Eric's Edge (18 page)

Pouting, Maria watched Eric retreat into the kitchen with a couple of Bears on his heels, and felt a surprising sense of loss.

“He’s just going to start dinner. He’ll be back,” Dana said with a laugh.

“You caught that, huh?”

Dana shrugged and settled onto the sofa in the lodge’s great room across from Maria. “I guess it’s normal when you’re a shifter’s mate. Tamara has mused about it before.”

As if summoned, Tamara glided into the room at that moment with Astrid, chattering a mile a minute.

“I’m feeling pretty pathetic,” Maria said.

Dana gave her a dismissive wave. “You’ll get over it in time. He’s your man. Eventually, you won’t care who sees, who knows, or what they think.”

Tamara stopped in her tracks. “Who’s whose man?”

Astrid snorted and took the seat beside Dana. “Eric is Maria’s man.”

Tamara stomped her foot. “Since
when
?”

“Since forever, apparently,” Astrid muttered. She settled low in the chair and put her feet up on the coffee table.

Tamara sank heavily onto the cushion beside Maria and glowered at her.

Maria shrugged. “Sorry.”

“So when you told us that we should be getting recreational dick to mitigate some of our stress, the dick you were getting all that time was Astrid’s brother’s?”

Astrid made a noise of disgust.

Maria laced her fingers together atop her lap and shrugged. Dana had said that Maria would get to the point where she didn’t care what people thought, but she was with the Shrews. She was
always
going to care what they thought.

“You little minx,” Tamara said.

Maria chuckled. “I’m just an opportunist. He was safe and available, and I guess he was what I needed.”

“The safe part is important.” Astrid scanned the room and looked at each lady. “We’re down just one Shrew.”

“We could always video chat with Sarah,” Dana said, “but I talked to her a couple of hours ago and she was dying for sleep. I think Gabrielle’s hitting one of those growth spurt periods where she’s always hungry, and Sarah’s going a little batty.”

“I’m sure Felipe is, too,” Astrid said. “Fabian’s just like him. They both overreact to baby stuff.”

“Can you blame them given the way they grew up?” Maria asked. “They’re going to be extra clingy to the little bit of family they have.”

“I’m sure they didn’t expect their family to practically triple in a year.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Tamara twirled a length of her long blond hair around her finger and narrowed her eyes. “Their father showed up, both got married, Felipe has a baby, and Fabian has one on the way. Your kids and Sarah’s are going to be first cousins,” she said to Astrid.

“Yep. I think both guys want big families, so we’ll see what happens.”

Maria could tell when Dana’s mood started bottoming out, even if neither of the other ladies could. She may have been wearing a tender smile, but inside, she was torn to shreds. Her aura was weak, and her energy was so cold. So
sad
.

“It’ll be okay,” Maria whispered.

Dana let out a breath. “Hope so.”

The other lades stopped smiling. They’d always been intuitive, even without owning Maria’s empathic gifts.

“What did the doctor say?” Tamara asked. “I worry I may have the same issues as you. I think Bryan has been afraid to bring it up.”

“She said there are options.” Dana shrugged halfheartedly. “If we can’t find the right drug combination to make my womb hospitable, there’s always surrogacy.”

“It’s not a bad option,” Maria said.

“I know. I still can’t help feeling a little disappointed. It’d still be my kid and Patrick’s, but I wanted that nine months, you know?”

Maria fixed her gaze on her lap and nodded. Pregnancy was kind of the gateway to motherhood. It was a visual countdown of what would happen and helped Mom adjust to the upcoming event. And of course, there was the bonding part. Even Maria’s mother had wanted it, in spite of her dire medical predicament. It was all the time she’d had with her baby.

“When will you decide?” Astrid asked.

“Not until after this Bear mess settles down,” Dana said. “Who knows how long that’ll take? But while we’re on the subject of Bears…”

Maria didn’t
have
to look up to know why Dana’s voice had trailed off. She could feel the incursion in their space, into their energy. Someone else had entered the room. She did look up, though, to confirm who it was.

It was the woman from the loft.

Astrid waved her in. “Don’t mind us. We look like we’re shooting the shit, but we do manage to get a little work done every now and then. Turn on the television if you’d like. The remote is on the mantel. If you’d like a snack to tide you over until dinner, there are some pretzels and nuts on the wet bar.”

The lady nodded, but didn’t move. Her dark gaze shifted from Astrid to Maria and locked there.

Oh, hell
.

“Maybe it’s this place or the altitude,” she said in that lilting voice, “but somethin’ ain’t right to me.”

“I hear the lodge is haunted,” Tamara said.

“It’s not ghosts. I know ghosts. No ghosts here.”

Maria glanced at Dana, who was staring at the newcomer agape.

The lady pointed to each of them. “No, I don’t think my mind’s playin’ tricks. You’re not right. None of you are right.”

The Shrews got accusations like those every now and then, and their tactic was generally to remain quiet and see what the people were getting it. Sometimes, they weren’t referring to supernatural stuff at all, so the Shrews had learned to be silent.

“You’re not human.”

Shit
.

The lady brought her finger around again, pointing to each. “I see you. All you. You look human enough. Got all the right parts and appear the right way, but you ain’t normal. Something’s wrong with you.”

“What do you imagine it is?” Dana asked in a neutral tone.

The lady shrugged. “Dunno. I think you do, though.”

Dana turned her hands over in concession.

“No word for what you are.”

“There are plenty of words.” Tamara brushed a bit of lint off her black cardigan. “None of them are particularly flattering. You could call us Shrews, if you like. That’s the word we’ve claimed.”

“Shrew. That’s your company.”

“How do you know that?” Maria asked.

The lady pointed to Maria again. “Followed you. Asked the lady at the desk in your office where you went. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to, but she let me know after I told her why I asked.”

“And why
did
you ask?” Astrid said. “Drea is good at keeping her lips zipped, so she had to be pretty convinced you weren’t up to anything malicious.”

The lady bobbed her chin in Maria’s direction. “I think she knows.”

Astrid cut Maria a gaze. “Do you?”

“I think so. I think she might be my sister. Half-sister.”

“Half. Whole. Doesn’t matter. I came here to see who this person trying to reach out to my grandmother was.”

“I was just trying to connect. I don’t want anything from her.”

“You’ll have to pardon me for being protective of her.”

“Everyone should have someone looking out for them, even if they don’t think they need it.”

“We all need it.” Tamara gave Maria the sweetest, shortest side-hug. Just right.

The lady raised her chin and let it fall finally in a slow nod. “Just to connect, you said.”

Maria nodded slowly. “Making up for lost time before it’s too late. I’m compelled to do it now. I don’t like having regrets.”

“That’s definitely a Shrew thing,” Astrid said softly. She got to her feet and cracked her back. “I’ll go see if Eric needs any help.”

“Why bother?” Tamara asked. “He’s just going to send you out saying you’re disrupting his flow.”

Astrid gave Tamara a long stare. “Maybe we’re disrupting the flow in here, too.”

“It’s fine,” Maria said. “I don’t have anything to hide.” She looked to the lady. “Do you?”

“No. Not a thing.”

“Well, then.” Dana stood, too, and leaned across the coffee table to extend a hand to the woman. “Dana Slade-O’Dwyer.”

The lady shook it. “That’s a mouthful.”

“Marry an Irishman, and you can get your own fun collection of consonants and vowels. I’m the owner of Shrew & Company.”

“B-B-I-C,” Tamara said with a snicker.

Dana rolled her eyes.

“Big bitch in charge,” the lady said, laughing.

“Now I know who came up with that. Thank you, baby Shrew.”

Tamara grinned.

“My name is Marcella Bailey,” Maria’s sister said. “Most folks call me Marcie.”

“But what do you want to be called?” Maria asked.

Her sister narrowed her eyes and seemed to have to actually think about it. That was why Maria had asked. When she’d said “Marcie,” her energy had flared as if the name offended her.

“I’m fine with one person calling me Marcie, and that’s my grandmama. Can’t get upset at an old lady. She does what she wants, and you just cope.”

The Shrews all laughed.

“Marcella it is, then,” Maria said.

Tamara moved over and Maria patted the cushion between the two of them.

Marcella sat and looked at Maria. “Mama don’t call you Maria.”

“What does she call me?”

“She calls you Deborah.”

“She wouldn’t know that name. My mother never had a chance to give it to me.”

Marcella twined her fingers. “They talked. Before you were born, I guess. Made Mama promise not to let anything happen to you. Only so much a person can do from another country. She said the last time you went, she didn’t want to send you back because she knew she wouldn’t see you again for a while.”

“Did she know that…my mother wasn’t my mother? My birth mother is dead. I was raised by my aunt.”

“
Ohhh
, that explains it.” Marcella put her head back against the top of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “She always said something wasn’t right. They used to talk all the time, before you were born. Your mama was the one who reached out to her, and then she didn’t call anymore. Just sent you.”

“I hope she isn’t upset that I couldn’t visit after that.”

Marcella shrugged. “She was upset. Took it personal. I think she’s coming around, though. I told her you called. Old lady don’t wanna get her hopes up, though.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint her.”

Dana leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and tented her fingers. “So, what do you do for a living, Marcella, that you could just hop on a plane and come vet the lady you worried was harassing your grandmother?”

Marcella turned her hands over and smiled serenely. “This and that.”

“Oh, hell. That sounds like something one of my brothers would say,” Tamara said.

“And what do these brothers of yours do for a living? I’m always interested in networking with fellow freelancers.”

Tamara snorted and wedged her phone out of her back pocket. She tapped her thumbs against the screen for a while and chuckled. “Freelancers. That’s a new one. I’m going to have to share that with them because it sounds a lot better than the truth.”

Soren busted through the kitchen doors, reading his phone screen, with a curious-looking Eric behind him.

“Come tell you
what
?” Soren asked. His brow was furrowed when he looked up at his sister, and then he seemed to notice there was an extra body in the room. His head turned slowly past Tamara to Marcella, and he stood there, clutching his phone and staring.

Eric slipped his arms around Maria’s neck.

She flinched—still unused to his public touch—but grabbed his wrists before he could back away. She looked at him, pleaded at him with her gaze—and tried to pull him back.

He leaned down and put his face against hers.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“You’ll have to get used to it.”

“I will.” She’d sure as hell try, anyway.

“What’s happening here?” he asked.

“That’s my sister.”

“Yeah?” He nodded slowly, and whispered, “I can see it.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Everything all right?”

“I think so. Or…things
will
be.” Maria was optimistic for once. It wasn’t a feeling she knew well, but she recognized it anyway, and liked it.

“I’m glad things are looking up for you.”

“As if you didn’t have anything to do with that.” She gave his wrists and squeeze and earned herself a kiss to the top of her head.

Smiling, Tamara pulled her gaze away from Maria and Eric and cleared her throat. “You all right, Soren?”

Soren dragged his tongue across his lips and kept staring. “Huh?”

Tamara’s smile fell away in a flash. “Shit. I should…call Bryan, maybe. We could get a dolly or something, tie him to it, and wheel him out of here. We could toss him into the dungeon with Peter.”

“Your sister’s not weird,” Eric whispered to Maria. “She shouldn’t be hitting his radar that hard.”

Maria turned to look at her sister, who was sitting calmly with her legs crossed at the knees, twiddling her thumbs. Marcella stared right back at the catatonic Bear, giving up no outward signs of stress.

Then again, Maria wasn’t reading any inward signs of stress off of her, either—and she could read her just a little now. Marcella was calm, cool, and collected.

She shouldn’t have been, not with that unholy growling sound coming out of Soren’s chest.

“Shit.” Eric walked around the sofa, grabbed Soren by the collar, and yanked him jerkily to the kitchen. Soren was trying his damnedest to keep his feet locked to the floor, but Eric actually had his wits about him and thus the upper hand. “I’m locking him inside the walk-in until Bryan gets here,” he said.

“Um…” Tamara said, squinting at her phone. “Bryan’s not coming. Peter got out.”

Dana got to her feet. “What do you mean, Peter got out? That bunker is impregnable from inside the cell.”

“Yes, it is. I know this personally, having had Bryan lock me in there a time or two for funsies. Someone let him out.”

“Who and why?”

“Drea let him out. I guess we should have taken his phone. He can be quite convincing when he wants to be.”

“She was supposed to be in Durham!” Dana exclaimed.