Page 35 of Bear's Midlife Bridesmaid
A child.
Her stomach rolled with fear, excitement, and hunger. When had she eaten last? Erin couldn’t recall having anything at the Brigham clan’s bonfire. Plenty of food was being cooked, with kids roasting hot dogs over the fire and someone carefully searing steaks on a nearby grill, but she’d been too busy meeting everyone to eat.
Meeting everyone who she’d shortly put in danger.
Things had changed an awful lot in the past week. Erin’s body desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but since her mind was refusing to cooperate, she slipped out of bed. She turned and looked at Jace, his face slack and peaceful. He’d fought hard, as they all had. He deserved a good rest, and she’d let him enjoy it for a while.
Tugging on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Erin went into the kitchen and grabbed a muffin from the container on the counter. She didn’t really want it,but she felt like she would get sick if she didn’t put something in her stomach. Her body felt strange as she stepped out the back door, like it belonged to someone else.
And in a way, it did. She touched her free hand to her lower abdomen as she walked out through the backyard, barely noticing the riot of flowers that bobbed good morning to her from their beds. Erin wasn’t alone in this body, and it wasn’t just her bobcat keeping her comfortable.
The sun had already risen, but it hung low above the ocean and cast the light of a new day onto the beach. Looking to her left, she spotted the scattering of lawn chairs that hadn’t been folded and put away. Brightly colored buckets and shovels lay among them, and a stray white cooler had been knocked over. Apparently, she and Jace weren’t the only ones who’d been ready to go straight to bed after she’d sent Gretchen away.
She polished off the muffin and dusted off her hands as she stepped into the wet sand. Her feet sank into it, and she watched as the water flowed up. It hurried in excitedly around her feet and bubbled between her toes, a slurry of movement that left behind only the smoothness of the sand when it ebbed once again. The perfect shape of her feet wasleft there when she stepped back, but only for a few seconds until the waves washed it away again. Life was changing just as quickly, and she felt just as helpless in the tide of it.
That bastard child of yours.The words had been echoing in her head ever since she’d awoken. Erin hadn’t been allowed to focus on that news at the time, though now it was the only thing she could think about. How ironic that her best friend would be the first to know. Gretchen’s psychic powers had let her peek into Erin’s life, and she had been ever since Erin had ‘ruined’ her wedding. She knew more about Erin than she knew about herself.
It was too early to take a pregnancy test, and only one person could’ve fathered this child. Erin experimentally touched her lower abdomen. It felt the same as it always did: a bit curved and soft. It would change soon enough, but Erin couldn’t quite shake the uncertainty that had come along with Gretchen’s threat. Had she been right? Was that the fluttering feeling Erin had noticed when she and Jace had shifted together at the drive-in? She had to know, and there was only one way she could think of.
She glanced down the beach. No one was around, as far as she could tell, but still, she decided to slip into the trees nearby. Erin needed someplacesafe, someplace discreet. She wouldn’t take any risks right now, not after everything she’d already been through.
Pulling in a deep breath, she forced her body to relax. It didn’t want to. Tension knotted her muscles and stiffened her spine, but she needed her bobcat now more than ever. She melted away her human form and let her beast arise. She felt a pulling at her lower back, and this time, it was her stubby tail emerging instead of sore muscles. A tickle of fur erupted over her body, and the world grew a bit bigger around her as she shrank into the diminutive shape. As her ears peaked into rounded triangles, they twitched to pick up the sounds of nearby birds singing happily in the trees. Her inner organs moved and changed, rearranging themselves in an act that was nothing short of a miracle.
The real miracle, however, was what she felt inside as soon as all four paws were on the ground. There it was again, that fluttering feeling she’d experienced before. She’d dismissed it as excitement and apprehension at being with Jace, being in new places, and having new adventures. This was the start of a new adventure, all right, though it wasn’t one she’d planned. Erin stayed still for a long moment, paying attention to her body and listeningto all it had to tell her. The life was so young, but it was undeniable.
She knew for sure now, but it presented even more questions. Erin returned to her human form and walked back out onto the beach. She sat just out of reach of the waves, feeling the cool sand beneath her while the warm sun bathed her skin. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them as she let time slip by. She was still in that position when Jace found her a while later.
“Did you get any breakfast?” he asked as he stepped up behind her.
He was always taking care of her. That made sense, really, since he was a seasoned father. He understood how to care for people. Did that mean he’d continue wanting to do so for another eighteen-plus years? “A bit. Enough for now, at least.”
To her surprise, he sat on the sand next to her. “I was a little worried when I got up and you weren’t anywhere in the house. I know you sent Gretchen away last night, but I still worried that she’d found a way to come back.”
“The trees took care of her,” Erin replied somberly. She hated that she’d had to bind her best friend, the first person who’d truly understood the power that she wielded. Performing that spell hadfelt like cutting the wings off a bird, yet she’d known it was necessary. “She won’t be coming back, and if she did, she wouldn’t be able to harm me or anyone else other than tossing insults.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, running it slowly down her back and then up again. “How are you holding up?”
“Physically, mentally, or emotionally?”
“All of the above.”
She laid her knees down so that she sat cross-legged. “I’m working on all of that. I’m really sorry that Gretchen brought her anger against me here. I feel so bad that your clan ended up getting involved, but I’m also grateful for their help. I can’t believe how ready they were to step in and fight like that.” The sounds of those demonic beasts Gretchen had captured still haunted her ears when she thought about it, the hissing and growling that came from another world.
“Of course, they did. It’s what clans do. I’m sure your coven is the same way,” he reasoned.
“They are,” she agreed quickly, knowing the other shifter witches would’ve also had her back. “Still, I don’t think that was what you’d planned on with taking the rest of the week off.”
He rolled one shoulder casually and flicked a bitof sand with his finger. “When I was learning the ropes of being a captain, I discovered things rarely turn out the way you want them to. You can lay out all your plans the best you can and do all sorts of things to help make sure they happen, but sometimes fate will still come along and send your ship off course. The best thing you can do is check your charts and get back on track. That is if you still even want to be on the same course anymore. Sometimes, you get blown to one side or another and find out that you’ve ended up in a better place than you’d ever imagined.”
She laughed a little despite all the heavy thoughts that weighed down her mind. “Everything is a ship metaphor for you, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much,” he agreed with a smile. “It works pretty well for most things.”
Erin rubbed her lips together. She could try to come up with more nautical symbolism to discuss what was really bothering her, but it was time to be blunt. It was time to be straightforward, to ask all the questions that’d been hanging in the air between them. Erin had been avoiding them until now. Having this time to sit on the beach and think had made her realize she’d been worried the answers wouldn’t be what she wanted. There was someoneelse to consider now, though, someone besides just herself and Jace. That was the jumping-off point for all of this.
“Jace, I know you heard what Gretchen said. I thinkeveryoneheard, actually.” It wasn’t like they were teenagers and anyone was going to be upset with them for what’d happened, but it still embarrassed her to know that something so personal had been broadcast to his entire clan.
His chest moved as he breathed in. “I did,” he replied heavily. “Was she right?”
