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“Jesus. Me or just you?’
“I think shifters. It’s different with how humans feel it.”
“Well, still. It’s too much. This is too much.”
“Our baby would be safer here, I promise, far safer than out there in the world.”
“It’s not impossible. I could do it out there if I had to.”
“But you don’t. No one is going to take away your independence. Nothing is going to happen to our child here.” Tavish paused. He was struggling. Not to say the right thing or the thing that would make her stay, but to be completely honest with her and his pain at knowing that it could break her if he was, but also knowing it could break her if he wasn’t. “I think you should talk to Glendy tomorrow like you planned. Maybe more with Josephine and Lily too. There are questions I can’t answer because I’m not a woman and I’m not a human who has moved here. I’ve lived here all my life.”
She had to be fair. He deserved that much. The last thing January wanted him to think was that she’d shown up here to use her pregnancy as a sort of tool or that she was playing games.I’m pregnant, but I’m leaving. I don’t want to see you again. I’m not going to give your way of life any consideration or a chance because it’s too other. She knew how that would make her feel if their positions were reversed.
“Just answer one thing for me. If you hadn’t been able to shift tonight, would you have been seriously hurt or killed?”
Tavish shook his head, but she wasn’t convinced. He looked obliterated, and he tried to keep that off his face, but it was there. He was losing hope when it came to her faith in him and Greenacre, she could tell.
She hated that. She didn’t want him to feel that way, but as a mother, she had to be sure before she made a decision that could impact both her and her child. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but her baby’s safety came before anything.
“He would have stopped,” Tavish said, but his voice didn’t sound like his. “He would have stopped in time.”
“And what if that was a child? Someone without your strength or speed or the fight you would have had in you?”
“We don’t let our children wander the woods at night alone.”
She bowed her head. “Fair enough. I’ll talk to Glendy tomorrow morning, and I’ll try to see if Lily and Josephine have more time. I just have to be sure. I’m not saying I won’t let you be a part of the discussion or decision. I’m not saying that I’m going to go back to Phoenix for good now. I’m not saying that I don’t want to be with you, because it’s not that. Everything is happening so quickly. After forty-one years of ignorance, I’ve learned that shifters exist and I’ve gotten pregnant in the space of just over a month. Then there’s the divorce—trying to get my life back on track. It’s all so much to process. But I don’t think I can stay here right now, I might go and live in Seattle for a while. Until I’m sure. I need time.”
The way Tavish’s face crumpled hit her like a wrecking ball. She felt like crying again, but if she’d ever needed to be tough and keep a clear head, it was now. “I understand. Take as much time as you need. I’m here to support you and love our baby.”
She touched his arm lightly, her throat on fire with unshed tears. “Thank you. With all of my heart, thank you. I appreciate that more than I can say.”
Chapter 18
January
“Oh my god, your daughter got kidnapped?” January had never heard anything more horrifying and yet, Glendy just stood there in her shop—blonde hair flowing like a princess from medieval times, wearing the nicest vintage floral maxi dress that had probably ever been created—as if having your child get kidnapped was the most normal thing in the world.
“Oh, I know it sounds alarming,” Glendy said, while she unfolded a vintage sweater and examined it for damage, “but she was carried off by a member of the other clan to make a point. I had just moved here, and they didn’t like that. It’s a long story, but Emma’s father, my ex-husband—he’s a part of that clan. They’re not open like Greenacre. They would never let a human come and live with them, whether they were male or female.”
January swallowed back the wave of nausea clawing at her throat. It wasn’t morning sickness. It was the horror of thinking about your child being kidnapped.
“I was frantic at the time,” Glendy admitted. “But we got her back, and she was unharmed. Their intention was just to make me listen by doing something drastic, he wouldn’t have hurt her. Afterwards, he was disciplined by his alpha, but the in the way that Sam suggested he should be. By getting help to show him that destructive behavior isn’t the answer. That’s putting it in kindergarten terms and I’m sorry for that.”
“No. Don’t be.”
Nothing could stop January’s stomach from spinning. Even though Glendy was calm now, January couldn’t imagine living through something like that. How did she have faith it wouldn’t happen again? How did she let Emma out of her sight?
“We all have a story,” Glendy admitted. She wasn’t shying away from the truth. “Josephine found Trace bleeding on the side of the road one night. That’s how they first met, years ago. It was an altercation with a rogue shifter. Something about Trace having beaten the guy to within an inch of his life back when he was first learning to control the bear.”
January stuck out a hand to support herself, curling her fingers around the cool metal bar of a clothing rack. She focused on that sensation, hoping that she could erase that bit of information. Did Tavish know that Glendy would be so honest with her when he’d sent her here to talk? This was all of her worst fears, everything she’d listed last night, made into reality.
“Sam’s brother was living in the human world. He didn’t even know he had one until it was too late. His brother and his sister-in-law were killed in a car accident. Bad things happen all over the place. They’re rare here, January. My own husband tried to scare Sam’s mate away before they were together. She was in the woods, and he chased her as a bear. He was sorry about it afterwards. I think some days he still gets flustered around her, even though she has zero hard feelings about it. He was against Greenacre opening up and modernizing. He voted against it. He’d always stuck to his own company and he didn’t need anyone, but even the hardest of hearts and the most stubborn of men can change their minds. He saved my daughter. She’d wandered into the woods and was lost. That’s how we met. He found Emma and brought her back to me.”
The woods themselves suddenly seemed like a scary, horrible place. They seemed full of unknown dangers and threats, and all she could hear were the negatives.
January’s stomach was a tight, angry fist. It felt like the whole universe was unravelling. How had she ever thought this could work? Glendy went on, either reading her perfectly or oblivious to what she was thinking.
“Greenacre is a wonderful, beautiful place. It’s a great community filled with care and love. Emma is so, so loved. I felt isolated everywhere we lived before this. I never really felt like part of a family, not even with my own parents, until I came here.”
