by Selena Scott
“Hmm.” She cocked her head to one side again, finished her egg in two bites, and swallowed down her coffee. “Good answer.” She leaned across the table, kissed him soundly on the lips, and took some orange slices for the road. “I’ll be late for work if I don’t go now. See you later.”
He watched her grab her leftovers from the fridge, sending him a finger-wagging wave, and then she was gone.
He sagged backward in his chair, a wave of fatigue passing over him. He could run fourteen miles two or even three times a week and barely feel it; he’d always been a man of enormous energy. But dating a twenty-five-year-old was enough to nearly wipe him out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“So…” Jackson cleared his throat and could barely believe he was asking this. “How’re things going, uh, with my mom?”
It was two weeks into January and Jackson and Bauer had been working together almost every single day. Neither the topic of Elizabeth nor of Kaya had been brought up once in all that time and Jackson figured it was probably his duty as the oldest son to make sure things were going all right. To his knowledge, Bauer hadn’t spoken to either of his brothers about Elizabeth. He also apparently hadn’t spoken to anyone about Jackson’s relationship with Kaya. Because not even Elizabeth had seemed to notice anything amiss.
Jackson and Kaya had spent a glittery New Year’s Eve with the family, sitting on opposite sides of the living room and leaving at different times. They hadn’t kissed at midnight, but they’d more than made up for it when they’d gotten back to Kaya’s apartment afterwards. It wasn’t that they were keeping things a secret, necessarily. It was just that Kaya was still all mixed up about what they were even doing. She had it in her head that they were just regularly making out and falling asleep together. And apparently she didn’t care to explain that to the family.
Jackson, on the other hand, knew exactly what was happening between the two of them. According to him, they were in a full-blown relationship. Seeing one another almost every day, talking on the phone, texting, memorizing each other’s work schedules, seeking advice and comfort from one another, confiding secrets. To him, it was all very cut and dried and he would have told the family weeks ago, but he didn’t want to rush her.
He hadn’t rushed her in any regard and he had the satisfaction of knowing that it was driving her crazier than it was him. She was getting more and more impatient in their makeout sessions, getting naked faster, wrapping herself around him, leaving hickeys and bruises from her grip on his body. He didn’t mind in the least. Maybe it was very old-fashioned of him, but he wanted to stick to their original agreement. He wanted each progression forward with Kaya to symbolize his progression through his training, through his self-discovery. And though things were going well with Bauer—Jackson felt calmer and more at peace than he had in years—he didn’t particularly feel any closer to shifting devoid of the full moon.
He felt that if he could do that, train himself to be in complete control of it, then he’d truly be able to offer himself to Kaya in a real way. No reservations.
“Uh.” Bauer considered Jackson’s question about how things were going with Elizabeth and wiped sweat from his brow with a bandana. It was warm for January, though Colorado was known for having plenty of unexpectedly sunny days in all times of the year. “Good.”
Jackson sat on the steps and guzzled a bottle of water. “You gonna make me beg for details, here?”
Bauer chuckled. “Nah. We’re, uh, we’re taking things slow. Haven’t told the other boys yet. Have you?”
“Hell, no. That’s your job.” He tried not to think about what ‘taking it slow’ might mean.
Bauer chuckled again. “It’s new for me. This happiness thing.”
“For me, too.”
Jackson could feel Bauer’s eyes on him. “So, things are going well with your girl?”
Jackson nodded.
“Maybe you should bring her to a training.”
“You think?”
Bauer shrugged. “Probably couldn’t hurt. You’ve already told me that your full moon wolf, your most volatile form, was kind and calm with her. So, what do you have to risk? Besides, Sarah was a catalyst for Seth and Natalie was a catalyst for Raph. Figures that the girl you’re in love with might end up being a catalyst for you.”
Jackson had been retying his shoes but he froze halfway through the loop. He figured there was probably no reason for those words to completely shock him, but still, there was his blood running slickly through his veins.
Was he in love with Kaya?
He’d wondered the question before and figured that yeah, he was, in a certain way. But those were times when he’d barely known her, when he had simply wanted her from afar. Now, he was smack dab in the middle of a relationship with her and the phrase suddenly had a hell of a lot more meaning behind it.
This wasn’t just some cosmic pull he felt for her. This was a deep rightness he felt when he was in her orbit. This was a new thing. Much more human. Much more set in reality.
“I’ll ask her.”
“Ask her before the full moon next week. I think you’ve made great progress this month, Jackson. You’re calmer, more in tune with yourself, more aware of your surroundings, less caught in your head. Honestly, now that you’ve started really putting some effort into going about this the right way, I think you’re going to have at least as much control as Raph and Seth. If not more.”
Jackson nodded, a pleased silence passing between them. It hadn’t really occurred to him that he might actually ever be good at this shifter thing. It also occurred to him that many things in his shifter life were starting to change. He’d yet to tell his family about Ben and Shelly and the work they were doing with the shifter community.
In large part, that was because of Bauer. The last time that the concept of standing up for shifter rights had even been lightly touched on, he’d packed his bags and had been out the door. Now, of course he’d come back. But Bauer was just recently starting a relationship with Elizabeth and Jackson didn’t want to do anything to screw that up right now.
Besides, things had just started out at the farm. He’d kept his promise and brought Kaya out there with him last week. It was Jackson’s fourth time visiting the farm and the shifters there. It had been Kaya’s first time.
It was true that the shifters were less comfortable around Kaya and Ben, neither of whom were shifters themselves. But it was also true that Kaya had been so smiley and sweet as she talked with each shifter about their diet and advised them on what they should try to eat more of, she pretty much won everyone over. It had been strange to be out in public with her. None of the Durant family had been around so neither of them had seen fit to keep their relationship a secret. Ben and Shelly hadn’t even blinked when Jackson had slid an arm around Kaya’s waist, kissed her temple, held her close.
Because to Ben and Shelly, it wasn’t weird that he’d have a girlfriend. They didn’t know about his lifetime of self-recrimination and self-deprivation. They just saw two people who’d chosen to be together and were actually doing a pretty good job of it.
That was the other reason that Jackson decided to hold his tongue about his work with Ben and Shelly. Because it had become something that he and Kaya had together, between them. Their compassionate hearts were something that they both truly had in common, it was a basis for true connection, and Jackson was reticent to just put it out under the wilting sunlight and let the world have its way. For right now, he liked this private world he and Kaya were building.
Which was the exact opposite of how she felt. He knew that though she wanted to keep their relationship a secret, she really thought they ought to tell the family about the work they did at Ben and Shelly’s. And he wanted to tell the family about their relationship but keep their work at Ben and Shelly’s farm a secret.
Well, they couldn’t agree on everything.
“I’m gonna go.”
Jackson shoved up from the deck and held a hand out to
Bauer.
“All right. Hey, before you go…” Bauer looked uncomfortable; he scratched at the back of his neck. “I don’t mean to be paranoid, but have you noticed anything out of the ordinary recently?”
“Like what?”
He looked even more uncomfortable. “I’m not sure exactly. I started getting this feeling a couple weeks ago. Like we’re being watched. But I’ve been all around this land and haven’t found hide nor hair of an intruder. It’s just that this kind of paranoia, it kept me safe for a lot of years.”
Safe and unhappy, Jackson amended within the confines of his own mind.
“You think it could be him? Race?”
Bauer shrugged. “He was released just before Christmas.”
“I haven’t seen him around town. The restraining order is still in place for sure.”
“I’m just saying stay sharp. You never know what a guy like that could be planning.”
Jackson’s stomach swooped and now he doubly wanted to get back to Kaya. They had plans to have dinner together. “I’ll be careful,” he promised.
They shook hands and Jackson jogged around the house to his Jeep. He slammed inside and just stared at the steering wheel for a second, trying to calm down the reaction that had exploded inside him at Bauer’s words. His need to get to Kaya and ensure that she was completely all right, not a scratch on her—that was one thing about being in love that he hadn’t expected. He suddenly felt as if he had so much to lose.
***
Bauer watched Jackson go and then went quietly back into the house. His mind turned over issue after issue, worries and anxieties rearing their heads as he showered off and changed into a clean set of clothes. He could smell something delicious that Elizabeth was making, but even that wasn’t enough to bolster his spirits.
“Who spit in your soup?” Elizabeth, peeling carrots at the sink, asked as he came into the kitchen with what he assumed was a pretty nasty scowl on his face.
“I’m hoping that’s just a turn of phrase,” he grumbled, eyeing the pot of soup bubbling on the stove.
“Oh.” Elizabeth looked back and laughed. “Yes. Just an expression. Come over here.”
Bauer was agitated and worried but he couldn’t resist an invitation like that. He strode across the kitchen and slipped his arms around her waist, pressing his front to her back and nuzzling his face into her neck. She smelled so damn good.
And he didn’t mean just ‘good’ in a generic way. He meant that she smelled like goodness. Like a bunch of good things all wrapped up into one perfect woman. She smelled like the earth from her garden, like the mint tea she’d made earlier, like basil and baking flour and just a hint of vanilla. She smelled like his sheets, which he knew was just her laundry detergent, but even so, the very idea of that had him hardening behind his jeans where he leaned up against her. She also smelled faintly like that old-fashioned flowery perfumed cream that he now knew she put on her face and hands before she went to bed at night.
For years, women had been completely separated from Bauer’s world. Not just a mystery—they were entirely separate from him. Mysterious creatures that had no bearing on his place on this earth. Sure, he’d had a few girlfriends when he’d been younger, but he’d had the same problems that the Durant boys always used to have: there was only so much closeness one could achieve when hiding who you really were. He’d never before let a woman in on who he really was. A coyote shifter.
Then, when his parents had died and Bauer found himself truly alone in the world, he was on the run after that. Moving from shifter safehouse to shifter safehouse, living in his coyote form more often than not. In the last safehouse he’d been staying at, there’d been a woman, a female shifter, who he’d started to look forward to spending time with. But he hadn’t been there more than a month when the government had raided the safehouse and every single one of them had been tagged and bagged, sent straight off to a shifter internment camp.
When that camp had burned down and Bauer had been presumed dead, he’d escaped into the dead of the night and decided that no relationship would ever be worth the cost of his freedom. Friendship became a pipe dream, and he honestly didn’t even consider the idea of a romantic relationship. All he had was himself. This went on for years. Until he’d mistaken Elizabeth’s house for a safehouse, considering all the wolf shifters he’d spotted going in and out. He hadn’t yet known they were her sons.
After he’d come to be with the Durants, everything changed. This was especially highlighted by the fact that he held a beautiful woman in his arms right now, his nose pressed into her hair, one of his hands smoothing up her stomach to cup her breast, his mouth opening against her ear.
She tightened a little and let out one of those gasps he’d come to greedily hoard, like a bear storing up food for winter. He thought that if push came to shove, he could live on those sounds she made.
The carrot and peeler that were in her hands clattered noisily into the sink and then she was turning in his arms to face him. He had her pressed up against the sink. She blinked those pretty eyes up at him, but her lustful look slid quickly back into a knowing one.
“Don’t try to distract me,” she said, slipping her arms around his neck. “I know something is wrong. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
He opened his mouth to deny that anything was bothering him but he thought better of that instinct almost immediately. He sighed and ran a hand through his short, white hair. “It’s not easy for me, you know. To tell you what I’m worried about.”
“I know.” She fiddled with the collar of his shirt, smoothing it out. Since they’d proclaimed their feelings for one another, he’d started wearing button-down shirts to dinner. She hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but the first time she’d seen him do it, she’d smiled like a loon and kissed him very soundly. “You’ve spent a lifetime keeping secrets. Same as me. It’s hard to just suddenly let someone in to all your worries.”
Of course she’d instantly understand. She took the words right out of his mouth and knowing that she completely got what he was going through made it very easy for him to tell her the rest. He lifted her hand and kissed the center of her palm. He smelled the basil again, and heirloom tomatoes. He wondered what kind of soup she was making. “I don’t want it to be hard. Why shouldn’t I let you in? You’re my woman now. You’re the best part of my life. Secrets were what kept me safe when I was all alone.”
“Me, too,” she whispered.”
“But we’re not alone anymore.”
“Not even a little bit.” She rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his. He groaned and let his hands wander her body. He loved the feeling of her soft sweater moving over top of her even softer skin.
He tore his mouth from hers and put his chin on top of her head, looking out at the darkening backyard through the window over the sink. He squeezed her tight. “I’m worried about the boys.”
She stilled in his arms and he swept a hand over her back to comfort her.
“Not for any particular reason,” he continued. “But recently I’ve been getting a bad feeling. Like something is coming. I know how important it is to them to live normal lives. To not spend their lives running from the hypothetical, the way I did. And I respect them all so much for that. But it scares me, too. In so many ways, I just feel like these boys are sitting ducks. Waiting for somebody like that Race asshole to blow the whistle on them, get them investigated and carted away. I worry that whether they want to or not, we’re all going to have to run. I worry that Raph and Seth are probably going to have kids soon. And then we’ll have baby shifters to worry about. I worry that Jackson is working too hard, pushing himself to the limit all the time. I worry that—oomph.”
He cut off his speech when Elizabeth tugged his head down and kissed him good and hard. He got momentarily lost in the kiss as time and his equilibrium just sort of spun away. He only came back to earth when she slipped away from him and turned the burner off the soup. She tugged at hi
s hand, leading him out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
The time he’d come to her room on Christmas was still the only time he’d been in her room. He’d meant it when he’d told Jackson that they’d been taking things slowly. Now, his heart thudded hollowly in his chest as she led him into her room, shutting the door behind them.
“Elizabeth,” he rasped.
“You worry about my sons the way I worry about my sons,” she told him, her back against the door and her eyes bright. “Do you know why that is, Bauer?”
He didn’t know why anything was the way it was at that particular moment. His skin was buzzing, his ears filled with cotton, his mouth dry. It was all he could do not to fall to his knees at her feet.
“It’s because you love them,” she told him.
This was something that Bauer had suspected for quite some time. That his affection for the Durant family had grown into a sturdy love. But when she said it like that, so calmly, so certain, the final puzzle piece clicked into place. Bauer knew suddenly, with an alarming surety, that he’d found his place in the world.
“They’re my family,” he said in that same raspy voice. It was almost as if he were telling her and asking her in the same breath.
She nodded her head, her eyes shiny with tears that so rarely came to Elizabeth. She was the most stoic, level-headed person he’d ever met in his life, but she was crying now as she came to him, her hands going straight to the buttons of his shirt.
They undressed one another with a single-minded focus, not allowing themselves to get sidetracked with touching or kissing until they were both naked, panting, standing next to her bed.
Bauer’s eyes tracked down her body as his hands went to the back of his head. “Elizabeth,” he groaned, finding there were no words to describe what it was that he needed to say.