Chapter 17
Havoc trotted back to his parents’ home, shifted back to his human form, pulled on jeans and a shirt, and walked in the back door. “Well, looky there. The prodigal daughter has returned.”
Harley grinned at him from her place at the table enjoying her hot chocolate and tiny marshmallows. “You knowed where I was.”
“Yes, I did. But not until Emmalyn called me. Do not go off without telling me. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much hot chocolate you have left over there?” he asked.
“Just a little. Want some?” she asked, holding her mug out toward him.
“No, I just thought that when you’re done, maybe you’d like to go see our new house.”
She was happily gulping down as much chocolate as she could, but when his words sank in, she stopped and looked up.
“I decided that you like it so much down here, maybe we’d have a house down here, too.”
“We’re gonna live here?” Harley asked, sliding down from her chair to jump up and down while squealing.
“Damn! Whatever you said, don’t say it again,” Maverik said, walking into the kitchen, scratching his fingers through his mohawk.
Havoc started laughing. “Thought you were all up for helping with the younguns!”
“I am, I am, but when you’re trying to get a little rest, that’ll go straight through to your spine and have you on high alert quick!”
“Yes, it will,” Havoc said, still chuckling.
“We’re going to live here!” Harley screeched.
“Well, we’re going to see. But we can come down here any time we want to because we’ll have our own house.”
Harley quit jumping. She looked at her father with a perturbed expression on her little face. “Why can’t we just live here? We got a house. We got Poppy and Val. We got Analise. We got a whole clan. We’ll just stay here!”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We’ll have to see, but we will be here more.”
“When are we going to decide if we can live here?”
“We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“We should stay here.”
“I am not going to argue with you. If you want to go see it, come on. We’re spending the night there tonight. If you don’t want to see it, that’s fine, too. We can just go to sleep in the extra bedroom here.”
“I want to see it.”
“Then come on, girl. You need to pick out your room.”
“I want the biggest one!” she screeched, running past him to the front door.
“I got the biggest one! There’s two more, you can pick out one of them.”
“Does it have a fence? Can I have a puppy? Oh, or a kitty!”
“Kitties don’t do well with us, but if we decide to live here all the time you can have a puppy. That’s not a bad idea with that fence, though, either way.”
Harley came to a screeching halt right outside the front door of Poppy’s house. “Where’s our truck?”
“It’s at the house already. I went back over there when you went to visit Analise without telling me.”
“She didn’t mind, though.”
“I know I don’t have to tell you about why it was wrong anyway. And if we’re gonna live here, you will have to live by the rules, or you’ll be punished every single day. You know there are rules. There’s always rules, and those rules keep you safe.”
“Yes, sir. I do know.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go let you see our house.”
They walked through the darkness, talking and laughing, with Harley explaining exactly what kind of dog she wanted, as they walked all the way down the dirt road leading from Kaid’s property to the highway. When they got to the highway, they paused, while Havoc explained that this was a busy highway.
“Harley, this is a highway, baby. It’s not just a little country road. People drive down it fast sometimes. It is never to be crossed alone, and if ever there is an emergency and you have to cross it alone, you need to wait, look both ways, and look both ways again, and only then cross it. And that’s only for an emergency. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There are other houses by ours, Aunt Hellen lives down at the end of our road, and Barron and Brandt live over by the river.”
“We got a river?!” she exclaimed.
“That if I catch you by without me, you’ll get a spanking.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered.
“You’ll get used to the area, though and be able to find your way around it. But most of the people who live on the other side work, so they might not be home. A lot of the people on this side are home a lot. So, you’ll usually find somebody home on this side. Hope you never need to, but it’s better to be prepared than not. So, if there is a reason, when you get to this side of the road, you’ll head straight up the road to Uncle Kaid’s house. If you’re afraid for whatever reason, you can stay away from the road and stay in the woods and nobody can see you as you run toward the houses. Just cross quick after you check it’s safe to cross, then stay in the woods, and be sure to keep the road behind you and you’ll run into somebody’s house be it Kaid’s or Avaleigh’s or Maverik’s or Bam’s or Bane’s. Matter of fact, you could probably stay in the woods pretty much the whole way from our house to everybody’s on the other side. We’ll practice that, using the road and using the woods, just so you’ll be familiar both ways.”
“Is that what you did when you were little?”
“No, we didn’t have the land that our house is on back then. But we knew how to hide, and how to run for help, and where it was safe to be and all.”
“So, it’s kind of like this.”
“Kinda. And you’re a smart girl, you’ll only need me to show you one time and you’ll get it.”
“Are we going in the woods tonight?” she asked excitedly.
Havoc chuckled. “No, we’re going on the road tonight.” He looked back behind himself. “You know how to get from here to everybody’s houses back that way?”
Harley looked in the direction he pointed. “Yes, sir. I do.”
“Okay, then, show me how you’d cross this if there was an emergency and I wasn’t here to cross with you.”
Harley stepped up close to the road and leaned over, looking first one way, then another. Then she closed her eyes and canted her head first in one direction, then another, before she looked in both directions. “Don’t see anything, and I don’t hear anything. So, nothing’s coming, we can cross.”
“Very good that you listened, too. That’s very good.”
“And how do we cross?” Havoc asked.
“We run, really fast.”
“Show me!”
After crossing to Brandt’s side of the road, they took their time walking along the road. He showed her where the first road Brandt and the rest of the clan had put in crossed the main road that led through the property. He pointed to the right. “You can’t see it because the lights aren’t on right now, nobody’s staying there, but there’s a house down on that end.”
“Okay. Nobody lives there?”
“Nope. It’s there for anybody in the family that might need a place to stay. That’s how ours was, built for anybody in the family to use, but I liked it, and you like being here, so I’m buying it. It’s ours now.”
When they got to the next road crossing the main road, he stopped. “See down there?”
“Yes, sir. I can see lights.”
“That’s right. Uncle Remi and Uncle Christian both have houses down there. And the new girl, Addie, her family lives down there, too.”
“I see lights that way, too,” Harley said, pointing to the left.
“Yep. That’s the direction our house and Aunt Hellen’s house are in. If you keep going straight on this road instead of going left or right, you’ll get to the end of the road, and Uncle Brandt’s house is left, and Uncle Barron’s house is right.”
“Okay,” she said, completely grasping what he was telling her. It was uncanny the way shifter children took to spacial understanding and directions and such.
He took her by the hand again and they turned left, walking down the middle of the road. When they got close enough for her to see the house, she gasped and her mouth dropped open. “That’s our house?” she asked excitedly.
“It is.”
“It’s so pretty!” she said and pulled her hand free of his. “Can I run to it?”
“Let’s both run to it,” Havoc said, excited to be able to give her a home this nice.
They ran down the circular drive in the front, then up the stairs to the front door.
“Why is the front door upstairs?” she asked, standing back on the porch and trying to take in all the windows she could see.
“Because on the bottom we have a swing and a picnic table and places to park our truck.”
“That is so much fun!”
He laughed. “It’s fun?”
“It will be!” she said, trying to open the front door.
“Here you go, it’s locked.” He unlocked the door for her and she ran inside. She went into the open kitchen, then the dining area and living room. She ran into the bathroom on the main floor, then into a room that could be a bedroom or an office. At the moment it was set up as an office. She looked at both porches and the French doors that opened out onto the front and back porches. Then she focused on the stairs that curved up to the top level where the bedrooms were. “Can I go up there?”
“Baby, this is your house. You can go wherever you want. But you have to knock when Daddy’s in his room, okay?”
“Okay!” she said, taking off at a run.
“And do not run on the stairs!”
She stopped running and dutifully held onto the banister as she walked, albeit quickly, up the stairs to the landing. She took a right first and examined Havoc’s bedroom and bathroom, then went running down the hallway until she reached the bedrooms with the shared bathroom between them.
“They’re just the same, but one is blue and one is white!” she exclaimed.
In truth they were both blue and white, but the one on the left was navy with white accents, striped bedding and throw rugs, almost nautical in appearance, and the one on the right was white and had only a few navy accents. It was actually a little more girlie with some of the bedding and curtains having a bit of a scalloped edge to them. He figured that would be the one she’d choose, but she’d surprised him before so he just waited patiently while she made her decision.
“I don’t know which one I want!” She tried out both of them, climbing in both beds, and looking into their walk-in closets. She made sure they both had access to the private porch in the back, then turned around to face him. “I think I want this one!” she said, running and jumping on the bed covered in white scalloped edged quilts and pillows. The bed was a four-poster queen size in cherry wood, and the dresser matched as did a vanity with small drawers and a mirror and cushioned stool. There were shelves on one side of the room and he had no doubt that she’d have them filled in no time.
“Then it’s yours. Do you like the furniture or do you want to change it?”
“No, it’s mine!” she whined.
“Okay, I’m just making sure.”
She grinned again. “I like it!”
“We’ll make you a little sign that says ‘Harley’s Room’ and hang it on your door.
“Can we? I would like that so much!”
“We will do that.”
“Whose is the other room?”
“I guess if anybody comes to visit us, they can sleep in that one.”
“Okay!” she exclaimed. Then she got serious, her face reflecting her sudden mood change. “Where will Analise sleep when she’s here?”
Havoc wasn’t quite sure how to answer, so he went with the obvious. “What makes you think Analise will be sleeping here?”
“Because you love her.”
“I never said that.”
“You were getting her plate at Christmas and making sure she had a drink and taking care of her like you do me. And Aunt Maia said that you do those things when you love somebody to show you were paying attention. So, I decided that you must love her. And then I kinda heard you talking to Poppy.”
“Kinda, huh?”
“Not all of it, me and Val were watching television. But a little bit of it at first.”
“You need to stop that.”
“I can’t help it if everybody just thinks I’m not paying attention. They should go talk where I’m not.”
“You’re kind of right. We’re just used to you being a baby and forget that you’re growing up. I’ll be more careful if it’s something you shouldn't hear. But you can help other people by letting them know you can hear them if they’re having an adult conversation, too.”
“Okay. I will. But do you?”
“Do I what?” Havoc asked.
“Love Analise,” she said.
“Listen,” he said, squatting down to be on her eye level as she slid off the bed. “I’m not ever going to lie to you, but there’s some things you just don’t need to know because you wouldn’t understand.”
“Is this one of them?” she asked.
He pursed his lips and considered it. She’d been smart enough to figure out he loved Analise on her own. “I have loved Analise all of my life.”
“Did you love my mother?” she asked.
“That’s complicated. I made some mistakes when I was young.”
“Because you were wild,” she said with a smile. “That’s what Aunt Maia said.”
“Aunt Maia’s not wrong. But my mistakes hurt Analise and that’s why we’re not together. But I still love her. And your mother, she just wasn’t ready to be a mother. But that’s okay because she gave you to me and we have been having fun ever since! I’m the best damn Daddy/Momma you’ll ever meet!” he grabbed her up and started tickling her making her squeal and laugh as she kicked her legs. “Wouldn’t change a single thing! Would you? Would you?” he asked.
She was trying to catch her breath, but her expression was sobering again. “I wish Analise loved you back. Then she could have the blue room and we could all live here.”
“Baby, if Analise lived here with us, she’d share my room with me. Just saying.”
“Like Mommies and Daddies do?” she asked.
“Yep, just like that.”
“Would she be my mommy, then?”
“If she was here, that would be up to you and her. But I know she’d love you. Tell you the truth, I think she already does.”