Chapter 13

13

"I think that's just about everyone," Jace said, looking around at the Brigham clan members who had flooded the beach. "Can I get you a beer or anything?"

Erin quickly shook her head. "No, the soda I have is fine." She didn't particularly feel like drinking that night, probably because meeting the entirety of the Brigham clan was overwhelming. They all seemed more than happy to say hello to her, and she didn't feel like a stranger in their midst. No one demanded to know exactly who she was and why she was there with Jace. That made it harder to handle because she was tempted to stay there and be a part of them. "You said you do this often?"

"Whenever we can. It's a good excuse to get together, and why live on the beach if you're not enjoying it?" Jace reasoned. "Our houses might be close together, but we all have our own lives. It's nice to reconnect."

"I love that." Erin took in the bonfire that crackled before them. Every now and then, someone would add a log to the flames, keeping it going. Lawn chairs of all shapes and sizes were arranged in a rough circle around it. Jace had explained that they were behind the clanhouse, where their Alpha and his family lived. The other houses surrounding it were just as bright and busy, with adults and children alike running in and out to fetch a towel, drink, or toy. It was a private party that everyone enjoyed, casual and free.

Jace sat in a lawn chair next to her, reached over, and took her hand. "What's really nice is having you here."

"Thank you." She felt so warm and comfortable with him, but under it all, Erin knew her time was running out. In a couple of days, she was due to drive back to Salem. She knew she would miss this, though it was nothing more than an illusion at the moment. Vacations were always fun because they weren't real. They were just a brief escape from the demands of life, when you could pretend that you didn't have bills to pay and responsibilities to tend to.

"Oh, wait. Here's someone you haven't met yet. This is Ruby." Jace smiled as a little girl toddled up to them, moving easily on the sand.

"Hi, Ruby." Erin felt her heart rise at seeing the sweet little thing. Her eyes were bright and happy. She carried a sippy cup by the handle and was heading straight for Erin. She planted her cup right on Erin's knee. "Is that yummy stuff in there?"

Ruby nodded and grinned as she took a drink. Then she shoved herself at Erin's knees, reaching up.

"You want to come sit with me?" Charmed, Erin brought the girl onto her lap. She was so warm, snuggly, and soft, and her simple presence reached down into the bottom of Erin's heart. It poked at that secret desire to have babies of her own, something Erin had been keeping locked away for so long.

"Are you making friends?" A woman about Erin's age had been tagging along behind Ruby.

"Erin, this is my cousin, Holly. Holly, this is Erin." Jace made the same introduction he'd been making all evening, with no particular explanations needed or provided. "She's Ruby's mom."

"It's nice to meet you, and Ruby must think so, too," Holly laughed. "You don't have to hold her if she's a bother, though."

"She's not a bother at all." Erin's bobcat hissed at the very thought of putting the little girl down. She admired the girl's soft dark hair, tiny hands, and the way she wiggled with delight when she heard someone strike up a few chords on an acoustic guitar. Erin was absolutely in love. "I don't mind a bit."

"She's very comfortable with you," Holly noted. "Do you have kids of your own?"

"No, none for me," Erin admitted. Other people had asked her that in the past, and they often wanted an explanation. The societal pressure to have children often hit Erin's biological desire for them at an odd angle. Everyone thought a woman should have had her babies by this point in life, and Erin would gladly have done so if only the circumstances had been right. Now, that chance had slipped away from her. She gently touched Ruby's chubby cheek.

Holly's phone chirped, and she whipped it out of her pocket. "Oh, man."

"What's wrong?" Jace asked.

"Pierce and Rick are stuck at the firehouse." She tapped a quick reply into her phone.

Jace nodded. "I was going to ask you where they were. They've been working a lot lately."

Holly nodded. "They've had a few guys out sick. I know they really wanted to be here tonight, but they can't get away. I should run them some dinner. I'll have to see if Lila can watch Ruby for a minute."

"I don't mind hanging onto her for a bit," Erin offered.

"Look at you, Rube. You've charmed yet another innocent adult into doing your bidding." Holly kissed her daughter's head. "Mommy will be back in a few."

"That was nice of you," Jace noted when Holly had gone.

"You don't mind?" Erin asked. "It was just sort of automatic."

"Of course not. We all take care of each other. The kids around here benefit from that quite a bit. If something comes up, the kids get passed into the waiting hands of the next adult. I don't need to explain that to you, though. You know how it is."

"Yeah." Erin did because her coven took care of the others in the same way. It had a different feel there, though, and that made it seem new.

"Ian, Bailey. There you are." Jace grinned as his son showed up with a young brunette, and they took the lawn chairs next to them. "I hoped you were going to make it."

"Hey, Dad. Hi, Erin. This is my girlfriend, Bailey."

There was no end to the new names and faces, but Erin was truly happy to meet them all. Bailey had thick hair, intelligent eyes, and a pretty smile that she constantly aimed toward her boyfriend. "Sorry we're late. I had a meeting at school about some grants we're applying for."

"That's important stuff," Jace acknowledged.

"It is," Bailey nodded, still smiling but serious. "We've got some big ideas for research projects regarding squid. There's so much that we don't know about them yet, and we could make some really big advances in science, but of course, we've got to get the money first."

Erin listened with interest as Bailey discussed all that she'd been learning. She was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, and that excitement was palpable.

After a few minutes, Jace squeezed her hand. "I'm going to run inside for a moment. Are you good here?"

She had her arm around Ruby and the company of Ian and Bailey. " Sure. I'm fine."

"I'll be back in a minute." Jace kissed her forehead before stepping into the clanhouse.

"Ian, your dad told me about the business you'd like to start." Erin was glad she had something to chat with Ian about. She'd been around him a bit on the motor yacht, so at least she knew him a little.

The young man's face brightened visibly. "He did?"

"Yeah. It sounds like quite the adventure. Sharks, planes, boats, and an expert on board who knows about all the marine wildlife. What more could anyone ask for?" It was a big dream, and Erin truly hoped they could find a way to make it happen.

"Exactly!" Ian nodded with enthusiasm. "It's the sort of thing I'd happily blow all my money on, so I don't see why other people wouldn't. Having someone up in a spotter plane means the passengers would be almost guaranteed to get a good look at a shark. And then having Bailey with us would mean they'd get to explore all sorts of other neat stuff through her eyes."

"You're bringing a lot to this, too, Ian," Bailey reminded him.

"Nah. I'm just driving the boat," he said, leaving all the admiration for the others.

Erin felt an odd sensation prickle the back of her neck. She turned around, wondering if that was just her bobcat sensing Jace coming back. He was nowhere in sight, and nothing else around them had changed as far as she could tell. She turned her attention back to Ian. "You should give yourself more credit. It's not like the business would work if you didn't have a ship and a captain."

"Not to mention you're the one who came up with the whole idea in the first place," Bailey pointed out, nudging him with her shoulder.

"Stop," Ian said, embarrassed. "We can't get too enthusiastic until we make it all happen, anyway. It's going to be a while. Something like this is going to take some major startup funding."

"We're going to get that," Bailey promised. "A grant, a loan, something. I'm in school because I love the ocean and all the life in it, but apparently, I have to learn a lot about money to make it all happen. That meeting I went to tonight was pretty helpful. There are grants out there not just for the school's research teams, but for small businesses, too. We just might get lucky."

Ian bobbed his head doubtfully. "Considering I don't even know how we can afford rent for an apartment, I'm getting a little uncertain about it."

That was enough to bring even Bailey to a halt .

Ruby squirmed around in Erin's lap, turning herself so they faced each other. She picked up the sugilite crystal that hung around Erin's neck, running her tiny fingers over it and studying the swirls of purple.

Erin could see the worry in Ian's face. It was a look she'd seen every now and then on Jace's, even when he tried to hide it. "Your father seems to think you can do it," she said quietly.

"Yeah?" Ian's brows were still knitted in doubt.

Erin nodded. "He sounded really proud when he was telling me about it, like there's no doubt in his mind."

"That's just how Dad has always been," Ian replied, although he was smiling now. "He's been supportive of everything I wanted to do. When I was in grade school and said I wanted to be an NBA player, he installed a basketball hoop in the driveway. Then, in high school, I went through this phase where I thought I wanted to be in a band."

"You did?" Bailey asked incredulously. "You never told me that!"

"Because it's embarrassing," Ian snorted. "I grew my hair out long and wore all these ridiculous clothes. Some people were giving me weird looks, but Dad just took me to a music store and bought me a guitar."

"You know how to play the guitar and you've never written me a song?" Bailey asked coyly.

"No, because I don't actually know how to play it," Ian laughed. "I tried, and I thought I was going to be something. I hope I managed to delete all the videos I took of myself. I told Dad I wanted to sell the guitar a couple of years ago because I didn't use it anymore, but I felt really bad about it. He said it was fine because I had the chance to explore something I was interested in, and that was all that mattered."

Now Ruby had found Erin's bracelet, touching each little stone.

"Sounds like he's been supportive for a long time," Erin noted.

Ian nodded. "He has, although I'm sure I don't need to tell you how great he is. You already know or else you wouldn't be here. He really has been a good dad, though. I'm glad to see him getting the chance to live his own life again."

"What do you mean?" As far as Erin could tell, Jace was a pretty free man. He worked a job he was passionate about, and in his free time, he still knew how to find an adventure or two.

"Well, you know." Ian shrugged. "He's been a single dad for a long time. He's always put me first. I appreciate that, and it's what I'd want to do with my own kids if I have any, but I know it had to be hard to just forget about anything he wanted to do for himself. Once I move out and get my touring company going, he won't have to worry about me anymore."

"I'm sure he'll still worry about you. That's what parents do," Bailey pointed out.

"But not in the same way," Ian insisted. "He did all the diaper changes, and then all the hormones, and all the soccer practices and games. Now he can just be himself."

Erin took off her bracelet, showing Ruby how the elastic underneath the round beads stretched. She felt so twisted inside. She wanted to be with Jace. The wild part of her said it didn't matter how or where as long as they were together. But that wasn't reality.

In the times when she'd allowed herself to mentally explore the logistics of a relationship with him, she'd been skirting around some much bigger issues. Jace, as Ian had just pointed out, was done raising his child. He was free to just be himself now, without all the duties that came with parenting. Erin knew she wanted children. That deep desire had lived in her for a long time, and she'd always thought that meeting her mate would be the solution. But it'd come so late! She was too old to have those babies now, and Jace had already lived that part of his life.

Maybe that meant she'd have to resign herself to never being a mother, though that wasn't a thought she relished. If she did, there was still the matter of negotiating this with Jace. Looking around at the bonfire and the sweet little child in her lap, Erin could see how rooted Jace was there. It wasn't just a matter of a job he happened to have or a home he happened to own. Everything felt so impossible. Meeting her one true mate wasn't supposed to be this hard.

Erin felt so disheartened. She decided she needed to make the best of what she had in the short time she had left in Truro. What else could she do?

"I think we could expand eventually," Bailey was saying to Ian. "The sharks are a great place to start, but I don't see why we couldn't get our share of the whale tours, too. Having more than one option and diversifying things a bit might really pay off and keep us booking customers more steadily."

Ian looked at her with soft, loving eyes. It was a look Erin had seen on Jace's face, too, and the similarities between father and son were pretty cute. "How did I manage to find someone so smart?"

"Guess you're just lucky," Bailey grinned.

That prickling feeling took up residence in Erin's spine once again. She looked around, wondering what the hell was going on. Her stomach was jumping now. The sensation was building, making her feel like she had when she thought she'd seen large shapes in the water while Jace was fixing the sailboat. Figuring she had a marine expert right there, Erin was just about to ask Bailey what it might be when she heard Barbara speak up.

The older woman had been standing near the fire with a glass of wine in her hand, talking to another woman who'd been introduced as Carol. "Do you feel that?" she asked, running her free hand up and down her arm as though fighting off the cold. "I feel like I'm being watched."

Carol had been happy and carefree the whole night, but now her face was somber and serious. "So do I, but I'm newer to all this."

So it wasn't just her. Erin remembered another time she had this feeling that something was present yet not visible: when she and Jace had heard the mini golf customers screaming about a beast. Something was definitely happening.

"What is that?" This came from Stacey, Dylan's mate. She pulled her children close as she pointed to a dune at the edge of the Brighams' stretch of beach.

Erin looked, and her heart froze. Several red lights glowed on top of it. They bobbed and moved, and as she watched, she realized they weren't pairs of lights. They were pairs of eyes.