Chapter 17 Inga
INGA
Inga woke by habit at the first rays of the sun through the window, which was getting to be hellaciously early at this time of year.
Luke lay beside her in a deep heavy sleep, head turned to the side and mouth slightly open.
He must be exhausted. Inga wondered when he’d last had the chance to sleep in a real bed.
Even the bunks at the cabin had been somewhat rudimentary.
She slid quietly out of bed without waking him, which truly must be a measure of his need for sleep, and donned her discarded bathrobe.
She cracked the door and peeked out into the empty hallway and the living room beyond.
All lay quiet and peaceful, lit by the rising sun.
All she had to do was tiptoe to her bedroom, grab some clean underwear, and hop in the shower with no one the wiser. Easily done.
She made it halfway there.
“Mornin’, love!” A shadow fell across her as her dad loomed out of a previously unseen part of the living room, clad in his favorite threadbare gray robe, cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of Sport Fishing Monthly in the other. “Sleep okay?”
Inga froze in mid-step like a cartoon character whose concealing fake bush had just been snatched away, her bare toes just touching the floorboards. “Uh, yeah, Dad, I slept great.” They were both whispering, which meant that her dad clearly knew Luke was still asleep.
“Coffee’s on whenever you want it,” her dad said casually, and headed back into the living room.
“Thanks,” she said weakly to his back. Oh yeah, now she noticed the faint smell of coffee, finally making its way back here. There was no way he could have failed to notice that she was unambiguously headed from Luke’s room to her own, wearing nothing but a robe.
Maybe she could just hide in the bathroom forever.
Her dad didn’t reappear, and she felt a little better after a long shower, changed into clean jeans and a loose, oversized fisherman’s sweater.
With a pair of heavy wool socks protecting her feet from the chilly floor, she padded into the living room, poured herself a cup of coffee, and picked up a donut from an open box beside the stove.
Rogue, laying on a rug in front of the door, raised his head and thumped his tail, but didn’t get up when it became clear that no treats were on offer.
Her dad was reading his magazine on the couch in front of the big picture windows, with the entire sea spread out in front of him, the sky streaming pink-tinged clouds lit with morning sunlight.
Inga was tempted once again to simply slink off, but she got herself together and went to sit on the other end of the couch.
“I love this view,” she said quietly.
After a moment, her dad lowered his magazine and reached for the coffee cup. His reading glasses were perched on the end of his nose—always strange to see, which she was so much more used to those blue eyes squinting at the horizon, sunk deep in nests of sun-wrinkles.
“I do too,” he said. “It’s why we built the house like this. Welcoming the sea in—though we’ve gone through a few storms in this house too, haven’t we?”
Inga laughed. “We sure have. Remember that big nor’easter when you took us kids up the hill to stay with the Sandersons because you were afraid the waves would rip the house right off its mooring posts?”
“But it didn’t, did it?” her dad said proudly. “This house has stood through some of the roughest weather the sea could throw at ‘er.”
“Not always without damage. Remember when the window broke?”
The big picture windows had heavy storm shutters, which were often kept fastened in the winter.
Even so, they’d once had one of the big panes shatter, covering the couch and floor in shards of glass.
Luckily it had happened at night, with all of the kids, teenagers at the time, safely in their bedrooms.
“And we fixed it, didn’t we?”
“We sure did,” Inga said.
Her dad huffed out a sigh and wrapped his hands around his nearly empty coffee cup. “I’m not going to pry into your life, Inga. You’re a grown woman, and I know you’ve been—” He made a face like a cat getting a mouthful of peanut butter.
“Having sex, Dad,” Inga said.
“Yeah. That. I won’t go giving you advice, I figure you’ve had plenty from your big brothers over the years.”
“Don’t remind me.” Inga shuddered at the recollection of a desperately embarrassed Tor trying to give her the birds-and-bees talk when she was about thirteen.
“Right. Ahem.” Her dad cleared his throat. “So I’m just gonna ask you one question.” His voice softened. “Is this Luke fellow your mate, Inga-bear?”
He hadn’t used that nickname for her in a lot of years. Inga’s first knee-jerk reaction was to flare up. This isn’t staying out of my business, Dad!
But it was a question she had been asking herself, too. She sipped at her coffee with a bite of donut, a bitter-and-sweet contrast she had always enjoyed, to give her a minute before answering.
Looking around, she noticed that with an astonishing amount of stealth for such a big dog, Rogue had ghosted over to lay on the floor beside her side of the couch.
Most likely he was angling for a piece of her donut, but since she’d picked a chocolate-frosted one, she didn’t think it would be a good idea to share.
Instead she put the donut on her far knee and reached down to rub Rogue’s ears, finding reassurance in the soft, thick fur.
“I wish I knew,” she said quietly. “I always thought I would be sure. It seems like that’s how it was for both of my brothers. I’ve never felt the way I do with Luke with anyone else, that’s for sure.”
“What’s your bear say?”
Inga sighed. “You know she’s never really talked to me the way your animals do with the rest of you.” She tuned inward, questioning that inner presence, and shook her head. “Whatever I’m supposed to be feeling, I just don’t. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
Her dad reached out and shook her knee, nearly dislodging the half-eaten donut. Rogue’s head snapped up, making it clear what he was really there for. “Don’t ever say that about yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you, love. You just need to know, if he isn’t your mate—”
“—There’s someone else out there for me. I know, Dad. I know how this all works.”
“Okay. So listen to your dad, if you want. But listen to your bear, and your heart, first and foremost.”
Inga picked up the donut before Rogue’s questing snout could get too close and stuffed a bite in her mouth. Her dad, she knew, had his own bitter experience with love and loss. But she also didn’t want to believe that she and Luke were doomed before they even began.
By the time she had finished her donut, however, she felt more settled within herself. “I’ll keep that in mind. But I’m not giving up on Luke being the one yet, either. I don’t know, maybe it feels different for me than for most shifters.”
Her dad was quiet for a moment, then spoke up abruptly. “You know who you should talk to? Go see Mace.”
“The old guy on the hill?” Inga asked dubiously. Ever since she could remember, Mace and his family had owned the big house above the village. But they had always kept themselves apart from the regular townspeople.
That had changed a little these days, now that more people were living up there, including a niece or some other relation with a spouse and a baby, and Mace’s new wife.
But Inga still couldn’t imagine just going up and knocking on their door, and—what then, saying that she wanted to have a chat with the mysterious reclusive rich guy about her love life?
“I’m serious,” her dad said.
She had to laugh. “You think I should go talk to Mace MacKay about my boyfriend?”
“Just trust me. Doesn’t have to be him, could be someone else in the household that you’d rather talk to. That Jess is a nice young lady. You don’t have to. But I think the gargoyles might be able to tell you some things that’d help.”
Gargoyles .... a thread of chill shivered down her back. There were rumors in town that Mace and his family did a lot more than just carve gargoyles out of stone. But no one had ever actually seen them shift.
“Dad, what do you know that the rest of us don’t?”
Her dad laughed and patted her knee, then rose from the couch with a grunt. “Just something to think about, if you want advice from someone who isn’t the old man.”
“I don’t want advice from anyone!” Inga complained as he lumbered off to the kitchen for a coffee refill.
There was the sound of a door closing and water running elsewhere in the house. Luke must be up. Inga made a determined effort to change the subject.
“So how about one of your famous fisherman breakfasts, Dad? Nita brought us some extra food, but we’d run out of a bunch of things at the cabin. I haven’t had real eggs, or breakfast meat that wasn’t in a sandwich, in close to a week.”
“One fisherman breakfast, coming up! We’ll get some proper meat on that boy’s bones yet.”
After a breakfast that did justice to her father’s reputation as a breakfast-making maestro, Inga took Luke out to explore the town. Before they left the house, Luke grabbed a floppy-brimmed fishing hat off a hook by the door and pulled it down over his ears.
“Really?” Inga asked quietly.
“Taking no chances,” Luke muttered, glancing skyward.
It was a fresh bright day, the wind kicking up off the water.
To Inga it felt chillier than the last few days at the cabin, and there were clouds threatening.
They had been lucky to have had no rain so far, but it looked like their luck might run out this afternoon.
For now, however, it was a beautiful day to explore the town.
She took Luke up her favorite route to the top of the hill, stopping by the roundabout with the gargoyle statue in the middle, nicknamed “Fred.” Above that, old Mimsy Sanderson waved to Inga from the front door of her flower shop, they dutifully admired her roses while she fed Rogue one of the dog biscuits that she kept on hand for canine visitors.