Sophie looked up again. “Hi, Penny.”
“Hello, Sophie.” Penny felt kind of awkward as Sophie looked at Logan as if trying to figure out what he wanted.
“Sophie deals with the bookings online and...”
“You have the internet here?”
“This is Wishing Moon Bay, not the moon,” Sophie laughed, not unkindly, but there was an edge to her tone.
“I just wondered. If the hotel is on the internet, don’t people from out there in the real world try to book a room?” Penny knew she was missing something, something that was probably obvious to anyone who had lived in the town all their life. But she needed to learn about the town and how it worked.
“It’s a different part of the web. Like the dark web, only lighter,” Sophie explained. “You don’t know it’s there unless you know it’s there.”
“Right, that makes perfect sense.” Penny would have to figure it out but maybe she would ask someone else to explain it to her. Sophie gave off a weird vibe, one Penny couldn’t quite figure out.
“Hello, Mr. Barnes.” Sophie’s tone totally changed as the guy from room one entered the reception area and approached her desk.
“Shall we move on?” Logan guided her toward the restaurant, which she’d already seen when she ate lunch, but she suspected Logan saw it as a place to make a quick getaway from Jeremy Barnes.
“What is up with you and that guest?” she asked, not ready to let Logan off the hook. “You really should figure his water out for him.”
“I did. This morning. Then when he gets in the shower, it starts acting up. Ivan thinks it’s because he’s a warlock.” Logan moved away from the door and kept his voice low.
“A warlock? Like a male witch?” She caught up with Logan as he strode to the large window overlooking the gardens.
“Just like that. Ivan said the house doesn’t like warlocks.”
“The house doesn’t like warlocks.” She gave a short laugh. “He thinks the house is alive?” Logan didn’t seem to be joking as he stared out of the window to where Rift was kneeling by the side of a large pond with Milo by his side. “You’re not joking.” Cold dread wrapped its fingers around her spine, and she shivered as she looked around the restaurant. If the house didn’t like you, what else could it do? Wait, that was ridiculous. The house, or hotel, was made of bricks and mortar, it was not alive, it didn’t have a heart or a brain.
“The house used to be owned by a warlock who, allegedly, cast spells on it to entertain the guests, Ivan thinks the house still harbors a grudge.” Logan smiled as he watched Rift and Milo.
“You didn’t tell me about your time outside of the town.” She came to stand next to Logan and watched her son as he giggled as a frog hopped from Rift’s hand into the pond.
“My time outside of the town wasn’t a great experience.” Logan half turned to face her. “My parents lived here in Wishing Moon Bay. They had a house on the edge of town. My dad was a wolf shifter, and my mom was a piano teacher.”
“People learn to play the piano here?” It seemed such a normal thing to learn.
“Yes, it’s not the kind of thing you can cast a spell for,” he said in all seriousness. “Sure, a spell can help you learn the notes but putting them all together and playing well takes time and patience.”
“I’m not sure if that is more surprising than you telling me the house is alive.” So much to learn and none of it particularly intuitive.
“She was a good teacher, from what Valerie tells me. She was a normal woman who my father met while he was outside of Wishing Moon Bay.” His eyes darkened as he continued. “My father was fascinated with the rest of the world and my mom liked to visit the places she’d known before she moved here. And so a couple of times a year, they would go on a vacation.”
“You don’t have to go on if it’s too painful,” Penny said gently.
“It was all a long time ago.” Logan’s sad smile showed the memories were still raw. “They were killed in a car accident. It was on a lonely road somewhere out in the wilderness and the other vehicle didn’t stop. I was only a baby, just coming up to my first birthday.”
Penny covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t remember them. Valerie has shown me photographs.” He put his hand in his pocket and took out his wallet. Flipping it open, he showed her a photograph of a couple holding a baby. Mother and father looked so happy, so carefree.
“They look so happy.” She ran her finger across the photo. The child in their arms, Logan, was chewing on his fist, he must have been close to a year old. It was hard to believe that the happy family in the photo had been ripped apart so soon after posing for this family snap.
“They were happy. They loved each other. They loved me.” He pushed the photograph back inside his wallet and closed it.
“What happened? How did you get back here?”
“I didn’t. Not for another five years.” He turned and looked out the window. “I was found by a pack of wolves. I can only think that they smelled the other side of me even though it wasn’t there yet. It wasn’t fully formed.”
“A pack of wolves?” It was the most incredible thing she’d ever heard. “They actually took care of you?”
“They did. I was one with them until some hunter found me and took me to a local town. I was taken in by social services. They found me a foster home, which I hated. Not because they were bad people but because I just wasn’t used to living in a house. It was like a prison with four walls and a door, when I was used to running free through the wilderness. Forests and mountains were my home.” He smiled sadly, his eyes drifting upwards, away from the beautifully planted garden and toward the distant mountains where he lived. It all began to make sense now.
The only thing that didn’t make sense was where Penny and Milo were supposed to fit into his life.
“We can’t live all the way out there,” she said quietly. “Milo loves people, he needs to spend time with other children.”
“I know.”
“This is one of those sacrifices you would make for your mate.” She was beginning to see how it worked. How much power being a shifter’s mate wielded. Perhaps too much.
“It is.” He smiled sadly as he turned to face her but then his expression cleared. “But you are here, and you have agreed to stay. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Is that right, though?” Penny’s unease would not fade. “You have to give up living on the mountain for us?”
“Would you give something up that you loved for Milo?” It was a rhetorical question, one he knew the answer to and yet he still waited for her to answer.
“Of course. He’s the most important thing in the world to me.” She put her face close to the glass and watched the child she loved, the person who was most important to her, as he played with Rift. “I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be.”
“I’m not asking you to change for me,” Logan insisted. “I only want you to give us a chance. A chance to figure out how we fit together.”
“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” She moved closer to him, her eyes fixed on Milo. “I need you to promise me that you will always put Milo’s needs first. Above mine and yours.”
He looked at her for a long moment before he nodded. “I promise.”
“No matter what.”
“No matter what.” His fingers flexed as if he was going to reach out and touch her, but he didn’t. As much as he talked about mates and them being together forever, Logan seemed stuck, unable to make a move.
Had his first, formative years spent with wolves stunted his emotional growth? If so, what kind of life would they have together? After her disastrous marriage and divorce, she wanted to be loved and cherished. As they stood side by side and looked out of the window, Penny was unsure if Logan was capable of giving her and Milo what they needed.
Perhaps she had made a mistake in agreeing to stay.
Chapter Twelve –
Logan
It was as if he’d closed himself off from his mate. The barriers he’d put up when he’d been taken in by social services when he was found in the wilderness were back in place. Barriers that Valerie had taken years and a whole lot of patience to remove. Barriers he didn’t want or need with his mate. So why were they there?
Self-preservation, his wolf told him. This has been a shock. Just like the shock we received when we were taken from our pack.
Their lives were about to change. They would have to give up their home. They would lose the solitude they had craved the last few years. Before Valerie asked him to run the hotel, it was as if he’d regressed into the child he was when he lived with the wolves.
“At any time, if you change your mind, I can leave.” Her words struck him like a paw slapped across his face.
“I won’t change my mind,” he assured her. “I never thought I’d find my mate. Now that you are here, I intend to make this work.”
“We’re both going to need to adjust to all this.” She gave a short laugh. “Although, I think I have the most to adjust to since I had no idea any of this was real.” She stalled, her voice trailing off as if she were pulling out a memory to examine it. Logan knew the feeling only too well. At first, after he’d been “rescued” by humans from his wolf family, he’d often fall into a daydream where he’d be wild and free with his family. He’d stare into the distance, imaging running and hunting with the other cubs, his brothers and sisters.
“It gets easier,” he assured her.
“Does it?” She looked back at her son. “I used to think that. When I met Milo’s dad, I thought, this is it, life will be easier now. I was part of a partnership, there were two of us pulling together in the same direction. Then I got pregnant and when Kelvin finally accepted that we were going to have a baby, it was as if we were complete. But somewhere along the way, we began to fall apart, bit by bit until there was nothing left. Life as I knew it, how Milo knew it, ceased to be...” Her voice trailed off and she turned her attention to Logan. “That’s how it was for you. When they took you from your wolf family? Life as you knew it ceased to exist.”
He nodded solemnly. “My life changed, it spiraled out of control, as a child you have no say in what you want. Other people think they know what is better for you, they think they are doing what is right and if you argue, they think it’s because you are too young to grasp what is happening. But when they took me from the wolves, from my family, I knew what was happening and that things would never be the same again.”
“I’m so sorry.” She placed her hand on his arm and instantly heat flooded from her into him.
“I was lucky that I came here, and Valerie took me in.” He smiled softly. “And now we’re taking you and Milo in.”
“Will Valerie mind?” Penny asked.
“Valerie will be so excited.” He looked over his shoulder as if expecting his adoptive mom to come flying in through the door. “I’m surprised she’s not here already.”
“How does she know about us?” Penny asked. “Oh, is she a clairvoyant?”
“She used to tell us boys that she could read our minds.” He chuckled as her eyes widened. “I think if she knows about us, about me finding my mate, it’ll be because Ivan picked up the phone and called her.”
Penny put her hand over her mouth and stifled a laugh. “I feel kind of stupid.”
“Don’t. There are people who can read minds. But I think Valerie only told us that so we would behave. Having six boys running around the place could not have been easy.”
“Six?” Penny’s eyes widened farther. “There were six of you? I have trouble keeping up with one.”
“Yes, there are six of us. Ivan and I have been here the longest. Then there are the twins, Aiden and Caleb, they are bear shifters. Valerie said she should have stopped there, but then Rift needed a home, he’d been on the streets for a while. And then there is Dario. He is a horse shifter.”
“Valerie must be quite a woman.” Penny clasped her hands together, her fingers entwined. “I hope she likes me.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “She’ll love you. You and Milo.”
“Milo.” She looked back out of the window, but Rift and Milo were gone.
“Come on, I’ll show you outside while the weather holds. It looks as if we might have the first snowfall very soon.”
“That’ll be Milo’s fault. He’s been wishing for snow since forever.” She shivered as they walked toward the door leading from the restaurant area out into the grounds surrounding the hotel.
“You’re cold. Do you want to run and get a coat before we go outside?” Logan placed his hand on the handle but didn’t pull the large French doors open.
“No, I’m fine.” She looked behind her. “There was a cold spot just there. I’m fine now.” Penny didn’t look fine; her face was pale, and her eyes startled.
“A cold spot.” He stepped back to stand where she’d been standing only a moment before, but he could feel nothing out of the ordinary.
“It was probably my imagination. It’s been quite a day.” She nodded toward the door. “Go ahead, fresh air might do me good.”
Logan pulled the door open and they stepped out onto the paved patio area where guests sat in the summer evenings. Now the tables and chairs were all stacked away in the storage shed next to the hotel. “I think I can hear them.”
“Really?” Penny stood still and listened, her breath coming out in small puffs of vapor. “I can’t hear a thing.”
He tapped the side of his head. “Shifter senses. They are more heightened than a human’s.”
“Are they?” Fascination covered her face as she stared at him. “What else do shifters do?”
“What do we do?” he frowned.
“Well, you can shift from human to animal and back again. You have enhanced senses, and you know who your mate is as soon as you see them. Is there anything else you can do? Anything else I should be aware of?” She held out her hands to him. “If I am going to survive in this world, then I need a crash course on what to be aware of. Since I am just a human.”
“I didn’t mean you were just a human,” he said quickly.
“But that’s what I am. That’s what Milo is. Compared to most other people in town, we’re just ordinary. Aren’t we?” she asked.
Tell her she is extraordinary, his wolf said quickly.
“Valerie taught us that no one is ordinary, we all are extra-ordinary in our own ways.”
Good catch, his wolf replied.
“I like Valerie more and more.” They walked in the direction he’d heard the voices and as they rounded a corner, they found Milo and a snow leopard rolling around on the ground wrestling. “Wow.” She looked at Logan quickly. “Not as wow as your white wolf, of course.”
“Of course,” he said in all seriousness, although he was aware of how women liked the snow leopard. More exotic. That’s how Rift had been described by a group of women once when Ivan had polled them as to who they would prefer to date—a snow leopard, a white wolf, or a bear shifter. Of course, if Ivan had mentioned dragons, the women would have most likely picked him.
Because they think he has treasure, Logan’s wolf licked his paws in disgust at having come second best to Rift.
But Rift isn’t the one with a mate, is he? Logan reminded his wolf.
Very good point. Remind me to rub his nose in that one the next time I see him. His wolf was mildly pacified as he went off to nap in the corner of Logan’s mind.
“Six boys,” Penny murmured to herself as she watched Rift and Milo having fun.
“There were times when we would roll around on the grass play-fighting,” Logan admitted. “Thankfully, we were older and had outgrown fighting by the time we shifted. And if ever it happened, we would take it out onto the mountains.” He turned and looked in the direction of the highest peaks. “Luckily, Ivan never joined in those fights or else he would have incinerated us all.”
“So
, he really is a fire-breathing dragon?” she asked. “I mean I know he said he was, but I figured maybe...I don’t know, that he was smaller or didn’t actually breathe fire.”
“Oh, no. He breathes fire. Most of the stuff they show on TV and in books is what a dragon is like. A shifter anyway. Except for eating virgins. As far as I know, he’s never eaten anyone.” Logan chuckled at the look on his mate’s face. Without realizing it, he’d relaxed and could talk to her as a normal person. As normal as it got around here at least.
The warlock is watching us, his wolf suddenly said, and Logan’s attention snapped to the yew tree in the center of a wide grass lawn. The tree had stood there for as long as anyone in town could remember, its roots went deep into the earth although it barely grew anymore. It was just there, a part of Wishing Moon Bay, just like the ocean and the mountains surrounding them.
Are you sure he’s watching us? Logan asked. He looks as if he’s looking at the tree. Many people are fascinated by it. Maybe he is a druid after all.
Whatever he is, I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him, his wolf grumbled.
“Okay, Milo, we should go and get you cleaned up.” Penny stepped in as Milo jumped on top of the snow leopard and rolled him over and over. There were grass stains on the child’s jeans and his face had a smear of mud down one cheek. But his eyes were bright, and his cheeks flushed a healthy red.
“Oh, can’t we play a little longer?” Milo asked as he obeyed his mom and rolled off the feline.
“I think Rift has had enough. You play rough.” As she took her son’s hand, the air around the snow leopard shimmered and the human form of Logan’s brother jumped to his feet.
“I haven’t wrestled like that for years.” He dusted down his clothes and clapped his hands. “Maybe we can have a rematch tomorrow?”
“Yes, please.” Milo’s excitement was evident as he grinned from ear to ear.
“You might be wrestling in the snow if those clouds get any heavier.” Logan nodded toward the heavy clouds hanging over the mountains to the north. As the day had grown older, the clouds had grown heavier and he was convinced there would be snow on the ground in the morning.
The White Wolf of Wishing Moon Bay Page 9