15. Beth
“How are things going?” Savvy asked.
“I guess that depends on how you look at it,” Beth said. “If you’re asking about Conner and me, I think that they’re going well. He’s spending a lot of time with Taryn, and she thinks that he hung the moon and stars.”
“How’s that going to end if he decides to go back on the circuit?”
“Taryn knows that is a possibility, although she’s trying very hard not to think about it. I know she will be sad. I’m sure, though, that Conner will make sure to come back often and spend time with Taryn. He loves her, too, and he’s not going to just walk away from her.”
“That’s good to know. She’s wanted her father for her entire life and now she has him. I know it would kill her if he just disappeared again,” Savvy said.
“Therein lies another problem, but not in the way that you might think.”
“How’s that?”
“Mother. She has threatened to do worse to him than a simple forget spell. Last night, he was riding a bull and it bucked. He went flying off.”
“That’s the nature of bull riding.” Savvy laughed.
“Not like this. It wasn’t a ‘buck and he lands in the dirt nearby’ type of thing. It was a buck and he went flying from one side of the arena to the other and slammed into a fence post type of deal.”
“Oh. Ouch.”
“Yeah. Luckily, he was just bruised a little. If he was a mundane man instead of a wolf shifter, he would have been badly hurt.”
“What are you going to do?” Savvy asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t send him packing. For one, he wouldn’t go. Now that he knows about Taryn, he’s determined to stay in her life. Two, Taryn would never forgive me. Three, selfishly, I want him in my life.”
“Maybe you should give your mom a taste of her own medicine. In a way, you are a lot more powerful witch than she is. You can shut down her heart. You don’t have to do any serious injury, but you can make her heart speed up and then slow way down. Nothing to hurt her but enough to let her know that she’s not the only one who’s got game.”
“That would be taking a step on the dark path. I don’t even want to tempt anything by starting down that path.”
“You are a good person with a good heart and soul. You would never become a dark witch. Just because your mother and sister have paved the road to perdition doesn’t mean that you will.”
“Still. I would only do anything drastic like that if she goes too far, and I have to use magic for self-defense or defending someone else in a life-or-death situation.”
“The way she’s acting, this could easily become one of those situations. She’s already made a tangible threat against Conner. This time, it was just a few bruises. Next time, it could be broken bones or worse. He could be hurt like the time when you first met him.”
“I don’t want to set a bad example for Taryn and make her think that it’s okay to lash out with magic when we get angry. However, if I have to, I will make Mother back off.”
“You know that I’ve got your back no matter what,” Savvy said.
“I know and I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. Conner is at the door. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I thought I would stop off for a quick shower before I came over. I know that smelling like horse and sweat is extremely sexy, but I decided to go for something different.”
Beth laughed. “We’ll take you any way that we can get you.”
Taryn ran in and said, “Dad.”
“Daughter,” he replied.
“We’re going to watch a movie. It’s called The Nun. It’s not as scary as the other movies, but it’s okay.”
“What is your fascination with horror flicks?”
“They’re fun. The best part is watching Mom jump.”
“No wonder she watches Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz the rest of the time. She needs something not so scary to calm her down.”
Taryn laughed. “Not so scary? Have you seen those flying monkeys? They’re even more terrifying in the book.”
They settled in and watched the movie together, and then Beth insisted that Taryn go to bed after. “It’s midnight, Cinderella. You’re going to turn into a pumpkin.”
Once she was settled in, Conner said, “Not that I object, but isn’t it out of the ordinary that she started calling me dad so soon? I figured that she would call me Conner or whatever and then decide on Dad once she got to know me better.”
“I think that in most cases it would be. However, these aren’t ordinary circumstances. You didn’t disappear out of our lives because you wanted to. Plus, she’s a witch and a wolf shifter, so she has a good judge of character. The other thing is that she’s wanted to know her father so badly all of these years, and now you are here. You spend time with her and you guys are getting close.”
Conner nodded. “That makes sense.”
They sat on the deck together and talked about what they’d been up to for the last eleven years, especially romantically.
“I’ve never been with another man, not even to go on a date,” Beth said. “I’ve been so focused on Taryn and running my store that I’ve never had time to even think about dating. Besides, there could never be another man in my life. Like I told you the other day when you first figured things out, I never stopped loving you.”
She wished that Conner would say it back, but he didn’t. He simply stared out into the night. After a few minutes, he said, “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve dated some and been with a few women. There’s never been anyone special in my life – no one I wanted to get serious with or have a long-term relationship with. None of them were right for me.”
Beth was silent. The idea of Conner being held by another woman and making love to someone else made her heart feel as though it was being squeezed by an iron fist.
“My friends always told me that my standards were too high, and that I was going to end up dying alone. I just told them that if I tried to have a real relationship with someone who wasn’t right for me, then I would just end up hurting both of us. It was just better to acknowledge that it wasn’t going to work out and let it go,” Conner said.
Maybe the reason you couldn’t find love with another woman was because your feelings for me were buried deep inside of you.
As much as she wanted him to say those words, though, he didn’t. He pulled her close to him and kissed her. Beth knew that she was walking in dangerous waters. They were spending time together and making love. Correction – she was making love and he was having sex. Unless he fell back in love with her again, this would just end with her being hurt when she lost him all over again. However, she wanted him.
I’ll just have these extra memories in my life. I’ll remember what it was like to be held in his arms and to feel our bodies melting together. This is a gift because I always said I would be happy with just a little more time with him.
Beth acknowledged that it would hurt even more when he walked away from her of his own free will, which he would, unless he found the love he lost.
As soon as her bedroom door closed, they quickly undressed each other and fell into the bed together. His fingers and mouth were everywhere, licking, touching, caressing, and tasting. The rest of the world disappeared as he brought the woman in her quickly.
He entered her and their bodies rocked together, as he moved in and out of her, massaging her inner walls that were wrapped tightly around his thick, hard shaft.
They reached their peak at the same time, crying out, exploding together.
Conner was panting when he fell down next to her, holding her against him. Their bare skin touching each other was even more intimate than the sex had been.
Beth sighed happily as she held her love and snuggled in close to him.
She was almost asleep when he said, “I guess I’d better go. Taryn might have an idea that we are together behind closed doors because kids know an awful lot these days, but she still doesn’t need to see me spending the night. At least not yet.”
Beth growled. She knew that he was right, but she wanted him to stay with her more than anything in the world right now.
“I’ll be back in the morning. The rodeo is off tomorrow. I have a buddy who owns a fifty-thousand-acre ranch. A lot of it is wooded and he even has a creek running through the center of it. He has an extra horse that you could borrow. I can take Zephyr and Pegasus down to his ranch. We can go trail riding and have a picnic lunch.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
She walked him to the door. Beth’s heart stopped because she was pretty sure that she saw her mother watching from her car down the street. Beth closed her eyes and whispered a safety spell for Conner, hoping that he got back to the hotel okay. She was relieved when he sent her a text. Back at the hotel. Sweet dreams.
They left right after breakfast the next morning and rode deep in the woods. Beth was glad that his friend had a very gentle mare for her to ride because she was not quite as good on a horse as Taryn was, although Taryn could tell the horse to be nice and calm and it would.
The three of them rode to an open spot near the creek and unpacked their picnic lunch. It was just sandwiches, chips, and cookies, but Beth had never tasted anything so delicious in her entire life. After they were done eating, Taryn and Conner walked a little bit away from the horses. They went their separate ways, since Taryn was shy about undressing in front of her father. They met up by the blanket and went for a short run in the woods while Beth laid back on the blanket.
“I wish it could always be this way,” Beth said to herself. “This is absolute heaven.”
Two wolves raced out of the woods toward the tree. The smaller wolf was a nose behind the bigger one.
They went their separate ways, shifted, dressed, and Taryn called out, “You only won because you are bigger than me. You just wait until I’m bigger and you’ll eat my dust.”
“Bring it, Little Girl,” Conner said.
“Thank you for not letting me win,” Taryn said.
“I would never insult either of us by doing that.”
They rode back to the barn. Sometimes they talked about what they saw and heard, but they mostly rode in a comfortable silence.
They took care of Beth’s horse when they got back and took the other two back to the rodeo grounds. The three of them brushed Zephyr and Pegasus and made sure there was plenty of food and water.
Beth ordered pizza when they got back to her place. Taryn got out her board games and they decided on Sorry! She won the first game fairly. They were about to start a second game when the back door flew open and Matilda came in like a rush of bad breath.
“How cozy,” she said.
“Mother. How many times have I told you that you have to knock before you come in.”
“Nonsense. I’m your mother. Your home is my home.”
“No, it’s really not,” Beth said.
“It looks like you have quite the party going on here. You seem to be having so much fun.”
“We are. Did you want something?” Beth asked.
“No. I was just checking in,” she said. Then, with an evil smile, she told Conner, “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Then, just as quickly as she came in, she blew out like a tornado.