by Lisa Olsen
“Are you missing your family?”
“Don’t have one no more.”
I didn’t push, figuring he’d tell me if he wanted to. Instead, I wrapped my arm around him in a one armed hug. “Sure you do, you have us.”
Lee didn’t say anything to that. Instead, he looked in at Gunnar, Maggie, and Tucker, all laughing in the warm light spilling through the windows, and I felt for the first time that Lee didn’t consider himself as one of us.
“You are, you know. Part of the family.”
“Not so sure I deserve that.” He shook his head, shuffling to the edge of the porch, where he took a seat on the front steps.
“What kind of talk is that? You don’t have to earn a place in a family,” I replied, taking a seat beside him as he drew out a cigarette, but didn’t light it. He just rolled it between his fingers, over and over.
“Didn’t say earn, I said deserve. That there’s a powerful different thing.”
“You lost me, Lee.” I had to admit, I was baffled by his melancholy on such a fun evening.
“You want to hear somethin’ messed up?”
I nodded. “If you feel like telling it to me.”
“I used to be gone from home a lot in the old days, when the kids were naught but pups.”
I hoped he meant that figuratively, but decided it wasn’t the right time to ask him about the development of shifters. “Gone where?” I prompted, when he lapsed into silence again.
“Workin’,” he replied. “It weren’t like I was off galavantin’ and carryin’ on, I went where the work was. Not that it mattered to them.”
“To who, your family?”
Lee nodded. “It was real hard on ’em. Didn’t matter that I sent home money on the regular. My Abigail had a particularly sore time bringin’ up the young’uns on her own.”
“Abigail is your wife?” I guessed, and he nodded.
“Was. She took to drinkin’, only I didn’t know how bad until it was too late.”
“What happened?”
“I came home late from a job and found her passed out in a puddle of her own filth. Don’t know how long she’d been that way, but the kids… There was blood everywhere and…”
“What?” I went very still, anticipating the worst.
“They were fine,” he said with a reassuring pat on my leg. “Well, maybe fine ain’t the proper word, it wasn’t their blood, y’see. It was obvious they’d been hungry for a while, and there wasn’t a lick of food in the house. Harley, he’d gone and shifted for the first time, as far as I knew, and went out in search of fresh meat. Brought down a fawn, no bigger’n himself, really. The boy dragged the carcass into the house and tossed a haunch of it into his sister Maisie’s crib. The little gal could barely walk, but there weren’t nothing wrong with her teeth. Not the prettiest of sights to walk into, but it coulda been a damn sight worse.”
He painted a vivid picture, and my imagination filled in the rest. Maybe it wasn’t as big of a deal to a family of shifters, but the idea of giving a bloody haunch of baby deer to a toddler turned my stomach. “Oh my God, what did you do then?”
“Wasn’t much to do but clean ’em all up and send ’em to bed. Congratulate Harley on takin’ care of his baby sister, and wait for Abigail to sleep it off.”
“And when she woke up and realized what happened?”
“She swore up and down that she’d get some help, and things got better for a spell. I took some local jobs that didn’t pay as well, but at least I was there to see them all safe.”
I relaxed, hoping the worst was over. Only, it couldn’t be, or it wouldn’t explain his ruined relationship with his kids. “She quit drinking then?”
“She did,” he nodded. “But then she got strung out on pills from the shyster doc in town she’d been seein’.”
“Oh no.”
“Again, I didn’t know it. Alls I saw was there weren’t no alcohol bottles in the trash, and she didn’t wake up hung over. I went back out on the road.”
“What happened? Did she neglect the kids again?”
He was silent, putting the cigarette between his lips and then pulling it out again without lighting it. “No, she didn’t neglect the kids. I did. I spent much more time away than I did at home. She’d kicked the drink, but things wasn’t better between us, y’see. I spent so much time away, my own kids didn’t know me when I came home. Abigail didn’t seem to mind so much, and the money was good, and I told myself I was being a good provider.”
“Weren’t you? You took care of your family.”
“I let all this space grow between us. Between me and Abigail, between me and the kids. When Abby turned up in a family way, I took it as a sign I should stick closer to home. We had a bit saved up and I took a job at the mill so she wouldn’t have to do so much with another one on the way.”
“Well, that’s good.” Only, I could tell from the look on his face that it wasn’t. The worst part of the story was yet to come.
“When Lucky was born, it became real clear to me that he wasn’t mine.”
“Oh no.”
“The math didn’t add up, and he didn’t look a lick like his brother or sister when they were small.”
“Sometimes babies come early, and it’s common for recessive genes to pop up and…” He was already shaking his head, so I clammed up.
“No baby comes four months early lookin’ fully growed,” he said with a bitter twist of the lips. “Abigail didn’t even bother to lie about it when I confronted her.”
“Oh,” I said quietly.
“I ain’t proud of what happened next. Maybe if I’da cooled off first, if I hadn’t had it out with her when I was so angry…”
“What did you do?”
“I lost my temper and my wolf came out. I didn’t hurt her none, but I scairt her real good. Her and the kids both.” Now he did light the cigarette, the smoke disappearing as he took a long drag. “Harley shifted, tryin’ to protect his mama, and I cuffed him pretty good, but I didn’t hurt him.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding, fearing the worst for a second there.
“Abigail ran after that. Took the kids with her the next day while I was at work. I tracked ’em down, ’cause that’s what I do. When I found her, she was strung out, run outta pills without the Doc around. I tried to talk her down, to apologize for scarin’ her, to make her understand…” His voice trailed off as he stared into space, and I didn’t say a word, letting him pick up the story again when he was ready. “She had a gun. Her hand shook so bad, I thought it might go off and hurt one of the kids. I rushed her, and she musta thought… She turned it on herself before I could stop her.”
“Oh, Lee.” It was easy to see how much it pained him, even though many years had presumably passed. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it? I didn’t pull the trigger, but I reckon I drove her to it.”
“She wasn’t thinking clearly. Someone who’s dealing with drug withdrawals, and probably postpartum issues on top of the feelings of guilt for betraying you…”
“You can dress it up all you like, it was my fault she died that night. If I’da left her alone, she might still be alive now.”
“But you couldn’t leave your kids with someone so unstable. What happened to them after that?” It explained why he wasn’t with his wife, but not why he was estranged from the rest of his family.
“I was in bad shape after that. I wasn’t in no place to care for a family, especially a babe that wasn’t mine. Her family stepped in and took the kids, and I let them.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
“After I knew they were in good hands, I left town again. It was either that or crawl inside a bottle myself, and I couldn’t take everyone lookin’ at me like I kilt my wife.”
“Nobody seriously thought that, did they?” The one lapse in temper aside, Lee wasn’t the type to kill his own wife. I knew that after knowing him for less than a year. Surely those who’d grown u
p with him had realized that as well.
“Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t, but there was talk. Maybe if I’da stuck around it would’ve faded away after a while. By the time I got my head on straight again, the damage was done. Folks in town, my wife’s sister who’d been bringing them up, even my kids looked at me all wary-like. I tried to make it work for a while, but in the end, I decided it was best to leave them be.”
“You could maybe reach out to them, explain what happened now that they’re older. It’s not too late.”
Lee shook his head, stubbing the cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe. “Some things are best left alone. They got their lives and I got mine.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Some things that’s broke just ain’t able to be fixed. It’s alright though, my kids are happy, and that’s all that matters.”
“I still think they’d be happier knowing you. I know I am.”
He pulled me into a hug. “I love you like you was my own daughter, Anja. And I mean that, it ain’t Gunnar’s booze talkin’,” he chuckled. “I’m right proud you’ve let an old dog like me into your family.”
“I love you too, Lee,” I whispered into his neck, getting choked up myself as the warmth of his hug touched a chord deep within me. Why couldn’t my father ever say those words to me? Despite the sort of begrudging acceptance I’d gotten the other night, I couldn’t remember him ever pulling me close like that for a spontaneous hug. “Thanks for always being there for me.”
“Isn’t any other place I’d rather be,” he rumbled back and then let me go, pocketing the gold lighter to give me a watery smile. “How about we go on back inside and see what Santy Claus brought?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m too old for a visit from Santa,” I laughed, letting him lead me inside.
“Don’t be too sure of that.”
And he was right. There were more than a few gifts under the tree from Santa and Old St. Nick, who apparently thought I’d been a very good girl that year. Apart from the gun Carter gave me (which I planned to stick in my nightstand drawer and hopefully never have to shoot), I had a wondrous mix of my favorite fandoms to geek over. Avengers toys (including a new Captain America figure from Hot Toys I’d been drooling over), a Tardis shaped mini-fridge for the office, Firefly bobbleheads – my family knew me well.
The holiday was full of love and light, and for one night, all was right with the world.
Chapter Fifteen
It turns out that if you throw enough money at a problem, it goes away. At least in the human world. My cash offer for the mansion was accepted, and the title company had no problem completing the transaction in the allotted two weeks. In fact, it closed two days early. If anyone thought it was strange for a twenty-two year old girl to be the CEO of a multi-million dollar holding company, they didn’t bring it up in any of the conversations I had.
Preparations were well underway for the New Year’s bash, and we spent most of our nights at the new place overseeing the details. I set up an office in the gate house, as we started to call it – a four bedroom, three bath house on the property that the old gatekeeper and his family used to live in. I was far more comfortable there than in the marble monstrosity of the mansion, and it was the only way I could get any work done with all of the interruptions. Carter wasn’t impressed with the security aspects of the place, he said there were too many ways onto the property, but I was confident he’d get it all figured out.
A few nights before the party, Felix and Bridget arrived, and Maggie showed them to the master suite, since I didn’t intend on staying at the house myself. I wasn’t there to greet them, pleading work, but mostly I was avoiding seeing Bridget again. Okay, so maybe that makes me a big fat chicken, but I don’t like confrontations if I can help it.
Eventually, I had to leave my desk behind and go make nice though, and I found them in the solarium.
“There she is,” Felix grinned as soon as he spotted me. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
“Don’t be silly, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in end of the year stuff, you know how it is,” I brushed off his concerns, offering my cheek to his brief peck.
I felt Bridget’s gaze on me from the instant I entered the room, her dark eyes wide and wary, with a touch of hope behind them. I was expecting rage or tears, but in the end, I felt… nothing. Thanks to Jakob’s compulsion, I’d shed my anger and all that was left was a big pile of nothingness. My eyes simply landed on her and moved on, continuing my conversation with Felix. “So, does this place meet with your approval?”
“I gotta say, I wasn’t sure you could pull this off, but I love the new digs,” Felix admitted. “I may have to move up here full time myself.”
“You’re more than welcome to. It’s a shame to have this place standing vacant most of the time, and the house belongs to the West more than it belongs to me.”
“You really wouldn’t mind if we moved up here?” Bridget asked in a small voice, obviously reading more into my invitation than I’d intended, and I turned my cold gaze to her.
“Sure, why not? It makes no difference to me.” I saw the hope die behind her eyes, and I felt a flash of pity that was immediately chased away by annoyance. She was hurt? Whose frakking fault was that? “Did Maggie give you the grand tour?”
“Yeah, she did,” Felix responded without skipping a beat. If he noticed any lack of warmth on my part toward Bridget, he didn’t show it. “I had her move us into the blue rooms though, I thought we’d better sock Bakareh and his people into the master suite. He’s gonna want the best room in the house.”
“Why, it’s not his house,” I frowned. If I’d been staying at the mansion, would I have been expected to give up my room?
“Hey, if what I’ve heard about the guy is true, he’s used to the best.”
“That’s true,” I admitted.
“I think I’ll go lie down for a while,” Bridget mumbled, and Felix gave her a distracted kiss on the cheek, continuing with his train of thought.
“This is his first trip out in a while, I figured we should roll out the red carpet.”
I didn’t bother to say goodbye to Bridget, and she slipped away without another word.
“Okay, if you don’t mind, it sounds fine to me. See, Felix, you’re so much better at this stuff than I am,” I smiled, pushing his shoulder lightly.
“We make a good team, boss,” he grinned widely. “On that note, I believe this is yours.” Digging into his pocket, he withdrew the gold signet ring of office I’d left behind when I ran away to Chicago with Carter.
“Thanks for taking care of it for me.” It felt strange on my hand, heavy compared to the elegant curves of Bishop’s promise ring.
He noticed the other ring at the same time. “Something I should know about?”
“No, just the promise of a better future,” I smiled, running my thumb over the channel of meteorite, as I tended to do when I was thinking something over.
“One that includes the rise of the West, I hope,” he nudged me, and I gave him a faint smile.
“What’s your dream for the West, Felix? I know you were bummed when Jakob left, but what’s your endgame if you had every little thing your heart desires? World domination?”
“Nah, nothing so big as that. But you yourself know, we’re kind of the redheaded stepchild of the world. The least developed, despite the fact that we’re far richer than some of these older Houses. I want to be taken seriously at the table, that’s all.”
“You don’t think we’re taken seriously now?”
“I think we are more now than we were when Tommy was alive, thanks to you, but we’ve got a long way to come. Those old school vamps are tough to crack.”
“It’ll take some time, Felix, you’ll see. The world has changed more in the past hundred years than it has in the previous five hundred. Those who’ve been alive that whole time are going to be slower to embrace that change than those of us who were born in the last century. B
ut the more vocal we are in demanding a seat at that table, the more they’ll come to acknowledge our right to be there.” I patted his arm, knowing it wasn’t the call to arms he wanted to hear, but I wasn’t about to rattle any cages in the near future. I expected him to grumble, but instead he fixed me with a smile.
“See, that’s why I ain’t Elder material, I don’t got the patience.”
“You do fine.”
The clicking of heels on the marble announced Maggie’s arrival far before she came into view. “Jennike has arrived. I gave her the yellow room, like we talked about.”
“Ugh, I was hoping she wouldn’t show,” I replied, keeping my voice low, as sound tended to travel in those halls. “This means I have to be nice to her.” I winced, and Felix gave a low chuckle.
“You want I should go press the flesh?”
“That would be wonderful, Felix, thanks. Tell her I’m caught up in affairs of state or something. Heck, tell her I’m washing my hair, I don’t care. But I’m going to slip out of here and head back to the gate house before I have to make kissy faces in her direction.”
I made my escape, easily dodging Jennike, to the peace and quiet of my makeshift office. It wasn’t a lie, I did have a lot to catch up on, what with the tithing and the census information rolling in, and the end of year Magistrate reports from all the districts. Maggie texted me about an hour later to tell me that Bakareh and his entourage had arrived, but that she and Felix had everything under control. Oh, how I loved having him up there to run interference for me!
I was so busy poring over boring reports, I missed the sound of the French doors opening and closing. The footfalls were too stealthy for me to pick up either, until I felt a shift in the air, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.
I was no longer alone.
A ribbon of panic sliced through me, but it was quickly replaced with the sure confidence that I could handle almost anything that snuck up on me, thanks to my training. My head shifted the tiniest bit, and I caught the reflection in my monitor, too indistinct to pick up much more than the shape of my intruder. It was enough to gauge his general position though, and I started to formulate a plan of attack. Seconds before I was about to make my move, I caught the waft of a familiar scent that had my muscles relaxing before I was even fully aware of it.