In less time than it took them to break through their maul walls, that baby was in Bell’s arms. “Oh! So precious! Look at you!”
Several minutes of baby talk came after that, then Bell told her daughters, “I’m making the both of you wedding gift wood sculptures of your cubs, but I’ve been going back and forth with myself on the expressions. Do you have pictures of them awake? I could really use them for reference.”
“You’re doing art again?” Holly’s eyes widened in a way that reminded me of Bell when we brought her food at the end of a workday. “Can we see?”
“Yes! Yes! Come! Come! My workspace is unbelievably cute!” she said, backing toward the widow’s cottage with the baby in her arms. “I’ve got tea and these odd little coffee bag things.”
“Oh, Mak drinks those.” Noelle pulled a face as she and Holly rushed forward to walk with Bell to the cottage. “It’s so anti-American.”
Holly laughed. “I’ve never seen them. Takoda doesn’t like coffee….”
They went up the steps, laughing and talking, and then the door closed behind them.
Leaving all nine of the males outside…
…and feeling mighty awkward now that we wouldn’t be fighting and there was no way we could fit into Bell’s tiny-ass widow’s cottage.
“Anybody else wanna beer?” I asked the group. “I could use a beer.”
Everyone except Ash, who was on 24/7 call as the town’s only doctor, took me up on that offer.
And it wasn’t half bad hanging out with them, I guess.
Takoda was still an asshole, but I appreciated him making sure Bell’s daughters had all the information they needed not to come in hot on their mother.
Zion, Hawk, and Ash chatted about the StreamFlix adaptation of some book series they’d all read calledSeasons of the Fae.
But Ravik took his beer outside and started chopping wood. Brooding about what came next now that Bell was reunited with her daughters.
“Why’s he chopping wood in the hottest part of summer?” Leif asked, coming to stand beside me at the back window. He looked like a modern-day Viking in a henley, but had the energy of a golden retriever.
The big, blond Barrington froze before I could answer, his eyes rapidly going back and forth, like he was glitching out, before he yelled, “It’s time! It’s time!”
I would have asked, “Time for what?” but it became an easy guess when all three of Holly’s maul bounded for the front door with Takoda yelling over his shoulder, “Ash, with us!”
“I’m right behind you!” Ash answered, leaping up from his seat. “Just have to get my doctor’s bag out of the car!”
Yep… guess this day just wasn’t dramatic enough for Mother Ursa.
Holly had gone into labor.
35/
their beary fresh start
ZION
Ash wasn’t yet a birth father, but since the town’s midwife was the one in labor, he got to deliver his and Hawk’s maul parents’ first grandchild by blood.
And Bell put the couch in the widow’s cottage to use one last time, clasping her oldest daughter’s physical hand on one side while Holly’s maul stood on the other, holding her mental one over their maul bite until the world welcomed Carolbell Winters of the Great Claw Mountains with a lusty, bear-strong cry.
Both her daughters’ mauls ended up staying in the Outer Limits home much further down the road where we’d initially brought Bell. They remained for several days, and of course, Bell spent every moment she could with them, leaving the nest as soon as she woke and not returning until dark.
Boone grew increasingly anxious about not connecting with her. However, Ravik pulled what Bell had referred to as the “first maul card” and told him,“Not about us right now. Got to put her first.”
Instead of bothering Bell, I finally talked with Ravik about trying to track down Mara after the Bear Mountain school year ended. “I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me for the exile—she didn’t even come to her mother’s funeral—but after all of this, I have to try.”
Ravik nodded. “I think that’s a good idea, Z. Find our girl. See if you can convince her to come back.”
