by Zoe Chant
She looked up again, with a rather strained smile. “I named Beth after my mom, actually. I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to have any input.”
“Beth is perfect. She’s perfect.” He managed to stop himself before You’re perfect slipped out as well.
Diana’s smile brightened, turning more genuine. “Well, I think she is. But then I’m biased. I suppose you are too.”
“Ask the crew. Impartial judges. They’ll agree.”
Diana giggled. “I never imagined big, tough wilderness firefighters would be so into babies.” She looked around the cabin, her eyes widening. “And this is much nicer than I expected. I assumed your crew quarters would be, you know, like military barracks or something. But this is actually cozy.”
Callum stood back to allow her to look around, watching anxiously as she inspected the small common room between the two bedrooms. All he could see were the flaws—the carpet too worn to be fit for her feet, the chairs not comfortable enough, the window too small—but Diana seemed genuinely pleased.
She opened the door to her room, revealing the bed he’d made up for her on the floor. Thanks to Rory, who’d flown down to the nearest store, there were diapers and wipes set out for Beth. Callum had left a fresh t-shirt—one of his own—on the pillow for Diana to use as a nightgown, along with clean folded towels. He wished he’d been able to find better flowers for her than the mason jar of simple daisies on the nightstand.
It all wasn’t enough. Connor or Conleth would doubtless have been able to convince her that the simple amenities were somehow chic and trendy, but he’d never had their gift for words.
He should have done better. She deserved the finest silks, luxury soaps, a huge bouquet of roses—
Diana turned back to him, eyes shining. “You really have thought of everything.”
“I can do better.” Snacks, he’d forgotten the snacks. What if she got hungry in the night? He made a mental note to raid the storeroom. “I will do better. I promise.”
“Honestly, Callum, it’s fine. More than fine. Stop looking at me like you’re afraid I’m about to throw some kind of diva fit because there isn’t a bowl of green M&Ms or something.” Rather timidly, she touched his arm. “I think maybe you’re still a little bit in shock. You don’t have to tear around trying to sort everything out immediately, you know. Relax. We have plenty of time to get to know each other, and figure out how this is going to work.”
“I hope so.”
Oh, how he hoped. But he was sitting on more than one ticking time bomb. Lupa’s pack, his brothers, the uncertainty over Beth’s parentage…one of his secrets was going to explode in his face before long.
He had to win Diana’s heart before that happened.
“Callum…” Diana bit her lip, as though debating with herself whether to continue. “If this is going to work, we have to be honest with each other. So I need to tell you…I have general anxiety disorder.”
Did she think that was somehow going to put him off? “If there’s anything I can do to help you feel more comfortable, please tell me.”
“There is.” Her shoulders straightened, as if she was steeling herself. “Please just tell me what’s going on. I know you’re trying to hide something. Believe me, whatever it is, it can’t possibly be half as bad as all the stuff I’m imagining. What aren’t you telling me?”
You’re the love of my life. I don’t know if I’m Beth’s father. And even if I am, I’ve still been lying to you all day.
Also, sometimes I turn into a flying horse, his pegasus put in, helpfully.
“I…I’m not the man you think I am,” he said, picking his words with care. “The charming, carefree guy that you met at the charity auction…that’s not really me. And I’m scared that you aren’t going to like the real me as much as him.”
“Well, I’m not really the sort of confident, adventurous woman who’d buy a bachelor at a charity auction,” Diana said. She blushed. “Let alone fall into bed with him. We were both acting out of character that night, Callum. Just because I liked you when you were smashed out of your mind doesn’t mean I don’t like you when you’re stone-cold sober.”
“Do you like me?”
Oh, for pity’s sake. Someone take me behind the barn and shoot me. He sounded like a fourteen-year-old with his first crush. Then again, he felt like a fourteen-year-old with his first crush.
At least Diana also seemed to be having something of a regression to awkward adolescence. Her blush deepened to a charming rose pink. But despite her evident embarrassment—and the fact that she’d claimed not to be confident—she looked him straight in the eye.
“Yes. I do like you, Callum.” She broke into an impish smile. “After all, you know I have a thing for firefighters. Especially ones that rescue me from burning cars.”
“Can’t keep rescuing you though.” Wait, that had come out wrong. He rushed on, desperately trying to rectify his gaffe. “I mean, I will keep rescuing you. If you need. But I don’t want you to need me to. I don’t want you to be in danger. Even if that would help you to like me more. Though I do want you to like me more. This isn’t helping, is it? See, this is why I don’t talk.”
Diana’s eyes sparkled. “I think you just gained at least three points.”
She’d…liked that outflow of social ineptitude?
Diana patted his arm again as he stood there in baffled confusion. “Get some sleep, Callum. It’s been a long day for both of us.”
“Yes. You need to rest.” And he had other matters to attend to, once she was settled. “If you need anything, I’ll be right here.”
“Thank you, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Diana started to close the bedroom door between them—then hesitated, peering out at him round the crack. “And Callum? Stop worrying so much about showing me the real you. We’re bound together now, no matter what. I’m not going to keep Beth away from her own father.”
And that was exactly what he was afraid of.
Chapter 10
Callum waited until he could sense by the dimming of their life-forces that Diana and Beth were both asleep. Then, bare-footed, he silently crept out of the cabin.
Fenrir lifted his head as he softly closed the door. The hellhound was lying across the front steps, like a very intimidating welcome mat.
*Trouble, Shadowhorse?* Fenrir said in his mind. The thick fur along the back of his neck bristled. *Scent enemies?*
He motioned the hellhound back down again. “No. Nothing’s wrong. There’s just something I need to do. Won’t go far. Watch over them for me?”
Fenrir dropped his massive head back down, resting it on his crossed paws. His ears stayed on alert though, constantly flicking to monitor the surroundings. *Always. Cubs are heart of the pack. Will be on guard.*
“Thank you.” He started down the path, then hesitated, turning back. “Fenrir? Why did you call Diana ‘Sky Bitch’?”
*Because is,* the hellhound replied, predictably but not entirely helpfully.
Callum sat down next to him on the step, resting his elbows on his knees. “I know it’s difficult, but can you try to explain?”
Fenrir made a disgruntled whuff. *Two-leg words are bleached bones in the mouth. Dry and hard. No meat on them.*
He sighed, looking up at the night sky. “Agree with you there.”
*Yes.* Fenrir leaned into him, a hot, friendly weight against his hip. *Shadowhorse would make a good wolf.*
“If only.” His life would have been a lot simpler, certainly. “Sometimes I think you have the right idea, refusing to ever shift.”
Fenrir’s soft growl rumbled through his side. *No two-legs inside. Just wolf. Only ever wolf.*
That was impossible, since no hellhound had ever been born that way. They were one of the few shifter types that didn’t breed true—any offspring hellhounds produced were always just regular humans. New hellhounds were made, by hellhounds biting people, just like in the old legends about werewolves. And hellhounds couldn’t turn animals.
No matter what Fenrir claimed, he had to have been a man once.
But pressing the hellhound on his past always just made him show his teeth and back away. Callum dropped the subject. He leaned back on his hands, watching the flicker-dance of bats overhead; invisible to the eye, but swirling like sparks in his awareness.
He tried a different tack. “Is Diana a night sky? Or a day-time sky?”
Fenrir gave him a sidelong look, as though the question had made no sense at all. *Empty sky. No clouds.* He seemed to struggle for a moment, searching for words, and then added, *Waiting.*
“Waiting?”
*For the storm.*
Callum wondered if the hellhound was picking up on Diana’s anxiety disorder. Standing under bright, clear skies, but always worried that a storm was coming…
Fenrir interrupted his chain of thought. *Asking wrong questions, Shadowhorse.*
“What should I be asking?”
The hellhound’s copper eyes met his, bright in the dark. *What your name means.*
He frowned in confusion. “I thought that was obvious. Horse because of my animal, and Shadow because I’m quiet and stay in the background.”
Fenrir huffed again. *Two-legs. Can’t smell what’s right under their noses. Shadowhorse sees a lot outward. Should look inward sometime.*
“All right, so why do you call me Shadowhorse?”
Fenrir started grooming one front paw, spawning out his toes to nibble at the thick fur between his pads. *Because shape is not your own. Made of absences. Defined by others.*
That seemed distinctly unfair, as well as unflattering. “But I’ve spent my whole life trying to be seen as an individual.”
*Yes.* Fenrir licked his fur smooth, looking entirely unruffled. *Is the problem.*
Well, that was less than productive. And he had better things to do than to continue to try to wrap his head around the hellhound’s peculiar point of view.
See, this is what happens when you don’t take the time to make a proper list, Callum chastised himself. You set off to do something important, and instead end up sitting on a porch debating linguistic philosophy with a dog.
“Thanks for the input.” He got to his feet, brushing off his pants. “I think. I won’t be long. Call if you need me. Or howl, I suppose.”
*Miss howling,* Fenrir said, his mental tone uncharacteristically wistful. He rested his head on his paws again, eyes fixed on the half-full moon. *Pack is pack now, but sometimes still hear them singing, in dreams…*
Must mean his old pack. From what they’d managed to piece together from Fenrir’s jumbled, confusing statements, he’d spent years running with wild wolves. But he’d been alone when Rory had found him. Whatever had happened to his previous ‘family’, he’d never wanted to talk about it.
Leaving Fenrir to his enigmatic reverie, Callum strode down the path. He pulled out his cellphone as he walked, waiting for a bar of signal to flicker into life. He’d deliberately chosen the most remote cabin on the base in order to be as far as possible from all the other human lives, but it did come with the downside of being in a phone dead zone.
Not that he’d ever wanted to make many calls. He’d always found using the phone to be a distinctly unnerving experience. Having someone talking to him without being able to sense their life energy was like having a conversation with a ghost.
He was all the way back to the main buildings when his phone grudgingly acknowledged a signal at last. Sinking down onto a bench next to the fire pit outside the mess hall, he checked time zones. It would be early in England, but he couldn’t wait any longer.
There were only seven contacts in his address book, and six of them were here at Thunder Mountain. He dialed the only one who wasn’t.
It rang for a while. He was just about to give up when she finally picked up. “Callum? Is that really you? Are you okay? Is there an emergency?”
Guilt stabbed him. Had it really been that long since he’d last called his mother?
“I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong.” He heard rustling sounds, and guessed that she was sitting up in bed. “I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said firmly. “I’m thrilled to hear from you at any hour. But there must be something wrong if you’re calling home.”
His mother knew him all too well. She was the only person in his family who ever had.
“No. It’s good news.” Despite everything, he found himself smiling, the sheer joy of Diana’s existence too great to contain. “I met my mate.”
There was a beat of silence from the other end of the line.
Then his mother—the toughest woman he’d ever met, the crack stunt pilot who made macho idiots eat her tailwind, his take-no-prisoners childhood champion who could even bring his brothers to heel, his mother—burst into tears.
Horror struck through him. “No—wait—I said it was good news!”
“It’s the best news!” crowed a new voice. The sounds of his mother’s sobs faded as someone snatched her phone away from her. “No wonder you called! You need advice!”
Callum hadn’t thought it was possible for him to feel any more dismayed. He’d been wrong.
“Oh,” he said flatly. “Dad. You’re there too.”
“Of course I am! And never fear, son, I am ready and eager to help. I am an expert on all matters of the heart.” Despite the early hour, his father sounded as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a squirrel on crystal meth. As always. “I persuaded your mother to marry me, after all. And I only had to propose six times! Though you have to be prepared for the fact that it will probably take you much longer.”
Callum finally managed to jam a sentence of his own into the torrent of words, like hammering a piton into a glacier. “What’s wrong with Mom?”
“Oh, don’t mind her,” his father said sunnily, not sounding the slightest bit concerned. “They’re just tears of joy.”
Callum’s tense shoulders relaxed a little. For all his father’s flaws, the one thing he was never careless about was his mate. They may seem to be the most mismatched couple imaginable—her, pragmatic and capable; him, the physical manifestation of chaos—but they were true mates. He could only hope that he and Diana could form such a strong, deep bond.
“We’re both so relieved,” his father continued. “We worry about you, you know.”
Callum frowned, because he hadn’t known. “But I’m the one you never have to worry about.”
“That’s why we worry about you the most,” his father said, cryptically. His voice brightened, taking on the enthusiastic, helpful tones that always preceded an absolutely terrible idea. “Now, let’s plan your strategy. First things first. Does your lady-to-be like vintage World War II airplanes?”
“No,” he said, in his most curt and discouraging tone.
It didn’t work. It never had.
“Then this will be a lot harder for you than it was for me,” his father informed him. “Although also, quite a lot cheaper. Have you got a pen and paper ready? Okay, so here’s what you’re going to need: six dozen roses, as many strings of fairy lights as you can lay your hands on, some gardening shears, a length of ribbon, a small alpaca—”
“Thank you, Chase,” his mother’s voice said. From the sounds of things, she was bodily wrestling her phone away from her mate. “I think Callum will be fine on his own.”
“I just want to help,” his father protested in the background, slightly muffled. “I don’t want him to make the same mistakes that I did.”
“I know, my love. But honestly, I think that’s highly unlikely.” His mother addressed him again. “You weren’t so daft as to propose to her the moment you met, at least, were you Callum?”
This didn’t seem to be a good moment to admit that he’d skipped over that whole step and gone straight to ‘have a baby together.’
“No,” he said, cautiously. “But there are some…complications.”
One complication, really. One adorable, delightful complication
that he wouldn’t have changed for all the world, no matter how difficult she made things.
“There always are, love,” his mother said gently. “Just don’t overthink things. Trust your heart. And trust her.”
“I do. I will.” He cleared his throat. “But I do need your help, actually.”
“I told you so,” his father called triumphantly. “So, like I was saying, you take the alpaca, and you—ack!”
The call was voice-only, but even without video Callum was certain that his mother was now literally sitting on top of his father.
“Of course, we’ll be happy to help,” his mother said, raising her voice over the muffled, incoherent protests coming from somewhere beneath her. “Anything you need. We’re always here for you. We’re family.”
“That’s what I need help with, actually. I don’t have Connor or Conleth’s phone numbers.”
Absolute silence. Even his dad seemed to have stilled.
When his mother spoke again, she sounded cautious, as if she thought she’d misheard. “You want to contact your brothers?”
Want wasn’t exactly the word. “It’s…necessary. They have to find out about this from me.”
“Oh.” His mother sounded suspiciously snuffly, like she was on the verge of tears again. “Oh, Callum. That’ll mean so much to them. It means so much to me, that you’re reaching out to them like this. They do miss you, you know.”
Missed having a straight man for their endless juvenile pranks, perhaps. Callum grimaced, but didn’t correct his mother’s misunderstanding. He knew the estrangement between himself and his brothers upset her.
He pulled out his ever-present notebook and pencil. “Their numbers?”
His mother rattled them off, clearly without having to look them up. “Though you probably won’t be able to get hold of Connor for a few days. He’s jumping a late fire in Alaska at the moment, so he’ll be out of contact. If you leave a message, though, I’m sure he’ll get back to you the moment he’s back in civilization.”
“Thanks.” That suited him perfectly. He needed all the time he could get, to think and plan. “I’ll do that. I have to go now.”