Dawn's Innocence

Kacie gasped and shook with terror as she gripped the log for dear life. She wasn't going anywhere. They could call the fire department out here to fetch her ass. She was done. She didn't care if she made the six-o-clock news or the front page of the paper. She wasn't moving. Right here, straddling this log was good. Great actually.

"Kacie, we can't hang out here all day. You're going to have to get across. It's chipped beef and gravy day this morning. You don't want to miss that do you?" Tristen coaxed. Gently and carefully, he urged her onto her feet. "I'm right here with you. I'm not going to let you fall. You fall. I fall. Got it? We either get across together or we take a swim."

The sound of Tristen's voice was comforting. The deep tenor of it made her feel safe and protected. He wouldn't let her fall. Slowly she wiggled and maneuvered her way onto her feet. Wobbly legs barely supported her as she stood. Stifling her panic, she focused on the sound of his voice, the beat of his heart, and the warmth of his body. Her trembling fingers gripped his forearms as she struggled for balance.

"Good." Tristen eased a breath from his pursed lips. He had to be careful not to startle her or make sudden movements. He teetered precariously on the log. Supporting her weight and maintaining his balance as he took slow, measured steps backwards. Inching her forward with every step back, he said, "We're almost there."

John Mark watched as Tristen coaxed Kacie across the log. Tristen was worthy of his marks as a wolf and as a protector of his people. He was brave, risking himself with confidence and sureness, without a moment's hesitation. If Kacie fell, so would Tristen. Yet he walked as if it were a bright sunny day and his feet were on terra firma instead of on a slippery log hanging over a steep embankment fifty feet below. Kacie, as terrified as she was placed her faith in Tristen. Step by step, they made their way across. Well done, she'd passed his test and learned what he'd been trying to teach her all morning.

John Mark knew Tristen was watching them. He'd caught his scent on the breeze. The test wasn't for Kacie alone, but also for Tristen. And both youths had passed with flying colors. Kacie had learned to trust and Tristen, to sacrifice without a worry for his own safety.

Once Kacie and Tristen were safely across. John Mark sprung onto the log and zipped across in a blur. "I think you've earned your breakfast, Kacie," he said, proud of his pupils, "You too, Tristen. We'll start back at noon. Go home. Eat. Take a nap." John Mark clapped Kacie on the back. "And Kacie, remember, a good partner will always be there to catch you before you fall." He left them to get back to the house on their own. There was one thing the pack possessed that the brothers did not. A wolf always knew the way home to the pack.

Tristen eased Kacie to the ground. Planting her in the middle of a freshly sprouting mound of spring grass. "You ok?" he asked. Sitting beside her, he rested her hand in his palm while she gathered her bearings.

"Yeah. I think," Kacie sighed in relief. If he hadn't been there she would have fallen and probably broken her damned neck. John Mark would have tried to save her, but no matter how fast he was, thirty-two feet per second was definitely faster. She stared down at Tristen's fingers clutching her hand. The hand holding hers was strong and solid. When the fingers were clutched into a fist, they could deliver a lethal blow. When the fingers were open, they could caress with such tenderness. She realized how little she really knew about the man behind his cocky smile. "Thank you, Tristen. For everything."

Tristen smiled and closed his fingers around her hand. Gently, he brushed a stray lock of hair away from her eyes. "You're my partner." He leaned closer and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "I'll always be there to catch you. No matter what."

Kacie closed her eyes and let his warmth wash over her shivering body. Tristen considered her a partner. His partner. The knowledge filled her with both equal measures of excitement, happiness, and dread. She worried that she'd fail him, or like today, she'd almost pulled him down with her. Caring came with responsibility. She was responsible, not only for her own life, but his as well. Did she want that? Changing the subject, she broke free of his kiss. "I'm starving."

"It's chipped beef and gravy day," Tristen agreed. He dragged Kacie to her feet and steadied her by planting a gentle hand on her shoulder. She was shaken, but otherwise ok. And once she smelled the biscuits and got something in her belly. She'd be right as rain. His words had more meaning than what Kacie had placed in them. He knew that. What he'd actually meant was that he was her partner for better or for worse, and he wanted the title for life. His stomach roared at the mention of food. "Come on."

Kacie walked beside Tristen. Lightly he joked and playfully frolicked through the woods. He belonged in this place. Was completely at home in the thick woods that shrouded them in their spiny fingers blooming with new life. She wasn't sure if she belonged here or not. She wasn't sure if she was good for him or if her intentions went beyond the obvious where he was concerned.

Her whole life had been so focused on finding a way out. She wasn't sure if she was ready to concede that this was where her future was and that he was the one she should spend it with. To her, the whole concept seemed like more and more like the damned fence than she'd been trapped behind for so very long. She didn't know if she was ready to give up on the illusion of a life she'd imagined for so many years. Maybe the idea of the life she'd spent her years daydreaming about as she stared out at the stark south Texas landscape wasn't real. Maybe the life was nothing but smoke and mirrors and love was real. Maybe love was here, playfully tromping through the woods beside her, tempting her, not trying to fence her in but to free her.

Chapter 40

Eloise fingered through the bridal magazines with frustration. None of the finery and perfect visions in white lace and ruffles seemed to fit. She wanted something meaningful and simple. She had less than a week to get this wedding together and she hadn't even decided on a dress let alone what flavor of cake to choose. Weddings were a celebration of two people coming together to declare their love. The last thing she wanted was an overdone fiasco filled with lacy do dads and satiny bows and ribbons.

She thought back to Jan's impromptu wedding. The event was perfect in its simplicity. Jeans and T-shirts, soulful love flute song, and scraps of food tossed together to make a feast. She wanted something like that, perhaps a bit nicer and better planned, but something that would bring everyone together in celebration.

"Any luck?" Tala asked. She'd popped by to have breakfast with her father and her step-mother to be and had ended up elbow deep in bridal magazines and web pages.

"No. I guess I'm going to get married in my tennis shoes and a pair of jeans. None of this stuff is what I'm looking for." Eloise grumbled as she shoved the magazine across the dining room table.

"Maybe, you're just looking in the wrong places." Tala soothed. Taking the magazine and stacking it with all the rest, she put the dog eared magazine Eloise had been abusing on the bottom of the stack. "Spring is here and the last of the cold weather is almost gone. The bluffs are beautiful this time of year. Full of new life and the miracle of creation."

"You mean the place where Torr almost killed Thomas? What's so special about that place? It holds nothing but bad memories for me." Eloise shivered. Remembering the red of Thomas's blood against the white backdrop of snow.

"Its all in how you look at things, Eloise. The bluffs are a place of great power and significance also, a place of life, not death. If Thomas hadn't spilled his blood, you and my father wouldn't have gotten to know one another. If that day, as awful as it was hadn't happened, Jan might not have a baby on the way and you might still be in Texas. The events that occurred there, did so for a reason."

"To bring Nash and I together?" Eloise had to chew on that one for a minute. Others had suffered so that she could find her happiness? Sometimes, as hard as she tried, she found their faith in the mystical goddess hard to swallow.

Tala gave a polite smile and sipped her coffee. "Nash and you, Jan and Thomas, perhaps Kacie and Tristen, but also, much more than that, to unite the Lost Children with their family. With the goddesses help you cared for them and loved them alone for all those years and then you and Nash brought them home to us."

"You speak as if you've seen her first hand." Eloise tipped a doubtful brow at Tala and her blind faith in a goddess she'd never seen.

"I have. I too had to make a choice. The goddess gives us all choices and options, what we choose and what path we take is up to us and us alone. She merely watches and guides us, when we choose to let her." Tala leaned close, speaking softly.

"Our packs are not that much different in culture. Grant was to be my mate. When I refused, he challenged my father for pack master. I took my father's place in the battle. That decision led me to Drew and into a life that I could have never imagined." She smiled and glanced across the dining room and into the kitchen where Grant sat at the table coaxing a grumpy baby to eat his breakfast. "I think it all worked out for the best," she whispered. "Don't you?"

Eloise chuckled as GT spit pureed bananas in his father's face. "Grant looks happy enough." She smiled at Tala and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. "And so do you." Eloise caught the expression of longing on Tala's face as she watched Grant with his son. It wasn't an expression of loves lost. No there had never been any love between Grant and Tala. Tala's eyes misted over with heartbreak and uncertainty. "Motherhood will be the hardest decision you ever make," Eloise said gently.

"Sometimes, the choice is made for us," Tala answered. Her voice was hinged with sadness. "I don't think I'm going to get to get the chance to become a mother. Until I met Drew, I didn't want to and now, having a baby is all I think about. I imagine the life growing inside of me. I dream about holding his baby, our baby, in my arms." She sighed absently and longingly. She'd given up much in the name of love. Not that she had any regrets about the decisions she'd made.

Vampires were sterile. When she'd given Drew her blood and taken his into her...when their hearts beat with one singular pulse instead of two and they both became something other...something more than what they'd ever been before because of the union of their blood. She'd given up more than her wolf's blood in that bonding of love. She'd possibly forfeited her chance of ever having children. At the time, Tala honestly believed she was ok with her choice. And she was. Drew completed her. Life at the compound and with the pack fulfilled her. But, there was still a part of her vacant and incomplete. A drive...a want to give away and receive the love only a child could give her. "I just don't think it's going to happen for us."

Drew had his family, his mortal children and the line that sprang from them, fathered in the time before he'd become the Great Father. He'd held new life in his arms and he'd known the unfortunate bitterness of standing back and letting them die. Many of the brothers were offshoots of his family tree. Lucien. John Mark. Dane. Will. Tala had never and would never resent her husband for the family he'd fathered in that time before.

He'd been human. He'd had a wife. And he'd died in battle, bleeding the ground red in the ultimate sacrifice to become what he was. His exchange of mortality for immortality, in so many ways it hadn't been a fair trade. He'd known death, but could not die. He was a father of a great nation and could not create life. He had the gift of the wolf. He could eat and drink. Yet, to honor the sacrifice of the brothers, he did not. And of the one gift the wolf possessed he didn't know if it'd been passed on to him. His DNA was rare and precious and the gift of it would begin and end with him.

"Stop trying so hard. Enjoy what you have with Drew. Embrace your family for all that they're worth. And someday, when you least expect it, perhaps, everything you've given will be returned." Eloise understood Tala's pain. There were times she wished she could turn back the clock. Biology was her enemy. She was still in her prime. But, the clock was ticking at a furious pace. Nash and she had toyed with the idea of starting a new family. The thought of it was both terrifying and tantalizing in equal measure. It took courage to bring a child into the world. And in these uncertain times, no matter how much Nash reassured her. For everything she'd experienced and somehow miraculously managed to survive. Motherhood wasn't a courage she was certain she possessed. Things could change in the blink of an eye and in that brief sweep of the second hand everyone you loved could be gone.

Grant scowled in frustration at his son. The kid would not eat for him no matter how many airplane sounds and funny faces he tried. Claire had demanded to go back to work at least a couple of days a week, just to have something to do. She was happy enough with her life here. But, though she'd never said it. Grant sensed a part of her was unfulfilled. Claire was a woman who needed her work. She lived for the busy pace of the hospital, for caring for others, and for the satisfaction she found at the end of the day in a job well done. He respected Claire for her commitment to making life just a little better for someone else. And he loved his wife enough to support her choices.

Once a nurse always a nurse, that was what she'd told him this morning as she rolled out of bed before dawn and ambled to the shower. As a side benefit, in the interest of patient/nurse relations, he didn't mind the naughty sponge baths she gave him or her attentive bedside manner one bit. She looked hot with her hair pulled up into a messy blonde ponytail and dressed in her pristine white nurse shoes and pressed navy blue scrubs.

He wasn't hen pecked or pussy whipped. Hell. No. He'd agreed to her working while he stayed home to take care of their son. Just call him Mr. Mom. Today was the first day and it wasn't going so well. He was an accomplished hunter and quite handy in a fight, yet, this teacup-sized version of himself was kicking his ass. He wanted Claire to be happy and to do what she wanted to do. He wasn't going to be one of those husbands that kept their wives chained to a stove. He wasn't going to be one of those dads that never took the slightest interest in the hard work behind raising a child and yet took all the credit.

G.T. was just a baby. How hard could it be to take care of a baby? What a stupid question. One he never should have asked. G.T. was stubborn, headstrong, and he wasn't even teething yet. Grant had pureed bananas in his hair, slobber stains on his favorite t-shirt, something gooey drying on his cheek, and he hadn't had a shower or barely time to take a piss so far today. G.T. woke before the clock struck six and he'd been going strong ever since. G.T. was crawling and getting into everything. Putting anything he could get his hands on into his mouth...disgusting things like the toe of Hunter's shoe and the head off one of Mouse's Barbie dolls.

G.T. had made a fast crawl for the front door, the stairs, electrical outlets, lamps, and the dryer. He'd almost been stomped underfoot at least a dozen times because one of the pack hadn't seen him. And Grant had changed more messy diapers than he cared to count. It did no good to put him in a playpen. The kid was out and on the loose faster than Grant could get sat down. No wonder Claire had been so eager to go back to work. This baby thing was no joke. She was probably on a coffee break having a good laugh with the other nurses over the fast one she'd pulled on her poor husband.

The plan was to feed G.T a little chow, get his belly good and full, and settle him in for a nap. Like that was ever going to happen. The kid would not eat. Oh, he'd open his mouth and suck the banana off the spoon. But, swallow it down instead of spitting it straight in his dear old dad's face...not a chance. Maybe, G.T didn't like bananas? Hell no, he was not going to deviate from Claire's careful instructions. And her directions for the proper care and feeding of their son included pureed bananas. Out of curiosity, Grant hazarded a taste from the baby spoon and winced in disgust. No wonder G.T. spit them out. The bananas were horrible. No matter, G.T was a baby. What did he know about how good or awful something tasted?

Claire claimed G.T loved bananas. Grant was going to get the kid to eat the damn bananas. And afterwards, in accordance to Claire's instructions, it was nap city for junior. God, he hoped G.T. would take a nap before four when Claire got off work. It'd be great to take a shower and get the baby goo scrubbed off. He was nervous. He had to do a good job or she'd never trust him alone with their son ever again. She handled life and death situations and he couldn't handle a baby? Not happening. "Grant Thomas, can't you simply cooperate, just a little?"

"I'd better go rescue him," Tala said. Watching Grant with G.T was hilarious, but he'd suffered enough. The tray of the high chair, Grant, and G.T were covered in pureed bananas. Grant was a capable, loving father. He just didn't get that G.T was doing what he did best and simply being a baby. A rumpled sheet of notebook paper hung out of the back pocket of Grant's jeans, no doubt a detailed instruction list from Claire. Grant was used to order in his life. And well, with babies there truly was no such thing as a timetable or a list of instructions. Babies did what they did when they did it. Grant was trying too hard. And G.T. was just a little too much like his father to play along. Getting up from the dining room table, she winked at Eloise. "Happy wedding planning. Let me know if I can be of any help."

"You mean you'd rather deal with a cranky baby than help me plan my big day?"

"When Janine finds out there's a wedding to be planned, and she will eventually find out. Given that, I'd have to say, absolutely." Tala crossed the wide expanse of the dining room and popped into the kitchen. "Want some help?" she asked Grant.

Things weren't quite the same between Grant and her. They never would be the same after everything that had happened between them. They'd made their peace and she'd forgiven him. But, she'd never forget he'd tried to kill her father and then almost put her in her grave to gain control of the pack. His reasons for it didn't matter. It was the fact that he'd done it. That he'd thought her father wasn't good enough to lead and deserved to die because of it that still to this day left a deep bruise on her heart.

At one time, they'd been best friends. Sharing their secrets and loving each other the way only best friends can. That all changed when Grant became a man and she grew up into a woman. He'd wanted the one thing from her she could never give him. He'd wanted her to love him the way a man loves a woman and he'd been willing to kill to get it.

Tala would never completely understand why Grant hadn't been the one to do it for her. He was everything a wolf should be. Broad shouldered with lean, long, powerful legs, and muscular biceps, fiercely intelligent, his eyes dark and glinting with carnal delights, and a face capable of making even the angels sigh. Perhaps, it was because on some level she'd known they weren't right for each other. He hadn't been in love with her, only with the idea of being in love. It broke her heart that things had gone down the way they had. Grant hadn't been the only one capable of killing. She was the one who took her father's place in the ring. And she would have killed Grant to save him.