“Please, don’t change your mind,” he said in a soft voice.
“I won’t. We’ll marry in September and have our honeymoon in Palermo. I do want to marry you, Jack. I’m a girl, I’ve been dreaming about my wedding since I was four… Now tell me about my mother and Ahmed. How are Lydia and Lanni doing? Have you seen them?”
“Lanni was working. I haven’t talked to her, but Ella says she’s fine. I saw Lydia. She already has eighteen students. She and Mike are getting serious.”
“He’s been smitten with her from the beginning. You might soon be looking for a new deputy.”
“Well, Adam’s coming soon. I bet he wouldn’t mind taking over. We’ll see. How’s my daughter?”
“She’s just eaten and now she’s resting. On my breasts.”
“She can switch to my chest as soon as I get there.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe later I could rest there. Rosie doesn’t mind if we share.”
The time when I’d blush having this sort of conversation was a distant memory. “I’ll make sure you get your turn, Jack Canagan, as soon as you come back,” I whispered back, feeling a sweet ache between my thighs.
“Hold on to that thought, baby. I’ll be back in no time.”
“You know, Rosie,” I told my daughter when I ended the call, “you’ve already picked up some really bad habits, but it’s not your fault.” I kissed her little nose, chin, forehead and cheeks. “Your daddy and grandpa James are the ones to be blamed.” Rosie made a compliant sound. “Why do we have all those cribs strategically placed all over the house when you’ve already figured out there’s something better than a crib—all those arms ready to hold you? It’s easy to get spoiled when your family and three quarters of the town are always ready to rescue you from your cribs. Honestly, I think buying all those beds and strollers was a colossal waste of money. Don’t you agree?”
Rosie’s little forehead frowned and I assumed she hadn’t agreed this time. “Ah, I see. You inherited not only your father’s good looks, but also his relaxed attitude toward money. Okay, let’s change the subject. I’ll tell the story about the day you were born…”
ROSIE WAS born on March 28, two weeks before her due date. I’d been feeling funny all day, having low back pain and irregular Braxton Hicks contractions that varied in length and intensity. I knew I was close to labor, but not that close.
As Jack and I were getting ready for bed, a sharp pain slashed across my back and moved around to the front in a wave. I waited. Six minutes passed and another powerful contraction tightened my abdomen, took my breath away.
Jack was taking a shower, singing aloud.
“Jack!” I yelled, “Better hurry up. I think it’s time… Oh!”
“Time for what?” I heard him. “Why are you yelling?”
At that moment my water broke.
“I’m in labor—”
“What do you mean you are in labor? You were okay ten minutes ago… Oh, my God!”
He materialized in front of me, traces of shampoo foam still in his hair. The water was dripping from his body, forming a pool around his legs almost as big as the one from my ruptured amniotic sack. His face was bloodless.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you?” I said, before another contraction made me grab the bedpost and sit down. “Our baby’s coming fast, Jack! I need to go to the hospital right now. Call Tristan!”
By the time we reached the Clinic, our Red Cliffs family was already there. “Your mother and Ahmed are coming in about one hour. Can you wait that long?” Uncle James said.
As labor progressed, I could hear more and more familiar voices: Mom, Ella, Peyton. Ahmed was talking to Livia and Ingmar, Mike Kowalski stopped by to check on my progress, Eamon was informing Maggie and Darius somewhere on a rig in the Northern Sea about the latest news from the delivery room, and in spite of the terrible pain and contractions, my heart swelled with love for that wonderful, noisy bunch that I had the privileged to call my family and friends.
“I want my epidural!!!” I yelled at Tristan, who had taken over from Ahmed as my prenatal caregiver. “Don’t you dare not give it to me, you hear me, Tristan Blake!?”
“No problem, Princess. But you know what? You went through all those terrible changes without any pain killers. Why do you think you need it now?”
“I didn’t need it before! I blacked out, remember! I need it now, damn you!”
“No, we don’t, Ms. Spock,” I heard Louise’s voice say.
“How would you know?” I snapped. “You’re not a doctor, I am. Nothing’s wrong with the epidural.”
“I beg your pardon?” Tristan said, shocked.
“I’m talking to Louise. My wolf.”
“It’s great for those who need it, but we don’t,” Louise said. “Too late now. You should have asked for it an hour ago. Just keep pushing, Rosie’s almost here.”
“Give her something, for Crissake, Tristan!” my always-supportive Jack shouted. “She’s a doctor, she knows what she’s talking about!”
“I’m okay, Jack. I don’t need it.”
Tristan glanced at Jack. “It looks you might need something. Sit down, man, you are going to collapse. Astrid’s fine. Come on, Princess, a few more pushes… Jack, ask Ahmed to come in.”
My mother came in with Ahmed. He gently massaged my abdomen and lower back, easing the pain to a tolerable level. Mom held my hand. After twenty minutes, Tristan moved his wheeled stool aside and asked Jack to come closer.
A few minutes later, Rosalie Elizabeth Lucilla plopped out of my womb and into her father’s cradled hands.
“THE NEXT day Daddy and I brought you home,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Grandpa James threw a very big party. Many people came to see you and wish you a good life and happiness, among them the two mysterious blaidds from Winston. They honored your birthday in their own way: all night long they could be seen standing on the highest peak of Red Cliff Mountain, howling at the moon. Red Cliffs celebrated for three full days.”
ROSIE’S BIRTH was the happy conclusion of a journey that had started one evening, over fourteen months ago, when Jack and I had met and fallen in love with each other.
Jack had shown me the power of unconditional love that made everything else that followed possible: to leave behind the only life I’d known and come here to become the clan’s Ellida. I’d learned how to embrace my wolf. I’d found my mother and her love. I’d fought with Seth and won the battle. I’d found my best friend, and even fulfilled my dream to be a singer. I’d become a wife and a mother, and a part of our wonderful big family and community.
As for Jack, our love had also taught him a thing or two. Older and wiser, he was at the same time the most honorable man I’d ever known, empathetic and open-minded. Thanks to the bond, he’d learned to trust me absolutely, to deal with his over possessiveness and jealousy, to accept his duties and responsibilities as a clan leader. He’d become not only my husband and lover, but also my best friend and my partner. A father to my child. The best son and brother, a trusted friend and leader, who always put the needs of others before his own. He’d become an Einhamir as great as his father and stepfather had been.
Tristan was right: the bond is a gift and privilege, and Jack and I should be proud of how we used ours.
I smiled, hearing the familiar sound of Jack’s truck entering our street. Lux, a four month-old German Shepherd, my present to Jack, heard it too. He lifted his head and sniffed the air, waking up Blueberry, who’d been napping snuggled up beside him. A minute later I heard the driver’s door slamming and Jack’s long steps hurrying toward the house.
With a sleeping Rosie in my arms, I walked to the door and open it wide. Jack stepped in. “I’m home,” he said and closed his arms around us.
Fifty-Five
Jack
I WAS halfway home from Copper Ridge when the storm started. It was a messy mix of rain and snow, a farewell gesture of retreating winter.
It was slowi
ng me down and I cursed under my breath. I didn’t have a particular reason to be in a hurry, except that I longed to see my Astrid and Rose.
A vivid memory of the night we’d met flashed through my mind, and in an instant the familiar warm tide washed over me, penetrating the last fiber of my body and every corner of my soul, as strong as it had been when her fingers touched my skin the first time.
I immediately relaxed.
Shocked as I had been, I’d never tried to fight our bond. Astrid had, but more because the very notion of bonding was in collision with her ethical principles. “I wanted you to like me because of who I am,” she’d said, crying, the night I’d told her about the bond, “not because some random power threw me in your path.”
I did love her for who she was, but I’d also be forever grateful to the cosmic power—random or not—that had brought us together.
At the beginning, I’d often felt guilty for turning Astrid’s whole life upside down and uprooting her from her world. But she’d loved me and trusted me enough to come to live among us and become our Ellida.
She had brought harmony and balance back to our world, although she was refusing to take credit for that. “Jack, people were ready for a change. I was more sort of a moral support,” she often said. “I’m here to present the opportunities, but it’s up to other people to take action.”
“So then how do you explain so many babies, for example?” I’d asked her.
She chuckled. “Collective psychology. People have started believing it was possible.”
“How about James and Betty’s bond, then? They weren’t bonded before.”
She’d thought for a moment. “I have an explanation. I think the bond was always there, but it was hidden. In order to experience pure, absolute love, James had to learn how to forgive. The anger and unhappiness he felt held him back. The moment his heart forgave Rowena, James was ready for that kind of love.”
I shook my head. “And that of course, has nothing to do with you?”
“Not much, really. He had to do that himself.”
That was her logical explanation, but I knew better. Astrid had a rare gift to effortlessly bring out the best in people, and the evidence was overwhelming: Peyton, Ingmar, Ahmed, Darius, Maggie, Eamon, her patients, all those women and men who came for advice and support… No matter how hard she tried to minimize her contribution to recent events, the results spoke for themselves: Red Cliffs’ war with Seth had been won without any casualties except Seth and his guards, Red Cliffs thrived, and peace and prosperity had come back to Copper Ridge. None of it would have been possible without Astrid.
She had magically touched everybody’s life and changed it for good. Mine more than anybody else’s. I had loved before, but Astrid had shown me the ultimate happiness of loving and being loved. I’d never doubted or questioned her feelings for me. I trusted her absolutely. She had cured all my insecurities.
Without her, I’d have never admitted to myself and to the others that I actually wanted to be an Einhamir. James had been so good in that role that I’d convinced myself it wouldn’t be right to take it from him. My father, too, had been a great leader. I thought I would have never lived up to Red Cliffs’ expectations. But Astrid put that into perspective, and soon it’d become clear to me not only what I wanted, but also how much I could do. Now I felt equal to my mighty predecessors.
I grabbed my phone and called Astrid.
“Hello, gorgeous!” she said, sending pleasant shivers down my spine.
“Hey, baby. The storm caught me half way home. I’ll be at least one hour late.”
After she warned me to drive carefully, I asked her if she’d practiced singing today.
“I’ve recorded the first Queen of the Night aria, O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn. It sounds wonderful!”
God, I loved when she talked in German! “I’m sure it does, baby. Just keep practicing.”
I didn’t want her to become suspicious, so I changed the topic to our wedding. Astrid must’ve thought I’d become totally obsessed with putting a ring on her finger. The truth was, I didn’t care when we were going to get married—tomorrow, next year, next decade. It didn’t make any difference to me. We were husband and wife, married or not. But the timing was essential for the wedding present I wanted to give to Astrid.
She asked me about Rowena and Ahmed, and then Lanni and Lydia, and I assured her they were all doing fine.
“How’s my daughter?” I said.
“She’s just eaten and now she’s resting on my breasts.”
“Maybe later Rosie and I could switch.”
An image of Astrid’s round, firm breasts under my hands and her sweet nipples in my mouth made me instantly rock-hard. I heard her deep, throaty laugh, followed by a long, explicit list of her expectations for that evening. Kinky little beast.
I cursed the weather once more. “Hold that thought, baby. I’ll be back in no time.”
IT WAS still snowing heavily when, an hour later, I approached Red Cliffs, but the thick, white curtain couldn’t completely obscure the lights of our house. I could see Astrid’s reddish-blue outline in the rocking chair. A tiny one of the same color lay sprawled across her chest.
My wife and my child. My heart swelled with love.
I passed Tina’s bakery, then turned left into our street. A minute later I pulled into our driveway, jumped out of the truck, and ran to the house.
The door opened and I stepped in. Holding our sleeping daughter in her arms, my wife smiled at me.
“I’m home,” I said and pulled them both into my arms.
Fifty-Six
IT WAS a beautiful, warm September day. September the first, to be precise. The small church in the town square was packed with the bride and groom’s families and friends. The rest of the town waited outside the church to start celebrating the wedding of the Red Cliffs Einhamir and Ellida.
Jack took Astrid’s hands between his.
“I, John William, take you, Astrid Louise, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, to infinity and all the way back.”
Astrid laughed aloud at Jack’s variation of the ending, and ignoring Pastor Collins’ raised eyebrow, repeated the vows.
Jack and Astrid hadn’t even considered an intimate ceremony because of their public positions and popularity. Secondly, with James as a master planner of the entire event, anything modest and intimate was out of the question. Being a practical man and a former leader, he’d opted for an expensive yet viable solution: the entire town had been invited to join the two families in celebrating Astrid and Jack’s union. Copper Ridge, too, had received an open invitation—whoever wanted to come was welcome.
Morgaine and Hayato had come from Gelltydd Coch, along with Jack’s grandparents.
A big party had arrived from Winston: Ariel, Einhamir Besim Nimani, his wife Linnea, and their son Azem; Dinah, Gerard, the Killians, and all the men and women who’d fought alongside Copper Ridge and Red Cliffs last October.
Everybody else who’d taken part in the final battle against Seth the previous October had received a wedding invitation, and whoever was available had come, including Liv’s entire Tel-Urugh brigade.
Lydia Watson-Kowalski and Mike, her husband of two months, had arrived with Amilla and Takeshi.
Lanni was also there. She was still single, and even more beautiful than Astrid remembered her. Her dark, rich hair had grown longer, her whiskey-colored eyes shone with a nice, lively spark. She wore a simple, apricot knee-length dress and single string of pearls. She looked as if she’d stepped directly from the latest issue of Vogue.
Astrid watched her face carefully for a long moment, trying to figure out her sentiments about her ex-boyfriend and his wedding. There was still an underlying sadness in her beautiful eyes, but Astrid sensed no negative vibes coming from Lanni, no jealousy or ill wishes. The melancholy smile that gently curved he
r full lips was genuine.
She seemed unaware of the many curious and admiring eyes resting on her, and didn’t mingle with other guests, staying close to her female network of Livia, Ella and Rowena. Later, Astrid saw her talking to Maxwell Wallace, Livia’s dark, handsome friend from Aberdeen, and the Copper Ridge children’s beloved soccer coach from the previous fall. He’d arrived in Red Cliffs a few days ago with his sister Helen, who now laughed with Adam Mackenzie, our new Deputy Sherriff, while fixing his bowtie.
The town square, decorated with white silk ribbons and thousands of pale-pink roses, served as a giant reception area, with a stage for Rawhide and a dance floor, and countless tables filled with food and drink.
Honoring the father Astrid couldn’t remember, but whom she loved with all her heart, four men had walked her down the aisle and given her away: her grandfather, her uncle, Tristan and Ahmed. Behind her had stood her three bridesmaids, her best friends: Peyton, Maggie and Livia. Eamon and Adam were Jack’s best men, and little Henry Flanagan, who had risked his own life to save Astrid’s, was the ring bearer.
Rawhide was in charge of the music. Bernard Wagner, Rawhide’s keyboardist, was the singer for the occasion since Eamon had best man duties to attend to.
JACK AND Astrid’s wedding was a charming combination of tradition and improvisation, with a simple goal: to make everybody feel a welcome participant of this great event.
Astrid wore a simple yet elegant ivory satin-and-lace wedding sheath that emphasized her full breasts and trim, tall figure. She didn’t bother with any of the valuable and beautiful family jewelry she possessed. The only jewelry she’d put on was her wolf-pendant necklace and two rings: the pink diamond engagement ring and a simple gold wedding band that she and Jack had put on each other’s ring fingers during the ceremony.
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