CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Jackson and Kaya weren’t the only ones awake and visiting late at night on Christmas Eve.

Bauer stood outside Elizabeth’s bedroom door, a healthy amount of sweat on his palms and about seven thousand ants crawling all over him. He almost turned back, returned to his room, but that would have made it the eighth time he’d done that in as many months and he couldn’t face that kind of cowardice again.

He knew she wasn’t asleep, he could hear her humming to herself in there.

He resisted the urge to practice what he was going to say again. He didn’t need practice, he needed action.

Not letting himself dwell a second longer, he raised his hand and knocked on her door. He winced when the sound was louder than he’d anticipated. The last thing he needed was one of her sons to investigate the noise and catch him lingering outside her bedroom door.

But then he heard her pad across the floor and her door came open. “Oh. Bauer. Everything all right?”

He was momentarily struck dumb by her beauty, which was sort of ridiculous considering that after more than two years of seeing her almost every day, he probably should have been inoculated by then. But there was just something about seeing her pixie-like face, her braided hair over one shoulder, her robe knotted at her waist, all of it framed by the soft glow of her bedroom behind her.

He’d never set foot in her bedroom before and the golden light of it, the lavender-ish scent, the neatly made bed, the candle burning in one corner, all of it beckoned to him. He wanted an invitation into that room almost as much as he wanted an invitation into Elizabeth’s heart.

“Yeah,” he answered her question. “Everything’s fine.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, like, then why are you knocking at my door at eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve?

“I—shoot,” he grumbled when his nerves threatened to get the best of him. “I was hoping to talk with you for a minute or two.”

“Oh. Okay.” She frowned. “I think we might wake someone up if we talk downstairs. You better come in.”

She stepped back from her doorway and then there was nothing but open road between Bauer and the most peaceful place on planet Earth, Elizabeth’s bedroom.

He cleared his throat and stepped through. He was old and felt older than he was, pushing sixty and every single one of those years weighed on him like a rock. He felt it in his joints these days. He had a hitch in his step from where he’d taken a bullet for Seth and Raphael a few years ago. That was the day he’d had to admit that he had it bad for this family, that as much of a runaway he’d been his entire life, he might just be staying put. But more than his physical scars, it was his emotional scars that weighed on him. The ones that no one could see.

There was one in particular that still stung, as if it were fresh, and he was sorry to say that he’d inflicted it on himself.

About a year ago, there’d been a threat to the family. A stranger was threatening to expose them as shifters, or even to hurt them himself. They’d never been clear on what his motives were. Bauer’s instinct, honed by years of being on the run, had been to take the boys and run as fast and as far as he knew how. The boys, however, had decided to stay and defend their lives here. To put down roots. To stay as human as they could.

Bauer, however, had left. For a short time. He’d known soon enough that he’d made the wrong decision and he’d hightailed it back. Just in the nick of time to save Natalie’s life. And that was the one silver lining in all of this—he and Natalie had a kinship that he’d never have been able to cultivate otherwise. But he couldn’t help but feel as if even though he’d come back and been welcomed with open arms yet again, the day he’d left had changed something between him and Elizabeth, and it was something he’d never quite been able to get back.

She pointed him toward an armchair in the corner of the room, under a reading lamp, where she had a bit of knitting out on the small table next to it. She bundled away the knitting and sat on the edge of her bed, facing him, only three feet between the ends of their bent knees.

Instead of inquiring again if everything was all right, or questioning why he was there in her room, Elizabeth simply folded her hands and waited. Which was part of the reason why he was even here in the first place, because as pushy as she was, she was also terribly patient and there was something about that combination that had just gotten under his skin.

Though he’d practiced this speech in his head at least twenty times in the last hour, he couldn’t make the first words come. “Are you happy?” was what he asked her instead.

She looked surprised by the question. “For the most part, yes. I have my boys. All three are healthy. Two of them are happy.” Her eyes looked far away for a second, no doubt thinking of Jackson. “One of them is working on it. I have the girls. My friendship with you. There’s not much more than that I need.”

He tried not to get too caught up on the word ‘friendship’. “Not much more you need, huh?” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Is there more that you… want?”

“What do you mean?” She moved a little, agitating the air, and he caught a light scent that he sometimes smelled on her when she came back downstairs after getting ready for bed. He wondered what it was.

“You said that you’re happy for the most part. I’m wondering what it is that could make you happy for the whole part.”             

She frowned and looked out her dark window. But she didn’t answer him.

Suddenly, Bauer realized that he was taking the coward’s way into this conversation. He was trying to get her to answer the complicated question, do all the heavy lifting. It should be him providing the answers here. Wasn’t that what he’d come up here to do anyhow?

“Elizabeth… do you ever think of the night that I left?”

Her eyes snapped to his and her cheeks went a lovely pink color. “Not as much as I used to.”

He knew her answer was honest, but it threatened to wilt him just a little. Because he knew what she was telling him. That he had most likely missed his window.

The night he’d abandoned Elizabeth and her family, thinking it was the only way, was the only time he’d ever come close to telling her how he felt about her. He’d told her that if he was the kind of man who knew how to stay, he’d kiss her. But as he wasn’t that kind of man, and she deserved that kind of man, he was going to keep that impulse to himself. She’d accepted that information as stoically as possible and that had been that. There’d been no kiss, he’d skipped town, and when he’d come back, rather dramatically, neither of them had ever brought it up again.

He’d gone back to being her boarder, living in the room downstairs, training with the boys and eating dinner with her each night, falling asleep in front of the fire while she read her paperbacks.

He’d desperately wanted to bring it up to her again for months now. But he’d figured that she simply agreed with him. She deserved a man who knew how to stay. He assumed that they both knew he was not that man, that he didn’t deserve her, and so he’d let sleeping dogs lie.

But…

“It’s been a year since then.” His voice was gravelly and, to his chagrin, nervous. “And I’ve wanted to have this conversation with you every night since then.”

She tugged the sides of her robe even tighter over her chest, as if she were cold. “What conversation? What are we talking about here?”             

He had to stand up now. His nerves were too much. Creakily he rose from the chair and paced to the window and back. “I knew I needed to wait, to gain your trust again. To show you that I know how—that I’m capable of sticking around. And like I said, it’s been a year. I’m wondering if that’s been enough time. Because I’ll keep waiting if I have to. I don’t want to rush you.”

“Enough time for what, exactly? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

No. He wasn’t. Because he was bumbling around like an idiot and not saying anything at all. He was confusing himself and confusing her and it really didn’t have to be this hard.

He let out a deep breath, limped over to her bed and sat down next to her. He took her hands in his and rubbed some heat back into her cold fingers. Slowly, gathering his courage, he lifted his eyes to hers.

“I’m saying that I love you. I—I’m in love with you.”

Her eyes dilated and she inhaled a quick breath. She said nothing.

“I’m not trying to make this your problem,” he told her. “And I’m certainly not trying to mess up the situation we have going here. You and me as friends, me working with the boys. I just, I needed to tell you. Because you deserve to know that somebody feels that way about you. You’re a special woman, I’ve never met one like you. And I know how lonely you’ve been, always putting your boys first your whole life, accepting that you’ll never have what other mothers have. A partner. And accepting it with grace.”

He was rubbing her hands between his hands now, warming her up and giving himself something to do with his nervous energy. For once in his life he couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“I wanted you to know. That I’m working on learning how to stay. I’m working on being the man that you deserve. A man with roots. And I wanted to give us both some time to get over… me leaving. But I realized that part of being the man that you deserve is telling you how I feel. Is… making sure you know that you’re loved.”

There. He’d done it. He’d said the whole thing. And though his voice had been scratchy and nervous and he was sweaty and he felt as if he’d just talked for nine full hours, it was over.

Three long breaths passed. Inhales and exhales. Time ticked on, augmenting the moment, but he wasn’t nervous anymore. Now that he’d done his part, he could be patient.

Her eyes were on their hands. He studied her face.

“You left,” she eventually said, sending his heart plummeting to his toes. Long ago he’d come to terms with the fact that he might have very well signed his death certificate the night he’d stepped off her back porch and left the family. It might very well be unforgivable. And he’d had to make his peace with that. That didn’t make it any less hard to hear, however.

“Right.”

“But then you came back.”

There were no nerves in her voice, he noted, as he snapped his eyes back up to her face, a terrifying hope creeping up his throat.

He wasn’t looking at their hands anymore, but he felt her rotate their hands so that they were palm to palm. He felt their fingers lace together.              

“You came back,” she repeated. “And you saved Natalie’s life. Probably Raphael’s, too, when it came to that. You apologized to everyone. Sat by my side in the hospital.” Her brow furrowed as she thought. “You cover the firewood up out back when it starts to rain. You always make sure I have a bookmark near me so that I don’t have to dog ear the page.”

“You always do that, but you hate how a book looks after you’ve bent the pages.”

“I know,” she smiled, a shine of tears in her eyes. “And I love that you know it, too.”

“Elizabeth—”

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “Because I don’t have to keep the boys a secret from you, I don’t have to keep my life a secret from you. I don’t have to keep myself a secret from you. But… I’ve been keeping secrets for so long, I’m not sure I’m any good at opening up anymore.”

Now her eyes were really full of tears.

“I’ve been keeping my feelings a secret for a really long time,” she whispered to him.

His heart hitched a ride on a cloud. He wasn’t sure he was breathing. 

“You think it’s a habit you can break?” he asked, his voice gruff.

She pursed her lips and hid her smile. “I’m not sure. You’d be my first real boyfriend.”

The word jolted through him and he suddenly felt a little off-kilter.

She laughed at the expression on his face.

“You look terrified,” she told him.

“I have no idea how to be a boyfriend. It… honestly didn’t occur to me. You’d be my first real girlfriend, I suppose.”

“At age sixty.”

“Look at us.”

“If being my boyfriend didn’t occur to you, then what did?” she asked, a mischievous smile on her face.

He let loose one of her hands and scraped his own over his stubble. “I’m not sure, I guess. I didn’t get much past telling you how I feel. But, I guess I pictured that we’d continue on a lot like we are now. But,” he cleared his throat, “I’d sit closer to you on the couch.” His eyes hit hers. “I’d get to kiss you. Maybe someday I’d move up here.”             

And there were those nerves again, threatening to suffocate him with a lack of oxygen to his brain.

But her smile bloomed, with her white teeth and pink cheeks. And then she leaned forward. He leaned, too, and their lips brushed, zinging an energy through Bauer that he hadn’t felt in years.

He wanted to feel it again. He pressed his mouth against hers. She tasted like minty toothpaste and he smelled that light, nighttime scent of hers. His eyes closed and for just a moment, every cold, wet, terrified night he’d ever spent outdoors in his coyote form rocketed through him, made him shiver. He thought of how apart he’d been from humanity for so long. He didn’t feel apart at that moment. No. With his lips pressed to hers and her hands moving up over his shoulders, to his neck and cheeks, he felt blissfully included in something as old as time. He was there, in her relaxing, warm bedroom being held by the woman he loved.

This was what it meant to be human. Her mouth opened under his, his arms went around her waist, and for the first time in perhaps his entire life, Bauer understood.

 

 

***

 

 

Of course, being human has a sinister side as well. And across town, a man entered his home for the first time in over a year.

It hadn’t even occurred to him that it was Christmas Eve until the friend who’d picked him up from prison had driven him through Boulder and he’d seen all the Christmas lights.

He’d missed last Christmas. Not that he’d ever really cared for the holiday, but he’d missed a lot of things last year. He’d missed the warbler migration in the late winter/early spring. He’d missed the ice melting off the mountains and sliding down toward earth in frigid streams. He’d missed the stars shifting in the sky over the long year.

All because he’d been locked in a cage for a year.

“Have you seen them?” the man asked Bill, the friend who’d driven him across town and was now annoyingly following him into his house.

“Who? The Durants? Sure. I mean, they’re around town every so often. But you shouldn’t be worrying yourself about them, Race.” Bill looked uneasy. He was a simple man and he obviously didn’t want to get into a conversation about the people who’d sent Race to prison for a year.

Race didn’t even dignify that with a response. Like it was so easy to just simply forget about the people who’d called the police on him, fought with him, testified against him and sent him straight to jail.

The only thing that kept Race warm all those cold nights was the fact that he knew exactly what they were. He knew what the twins were and he knew what the older boy was. Now, he could’ve taken the easy way out and informed the authorities exactly what they were. But the trapping he’d attempted to do on their land had in fact been illegal and it wasn’t his first offense; he’d known he was going to have to serve some time no matter what. He simply hadn’t wanted to be in jail when the Durants got dragged off to whatever shifter camp they deserved to rot and die in. He couldn’t have stood for the injustice of being locked up at the same time as they were.

So, for a good long year he’d held his tongue. Their secret was safe with him. Because over the year he’d spent deprived of blue mornings and starry skies and fresh air and quiet mountain walks, he’d realized that he didn’t just want the Durants locked up. He wanted them utterly destroyed.

And he was a man who made sure he got exactly what he wanted.

 

 

***

 

 

There was a peace and happiness about the family’s Christmas Day that none of the Durants, and honorary Durants, could have quite explained. None of them had all the information, because though two couples were happily twined around one another, forward with their love, two of the couples were discreet, keeping their new statuses a secret from the group. But the love was felt by all. Everyone was in a good mood and everyone was happy.

His brothers noticed immediately that Jackson looked well rested and content, even though they’d woken up to find that he’d slept on the couch last night. Normally, that kind of thing would have left him irritable. But this morning, he laughed at every joke someone made, handed out presents happily, and seemed genuinely touched by Seth’s rather utilitarian Secret Santa gift of a car emergency kit.

Well, they weren’t ones to look a gift horse in the mouth and no one pushed Jackson on his good mood.

Jackson, however, wasn’t quite sure what to do with this feeling in his chest. He felt like someone who’d fought the current of the ocean for his entire life and now that he wore a life jacket, had no idea what to do with his hands. He was so used to beating at the water that tried its hardest to drown him.

But nothing tried to drown him that day. Because he’d slept the night in Kaya Chalk’s bed. Actually, she’d slept the night in his bed. And when he’d woken up at dawn to sneak out to the couch, her hair had been static clinging to the pillowcase, already curling at the temples. He’d tried to slip out without waking her, but she’d tossed an arm over his chest, nuzzled her face into the side of his arm, and gave him a whispered ‘good morning’ before she’d rolled over and promptly fell right back to sleep.

This new idea was slamming through his body with every heartbeat. He was going to try. He was going to try to find a way toward some peace and as if that wasn’t enough of its own reward, every stride he made, he was going to get a little more of Kaya.

As if it were a knee-jerk reaction, his brain immediately supplied reasons why nothing had changed and they still would never be good together.

She’s too young.

She’s a virgin, you lecher.

You’ll tarnish her, you know you will.

You’ll hurt her.

But for once, Jackson had ammunition to hold those thoughts at bay. My wolf was good to her. She wasn’t afraid of me. I wasn’t harmful to her.

And most potently: she wants me, too.

In the end, that was the one that pulsed through his body for hours that day. Every spare moment he had, that thought was present. She wants me, too. She wants me, too.

Then, after Christmas dinner when it was time for everyone to go home, Jackson made sure to pull Bauer aside.              

“Can we talk tomorrow? Do you have time to meet with me? I have some things I’d like to go over with you.”

Surprisingly, Bauer’s cheeks colored as his eyes glanced over at Elizabeth clearing up dishes in the other room. “Yeah. Actually, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Oh. Great. I get off work at five.”

“I’ll be here.”

Jackson hugged each member of his family goodbye, except for Kaya because he didn’t trust himself not to push her messy hair aside and kiss her neck in front of his entire family.

And then he was unlocking his car as everybody else pulled down the driveway. Except for Kaya, he realized, who was standing by her car and fiddling with her keys.

Jackson glanced back at the house, didn’t see his mother standing in the window, so he strode over to her.

His instincts told him to slip an arm around her waist, to tug her close and nuzzle into her hair. But they’d spent the day avoiding one another’s eyes, scared to give their new arrangement away, and Jackson felt a jolt of insecurity race through him. He stood in front of her, hands in his pockets.

“I spoke to Bauer.”

“Oh, yeah?” The jingling of her keys in her hands drew his attention and his confidence solidified. If she hadn’t wanted to talk with him, she could be half a mile down the road already. Instead she was spinning around and around the little compass attached to her keys and shuffling on her feet. In other words, she was delaying the moment they’d have to be parted from one another.

That… felt good. That felt so good that Jackson had to fight the urge to turn on his heel and demand that Bauer start working with him right now. He felt like he could ace any shifter test that Bauer sent his way. But no. One thing at a time.             

Kaya was going to teach Jackson the delicious reward of baby steps. And rushing would just ruin it.

“I’m going to meet with him tomorrow to discuss a new kind of training.”

“What kind?”

“I’m not quite sure yet,” Jackson admitted, giving in to the urge to brush her hair behind her ear. “But I finally feel ready to really try with him.” He softened and smiled at her. “I wonder why.”

She licked her lips and looked a little dazed, a little flushed.

“Are you all right?” he asked, suddenly concerned. Had she had something to drink at dinner that he hadn’t noticed?

“What? Yes. Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “You made an appointment with Bauer. You’re feeling excited to get started on a new chapter in your life.”

“That’s right.”

Those tropical eyes dropped to his neck, as if she couldn’t quite talk herself into full eye contact for this next part. “Maybe you deserve a bit of a reward for that.”

His stomach flipped. She was offering herself to him again. “Kaya?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have plans tonight?”

Now her eyes shot to his. “Not really. No. I was just going to go home and fall asleep watching a movie.” She bit her lip.

He let the silence draw out even though it made him die a little.

“Do you want to come over?” she asked after a beat.

“Yes,” he answered, shamelessly fast.

Back on more even footing, she put up one bossy finger. “Only kissing.”

And that was how Jackson found himself, half an hour later, almost sweating through his button-down as he sat on Kaya’s couch in her tiny apartment. She was curled up next to him and a Christmas movie he’d seen a hundred times played on the television.

He was far from a novice when it came to women. And he knew, for a fact, that nothing beyond kissing was going to happen tonight. But Jackson found himself unbelievably nervous. What was it about her that he found so alluring? He was drawn to her honesty. Her frank attitude. Her unexpected sweetness. Her lazy, feline grace. But he was so far gone that even staring at the way she’d arranged her books on the shelf made him smile. All the blue ones on one shelf, the reds on another, the greens on another. It was random and so her and his mind was just trying to catch up with the fact that he was here. He was really here with her.

“Are you sweating?” She peered up at him from where her head was laid out on the arm of the couch.

He yanked at his collar. “Yeah.”

“I can’t believe you’re hot. I’m freezing over here!”

“If you come over here, I’ll warm you up.”

Carefully, almost suspiciously, Kaya flipped sides so that she was pressed into him instead of the arm of the couch. She was stiff against him for a moment, presumably until she felt his heat, and then she melted into him, his arm around her, her knees tipped into his lap.

“It’s not a heat thing,” he told her after a minute of watching the movie again. “I’m sweating because I’m nervous.”

She reared her head back. “You don’t get nervous.”

He laughed. “Yes, I damn well do. And you’re the main culprit.”

“I make you nervous. No, no. You’re the one who makes me nervous.” She played with one of the buttons on his shirt. The tiny touches against his chest made him have to rearrange his hips against the couch, hold back a groan. “Remember that day in the diner a few years ago? I was out to breakfast with Sarah and Natalie? I said something nasty about you and you overheard by accident?”

He nodded. “You said I had a stick up my ass. Of course I remember. You were wearing that blue sweater thing that I hate so much.”

“You remember what I was wearing?” She crinkled her face up. “Why do you hate it?”

His voice dropped. “Because it looks like you’re wearing a man’s clothing. A man that’s not me.”

Her eyes dropped to his lips and she got that dazed look on her face again. “You made me so nervous that day. I could barely eat.” Her eyes cleared a little bit. “I was worried you had a crush on Sarah.”

Jackson blinked and couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. He thought Sarah was great. Athletic, honest, easy to talk to, pretty. She was perfect for Seth. He’d never once thought about her in any other context. Then the rest of Kaya’s words filtered down to him. “You were worried?”

Seeming to realize that she’d said too much, Kaya’s cheeks went pink and she straightened up. He tightened his arm around her and dropped his lips to hers, hoping to prolong the moment. It was a chaste kiss, but a bit of a drowsy one.

“Why were you worried I had a crush on another woman, Kaya?” he was almost certain he knew the answer, but hearing it from her mouth, with her voice, would be one of the highest points of his life and he’d be damned if he cheated himself out of it.

She rolled her eyes at him and pursed her lips and pushed up from him. He let her go this time. “You know why.”

“I do?” He was teasing her and loving it.

“I… had a crush on you.” She frowned. “But at least that’s normal. At least I wasn’t swanning around town thinking you were my mate.”

She said the word with so much disregard and disdain that Jackson had to laugh again. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. He’d wondered, a long time ago, if she might have had a little thing for him. It was the way she’d watched him. She’d had a certain narrow-eyed awareness of him. But he hadn’t let himself dwell on that thought very long seeing as how he’d never in a million years considered he’d be kissing her on her couch. Knowing she’d had a crush on him would only have made the whole thing even more painful.

But right now, it pushed a rush of tenderness through Jackson so potent that he felt like he was drowning in heated caramel. She was too sweet. The moment was too intense. He’d been surviving on white rice for years and now he was swamped with mouthfuls of her sugar.

He crawled forward more and she fell back on the couch. He laid his weight out over her and clasped her close, coming up for air at the last possible second.

“You had a crush on me until I was so rude in the parking lot at work,” he guessed.

Her expression soured. “Yup. That’s the moment all sweetness for you died.”

“Well,” he smiled, his eyes glued to her lips. “Not all of it.”

He lowered his head and did himself the favor of letting himself get lost in the kiss. In her. He kept her legs pinned together because if she wrapped them around his waist he’d lose his earthly mind.

She was making these sweet little noises, and these sweet little movements, and Jackson was surprised that he wasn’t simply a puddle of overheated pudding on the floor.

Suddenly, her palm came to his forehead and she shoved him away all at once.

He was breathing hard, pushed up onto all fours over her and she was panting as well, her cheeks pink and her lush lips red and parted.

“You didn’t deny it.”

“Deny what?” He’d lost track of the thread of their conversation as they’d kissed.

“That you thought of me as your mate even back then.”

He shook his head and cleared his throat, eventually leaning back to sit on his heels. “I didn’t know for sure.” He brought a hand to the back of his head. “But, yeah, I suspected it might be the case. Especially after Seth and Sarah got together and I saw the way he felt about her.”

Kaya sat up and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You’re nuts, I swear.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes incredibly fierce over the tops of her hands. “We are not fated to be together. We are not chosen. Okay? I think you’re hot. You think I’m hot. And right now, we’re just two people who kiss in private. Capiche?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Capiche.”

“I think you should go.”

His eyebrows raised even further.

She dragged her hands down her face. “You’re not sleeping over on Christmas night. That’s insanity. You manned up and talked to Bauer and in return you got yourself a nice, juicy kiss. So, scram.”

“Scram?” he asked, a huge smile on his face. “Capiche? Who are you? Tony Soprano?”

She scowled. “Bye-bye, Jackson.”

Not wanting to push her, Jackson instead let himself be extremely grateful for what had already transpired on this day. He stood up, stretched, and watched her eyes bottom out on the sliver of his skin that was exposed above his belt. She had that dazed look again. He was starting to put the pieces together.

A moment later, she was shoving his coat toward him and pushing him toward the door. He opened it and stood there. “But I’ll be so lonely tonight.” He was joking, but not lying.

“You’ll have your self-help book to keep you company.”

“You’re right. I’m gonna go home and read it right now.”

“Grand.”

He took a step back and then a step forward, leaning in through the doorjamb and pressing his forehead against hers. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

She shoved his shoulders. “Who are you and what have you done with surly Jackson Durant? Yes, you can call me tomorrow.”

She slammed the door closed and Jackson strolled down the hall, smiling like a loon.