by Viola Rivard
Taylor would have been flattered by Holly’s defense of her had she not known how much Holly thrived on conflict. This was probably the most interesting thing that had happened to the fox shifter all week.
Hale became livid. “Will you stay the fuck out of this?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Holly said with a smirk. “I guess it is none of my business.”
Sensing that this was only going to escalate, Taylor decided to end it.
“Please leave,” she said to Hale.
His feet remained rooted to the floor as he ran a hand through his hair. After a moment’s hesitation, he left, slamming the door behind him.
Once he was gone, Taylor questioned the two females, asking them if they had known about Snow.
“Are you kidding?” said Holly. She nodded towards Lark. “This one couldn’t keep a secret to save her life.”
“Did you know?” Taylor asked Holly.
Holly shrugged. “I may have heard them talking about her a few times, but it wasn’t any of my business.”
Yep, Holly was definitely not going in the ‘friend’ category.
Lark rubbed her shoulders. “It doesn’t change anything, Taylor. Alder still loves you very much.”
“It changes everything,” Holly said. “How can she ever trust him again?”
Lark bit her lip, not seeming to have an answer.
Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation, Taylor began to cry. Holly looked away while Lark tried to console her with an awkward hug.
In between sobs, Taylor confessed, “I… I didn’t actually want… Hale to leave.”
As if he’d been waiting for a cue, the door swung open and Hale stepped back into the room. He was wet, and for the first time, Taylor noticed that it was raining out.
“You heard her,” Hale said to the women. “Beat it”—his nose wrinkled—“and take that pot with you.”
Holly grumbled something under her breath, but left without a fight. Lark gave Taylor a final pat on the back before grabbing the pot and leaving as well.
When they were gone, Hale joined Taylor on the furs and gathered her up into his arms. Not caring that he was wet, she wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. His bare skin was warm.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the apology resonating in the empty room.
Taylor closed her eyes. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Because I love you and for once, I didn’t want to be the bad guy.”
She sniffled. “That’s not love. That’s selfish.”
His hand rubbed circles in her back. “Yeah, well, I’m still trying to figure this shit out.”
She let him hang for a few moments before tightening her embrace.
“I have faith in you.”
His hand moved towards her breast.
Taylor smacked it away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alder couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so conflicted. But as much as it distressed him not to be with his mate, he knew that he had to address Snow’s arrival first and foremost. Although he was still pissed at his brother, he couldn’t help but be glad that Hale would be there for Taylor in his place, if only for a few hours.
He sat by the lake with Snow, pretending not to watch her as she shot furtive glances at him. It had been months since he’d seen her, though a part of her had never left him. And now that Taylor’s scent had changed, he’d found it even harder not to think about his daughter.
“I’m sorry I came,” she said. “I only did it because I was worried about you.”
“And now you’re making Cain and Sarah worry about you. Did you tell them you were leaving?”
Snow lived with his older brother, Cain, the other man whom she called her father. Cain and his mate, Sarah, had taken on the full responsibility of raising Snow when Alder had left for Halcyon. They both loved Snow as if she were one of their own. Alder would have never left Snow with them, had they not.
“I told Lotus to tell them where I’d gone after Caim and I left. They’re not worried about me. They have plenty of pups of their own.” She looked up at him. “I want to come live with you.”
Alder was shaking his head before she finished. “You know it’s not that simple.”
“Why not? You’re my father. I should be with you.”
There were countless reasons she couldn’t live with him, many of them revolving around Taylor. But the bottom line was, he couldn’t take Snow from her parents. Still, as he looked into his daughter’s blue eyes, Alder knew that he couldn’t outright deny her.
“You can stay for a few days, then we’ll talk about this again.” Not wanting to give her space to protest, he nodded towards Caim. “What about your brother?”
His nephew sat some distance away, staring out over the lake. He’d yet to shift from his wolf form, and while Caim had never been particularly talkative, it was an indication that something was wrong.
Snow lowered her voice. “He defected.”
“What?”
Her cheeks colored. “It’s been hard for him since he’s gotten older. Sarah raised him like a mother, but…she’s not his mother.”
Alder inwardly sighed. He knew exactly what his daughter meant. Caim was an alpha, or at least, he would be one day. As he came into adolescence, it would only be natural for him to find himself drawn to human females. Alder had faced similar difficulties when living with Cain’s mate and it was the main reason he’d chosen to leave Cain’s pack.
Still, while he understood what Caim was going through, his nephew couldn’t be older than fourteen. He was far too young to strike out on his own.
“Have you talked to him at all?”
She shook her head sadly. “He’s been in his wolf form since we left.”
Sensing her distress, Alder put an arm around her. Snow eagerly melded herself to his side.
“I’ll try to talk to him later,” he assured her.
He sat with Snow for hours, listening to her talk. While they had forged a good relationship in the past, Snow had always turned to Sarah, her adoptive mother, whenever anything weighed on her mind. It was strange to be sitting next to her while she spoke about her home life and how lonely she had been lately.
Finally, Snow was treating him like the father he had always wanted to be to her.
And it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Does this help?”
Taylor sighed. For all his finesse in bed, Hale didn’t have the slightest idea how to rub a woman’s back. It felt less like he was massaging her and more like he was practicing an awkward fighting technique.
“You’re just making it worse.” As she reached for a pillow to prop herself up, Hale winced. “What’s wrong?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “I thought you were going to hit me with it.”
Taylor glanced down at the pillow and cringed. “Sorry.”
She felt terrible about the way she’d been treating him. It was just after sunrise and Hale hadn’t left her side all night.
Earlier in the evening, after she’d stopped crying, Hale had taken her up to the mountains to find blueberries. After discovering that the blueberries had all fallen to the ground and putrefied, he’d held her as she cried again. Then later, when they arrived back at the cabin to find that there was a leak in the ceiling, he’d gone up to patch it while she sat on the floor and cried.
When she wasn’t crying, Taylor found herself being snappy over the tiniest things. She wished she could just attribute it to hormones, but at any given time, there were any number of things bothering her.
She was tired, but restless. Her back hurt and her head ached. She would crave weird foods one moment and felt nauseous the next. Worst of all was the bloating. She had done the math. She was hardly six weeks pregnant—how was she already such a mess?
Taylor fell back on her bed, sighing again. “Are you sure I’m pregnant?” She poked her stomach. “Maybe I just
have a tapeworm. Sure feels like it.”
Hale looked as tired as she had ever seen him. “There is one thing we haven’t tried.”
“Are you ever not thinking of sex?”
“I meant we could talk to Alder. He’s been through this before.”
She looked away. “Clearly.”
Hale squeezed her shoulder. “Well, whether you want to talk to him or not, he’s here.”
She sat up, eyes widening. “What?”
No sooner had the word escaped her lips than there was a knock at the door. Hale got up to answer it.
He kept his large body positioned so as to block Alder from view. While they spoke in hushed voices, Taylor laid down in bed. She grabbed a pillow to hold and turned her back to the door. Eyes squeezed shut, she silently begged Hale to make Alder go away. She wasn’t ready to talk to him.
But somehow, as the door shut and she heard footsteps approaching the pallet, Taylor knew that Hale was gone. She closed her eyes, stubbornly refusing to greet her mate.
Alder sat down next to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and began to massage with the ball of his thumb, hitting all the right spots. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from moaning.
Quietly, he said, “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Bitter tears pricked at her eyes. “You could have told me when you told me about Dawn. ‘Oh, and by the way, the baby didn’t die. She’s twelve-years-old and could show up at any time.’ See, easy?”
Alder turned her so that she lay on her back. He cupped her head in his hands, forcing her to look up at him.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair and I won’t ever keep anything from you again.”
As she started to cry, Taylor allowed Alder to pull her into his arms and hold her. She wasn’t giving in. She was just too exhausted to fight.
Alder rocked her back and forth in a slow, comforting motion. As he did, he told her everything. How Dawn had died a few hours after giving birth and how Snow was terribly premature.
“Dawn was dead, and when they told us that Snow wouldn’t make it through the night, I lost it.”
Alder had left for nearly a week. He had made peace with their deaths, as best he could, but when he came back to find that Snow was still clinging to life, he found himself in an even worse situation than before.
Snow never really got any better— he just stayed sick. She never shifted, rarely held down food, and many nights, she would stop breathing and need to be resuscitated. They had thought it was only a matter of time before she died.
“Hale continued to claim that she was his, and I let him. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done and I can’t make any excuses for it.”
Taylor put her anger aside for a few moments and placed a cool hand on the back of his neck.
“Alder, you were fifteen—”
“Sixteen, then.”
“That doesn’t matter. I knew a lot of adults who couldn’t handle having a sick kid. You were still a kid yourself.”
She had no memories of the Cavanaughs, the husband and wife who had adopted her as a newborn. From what her mother had later told her, Mr. Cavanaugh had been a lawyer and his wife had quit her job as a college professor to stay home and raise Taylor full-time. For all intents and purposes, they had been ideal parents, but even they hadn’t been able to handle a baby that could go into heart failure at any moment.
“She was still my daughter,” Alder said, shaking his head. “And she terrified me. I didn’t want to look at her, I didn’t want to hear her, I didn’t want to smell her…I forced myself to stay there in my brother’s pack, but it wasn’t so that I could be by her side. I was punishing myself.”
Alder told her how he went on like that for three years. The pack females and his older brother Cain took on most of the responsibility of Snow, and as the years passed, she only became marginally healthier.
“She never spoke, never cried. She just coughed and wheezed all the time and there was nothing any of us could do. Then, Sarah came.”
His brother Cain took a second mate, one who just happened to have medical training. Sarah was familiar with Snow’s medical problems and how to treat them. Under her care, Snow’s health had improved drastically. She’d even started talking.
Before long, Sarah had uncovered the truth of Snow’s parentage and she convinced Alder to be honest with Cain and take responsibility for his daughter. Cain hadn’t taken the news well, but with Sarah helping to smooth things over, they had managed to maintain a civil relationship.
“Snow was four when I told her that I was her father,” Alder told her. “By then, she was already set in her belief that Cain and Sarah were her parents. She didn’t really understand and I had no right to make things any more difficult for her.
“With Sarah’s blessing, I took things slowly and tried to get more involved in her life. Eventually, she did get attached to me. We actually became pretty close.”
“Then how come you didn’t bring her here to the valley?”
“Hale and I had to leave. I probably could have brought Snow with me, but to her, I was always ‘Uncle Alder’. Yesterday was the first time she’s actually called me ‘Dad.’ Cain and Sarah raised her like their own. I couldn’t have taken her away from them, no matter how much I wanted to.”
Taylor nodded in understanding. “But, she’s here now.”
He cast her a measuring look. “She says she wants to live with me.”
“What about Cain and Sarah?”
“They don’t know she’s here and she won’t tell me why she left.”
Taylor considered the situation for a moment, and then said, “You should let her stay.”
His brows rose. “You’d be okay with that?”
In all honesty, gaining a stepdaughter was just about the last thing she wanted right now. But she couldn’t put him in that position.
“Look, my hormones are crazy right now. Everything’s making me cry. I’m not even sure if I’m overreacting to this whole situation or not.” She offered him a weak smile. “It sounds like this may be the first time you get to be a father to your daughter. You can’t let me or anyone else come between the two of you right now.”
It’ll be okay, she told herself. I’ll be fine.
CHAPTER NINE
The following afternoon, Taylor was happy to hear a soft knock at her door. Not just because it meant Lark had finally learned some manners, but also because Taylor was lonely.
Alder had napped in the cabin with her that morning, but he’d been gone when she’d gotten up for the day. She had hazy memories of him kissing her goodbye, but they only served to make her feel glummer.
While she was more tired than usual, Taylor noted that she didn’t feel nearly as nauseous today as she had yesterday. She fixed her hair as best she could and made her way to the door.
To her surprise, it wasn’t Lark, but Snow who was waiting on the porch. Snow smiled as she greeted Taylor. Her smile was so much like Alder’s that it made Taylor’s chest hurt.
“Hale said you were sick,” said Snow. She held up a handful of familiar-looking herbs. “I thought I’d stop by and bring you some mint. My mom always boils it for me when I’m not feeling well. Even just smelling it makes me feel better.”
Taylor gave her a genuine smile. As inconvenient as Snow was, and as much as she wished Snow hadn’t showed up, Taylor couldn’t bring herself to these things apparent. She had been in Snow’s position too many times in her life.
“Thank you very much,” she said, taking the herbs. When Snow continued to stand on the porch, Taylor added, “Did you want to come in?”
“Sure, okay!”
Snow eagerly pushed past her and into the cabin.
“Be careful not to sit in the chair,” Taylor warned.
She lingered on the porch, noticing the large, black wolf that was sitting on her lawn. His amber eyes were focused intently on her quail coop.
“Uh, Caim?” Taylor said, unsure if she was recalling his
name correctly. “Did you want to come in as well? I have some clothes you could probably wear.”
The wolf ignored her.
“Don’t worry about him,” Snow said from inside. “He’s in one of his moods.”
Taylor nodded, but kept the door open as she followed Snow inside. The girl was already pouring water into a pot for boiling. Taylor leaned in the doorway, observing Snow’s movements. Aside from her dark features, Snow was exactly what Taylor would imagine a daughter of Alder might look like.
As Snow set the pot on the metal grate, Taylor came over to crouch beside her. “Should we just put the leaves in?”
“Here, let me.” Snow took the mint and began stripping the leaves and tossing them into the water. “Are you feeling better today?”
“I guess I feel pretty well, all things considered.”
“Is there something wrong with you?” Snow asked, turning to look at Taylor.
“Besides being pregnant?”
Snow’s eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”
“You can’t smell it?”
Snow looked back down at the pot, her cheeks reddening. “I’m not a wolf. At least, not like the others. I can’t shift, I have a terrible sense of smell, and I get sick a lot.”
Taylor sat down on the floor and crossed her legs. “That must be pretty rough.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Snow said, keeping her head down. “All of my brothers and sisters are wolves. My mom and I are the only ones who can’t shift.”
“How many siblings do you have?”
Snow sighed. “More than I can even count.”
“I had a lot of brothers and sisters growing up, as well.”
If foster siblings counted.
Snow glanced up. “Really?”
“Yeah. Having lots of brothers and sisters can be great, because you’re never alone.”
“I guess.”
“But it can also get pretty lonely, too.”
Snow was quiet as she began stirring the water in the pot. The fresh smell of mint leaves was already beginning to fill the cabin.