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“Hello, sweetheart.”
My shoulders relaxed. “Aunt Lucille, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, dear. Perfectly fine. I’m calling to see when you’re coming to see me again. You’ve been a naughty boy, not visiting me in months. I miss you and want to have a nice long chat with my favorite nephew.”
Forcing out a chuckle, I shut my eyes at the cruel way her feral state left her mind. I visited her every week, sometimes two or three times when my schedule allowed, but time didn’t compute the same for her as it did for the rest of us. More often than not, she remained feral for weeks or months on end. Her coherence now was a gift and a heartbreak all at the same time.
Arguing with her was pointless, though. To be fair, I hadn’t visited her in the last couple of weeks as much as I usually did. Too much had been going on. It didn’t mean she wasn’t in my thoughts and that I didn’t worry about her, but the care facility she lived in was top-notch. It was a shifter-run facility, so I was confident that she had the best support she could.
With how much I paid for her to be cared for and catered to, she’d better be getting the best support. If not, then the staff would have to answer to me.
That wouldn’t be the case, though. I was there often enough to keep an eye on things. I also never visited on a schedule, popping in whenever I had a spare moment. That helped to ensure the employees weren’t putting on an act for my benefit. I’d heard of too many places that didn’t care for their patients, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen to my aunt.
“I’ll be there tomorrow, I promise. We’ll have that long talk you always go on about since you moved in there.”
Whenever my aunt was lucid, she always griped about how we never had long chats like we always did when I was younger—discussing everything and anything under the sun.I missed those chats because they were few and far between now, but I took advantage of each one when it presented itself. Aunt Lucille had always been so full of life and had a way of teaching valuable life lessons without forcing them down my throat. She was the best person to talk to whenever I had a problem because she never judged or took anything personally. She always genuinely wanted to help, even if it was just to sit and listen.
“Oh, good boy, I can’t wait to see you. Tomorrow won’t come fast enough now, will it?”
“No, Aunt Lucille, it won’t, but we now have something wonderful to look forward to.” Well, I hoped we did, but I didn’t say that out loud. My aunt was lucid now, but who was to say that she’d be the same five minutes from now, let alone tomorrow? Either way, I would visit her.
It didn’t matter if she remembered our conversation or even remembered me. It was important that I kept my promises to the people I loved, and Aunt Lucille was someone I loved fiercely.
We said our goodbyes. My aunt was my last remaining family member, and I would love it if she and Tori could meet. Having the two most important people in my life in the same room would mean the world to me.
Aunt Lucille might not be all there tomorrow, but I still wanted to invite Tori to come. Seeing Lucille would show her why I was so desperate to help her better understand her wolf and recover from her feral side effects.If she witnessed what could happen to her firsthand, she might be more motivated to get her feral side under better control—and hopefully banished from her psyche for good. It was worth a shot, and I’d try anything as long as it was in my mate’s best interest.
Especially if it helped convince her to stay in Blackwood Creek.
Chapter41
Tori
“Excuse me, I left a bag here the other morning. I’m here to pick it up,” I said to the nurse in the ER.
“Right. Let me get it for you.”
“Thank you.”
The older lady got up and went into a back room. As I waited for her to return, I looked around the waiting area. With its rows of plastic chairs and end tables with old magazines, it looked every inch a waiting room, but I was surprised that nobody was there. That was what happened in a small town like this: the hospital wasn’t bustling out the door.
I was fortunate that no one was there to accost me. I wasn’t prepared to talk about the ordeal yet.
“Here you go,” the nurse said.
I grabbed the bag from her hand and started hunting for the engagement ring. I could see it was important to Ridge that I wear it. He didn’t make it sound like a big deal, but the constant talk about it and the ruse we had to keep up had me wanting to put the ring back on ASAP.
It also wasn’t all about Ridge. I wanted to wear it, just for a little while longer. It’d probably be the only time I wore such an elaborate engagement ring—or any engagement ring at all.
Sheepishly, I smiled at the nurse, who was grinning at me as she watched me rummage through the bag. She gasped when I pulled out the ring from the tissue wrapping and slipped it on my finger.
I was certainly creating the illusion of a desperate fiancée looking for her engagement ring.
“Um, I was wondering if the doctor who cared for me was available to give me a check-up,” I said. “He told me to come in when I got back into town.”
“Let me check, Ms. Summers.” The nurse turned away from me to look at her computer and input my details into the system. “There’s a note to get him when you come in.”
“Thank you.”
