Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
Lola's jaw fell open, and Sam was fairly certain she stopped breathing. Her cheeks went pale, her eyes went round, and she sat there otherwise unmoving for so long that he was afraid he might have sent her into actual shock. He shifted back to human, and Lola finally twitched. Squeaked. And otherwise gaped, still barely moving, even to breathe.
This was going even worse than Sam imagined. "I'm a shifter," he said as quickly as he could. "There are a lot of us in Virtue, and Valerie was also one. That's the only reason my parents wanted me to marry her. Because it generally breeds true, and I was supposed to have—well—litters of fox cubs. Or at least a few children to carry on the line. Because there are a lot of us in Virtue but also fewer than there used to be. Although there seem to be a lot more now , people are moving to town—but then—and also she was rich. They liked that at least as much as the fact that she was also a fox shifter."
He was babbling. He was almost seventy, and babbling like a nervous teen. He could not possibly have done this any more badly when he'd been a nervous teen. He'd spent weeks back then trying to figure out how to break his heritage to Lola, and lost the chance, and now, decades later, given the chance again, he was still making a hash of it.
And Lola was still barely breathing. "Please inhale," he said. "I'm getting worried."
She took a sharp breath and color came back to her cheeks, although not as much as he would have liked. On that inhalation, she said, "I can't do that."
"No. Yes. I know. You're not a shifter. But—you are my mate, my… I always told you that you were the love of my life," Sam said, suddenly even more nervous than he'd been. "And you were, Lola. From the moment I noticed you in sixth grade. But when we graduated, something changed."
Her eyes widened in alarm and Sam squawked. "No! Not in a bad way! In a way that made me absolutely certain I was right! Shifters—we know when we've met the person we're supposed to be with," he said almost helplessly. "I'd always known it was you, but when we grew up, became adults, then I knew . My fox told me?—"
"Your fox told you?" Lola's voice rose in confused astonishment. "You—fox? Told you?"
"My fox is like—it's part of me, but also a voice in my head. And after graduation when you and I saw each other that night, it said fate, and I knew , Lola, I—I can't believe how badly I'm doing this." He took a tentative step toward her, wanting to sit beside her and also concerned she wouldn't want him to.
Of course she wants you to, his fox said with all the calm Sam himself didn't feel. You've been waiting for each other for fifty years.
It might not be that simple, Sam replied helplessly, and the fox gave him a look very like the one Lola had given him for remembering Valerie de Vos's name.
It's always that simple, with mates.
Lola, audibly stunned, said, "I'm not sure there's a good way to do it. For heaven's sake, Sam, sit down, you're making me nervous." She patted the couch next to her, and a surge of relief nearly took Sam out at the knees.
His fox looked smug. Told you.
Sam wobbled over and sat beside Lola. She scooted around, not moving away, but making enough room to face him, her eyes still huge with astonishment. "Well. I can see why you were having a hard time telling me, back then. Does this happen a lot?"
"Usually only once in a lifetime," Sam whispered hoarsely.
Lola ducked her head, smiling, and glanced up at him through eyelashes shorter and grayer than he remembered, but still framing the same dark eyes that always pierced his soul. "I meant, do all…shifters? Is that what you called yourself? Do all shifters have this much trouble explaining themselves to their…mates?"
"Oh." Sam closed his eyes, faintly mortified at both the misunderstanding and his general ineptitude at explaining all of this. Then he lifted his eyebrows and met Lola's eyes again. "I have the impression that the answer is yes. Most of us find our mates in true humans, and most true humans don't have any idea shifters exist, and…" He inhaled deeply, then exhaled explosively. "And it's nearly impossible to explain without sounding like a lunatic."
"Well," Lola murmured so reassuringly it took him a moment to realize what she was actually saying, "you did sound like one. I…could I see the…fox…again?"
Yes! His fox sounded delighted. She'll think I'm very handsome.
She'll think you're a vain beast, Sam said dryly, but he shifted, right there on the couch beside her.
Lola said, "Oh!" in a small, thrilled voice, and tentatively put the palm of her hand out to him, beneath his chin, like she might do to an unfamiliar dog. Sam poked his nose into her palm and licked, making her laugh before she cautiously scratched his chin. "What a handsome creature you are."
I told you!
"I want to say, is it really you, Sam? But I just watched you…shift…twice, so…" Lola brushed her palm over the top of his furry head, then—again very much as she might do with a dog—almost absently offered an ear-scritch that the fox leaned into eagerly. "This is extraordinary, Sam. You're extraordinary."
"Literally," Sam said as he shifted back. Lola gave a startled yelp, pulling her hand toward herself, then dissolving into laughter.
"That felt very strange. Like an electric shock, not quite close enough to feel. Only furry. Sam…" She fell silent, gazing at him, and spread her hands. "I don't even know what to say."
"As long as it's not 'I never want to see you again,' I can handle anything."
"Oh! No, don't be silly. But—I wouldn't have been upset, you know. If you'd told me then."
Sam groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. "I know that now. I think I even knew it then. It's just so awkward, and I thought we had time. I would have told you before I proposed," he added quietly. "I did plan to, Charlotte."
"I know." Lola caught his hand in her cool fingers and squeezed gently. "I thought you would after basic. Once you knew where you were going to be stationed. No one imagined you'd die on the way to basic. Or be lost, at least." Her eyes widened. "Sam, is this how you survived? Because you're a shifter? That's why you couldn't explain it all, earlier?"
Sam drew another deep breath and nodded. "Shifters heal fast, as long as we can make the shift. Even from bad injuries, although they take much longer than minor ones, just like they do for true humans. I shifted when the plane went down. Foxes can take a lot of damage, and they're smaller?—"
"You're a pretty big fox."
"Shifter animals are usually bigger than true animals, but I'm still not nearly as big a fox as I am a man. So I bounced a lot, and broke a lot, but not like the people around me did. I crawled into the brush and spent…days," he said, eyes closed as he remembered. "Maybe weeks, just healing. Shifting back and forth when I was strong enough. Eating small things that came near me. Foxes don't need as much food as humans, either. I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time. People must have come to the crash site, and if I'd had any presence of mind I'd have stayed nearby so I could be found in human form by any rescue team that came. But…"
Foxes don't go to humans when they're hurt, his fox said almost defensively. They hide, and heal.
Sam nodded. You did the right things. You saved us. Aloud, he said, "If I'd tried staying there, staying human more, I probably would have died of exposure before a rescue team arrived. Being a fox saved me."
"Then thank God you were one," Lola said fiercely. "I wish I'd known. I wish I'd known to stay, to have hope, but…" She fell silent, then finally shook her head. "But really, that crash was so bad. So many of the bodies were so badly burned, and…your parents said you had no dental records on file. More than one of the dead didn't match any records."
"Shifters don't use mainstream doctors, if they can avoid it. Not of any kind. And we make sure the records aren't saved, if we do. And it was a long time ago," Sam said with a sigh. "The military would have eventually kept records on all of us, but they didn't check our teeth when we signed up. I didn't mean to disappear as thoroughly as I did for the months I was gone, but…it's water under the bridge now, anyway. We can't undo it."
"No. We're lucky to have a second chance." Lola squeezed his hands again, studying his face with the dark gaze he loved so much. "You said that your parents wanted you to marry Valerie because shifters tend to breed true? Is that only with other shifters?"
"I think we'd have gone extinct a long time ago if it was only with other shifters. No, and actually, that's why I was suited to foster those kids with 'special needs.' Some were shifters who had lost their parents, and some were kids whose true-human families had thrown them out when they realized they were shifters, or… a lot of different paths brought them to me, but that was what I did: I fostered shifter children. They became my family after my parents died."
Lola closed her eyes, color burning through her cheeks. "Oh, no. Sam…"
Worry filled his chest and he pulled her closer. "It's all right. It'll be fine, whatever it is. What's wrong, love?"
"I told you I was hospitalized," Lola whispered. "That I was ill for a long time, that… Sam, I was pregnant when you died."
The world froze around him, his heart thundering in his chest and blood rushing in his ears. Even his fox was stunned into silence, and it felt like hours before he croaked, "Lola?"
"I was so sick." She met his eyes, her own filled with helpless tears. "It was half of why I left Virtue. Not because I was sick, but because I was eighteen and single and pregnant and it was fifty years ago and I couldn't bear living with the pitying looks, or your parents trying to control my life—or worse, ignoring us—and—" She shivered so hard the tears spilled from her eyes.
Sam lifted a hand to brush them away, his fingers trembling. All he could say was, "Lola?" again. No other words came to mind. Nothing except her story mattered at all, right then.
"I told them my husband had died in the military," Lola whispered. "They didn't really believe me. I didn't have a marriage certificate, a wedding ring, anything. I didn't think of it. I could have bought a ring before I went to the doctor, but…" She shook her head, helpless again, apologetic as she said, "I just didn't think of it. I was so sick, Sam. They took the baby when he was born. For my own good, they said. For his. Until I was well again. Foster parents. But they lost him in the system. I don't know how," she cried, desperate. "I searched for years , but he was gone."
Sickness swam through Sam's belly and he shook his head heavily. "You'd be shocked at how often that kind of thing happened, especially back then," he said thickly. "Even when the system is at its best, it's underfunded and overworked. Paperwork gets lost. Someone moves away, or gets married and changes their name, or there's a death that didn't get reported until a day too late, and the tracking vanishes. Or there's a new tracking system being put in, and some people just slip through the cracks. It isn't your fault, Lola."
The last words were fierce, and he pulled her close, hugging her hard. "We'll look for him," he promised. "But it isn't your fault. The truth is, it's probably not really anyone's fault. It was a long time ago and things were even more chaotic than they are now. My God, sweetheart. What a terrible thing to have to carry alone for so long."
She was sobbing in his arms, her whole body shaking, and all he wanted to do in all the world was protect her from the pain welling up inside her. Sorrow poured through him, as well, for all the things they'd lost, but the one thing he could promise was, "We're together again, now, Lola. We'll make it through, and we'll never, ever be apart again. We'll find him. If it's at all possible, we'll find him."
His mind leaped ahead as he made the promise. There were obviously people within the true human system who knew about, worked for, and protected shifter children who ended up in it. He knew a lot of them. If anyone had the resources to find Lola's lost child—his own son—it was Sam himself. "It's going to be okay. I promise. I promise."