Although he’d never fathomed the horrific tragedy that would play out in the wake of his departure.
* * *
A few hours later,Duncan settled into his usual chair next to Tully’s bed. “How do you feel today, beautiful?” He rested his arm on the bed and gently clasped her achingly fragile hand, steeling himself against the wash of pain and emotions he knew would slam into him at the contact.
Aaron stood in the far corner of the room, watching, arms crossed over his chest and wearing a resolutely grim expression. His mate, Lowri, sat on the far side of the bed and held Tully’s other hand.
Tully’s eyes were slightly glazed and he could tell they’d upped her morphine dosage. “You’re a flirt, Duncan.” Her voice sounded weak, barely more than a papery whisper. Her body had become a sunken husk who looked closer to 93 than her actual 63 years.
He managed a smile for her. “Only with you. You’re special.”
He’d told her his wife had died years ago in a car accident, but she didn’t know anything about wolves or mates or the fact that he wasn’t 62, but 445.
Lowri’s mother, Efa, entered the room and Duncan sensed Efa’s relief upon seeing his presence. She had tearfully expressed her gratitude to him countless times over the past few weeks. She hadn’t been there earlier at his arrival because she’d ducked out to the store to buy more supplies for their deathwatch.
Which was what this now was, and they knew it.
Efa walked around the end of the bed to perch on the edge, next to where Lowri sat, where she could touch her friend’s arm. She was a non-shifter born to wolf shifter parents. Lowri was her eldest child, 39 but looking far younger, an Alpha wolf shifter.
Tully’s son Dale appeared in the doorway, his eyes red from having gone to his bedroom to have a private cry where his mother wouldn’t see or hear him. He was also a clueless human, as was his wife, Raina, who Duncan suspected was still having her own private cry.
Tully had entered Efa Thompson’s life over twenty years earlier while on a movie set, where they both worked for the costume department. They’d been good friends ever since, as close as sisters. When Tully, then widowed, left New Mexico to live with her son and daughter-in-law several years earlier, Amstel “retired” and he and Efa moved their family to live nearby.
This wasn’t Tully’s first bout with cancer but it would, unfortunately, be her last.
And Duncan was glad he hadn’t delayed and taken a later flight, because if she was still alive come morning he’d be the most surprised of all.
Downstairs was Efa’s husband, Amstel, a wolf shifter. With him were their other two children, Megan, 26, and Gareth, 19. Gareth wasn’t a shifter and had only just recently learned about their existence after he’d unwittingly put his family at risk over their small pot-growing business.
Which they’d only engaged in to help mitigate Tully’s cancer symptoms.
Duncan hadn’t told Peyton and Dewi all the details of the messy situation, because once Tully passed the Thompsons would dismantle their tiny grow operation and it would no longer be an issue. They hadn’t been selling it, and they couldn’t lie to Duncan about that, so he was willing to give them some latitude considering the extenuating circumstances.
And since as of a couple of weeks ago Lowri was now mated and married to Aaron, one of Dewi’s enforcers, Duncan knew the family would resume their previous law-abiding ways.
Besides, it would have made him a hypocrite had he held them accountable for it, even if he was the only one who knew that.
As the hours agonizingly drifted past, everyone rotating in and out of the room to visit with Tully except Duncan, who only left her side to use the bathroom, he kept his focus on Tully and on easing her transition. Her periods of lucidity were growing shorter as she struggled to hold on.
He didn’t have the heart to coax her to let go. She felt she still had things to say to her loved ones.
Thus he maintained his vigil, people bringing him food and water and coffee as he needed them, sometimes changing places with him as he moved to the other side of the bed, or even sat on the edge of it.
Somewhere just after midnight, when he was alone in the room with Tully, she looked at him. “Chelsea was a lucky woman to have met you when she did.”
He frowned, trying to remember if he’d ever mentioned Chelsea and Charlie, Dewi’s parents, murdered more than 24 years ago when she was just a baby.
He didn’t think he had.
And that was an odd way to phrase it—to have met his daughter?
He opted to play dumb. “Chelsea?”
“She says you should remember her. You thought about her earlier. On your flight up.”
Gooseflesh rippled across his body as the mental connection snapped into place.
“She’s in the corner,” she said, slowly nodding toward where Aaron stood earlier in the evening. “She’s been waiting there for a while now. Said she came with you and she’ll walk with me when it’s time so I’m not alone. She seems nice.”
