Call of the Wild (7 page)

Laura seemed to understand what he was thinking. Reaching up with one arm, she went up on her toes to give him a kiss before walking off.

Marsha, along with all of the other men, just stood and watched her walk away down the hall.

“It just never gets old, does it?” asked Aaron.

Doug Donahue didn’t care if the others noticed the tears in his eyes. Aaron said a true thing. Watching Laura walk when they never thought she would again after the accident, was a priceless gift.

With one last smile in the direction of his mate, Alex led the way to the room Laura affectionately called the man cave. It was near the gym and one floor down from her family’s suites of rooms. The room was about sixty feet long and forty feet wide. When they walked in, there were four large couches. Two were of leather and two were upholstered in a contrasting fabric. Several ottomans could double as tables. A rack against the left wall held newspapers and magazines. Next to the rack was a jukebox. The opposite wall had a long bar that ran down the side of the room.

Every wall in the room had at least one TV. The wall at the end of the room had multiple screens, which could be combined into one or divided, depending on preference. Once you were past the first seating area, you hit the gaming area. Along the wall past the jukebox, were three pinball machines. In the middle of the room, there was a pool table, an air hockey table, and a foosball table.

Of course, all of the men had to walk all the way to the end of the room where the biggest screen was. A half wall separated that last third of the room from the rest. When the guys walked down, they saw why. The floor was recessed to make room for two rows of recliners on different levels. That way people sitting in back didn’t have their view of the screens obstructed.

“Hey, these are gaming chairs,” said Evan, the youngest of the brothers and the geekiest. “Oh, man, this set-up is sick. Who’s up for some World of Warcraft?”

Doug was watching his sons check out the cabinets built into the half wall. They held all of the electronics and gaming apparatus. As he smiled, he looked around and saw a door in the wall at the end of the bar. He figured it was a bathroom and decided to look.

When he opened the door, he was surprised to find a short hallway with three doors. He opened the door on the right and was pleased to find his kind of man cave. In the center of the room was a high-end poker table. Each station around the table was outfitted with a swivel chair. There were chip racks, too, plus just under the lip of the table, he could see a pullout surface for drinks and food. That way the felt would stay nice.

The room was a little longer than it was wide. To the right was a pass-through to the bar. Currently, it was closed, which is why he hadn’t been able to see into the room earlier. The door behind him slowly closed and he realized the room was soundproofed. Players wouldn’t be distracted by anything going on in the big room. Of course, there were TVs on each of the walls. A long credenza next to the pass-through was the right size to put out food. Checking the cabinets below, he saw that two were actually cooled beverage drawers. The rest stored a dealer’s shoe, cards, and poker chips. He would have to challenge Alex to a friendly game.

A door in the far corner turned out to be a small bathroom. Somehow, based on the size of the other rooms, obviously set up for large groups, this small bathroom didn’t really seem adequate.

Leaving the poker room, he’s already started calling it “the snug” in his head. He stepped back into the small hallway and walked across to the opposite door. When he opened it, he recognized the men’s locker room attached to the gym.
So you could get to the bathrooms and showers through there
.

That left one more door. After all of the other surprises, this one was mundane. A large well-stocked storage room. At a glance, he could see it was ruthlessly organized. He knew his sons, unless someone else was in charge of all this, it would be a mess in short order. Backing out of the room, he saw Marsha entering the hall from the main room. Aaron was hot on her heels.

“Doug, did you need something?” she asked him.

“I’m fine, Marsha. I was just checking out the rest of the rooms. I especially like the snug, it’s more my speed.”

Still ignoring Aaron, she gave his father all of her attention.

“Snug?”

“In a pub or bar, a small private and sometimes secret room was often called the snug, probably because of its small size. This one is a little large for a snug, but it is close enough. I do have one question, though. There seems to be only the one small bathroom off the snug for women to use. Shouldn’t there be another bathroom here?”

Marsha laughed. This was a man who understood women.

“This room was specifically set up for you and your sons. The bathroom in the snug is for Laura or any visiting females. Don’t worry, though, there’s another larger bathroom off the main hallway. And, of course, there’s another room set up for the females to congregate in. It has a different flavor, you could say,” she explained.

“Oh? Lots of pink and lace, flowered chintz sofas and—shudder…throw pillows?” Aaron asked her with a smirk.

Marsh glanced over at him with a frown. “Actually, this room was put together specifically with you and your brothers in mind. Laura didn’t have a room set aside for herself. She has her office. Down in the facility, a massive recreation area has been set up for those who will be quartered here. It has separate areas for men and women, as well as a blended area in between. I’m sure she’ll give you a tour if you ask.”

Before Aaron could answer, they were called back into the larger room. Laura and the refreshments had arrived. Aaron’s time of reckoning was upon him. Deciding he’d rather have alcohol than coffee, he went behind the bar to grab a beer.

After opening the beer and taking a quick slug, Aaron joined his family in the seating area near the door. He got there just as Evan was waving to someone in the hallway before closing the door.

“Bro, who was that? I didn’t see anyone,” asked Josh.

“Oh, that reminds me. After Aaron tells his story, ask that question again, Josh. For now, we’ve waited long enough. Aaron, the floor is yours,” Laura interrupted. She didn’t want her family to get sidetracked with Lola, and Evan’s ability to see magical beings. That explanation would come later.

Aaron went through his experience with Kylie and her brother again. It was easier to tell the story the second time. Knowing Kylie was still alive and had a happy life, helped him get through the rougher parts.

“I freaked because after months of worrying about you, Laura, I find you with a group that all have targets on their backs. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I had buried that memory down deep in order to keep the secret. When I saw what you had become, it all came vomiting back up. I reacted badly, my bad. My beer is warm, I’m getting another one,” Aaron flippantly finished before getting up and walking down the room.

His family let that fib stand and didn’t say anything. His first beer was sitting, condensation coating the glass, on the table in front of his chair.

When Aaron had started his story, Marsha was expecting to hear a bunch of lame-ass bigoted bullshit against shifters. When his story poured out, she decided to give him another chance. She told herself his obvious hotness and her still damp panties had nothing to do with it, either. She decided she would test him.

Getting up from her seat, she followed him down to the end of the bar where he was pulling another beer out of the cooler. He hadn’t opened it yet. He just stood there, staring at the label. Marsha took the bottle out of his hands and then stepped up to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She didn’t say anything, simply stood there and held him.

After a couple of seconds, Aaron put his arms around Marsha and hugged her back. Neither of them spoke, they just soaked in the silence and the comfort.

Test passed in flying colors.

Marsha was enjoying the moment, taking in his scent when he spoke.

“You know, if you
really
want me to feel better, we could go have sex.”

Okay, he was a man, test passed by the skin of his teeth. Marsha let go and gave him a look that all men recognized. She stepped back around him to go back to the others. Aaron felt a familiar smack to the back of his head. He just laughed, his good mood restored. Not because of the hug, even though it was great getting his hands on her. No, it was because he knew, with some effort, that he could have the luscious woman in his bed.

His original plan had been to find Laura and bring her home before going back to his unit. He revised his plans to include time to get to know Marsha better, a lot better, biblically better. Before he left, he planned to know every inch of her. No longer needing the excuse or the alcohol, he put the beer back in the cooler, and walked back up the room to rejoin his family.

As he approached, he noticed Marsha had taken a seat next to Steven at the end of one of the leather couches. He quickly gave his brother a signal they’d worked out when they were teens chasing girls.

Steven got up and grabbed a small plate, filling it with snacks from the tray Lola had brought in earlier. When he sat back down, he had moved, leaving the space next to Marsha open. Aaron was quick to take advantage. He sat down next to Marsha, putting his arm over the back of the couch.

Before she could object or move away, he spoke up. “So, Laura, you wanted us to remind you that Evan saw someone the rest of us didn’t?”

Laura nodded and smiled. She knew exactly what her brother was doing. She wanted to help him and Marsha get together, so she jumped right in.

“Yes, that’s right. Evan has met Lola, my housekeeper, and her sister, Lila. The rest of you thought I had some kind of remote controlled food cart that Maggie House was running. It took me awhile to figure out why only some of us could see Lola. Lola is an inter-dimensional being. She can travel between two realms, ours and another. If you don’t have the right DNA, you can’t see her.”

“Then how come Evan, who has the same DNA as us, can see her?” asked Josh.

“When I came here, I had a small abrasion on my back. One of the shifters here was helping me and he cut his finger. It only took one drop of his blood to come in contact with mine for my changeling DNA to…I’ll say activate. My abilities began to manifest the next day. The first thing was that I could see Lola,” explained Laura.

“Still hasn’t explained why Evan could see her yesterday,” Josh grumbled.

Laura shrugged. “It’s just a theory. But once when we were kids, Evan and I did a blood exchange. I wanted to be “blood brothers” with him so we each pricked our fingers with a needle and pressed the wounds together. Maybe when I activated, Evan also activated? Unless one of you has done a blood ritual with another shifter?” she asked them, jokingly.

Evan tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling. He was thinking hard about what his sister said. Actually, he could remember seeing things going back further than the last couple of days.

“How long has it been, four months or so? No, it has to be something else and I think I know what it was. Ordinarily, shifter blood and human blood are the same?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s only because Mom was a changeling that we all have the ability to have our perception changed,” Laura said. Now wasn’t the time to tell her brothers that they would eventually be able to shift.

“Okay, if it’s transmitted by blood then…hmmm. People are so careful these days because of AIDS. Still, I’ve participated in enough sports to know that skinned knees and elbows happen. There could easily have been some transfer at some point. Of course, the person I was playing with would have to have been a shifter…pretty long odds.”

“Does it really matter when it happened and how?” Benji asked. “I mean, it’s obvious that you got a drop of blood from someone.”

“Well, there’s no way to test the retroactive theory unless one of you knows for a fact that you got some of my blood in you and I just don’t remember it,” said Laura.

All of her brothers and her father thought about that for a minute and couldn’t come up with anything.

“All of you need to get a little drop of my blood now. At the very least, it will allow you to converse with Lola and her sisters and brother, Lars. There are also others.”

There weren’t any objections, so Laura pulled out a package of needles and Band-Aids she’d brought along after her shower.

“Not you, Dad, you don’t have the DNA,” she said.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“If you had been a shifter, then you would have activated Mom’s changeling abilities,” Laura told him. “We’ll talk to Frieda—there may be something we can do so you can see everything as well.”

It only took a few minutes to complete the exchanges. Hopefully, her brothers wouldn’t be too angry with her when they discovered they were now halfway to being shifters too. She wondered what kind they’d become.

Aaron insisted on exchanging blood with Marsha, using the excuse that they were sitting next to each other anyway. He wanted to keep her nearby as long as he could, the fact that she wasn’t resisting…too hard, didn’t escape his notice either.

She had been warming up to him ever since he’d bared his soul about what had happened all those years ago. He hoped she didn’t need any other revelations because he was done with sharing.