He narrowed his eyes as he studied her face. It was a mixture of emotions both bad and good. “What happened?”
She’d started walking to the tree, but stopped at his question. “What?”
“Something bad happened or you’d be glowing with nostalgia.”
She snorted. “Drunk middle-aged men are not the most considerate people. I learned to shoot and drink beer. I learned that men are gross and think a lot about sex. I also learned that my father loved my mother even if he couldn’t stand to hang around her for long.”
Ah. Abandonment issues. “So Mom was the stable one.”
“Nurses are there when you need them in the best possible way. Unless they’re at work earning rent money because Dad has wandered off again.”
“What did he do?”
“He was an electrician by trade. Get rich quick schemer by action. And…” She shrugged. “He had a big personality. Drunk, sober, at home or away, he was big in my life.”
“And now?”
“Gone. Bad flu that he ignored. It was too late by the time he thought to see a doctor. We didn’t even make it to the hospital in time to say good-bye.”
“Tough break.”
She was silent a moment, looking out at the dark horizon. “It’s how he would have chosen to go. Quick, dramatic, and without hurting anyone else.” Then she shrugged. “I was always terrified we’d lose him in an electrical fire or a drunk-driving accident.”
“How old were you when he passed?”
“Seventeen. Old enough to process it and perfect timing to quit hoping that Dad would help out with my college tuition.”
There was a wealth of disappointment in those words. Along with anger and all those things that come with an unreliable parent. “So you got your business degree on your own.”
She snorted. “Hardly. Mom paid, I worked at my aunt’s bakery. And then when it was time, I took over.”
“So which is your true love? The business or the baking?”
She frowned at him as if she hadn’t ever considered the question. “They’re both me. And neither. I’m also a single parent, a bad jazzercise dancer, and someone who likes to eat candy and read slutty romance novels. How do you separate one part from another?”
Good question. He’d been trying—and failing—to keep areas of his life partitioned from one another. But he couldn’t imagine being a harmonious whole person either. It just wasn’t in his nature. Good thing he was saved from answering by arriving at the tree.
Henry was already coming down, his nimble form dropping from the branches like a monkey. He might be small for a shifter, but the young father had always been deceptively quick. “Evening, Max,” he said, his tone neutral, his head tilted to the side in submission.
“Hello, Henry. This is Becca, Theo’s guardian.”
The man flashed his teeth in a warm grin. “My mom had to keep watch for me, too. But don’t worry. Instinct runs deep and keeps us safe.”
Becca flashed a grateful smile, but Carl couldn’t stop himself from correcting the young man. “It’s not instinct. It’s his good head that will save the day. Don’t ignore the man in favor of the animal.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Seems to me the animal is what counts in situations like this.” He gestured around the dark land. “Open field, reacting on a dime, heading by feel to your home—that’s something that will confuse a man. Never a bear.”
Becca blew out a breath. “Why do I get the feeling that this is an old argument?”
“Because it’s all chicken and egg,” Carl answered. “Which is more important? Who rules what?”
“Max here is a thinker. His uncle was a doer,” Henry responded. And it was obvious Henry preferred action. But that’s because he was too young to remember Maximus Prime.
“But wouldn’t you want brain behind the brawn?” Becca asked.
The man’s eyes grew flinty at that. “’Course you do. But there’s a point where there’s only brain and no brawn, and that’s disaster.”
Carl barely restrained a growl. “You’ve been waiting a long time to say that to me, haven’t you?”
