Chapter 27 Rawling
TWENTY-SEVEN
RAWLING
This was going to get me into trouble with Phelan, but he and Atticus had taken their fur and gone hunting in the woods. It’d been a while since they’d done anything together, and while Atticus was far from my favorite person, my mate needed to spend time with people other than me and Eira.
Scottie had finished work and gone home, and I was with my daughter heading to the area behind the buildings where Holden parked his car. I’d met him there when we were dating. And, as well as meeting my ex, I had Eira with me.
There was a lot of dust in the air because the new sports center was still being constructed, and I skirted piles of garbage and cement trucks.
Maybe I was using my daughter as a security blanket. If she filled her diaper. I’d use that as an excuse to run off if Holden gave me disturbing news. It was bad enough being the lookout when he was breaking and entering, but I assumed he’d found something and that was what he wanted to discuss.
Holden was in his car and that made sense if he wanted privacy and to get away from the construction noise, but me getting into the front seat was a little odd. If anyone saw us from a distance, they’d think we were mated and had a child.
Eira was wide awake and making baby noises as I got in the car.
“Can we make this quick? I need to get back and put her to bed.”
Holden scrolled through his phone and showed me the pic of the box with the word “Charlie” written on it. I blinked and stared at it. While it wasn’t surprising that the professor had something of Rawlins’s, it was strange seeing his handwriting.
“That isn’t the box I handed him. You were there, remember?”
I vaguely recalled him coming in with the tapes in a box, but I couldn’t swear it was the same one. Who remembered a box that looked like thousands of others? What I did recall was my embarrassment and how it’d been all kinds of awkward.
“It isn’t the same one because mine had a scratch on the side. I know my own box because it sat on my desk for months.”
Wow, this guy was weirdly attached to that damned thing. What I didn’t understand was why the professor had put the research tapes about me in a box that my godfather had scrawled Charlie’s name on.
“Okay, let’s leave that. I can tell you’re ready to flee if I continue talking about my box.”
Whew, there was more he had to tell me. I hoped it was more than talking lovingly about a cardboard box.
He gave me his phone, and I read the partial letter.
Now I was more confused because this letter had to have been written by Charlie, and the little boy was me.
Oh gods, me. Tears spilled down my cheeks because this was the first mention of me before I’d been adopted.
I’d never found my birth certificate or a baby book or a letter my adoptive parents had written to me. But here I was, on the page.
I held Eira tight, but I didn’t understand why the handwriting was Rawlins’s, and I told Holden that.
“I was convinced that the professor was kind of in love with Rawlins based on what he told me. Was your godfather writing to the professor?”
Everything I thought I knew was messed up.
I could understand Professor Shaw crying about Rawlins, as he’d gushed about my godfather.
But they’d lost contact when Rawlins became my guardian.
But had my godfather been going to mate a human and adopt me and had broken the professor’s heart?
It was too much, and I told Holden to send me the pics.
I got out of the car just as Phelan and Atticus came into view. What were they doing here? They never came this way after a run. Damn them. Oh shoot, it was because of the construction.
Holden started the car and drove off, making it seem as though we’d been doing something underhanded. Phelan was fuming, making his face red. I could almost smell the anger and jealousy seeping from his pores.
He took the baby and avoided my eyes. Eira snuggled into him as he put a protective hand on her back.
I sent Atticus a look that said, “Do not say anything,” and he nodded. Huh, what was with that? Though he spoiled the moment by smirking. Knowing the way his mind worked, he was going to enjoy me and Phelan arguing.
“What was that about?” Phelan asked as he bounced Eira. He’d taken to fatherhood so naturally, and I was so proud to be his mate.
I should have sent Atticus a message that said “Get lost” because now I couldn’t reveal too much in front of him.
“It’s nothing. Holden used to be Professor Shaw’s TA.”
Atticus scoffed. “He hates humans.” He stared at me.
I swirled around. What? Why was he bringing that up? What did he know? “The professor or Holden?”
“Shaw.”
The professor wouldn’t have shared my secret with Atticus, surely.
“Hate is a strong word, Atticus.” Phelan moved closer to me and away from his friend.
“I had tea and cake with the guy, and he loathes all humans.” Again, he looked right at me. “But there are some things that have to remain hidden.”
Phelan put a hand on my shoulder, and we walked away. I glanced back at Atticus who hadn’t moved and twirled the ring on my finger.
“Don’t be annoyed with me.” I tucked my arm in Phelan’s. “Holden found something in the professor’s office and he showed me a pic. That’s all.”
I rested my head on his shoulder and told him that while I considered Holden an acquaintance at best, I didn’t want to avoid him or lie about bumping into him.
My mate sighed. “You’re right, I know you are, but when I see that guy, I want to punch him in the nose.”
“I’m glad you don’t because his tiger might take your head off.” I giggled.
“There is that.” He kissed me, and we went into the dining hall for dinner.
After Eira was in bed, I dragged out the old satchel the professor had given me when I first came to Sombertooth.
It contained lots of old school notes and assignments which had provided a link to Rawlins, and I treasured them, but it was what I found secreted in the lining that had introduced me to the world of shifters.
Though at the time, I’d assumed it was all fantasy.
And I’d discovered the bank statements in the same place.
The phone dinged, and it was the pics Holden had taken. I studied them, and it was definitely Rawlins’s handwriting. I’d grown up with him, and he loved handwriting letters and shopping lists rather than using his phone or a computer.
I went back and forth between the contents of the satchel’s lining and the note to the professor in Holden’s photo. They were identical.
“Look at this, Phelan. Were they written by the same person?” He was working on his laptop and gave the pages and the pic a cursory glance.
“Looks like it.”
I got up and grabbed a soda from the fridge before flopping on the couch.
I wanted what I had to tell me something, anything.
Rubbing my finger over the mention of the baby boy again—that was me, it had to be—my eye landed on the T in adopt.
Something about that was different from what I recalled about my godfather’s handwriting.
I picked up the school assignments, the ones the professor would have seen in the outer section of the satchel, and looked at the letter T in Sombertooth that Rawlins had scribbled over the cover.
I compared it to the letter Holden had found.
The T’s were the same with a twist on the line over the letter.
Next, I checked the notebook with the tales of shifters.
The letter T’s matched the one in the letter on what was supposedly Rawlins’s assignments.
Something made me rummage in one of the boxes I’d brought from home. Compared the T’s in one of my godfather’s shopping lists. They were different and as I remembered them.
So imagining that Charlie wrote the letter to the professor, the shifter tales and the assignments were written by her and not Rawlins. Was that possible? And if so, the bank statements were from her too because they were both hidden in the same place.
I burst into tears, and Phelan stopped typing and sat beside me, putting an arm around me. My poor mate. He had no idea what he signed up for when he mated me. I came with so much baggage.
“Put it away, babe.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes on his shirt. “No, it’s good. I’m happy crying.”
He closed one eye. “Are you sure?”
I giggled because I’d shed a lot of tears since we mated.
“Mmmm. It’s made it all real. Charlie and Arnie were my adoptive parents.
It’s finally confirmed. And Charlie did leave me something.
She wrote all about shifters for me, and it was her, and I guess Arnie, who’d put money away for my future. ”
Phelan screwed up his face. “So why did the professor have it? We’ve already determined he wanted to mate Charlie.”
That was a really good question. He gave me what he said was Rawlins’s satchel that he told me my godfather had wanted me to have. But the lining was intact when I received it, so the professor had no clue what was inside.
Why was that important?