With Charles she didn’t lose herself, she gained Charles. They were a united front against “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” He was her warm safe place in the storm of the world, and she … she thought that she was his home.
She wanted his children.
“Absolutely not,” he said, and for a moment she thought he was reading her mind because she had lost track of the conversation. But then he said, “No witchcraft.”
She wasn’t stupid. He was throwing out any obstacle he could find. She would have backed off except for the deep belief, born of the mating bond they shared, that he wanted a child even more than she did.
“Don’t fret,” she told him. “I won’t do it the way your mother did.” Unless there are no other options. “I actually thought that Moira might have some insights for Samuel. I thought it only fair to call and warn her that I’ve sent him after her … he sounded quite intense about the whole thing.”
He raised his head like a panicked horse. “Ah. I misunderstood. Good.”
Charles liked children. She knew he liked children. Why did he panic over the thought of their child? She considered asking him. But she’d tried variants of that; he’d given her a series of answers that were true as far as they went. She was pretty sure that he didn’t know the real answer. So it would be up to her to discover it.
Once she figured it out she would be able to see if there was a way around it. The panic she could work around—and if he honestly didn’t want children, well, she’d deal with that, too. But it was the sadness that lingered behind the panic, the sadness and longing her wolf knew was there, that made her dig in and fight. Anna style.
“Okay,” she said brightly. She who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. “I just thought I’d give you an update.” She picked up her bundle of information and tucked it under her arm.
She walked over to the window and looked at the falling snow that had frosted the deep green trees and coated the not-so-distant mountains, making the world seem clean and new. Also cold.
“Have you decided what you’re getting me for my birthday yet?” she asked.
He liked giving presents. Sometimes it was a flower he’d picked for her—other times expensive jewelry. He’d gradually learned that really expensive gifts, which he liked best, freaked her out. He now left those for important occasions.
He put his arm around her, his body relaxed against her. “Not yet. But I expect I’ll figure something out.”
Charles couldn’t keep his mind on the numbers, so he closed down his computer. Money was power, and in the long run it could keep his people safer than his fangs and claws. After a hiatus, pack finances were his to protect again.
His gaze fell on the yellow sticky he’d put on the top of his monitor—Anna’s birthday, her twenty-sixth. He needed to find her a present. His preference was for jewelry—which, as his da pointed out, was sort of marking his territory for the other males in the vicinity.
My mate, the ring on her finger told them. And when she ventured to wear any of the necklaces and earrings he’d gotten her, they said, And I can provide for her better than you. After his da made him aware of the reason for his need to bedeck Anna in jewels, he’d begun to work on presents that she did want.
Anna wanted children.
He stared at the bright-colored Post-it note.
It was perfectly reasonable that she’d want children. He understood the urgency of her drive even if she didn’t. She’d been a college student when Justin, the Chicago Alpha’s hit man, had taken away nearly all of her choices; she’d spent the better part of the time since then taking them back. Reclaiming her life from those who would have taken it from her entirely.
His phone rang and he picked it up absently—until he heard the voice on the other end.
“Hey, Charles,” said Joseph Sani, once the best friend he had in the world. “I was thinking of you today. You and your new bride.”
“Not so new,” Charles said, not fighting the happiness rising up. Joseph affected everyone that way. “It’s been three years—a few months more than that. How are you?”
“Three years and I haven’t met her yet,” Joseph said, his tone asking, Why not?
Years slipping away without notice, Charles thought. And the last time I saw you, you were an old man. I don’t want you to be old. It makes my heart hurt.
“I couldn’t come to your wedding,” Joseph was saying, “but you didn’t make mine, either. We’re even.”
“I didn’t know about yours,” Charles told him dryly.
“You didn’t have an address or a telephone that I knew about,” Joseph said. “You were a hard man to find. I admit you sent me an invitation to yours, but it was through Maggie—and I didn’t get it until the day before.”
Yes, he’d rather thought that Maggie wouldn’t pass it on. “I’m surprised you got it before the wedding at all,” he said, acknowledging his own culpability. “But we didn’t send out invitations through the mail. Just called. I tried three times and got Maggie twice. The second time I just left the message.”
Joseph laughed, and then coughed.
“That’s quite a cough,” Charles said, concerned.
“I’m fine,” Joseph said lightly. “I want to meet your wife, so I can see if she’s good enough for you. Why don’t you bring her down?”
Charles worked the numbers in his head. He’d met Joseph when he’d been twelve or thereabouts, back shortly after World War II. Joseph was in his eighties. The last time he’d seen him face-to-face he’d been in his sixties. Twenty years, he thought in dawning horror. Had he been so much a coward?
“Charles?”
“Okay,” he said decisively. “We’ll come.” His eyes caught on the Post-it note again, and that gave him an idea. “Are you and Hosteen still breeding horses?”