21. Talia

21

Talia

T alia figured that she would clean her house, mow the grass, and take care of some chores since Sebastian and the rest of the Griffins were going to do another run. Sebastian hadn't asked her to go, although she figured that he would have welcomed her if she had asked. It had been fun doing the charity run, but motorcycles weren't really Talia's thing.

She was surprised when her phone buzzed. Normally, she didn't answer when she didn't recognize the number, but for some reason, she decided to.

"Good morning. This is Savvy, Rory's wife."

Talia was surprised to hear from her. "Good morning. How are you?"

"Great. We were wondering if you would like to hang out with me, Beth, and Taryn while the guys are out doing their biker thing?" Savvy asked.

"I would love to. Text me the address and the time."

"Excellent," Savvy said.

Talia smiled. Hanging out with them would be a lot more fun than housework. Her mom would have chastised her for putting off her duties, but the house wasn't messy or dirty, since she vacuumed and cleaned throughout the week. It just hadn't had a deep cleaning in a while.

Her phone blinged. They would be meeting in an hour. That would give her enough time to pick up some cupcakes at the grocery store and drive out to Beth and Conner's ranch.

She expected there would be some awkwardness because she really wasn't one of them, but much to her surprise, the other women treated her like they were old friends. Cat and Drake ran up to her and gave her huge hugs as soon as she stepped out of the car.

"Hi, Talia," Cat said. "You brought cupcakes."

"I did," she said.

"Can we have one?" Drake asked, his face shining with anticipation.

"I think you should ask your mom first," Talia said.

They both ran over to Savvy, who grinned.

"I suppose that it's okay for you to have dessert before lunch this one time," she said.

Talia gave them their treats. They yelled thanks and then ran off toward the huge, white horse prancing around in the corral.

"Pegasus," Cat yelled.

The horse trotted over to the fence, allowing them to scratch his head. The kids climbed through the fence, petting the big horse. Taryn walked over, put a saddle blanket on him, and then lifted the kids onto the back of the horse, letting them ride around for a while.

"Taryn is such an amazing young lady. She's great with those kids and the horse," Talia said.

"She is. Pegasus is a big baby. She rides him in barrel racing and break away roping in the rodeo," Beth said. "She dotes on Zane, Cat, and Drake. She calls them her cousins since she thinks of Savvy as her aunt."

"You're not?" Talia asked Savvy, surprised.

"No. Beth and I've been best friends forever – since we were in diapers. Our mothers are, well, shall we say, the sort of women who give witches a bad name."

"Ugh," Talia said. "Taryn has the best of both worlds, being a wolf shifter and a witch. If she was in an episode of Bewitched, she could twitch her nose in wolf form and do magic."

"She doesn't even have to twitch her nose. Taryn just has to put out the energy, think about what she wants, and it happens."

"That must be nice," Talia said.

"It can be, but witches have to be very careful. We can't use our magic to do any harm, or that puts us on the dark path."

"It's a good thing I'm not a witch then. I know some people who would have painful pimples on their behinds," Talia said. "Every time they sat down on the toilet, the zits would explode everywhere."

"Ew," Beth said and laughed.

"Don't worry. Karma really does exist. Whatever energy you put in the world comes back to you eventually, so those who deserve pimples will get a taste of their own medicine."

"Evelyn says to Beni, in The Mummy, ‘You know, nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their comeuppance?' Beni laughs and says, ‘Really? They do?' She says, "Oh, yes. Always,'" Savvy said. "It's the truth. Even our mothers, who are evil will eventually experience their own darkness."

"I loved that movie," Talia said. "When I left for college, Conner was making the rounds with the rodeo. I didn't know that he had a wife and kid."

"Neither did he," Beth said darkly. "He had been injured and I healed him. We fell in love. My mother wasn't happy about that and cast a memory spell on him, making him forget about me. I was pregnant with Taryn at the time. Eleven years later, he was back in Cheyenne and we ran into each other again. The meeting was powerful enough to break Mother's spell."

"I would have been peeved about that," Talia said.

"Ooh, I was," Beth said. "Mother tried to kill him again, and we healed him. He came back here, and Taryn and I followed. We got married."

"I followed them," Savvy said. "I was Rory's nanny before his wife."

"Lots of romance," Talia said.

Savvy nodded. "Yep. So, what about you and Sebastian?"

Talia smiled. "I've fallen in love with him. What's funny about the whole thing is that I've had a crush on him since I was a teenager. He didn't notice that I existed."

Beth and Savvy exchanged glances. "He knows now," Savvy said. "He loves you, too. It's all over his face and in his eyes every time he looks at you."

Taryn, who had walked up with Cat and Drake, heard that last part. "Does he know about the baby?"

Talia looked at her puzzled. "What baby?"

Grinning, Taryn asked, "You didn't know?"

"Know what?" Talia was thoroughly confused.

Beth and Savvy burst out laughing.

"You're pregnant," Taryn said.

"I'm what?"

"Pregnant. You're going to have a baby," Taryn said.

"How can you be sure?" Talia asked.

"She's always right," Beth said. "Have you been tired lately? Maybe had an upset stomach?"

Talia thought about it and slowly nodded.

"It's a little girl," Taryn said.

"Wow. Just wow. How am I supposed to tell Sebastian?"

"Something along the lines of, ‘I'm pregnant.'" Savvy grinned.

Talia made a face at her.

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about everything from the weather to the ranch, to school. Talia was happy as she drove home that evening, feeling as though she had found true friends.

"I'm so glad I made the decision to come back to Angel's Creek. Everything is working out perfectly, even with the Joe hiccup."

Talia stopped on the way home and bought a couple of pregnancy tests. She took them as soon as she got home. The first one came up positive. So did the second one.

She sat on the back deck with a sweet iced tea, staring off into the clouds that floated by in the darkening sky. Talia honestly didn't know how she felt about being pregnant. She was shocked, although she should have known that it was a possibility. They hadn't used precautions. She knew that she always wanted children and would love this little one.

"If I was using my brain instead of my hormones, I might have put off having a baby for a while. Sebastian's and my relationship is so new," she whispered into the evening air.

She sighed. Talia knew that Sebastian would be a great father. She just hoped he wouldn't ask her to go through the mating ceremony with her just to do the right thing.

The next morning, she texted him, asking him to come for dinner. He accepted.

Talia tried focusing on writing her lesson plans. It took her twice as long as normal because her mind kept wandering off. She couldn't figure out exactly how she was going to tell Sebastian and practiced different ways of saying it until she felt a little ridiculous. It didn't even feel real to her. Sure, she had been tired and a little nauseous, but she had also been stressed out lately.

The district attorney told her that Joe was waffling between pleading guilty to breaking and entering and assault and taking his day in court. He still swore that he saw her turn into a wolf. Sonia assured her that his drug test would ensure the claim would be laughed out of court.

School was also demanding. She had lesson plans with standards to be turned in on Mondays. Grades had to be updated weekly. Half of her planning periods were taken up with meetings or covering classes. Two of her students had gotten into a fight in the hallway, and while the policy was that teachers were not to intervene, she did anyway and got a light chewing out. All of that was enough to cause stress.

Finally, she got her lesson plans submitted and spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. There was something cathartic about it, although she still didn't have a plan on how to reveal the good news to Sebastian.

He showed up with a bottle of wine. She offered to pour him a glass but said she was abstaining for now. Sebastian raised his eyebrows and said, "We'll save it for another time. I'll drink what you're drinking."

She put the chicken, potato, and green bean casserole, mixed with butter and Italian seasoning on the table and some blueberry muffins.

"How did your ride go?" she asked.

"Awesome. We rode over Raton Pass and went into Colorado. If I didn't love Angel's Creek so much, I'd think about moving to Colorado. It's such an incredibly beautiful state. Maybe we could take a few days and drive around Garden of the Gods, cruise over Rampart Range Road, and head into the mountains just to look at the beauty of it. We can take the truck." He grinned.

"That sounds nice. I enjoy sightseeing," she said.

There was a brief, comfortable silence and she said, "There's something extremely important I need to talk to you about."

He looked at her and smiled. "I need to talk to you about something, too."

"Okay, you go first," Talia said, hoping that he wasn't intending to tell her they needed to stop seeing each other for a while.

Sebastian reached for her hand and said, "I…"

His phone rang. Cursing, he looked at it and said, "I have to take this."

He listened for a minute and said, "Email me the details. Have a chopper on my landing pad within the hour. My team and I will be on our way.

Talia's heart sank as he said those words. It seemed that she would have to wait even longer before she told him her news.

He looked at her with a grimace. "I'm so sorry. There is an emergency that I have to take care of."

Sebastian pulled her close and kissed her passionately for a minute before walking outside and disappearing into the darkness.

"If we do get together, is this what our lives will always be like?" she said, lightly rubbing her tummy where a tiny female wolf shifter pup was nestled.