Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 60481 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60481 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
But not today. Even though he was showing more and more shifter abilities, I couldn’t tell him he was part wolf. Or he had one in him. Or… I had no idea what it was exactly because I didn’t understand it myself. I didn’t have anyone to ask.
I wanted him to be normal or whatever JT’s normal was. But if he was seen doing something crazy at school? I wasn’t sure how I’d explain it.
Ted, my ex and JT’s father, had made a huge deal about nobody knowing about his kind. I definitely wasn’t supposed to know, so he’d sworn me to secrecy. He’d said if it got out, his kind would be hunted and either captured for study or killed. Supposedly, that had happened in various times of human history.
I had to protect JT from that because that scared the shit out of me.
I didn’t know enough about what it meant to raise a shifter, let alone a half-shifter, because I wasn’t one. Having JT toss tires and climb rafters, that was doable. Kinda. But what came next? What if it wasn’t something I could control? Like hitting the ball too hard at T-ball? What if he turned into a wolf? JT would have more and more questions that I couldn’t answer.
But I’d be damned if I ever called Ted for answers.
He didn’t know about JT, and that was the way I intended to keep it. He’d made it perfectly plain to me when he ended things that humans didn’t belong in his world. The motherfucker said he’d found his “fated mate” or some bullshit like that as the reason for dumping me. Basically, he wanted a she-wolf and not a human.
He’d probably thought he was being kind when he gently explained that we were never meant to be long-term. That he couldn’t have children with a human because it would dilute the bloodline, and the children–or as he called them pups–might never shift.
I’d had guys dump me in the past, but this? This excuse was the craziest one of all.
That was the night I was going to tell him I was pregnant but didn’t in the end.
It was the night I left Indianapolis. Left my job as a mechanic on Ted’s IndyCar racing team.
I could’ve gone to work on any other crew. I had connections, but that would have kept me in the same circles as Ted since he was a team driver. It was a small community, and a pregnant woman on the pit crew would get noticed. Plus, I didn’t ever want to see him again.
Instead, I’d taken a sabbatical from pit crew work and moved to Costa Rica, where my dad had retired, to have the baby. But when JT was two, his nanny started freaking out over how fast his skinned knees healed, and she started talking. Pretty soon, everyone in Playa Hermosa had heard her telling stories about JT and wanted to see the miracle baby, so we left.
I figured a place with lots of outdoor space was best, so I found a job in Texas Hill Country.
That had been a mistake. The men there couldn’t accept me as a mechanic, and their obsession with wild game hunting made me nervous about what would happen if JT ever shifted. As it turned out, he got into a little preschool tiff that should’ve been normal and harmless, but with his super strength, he had pushed the three-year-old trying to pull him out of the giant plastic car, and the kid had flown three feet and hit his head on the playhouse.
JT got labeled as a problem child, and I took it as a big-ass neon sign we should get out of Texas.
Then we moved to Northern California. I made good wages there, and JT loved the trees.
But he loved them a little too much. I couldn’t stop him from climbing them. Every time I turned around, he’d run to a tree and scamper up.
I hadn’t thought it was a big deal until he fell and broke his arm. I hated it, but even that was normal kid stuff.
Taking the cast off by himself three days later wasn’t.
Hence, the third move.
Cooper Valley was a beautiful Montana town. The other kids here seemed rambunctious, too. There was lots of space for him to run and do all his wolf-y things. A small community to be a part of. I hoped it was a great place to hide his inner wolf. No one in this town would suspect, right? They loved the outdoors. There were plenty of mountains to climb and space to run around for a little boy with endless energy. We’d blend right in with all the normal, quiet, kind residents.
“Mommy, I’m ready to get shooed.” JT turned away from me, breaking me from my thoughts.