Chapter Fourteen
Zora thought she’d feel relief to finally have this chapter in her life closed for good. After all, now that her father was dead, she’d never have to worry about looking over her shoulder again or wondering if someone was out to do harm to her and her men. But all this brought up an intense pain that ripped her heart to pieces. She’d already told herself her parents hated her, but to actually want her dead? The foul things her father had said to her cut deeper than the sharpest knife.
As Heath carried her out of the woods, she rested her head against his bare chest and silently cried.
“It’s going to be okay, baby. We’ll get you home so you can rest,” he whispered to her.
“Resting isn’t going to change what happened today. My father wanted me dead.”
When she thought back to the harassing calls, she’d assumed they were from Dale because he knew things she’d told him about her family. Because she’d been estranged from her parents for so long, it didn’t occur to Zora her father had been behind the calls. What really turned her stomach were the sexual references he’d made toward and about her. He’d made comments about her body. Just the thought of it made her gag.
“That man wasn’t your father, Zora,” Heath said from beside her. “No father could treat his child in such a way. It doesn’t matter that he raised you like his own, he lost the right to call you daughter when he treated you the way he did.”
Raised her like his own? She didn’t understand why he’d worded it like that, but she didn’t bother to ask him what he meant. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact her own father had tried to kill her.
The rest of the way, they walked in silence, Heath carrying her and Gavin walking beside them. Logan was still in bear form. Just as they were at the road, Logan stopped.
“What’s the matter, Logan?” Heath asked.
“Blood. Lots of it.”
“That’s probably the blood covering us,” Gavin answered.
“No. Not ours. Someone else’s. It’s similar to Zora’s, but not hers.”
Zora could hear what Logan was saying through their mental link, however she had no idea what he was talking about. But Heath and Gavin seemed to. Both men paused and sniffed the air.
“You’re right,” Heath finally answered. He transferred Zora into Gavin’s waiting arms. “Gavin, put Zora in the car. Zora, you wait for us and don’t move. Logan, I know you’re still angry but I’m going to need you to change back. Let’s get dressed and see who it is. There’s an extra pair of jeans and a T-shirt in my trunk.”
Zora wanted to protest but knew there would be no point in arguing with them when they were in protective mode. Gavin set her in the passenger seat of his Range Rover. “Stay here, Zora.”
“What about my car? We can’t just leave it here in that condition. Someone may drive by and contact the police when they see it. Maybe I should stick around for a tow truck?”
“One of us will come back and get your car. You’re in no condition to sit around waiting for a tow. Physically or emotionally.”
“Are you telling me that as a doctor?”
“No. I’m telling you that as someone who loves you. When I think we could have lost you…” He leaned over and gave her a hard swift kiss. “Stay put.” He closed the passenger door on her before she could argue further.
Thankfully, only a couple cars drove by and they both sped along without stopping. She watched out of the window as the men gathered their clothes and quickly put them back on. Logan ran back into the woods with the clothing in his mouth. He returned shortly in his other form in a pair of jeans and T-shirt. He joined his cousins at Zora’s father’s vehicle where they spoke. Zora couldn’t make out what they were saying. She looked through the rear view mirror to see as they moved to the back of her father’s car.
Heath opened the driver’s side door, extracted the key from inside and returned to the trunk. When they popped the trunk open, Zora could no longer make out what they were doing. But she didn’t have a long wait. She saw Gavin move first with a bloody bundle wrapped in a sheet. Unable to remain seated, Zora got out of the car as Gavin rushed toward her.
“Open the back door,” he instructed.
Zora did as she was told and stepped back, allowing him to lay the bundle across the backseat.
“Get in the car, Zora. We have to hurry.”
Without looking in the back, she knew who it was. She didn’t want to turn around, she couldn’t. She sat rigidly in her seat, her head forward. They were nearly home before she asked what took her several moments to build up to. “Is she dead?”
Gavin’s mouth tightened and his hands gripped the wheel until his knuckles went white. “No. But if I don’t tend to her injuries soon, we may have a problem.”
“Why not just take her to the hospital?”
“Look at us.” He took one hand off the wheel to gesture to blood-splattered clothing. “There’ll be questions and I’m not putting you through that. Besides, the medicine they will give her at the hospital won’t be able to fix all that’s wrong with her, at least not good as new.”
Knowing how extensive her injuries had been after the car accident and how well Gavin had healed her, she knew he’d be able to help her mother. She couldn’t help but wonder if her mother had at least tried to stop her father. At the very least, once her mother was healed, she could demand answers and perhaps find some closure to her painful past.
~~~
Zora kept herself busy for the next four days. Logan, Gavin and Heath had collectively decided she needed to stay home from work so she threw herself into her redecorating project, anything to keep her mind off what happened and who now resided in one of the guest bedrooms. She still refused to look in on her mother, not asking once how she was doing.
She held up one swatch and then another, holding them against the light to compare. Zora sensed the moment she was no longer alone in the room.
“Hey, Gavin. I thought you were going into the office this morning.” The connection between her and her men was so strong she could sense each one separately. So she knew Logan and Heath were with him.
They were all supposed to be at work. She knew what they wanted. They had, in fact, brought the subject up quite a bit within the last few days. She refused to let them stonewall her. She stood up, pasting a smile on her face, and turned to face them. “I’m glad you’re all here. I think I’ve narrowed down which colors I’d like to have the study painted. I think it would look nice in cranberry or forest green. What do you guys think?” She held up the swatches.
Gavin stepped forward. “Zora, can we talk for a minute? Logan, Heath and I have been talking and we think—”
“You know what? These might be too bold. Maybe we should go for a more cheerful color. Royal blue? That’s soothing.” She went on as if he hadn’t spoken.
Heath crossed the room to stand in front of her. “Zora, would you stop a minute and listen to us, please?”
She turned her back to him and looked at the wall with as much concentration as the situation would allow. “Or maybe I can nix the paint altogether and look at wallpaper? It’s a little retro but I hear its making a comeback.”
“Zora!” Logan practically roared as he strode over and pulled her around to face him. “We don’t give a shit about what goddamn color you paint the study. But we love you and you need to listen to this.”
She pulled herself out of his grasp. “I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it.”
“You need to hear this, Zora,” Gavin rebutted. “You have the right to feel angry for how you were treated, heaven knows that woman has a lot to answer for, but for what it’s worth, I don’t believe she had anything to do with what your father tried to do to you. We know you’re hurting, even if you want to pretend she’s not here. We feel it just as deeply as if the emotions were our own and it’s killing us we can’t do anything about it. But you can do something about this. You should go in and talk to her, that’s all. No one is asking you to kiss and make up. She asked about you, but she’s too ashamed to ask for you to see her directly. We can’t make you see her, but at least think about. We love you so much and we don’t want you to keep hurting. You’re never going to heal if you don’t face her.”
Tears stung the backs of her eyes as she relived the pain of her childhood. The loneliness and shame. She thought of all the years wondering what it was about her that made her so unlovable. What was it about her that had earned their disdain? And why did her father try to kill her?
She bowed her head in defeat. “You know, when you told me she was alive, I had every intention of confronting her, but I kept making excuses and putting it off until I talked myself out of it.”
“Why?” Heath asked softly.
“Because I’m scared. I guess I don’t want to hear her say she wished I was never born. I’ll never forget when she said that to me. I thought I got over my past but after what happened with my father, I know I haven’t. I don’t know if I can do this.”
“We’ll be here for you,” Gavin assured her.
“Will you guys come with me? I don’t want to see her by myself.”
“Are you sure?” Logan asked.
“There’s nothing she can say to me that she can’t say in front of you guys. Please. I need your support.”
“Of course.” Heath nodded. “When would you like to see her?”
“Now. If I don’t do it right away, I’m going to lose my nerve.”
Logan placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her out of the room. “Okay, let’s go.”
Zora stood outside the guest bedroom door, trying to build up her courage to go in.
Gavin placed his hand on her shoulder in support. “You don’t have to do this now if you don’t want to.”
“No. I can do this. I’m going in.” Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door and waited for a response.
“Come in.” If she wasn’t listening, she would have barely heard it.
She opened the door and slowly walked into the room. Once inside, she zoned in on the figure reclining in the bed. She gasped. It had been years since she’d seen her mother. Gavin had warned her of the bruising she’d see, but it wasn’t the injuries that shocked Zora. Time had not been kind to her mother. Her hair was almost completely white and there were heavy stress lines around her eyes and mouth, giving her the appearance of a much older woman.
“Zora?” her mother asked in a voice that sounded hoarse and broken.
Logan grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and set it beside the bed for Zora to sit. She smiled at him gratefully. Zora reluctantly returned her attention to her mother. “How are you feeling?” she asked, to be polite.
“I’ve been better. That hairstyle really suits you. You’ve always been a pretty girl, but now…”
“I’m sure you didn’t want to see me to compliment my hair. What did you want to see me about?”
Her mother looked away and released a heavy sigh. “I don’t really know where to begin, Zora. I owe you so many apologies that they probably won’t mean squat to you.”
Out of everything she was expecting, a repentant mother was not one of them. Zora shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “Umm…”
“You don’t have to forgive me, Lord knows I don’t deserve it. I’ve forsaken everything that mattered to me, my mother, you and…your father. Uh, Darren, the man who raised you…he wasn’t your biological father.”
She stiffened, not knowing how to react. Zora digested the information, trying to figure out how she felt. She was neither happy nor sad. So many things that hadn’t made sense growing up suddenly did. She didn’t favor him or any of his relatives. She felt no visceral connection. And the little comments he made toward her came back. He’d called her a little bastard on a several occasions, but she thought he was just being his unfeeling self. And then there was Heath’s bizarre comment a few days ago in the woods when he implied he wasn’t her father. How did he know?
She turned to him. “Heath, you knew?”
Heath was leaning against the wall and stepped forward. “I shouldn’t have dropped it on you in the heat of the moment like that. I already surmised you believed him to be your father, but the scents didn’t match. We all have our own unique scent and often we can sniff out a familiar connection even if it’s faint. There was nothing. Not like there is between you and your mother. I figured it out then.”
“I see.” She nodded, accepting his explanation. She turned back to her mother’s downcast eyes.
“Who is my real father?”
Tears misted in Rayna’s eyes. She clutched her chest as if she were having pains. “A good man. I just wish I had been brave enough to take the chance like I see you have.” She looked past Zora to Logan, Heath and Gavin.
Zora shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”
“I think I need to give you a little bit of background. I never knew who my father was. Your grandmother told me hardly anything about him. Apparently it was a great source of pain to her, but what I did get out of her was that they had a brief fling. He’d told her she was his mate or something of that nature. I didn’t really think too much of her odd choice of words, but there you have it. I think I was always starved for a father’s love so I sought it out in ways that I’m ashamed to admit. But through it all, Darren was around. He was a sweet boy, or so I thought. He was there through every break up, giving me a shoulder to cry on and offering me his friendship. Then I met Calvin Wanamaker. He was tall, broad and just beautiful. I think I fell in love with him instantly. I knew right away that all those other guys didn’t mean a thing. And even when I told him about them he didn’t care.” A tear slid down her mother’s face. She hastily wiped it away.
Zora remained silent, waiting for her mother to finish.
“We got serious, then he mentioned something that threw me for a loop. He wanted me to meet his brothers. Calvin said it was important that I like them. I thought nothing of it until he introduced me to them and…well, then he told me they were descended from the Kelowna. They told me I was their mate. It brought back to mind what my mother said. Even though I felt a pull to his brothers, I didn’t believe them. And then they showed me. They turned into bears! I…your men…they’re bears, aren’t they?”
Zora looked behind her to gauge her men’s reactions. Their expressions remained passive. She turned back to her mother. “Yes.”
Rayna nodded. “Thought so. Those are some big boys.” She chuckled to herself. But just as quickly, her expression turned grave. “Unlike you, I didn’t handle it well. I panicked and ran back to Darren. I needed his friendship and I told him everything, taking a risk that he’d think I wasn’t crazy. He believed me. Calvin and his brothers came looking for me, but I couldn’t face them. I was too much of a coward.”
Zora’s mother turned her head away. “A few weeks passed and I realized I was pregnant. I couldn’t tell my mother because I knew she’d be so disappointed. She wanted so much more for me than to bear a child out of wedlock. So I decided to go to Calvin, only to find he and his brothers had gone missing. Just like that. I couldn’t understand. I was frantic. Not only was I pregnant, but I’d lost the love of my life. And Darren…he was there. He offered to marry me as a way out, and coward that I was, I accepted. I felt love for him but I wasn’t in love with him. He seemed to accept that. My mother never liked him and I couldn’t understand why, but I soon learned after I married him.”
Tears fell freely down Rayna’s cheeks now, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“Darren was sweet in the beginning, but I think it started to get to him how I couldn’t love him the way he thought I eventually would. He started going to church more. He became almost fanatical and he got verbally abusive. I hadn’t finished college and didn’t have skills and I had you to think about. So I took it. And when you were old enough to understand what was going on, he became fixated on you. He’d throw my indiscretions back at me. He beat me down mentally so by the time he hit me physically, I was already an emotional wreck. Oh, he never did it with any witnesses and he always made sure he hit me in a place where the bruise could easily be covered. The only time he threatened to hurt you was when I would show affection to you. He hated me giving attention to anyone. So I, please forgive me Zora, but I shut you out. I thought I was doing the right thing by you, but I know now I made a terrible mistake. I know I was cold toward you at times, but in my mind I thought I was protecting you. Not long before you left for college, I noticed him looking at you in a way that wasn’t right. I was worried he might touch you. I caught him watching you in the bathroom. It was one of the few times I stood up to him. He beat me pretty bad after that.”
Zora gasped in horror. How had she not noticed? She’d been so wrapped up in her own pain she hadn’t recognized her mother’s. “Oh, Mom.” For the first time, she reached out and grabbed her mother’s hand. “I didn’t know.”
“There was no way you would. He was very careful to hide his true nature.”
“Not really. He’d call me names and treat me like crap. Didn’t you see that?”
Rayna squeezed her eyes shut. “I did, but in my mind I thought things would be okay as long as he didn’t touch you. I was so glad when you left because I felt you would be safe. Shortly after our last talk, he joined a church that was by anyone’s standards strict. He became even more of a zealot and he started saying crazy things, especially about you. He wanted to bring you back and teach you the right way. Sometimes it was like he was speaking to no one at all. When we found out what happened with you and that boy, he kind of just snapped. He was already slipping into another reality, but he felt you had betrayed him. He claimed he’d find you and bring you back.
“By this time, I knew I had to leave but each time I tried, he’d find me. It was only recently we discovered you were staying with my mom. And that’s another regret I have. He basically destroyed the relationship I had with her. I didn’t get to attend her funeral. You bore that alone. I can’t apologize enough, Zora.”
“It’s okay. The rest I can pretty much fill in for myself. He found me and he planned on handling me.”
“Yes.” Rayna nodded. “He went after me first. Told me he was going to send me to hell with those three bastards and then he’d take care of my whore daughter. That’s when I realized he had something to do with Calvin and his brothers’ disappearances. I could never prove it, but he basically admitted it. He said he went hunting. I think I lost it then. For the first time I fought him and he beat me and locked me in the trunk. I don’t know how long I was there. A few days had passed. The next thing I knew, your guys saved me and I’m here.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” Rayna asked. “I know I have no right to ask your forgiveness, but maybe one day you’ll let me get to know you as a mother should know her daughter?”
Zora chose her words before finally answering. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve had to deal with this pain all my life and I feel so much resentment toward you for not being my mom. You told me you wished I was never born.”
Rayna wiped a tear that streamed down her cheek. “Not that this excuses what I said but I said it because I thought you were better off not being born in the situation I put you in. The vitriol I’d directed toward you was all for me. I hate I made you feel that way and I especially hate that I said it. I hurt you and I’m so sorry. I’d cut out my own tongue if I thought that would make things better but I can’t take those words back. If you hate me for that then it’s no more than I deserve.”
Zora found it difficult to hold on to her anger when her mother sounded contrite. Sometimes when people apologized they did it to make themselves feel better but the genuine apologies were the ones that where no forgiveness was expected. She could feel her mother’s sincerity and she empathized. Zora had suffered but it sounded like Rayna had gotten the worse of it. “It’s going to take some time but I also know now your life wasn’t so easy. Get some rest, I’ll be back to check in on you.” Zora moved to get up. Her mother squeezed her hand.
“Do you promise you’ll come back?” There was such a piteous look in the older woman’s eyes, Zora’s heart melted slightly.
“Of course, I live here. Where would I go? Besides, you’re a guest in this home for as long as you need to be.”
“Thank you.”
“Get some rest, Mom.” When Zora stood up, she gave her mother a parting smile before heading toward the door. Something made her pause and turn back around. She walked back over to her mother, bent over and kissed her on the forehead. She’d never kissed her mother before and it felt nice.
Rayna smiled and then she closed her eyes, seeming at peace.
Once Zora was out of the room, she leaned into Heath. “That was tough.”
“You did a good thing in there.” Gavin leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“I was so scared to see her, but now I’m glad I did. I can’t believe all she endured because she was too frightened to love who she was meant to be with. Hopefully one day, she’ll find peace. My father, I mean Darren, was so evil. He nearly destroyed me, but I’m still standing and maybe one day she’ll stand tall again too. If I don’t say it enough, Heath, Logan, Gavin, I love you. And I’m glad you found me.”
“We’re glad we found you too. Our lives would be nothing without you,” Logan said gruffly, a mouthful for him.
Each man took turns kissing her before Zora pulled away from them. “Okay, how about we go back downstairs and look at color swatches?”
Her three bears gave a collective groan.