~

 

“Mummy — mummy! ” Macy squeal-called as she raced through the downstairs of the house towards the kitchen.

“Is the barn on fire?” Jordan called back. “Because if it’s not, then stop running.”

Macy ground to a halt the moment that she reached the kitchen door. She found her mother waiting for her with a look of expectation and the excitement rose within her again.

“Sorry,” Macy offered up, but Jordan could tell the child didn’t mean a word of it.

“So, did aliens land in our garden?” Jordan asked and regretted it the moment that her daughter's eyes widened, and she took one of those deep breaths that told her things just might get worse before they got better.

“There really are aliens?” Macy looked as if all of her Christmases had come at once.

“I’m guessing there are some things out there somewhere. But if it wasn’t aliens landing then why are you running through the house?” Jordan decided to cut the alien thing off at the knees.

“Harvey said I could see his bear…”

“He said what?” Jon demanded with surprise and a lot of disbelief as he strolled into the kitchen from the back garden and turned questioning eyes from Macy to Jordan.

“Maybe not right now,” Jordan offered to the child.

It was just her luck that her father had come in when he had, and now she was getting it from both sides at once.

“When?” Macy demanded with equal amounts of excitement and a childlike lack of patience.

“Not right now? Are you insane?” Jon demanded.

“When I say…” Jordan offered towards her daughter and then turned her attention back to her father. “Yes, dad, I’m insane.”

“When I say isn’t a real answer and you always say I should give a real answer to a question,” Macy tossed back, skewering her mother with the truth, and Jordan so wanted to roll her eyes back in her head and groan, but she told Macy off enough for doing that and that would make her even more of a hypocrite.

“Has the world gone mad?” Jon asked. “Why would Harvey say Macy could see his bear?”

“Dad, that’s something we’ll talk about when Macy goes off to play,” Jordan shot him a warning look with her eyes and got the stink eye back for her troubles.

“Can I play with Harvey’s bear?” Macy demanded digging her heels in and causing a little thud to start at Jordan’s temple.

Maybe Harvey was right. Maybe there was a little throbbing vein at her temple.

“No, you can’t play with his bear…” Father and daughter said as one.

“Then I don’t want to go out to play.” Macy crossed arms in front of the chest and gave Jordan the stink eye.

That was two for two. Both of them were mad at her and she had a mate pacing outside her front door — could her life get any more complicated?

“And why is there a vampire lurking around our property?” Jon said as he folded his arms across his chest and eyed his daughter for a long moment.

“Owen!” Macy was back to being excited again, and Jordan wanted to headbutt the nearest wall.

“I know who he is — I want to know why he’s there,” Jon didn’t take his accusing gaze away from Jordan for a second.

“Maybe he’s thirsty.” Jordan’s snarky tone got her the stink eye from her father once more, but it was Macy, who started across the kitchen towards the refrigerator that got Jordan’s attention.

“Macy, what are you doing?” Jordan asked.

“I’m taking Owen some water,” she announced and the sound of Jon almost choking on his own tongue was a moment’s light relief for Jordan.

“No, you’re not young lady!” Jon said as he scowled at Macy.

“But he’s thirsty,” Macy looked astounded at her grandfather.

“Macy, go play in your room, please,” Jordan said. Much to her daughter's annoyance.

“Can’t I go back outside and talk to Harvey?” Macy whined. “I promise I won’t ask to see his bear.”

“Not right now.” Jordan almost smiled as her daughter’s head went down, her shoulders came up, and she made a sluggish walk towards the kitchen door that made a snail look speedy.

The sound of little mutterings filled the air.

“Now, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Jon demanded once Macy had disappeared from the room. Jordan waited until the sound of Macy’s bedroom door slamming signaled that she was out of earshot.

“I have a problem,” Jordan admitted.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with Harvey,” Jon offered back.

“Good guess,” the fake brightness in his daughter's tone told him that it wasn’t good news.

“Let’s hear it.”

“What do you know about mates?” Jordan asked and watched in surprise as the blood drained from Jon’s cheeks only to reignite them once more with a fiery red hue.

“Oh, God damn it to hell fire and back again!”

“Gee, dad, you say that like it’s a bad thing,” Jordan offered with as much sarcasm as she could manage to cram into her voice.

This time she didn’t just receive the stink eye from her father she got the death glare.

“This isn’t funny!”

“I never said it was,” Jordan scowled back at him as she tossed her hands onto her hips and assumed the position that she normally took when the two of them went toe to toe.

“You have to think of Macy,” Jon’s tone was both accusing and full of disbelief, but not as much disbelief as his words caused inside of her.

“I always think of Macy.”

“Then how can you have a bear shifter as a mate?” Jon demanded.

“How is this on me?”

“You’re his mate!” Jon tossed back, and Jordan went to speak, but that loud thumping sound of knuckles against the wood on the back door snatched both of their attention around to where Harvey was glaring in through the glass panel.

“I’m guessing that’s for you,” Jon grumbled as he stalked towards the refrigerator and yanked the door open. Then he wrapped his hand around an ice-cold beer bottle, and muttered under his breath.

“Come on in, Harvey,” Jordan said.

Harvey didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He’d heard Jordan and Macy’s conversation while he was outside the front of the house, and then he’d heard the rest as he was walking round the back.

“You wanna beer?” Jon grumbled.

Harvey really hadn’t needed to hear Jon’s side of the conversation with Jordan to know that the man was angry at him. It was written all over his face and in the tone of his voice.

“No.” Harvey gave a small shake of his head. He wasn’t about to drink a beer with a man who intended to stand in the way of his family’s happiness.

“You just come from my daughter and granddaughter then?” Jon bit out with a sideways glare at the bear shifter.

“Dad!” Jordan bit out in disbelief.