True Alpha (19 page)

Mandy slipped inside behind Violet, and Clarissa grinned as she put her bags down on the table. “Perfect. With the three of us working together, we’ll be done in less than an hour. Promise.”

Mandy retreated to her bedroom and closed the door before digging the container of pepper spray out of her pocket and putting it back in the drawer she’d taken it from. Her father hadn’t proven to be dangerous, but he had proven himself a disappointment.

****

If Clarissa hadn’t chosen a career as a midwife, Mandy would’ve encouraged her to consider becoming a party planner or a decorator. The shower she’d planned was incredible; the cabin’s interior had been transformed into such a cute place that Mandy hardly recognized her own home. Everywhere she looked, decorations had been hung and furniture had been draped. The shower was half moon themed – adorable. Half moon-shaped details were everywhere, like the glittering cut-out hanging high on one wall above a folding table, which displayed a layered cake with a moon on top and star-spangled sides.

Even the food fit the theme; the girls had made half moon-shaped finger sandwiches, and a bowl of salad made with half moon-shaped pasta was beside the tray of sandwiches in the fridge. There was even a fruit platter that boasted large half moon-shaped slices of pineapple.

“This is amazing,” Mandy murmured for what must have been the tenth time as she waited on the couch – her mother would be arriving soon. “Thanks for putting this together.” She smiled at Clarissa, who was standing nearby, arranging a tray of blue and yellow rock candy that blended right in with the color scheme.

“No problem. It was fun.”

Soft footsteps sounded on the front porch, and Mandy rose from the couch, hurrying to the door. No vehicle had pulled into the driveway, which meant that the footsteps must belong to the only non-pack guest besides her mother. “Hello, Emmaline.”

Emmaline was Ronnie’s grandmother. In her seventies and naturally petite, she didn’t look capable of hiking over mountains, but Mandy knew that was exactly what she’d done to get to the shower. She’d stalwartly refused transportation offers from Ronnie and everyone else – she liked her exercise, as she often said. Of course, it helped that she was a bear shifter, just like her grandson. And though she and Ronnie were at opposite ends of the size spectrum, they shared the same bronze skin tone, dark eyes and dark hair – though Emmaline’s had gone iron grey – courtesy of their Native American heritage. Their ancestors had been living in the Great Smoky Mountains since long before European settlers had arrived.

“Hello, Mandy,” Emmaline said, tossing her long curtain of hair over one slender, t-shirt-clad shoulder and stepping inside. She was far from the average grandmother, and Mandy had liked her from the first time they’d met.

Emmaline sauntered inside, wearing simple jeans and moccasins and carrying a bright yellow paper gift bag. “The decorations are wonderful.”

“Thanks!” Clarissa had finished fiddling with the rock candy and was striding across the room, her hand held out in invitation. “You must be Emmaline.”

Mandy introduced Emmaline to Clarissa, Violet and April. It was the first time they’d met, though Emmaline had doubtlessly heard all about their arrival already, since Clarissa had sent her an invitation to the baby shower via Ronnie. No sooner had Emmaline and April finished exchanging handshakes than the sound Mandy had been waiting for all morning came – tires on gravel.

Her heart leapt as she turned toward the door and watched a familiar dark blue sedan turn into the driveway. She should’ve been feeling nothing but happiness as she watched her mother park her car in front of the cabin, but instead, her joy was tinged with a mixture of guilt and dull anger. Why had her father bothered to show up at all? The memory of his visit would haunt her throughout her shower and wedding day, flaring up every time she looked at her mother.

“Mandy!” Her mother, Kimberly, climbed out of her car and waved. Her hair was a long cloud of perfect strawberry-blond waves, and it streamed behind her as she sprinted up the porch stairs, her hands and arms full of half a dozen gift bags.

“Mom!” Mandy embraced her as best she could, considering that her belly and the many gift bags were between them. “What’s all this?” Her voice held a note of reproach as she eyed the beribboned bounty.

“Oh, just a few things for the baby.” Kimberly’s pretty face split in a wide grin, and her brown eyes sparkled.

“A few things? This is way more than that. You shouldn’t have.”

Violet and Clarissa helped by taking the bags and arranging them on the table next to the cake.

“I wanted to,” she insisted, still smiling. “So, this is your home. It looks wonderful.”

Mandy laughed. “You can’t see much of the cabin beneath the decorations Clarissa put up. Normally, it’s not so dazzling in here.”

“Yes, but the architecture…” She ran a hand over one of the log walls, her fingertips gliding over the smooth wood. “The craftsmanship. It’s so rustic – like something out of a magazine, or a vacation catalogue.”

Mandy smiled. This was her mother, all right – she always had something nice to say about everything, was almost always positive. Even after what she’d been through. Maybe her naturally sunny disposition was why she’d been able to make it through all those years of heartbreak in the first place. It wasn’t what Mandy wanted to contemplate at the moment, but she couldn’t help it. The memory of her father’s baffling visit was still so fresh. What would her mother think if she knew?

Mandy didn’t dare tell her. If her father had stayed, or even promised to return, it would’ve been different. She wouldn’t have been able to keep from telling her then – if she were in her mother’s shoes, she’d want to know. Or at least, she imagined she would. But her father had run away again. What use would it be to re-break her mother’s heart? Whatever solace she’d found over the last thirty years, Mandy wasn’t about to destroy it for nothing.

“So, any idea whether it’s a boy or a girl?” A warm hand pressed against Mandy’s belly, and the baby gave a small kick. “I dreamed that you were a girl when I was pregnant with you.”

“I’ve had dreams about having a boy
and
about having a girl. No predictions from me, I’m afraid.”

“Well, that’s for the best, isn’t it? You and Jack want to be surprised on the big day.”

“Yeah.” Mandy refused to let her grin fade from her face, though the reminder of the little lies she’d told her mother ate at her. She’d led her mother to believe that she’d declined to know her baby’s gender because she wanted it to be a surprise. Her mother had no idea that she hadn’t had an ultrasound at all because she was a werewolf and couldn’t visit human doctors.

The idea of explaining what she really was to her mother was daunting enough, and then there was the fact that she couldn’t possibly do so without bringing up her father and dredging up all kinds of questions and possibilities, forcing her mother to rethink her relationship with him and why he might have left her. So she’d decided on silence. As far as her mother knew, she was a normal human mother living with a normal human man. Werewolves didn’t exist.

Mandy introduced her mother to everyone, acutely aware that her mother was the only true human in the room. Everyone smiled and shook hands and complimented each other’s hair and clothes, exuding friendliness and excitement, but Mandy’s happiness was tainted by the knowledge that she was keeping a secret – a huge secret – from one of the people she loved most.

“How about we start off with a game?” Clarissa held up a glass jar filled to the brim with blue and yellow star-shaped candies. Even it was cute – she’d fastened a ribbon around the top, and it cascaded down the front in a riot of curls. “The object is to guess how many candies are in the jar. Whoever’s guess is closest wins.” She handed the jar to Mandy’s mother. “Would you like to start?”

“I’m terrible at things like this,” she said with a grin, turning the jar over in her hands and trying in vain to make the candies rattle or shift. They were packed tight and didn’t budge. “Hmm. I’m going to guess three hundred.”

Clarissa jotted down the number as Kimberly passed the jar to April. As it made its way around, estimates varied widely between two and five hundred. Emmaline was the last to guess.

She weighed the jar in her slender hands, then held it up to the light, surveying its contents with an appraising eye. Slowly, she rotated it, brushing the ribbon out of the way and studying the jar for so long that it seemed possible she might actually be trying to count the candies. Once, she opened her mouth as if to speak, but apparently thought better of it. Several more moments passed before she raised her gaze from the jar. “Four hundred and twenty-three.”

“Wow.” Clarissa looked up from her notepad, her brown eyes wide. “You’re really close. There are four hundred and thirty. You win.”

Emmaline donned a broad smile as she clutched the jar close to her chest, her skin crinkling around the corners of her dark eyes. “Wonderful.”

As Mandy watched Emmaline cradle her prize, she remembered Ronnie mentioning that his grandmother had a sweet tooth. If her estimate had been more than a lucky guess and the jar of candies was any indication of what Clarissa had chosen for the other prizes, it looked like Emmaline would spend the baby shower on cloud nine.

The next game, which involved lengths of string that the women had to do their best to cut to a length that would fit perfectly around Mandy’s belly, featured some scented lotions as a prize. Mandy’s mother won those – Emmaline’s guess had been way off. After the way she’d zeroed in on the number of candies with almost pinpoint accuracy, it seemed distinctly likely that she’d lost on purpose.

After a few more games, Clarissa brought out the food and everyone settled into a seat of some sort, whether it was on the couch or in one of the chairs that had been pulled from the kitchen table. For a party with only five guests besides the mother-to-be, the number of gifts that had been piled on the artfully decorated folding table was astounding. “Mom, I’m not going to have to buy baby clothes for almost a year,” Mandy said as she pulled outfit after outfit out of the bags her mother had brought. “You didn’t have to do all this.” Onesies, sweaters, pajamas, socks and shoes were just some of the items Mandy lifted out of the bags, all in gender-neutral colors like yellow, white and green. Somewhere, there had to be a store with a baby section stripped of anything that wasn’t predominantly pink or blue.

But saying so was pointless. As Mandy’s mother watched her open the gifts, she looked every bit as happy as Emmaline, who was enjoying a piece of rock candy with gusto.

“Violet, April and I went in on this together,” Clarissa said, motioning toward a huge gift-wrapped box that had been hefted in earlier and put at the foot of the table.

Mandy stripped away the star-printed paper to reveal a box that contained a stroller and baby carrier. “Thanks you guys,” she said, beaming. She’d spent some time browsing strollers – enough to know that the one they’d gifted her with was nice, despite the fact that none of them had found jobs yet in the Smokies. “I really appreciate it.”

“We all got you a little something else, too,” Clarissa said. “We went shopping and we couldn’t resist.”

Clarissa had chosen a baby journal, one that had places to write down health and growth notes, in addition to slots for pictures and strictly sentimental facts, and April had found a stuffed wolf with soft fur and big golden eyes that reminded Mandy of Jack’s. But it was Violet’s gift that took Mandy’s breath away.

“You made this?” Mandy asked, holding the baby-sized quilt aloft and admiring the design. Done in varying shades of blue, yellow and white, each square featured either a half moon, a star or a paw print. It was adorable, and had plainly been stitched with care.

Violet nodded. “I like to sew.”

“It’s amazing.” Mandy held it up a little longer to make sure everyone had a chance to see it before she folded it carefully. “Thank you.” Just as precious as the quilt was the fact that Violet had taken the time to design and stitch it herself. It was a gift that she’d treasure on behalf of her child for years to come. For now, she placed it on top of a stack of clothing and smiled at Violet as she silently thanked God for Ronnie. If not for his presence at the cabin, she and Violet might not have rectified their rocky start.

“Thanks.” Violet beamed back. With as much as she’d been smiling lately, she seemed like a totally different person than the one who’d showed up at the cabin less than two weeks ago.

When Mandy reached into Emmaline’s gift bag, she pulled out a soft something wrapped in sunshine-yellow tissue paper. It turned out to be a winter hat, knit from soft brown yarn to look like a cute little bear’s head. Wearing the hat would give the baby a set of round, small ears, and the cap tied beneath the chin. A matching set of mittens had been made to look like little bear paws.

“Since your baby will be born in December, I knit the cap and mittens in newborn size so he or she can stay warm.” Emmaline winked in Mandy’s direction.

“Thank you, Emmaline, they’re adorable.” Mandy smiled and saw that everyone else was doing the same. Violet even giggled. Of course, Mandy made no remark on the fact that her little werewolf would be going around bundled up like a bear. Her mother was smiling, but only because the hat and mittens were so cute.

As the gifts were set aside and the cake was cut, Mandy couldn’t help glancing toward the door that her father had walked out of just hours ago. If only he’d stayed. Maybe he’d thought that Mandy’s mother wouldn’t want anything to do with him after what he’d put her through, but deep down, Mandy didn’t think that was the case. Her mother had never really been serious with anyone else, though she’d only been twenty when Mandy’s father had left her, alone and pregnant. Thirty years, and she hadn’t really moved on. Her love had truly endured all things – if only the man she’d given it to had chosen to stay and reciprocate it.