Her fingers shook on the steering wheel as she drove away. She didn't want to discuss what she'd been through for the past twelve years with anyone … How her parents had been murdered right before her eyes at the age of ten … How she'd been yanked from her perfect home and placed in human foster care … How much she feared succumbing to the same fate as her parents if she ever let her lupine side come to the surface. No, Jessica had no intention of ever shifting and running free. It wasn't safe, and she wanted to stay alive.
Chapter 4
"Son, may I have a word with you, please?" Those deep words accompanied the stern face and furrowed brows of Charles' father, Richard Masters.
Charles hadn't even climbed from the truck yet. The man had appeared before he'd gotten the keys out of the ignition and the door open.
"You too, Reese." Without pausing, the tall patriarch spun on his heel and walked toward the barn.
"Shit." Charles glanced at Reese. "He's not happy."
"Let's go." Reese jumped from his side and crunched into the snow, the noise grating on Charles' nerves at the moment.
Like two little boys, the men dragged themselves, tail and all, to the barn. Charles hadn't felt this kind of confusion since the time he'd been spanked, scolded, and grounded when he was about ten for a pile of offenses he'd not committed and his older brothers had never fessed up to.
What now?
The barn was warmer than the outside, but somehow Charles didn't feel all cozy when he gazed into his father's eyes.
"What the hell is going on around here? And don't feed me some line of bullshit. I wasn't born yesterday. Let's just cut to the chase, what da ya say?"
Charles narrowed his gaze and thought back to the events of the past several hours. Reese shuffled in the dirt next to him, his own imagined chagrin just as palpable as Charles'.
"Dad, I … Well, what are you talking about?"
His father's eyebrows rose toward the roof. "Does the name Alyssa ring a bell to anyone?" He didn't give them a chance to speak, which was a blessing since Charles couldn't have known what to say yet. Where the hell was he going with this interrogation? "You two came waltzing in here yesterday, after six months of playing around. You bring a woman with you, whom I had to assume you had honorable intentions toward. And then," he was nearly shouting now, "you traipse off this morning and don't return for hours. Does that about sum it up?"
Silence. "Oh, he's pissed."
"Do you blame him?" Reese returned without moving an inch.
"You've been gone six hours. Six. What the hell were you doing?"
"We had to pick up Miranda from school, and-"
"All day? That was this morning. Half an hour, tops."
Reese stepped forward, but Charles stopped him by clearing his throat. "It's complicated."
"It's complicated?" his father mocked. "What the dickens is that supposed to mean?"
What should he say? How could he possibly explain this situation?
He couldn't. They'd made a promise to Alyssa, and they needed to keep it. If that was even possible now. Wasn't there some sort of natural law demanding an actual mate trump a potential mate?
Charles' father glared back and forth between them, probably wondering at such odd behavior from two grown men. "That's it? Neither of you has a word to say for yourselves?" He paused and then whipped his hat off his head to slap it across his leg.
Charles flinched. Rarely in his life had his father lost his temper. And the man had raised six children, five of whom were wild boys.
"Look here. I can smell a rat from a mile away. I wasn't born yesterday. Whatever the hell you two are keeping mum about better damn well be good. Your mother is beside herself in there entertaining your date the entire day. Even your brother Michael stepped in to entertain your date for a while.
"Now, I know damn good and well this sweet woman who came home with you, Alyssa, is not mated to you two. She isn't even mated to one of you. But the woman does have feelings, and if you have intentions toward her that extend beyond some sort of romp in the hay, then you'd better improve your bizarre behavior. If not, then I'm not sure why on earth you brought her home with you. None of you have ever brought a woman here who wasn't your mate."
"Dad, I-"
"Let me finish. We have opened our home to you three." He glared hard at both of them, making Charles take a step back from his father and the look of disappointment on his face. "We are not opposed to your lifestyle. You know that. Hell, both of your older brothers are in committed relationships of three. Don't think you surprised me when the two of you went gallivanting off to Texas. I knew what was up. I'm your father." He stared at Charles and then turned his gaze toward Reese. "And I might as well be yours too, son."
Charles swallowed hard. He hated keeping anything from his dad. And even worse was disappointing the man. His stomach clenched, threatening to toss his lunch.
"Dad, plenty of our kind meet someone they really like and are attracted to whom they later mate as time goes by."
"Of course they do. I'm not refuting that. And if that is your hope and desire here, your mother and I will stand by you. Alyssa's a nice girl. If you are waiting and hoping everything will click into place and you'll claim her, we don't have anything against that. But, if not … " His pointed gaze was poking holes in Charles. By now he didn't just feel twelve, or ten, or eight, but more like six years old. And it made his head pound to think of the mess he was in. He and Reese.
"I suggest you think about this, pull yourselves together, and make your way to the house ASAP. Whatever's going on, figure it out and figure it out fast, capisce?"
"Yes, sir," both Charles and Reese stated at once, standing to their full heights and nodding their contrite heads.
Richard Masters marched out of the barn, his head shaking back and forth, his chin ducked toward his chest. He didn't look back.
*
Reese looked at Charles before Richard was even out of earshot. "Now what do we do?"
Charles said nothing. He paced the barn, incoherent babble the only sound.
"Hello?" Putting this off wasn't helping matters at all. They had to go inside and talk to Alyssa.
Charles halted his quick stomping movements. "I don't know," he nearly shouted. He threw his hands in the air. "I barely even care. That's what sucks." He pointed at the house. "I don't even want to go in there. All I can think about is getting back in the vicinity of Jessica as fast as possible. Even if the woman won't touch us, I can't stand her being somewhere else. What if she runs?"
Reese sucked in a breath. It was true. There was no guarantee she wouldn't leave town. He, of all people, certainly knew that. And obviously he was going to have to be the voice of reason at this particular moment.
"Okay, let's go inside, sweep Alyssa into the bedroom, and make nice for a bit. Somehow we will find a way to escape as quickly as possible and get over to Jessica's apartment. Plan?"
Charles scrunched his face and narrowed his eyes. "Plan? What the hell kind of plan is that? You don't even have one. I think you left out the entire center. You know? That part where we explain ourselves to Alyssa and she reacts? What part of your plan fills the Oreo cream center here?"
"You have a better idea?" Reese turned to head toward the house. The crunch of boots behind him indicated Charles was following.
A cold wind blew across the short field between the buildings, lifting the soft, loose flakes of snow comprising the top layer that had fallen in the night. The effect was to make it appear to be snowing from the ground up. He squeezed his jacket tighter around him. How appropriate. Every detail of his life right now was upside down; why not the snow too?
* * * *
"Hello?" Jessica breathlessly grabbed her cell phone when she finally found the damn thing upside down on the bed. How long had it been ringing all muffled there from the quilt while she'd been stuffing clothes and toiletries into her suitcase?
She'd seen the caller ID before hitting Accept.
"Jessica? It's Kara." Jessica smiled for the first time since she'd blown into the apartment. No shit. They'd been friends for more than four years. Obviously Kara was at the top of her caller ID list, right up with her other former roommate Lindsey.
"Hey, hon. What's going on? How are you feeling?"
"Huge." Kara chuckled. "And overprotected. You'd think no one in the world had ever given birth before. And I still have several weeks."
"Hey, what did you expect with two fierce, dominant men for partners." Jessica knew they were mates. In fact, she knew more about Kara's situation, and Lindsey's too for that matter, than either of them did. Kara and Lindsey were both human. Jessica hadn't ever wanted anyone to know she was a shifter. And now …