Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
ULY
When they stepped into the mansion, Wyatt came over to me.
I loved this kid so much. He’d had a rough life growing up.
Born with moderate hearing loss, he wore devices to allow him to hear sounds and voices, which helped him to learn to speak.
Whenever he felt down, Jamie and Deb, as well as my family, were his biggest supporters.
We’d all taken classes on sign language if we ever needed them, but he was powering through it.
“Hey, Uncle Uly,” he said, giving me a bro hug, his bright blue hearing aids easily seen.
I hugged him back. “What’s up, kid? How’ve you been?”
He gave a one shoulder shrug. “Fine, I guess.”
His expression was anything but fine. I peered up at Deb who shook her head. I turned back to Wyatt, giving him a smile. “You know you can talk to me, right?”
He sighed. “Nah, it’s okay. All good.”
Another untruth. I might not be able to smell them the way Brent could, but I knew my nephew and those furrowed brows spoke louder than anything he might say. I would grill him on it after we had our conversation.
“So, listen. We kinda wanna have a talk with you. It’s important, and there are a few things you need to promise us before we get to it. Okay?”
He tilted his head slightly. “Yeah, sure.”
“You know that me and your Uncle Brent love you, right? And part of that is knowing we can trust you to keep a secret. Now, it’s nothing bad. Your mom and dad already know it, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. Okay?”
His lips curled down. “You’re not getting a divorce, are you? Angie’s parents got divorced and she wouldn’t stop crying.”
“No, we are absolutely not getting a divorce. I love my family, and I would never walk away from them. No, it’s more about… other things. Have you ever seen your mom’s books?”
He frowned. “You mean those weird ones that have a wolf and another man on the cover? Yeah, she kind of leaves them laying around. Why?”
“So you know what a shifter is?”
He nodded and his cheeks pinked. “I might peek at the books once in a while.”
“Good. Please keep that in mind. Brent? Can you come in here?”
He stepped into the room, his gaze locked on me. “Hey, kid.”
A big smile graced Wyatt’s face. He’d always been an uncle’s boy, mostly because Brent and our kids took him out into the forest and let him run and scream until he fell down, exhausted. Then they slung him over one of their shoulders and walked him, giggling the whole way, back to the car.
“Hey, Uncle Brent,” he said, giving Brent a hug.
Brent scratched at his neck. Though he trusted our family, he was still nervous about this. “So, listen. I talked with your mom and dad, and they said it was cool. We want to take a ride out to the woods today. Just you, Uly, the boys, and me. You down with that?”
He nodded eagerly. “Yes!”
“Cool. How about we take the helicopter?”
His eyes widened. “Can I fly it?”
Brent snickered. “Not even if it was a drone.”
“Aw, man.” Then he busted up laughing and rushed out to the car to head over to the helipad. What would take two hours by vehicle took about twenty minutes with the copter.
“I love it out here,” Wyatt said, his tone hushed, reverent, as we flew over the lake. After we landed and got out of the helicopter, Wyatt stood overlooking the valley and sighed.
“We do too,” Eddie said, a moment before he fell over into the clover, rolling around on the ground. A moment later, Jack joined him. They might be older kids, but they still loved the little things like this.
“Do you know why this area is so special?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Because this is a wild, unspoiled place, and a haven for all sorts of animals. Including bears.
His eyes widened. “There are bears out there? They’re so cool. Have you ever seen one?”
This was going much easier than I thought it would. “I can see three right now.”
His head jerked toward the lake. “No way! Where?”
“He’s talking about us, Wyatt,” Jack replied. “Me, Eddie, and Dad? We’re all bears. Well, bear shifters to be precise. Like in your mom’s books.”
“You are not.” His eyes narrowed. “Prove it.”
“I got this one,” Brent announced. He stepped behind the helicopter, obscuring him from view. A few moments later, out ambled a giant grizzly. I expected gasps or something from Wyatt, but instead he stood and took two steps closer.
“Can I touch him?” he asked.
“Sure, but be gentle. You know your uncle is delicate.”
Brent narrowed his eyes at me, silently telling me I’d pay for that later.
Wyatt approached, uncaring that he was near a six hundred pound creature that could take his head off with one swipe.
He was completely different than his dad, and more like his mother.
He reached out and put his hands on Brent’s face.
“Uncle Brent? Is that really you?”
Brent nodded. Meanwhile Eddie and Jack had followed suit and shifted. They surrounded Wyatt, nudging him. Through it all, he laughed and danced around with them. When Jack and Eddie lay down in the clover again, Wyatt joined them, rolling around like a fool.
After changing back, Brent dressed and came to where we were all waiting.
“Okay, boys. Time to switch to human.”
They grumbled, low and deep, but padded off to do as instructed. A couple of minutes went by and they hadn’t returned.
“Do not make me come after you!” he shouted.
Two bright and smiling faces reappeared a couple minutes later. “Sorry, Dad. Nature was calling,” Eddie said, without any pretense of guilt over the lie he was telling.
“You had to roll around in the clover some more, didn’t you?” I asked.
“It’s so sweet this time of the year, Pop.” He looked longingly where it grew the thickest. “Can you blame us?”
And I couldn’t. It was fragrant and tickled my nose. I almost felt like joining them. “Nope, not at all.”
“Wyatt? Thank you for coming out here with us. We’re not going to beat around the bush about this. The reason we’re sharing this now is we want you and your folks to move here, to be closer to us, but they’re afraid you’ll miss your friends.”
Though he didn’t say anything at first, his hands clenched at his sides and tears leaked from his eyes.
“What’s wrong, kid?”
And that was when the dam broke. Wyatt threw himself at me, wrapping slender arms around my waist.
“They’re not my friends,” he whimpered. “I heard them one day, talking about how gross my hearing aids are, how much of a freak I was, and saying the only reason they hang out with me was because Mom and Dad had money and bought us stuff and took us on trips to Disney and places like that. They don’t like me at all, just the stuff they get out of it. ”
I remembered those kinds of ‘friends’ all too well. Brent rubbed a hand over his back. “Yeah, that’s one of the biggest problems that comes with having money. You can never tell if people like you for who you are or what you can do for them.”
“We’ve never had that issue,” Eddie said. “Everyone here gets along for the most part, because we’re all members of the same family.” He knelt beside Wyatt. “And we’d love to have you here with us.”
“Really?” he asked, eyes wide, his nerves obvious.
“Really,” Jack answered. “You’re one of our family, and we want you close so we can go places. We could take you fishing, hiking in the woods. Heck, we could do all kinds of things.”
“Like rolling in clover?” he asked, wiping his eyes and snickering.
“Yep, just like that. Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
“Okay!”
So Wyatt ran over to the largest patch and flopped down, rolling in the purple flowers.
“It smells so good!” he said happily, plucking a handful and holding them to his nose.
“Trust us, we know.”
After that, we all sat on the bed of clover and watched the sun trek across the sky.
Jack and Eddie put their arms around Wyatt’s shoulders and he snuggled against them.
There were no complaints about being bored.
Wyatt seemed at home here, enjoying the nature around us.
Deer, smaller bears, eagles. They all made their presence known.
And from the awe in his expression, I knew this would be a beautiful home for Wyatt and his parents.
By the time we got back to the mansion, Wyatt was rung out. Eddie and Jack carried him to his room and tucked him in before they went to bed themselves. Brent and I sat down with Jamie and Deb, who were glancing at us nervously.
“Well?”
“He wants to be here,” I told them.
“But what about his friends?”
I told them what Wyatt had said to us about how they really felt.
“Those little bastards!” Jamie growled.
“We want you all to be here with us,” Brent told them. “I promise you that Wyatt will be able to make real friends and he’ll always have us nearby if he needs something.”
Jamie cast a glance at Deb who nodded. “We talked about it. We’d love to move here, especially if you’re going to let me open a bakery.”
“When you get home, you send me a list of things you’ll want and we’ll make it happen. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“If it gives me a chance to spend more time with you and Uly, I know I won’t.”
We talked late into the night, with Deb holding Luke and cooing if he fussed. I made her promise to teach me her ways. After a while, I went to the fireplace and tossed another log on, then turned and listened to my family as they plotted our future. One where everyone would work on being happy.
One where Brent would continue to shepherd us all.
One where we’d all prosper and grow.
And I realized how grateful I was that I found myself mated to a bear shifter with two sons—now three—and a life I was so goddamn proud of.
The first ten years was amazing, and I couldn’t wait for the next fifty.