Wildfire Shifters: Collection 1

by Zoe Chant

The young unicorn continued to gaze calmly back.

  It couldn’t be a trick of perspective. It was looking right at her, clearly showing that it only had a single, perfectly straight horn, directly in the center of its forehead. Its body wasn’t entirely deer-like either. A slight breeze rippled its long, silky mane, and tugged at the feathery fur around its fetlocks. It wasn’t a goat, or a miniature pony, or some other mundane creature.

  It was a unicorn.

  The sound of the cabin’s door opening made her jump, spilling coffee across her hand. Across the clearing, the creature leaped back into the forest in a single graceful bound, disappearing from view as if it had never existed at all.

  “Breakfast,” Callum announced, entering. He paused, looking at her more closely. “Something wrong?”

  There was no way she could tell him what she’d seen. Especially when she couldn’t believe it herself. She grabbed a napkin, dabbing at the coffee she’d spilled. “I, um, was just looking at the view. I thought I saw, uh, an animal. Moving in the woods.”

  Callum cocked his head a little to one side, like he was listening to something. “A white deer?”

  She twitched guiltily. “What makes you say that?”

  “A herd of them lives on Thunder Mountain. They’re very tame. Hang around the base a lot.” He was still studying her. His eyebrows drew together. “Did you see a white deer?”

  You can’t really have seen a unicorn. You’re going crazy. You hit your head yesterday and now you’re seeing things and if you tell anybody they’ll take Beth away—

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Yes. That must be what it was.”

  He drew in a breath as though about to say something, then let it out again unused. He turned to put his tray down—and paused.

  “Ah.” He stared at Beth, who was waving Bunny about by one leg. “Has that, er, been in her mouth?”

  Beth answered this question by stuffing the toy’s entire butt into her beaming face.

  “Well, it has now,” Diana sighed over the squeaksqueaksqueak as Beth gnawed on the rabbit. “Is that a problem?”

  “Er.” Callum winced as he watched his daughter brutalize the toy. “Well. It probably should have been washed first.”

  “Sorry. I found it outside the door. I assumed you’d left it for her.”

  “Not me. That belongs to…one of my colleagues. He must have thought she’d like to play with it.”

  “Oh.” Diana didn’t much like the thought of someone sneaking into the cabin softly enough that she hadn’t noticed, but at least the firefighter had clearly meant well. “That was kind of him.”

  “Yes,” Callum said, rather darkly. He shook his head, turning back to his tray. “I brought breakfast. I didn’t know what you’d like, so I made everything.”

  He wasn’t kidding. As well as the promised chocolate-chip pancakes, there was a plate piled high with crispy bacon and three sorts of eggs; a bowl of cornflakes and another of porridge; a towering stack of toast surrounded by a thicket of jars and bottles. Diana didn’t think she’d would even have been able to lift the tray, let alone carry it all the way across the base.

  “This is incredible. Thank you. Though I couldn’t possibly eat all that.”

  Her stomach chose that moment to loudly announce that it was perfectly willing to try.

  Callum’s mouth twitched up. “It’s for us all to share. But don’t hold back. I can always make more.”

  He took a small saucer piled with miniature pancakes from the tray, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. Detecting trace amounts of chocolate with the sensitivity of a bloodhound, Beth abandoned Bunny to make a bee-line for his lap. Callum sat her on his knee, handing her baby-sized bites of pancake.

  Diana hunted through the crowded bottles in search of syrup. There were condiments on the tray that she didn’t even recognize, let alone know whether she wanted to put them on her breakfast.

  She picked one up, examining the hand-written label. “What’s Dragonbreath?”

  “Hot sauce. Joe makes it.” Callum broke off baby-sized bits of pancake, handing them one at a time to Beth. “He insisted I bring some for you. Don’t try it.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” She put the bottle back, picking up a squat black jar. “What about Marmite?”

  “Food of the gods,” Callum said, with a perfectly straight face.

  She unscrewed the lid, took a sniff, and quickly recapped it again. “Which gods? Cthulhu and Hades?”

  Callum made another of those voiceless laughs. “Maybe you have to have grown up with it. Blaise brings it over from England.”

  “That’s where most of the squad is from, right? I can tell from the accents.”

  He nodded, handing Beth another piece of pancake. “City called Brighton, on the south coast. Our parents are best friends, so we all grew up together. I’m actually Irish, though. Not English. Very different.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it. I’ve never been out of the States.” Finding the maple syrup at last, she liberally doused her pancakes. “So does that mean Beth is Irish too, by descent?”

  “Yes. If we register the birth there, she can claim citizenship when she’s older, if she wants.”

  “American, Lakota, Irish.” Diana paused to savor a heavenly mouthful of sweet, fluffy, chocolatey pancake goodness. “I’m glad that she’s been blessed with such a rich heritage. It’s good to belong to more than one world.”

  “Yes.” Callum hesitated for a second, as though tempted to add something more, then shook his head a little. “I don’t know anything about Lakota culture. I’ll have to learn.”

  “Well, I have whole stacks of books and papers if you’re serious about that. You’d be doing me a favor, actually.” She sighed, thinking of all the boxes cluttering up her small apartment. “I’ve been meaning to get rid of all that stuff.”

  He glanced up at her. “Why?”

  “It’s just in the way. Now that Beth’s more active, she needs more space. And it’s not like I need all my old research materials now. I was doing a doctorate in Lakota storytelling traditions, you see. But then…” She gestured at Beth in explanation.

  His eyebrows drew down. “Do you want to finish your thesis?”

  “Well…yes. But it’s not—”

  “Then you should,” he interrupted. He released another piece of pancake into Beth’s demanding hands. “We’ll work it out.”

  He said it so simply, as if it was no big deal. As though she should just take it as a given that he would be around to help now, in whatever way she needed…

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” she blurted out.

  Callum paused, pancake dangling from his fingers. Beth squawked impatiently, making grabby motions, her hands outstretched like hungry starfish.

  “You said it yourself.” Callum gave Beth the pancake, then nodded down at her. “We’re permanently bound together.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t explain all, all this.” Diana waved round at the ridiculously lavish breakfast, the cabin that he’d so carefully prepared, Callum himself. “You’re Beth’s father. I’m really glad that you’re taking that seriously, but honestly, you don’t have to wait on me hand and foot. I’m just her mother, not a princess.”

  “No,” Callum agreed. The corner of his mouth hooked up, just a little. “You’re a goddess.”

  Diana huffed in exasperation, despite the way her insides melted at that devastating almost-smile. “I’m serious, Callum. I meant what I said yesterday. You don’t have to pander to me out of fear that I’ll keep Beth away if you don’t.”

  His smile flickered out. “Do you really think that’s the only reason I’d want to do things for you?”

  “Well, it’s the one that makes most sense. We only met yesterday, yet you seem eager to upend your entire life.”

  Beth had finished the pancake, and was now patting her hands happily in the remaining puddle of syrup. Callum caught her wrists before she could start rubbing her palms across
her head. He reached for a wet wipe.

  He kept his eyes on Beth, cleaning each of her fingers with infinite care. “She upended your entire life, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, but…that’s different.”

  Callum finished Beth’s first hand, and started on the next. “Don’t see how.”

  “I chose to have her. It was my decision, and I took it, and I don’t regret that. You didn’t get that choice. I’ve sprung all this on you without warning.” She chased the last bit of pancake around her plate, and eyed up the bacon, wondering if it would be greedy to help herself to some. “You’re taking it so well that it’s honestly starting to give me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe it’s just my anxiety disorder, but I can’t help worrying about what’s really going through your head.”

  Callum put Beth on the floor, getting up. Without being asked, he forked a generous helping of bacon and eggs onto her plate. He didn’t sit down again. Instead, he started collecting up the used breakfast things, stacking them neatly on the tray.

  “Do you believe in fate?” he said abruptly, out of nowhere.

  The words rang an echo in her memory. “You asked me that before.”

  He flashed her a brief, strangely startled glance. “Did I?”

  “Before the auction. Remember?”

  He shook his head slightly. “I…don’t recall that. What did you say?”

  She struggled to remember herself. “I’m not sure I said anything. I thought it was kind of a weird question to ask someone you’d just met.”

  His intent gaze searched her face. “What about now?”

  To be the subject of such utter focus was unnerving. She scooped up a forkful of her breakfast as an excuse to avoid his eyes. The scrambled eggs were light as buttery clouds, perfectly complimented by the smoky, salty bacon. Hot damn, the man could cook.

  She forced her attention away from the food and back onto his question. “I still think it’s weird, to be honest. Why do you keep asking, anyway? Do you believe in fate?”

  He fidgeted with the bottles and jars on the tray, arranging them into rigidly straight lines.

  “I believe that some things happen for a reason,” he said at last. He jerked his chin in the direction of Beth, who was once again playing with Bunny. “Like her. I think…I think we were meant to come together in this way.”

  His words sent an odd shiver through her. Something at the very center of her soul seemed to resonate to them, whispering yes, even as the rest of her mind shrieked that the whole thing was crazy.

  He spoke before she’d had a chance to work out how to respond, or even how she wanted to respond. “I called my parents last night. I told them about you.”

  Her heart twisted with a bittersweet pang. She was delighted that Beth at least had one set of living grandparents, of course…but it only sharpened her sorrow that her own parents would never know their granddaughter.

  She forced a smile to cover her conflicted emotions. “I hope you didn’t tell them every detail about how we met.”

  That wry half-smile tugged at his mouth once more. “No fear of that.”

  “Great. I don’t want them thinking the mother of their granddaughter is a total floozy.” She ate another mouthful of eggs, trying to look casual. “So what did they say?”

  His smile widened, adding a spike of pure lust to her emotional cocktail. “My father thinks I should propose to you immediately. Possibly with an alpaca.”

  She choked on her eggs, and had to spend an unladylike moment coughing. Callum passed her a glass of water, and waited patiently.

  “Thanks,” she gasped, when she was no longer in danger of having the world’s most embarrassing obituary. “Um. I guess your parents are really old-fashioned, huh?”

  Callum’s eyebrows rose. “Alpacas are traditional?”

  “No! I meant—the other thing. A shotgun wedding.”

  “No shotguns would be involved.” He grimaced a little. “Ideally no alpacas, either, but I can’t promise that. Once my father’s set on an idea, there’s no stopping him.”

  She started to reply, and then paused, staring at him. “Wait. You think we should get married? Just because we have a baby together?”

  The amusement lurking in his eyes vanished. She’d never seen him look so utterly serious. Her ovaries ripped off their clothes shrieking Take us now!

  “No,” he said. “Not just for that reason.”

  Her mouth hung open. She realized that she was still holding a forkful of eggs, frozen in mid-air. She put it down again untasted, appetite suddenly chased away by butterflies.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, because she couldn’t be understanding him correctly. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Gubuhdababababa,” suggested Beth. She was tugging at Callum’s pants, trying to haul herself up. She managed to get most of the way to her feet, tottered for an instant, and sat down hard on her butt.

  Callum swooped down as her bottom lip started to tremble. He put his hands under her arms, lifting her back to her feet. Beth’s threatened tears instantly turned to a delighted chuckle. She flexed her legs happily, Callum taking most of her weight like a human baby bouncer.

  “You said we have to be honest with each other if this is going to work.” Callum’s head was bent over Beth, hiding his face. His arms stayed rock-steady regardless of how Beth yanked against them. “So I want to be clear on one thing. I want you. I want to be with you. Not just as Beth’s father. I want to be your lover. Your partner.”

  He looked up at her at last. His eyes were utterly certain. “Your husband.”

  Her mouth had gone dry. She swallowed, hard. “But you barely know me.”

  “I have loved you from the first moment we met,” he said, simply.

  “That—that’s—” She shook her head, suddenly wondering if she was still asleep, and this was all a dream. “I’m sorry, and I’m not trying to tell you how you feel, but I don’t believe in love at first sight. Not the sort of love that lasts, at least. I think you can only really love someone when you truly know them. That takes more than eyes meeting across a crowded room.”

  Callum’s gaze was as steady as his arms. “I think you can know at a single glance that you want to spend the rest of your life getting to know someone.”

  Diana opened her mouth—to say what, she had no idea—but Callum shook his head, forestalling her.

  “I’m not expecting you to feel the same way,” he said. He looked down at Beth again, whose legs were starting to wobble. He eased her back down onto her bottom. “I just wanted you to know that’s how I feel. So we’re clear. Do you want to take a shower?”

  A shower sounded distinctly appealing. Ideally a very, very cold one. She needed to get away from Callum’s brain-melting sex aura long enough to think, without her traitor hormones hollering Proven fertile stud! Claim that excellent genetic material ASAP! at her.

  “Yes,” she said faintly. “A shower sounds like a good idea.”

  “I’ll watch Beth.” He picked up the baby, settling her on his hip. “Don’t worry, we won’t leave the cabin.” He hesitated, clearing his throat. “If you want to keep the door to the bathroom open so you can keep us in sight, I’ll…I’ll try not to look. No promises. Sorry.”

  Well, she had asked him to be honest. And she was touched that he’d remembered her anxiety over Beth leaving her sight.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I trust you.”

  It was, she realized, true. She did trust Callum. Gertrude didn’t raise a single peep at the prospect of him looking after Beth solo for a short time. She still didn’t know what to make of him, or his self-admitted infatuation with her, but…she trusted him.

  “Why don’t you take her for a little walk?” she said. “Some fresh air would be good for her.”

  Callum treated her to a flash of that brilliant, dazzling smile. She pushed down a mad urge to accept his insane proposal on the spot, alpacas and all.

  “Thank you,” he said. He started to ta
ke Beth out of the bedroom, then paused, glancing at her over his shoulder. “There’s something else you should know.”

  Oh God. At this point, Diana was fully prepared for him to tell her that he was actually a werewolf. “What?”

  “There’s one way I’m like my father.” He still had that teasing smile, but his eyes darkened, filled with unmistakable heat. “Once I’m set on something, I don’t give up.”

  And she was left wondering if she even wanted him to.

  Chapter 12

  So far, his plan was going perfectly.

  Callum set Beth down on the soft meadow grass outside his cabin. She was immediately entranced by the long, waving stalks, seizing a double handful in her fat little fists. Since she didn’t seem inclined to stuff the grass into her mouth—possibly due to already being full of pancake—Callum let her explore.

  He sat down next to her, pulling out his notebook. Thanks to his pegasus senses, he didn’t need to be physically looking at Beth in order to keep an eye on her. He flipped past his already-completed list items (Breakfast ran to three pages of sub-items, all neatly crossed off), finding his place.

  Serve breakfast

  Feed Beth

  Clean Beth

  Attempt to not be a total idiot

  Declare undying love to Diana

  Clean up breakfast things

  He crossed off the first three items, then dithered over the fourth. He didn’t think he’d been a total idiot, but then again, he had inadvertently started babbling about alpacas. He ended up circling that line, drawing three arrows pointing to it for emphasis. It was more an ongoing life goal than a to-do item, anyway.

  He ticked off Declare undying love to Diana with a bold, confident stroke. That had gone better than he’d expected. It wasn’t the sort of thing that was easy to work into normal conversation, but she’d given him the perfect opening. And she hadn’t immediately grabbed Beth and run screaming from his cabin. All in all, he was giving himself an A+++ on that front.

  He had a few days of grace, before Connor was back in contact and he would be able to finally confirm which one of them was the father. He had to use every single precious minute to show Diana that he was the right man to be Beth’s father, regardless of her actual biological parentage.