A Girl and Her Wolf (Howl, #7) (14 page)

Chapter 20: Emma

Emma cradled Davenport in her arms for a few moments, still nervous to leave him with Bennett. As she set him back down in his crib, she whispered, “You be good for Bennett while we’re gone, okay? I know you’ll probably just sleep the whole time, but don’t make a mess for him or anything.”

Davenport stared up at her with a knowing look in his eyes.

Emma blew him a kiss and was about to turn out the light when he sneezed, blowing a silvery blue smoke out of his nose. Her stomach churned. “Colby?”

He must have felt her panic for himself, because, within seconds, her mate was standing by her side. “What’s wrong, Em?”

She met his gaze. “He just sneezed, and . . . smoke blew out of his nose. You can call me crazy if you want, but I know I saw it for sure this time.” 

For once, Colby didn’t argue with her. “What do you think it means? Dr. Mink didn’t mention anything about him sneezing smoke, did he?”

Emma shook her head. “No, he didn’t. Should we call him?”

“Why don’t we call him later? I feel bad waking him up in the middle of the night again,” Colby replied honestly.

“Okay. First thing in the morning, though?”

“Yes, I promise,” he replied.

As they turned off the light, Bennett came into the room. “Would it be okay if I gave little Daven some orange juice while you two are gone? If this is just a cold, we should probably work on trying to build his immune system.”

Emma glanced over at Colby. “Is it okay for him to have orange juice this young? It’s not on the list of approved foods that Samara left us.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. It might be a little acidic, but he’s a werewolf baby, so he has a stronger stomach than other babies. And we don’t really need to worry about him getting cavities, either.”

“Okay,” Emma told Bennett. “Orange juice is fine.”

“Splendid.” The spirit beamed. “Now, you’d better hurry up before your mother does anything rash.”

*

Once they got to Emma’s mom’s house, all of the lights in the house had been turned off. The owls hooted around them, and the moon shone brightly in the night sky.

“Do you think she’s even home?” Gary questioned, quietly enough to not disturb the neighbors.

“She might be sleeping,” Colby suggested.

Emma shook her head. “My mom never sleeps when she’s anxious over something. Either she’s awake in the house, or she’s somewhere outside.” Climbing up the steps, she rang the doorbell.

They all waited, but no one came to the door. They didn’t even hear Emma’s mom climbing down the stairs.

“I don’t think she’s home, guys,” Emma said, turning to Colby and Gary. “
Now
what?”

“Now, we go and find out where she actually is,” Gary replied.

“Do you think it’s possible that she might have . . . um . . . taken comfort in the guy she was on a date with?” Colby asked. “Do we know where he might live?”

“I do know where he lives,” Gary said with a nod. “But their date didn’t seem to end too well. After I attacked him and then bit her, he asked to use her phone to call an ambulance, but she basically slammed the door on his face. I was lucky she didn’t refer to me by name during the attack, but it was clear that she knew it was me.”

“So, let me get this straight. You thought this guy was going to attack her, so you attacked him . . . but then he never even
tried
to attack her?” Colby asked with raised eyebrows. “Are you even sure that was what the knife was for? What if he wasn’t going to use the knife on her at all?”

Running a hand over his long, mangled-looking hair, Gary shrugged. “What type of creep carries a knife behind his back when he walks his date to the door? If he wasn’t planning to use it, then he’s somehow even creepier than I gave him credit for. I don’t regret attacking him. All I regret is biting her on impulse.”

“I don’t blame you for what you did, Gary,” Emma replied quietly. “Whether it was justified or not, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same if I had the opportunity to turn the person I love into a werewolf . . . if he wasn’t already a werewolf, that is,” she said, shooting a small smile in Colby’s direction.

“Well, it doesn’t much matter now,” Gary said. “What’s done is done. We just have to clean up this mess I’ve made . . . once we can actually find her.”

Emma considered where her mom might be for a few moments. Finally, she said, “I
think
I might have an idea of where she is. Come on.” She led them through the backyard, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that her mom wasn’t sitting at the family’s gazebo.

She wasn’t.

They walked through the woods behind the house, which cut into a local park. Even from across the grassy field, she spotted her mom sitting in front of her favorite koi pond, the place where she often went when she was stressed. She’d also taken Emma there when she was a little girl and had been fascinated by the fish. They’d vowed to build a koi pond of their own in the backyard one day, but it hadn’t happened before Emma had moved out.

Not that she had moved out of her mom’s house by choice. Her mom had kicked her out once she’d found out she was a werewolf. There was a big difference—not that Emma liked to think about it that often.

When they approached her mom, she glanced up at them, her mascara running and her face streaked with tears. “What are all of you doing here? And who are
you
?” her mom asked, glancing over at Colby.

He cleared his throat. “I . . . uh, I’m Emma’s husband . . . and her mate,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “It’s nice to meet you.” He extended a hand.

Surprisingly, her mom shook his hand. Emma hadn’t been expecting her to.

“I’ve heard a lot about Emma’s husband from the other moms,” her mom admitted quietly. “Of course, they all think I’m crazy for letting her get married so young. If only they knew that this is the first time we’ve ever met.” She laughed. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You, too,” he replied with a smile.

“Mom, are you okay?” Emma asked the
only question that was important right now.

She shrugged. “Do I have any choice but to be okay? I can’t say that I’m happy the decision was made for me against my own will, but . . . God, I’ve missed you two,” she said, glancing over at Emma and then Gary with a smile. “I guess, right now, it’s hard for me to accept that I almost didn’t agree to do this. I wanted no part of it. I didn’t want to become like one of you, and I’m scared—”

“Why are you scared, Dana?” Gary asked. “It was scary for me when I was turned, mostly because I didn’t even know that werewolves existed. Then what made it even scarier was that I didn’t want to put you at risk. I didn’t want you to become one of us, but if I had just let you in all along . . . it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

By that time, her mom was crying even harder. “It’s nothing like that for me. I knew all about werewolves by now. I don’t know everything there is to know, but enough to know that you exist. And I’m glad that I have you back—
both
of you back,” she said, glancing at Emma. “It’s just that . . . I’ve done a lot of research since the two of you turned. I’ve rented so many movies and shows about werewolves, and it just looks
so
painful to make the change from human to werewolf.”

Emma laughed. “It’s nothing like they portray it in movies, Mom. It’s going to sound sort of weird, but it actually feels really good. It’s almost like getting your back cracked—in a good way—every time you make the change. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

“Oh, good.” Her mom smiled. “I’ll have questions . . . lots of questions.”

“That’s to be expected,” Gary said with a nod. “I’ve been a wolf for how long now, and I
still
have questions.”

“The good news is that I probably have answers,” Colby told them. “And if I don’t, then my mom probably does. You guys have nothing to worry about.”

“Thank you, Colby. I appreciate that,” Emma’s mom told him. Then, she turned to Emma with a sad look on her face. “I still can’t believe I missed your wedding.”

Emma exchanged glances with Colby before saying, “Well, we were thinking that we might renew our vows so that we can have an actual ceremony. You know how much I always wanted a big wedding. And actually, we’re
technically
not really married.”

Her mom frowned. “You’re not? But you call him your husband, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I mean . . . I started going by the name Emma Jackson to everyone I know, and in the werewolf world, he
is
my husband. We went through the wolf marriage ritual, which means that we marked. But since we were only sixteen when we tried to get married, nothing about our marriage is legal. We were going to wait until we were eighteen, but we can make it legal if you’re willing to sign for it now.”

“I will.” Her mom smiled. “And we’ll pay for your vow renewal, too.”

“Thank you so much for offering,” Colby told her politely.

Emma bit her lip, careful to block Colby from accessing her thoughts. A part of her wanted to tell her mom that she thought she was pregnant, but . . . she couldn’t. Not in front of Colby. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to keep it a secret from him at that point, but she just couldn’t tell him. Not yet, at least. Not until she had official confirmation from the doctor.

So, instead of saying anything at all, she asked her mom if she’d been keeping up with their favorite show,
Glee
.

Chapter 21: Colby

Colby was still beyond surprised about how well things had gone with Emma’s mom when they got back to the house. It was hard to believe that her mom had completely shut both Emma and her stepdad out of her life, considering them monsters, and yet . . . she’d somehow been able to accept that she was a wolf, too, without very much anger or resistance.

When he and Emma walked through the front door, he definitely wasn’t expecting what happened next.

“Oh, there you are. You’re
finally
home,” Bennett said, a mixture of both relief and exasperation in his voice. The panic that was written all over his face was undeniable, though. “We have a problem.”

“What is it?” Colby asked, trying to ignore his heart, which had begun to race with worry.

“About ten minutes ago, I heard something outside. It sounded like there was someone on the front porch. Little Daven was sleeping, so I thought it would be okay to leave him. I went to look to see who it was, but when I came back . . . he’d somehow gotten out of his crib,” the spirit explained. “I cannot seem to find him.”

“You
lost
the baby?” Emma exclaimed, a red angry heat blossoming on each one of her cheeks. “You’re kidding us, right? This is just another one of your annoying pranks?”

Bennett frowned. “No, unfortunately, I’m not joking.”

“Ugh!” Emma turned to Colby. “I
told
you I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to leave him alone with Davenport! But you just
had
to go with me and Gary, because it was going to be
so
dangerous. But guess what? It turned out fine! Good, even.”

Colby avoided her gaze, knowing that if they didn’t find Daven—or if something happened to him—it would be his fault. “You can be angry all you want, Em, but how things went with your mom doesn’t change the fact that our Godson is missing. We need to focus on finding him, instead of fighting with each other.”

“That we can agree on,” Emma muttered, low enough that Colby couldn’t hear her—though he heard her clearly through his thoughts. Then, she turned away from him and headed for the bedroom, looking for Davenport in every corner and possible hiding spot along the way.

Colby began his own search. He checked in the bathroom first. He’d once hid in there, so it seemed feasible that Daven may have, too.

A quick search of the bathtub, hamper, and the cabinets beneath the sink proved that he wasn’t there, though.

As he stepped into the hallway, Colby glanced around, wondering
where Daven could be. How could he have gotten very far? He might have been a werewolf, but babies didn’t move that quickly . . .
did
they?

When Emma came back into the hallway, she looked even more worried than before. “Did you find him?” she asked, her voice merely a whisper.

“No, I didn’t.” He swallowed hard. “We lost the baby.”

*

“I
really
, really think we should call Sam and Declan now,” Emma insisted, as they nearly pulled apart the entire living room. They’d thrown the sofa cushions on the floor, turned the coffee table over so that Daven wouldn’t his head if he
was
wandering around. Heck, they’d even checked the chimney, but there was still no sign of him anywhere.

“That’s such a bad idea on
so
many levels,” Colby disagreed.

“Actually, I have to agree with Mrs. Jackson on this matter,” Bennett piped up. “If Davenport were
your
baby, wouldn’t
you
want to know?”

“Your opinion doesn’t mean much to me right now. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t even be in this situation,” Colby snapped frustratedly. The truth was, he didn’t actually blame Bennett for losing Daven. It was an honest mistake. He was just afraid of what might have happened to him. Chances were, he was safe . . . but what if he
wasn’t
?

“If we just give them a call, they can come home and help us look for him,” Emma insisted. “And Bennett’s right. They deserve to know their son is missing.”

Colby shook his head. “If we call them now, we’ll only stress them out and worry them. Their marriage will automatically be off to a bad start. And they’ll think we’re irresponsible. You don’t want them to never let us babysit Daven again,
do
you?” he asked, knowing that would make Emma think twice about calling them. She wouldn’t want to do anything that would hurt their chances of ever taking care of their Godson again.

“Well . . . no,” she replied hesitantly. “But we better find him in the next three hours, or I’m going to call them. Deal?”

“Deal. Maybe we should check the backyard,” he suggested, running a hand over his short blonde, curly hair nervously. “Maybe Davenport somehow slipped outside.”

“Maybe,” Emma replied, even though the doubt in her voice was obvious.

“I don’t know how he would have managed to get outside under my care,” Bennett spoke up.

“Well, I don’t know how he managed to disappear at all under your care,” Emma said pointedly, shooting a glare in his direction.

“I’m terribly sorry that he disappeared,” Bennett insisted. “I never could have predicted that this would happen, but I can promise you that I’ll take part in your search party. I won’t stop looking until we find him.”

“Let’s all stop bickering and go outside,” Colby replied, grabbing a flashlight from one of the storage cabinets, even though he was well aware that they didn’t really need one. Since they had the ability to morph into wolves, they also had the ability to see clearly in the dark, too.

Once they were outside, they began to scan the backyard, looking under every bush and behind every tree.

“Daven?” Emma called into the night. “Daven! Where are you?”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think that Master Daven is going to respond,” Bennett told her. When she glared at him, he held his hands up defensively. “I’m just saying.”

Emma rolled her eyes at him and then turned to Colby. “I know this is probably really unlikely, but do you think your mom might be home from her trip? Maybe she snuck into our bedroom and took Daven somewhere.”

He frowned. “I don’t think my mom would do that without letting one of us know where she took him.”

“True.” She sighed loudly. “I hate this. I hate not knowing where he is and that we’re responsible for it.”

Colby touched her elbow gently. “We’ll find him, Em.”

“We better. If we don’t, Sam and Declan will
never
forgive us.”