by Zoe Chant
She wanted to know everything, or nearly everything.
Shifters, animals’ minds and how they think. What life was really like in those small towns early in the 20th Century, where the law tended to be the nearest tough guy. He’d learned early to defend himself, and was good at it. He later discovered that his strength and speed was largely due to his shifter side. But that had been life as usual.
“It was never anything to brag about,” he said. “Much less talk about, unless you were looking for trouble. And some did. There were those who walked into a bar just to challenge the toughest-looking guy there. I had no interest in that. But you had to look out for yourself, because there was no fallback, especially in those early days far from cities and civilization. Even later. Which is why I made sure that Alejo learned some self-defense when he came to Kentucky.”
“I could have used that,” Godiva said with a sigh. “But in those days, women weren’t allowed, or were kept back behind baby rules for their own safety. So I had to live by my wits.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, nothing like what happened to you.” She waved a hand. “Living by my wits meant avoiding any situation that looked the least bit dubious. But there were enough close calls that made me wish I could karate chop my way through some prize jerks.”
She’d clearly been in some hairy situations, and though she had freely talked about a lot of things, casually mentioning the more colorful of her many roommates over the years, the one thing she hadn’t brought up was relationships.
But he didn’t ask, because he believed he had lost his right to.
So he resolved to leave it to her to bring up that subject.
She didn’t.
They were trading anecdotes about the first refrigerators they ever saw as the 70 joined the 80 outside Denver (where they stopped for an excellent meal of fresh-water fish). Fridges led to other “first time” encounters with various inventions, which by the time they crossed the Kansas border turned into anecdotes about Alejo’s earliest years.
Rigo wanted to hear everything about his childhood, and once Godiva saw that he wasn’t bored—far from it—out came the little stories. He got to hear about Alejo learning to climb before he learned to walk, and how at eighteen months old he managed to make it onto the garage roof before they found him. How for a long time about the only toys he had were a half set of Lincoln Logs, to which he’d add rocks and twigs, building forts for the characters he’d draw himself on old newsprint and laboriously cut out.
His first lost tooth (knocked out by trying to fly from an eight foot wall), his first film (Disney’s Peter Pan, which had finally made it to the cheap theaters, resulting in said attempt to fly), his first friend, his first fight with a friend, his tree house secret club that wasn’t very secret, his knack for knowing all the names of every animal on the block within a few days of moving to a new place, and how he’d save bits of his meals to hand out to said animals if he thought his mom wasn’t looking.
His first overnight, with the Boy Scout troop that his friend Lance’s dad was Scout Master of—and how Godiva spent that entire night pressed up against the apartment door in case the phone in the hallway rang.
“I never told him about those long sleepless nights,” Godiva said. “I knew he had to do boy things. And I liked Lance Jackson Senior. He was a firefighter, so I figured he knew about camp safety. But I hated those overnights until I could trust Alejo to find a bus, and to keep hold of a dime to call home if he had to.”
Rigo understood what she was saying, perhaps unconsciously—that she’d lost her trust in men. But she had still done her best to raise Alejo to be a good man. And she’d done a terrific job.
Every time they stopped, he found texts from Alejo asking for updates. He knew what their son wanted to hear, that the mate bond was true, that they were together again. He wasn’t sure what to say, except variations on the So far so good theme.
The night before they crossed into Illinois, they encountered so much summer traffic that the motels were all full. Since they could both afford a hotel, they were resigned to the inevitable, though, as Godiva grumped when they pulled their suitcases out, “I was living hand to mouth for long enough to really resent shelling out more than two hundred clams just to park my butt for eight hours. I don’t need fancy décor. Just clean, and plenty of hot water.”
He spoke without thinking, “Well, since we’ve got the fancy décor, shall we enjoy what we paid for and have a nightcap?”
Her gaze shifted around, then she looked up at him, and there was another flicker of the old smile. “Sure.”
They met in the bar, which was decorated on a New York theme. They ordered, and as she looked around slowly, he was very aware of a silence building. “Ever been to New York?” he asked, figuring that was innocuous enough.
She switched those luminous, expressive eyes to him, then said, “Nope. Had a couple invites, but they always seemed to come with interrogations attached.”
“Interrogations?” he repeated.
“Interviews. Which are really polite interrogations,” she said. “Nobody needs to know anything about my past to read my books, so I always turned ‘em down flat. G.T. Hidalgo has a nice biography, carefully crafted to be totally generic. Extra boring. I didn’t want anyone getting the urge to dig further.”
“I can understand that,” he said, as their drinks arrived.
She took an appreciate sip of her White Russian, then said, “Candy in a glass. But I can never drink more than half of one of these things.”
“No surprise,” he said. “What’s it got, vodka and Kahlua? That’s a pretty stiff drink.”
She took another sip, then said, “Truth is, I can’t stand most of the rest of it. I don’t care how much it costs, it all tastes like a terrible mix of medicine and battery acid. Though maybe my attitude was shaped by the smell of hard liquor when my pa went on the rampage.”
“Yep,” he said. “I drank gin because it got the job done fastest, but ever since you made me swear off it, I can’t tolerate even a sip of it. This whiskey . . . it tastes like smoke to the one in here.” He tapped his chest, and she gave a quick smile. She knew he meant his basilisk. “Which might not be all that much of a recommendation.”
“I can just see the commercial,” Godiva said, her small hands moving high, to shape a billboard. “Drink Smokey Joe’s Whiskey, and satisfy your armor-plated, bat-winged, laser-eyed secret self! Do you think that would sell?”
“I think every kid under sixteen would think that the coolest thing ever,” he joked. “But sadly, they are not exactly the intended market.”
They continued to banter like that until the drinks were down to clattering ice cubes, then she set aside her glass, and her smile vanished. “We’ll get there tomorrow, won’t we?”
“That’s the plan,” he said.
She let out a slow sigh. “It’ll be good to know.”
He decided against asking ‘know what’—what she was expecting to find. Or rather, what inner decisions hinged on what they found. He would wait until she was ready to tell him.
They parted then, wishing each other a good night, and next morning he rose before the sun came up to take a flight in expectation of another long day confined to the car, sitting next to her without being able to touch her.
The lush green land lay dim in the weak starlight. The sky had begun to blue in the east as he completed his circle. In the houses below, windows began to glow golden one by one as inhabitants wakened to a new day, without any idea that a basilisk flew silently overhead.
When he returned, he found Godiva already up and ready to go.
They had a quick breakfast and then hit the road. As the day progressed, and they got caught in summer traffic, he became aware of tension in her hands, in her frequent checks of her phone for the time.
They left the highway early that evening, Godiva having turned down stopping for dinner. “We’re close,” she said. “Let’s check, then
plan.”
He felt her attempt to lighten the tension she was fighting as she said, “Wow. As I’ve said every time I come back, things sure have built up around here. Not surprising. Cities seem to spread and gobble up towns everywhere. Certainly did in Los Angeles.”
“Do you recognize anything?” he asked.
She pointed out landmarks and familiar street names, her eye sweeping constantly back and forth as they drew ever nearer. The post office she’d used had been the township’s only facility back when she’d lived here. Now there were more post offices, but hers had not moved. It was located in what had become the older part of town, the buildings showing their age.
They pulled into the parking lot as the sun was dropping toward twilight. The post office itself was closed up tight, but the lobby was open.
“It used to close right at nine,” she said tersely as they walked in. “Opened at five in the morning. I could check before breakfast shifts at the restaurant I worked at. Now, it looks like it’s open 24/7.” Her gaze darted around. “Still combination locks, of course. They would have sent a key wouldn’t they, if they’d upgraded? That combination is etched into my brain . . .”
As she spoke, she moved straight toward a post box. Three practiced flicks of the dial, and she pulled the door open. Nothing was inside, but she put her hand in to check all four sides, and then peered in.
“Well, there was a Sunday in between our leaving and our arrival,” she muttered. “It will surely get here by tomorrow.”
“It?” he asked.
“I sent a test letter. It hasn’t arrived.” She frowned as she glanced around.
Except for a young woman who looked like a college student, the lobby was empty. For a long moment Godiva stared at the young woman, who stood by the trash can already half full of junk mail as she glanced at, then tossed, most of her letters and all the ad flyers.
Godiva blinked as if recalling herself to the present. “Okay,” she said on a long exhale. “Let’s find someplace to stay. We’ll look tomorrow.”
He waited until they were outside before saying, “You didn’t believe any of us?”
“I do,” she said, looking up at him with her serious, unwinking, honest gaze. “Remember, I used to find it empty, too.” As they got into the car, he studied her profile, which was troubled as she said, “I do admit I was mentally trying not to blame Lance Jackson. Not that I thought for a second that he was stealing mail. That’s a ridiculous idea. Why would he? But maybe he didn’t check and said he did, or . . . or . . . something. Except that’s so unlike the kid I knew back then. However much they pranked each other and their friends, Lance and Alejo were good kids. Not just to each other. I heard from teachers and a couple other parents at Open House how they team-tagged bullies, protecting the kids who got picked on.”
Rigo started up the car, but left the engine running. “They continued to do that. Lance did it here, then when he moved closer to the city. That’s how he got drawn into Guardian missions.”
He stopped there, as Godiva only seemed to be half-listening.
“Godiva?”
She rubbed her thumbs over her eye ridges. “My brain is splintering along too many paths.”
He accepted that, and was about to call up a map of local hotels when his phone pinged: text.
It was Alejo. You have to be there by now.
Rigo texted back, In the post office parking lot. Box was empty.
I figured it would be. I’ll be there by morning. Don’t tell Mom. I want to surprise her.
Rigo looked over at Godiva, his heart hurting at the tension that had tightened her shoulders again. She was gazing out the window with that thousand mile stare again, so Rigo texted quickly, She could use a good surprise. She’s upset.
He didn’t add that he couldn’t understand why, as they had had a great trip. The three of them were communicating again. And she’d made it clear she didn’t believe that he was scamming her for some obscure but cruel reason.
He added, Suggestion where to stay?
Alejo texted a map, and a short time later they were checked into a bed and breakfast decked out in art deco. Rigo’s heart lifted at the sight of Godiva’s smile when they entered the place. Alejo might not have seen his mother for all these years, but he’d called it right. And best of all, it was very close to the post office.
As soon as they had their keys, Godiva turned to him. “Right now I’m too tired, and too confused, for anything but a hot bath and sleep. See you in the morning.”
He had to suppress the desire—stronger every day—to take her in his arms and kiss away the tension lining her forehead. Trust, he reminded himself. You don’t earn sixty years of mistrust back in a couple days of driving.
So he had another long night to endure. He used up some of it by taking a night flight, spiraling higher and higher on the warm currents of air, until he felt the condensed moisture of the clouds that stretched like a canopy over the region. Chicago was an emperor’s ransom in brilliant lights, a necklace of glowing gems curving about the blackness of the lake.
He exerted himself, flying higher, up through the clouds until the stars scattered overhead, twin to the twinkling lights far below. He arrowed northward until he caught the winds flowing over the water, and drifted, aware of the inward bond, like liquid gold, between him and Godiva.
It was not yet at its full strength, but it was strong enough for him to find her. Place him anywhere in the world, now, and he could find her. Before, that bond had been so thin and ghostly a thread that he had only known she was alive, and never where, for her mate had turned heart, mind, and spirit away from him.
That was no longer true.
He held onto that fact as he flew back, and settled down as a human to get a few hours of rest. Then, as always, he rose before the sun lipped the horizon, and left his room to find Godiva just coming out of hers. Did she notice the rhythm they had fallen into? He said only, “Good morning. Sleep well?”
“Like Thor’s hammer whacked me on the skull.” Her expressive brows knit. “Wait a minute. Thor—the hammer—is he really—”
“If he is, I’ve never met him. Though I have met—”
“Wait!” Godiva held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. I read about those Norse monsters. I don’t want to know if any of them are lurking around.”
He smothered a laugh as they walked down the handsome bannister in art deco black and white.
She began to say, “So what’s today’s plan. Shall we—”
Two steps into the lobby, she stopped short. Staring.
Rigo gazed past her to . . .
“Alejo?” Godiva said in a high, breathless voice.
“Ma?” He held out his arms.
Godiva launched across the room, hugging Alejo fiercely, her eyes bright as stars, leaving Rigo to watch, his heart knifed by pride and longing.
Chapter 13
GODIVA
“Mom, you’re so . . . small!”
Godiva trembled with a storm of emotions very close to the tears she had forbidden herself to ever indulge. So she laughed heartily, stepping back. “What?”
Alejo was just as handsome as his dad, with a curling grin bracketed by long dimples that had just been shadows in his kid face. “Somehow I remembered you as being so . . . so tall.”
“You were taller than me when you took off,” Godiva said, pretending affront. “I have not shrunk! It’s just that your head is now scraping ceilings!”
Alejo chuckled, and swooped in to hug her again. “I think it’s more because you’ve always been larger than life.”
“If that means tough, I can live with that,” she said, and turned to Rigo, whose smile was there, but kind of . . . wistful? “You didn’t tell me!”
Rigo’s eyes gleamed, tender with laughter as he said, “We thought it would be more fun as a surprise.” And to Alejo, “You have to have had a rough drive, traveling all night. Are you hungry? How about breakfast?”
“Ah, it’s ju
st over five hours if you drive in the wee hours. No traffic, and the rental van I got came with a great sound system. I told them that was my second priority behind brakes that work. But I won’t turn down breakfast, especially since this place is famous for its spread. “
Rigo fell in step on Godiva’s other side, so she walked between the two of them. “A rental?” Rigo asked. “Anything wrong with our cars?”
“Nope. It’s just that two of them are needed for jobs. I could have brought the Mustang, but I didn’t know what we’d find. I thought it best to be free to maneuver, depending. Wow, it smells like heaven in here!”
They walked into what once had been a conservatory for some grand family, and now was a breakfast room. They sat overlooking a lovely garden, and soon had an impressive array before them, right down to the silver coffee and tea service.
“Now this,” Godiva said happily, “is breakfast done right.” And after she helped herself to fluffy eggs and crisp bacon, a crispy waffle with real maple syrup, and scones with real Devonshire cream to slather on, she added, “Alejo, what brought you out?”
“You, of course.” He grinned. “And it’s always a kick to be back here again. Seeing what’s changed and what hasn’t. Throws me back to how much fun it was to be a kid here, when there were meadows and ponds within a short bike ride. And that old theater, where fifty cents got us an entire afternoon, two movies and several cartoons. That’s when we weren’t stalking each other over fences and through yards. The entire town was our playground.”
“I remember how dirty you managed to get. And how banged up,” Godiva added. “But you always said it was just a bump, or just a nick. I was always afraid that I’d get a call from the hospital, especially when you two started coming up against that disgusting brat you called Barf. I forget his actual name. The one who looked like a choirboy, but was as two-faced as Eddie Haskell in Leave it to Beaver. I remember him because of the time he attacked you at school, blamed it on you, and got you suspended. It was the only time you ever got into trouble.”