You Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 3)

Chapter 2: Matt

I couldn’t shake the feeling like there must be more we can do for that poor girl after we left the farm and drove all the way back home. Picturing her innocent face haunted by such tragedy and worrying about everything she must be dealing with since her grandfather’s absence keeps me up most of the night.

By the next morning, my mate has had enough of me in this state. She suggests that I find out which hospital is keeping the grandfather and go to pay the man a visit. Perhaps he can shed some more light on the situation and help me figure out how I can help them.

So, after spending some time calling around to the different hospitals near their farm and figuring out where Mr. Carpenter is being treated, I got in my truck and made the trip alone this time. Jeannie has no idea I’m here, and there’s a small voice at the back of my mind protesting the fact that I’m making my way down this eerie hospital hallway to have a conversation for reasons that are none of my business. Thankfully, that voice is not that of my inner wolf, Eli. He is as worried about Jeannie as I am.

I spot the room number that the nurse gave me and quietly make my way inside, pausing just beyond the doorway to take it all in. I do see a man in the bed on the far side of the room, though he doesn’t look much like the man I remember. He seems to have shrunk quite a bit, and he no longer has the long, thick white hair he had before. His eyes appear sunken into his face and there are dark circles around them that make his appearance seem a bit raccoonish. His complexion is a sickly sort of pale, in contrast to the sun-bronzed skin that I remember from before.

It’s only been a couple months since I’ve seen him, but so much about him has changed. I can only imagine what goes through Jeannie’s head when she sees him. The man in the bed hardly even resembles her grandfather anymore.

Cautiously, I approach the bed, uncertain if he’s sleeping or just resting his eyes. Focusing on the somewhat erratic rhythm of his breathing and the speed of his heartbeat, I determine that he’s most likely awake. The smell of him is off-putting, though, not to mention heartbreaking. As I feared, this is a man with one foot already in the grave.

“Who’s there?” he calls out weakly, not even opening his eyes.

I wonder for a split-second how he even sensed that I was here, but then I notice my hand gently gripping his and realize I must have reached out for him.

“It’s Matt Bentley,” I announce myself softly. “My family and I have been doing business with you for many years.”

His eyes flutter open as he strains to look up at me. I recognize that look in his eyes. Pain. He must have a serious headache, which makes me wonder why the blinds are open and there are so many lights on in this room.

I hop into action, making my way to the window to close the blinds and searching the switches behind his bed for one that will dim the lights in here.

Once I’ve finished, he gives me a faint smile of thanks and reaches for my hand again.

“I eventually get tired of always nagging them about the lights,” he explains.

“As much as it costs to stay here, you better not give them an inch on that. If your head hurts, tell them. You’re here so they can take care of you,” I remind him, hoping it doesn’t come off too much like I’m scolding him.

“I know. I’m not one to complain, though. They’re working hard, and I’m not the only one they’re taking care of.”

I have a feeling that I’m not going to persuade him, so I decide to just drop it. Perhaps it will help if I stop at the nurses’ station on my way out and remind them of his headaches, but it’s not my place to push the issue.

It’s not why I’m here, anyway.

“Your granddaughter told me about your illness, so I wanted to come visit you,” I tell him, but that’s all I have a chance to say.

“How is she?” he asks desperately. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” I assure him. “Stressed, but she seemed well and healthy. Do you not get to see her often?”

He’s quiet for a bit, frowning and seeming to think.

“No,” he responds sadly after a moment. “I haven’t done right by her. She’s not ready for this. She doesn’t know how to drive, so she has to wait for Mitch to bring her. And neither of them will tell me how things are going back there, but I imagine it’s not good. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I sigh, considering whether he’s in any condition to be hearing the truth, especially from an outsider. He’s always been a straight-shooting, no nonsense sort of person, so it kind of feels like I owe it to him. Anything less will only make him worry more about what I’m not telling him.

“I don’t know how much you know, and I only know what Jeannie told me yesterday, but you’re right. It’s not good. She said the animals have already been auctioned off and she has to sell the farm, so I went ahead and bought out all that you had left of the food stuffs we normally get from you. She said she wasn’t sure if it would be a problem later because she doesn’t know much about your customers and what they’re expecting, but it seemed to be a relief for her to be done with it all.”

He closes his eyes, inhaling sharply before growing quiet again. I don’t push or say anything more, content to wait until he’s ready.

“I appreciate that,” he says finally.

He’s so quiet that I feel compelled to pull up the nearby chair and sit down to take his hand in mine again, trying to convey to him that he has my support.

“I need to know that she’s going to be okay,” I finally confess to him my reason for coming. “Both now and when you’re gone. I’m sure it’s not pleasant to talk about, but I can sense it. You’re not leaving here, are you.”

“No,” he admits lowly, turning his face away from me as though he’s ashamed of that. “The doctors won’t say it outright, but I can feel it. I don’t have much more left in me, and I can’t keep enduring those treatments. The odds of them helping are low anyway. Buying time is all we’re doing, not to mention wasting money and making me feel sicker in the process.”

He turns back to look at me, a strained smile stretching the thin and almost translucent skin of his face, and he starts laughing. It’s a strange, unsettling experience to hear him laugh like that.

“Her whole life, I’ve been trying to protect her,” he starts to explain once he’s composed himself again. “Overprotect her, some would say, but to me it was justified. I couldn’t have what happened with my Julia happen to my Jeannie. But by protecting her, I’ve left her vulnerable, and I don’t have the strength to get up out of this bed and go home to fix it. There’s no more time left.”

“What happened to Julia?” I can’t help asking.

It’s out of curiosity more than anything, having always wondered why we’d see the back of Jeannie and her long ponytail scurrying away whenever we came around, and I suspect that might be what he’s talking about. But I also want to know what she needs protecting from. There’s a growing part of me that’s ready to swoop in and take her home with me after she’s finished taking care of everything with the farm, which would mean the role of protector would fall to me and my family.

“Julia wasn’t ours, you know. Biologically, I mean. We found her as a baby,” he confesses, his eyes seeming to glaze over as he loses himself in the memories. “We never did have children of our own, and by then we were old enough to know better than to still be hoping for it. Then she came along, seeming to be the answer to our prayers. We doted on her, spoiled her even, and she was everything we’d ever dreamed of. But when she got older, he came and took her from us.”

He gets quiet again and I notice a tear sliding down his cheek as he recalls whatever happened to his daughter. He hasn’t really clarified anything for me yet, but considering the condition he is in, I’m afraid to push.

“I know what you are, you know,” Mr. Carpenter says finally, setting my heart to racing as I worry if he means what I think he means. “And I know about your kind and their mates.”

Well, that confirms it. I try not to react, refraining from saying anything until I see where he’s going with this.

“I know what happens when a young man of your kind finds his mate, and it scared me to death when I saw your boy looking at my Jeannie like that. I couldn’t have it happen again, not then anyway, but lately I’ve been sitting here thinking about it, and I think I was wrong. If she’s his mate, he’ll take care of her, right?”

When he looks up at me again, there’s a pleading in his teary eyes that leaves me fighting to hold back tears of my own. I don’t know that he’s right about what he suspects, but I don’t think it matters. If one of my boys had scented or seen their mate in Jeannie, they’d have said something, but this works to my advantage. Now I have a good reason to convince him to let me bring her back with me. Mate or not, we’ll take care of her.

“If she’s his mate, then yes. But even if she’s not, then it’s still yes,” I assure him. “That’s why I came to you today. Our pack accepts humans, and I’ve been wanting to take her with me ever since I saw her yesterday. I can tell she’s been sheltered and might need some help learning to be on her own.”

“I don’t want her on her own,” he cuts me off, a stern insistence to his voice. “I want you to keep her, take care of her, protect her. Keep those mages away from her, you hear me? I’m counting on your kind to live up to their reputation and not let them anywhere near her.”

That must be what happened to Julia. The man who “took” her must have been a mage of some sort. I’m still left wondering what exactly happened to her, or if she is even still alive, but that’s enough for now. My mate is the Alpha of our pack, and she has some powerful friends who can help keep Jeannie safe from mages should they come to finish whatever they started with her mother.

“We’ll keep her safe. You have my word,” I promise him, meaning every word of it.

I haven’t exactly run this by the Alpha yet, but I know Aly won’t deny me this. It has to be why she suggested me coming here in the first place.

“Good,” he says, exhaling and visibly relaxing before me. He closes his eyes and lies back against the pillows again. “Good.”

*************************

That’s the last I ever see of him. It’s about a week later that the hospital calls to tell me he has passed, and I drive back up there to help Jeannie make final arrangements for her grandfather and his farm. The auction is held two days after his funeral, and though she is devastated about every part of her situation, she smiles with relief when she hears the final total she’ll receive for the buildings, property, and remaining equipment.

“It’s enough, at least to pay off all the back bills,” she explains to me as I walk with her to the accounting office where she will finalize the paperwork. “I’ll worry about the rest of the hospital bills another day. Oh, and my chickens. What will I do with my chickens?”

“Bring them with us,” I offer with a shrug. “No reason not to, and our cook loves the eggs. Plus, it will give you a taste of home to take with you, and something familiar to take care of.”

“Thank you,” she tells me shyly, not able to meet my eyes just like anytime we speak of anything too personal or that she feels is inappropriate for her to be asking of me. “I kept Grandma’s seeds too. I don’t know if there will be somewhere I can plant them where you live, but I was hoping –”

“Of course you can plant them,” I assure her. “We love your produce, and I’m sure you’ll have other interested customers back home. Assuming you intend to plant a big garden like you had at the farm, anyway. And maybe my mother-in-law can help you. She always keeps an herb garden. I’m not sure how much that has in common with the gardening you do, though.”

“Lots. That would be great. It won’t be until next year, though. Gardening season is mostly over for this year.”

“Even in a greenhouse?”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know anything about that.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to learn.”

I can’t help chuckling a little at the nervous, uncertain look on her face. She reminds me a bit of my younger daughter, Stella, and I’m really hoping they’ll hit it off. Jeannie told me she’s 19, which means she and Stella are close in age as well.

After Jeannie has everything sorted out with the auction house, we head to my truck in the parking lot and back to the farm one last time to finish packing her up and getting ready to bring her home with me. The man who has been helping her, Mitch, is already there to assist us and has a special trailer ready to load her chickens.

A couple hours later, all her belongings are loaded into the back of my truck, and her chickens are snugly tucked away in the trailer. We’ll worry later about all the furniture and things that belonged to her grandparents that we put in a storage unit a few days ago. For now, the task is to get her home and let her get settled in, finally free of the burdens of debt and the farm that is way too big for one person.

But once we’re on the road and alone in the cab of my truck, it feels like it’s well past time to warn her about her new home. I probably should have done this days ago, or even immediately after promising her grandfather that I’d take care of her, but something in me kept hesitating. I don’t know how much she might know about werewolves, and it’s hard to decide where to begin.

“Jeannie, there’s something we need to talk about, some things you need to know about the place I live and the people there,” I begin cautiously, side-glancing her as I drive to observe her reaction.

“I’m used to having a lot of rules if that’s what you’re worried about. Just tell me what they are, and I won’t cause any trouble,” she promises.

And I believe her too. She seems like a good kid. The fact that I barely ever saw her around when I came to the farm when her grandpa was still running it is a testament to that.

“There are rules, like there are pretty much anywhere, but that’s not what I mean. The people there, people like me, we’re different than you’re used to. Your grandpa seemed to know all about it, but I’m not so sure that he ever shared that knowledge with you.”

“Probably not. I’m sure he kept a lot from me, to protect me he would say. Whatever it is, just tell me. Grandpa trusted you, and he never trusted anyone before. Not with me.”

“Fair point,” I chuckle nervously.

Taking a breath and counting on the faith she seems to be putting in me, I finally confess, “I’m a werewolf, Jeannie. Me and most of the people back home, we all are.”

“Oh,” is all she says for a while.

She seems to think it over very carefully, taking time that I know I need to allow her but time that I feel impatient to have to give her. She’s nervous, that much I can tell, but she always seems nervous. Surprisingly, I don’t smell fear. Her adrenaline isn’t surging, her body isn’t preparing to attack me or jump out of my truck. Her reaction would make more sense if I had just told her something like we’re expecting a big storm later, not that I’m taking her home to a community of a whole other species that might seem like the stuff of nightmares to a human.

“Okay,” she says finally.

That’s it. No other indicator of how she’s feeling about it, just straight to acceptance.

She must have known about us already. That’s the only explanation that fits here.

“What have you heard before about werewolves?” I can’t help prodding for more.

“I remember reading stories about them, fiction stories mostly. Legends and folklore. Nothing that would suggest they’re real people, but I believe you. I don’t know why you’d suddenly start lying to me now.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t, and I won’t. That’s why I’m telling you this outright, so that I don’t have to start lying to you about the things you’ll observe back home. It will be impossible for you to live among us and not notice some things that would seem odd if you don’t know what we are.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” is her only response to that before she gets quiet again.

I can tell she’s more bothered than she’s letting on, but I’ve also learned from my short time interacting with her that it’s best to let her come to me with questions rather than trying to anticipate what she needs from me. She can be shy and reserved, closing herself down if I push too much and overwhelm her, but she’s also clever and observant and figures out a lot of things on her own.

I suppose that for now, it’s enough just that she knows. We’ll worry about the rest later.