Kendra added.
“I don’t know,” said Laura, shutting her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Listen Laura,” said Kendra, “I understand what’s happening to you right now. We’ve just presented you with something huge and shocking and totally outside of your experience, that you haven’t started to process yet. Your whole world has been turned upside down for the second time in a very short time. First, you discover you’re pregnant and single, and now there’s all this. Anyone in your position would feel like she was in over her head. This is no time to be coming to a major decision about anything, especially the kind of choice you’re looking at. You should take a little time, anyway, to make up your mind what to do. Just remember, you do have choices, and you’re not alone. I think you ought to take a little rest, try to catch your breath. You can stay with me for the weekend if you want. I have a spare bedroom upstairs. Go on up and lie down. Get a little sleep, try to take things as easy as you can for the moment. Please, be my guest. Let me look after you a bit. After all, this is about what happens to my little niece or nephew. Can you just let me help you?”
Laura sat up on the sofa. As she had done so many times already today, she looked back and forth at the two siblings and found no trace of deception, nothing to distrust. She felt as though she had very little choice but to trust them. Or perhaps as though trusting them was her first, best choice under the circumstances.
Wearily, she said, “All right. Let me go upstairs then.”
Kendra already had the guest room made up, having anticipated this very situation. She and Grant escorted Laura upstairs, and then Kendra excused herself, leaving her brother and Laura alone. Laura put herself down on the bed and Grant awkwardly watched her, unsure of what to do with a female for the first time in his life.
As if to lighten the mood, Grant pointed out, “The last time we were in a bedroom together it was kind of a different situation, wasn’t it?” And he rubbed the back of his neck, which had broken into cold perspiration.
Laura sat up on the pillows against the headboard with her arms folded, saying nothing, just glaring quietly at him.
“Say something, please,” he said. “Say anything.”
“What would you like me to say, Grant?” Laura asked with a bitterness in her voice that shocked even her.
“Whatever you want to say, I can take it.” He could clearly sense what was on her mind and it was making his stomach roll and tumble.
“You can take it?” she said in such a tone that steam should have been billowing from her ears. “You can take it? I want to hate you. Can you take that?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s natural.”
“And would it be ‘natural’ for me to want to scream at you right now, and curse you, and jump up off this bed, and just beat the living crap out of you?” Her voice started to raise, not with terror as before, but with mounting fury. “Because I do! I want to hate you! And I want to beat you ’til you’re black and blue, you son of a bitch!”
Grant stood his ground, but he could practically feel Laura’s imaginary blows raining down on his shoulders and chest. She sounded every bit as if she could do exactly as she said. It was another thing he had never experienced with a female until now.
“I know,” was his only answer, softly given.
She bared her teeth at him, her voice becoming a snarl. “Oh, you know…! You know…! What the hell is it you think you know, Grant? Do you know what I thought when I first saw you? Do you know I sat there in that bar thinking you were the most beautiful man—no, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life? Did you know how I sat there thinking, ‘Oh, please, let him really be as attracted to me as I am to him’? And, ‘Please let him want to take me home, or let him want to go home with me’? And did you know how much I actually liked you? I thought you were beautiful and sexy and exciting—and nice! I thought you were nice!”
Now, Grant’s stomach was no longer turning over. Instead, it was falling into a bottomless pit, or perhaps sinking in quicksand. Looking down, crestfallen and hurt, he said, “I am nice, Laura.”
“Really?” she snarled again. “Oh, you’re such a nice guy. You are just so damn nice. So nice you never told me what you really are. You never even tried to tell me what you really are. And I’d just met you, and I couldn’t wait to jump into bed with you. I couldn’t wait to do all those things to you and let you do all those things to me. I wanted your hands and your mouth all over me. I wanted you inside me. And you never said a word…never told me, not a word…” She melted into tears again. “And I can’t even hate you because it’s my own fault. I brought it on myself. I wanted you so much. I let you do it over and over and over. And you didn’t tell me…”
Grant found it utterly unbearable to watch the woman with whom he had shared so much passion, so much joy, for so many hours fall into such a state of despair and rage and shame, and know that it was his fault. Unable to stand it, he took a step forward and reached out a hand for her—and with a growl that sounded as if she were a bear herself, Laura lashed out and knocked his hand aside, making him step back in shock.
“Don’t you touch me!” she half-screamed. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me!”
Words failed her now. She could do nothing but sit up on the bed and weep.
Nervously pained and guilty, Grant shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again, wanting to go to her and hold her and knowing that if he tried, she would slap him hard enough to make his head do a 360. “Laura,” he said, “I couldn’t tell you. How could I ever tell you that? Think how that would have sounded. You would have wondered what kind of maniac, what kind of crazy person you’d picked up in a bar. And the way we started out, we thought it was only gonna be a one-nighter anyway. I’d screw you for the night and be on the road in the morning. We didn’t know it was gonna turn into a whole weekend at first. And we didn’t know we’d end up wanting more. And remember what my sister said? This almost never happens. I never had any reason to think it would. As far as either one of us knew, it was never gonna be anything but what it was.”
In mid-sob, Laura gasped out, “Well, it’s more than that now, isn’t it?”
Sorrowfully, Grant answered, “Yeah, it is. We both did this. We’ve both gotta own it, and I do own it. And I’m sorry.”
Laura drew up her knees, buried her head against them, and wrapped her arms around her legs, making a weeping, sobbing ball of herself. Seeing her this way made Grant feel more crushed by the second.
“I wish you’d let me do something for you,” he said. “I wish you’d let me sit with you and hold you. I don’t want to peel off our clothes and do you now. I just want to hold you. I wish you’d let me.”
Laura did not answer. She only sat there, balled up and bawling on the bed.
“Oh, hell,” Grant said. The risk of another physical expression of her anger, worse than the last one, was better than watching her this way and doing nothing about it. Let her hit him. Let her try to take his head off. He did not care. He was not about to stand here and watch this. He went back to the bedside and sat down beside her. She did not uncurl herself. Her body heaved with her continued crying. With a heavy sigh, Grant dared to reach out his arms and put them around her. As she wept, he pulled her close.
“We messed up, Laura,” he said. “I know that. But I want to do something to show you this can be all right. Listen, later on, I’m going out to this spot that us Ursans sometimes go to, out in the forest. Some of us are going there to practice and work out for the Games. I want you to come out with me and watch us. I’ve told them about you, about you being pregnant by me. They said they’d help me by letting you watch us and get to know us.”
Finally, she looked up at him, her disbelieving look streaked with tears. “You’re asking me to go out into the forest with you and be…surrounded by people who’ve turned into… Are you serious?”
“They understand, Laura. They’d never hurt you. I would never do anything, ever, to hurt you.” He put his fingers under her chin to keep her looking into his eyes. “After everything we did to each other, and how happy we made each other doing it, and now you’re carrying my cub, you’ve got to know that I would never, ever do anything to hurt you.”
Laura shuddered, not wanting his touch, his closeness, to feel as good as it did. “Grant, I don’t know if I can do that. I’m not even ready to deal with everything this baby means. How can I possibly be ready now to see you and those others…like that? It’s too much. I can’t do that now.”
“Okay. I understand,” he said. “But I want you to think about spending the weekend. Not with me, not in my bed. Here, with Kendra. She said it’d be okay if you wanted to. Think about spending the weekend, and maybe tomorrow, if you feel up to it, you can think about going out with me. Or maybe even just letting me show myself to you so you can see all of me when I’ve changed. Maybe that way you can see there’s nothing to be scared of. Will you think about that, please?”
Laura gulped. She shuddered and hiccuped and nodded, and in a weary little voice, she replied, “All right.”
“Good,” said Grant. “Right now, I think it’s a good idea for you to do what Kendra said and try to get a little rest. I’ve put you through enough for right now.”
Laura looked down and took a deep breath, accepting the advice.
Grant tenderly brushed the locks of her black hair. “Laura, do you think you could do just one other thing for me before I go and leave you alone?”
She met his eyes again. “What?”
“Do you think you could let me kiss you, just once? It’s no time for anything else, I know. But could I just kiss you?”
Tentatively, Laura leaned her head just a little bit toward him. Grant took this as his answer. He brought his face and his lips carefully, slowly, to hers. Their lips met and held together. Their bodies remembered each other. There was a rising feeling of something. If it was not exactly the irresistible swell of passion they had known during those few nights and days, and if it was not the all-consuming lust with which Grant had ravished her for all that time, it was at least a familiarity, warm and deep and undeniable. Their kiss deepened, Grant’s tongue gently probing her mouth, his lips sliding slowing against hers. His arms held her tightly, but not too tightly—just tightly enough to underscore the feeling.
After a long time, they parted that kiss, and Grant, unable to tear himself from her just yet, sprinkled more kisses down the side of her face. It was the sweetest moment the two of them had yet shared.
At length, Grant made himself get up and let Laura lie down. He made for the door, looking over his shoulder at her. “See you later,” he said.
“See you later,” she replied, shutting her eyes.
Grant hit the light switch and shut the door, leaving Laura in silence and dimness—alone, but not really alone.