ROMANCE: Lion Protector (Paranormal Shifter BBW Military Romance) (Shapeshifter Alpha Male Short Stories Book 2) (21 page)

Chapter 2

Naomi managed to find enough work to take care of her brother and sister, but just barely. She managed to keep food on the table, but only just. The cold reality of Naomi’s medical expenses loomed over her like a dark cloud.

She worked her fingers to the bone and she was almost past the point of exhaustion by the time she dragged herself home every night. But it wasn’t enough. Faith’s medical expenses were no closer to being paid and the family was barely afloat. She was at her wits’ end.

She was grateful that Matthew had taken it upon himself to tend to the household, cooking and cleaning while Faith was unable to.  It wounded his pride, she knew.

She had no way of knowing that soon her life would be changed forever.

*****

On a Sunday evening Naomi sat reading the newspaper. The world outside was cloaked in gray and a steady rain had beat down for most of the day. Her body still ached from the week’s grueling work.

Faith, for once, felt well enough to join Naomi and Matthew in the sitting room.  Naomi glanced up from her newspaper for a moment to watch Faith and Matthew, who were engrossed in a game of checkers.

It pained her to see how frail Faith had become.  She needed better care, but there was no way that Naomi could afford to pay for it. She squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose before returning to her newspaper with a sigh.

She had already read everything of interest to her. Out of boredom she flipped to the personals section. One ad in particular caught her eye. It was a young man advertising for a wife. She found that there were several such ads, as well as young women advertising for husbands. Some of the ads were quite specific, detailing exactly how the desired spouse should appear, how much wealth they should possess, and other things.

What will they think of next
, she thought, shaking her head. But then a thought occurred to her. What was stopping her from placing exactly that kind of ad? What if she could find a husband wealthy enough to pay for Faith’s care? Her first instinct was to reject the thought before it had even fully formed. But then again…

She lowered her newspaper and looked over at Faith, a blanket wrapped around her thin shoulders despite the relative warmth. She seemed to grow more insubstantial with every passing day.  Naomi knew that she was running out of time. And they were already out of options. She hated to think what losing her would do to Matthew. He had only just begun to truly heal from the loss of their father.

What the hell, she decided. What did she have to lose? She went the next day and placed her ad in the paper. She felt her face flush as she handed over the piece of paper that had what she wanted to say in the ad written on it.

She chided herself for being silly. There was nothing to be ashamed of, she told herself. By the look of the personals section, she was far from being the only young woman to take such a course. Then again, she thought, most of them didn’t have an ulterior motive like she did.

She flushed even deeper and pushed the thought out of her mind. She paid for the ad and left as quickly as she could before she could lose her nerve.

Her stomach twisted nervously as she made her way home. She had not, of course, mentioned her sister’s illness in her ad. After all, what man would want to take on a wife knowing that he would be paying for her family’s expenses? Still, though, the deception felt wrong to her.

Technically, she hadn’t done anything wrong yet, she decided.  She could just ignore any responses that she received. Or tell them that she had already decided to marry another. She would find another way.

But even as she told herself that she would find another way, she knew it for a lie.  She had tried everything that she could think of and worked herself half to death, and all to no avail. This was her last resort and she knew it.

Over the next two months she received many responses. But she found reasons to reject each of them and eventually she stopped receiving letters altogether. 

*****

Daniel sat in the sand staring listlessly out at the waves, halfheartedly tossing stones out into the water. It was a beautiful day, and the sun glinted radiantly off of the waves. The sky was the sort of deep blue that it seemed you only got when you were near the ocean. The beauty was lost on him though. He took a long swig from the bottle of whiskey in his hand.

He and his wife, Catherine, had been living in abject poverty when he had first come to California to mine for gold. Within a year’s time he had more than made his fortune. He had invested his newfound wealth in several business endeavors that had paid off handsomely. Enough so that he wouldn’t have to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to.

And he and Catherine could finally start the family that they wanted so badly. The letters from her had started coming less and less frequently, which worried him. In fact, she had not even answered his last few letters to her.  But everything would be fine now that he had made his fortune. He was sure of it.

He had left Santa Barbara and bought a house on the beach. Santa Barbara was far too dangerous, no place to raise a family. The house near the beach was perfect. He supposed he could have returned back home. But he was rather enchanted by California, and besides, he wanted for his future children to have every opportunity that he could give them. Raising them in the same poor town that he had grown up in was out of the question.

He had written to Catherine twice more asking her to come join him, but still she made no reply. It had been his sister, Nell, who had finally broken the bad news to him. Catherine, in his absence, had divorced him. She was now remarried to his best friend, Wesley and they were expecting their first child.

The news had devastated him. More often than not, he could be found at the beach, just as he was now, staring out at the waves and searching for an answer which they did not possess.

He tossed one more stone out into the waves before sighing and getting shakily to his feet. Perhaps he had had more to drink than he realized. Not that it mattered. Not much of anything mattered since he had found out that Catherine had left him.

He stumbled back to the house, settled into his favorite chair, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.  Cigarettes in packs were still something of a novelty to him. He picked up his matches from the table beside his chair, struck one, and held it to the end of his cigarette.

He continued to drink from the bottle of whiskey, listlessly watching the curls of smoke that drifted up from his cigarette to hang in the air, accentuated by a beam of sunlight that had braved its way through the curtains.  He blew a few smoke rings and then picked up the stack of mail that he had picked up earlier that day. He no longer cared very much about what came in the mail. He used to look forward to it, always hoping that there might be a letter from Catherine.

There was, of course, the usual letter from Nell. She had taken to writing him fairly often. She worried about him he knew. She was always trying to cheer him up in her letters, a wasted effort as far as he was concerned. But still, it was nice, he supposed, that she tried.

Her latest conviction was that if he could just find a new wife, he would snap right out of his depression. And so she had taken to sending him personal ads snipped out of the newspaper back home with every letter that she sent. This one was no different. He sighed and rolled his eyes, setting them aside before pulling the letter itself from the envelope.

It was the usual. Two and a half pages of relentless optimism peppered sparingly with news of the family. He almost set the letter aside without reading the post script. Nell always included a post script in her letters and they were, almost without fail, some sort of inspirational tidbit or a Bible verse or some such nonsense. He had actually stopped reading them completely some time ago.

But the first couple of words caught his eye and he realized that maybe she actually had something to say this time. He took another drag of his cigarette and continued reading.

P.S. – I’ve decided that I am going to come to California and look after you until you are properly on your feet again. I worry about you, you know. Sitting around by yourself and not working the way that you do would drive any man mad, and I worry about you more so since Catherine did what she did.  And judging from the rambling nature of your few letters home I can only assume that you have taken to drinking. I cannot sit idly by as you destroy your mind and your health. And, dear brother, do not try to convince me not to come. I am making my preparations at once and leaving within a few days, and I will already be with you by the time any letter you may send reaches home. I will see you soon.

With love,

Nell

“Oh, Jesus,” Daniel muttered, rubbing at the stubble on his jaw as Nell’s words sank in. He glanced around the house. It was an absolute disaster. The floor was littered with whiskey bottles, empty cigarette packages, and partially smoked cigarettes, along with several items that he actually couldn’t quite identify.

He didn’t know exactly when Nell would arrive, but he knew his sister well enough to know that she would not have wasted any time in making her travel arrangements. Once Nell had made her mind up to do something, it got done, and with a quickness at that. Only God himself could have stood in her way. She could be here at any time and there was no way that he could let her see the place – or himself, for that matter – in such a sorry state.

He stood quickly, with the intention of beginning the seemingly insurmountable task of cleaning the place up. But he had drunk far too much whiskey by that time. He promptly fell to the floor and passed out.  He remained there as darkness fell, through the night, and well into the next day.

*****

Daniel was violently wrenched awake by the sensation of cold water soaking him. He woke up bellowing.

“Oh, son of a –“

He stopped short of what he had been about to say when he saw Nell standing over him with a bucket. He winced, partly because of the situation that he now found himself in and partly because it felt like someone was trying to drive a railroad spike through his skull.

“Glad you’re awake,” Nell said drily.

“I –“

He had been about to make some feeble excuse about how he hadn’t been expecting her, but a gut wrenching wave of nausea hit him. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled out the front door. He barely made it outside before he started vomiting. Dry heaves continued to wrack him mercilessly long after his stomach had been emptied of its contents.

Nell rubbed her hand across his back comfortingly and said nothing until the dry heaves left him. He rolled over on his back in the sand, his head swimming, and groaned miserably.

“Here, drink this,” Nell said, offering him a glass of water. She helped him to sit up, wrinkling her nose as she caught a whiff of him. His hand trembled slightly as he took the glass from her. He drank it down thirstily. His stomach twisted in protest, but he managed not to throw up again.

“Nell –“

“Not now,” she interrupted him. “We’ll talk later. For now, go wash up. I don’t know if you smell more like a dead man or a brewery.”

He almost protested. He didn’t want to so much as stand up, much less go and get cleaned up. But he decided that arguing with Nell would probably take more energy than cleaning up ever could.

He groaned again as he stood. His head continued to pound and every inch of his body ached. He took a cold bath which, to his surprise, went a long way toward making him feel human again. Once he was clean he put on fresh clothes and went to talk to Nell. He found her in the kitchen preparing coffee.

He was surprised that she had even been willing to set foot in the kitchen. It was no better than the rest of the house. He tried not to draw her attention too much as he moved three empty whiskey bottles off of the table.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, would you stop?” she said. “Moving those bottles isn’t gonna make a bit of difference. May as well leave them for now.”

“Fair enough,” he said, setting them down and pulling a chair up to the table.

Nell handed him a cup of black coffee and another glass of water. He accepted them gratefully and immediately drained the water dry. Nell raised her eyebrows and refilled the glass for him. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. They sat in silence for several minutes, sipping their coffee, each of them waiting for the other to speak first. It was Nell who finally broke the silence.

“Good grief, Danny. What would Ma think if she could see you like this?” Daniel shifted in his chair uncomfortably.

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” he asked. Nell snorted.

“
Tell
her? Danny, I didn’t even know it
was
this bad. But no. I didn’t tell her anything.”

“She didn’t wonder why you suddenly had to up and run off to California?” he asked with a humorless laugh.

“Told her I fancied a holiday,” Nell said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “That I thought the ocean air might do me some good.”

“Ah,” Daniel replied.

“Fat lot of good it’s done
you
,” Nell said pointedly, looking him over.

“Guess I deserved that,” he said with a wince. Nell sighed and rubbed her face.