by Selena Scott
“Good, actually. The week after Christmas is always fun. People bring in all the puppies and kittens they gave their kids as gifts. A few rabbits and even chick or two.”
Bauer blinked at him. “Why would they bring a chick to the vet?”
“Overprotective pet parents just wanting to check everything out.”
Bauer shook his head. “What a world. People send shifters to concentration camps but they rush their baby chickens to the vet the day after Christmas.”
Jackson frowned in a friendly way, comfortable and familiar with this negative side of Bauer. “I’m not positive those people are the same people. I’ve generally found that people who are compassionate toward animals are the same people who are compassionate toward humans.”
Bauer took off his gloves, stretched, and tossed them into the wheelbarrow. “Can’t say I share your optimism, kid. Actually…” he eyed Jackson up and down. “You don’t generally share that optimism either. And you requested training with me instead of having your brothers drag you here. What’s going on with you?”
Jackson didn’t flinch under the skeptical appraisal. “You said that you had something you wanted to talk to me about. Do you want to go first or should I?” he asked calmly.
Bauer, on the other hand, did not seem calm. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and scratched at the back of his neck. “Go ahead, then.”
Jackson took a deep breath and motioned for them to sit on the steps of the back porch. He decided to jump right back in. “I want to start from the beginning with you.”
“The beginning? Of shifter training?”
“Yeah. All the way back to all the meditation and zen stuff you had us doing two years ago. I want to start from scratch.”
Bauer eyed him. “If I recall, those lessons were like nails on a chalkboard for you. You barely survived the meditation.”
Jackson shrugged and retied one of his shoes, conscious of Bauer’s eyes on the side of his face.
“What changed?” Bauer asked insightfully. “Something must have happened, so what was it?”
“I shifted in front of someone. By accident.” He ignored the immediate and involuntary stiffness in the other man’s posture. “My wolf was… tame. I needed it to be tame and it was. She wasn’t the most comfortable.” Jackson glanced over. “But she was calm and reasonable and after a few minutes, I knew I wasn’t going to hurt her. I mean, I wouldn’t do it again anytime soon. Not until I had a shit-ton more practice and control… but yeah. I knew that she was safe with me.”
“That had to be quite the revelation for you.”
Jackson looked over toward Bauer who had a proud expression on his face, but it wasn’t without a sardonically raised eyebrow. Bauer had been telling Jackson for years now that no shifter was intrinsically dangerous. All he had to do was get a measure of control over himself and then he’d be as tame as Seth or Raphael. Jackson had never really bought it. Not until now, at least.
“It’s made me wonder about things,” Jackson admitted in a rather vague way. “Things I never thought I might be able to have. If I’m not dangerous, truly, then maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for me to consider…”
“Finally going after Kaya?” Bauer put in, that eyebrow raising even further.
Jackson threw his hands in the air. “Jesus, did everybody know?”
Bauer shrugged. “Were you even trying to hide it? Your eyes damn near burned a hole into the back of her head every time she entered a room.”
Jackson frowned and kicked at the frozen dirt below the step he sat on. “Well, yeah. If you must know. Having Kaya is what I’ve started wondering about. If I could make this thing work then maybe I could have her.” Jackson looked up. “You probably think it’s stupid, that I would want to do all this for a girl and not for myself.”
Bauer shrugged. “That’s as good a reason as any. Me? I was trained from birth practically, being from a family with two shifter parents. But you boys? You’ve needed incentives to do this hard, shitty work. Think about your brothers. When did Seth actually get ahold of his wolf? Right around the time he got together with Sarah. And Raph?”
“When he was first with Natalie,” Jackson replied, putting the pieces together. “Holy shit. You think it has something to do with finding your mate?”
Now, both of Bauer’s eyebrows shot up. “You think Kaya is your mate?”
Jackson refused to be embarrassed for having voiced it out loud. “I mean, I shifted in front of her and then basically rolled over for belly rubs. That’s gotta mean something, right?”
“Means you’re hard up, son.” Bauer started laughing, low and husky, and Jackson had no choice but to join in. “Regardless of whether she’s you’re mate or not, if you’re feeling inspired to get control of your wolf, I’m here for that. If your wolf is safer, then you’re safer.”
Jackson leaned back on his hands. He studied the old man for a minute. “You don’t have any opinions on me and Kaya?”
“I don’t have opinions on almost anything.”
Jackson chuffed out an annoyed laugh. “Come on, Bauer. Just because you don’t go around broadcasting your feelings doesn’t mean you don’t have them. Let me hear it. I know you’re thinking something.”
Bauer just raised an eyebrow again.
“She’s too young for me,” Jackson supplied, trying to get the man to bite.
Bauer pursed his lips. “If she is, that’s y’all’s business.” He pursed his lips even harder. “For the record, she’s not.”
“She’s twenty-five years old. I’m almost forty.”
“You’re both young.”
“I’m too mean for her. Grumpy. Irritated. I don’t know another way.”
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Doesn’t seem to bother her much.”
Jackson frowned. “She deserves better than me.”
“Shut your mouth, boy. You know your mama raised three damn fine boys. Yourself included. It’s insulting to her to imply she didn’t.”
Jackson clapped his mouth shut and frowned.
“Why are you trying to get me to argue with you anyhow?” Bauer asked after a minute.
Jackson dropped his head and laced his fingers over the back of his skull. “Because I spent so many fucking years denying myself even the pleasure of her company. Because I did it for so long I’m scared it changed who I am. Because I’m learning that all of it might have been for naught. I thought I was doing the noble thing but maybe I was just a big fucking coward. And, oh yeah, because I’m about three seconds away from shooting off into the stratosphere from happiness and I am… not comfortable with that. I am way more fucking comfortable being miserable and alone. So, either ground me with some of your patent negativity or just teach me how to harness some of this unsettling… joy.”
He looked up when Bauer started laughing again, a low rumble that started in his chest and was muffled by the two hands he had over his face. “Damn, kid. Sometimes I could swear we’re kin.”
“You can relate to my problems?”
Bauer raised that eyebrow again. “Jackson, I invented those problems. Of course it’s more comfortable in your dark little self-pity cave where no one ever sees you. It’s freaking terrible out in the sunlight. But the thing is, you get used to the sunlight really freaking fast. And then there’s no going back in the cave.”
“What brought you out of your cave?” Jackson asked. Bauer was speaking like a man who’d recently walked the plank toward happiness. Like he hadn’t wanted to do it, but he’d done it anyways and he was still marveling at how it had all turned out.
“You want the dead truth?” He cocked his head to one side, his white hair catching the setting sun and going orangey-pink.
“Yeah.”
“Your mother.”
Jackson’s mouth didn’t fall open. But metaphorically, it sure did. It wasn’t a complete and total shock to Jackson to consider Bauer having feelings for Elizabeth—they’d been li
ving together for two years and were obviously great friends. But it was definitely a shock that the day had come where Bauer and Jackson had to address it.
“Yeah,” Bauer said, to a still-speechless Jackson. “That was actually why I wanted to meet with you. Figured you should know.”
“You figured I should know what?” Jackson hadn’t meant for his voice to sound menacing, but this was his mother they were talking about.
Bauer’s eyes glinted with something like determination. “That we’re, ah, together.” He kicked at the ground. “She says I’m her boyfriend.”
Jackson burst out into wild, uncontrollable laughter for a full five seconds before he clapped a hand over his mouth and stared, bug-eyed, at Bauer. “Sorry. It’s just that I think that I’m too old to be somebody’s boyfriend.”
“You’re telling me! She’s the one who’s insisting on it. I told her it was ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous. It’s just… new. Jesus. You’re dating my mother. My mother is dating.”
“I’m not the first man she’s dated, you know.”
Jackson turned, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that she’s kept company with a few men here and there while you boys grew up. And as far as I can tell, they all loved her and all wanted more. And she kicked each and every one of them to the curb—”
“For us,” Jackson said sadly, understanding immediately that she never would have risked someone finding out her boys’ secret. He dropped his head again. “God. She must have been so lonely.”
“It’s something you come by honest, kid. Being lonely in order to protect the people you love. But as far as I can tell, neither you nor your mother have to do that anymore. So, to answer your question one more time. No. I do not think Kaya is too young for you. And yes, I think you need a hell of a lot more training before you’ll be safe to shift in front of her again.”
Bauer stood on creaky legs and pulled Jackson to a stand. Even though they’d never done it before, the hug that happened then came naturally, Jackson bending down to pat the back of the shorter, older man, Bauer’s gnarled hands patting him back as well.
“Should we get started?” Bauer asked, his voice much gruffer than usual, emotion clear on his face.
“Hell, yeah,” said Jackson. “Hell, yeah.”
***
Guess what I did today?
Kaya peered down at the text on her phone. She frowned when her stomach swooped harshly. She didn’t like that there was that dang colony of hummingbirds in her gut when she was faced with thoughts of Jackson again. She’d spent a blissful year virtually un-crushed out on him and unengaged with his movements about this green earth. But now, a few tongue kisses later, a few self-improvement promises here and there, and suddenly she nearly swallowed her metaphorical gum when she got a text from him.
He thought he could just scramble her brains at will? Oh, he had another thing coming. She bet he was over in his house smiling a self-satisfied smile about tying her guts in knots over this text. She bet he was just so freaking happy with himself.
She scowled at her phone, channeled her most ornery energy, and texted back a simple: what
No punctuation or anything. She resisted the urge to text and tell him to suck on that.
His texting bubbles popped up immediately and they seemed to have some sort of leash on the hummingbirds because a little noise popped out of Kaya. An excited noise. She flung her phone to the side and kept eating her ramen, slurping the noodles one by one in long strands.
She saw her phone light up and purposefully ignored it for a full 200 seconds.
Meditated.
That was it? That was all he’d texted to tell her? That he’d meditated?
Good for you.
It was good for me. It was very good for me. I’m one step further toward being a very zen wolf.
Oh. The penny dropped. He wasn’t texting to tell her a mundane detail about his day. He was texting to tell her that so far his Jackson improvement plan was going swimmingly. That made a rising giddiness threaten to swamp her, which, of course, also made her frown even more.
She glowered at the phone.
Show off.
I thought you might be proud.
She couldn’t quite gauge his tone through the message and for a second, Kaya regretted her crotchety responses. Maybe she should be more supportive. But then another text came in.
I also thought you might be feeling a little… motivational.
Her jaw dropped.
Did you really just booty call me?
I texted. I booty texted you. And does it count as booty if we’re just talking a kiss?
She was laughing and frowning at the same time. No. He could not be charming and flirty. She could not handle him charming and flirty. It was too much for one girl to handle! He was already so tall and had such good, wavy hair and those dark eyes. The only thing that kept her from jumping his lanky bones for years had been his terrible personality. But now? Now he was all cute and flirtatious and—gah!
She frowned even harder at the phone. I wasn’t aware this arrangement meant that I was on tap.
It took him a really long time to respond to her text and she prompted him. You still there?
Sorry. I just blacked out for a while thinking about you being on tap.
She didn’t bother responding to that, standing up and tossing her bowl into her dinky little dishwasher and digging some ice cream out of the freezer. It didn’t help that her stomach flipped when she realized it was his ice cream, the vegan stuff that he’d brought over for her.
Her phone rang.
She answered it without even looking, knowing exactly who it was going to be. She didn’t bother swallowing the ice cream in her mouth. “Yeah?”
“Am I too much?” His question threw her off almost as much as the sound of his deep voice over the phone. Maybe she’d almost, just barely, been able to get used to his voice in real life, but on the phone he was suddenly a sexed-up movie star just rolling out of bed, shirtless, an unlit cigarette in his mouth already and a Harley Davidson in his driveway.
“Yes,” she answered immediately and honestly. “Completely.”
He was quiet for a minute. “I don’t want to push you…” She waited, knowing he wasn’t finished. “But I want to push you a little.”
Kaya couldn’t help but laugh. She could sense his relief over the line. “Good thing I’m well versed in pushing back.”
“Good thing.”
“You can’t come over tonight,” she decided.
“Why?”
“Because like I said, I refuse to be on tap for any little thing you do that you think deserves a cookie. I have a life, you know.” She waited. “Jackson?”
“Sorry,” he said in a strangled voice. “I didn’t expect you to say ‘cookie.’”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God. You’re worse than some of the guys I used to talk to through Tinder. Everything is a sexual innuendo, isn’t it?”
She expected his mood to sour at the mention of her on a dating app. She expected him to go dead serious. In fact, she was already internally sighing and rolling her eyes and bracing herself for it. But it never came. Instead his tone was still playful when he shot back at her.
“No. There’s a big difference between me and those guys.”
“What’s that?”
“They were just young, perverted idiots. Whereas I’m an old, perverted idiot.”
Kaya couldn’t help but burst out laughing. There was true surprise arrowing through her. Before their time at the cabin, she could count the number of jokes she’d heard Jackson make on one hand. On about two and a half fingers of one hand, actually. But here he was, not only goofing around with her, he was also making light of something that was obviously a sore spot for him. He was inviting her to laugh along about something he viewed as a major downside to himself. That was almost normal. Almost human.
It made something new skim acros
s the surface of her consciousness like a rock that was just going to keep on skipping and skipping. “Not true,” she argued, knowing he thought she was about to say that he wasn’t that old. “Some of those guys were just as old as you are.”
He laughed, low and rich. There was always a note of surprise in Jackson’s laughter, as if he never truly expected himself to laugh again, and then when he did, it shocked the shit out of him. “Is that true? Were you really talking to guys my age on those apps?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. If they were cute. And nice to me.”
He fell quiet on the other end of the line and she realized that they’d finally hit on a topic that he wasn’t quite ready to joke about. The topic of how un-nice he’d been to her over the years. She could feel the regret rolling in on him like an old cabin tumbling on an avalanche of snow. And she knew Jackson well enough to know that on the heels of regret always came self-hatred.
No, no, no. Wrong way.
She plunged on, hoping to distract him. “The age thing has never bothered me, Hef.”
He barked another surprised laugh and she felt the tension of the previous moment dissolve. “Did you just refer to me as Hugh Hefner?”
“If the shoe fits.”
He groaned, but it was good-natured. “I know I’m too old for you, Kaya. But if you’re saying it doesn’t bother you, I’m just gonna go ahead and choose to believe you.”
The same feeling skipped like a rock. He made her stomach swoop all the time, sure, but this was different. Putting Jackson in the ‘undateable’ category a year ago had not been symbolic or a way to convince herself she didn’t want him. She’d legitimately felt as if she’d seen his true colors and they clashed with hers. But right now, this moment on the phone, she’d expected him to glower and sulk and act as if he understood the situation better than she did. She’d expected him to insist that he really was too old and she was too young to understand just how old he was. But he hadn’t done that. He’d trusted her judgment. He’d believed her. And now that rock skipping feeling was happening again and Kaya barely knew what to make of it.
“So, why can’t I come over tonight?”