MC Bear My Baby (Beartooth Brotherhood MC) (15 page)

“Shoot.” Cindy released her and took a quick sip of her water.

“How the hell did Tate know I was pregnant before I did…and does he really know the sex of the baby?”

Cindy shook her head. “Did you not just see what I did there a few minutes ago? It’s a shifter gift. We can sniff out a shifter pregnancy and the sex of the baby. It’s the same way we can watch a person and know if they’re shifter or not, and what animal they can turn to. It’s our way to keep the genetic line going. Everything he said was true. Congratulations on the baby boy. Is that it?” Cindy raised her eyebrows and idly played with her straw, looking bored.

Molly made a hand motion to her belly and glanced up. “How is this…going to work exactly? Giving birth to a bear shifter baby?”

“What? Do you think you need a shaman and the magic of the full blood moon? It’s like having any other baby, toots. It hurts like a bitch.”

Molly rolled her eyes. So helpful.

“What I mean is—”

“I know what you mean, sweetheart. You’ll be fine. I was fine. Any woman or shifter who’s attempted it was fine in the end. It’s scary, it’s messy, and there are a lot of unknowns…like this little development about you carrying this extra part-turned shifter stuff in your lineage. But what the baby is or isn’t has nothing to do with raising your kin with love.”

That was oddly insightful, coming from the source.

Molly swallowed, folded her arms under her chest, and leaned back in the booth. “So your philosophy is
don’t think about it until it’s on top of you
?” She tried not to sound too annoyed. “And what, I’ll learn the magical secrets as I go along? What about when the baby shifts for the first time?”

“First of all, in our community of shifters here in Red Ridge, babies don’t shift. Kids and teens don’t either, not until the first full moon after they turn eighteen. That’s just how it is and don’t ask me why. Your little bundle will most likely do the same, except with this extra twist on account of you…well, we’ll just have to see. But isn’t that the way it is anyway? Unknowns happen. And we got to deal with them as they come. That’s really all you’ve got in this life. You deal with babies the same way you deal with men…one thing at a time. We’ve all got a lot of love for each other, and that gets you through everything else.” Cindy tapped her fingernails against the table. “You love the bastard, don’t you?”

Molly ignored the woman’s frown and sighed, unable to make direct eye contact. Wasn’t that the million-dollar question. She licked her lips, doing everything to avoid having this conversation with the middle-aged woman she and Tate had a threesome with.

“Do you want to keep Tate in the baby’s life? Maybe that’s an easier one for you to answer.” Cindy drawled with a knowing smile. “I doubt you’d be asking me all of this if you weren’t already thinking about that crazy fucker spending time with your little tike. Am I right?”

Jesus, these clubhouse bitches were direct. “Maybe.”

“You need to do what works for you. Tate will respect whatever you choose. The MC will be there with anything you need.”

“It’s that easy?” Molly blew out a breath, dying to order a chocolate shake with rainbow sprinkles and pounds of whipped cream.

“No, it’s never that easy, sweetheart. It’s just better when you have friends.”

M
olly got
on her phone the second she got to her Jeep. She needed to talk to Mom. She found her mother’s number on the speed dial and hit send. The damn thing went to voicemail so she blew up the woman’s phone. Mom answered on the tenth call.

Molly didn’t say hi and didn’t wait for the woman to say hello either. “Come home, Mom. We need to talk.”

“Honey is everything okay?” Mom asked. She was probably at the country club in North Las Vegas. The sound of her friends all babbling in the background already infuriated Molly.

“I’m safe, but no Mom, everything is
not
okay. How soon can you be here?”

“I won’t be home until tonight. Can this wait?”

Molly started the car. “I’m coming to you now. Don’t leave the country club. That’s where you are, right?”

“Yes, but Molly, what in the world has gotten into you?”

She was tempted to blurt out the question, but wanted to look her mother in the eye to find out why she’d been hiding something this big from her all these years. “See you in an hour, Mom. Oh, and get us a suite. This has to be a private talk.”

“Molly, why are you—”

Molly hung up and drove out of the diner’s parking lot, leaving a trail of desert dust in her wake until she turned onto the I-15 highway. Her mind was racing, and her stomach was churning for the entire ride. One of her parents was a turned wolf shifter? Molly didn’t even know what a turned shifter was. She’d heard that Sabrina’s best friend, Addison Riley, was the first one the MC had gotten to know about, but she hadn’t paid enough attention to what made him different, how he turned. Now she was finding out she had that in her DNA? And of the wolf breed?

Just a little over an hour later she was in North Las Vegas, making the winding turns on the road flanked by the lush manicured golf green of the country club where her mother had a membership. Getting to the parking lot of the main building, she grabbed her purse and hopped out of the Jeep, practically charging into the front entrance to find Mom. Thank God Molly had dressed decently before she’d left the house, or they’d never let her in, family of a member or not. The dress code was strictly enforced. Molly smiled briefly, picturing what it would be like for these people to see members of the MC rolling up and trying to get in. Talk about a culture shock. They’d be up in arms and dialing 911 in a hurry for sure.

She didn’t bother to text her mother and announce she was here. She walked right into the dining room. Even in her haste, Molly drew in a breath when she entered the hall. The place was breathtaking. It was the one major project her late father had been hired to design before he moved the family to Louisiana. Mom always used to say he was one of the most talented architects in the US. The main reason she came down to the country club so often was to feel connected to Dad again.

Molly had never seen any architecture anywhere else that was so awe-inspiring. The room was vast, like walking into an English castle. It had a soaring cathedral ceiling made of some type of light-colored wood, probably maple or oak. Four gothic-like chandeliers lit up the ceiling even further. There was timeless wall paneling down the rounded sides until it straightened out and met the all-glass walls on either side of the room. At the far corner was a massive wood burning fireplace, large enough to dwarf even Tate if he stood next to it. It looked like something out of a Viking movie, complete with a hand-carved crest on the mantle. After she took in the space, she scanned the room for Mom, who was sitting at a table with four ladies her age, still blabbering.

“Good afternoon,” she said to the old biddies, remembering her manners and nodding to each one. “Mom, can we have a word?”

Mom placed her napkin beside her plate and grabbed her purse. “Sure, dear.” She turned to her friends. “I’ll be back, ladies. Don’t wait for me if dessert arrives.”

“Did you get us a private meeting room or suite to speak?”

“Yes honey. Follow me.” Mom was smart enough not to ask what this was about until she stepped inside one of the private day rooms on the main floor that was available to members. She turned to Molly. “What’s going on, honey? Is it the baby?”

Molly folded her arms and looked at her mother in her conservative clothes and neat blonde bob haircut. She shook her head. “You and Dad lied to me for all these years.”

“What?” Mom was trying to come across as innocent but Molly saw right through it. Her eyes always darted all over the place when she was trying to hide something.

“Stop it, Mom. You and Daddy lied. Now tell me which of you are a turned wolf shifter so I can let you get back to your tea and crumpets.”

Mom walked over to the nearest chair and sat at the edge. Her hands were shaking. “I’m sorry we never told you.”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry! I had to find this out from Silas’s mother when I could have heard it from you and Dad? You let me get to my twenties without knowing this kind of life-altering information! Wait a minute. Which one of you was it? Or is it? Christ, this is confusing.” Mom said nothing. She just sat there looking down at her hands. “Mom, are you a turned wolf shifter?”

Finally, she shook her head. “No, baby. It was your father.”

Now it was Molly who needed a seat. Her father had lied to her all her life? The man who she adored and who loved her dearly? He took this kind of secret to his grave without telling her? She couldn’t even fathom the betrayal. “But…how?”

“Honey, that was all my fault. I made him keep it from you and I’m sorry. He wanted to tell you when you were old enough, but I didn’t want to scare you or have you think you were different. When you made it to eighteen and didn’t turn into a wolf shifter, I was sure you didn’t need to know. Don’t be upset with your father. All of this is my fault… even his turning.”

Molly’s eyes slowly looked over at her mother. “How could his being a turned wolf shifter be your fault?”

“God… I never thought I’d ever have to tell this story again. I think I need a drink.” She got up and walked over to the minibar in the corner of the room. Opening the fridge, Mom took out the first thing her hand made contact with. She opened the tiny bottle of vodka and downed it, then repeated that with the champagne, white wine, and whiskey until all that was left in the minibar was macadamia nuts, chocolate bars and fizzy water. This had to be some story because Mom barely drank.

“Enough, Mom. Just tell me what happened and what you know about how this can end up affecting the baby I’m carrying. The bear shifter baby…as in not a wolf shifter and not a human.”

“Okay.”

Mom dumped the last bottle in the now overflowing tiny trash can beside the minibar and came to sit beside Molly in the sofa. The woman stank of spirits now, and all Molly could think of was nobody had better light up a match in this room. She shook her head to focus and listened.

M
olly watched
her mother take a long breath before starting. The whole thing was surreal, but she was so curious, she sat there and tried not to say a word.

Mom finally looked up at her. “Your father and I had just gotten married. We lived out here at the time, not in Louisiana. We were heading home from work, driving on the I-15 when I started to feel carsick. I never got carsick, honey. Never. But that night, I felt ill. You dad stopped on the side of the highway so I could get out and walk it off. Dad and I walked down to a small embankment because I thought I’d throw up, which I did. He ran back to the car to get me some tissues and…honey, your dad was getting some tissues from the passenger side when a distracted driver of a tanker truck hit the driver side of the car…”

Mom was shaking now, like she was reliving the whole thing. “It was horrible. I heard the impact and turned around to see Dads body thrown from the car and into the dirt shoulder of the road. The truck never even stopped. When I got to his side he was bleeding heavily and barely breathing. I was in a state of shock, love, but I managed to grab the first aid kit from the trunk and tried to stop the bleeding. There was so much blood…I was already a nurse, but I couldn’t help him with the supplies we had. Back then we didn’t have cell phones… I tried to wave down a passing car and nobody stopped…it was horrible. And then out of nowhere, this woman appeared, walking up the side of the highway. I swear she came out of nowhere. She was young, definitely younger than I was back then…probably not even twenty. She ran up and asked me what had happened, then she went over to your father and tried to get him to open his eyes. When he did, she asked him if he wanted to live. He nodded, and that’s when she told him she would heal him but he would be turned. We had no idea what that meant. We didn’t quite care. Anyhow, she laid her hands on him, bent to his face and kissed him. I was shocked. I wanted to push her away, because who does that? After a second, the woman stood up and said your father would be fine.”

Molly wasn’t sure she heard what she thought she’d just heard. “Wait…are you seriously telling me the woman healed him with a kiss?”

“I don’t know. Yes…maybe.”

“Did you ask her anything else?”

“I tried. I asked her who she was and she gave the name Theriona. After that she walked over to me, touched my stomach and then she told me I was pregnant with you. She kept her hand on my belly…I felt her, honey…really felt her. She had an energy in her hand and I know it was transferring into my stomach. When she took her hand off, she told me the trauma of seeing your father get injured had weakened me and passed into you, but she had done what she could to help you.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I didn’t know at first, but I suppose it meant she healed you and that may have passed some of the same energy that healed your father and turned him into a wolf shifter? I still don’t know. She just turned and walked away down the side of the highway and then she disappeared… vanished. After that I went back to your father’s side. All the bleeding had stopped, and underneath the gauze I had put on his most serious wounds, there was no injury…nothing at all, as though it had never happened. When your father finally came to, he was fine, and had barely remembered anything. We got in the car and hurried home, but the next day I made him take the day off and I had him checked out by a doctor friend at the hospital where I worked. Nothing was wrong with him. I didn’t dare tell them about Theriona and all of that. I mean, who would believe me?”

Mom took a long breath. “That afternoon your dad turned for the first time. We were in the living room and all of a sudden he said he was feeling itchy and hot all over. I went over to feel his forehead, positive it had something to do with that mysterious woman. Your father crouched down, shaking until his body just… transformed. Course fur grew all over him, and his face and limbs distorted until he wasn’t a man anymore. He was a wolf, with grey fur, pointy ears, white paws and those bright blue eyes…right there in our living room with his t-shirt and sweatpants hanging off of him. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t seen it with my own eyes…”

Molly could believe what she was hearing, but then again, she was carrying a bear shifter baby in her belly. “So what happened then?”

“We agreed to keep it a secret. He would go into the woods every week or so and turn, and he’d be back home a day or two later. He did a lot of research and searched to see if there were others of his kind. We found nothing. About a week after that night at the side of the road, I did a pregnancy test and confirmed we were having you. I was worried the whole time I carried you, but when you were born, the doctors said you were healthy, and nothing ever came up in your bloodwork. Around when you were three, your father was hired by the biker club up close to where the Beartooth Brotherhood clubhouse is, in Red Ridge. Wait, I guess by now you know they call that place Shifter Canyon, right?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay because not many people know that. Anyway, lucky for your father, that motorcycle club was a wolf shifter club. The president back then saw him and knew what you dad was instantly, and that he was not like the rest of them. Your dad told him the story about Theriona and how he was turned. They had never heard of anything like it, except in old stories passed down for a few generations about how the first shifter came to be. To that wolf shifter president, it was myth and legend, until he met your father. They taught him everything about being a shifter, about wolf pack life, and invited him to join their pack. You have to understand the pack instinct, honey. It’s strong and powerful. Your dad used to say they were calling to him. It scared him. He did go back to see them once and the club president told him if he wanted answers, only the witches in Louisiana could give him some insight.”

“Is that why we moved out there?”

“No, but it helped him when the firm he worked for offered to transfer us out there. I was on board because as a nurse, I could easily find work pretty much anywhere. So that’s what we did. We moved out there and he started on his quest to find a witch who could make him human again. That never happened. No one ever admitted to knowing anything, except one witch who lived deep in the Bayou. She told him it was magic that made him and magic could reverse it, except she said it was a powerful spell and she was nowhere powerful enough. She promised to talk to her coven to find out who could help, but…” Mom hesitated.

“But what? What happened?”

Mom gave her a grim look. “He went back to see her and was told she had died…someone killed her, Molly, and your dad always suspected it had to do with her digging around to find a witch or a spell that could turn him back. After that, he stopped asking.”

Molly couldn’t fathom all of this happening and her being completely unaware. There was nothing at all that felt out of place about her childhood or growing up. Nothing at all. How the hell could that be?

All of a sudden she had to ask.

“Did dad really die in that workplace accident three years ago, Mom? Because now I don’t believe a thing. Scaffolding doesn’t just collapse on a Saturday when no one but Dad is on a job site. And actually, he was a shifter so he had to be able to heal himself…”

Mom didn’t say a word.

“Christ Mom. Tell me the truth.”

“He died at work, love, but you’re right that it probably wasn’t an accident. We just had no proof that the collapse was sabotage. The piece of metal that killed him pierced his heart and he was killed instantly. He couldn’t shift to heal himself. There was no time. Oh God, Molly, I’m so sorry you have to be finding out at a time like this… I should have told you. I should have let him tell you he was a wolf shifter all those times he wanted to, then it wouldn’t all be such a blow.”

Mom put her head in her hands and sobbed for a long time, until Molly moved closer and wrapped her hand around her. “I’m not happy you kept this from me, Mom, but think I understand why, and I forgive you. Come on, your rich gossipy friends are probably wondering if you’ll ever go back to finish your brunch date.” She held her mother as the sobbing slowed and eventually stopped, thinking this was so unreal, wishing she had that one someone with his arms around her now.