Page 13 of Wolves' Midlife Reunion
“Was?” She felt her mouth and her heart twist with compassion. That didn’t sound good at all.
“Marie passed away three years ago,” Dex explained.
Tina’s heart sank into her stomach. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like for anyone to lose their mate, nor could she fathom what Sage must’ve gone through at the loss of her mother. “If I had any idea, I would’ve picked a different necklace.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He glanced at an open table behind them. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Sure.” She carried her drink over, surprised when he pulled out a chair for her. “I admit I haven’t been keeping up with everyone over the years. I didn’t know you…had gotten married.” She stumbled over the words, unsure which ones were the right ones. Tina was desperately curious as to Dex’s current situation, even if she didn’t plan to do anything about it.
He considered this a moment before he answered, his thumb gently rubbing against a bit of condensation on the side of his punch cup. “I think, as you get older, you get to a point of knowing there’s a time limit. Marie and I weren’t fated, but we got along well enough, and our relationship just sort of happened. We both really wanted to have kids, and we were blessed with Sage.”
“She’s a lovely little miracle.” Tina meant it, too. She was a bit jealous of this mysterious woman who’d managed to get Dex to walk down the aisle when Tina hadn’t even gotten to go to prom with him, but she could see how much Dex loved his daughter. That was all that really mattered.
“I think so, too,” he agreed. “She can be a handful, though.”
“I’m sure my mother would tell you the same thing about me when I was a girl, and probably my sisters, too,” Tina laughed. “I haven’t been fortunate enough to have kids, but plenty of them are always buzzing around the covenstead. They’re all a bit of a handful.”
He pulled in a deep breath and moved in his chair, making his knee bump slightly against hers. “You know, running into you again might be very good timing.”
“Oh?” That slight bump of his knee was nothing, pure coincidence, yet it’d driven all the air out of her lungs. “Why is that?”
“Well, Sage has some magical abilities,” Dex explained. “They’ve been budding here and there for the past year or so. I was kind of excited at first, because I knew she had to have gotten it from me. I’m the only one in my pack that has any magic, other than my late grandmother. The thing is, I don’t practice anymore. I haven’t in a long time.”
The last sentence was almost quiet enough that she couldn’t hear it over the music, but she understood. Everyone had either seen or witnessed the fight between Dex and Chris ‘Killer’ Kelley. Dex’s magic had turned the fight in his favor, but it’d nearly killed Chris in the process. “I can understand.”
He pulled in a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s left me feeling a bit lost when it comes to Sage. She knows a few little tricks, things that could be dismissed as stage magic if the wrong person saw, but I’ve been starting to think a lot about whathappens as this progresses. If you’ve got any advice, I’m open to it.”
“That’s difficult,” she admitted, thinking back to her own childhood. “Just like anything else that a kid has to learn, there are rules and techniques. Some of them you can figure out on your own, but I don’t think a person could really master their magic without at least some teaching. I was fortunate in that sense. I was completely surrounded by adults who knew and supported magic. If I didn’t want to listen to my mother, then my Aunt Lucille or one of the other coven members was there to help me.”
“I wish Sage had something like that,” he admitted. His head was bent toward hers, and it felt like they were having a secret conversation, even though they were in a room full of people. “My family is great, of course. I rely on them a lot as a single parent, but they don’t know how to help with this.”
An idea hit her. Tina hesitated for a moment, unsure whether she should say it or not.
“What is it?” Dex asked, as if reading her thoughts. “Like I said, I’m open to advice.”
“This could be a little more than that,” she said slowly. “How would you feel if I became a mentor of sorts for Sage?”
He blinked. “You would do that?”
“Well, sure.” The idea was still new to her, but it felt right. The Artemis Eclipse Sisterhood helped their own, but they also reached out to other shifter witches who didn’t have a coven or who needed support. “In fact, the rest of the coven would probably be happy to help, too. Sage might find a lot of people to talk to.”
“Wow. That’s incredibly generous,” he added, his eyes burning into hers now. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, but I can’t help but feel like we’ve picked up right where we left off.”
Her heart surged. Where they’d left off had been an awkward point, somewhere between knowing there was a connection between them and not understanding what to do about it. They’d pushed and pulled apart numerous times, always orbiting around each other but never able to get close. “I know what you mean.”
Dex put his hand on hers. “It’s kind of funny, really. I wasn’t looking forward to coming tonight. Debbie convinced me that I had to, but I didn’t believe her. I just didn’t want to listen to her if I stayed home.”
His touch sent electricity shooting up her arm and through her shoulders. Her chest warmed, and her wolf rolled contentedly. “Sisters can be very…”
“Insistent?” he asked.
“Or demanding,” she added.
“And annoying.”
“Don’t forget stubborn.”
“But also right about some things,” Dex said. “Every now and then, I’ve thought about you, Tina.”
