by Tamar Sloan
Chapter Three
Now it Gets Complicated
Not that I could do anything about it, and that’s what made it torture. My brain wished I could go back and choose to go home. No, to go even further back and choose a different day to go to the Glade, to maybe have taken the girls on my own. But my heart loves it, and it has a totally different idea of what I should do about it. Unfortunately, I also discover my self-control muscle has the strength of a dead moth. Which means rather than spending less time with him like I should, I keep doing everything we’ve always done, but with a whole new layer of breathtaking discovery.
Today we’re at my place, studying in the dining room. Or trying to, anyway. Even though our books are spread out, our laptops powered up, not a lot of learning is happening. In part because my siblings are a rabble that keeps overflowing from the lounge room and somersaulting past our chairs. In part because Noah keeps cruising YouTube for hilarious clips of ‘real’ Werewolf sightings.
But mostly because of the distracting way Mitch’s eyes seek mine, deepwater blue deeper and bluer every time. Asking me the question I want to answer in a much different way. It takes every muscle locked in place to keep me from diving in.
“Did you see the latest Marvel is out?”
I drag my gaze back to my English essay. “Yeah, reviews weren’t awesome though.”
“He has a cameo.”
Son of a crumbcake, he knows me too well. I shrug, pretending I don’t care that he knows that any mention of Captain America has me leaping for the car keys, that I don’t give a happy meal that he just propped his elbow on the table and cupped his chin, leaning forward. I ignore the sensation of soaring in my chest as the distance between us shrinks.
“Maybe we should check it out.”
Ah, no. I glance up at Noah, but he’s focused and grinning at his laptop. I look back at Mitch to find his smile losing its momentum. As deepwater blue develops breathtaking currents my own smile dies on my lips. Definitely no. Yes. YES. YES!
But I can’t.
“Yeah sure.” Mitch’s eyes light up like fireworks. “Noah, you coming?”
Noah looks up, taking a few seconds to register what’s been said. He glances from me to Mitch, then back again. I’m not sure if it’s the guilt that I’m using my childhood bestie as a buffer or the light dying in Mitch’s eyes, but there’s a sensation that feels like sour milk in my belly. I look away, knowing that I, we, can’t go on like this.
“Tara, can you change Christa for me?” I glance through to the lounge room where Mom is sitting in her rocker, grimacing as little Breanna climbs her big belly like a mountain. Flora is screaming like a stuck chipmunk because there isn’t any room to join her. Christa streaks past, wild red hair bouncing, her wet diaper hanging precariously on her chubby hips.
Relief has me shooting up and in the lounge, diaper in hand, before Mom can blink. “Sure.”
Noah chooses that moment to do a Houdini, something about leaving a book in his truck — for the studying he wasn’t doing.
But the determination I’ve always admired in Mitch rears its unhelpful head. “Need a hand with that?”
I nab Christa on her return run, heading for a clear space on the lounge room floor. “I got it.”
I need to think of my pack. My responsibility.
From nowhere, Mr. Puddles whacks me in the face. I really regret buying that darned duck. It looked so fluffy and yellow and cute sitting on the toy store shelf. There was no way anyone could have known it was possessed. Mr. Puddles hits the ground and Christa keeps going, her diaper dangerously close to giving into gravity.
Dark brows high, Mitch comes to kneel beside me. “I can tell.”
Mitch grabs Mr. Puddles, lays him on his back and takes another diaper. “Mr. Puddles, hold still.” Furry yellow wings flop and flap on the ground as Mr. Puddles makes a darned good show of resisting. Thank Thor his squeaker died on about the third tumble through the washing machine.
Christa’s back in an instant, wide eyed and laughing. Mitch turns to my little sister. “Christa, can you show him how it’s done?”
With Mitch as puppeteer, Mr. Puddles jumps to his feet and makes a show of trying to run away. Mitch makes such a comedy of hauling the stuffed toy back that I have to stifle my giggles as I tut and frown at the duck’s irresponsible behavior. Man I wish I could bottle the citrus cinnamon deliciousness beside me.
Suffice to say, Christa lays down, talking Mr. Puddles through everything he has to do to get his diaper changed. When we’re done, the duck has an over-sized white butt, Christa is no longer in danger of water bombing the house…and I’m another five miles deeper in love with Mitch.
Mitch leans back, those competent strong hands resting on his thighs, currents of blue turning from laughter to something more. Emotions start to swirl around us, a vortex that I have so little control over.
I look up to find his smile losing momentum. “Hey, you want to —”
Dad chooses that moment to come in, like he sensed his plans were under threat. Whatever he sees, me leaning into citrus and cinnamon, Mitch pulling me in with nothing but a look, has his bushy red brows flat-lining.
“Tara.”
I try really hard not to jump the jump of the guilty, but I straighten and turn, definitely lacking grace or finesse. I look up, and seeing as Dad is the size of Everest, it takes a good few seconds for my hazel eyes to meet his. “Yes, Dad?”
Dad crosses his arms, red bushy brows coming down, practically blending with his lion mane beard. “Let’s head out.”
“It’s not too early?”
I knew today was our monthly visit, but we’ve always gone on twilight. Never during the late afternoon like he’s suggesting.
That has Dad’s brows heading back up. I feel myself still. I’ve just questioned him…in front of Mitch. And as much as he’s my childhood friend, Dad would never forget Mitch’s defining characteristic. He’s a Phelan…and a Beta Phelan at that. I don’t look at Mitch as I shoot to my feet. “I’ll get stuff organized.”
Dad grunts and heads to the garage.
“Bye, Mr. Phelan.”
Dad pauses at Mitch’s words. He turns in the hallway, his big body making the space look narrow. “Goodbye, Mitch.”
I look away. If it had been Noah, Dad would have thanked him for his help, I have a sneaking suspicion he may have even considered smiling. But Mitch isn’t the Alpha heir, and one thing Dad believes and enforces is the hierarchy. With that he turns and leaves.
Mitch studies me for a moment. We don’t need to say anything. Mitch and Noah have spent enough time in my house to know what it’s like. I’ve spent enough time at theirs to know it’s not the norm. But I’m also one of the few that understands why.
“You —”
I put my hand up. “I know, we’ve been over it.”
Although they know Dad’s thou-shalt-obey-and-you-don’t-get-to-question tendencies, neither Mitch nor Noah like it. But it’s a testament to the power of our friendship that even though it pees them off they still come over, knowing I need to help out with my younger sisters.
I walk to the door, knowing there’s no point going over old material, and Mitch follows. I’m just about to open it when Noah comes barging through. He pulls up short of bowling me over, understanding dawning on his face. “Party’s over huh?”
I flash a smile, knowing there’s no joy behind it. “Yeah, gotta go do firstborn duty.”
Noah quirks a brow, seeing as we’re technically in the same boat. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
His words have been dipped and drowned in sarcasm. We’re both firstborns. The only thing that differentiates us is our gender. And how our Alpha fathers define that…
I turn away. I’ve never been one to moan about the glass half empty. I step back, letting Mitch pass through, knowing he’s trying to catch my gaze. But I pretend my head’s already in the clearing I’ll be heading to, giving a distracted wave as I turn and
walk away.
The door shuts on Noah’s words. “When I’m Alpha, there won’t be any —”
I head to the garage, because I’ll be crying over the milk that’s been spilt from that half-full glass if I let myself imagine the ending to that sentence.
The walk out our backyard and into the forest is silent, like it always is. Dad is an Alpha of few words. To be honest, there really isn’t much to say. Dad has taught us all from a young age our role and responsibility in the pack. His role and responsibility as the Alpha. You don’t need words to do what needs to be done.
Unfortunately, that means way too much thinking time. My artist’s mind flashes all the images of Mitch, getting less and less subtle. The next canvas has Noah looking at me with his thoughtful, serious gaze. How long before this futile attraction causes a strain on the one pillar in my life I’d always assumed was unbreakable?
As we head deeper and deeper, the trunks becoming thicker and closer together, the solution that germinated not long after the complication arose shoots off another root. Every time Mitch asks, every time Noah looks, each and every stinkin’-freakin’-bleepin’ time Dad frowns, it grows a little. Every one of those moments fertilizer for the idea I was doing my darnedest to ignore.
I almost stumble straight into Dad’s boulder sized back when he stops. I pull myself up, knowing he wouldn’t be impressed with a scatterbrained firstborn. I suck in a calming breath. We’ve arrived.
Not many people know I got my artistic side from my Dad. If I were to count them my guess is it would be one - me. His Dad would have known, probably his older brother. But they never got to see what Dad’s created here. Ironically, they’re the ones who inspired it.
Deep in the forest, surrounded by pines, it stands. Partially formed, etched into a boulder the size bigger than the mini-van Mom drives. In layers of grey, light as dawn and dark as dusk, the beginning of a wolf has been carved into the stone. It’s magnificent, breathtaking and humongous.
Once a month Dad works on it. On the fifth of every month. On the day he lost them.
There are few secrets amongst Weres, there are not enough of us to lose track of any relevant information. Everyone knows how Dad lost his brother and his father. That he was the second son, that he was never the Alpha heir.
But they don’t know the ripple effect it had.
I remember Grandfather Garrett. He was strong, powerful and not big in the smiling department. Garrett Junior was though. He loved life and he loved fun. He was the one that gave me piggy backs and sneaky Twinkies when no one was looking. As Dad scrapes and scratches away at the stone, the hardest medium an artist could mold a creation from, he does the one thing most people don’t see much of. He talks. He tells me about the times he went on Alpha duty with his father, while his older brother was in Athens, and fixed newly widowed Adelle’s roof when it caved during a storm. He tells me what a great feeling it was to be the first to expand the Channon pack when Mom got pregnant. He tells me how it was Grandfather Garrett’s dream for the Channons to be strong, possibly the strongest.
Over the year he’s been bringing me I’ve figured out all the things he hasn’t told me. One, Garrett Junior, my uncle, learned to fly a plane as soon he was old enough so he could take his forever smiling personality anywhere but Wilmot. Two, Dad loved being the one Grandfather Garrett depended on. And three? Grandfather didn’t live long enough to see his second son achieve so much for his pack. When he got the news that Garrett Junior died when his small plane went down over some remote corner of our planet, he sat down and pretty much didn’t get back up. It took a month — Garret Junior was lost to the Peruvian Jungle on the fifth of May, Garrett Senior let out his last relieved breath on the fifth of June so he could go join him.
The memorial is beautiful. Dad uses the natural lines of the rock, like this slab of stone was always supposed to be a wolf. With nothing but a hammer and chisel, month after month, he creates what he wants his pack to be.
Without pausing, as I sit and watch the rhythmic tap, tap, scrape, he asks. “Why stone, Tara?”
“Because it’s strong.”
Tap, tap, scrape. “What makes it strong?”
“Because all the parts create one.”
He steps back, surveying the flowing line of the shoulder he’s etching out. “Yes. And when something is strong?”
“It endures.”
“Exactly.” He says like we haven’t gone through this script on a monthly basis. “It outlasts the rest.”
“The Channons will always stand strong, Dad.”
Tap, tap, scrape. Dad once again loses himself in his creation. He’s also never said that building his wolf memorial is a metaphor. An Alpha molding his pack. I’m not sure if he realizes it himself. But I know. I know that’s what Dad wants to do, to build something bigger and stronger and more powerful than Weres thought possible.
Now that would sure show Garrett Senior.
“Tara.”
I’m startled from the hypnotic tap, tap, scrape. “Yeah?”
“You are a good, strong Channon.”
I glance down so Dad doesn’t see what those words do to me. A firstborn isn’t supposed to happy dance.
“As a firstborn you know your place and your responsibility.”
That brings the happy dance to a halt. Sure I’m a first born, but I’m a girl, which basically makes me a princess. All the responsibility of a leader, with none of the power.
Tap, tap, scrape. “You need to know. If this child is a girl…”
I look back up, we’re deviating from our standard script, and I have no idea where this is going. With seven girls, the odds aren’t great.
“I’ll name you Alpha heir.”
You could bowl me over with the specks of rock dust that catch on the breeze. “Alpha heir?”
The tapping and scraping never stops, like this isn’t some life changing conversation. “Yes. It will be a significant responsibility, but one I feel I have prepared you well for.”
I’m glad he isn’t looking at me, because the cyclone of emotions on my face isn’t firstborn material. If the baby is a girl…a disappointment that Dad experienced with me and has been repeated six times after that. It’s what’s driven Dad to have child after child. To wear Mom into the ground.
But if it’s a girl, I would be named the Alpha heir. I would get a say. I would have the power to choose!
I keep my butt where it is, my hands from fist pumping, and my heart from hollering to the sky. The solution that had taken root shrivels a little as the possibility for a future, one I hadn’t let myself dream of, begins to coalesce in vibrant color.
“As the firstborn you will lead the Channons. You will bond with one who will continue what I have built.”
Which technically was always my role, but now I would get some choice. “I’ll always put the pack first, Dad.”
He stops and turns. The silence frames his words. “I know.”
Dad glances back at the partially carved rock. “Maybe today memorializes the future.” I look up at his lion mane face, wondering what he’s suggesting. “Want to go for a run?”
I can’t help the smile that finally breaks free. “Ah, rhetorical.”
Dad grins in that big, bushy beard of his.
We head back to the house, silent as always, but for the first since THE moment I start to paint a new painting in my mind. It’s bright, open and awash in light. It’s a painting of hope.
We get to the house and Dad indicates with his head we’ll walk around. With a wink (yes, a wink!) he makes a line for his truck. Dad’s playing hooky?
I can’t help but smile; this is a side of Dad I haven’t seen. We climb in and drive off without even telling Mom where we’re going. Silence hugs us once again as we head to the Glade, but this time it’s lighter. Not quite so serious. It holds the promise of a future I want to be part of.
We’re almost there, zooming down the highway, when Dad slows. He’s seen wha
t I’ve seen.
Holy brown bananas…
There, just meters away from the turn-off, a sleek grey car is pulled off the highway. In front of it there’s a man, in a suit, banging in a sign. Our slow movement forward gives ample time for our sharp Were eyes to take in what it says.
FOR SALE
And to process the words stamped over those two.
UNDER OFFER
What the —
Dad jerks the wheel and we pull over, braking hard over the gravel. He’s out of the car before I’ve got my seat belt off. I have to hurry to follow his gigantor strides.
The man’s eyes widen as he takes in the size of my father striding toward him. He straightens, keeping his hammer close to his chest.
Dad’s voice is quiet and controlled as he asks the question. “What are you doing?”
Mr. Real Estate swallows. “Ah, putting up a for sale sign.”
I roll my eyes, thanks Captain Obvious. Dad’s frown has moved into the land of ferocious. “You’ve made a mistake. This is public land, it’s not for sale.”
Another swallow tightens Mr. Real Estate’s throat. “This lot has been released by the federal government with recent legislation change.” He straightens, gaining momentum. “It opens up acres of land for state or private use, agriculture, tourism. Just think about the opportunities.”
Private use!
Dad sucks in a breath, stepping forward. The man goes from confident sales pitch back to cowering. Smart choice if you ask me. “How is this possible?”
The man steps back and with a bit of distance, maybe because he’s closer to his car, angles his chin. “The bill has passed sir, the land went up for sale a week ago.”
I frown, how did we not know about this? How is it already under offer? My Were senses pick up the scent of something fishy.
Dad’s eyes flicker to the two words on the sign that feel like nails in coffin. “Who?”
“I can’t disclose that sort of information, sir.”
Dad steps forward, looming over the idiot. I know this next question won’t be asked quietly. “Who?”
The man ducks like he can avoid the tornado of anger that Dad roars at him. Pretending he has some pride left he straightens, tugs at his jacket and raises his chin again. “Like I said, that information is confidential.”
And with that he power walks — not quite a run but certainly no hanging around to see what the angry bear will do next — straight to his car.
The car’s brake lights have disappeared around a bend before Dad moves again.
He looks at me and his hazel eyes have turned to stone.
This is bad. Uber bad.