He called his son first. “Dad! There you are, finally! How did it go after we hung up last night?”
Rigo said, “We talked a bit.”
“Did she believe you?”
“Had to. I shifted first.”
Alejo whistled. “I wouldn’t do that to anyone without a week—a year—of prep.”
“Your mom is different from ‘just anyone’. She stood her ground. No fainting or screaming or running, though I’ve seen that from grown men who think themselves tougher than anyone around them.”
“Hah.” Alejo, grinned, then sobered, his voice dropping low. “She looks so old.”
“She’s beautiful to me,” Rigo retorted.
“Dad, I wasn’t saying it like that. It’s just that she’s always been so young in my mind.”
“Okay, I get that,” Rigo said.
He wondered how to explain how every line in her face evoked tenderness, how the essence of her that he had loved so fiercely still shone in her night-black, expressive eyes, and in the trenchant curve of her lips, even if those lips themselves weren’t as plump as they’d been when she was not quite twenty. They were still so very, very kissable, and he wanted to test that more by each hour that passed.
Though she no longer darted about so quickly, she was still the slight, light person who had entranced him. The evidence of years made her more precious; the idea of her suddenly regaining her eighteen-year-old form did nothing for him. He was not young himself, and the young to him now just seemed unfinished.
How to explain all this to his son, without what the younger generations now called TMI?
But Alejo said, “Sorry, Dad. I think that came out wrong. It’s just that I don’t like seeing her aging. It makes her seem fragile. I don’t want her to be fragile, I want her to be here, with us, so we can catch up on all the lost time. I want to protect her. Bring her here where it’s safe.”
“Your mother has been successfully fending for herself all those years her hair was turning white. And you should see the protectors she’s got.” Rigo had to laugh.
Alejo smiled, but it was twisted.
Rigo sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the mate bond, though so faint I couldn’t trace it for years, was still strong enough to reach her at least a little. She’s white-haired, but she’s more energetic than a lot of fifty-somethings I’ve encountered. Anyway I can guarantee this, if she comes back to me, to us, we’ll have plenty of time to be a family again—”
His phone bleeped at him again. Joey Hu. “Gotta run, hijo.”
“Long Cang business? Right. Keep me posted,” Alejo said, and rang off.
Rigo switched over, and Joey said, “Everything go all right last night?”
“Better than I expected,” Rigo said.
“Excellent. Listen, there’s news. We’re meeting at Mikhail and Bird’s to figure out our next move. I’ve texted you the directions, if you’d like to join us.”
It wasn’t far.
Rigo parked below the enormous property at the address Joey had given him. He had not expected a mansion on a princely property. Though it was not as large as his ranch, he knew land in California was crazy expensive. Had he misread the directions? He got out of the car and took to the air to do a flyover to doublecheck.
He spotted them outside the large house. The mild ocean climate really lent itself to living in one’s garden almost year round. As he spiraled down, he admired that garden—but when he spotted a small, white-haired figure among the humans on a terrace, everything left his mind but Godiva.
She was there.
Shifter etiquette, he’d learned, meant taking whatever form the rest of the company was in, unless invited to do differently. He had flown invisible, out of habit. He knew that all three of the other mythic shifters sensed him, but the human women didn’t, so he alighted and shifted at the outskirts of the property, and approached politely from the public pathway, the way a stranger would.
Mikhail himself came to greet him and lead him to that terrace, where a chair was empty—opposite Godiva, who sat between Doris and Bird.
All his attention arrowed to Godiva. She looked up.
She smiled.