“Call your mom,” he said, handing her the phone and walking away.
Stepping outside, he gave her some privacy to talk. A part of him hoped that she still needed him with her to protect her, but he knew that was ridiculous. They both knew they couldn’t stay here forever, even if they wanted to do just that. It would mean giving up everything outside of one another. Neither his pack nor her clan would accept them, even if they had that option.
He walked out toward the lake and looked out over it. How much easier must it be just to be human? How ridiculous was it that he was faced with marrying someone who could give him a shitload of kids rather than just being able to find someone he loved? If you’d told him that he’d have a problem with this a week ago, he’d have told you he didn’t care. He’d never been great at love and the idea of just marrying someone for mutual benefit seemed perfectly reasonable.
What had this bear done to him? He didn’t want to leave her. What he wanted was to stay there and take care of her. His Uncle had told him the cabin was his when he had called him earlier. He had not accepted the offer, saying he only needed it for a while, but maybe he should reconsider. He wasn’t rich, but he had some money saved, enough to get him by for until he could strike out on his own, away from the pack.
His thoughts were disrupted by the sound of footsteps behind him. He turned to see her striding across the grass with his phone extended to him, a smile on her face.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“It’s good. Mom was alone and was able to talk to me. She said that they have turned back. There was some problem on the road with the cops after they busted up that poor guy’s shop and they decided it wasn’t worth the hassle to track me down. Mom said they told everyone I was dead, killed in a bike accident.”
“That’s going to bite them in the ass if you ever do go home.”
“Mom said that they gave her a message, in case I contacted her.”
Her face was much more somber now.
“What message?”
“The message is that if I ever show my face anywhere near the clan again, they’ll make sure I’m really dead, and they’ll make sure I don’t have any family left to tell anyone differently.”
“They threatened your parents then.”
“Yes. They did.”
“Well, at least they are off your trail now. That’s good.”
“Yeah. Now, I can get a job and get on my own two feet so that you can get on with your business.”
Faced with the chance to finally be done with this and get on with his search for someone to have a family with, Malcolm found that it was suddenly much less desirable to him than it had been before. Still, he had to accept that he had no future here.
“Alright, well, we will stay here for a few more weeks and you can look for a job in town somewhere, unless you want to go somewhere else.”
“I probably need to, at some point, but I just don’t have the money to right now. A few weeks would be great if you can spare the time. Maybe I can get a job at that taco place that was hiring and earn enough in tips to at least get a start somewhere else.”
“I can spare the time and you are welcome to use the car. You can handle a car better than you did that bike, right?”
She laughed, her face flushing red as she spoke.
“Yes. I’m much better on four wheels.”
“Alright. Well, no time like the present. You want to go into town and see if they still have the sign out?”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all. We’ll do that and tool around town a bit now that we don’t have to worry about being seen so you can get a feel for the place and find your way around.”
“That sounds perfect. Let me get changed.”
She returned to the cabin and Malcolm went back to looking over the lake for a few minutes. Okay. Three weeks. He could live with that. It still gave him plenty of time to get on with his search for a proper mate. In the meantime, she seemed to understand that they weren’t in it for the long haul, so why not just have some fun and enjoy their time together? Maybe they’d both walk away with a nice memory to replace the turmoil that brought them together.
It seemed like he had been standing there no time at all when she came back out wearing black jeans and a white t-shirt, with another white shirt in hand. She held it up toward him.