Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

“ W e should have heard something by now.” Her mom paced around the office, wringing her hands. “What if he made it to the main road? He could have been hit by a car, or worse.”

“It’s going to be okay, Mom,” Paige said, though her own heart was racing with anxiety. “Conleth’s searching from the air, and Buck and Honey are trying to pick up his scent. I’m sure they’ll find him soon.”

Even as she spoke, her phone buzzed in her hand. One glance at the screen, and all the breath left her lungs in a relieved whoosh.

Her mom searched her face, whole body taut with desperate hope. “Was that?—?”

“Conleth,” Paige confirmed. She sagged against a wall, feeling as though she’d run a marathon. “He’s got Archie. He says they’ll be on their way back soon.”

“Oh, thank God.” Her mom collapsed into a chair, burying her face in her hands. “I’m never going to forgive myself.”

“It’s all right, Mom. He’s safe. Nothing happened. ”

Her mom shook her head, face still hidden. “But it could have. I should have been stronger, I should have been able to hold it together. For Archie’s sake, and yours. I’m a terrible mother.”

“Hey.” Paige dragged a chair over so she could sit next to her mother. “You’re a great mom. I wouldn’t want any other. Neither would Archie.”

“You should,” her mom said bitterly. She rubbed at her face. “We have to figure out what to tell Archie when he gets back. I don’t want him to feel he has to hide his shifting from me. We’ll have to convince him he misheard, or misunderstood.”

“That’s not going to work, Mom. He knows you’ve been struggling for a long time. He just didn’t say anything because he could tell we were trying to keep it from him.”

“Then we’ll have to claim I’m struggling for a different reason.” Her mom drew herself up, dropping her hands and squaring her shoulders. “We’ll tell him…we’ll tell him it was the heat. That sometimes I don’t feel well, but it’s nothing to do with shifters, and that I’m getting better.”

“But you aren’t getting better. Ignoring this won’t make it go away, Mom.”

“I’ll do better in the future.” Her mom’s jaw set in a stubborn line. “I can cope when it’s just Archie. It just caught me off-guard, coming to a place where there’s so many…people like his dad. I’ll be fine once we’re all home, and everything’s back to normal.”

Back to normal .

Paige had the sense of standing at the edge of a cliff. A large part of her—the sensible eldest daughter part—wanted to take a step back, onto safer ground. To reassure her mom that yes, of course, nothing would change. That things could go back to normal.

Conleth would find a way to keep their relationship separate from her family as long as necessary, if she asked. He’d spent years pretending to believe a prophecy he’d invented, after all. The slightest indication of her desires, and he’d be coming up with a dozen plans, each more ridiculous than the last.

What do you want, Paige?

Conleth had murmured those words against her mouth, his fingers trailing across her skin. Whatever she wanted, he would give her, without hesitation.

What do you want, Paige?

And she knew.

“Mom.” She took her mother’s hands in hers, feeling the fine, frail bones. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Your co-counselor? ” her mom said incredulously. “The tall man with the peculiar hair?”

Paige was glad Conleth wasn’t around to witness her mother’s reaction. “It’s not normally that color.”

Her mom was still looking as stunned as if Paige had announced she intended to marry an oak tree. “But—why didn’t you say anything about this earlier?”

“I didn’t want you to worry. And to be honest, I was worried too. About how you’d react, and how it would impact our family. But I’m serious about him, Mom. I?—”

She stopped short, realizing she’d never said the words out loud before. Not even to Conleth.

Her mom studied her face, and her own expression softened. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” Admitting it felt like a weight sliding off her shoulders. “I realize that must seem crazy, when we only met at the start of the summer. But I think part of me knew he was the one from the moment I first saw him.”

“I felt the same way about Archie’s father,” her mom said quietly. “Up until then, I thought love at first sight was just a fairy tale. And look how that turned out.”

“That’s one of the reasons I was worried about your reaction,” Paige admitted. “But Conleth’s different, Mom. He’s not going to leave me. He literally can’t. It’s a shifter thing.”

“If you say so,” her mom said, sounding a bit dubious. “I can’t pretend I understand this whole fated mates business. But if he makes you happy, that’s all that matters.”

“He does,” Paige said simply. “But I want you to be happy, too. I love you both. I hope that one day, you’ll be able to welcome him as part of the family.”

“If he’s part of your life, then he’s part of mine,” her mom said firmly. Then she sighed, looking down. “But…it’s going to be hard. I suppose there’s no point trying to pretend otherwise.”

“I think it’s better if we’re all a little more honest with each other, going forward. I understand why you kept your problem with shifters a secret for so long. But if you keep denying you have a problem, it’s only going to get worse.”

“I was denying it even to myself,” her mom confessed. “I really don’t remember what happened the last time I saw Archie’s father. But I think at some level, I knew. Every time Archie turned into a bear, it felt like a scar reopening, deep inside.”

“That’s why none of the medications ever made you feel better. Even you didn’t know the root cause of your trauma. But now that you do, maybe you can finally get some help.”

“How?” Her mom didn’t sound hopeful. “Any regular doctor would think I’m flat-out crazy. And there’s an obvious problem with seeing a shifter.”

“I’m sure we can find a human therapist who knows about shifters.” She smiled. “Conleth will probably be firing up his computer and making a spreadsheet of options the moment he gets back. He doesn’t sit around when someone has a problem. Whether they want him to solve it or not.”

Her mom’s eyebrows rose a little. “I’m beginning to see why you like him.”

“I think you’ll like him, too.” She let out a wry breath. “At least, once he stops desperately trying to impress you. Which may take a while. He can be kind of a lot. Go easy on him, okay?”

“And what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t make sure my future son-in-law was worthy of my daughter?” her mom countered, a spark of her old spirit returning. “I have to check he’s the sort of man who’ll overcome any obstacle for you.”

Paige grinned. “Believe me, Archie’s already tested him enough.”

“We’ll see about that,” her mom said ominously. “Speaking of Archie, any updates? I thought this man of yours was meant to be fast.”

“He is.” Paige checked her phone and discovered that it was later than she’d thought. “Conleth could have flown halfway across the state in the time we’ve been talking. He should have been back with Archie well before now.”

With a deafening crash, the office door flew open. Archie hurtled into the room like a very small tornado.

“Mom!” He threw himself into her arms, talking a mile a minute. “Mom, you gotta listen to me, this is really important! Paige and Conleth are mates!”

“Archie!” Paige exclaimed.

“It’s too late, Paige! I’m gonna tell Mom the truth, and you can’t stop me!” Archie fixed their mom with earnest eyes. “She doesn’t want you to know because he’s a shifter and she’s scared you’ll pretend that’s okay when actually having shifters around makes you sad. Which sucks, but Conleth says he knows some doctors who maybe can help you feel better, and anyway, it’s stupid for everyone to just mope around being sad and miserable instead of just talking . And it’s not right for Paige and Conleth to break up, or live apart, or sneak around trying to keep their relationship a secret. They have to be together!”

“Archie,” Paige tried again. “You really don’t need?—”

“Because they’re mates !” Archie yelled at the top of his lungs. He paused, face crinkling in consternation. “Oh. Except you don’t know what that means.”

Mom cast Paige an amused look over the top of Archie’s head. “Actually, I do.”

“It’s okay, Archie,” Paige said patiently. “I already told her.”

Archie looked between them. “Really? About being in love with Conleth and mating him and everything?”

Well, not quite everything.

Paige was uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t yet confessed to her mom the real reason for Parents’ Day. But it was a moot point now, anyway. After learning about her mom’s long-buried trauma, she was hardly about to ask her to consider moving to Thunder Mountain. Maybe one day, after a lot of therapy, Mom would be able to live in a community filled with shifters—but not anytime soon.

She repressed a wistful pang. “Mom knows Conleth and I are mates, and what that means. Everything’s going to be all right. We’re good.”

“Oh.” Archie digested this. “Well, that’s okay, then.”

Their mom kissed his forehead, her arms around him. “I’m glad you decided to make sure I knew, though.”

“So am I.” Paige went over to hug her brother as well, heart swelling. “Thank you.”

Archie tolerated the gesture of affection for a whole five seconds before squirming free. “Mom, Paaaaaaige! Enough with the mushy stuff already!”

“All right, all right.” Their mom released him. “Where’s Conleth? I feel I should meet him properly, now that I know what’s been going on.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.” Archie brushed himself off. “We should probably go rescue him.”

“Rescue him?” An alarm bell began ringing in Paige’s head. “Rescue him from what?”

Archie looked rather shifty. “Wellll…I thought that if he had a chance to talk to you, you’d probably convince him to do something really stupid, like splitting up for Mom’s sake. And I didn’t want him zipping in here to stop me from telling Mom the truth. So when we got back to camp, I made sure he’d be kept busy.”

“Archie Patrick Brown,” their mom said sternly. “What have you done now?”

“Um.” Archie fidgeted. “Paige? You know that thing you told me to never, ever do?”