Tropical Holiday Tails - Zoe Chant Page 0,36
his door. “Hey, Jamie?”
She had to knock again; he was wearing headphones, playing a game, but he put the console down when he saw her and slipped off the headset. “Hey, Mom.” He was past the age of running to greet her with a hug, to Caroline’s disappointment, but he was unfailingly polite, a rarity at his age, she thought. “How’d the interview go?”
“I got the job,” Caroline said, and it seemed like the least of her news. Saying it made it feel real for the first time.
“Awesome!” That did, apparently warrant a hug, and James untangled himself from his gaming chair and came to dispense it.
“It will mean moving,” Caroline cautioned, wrapping him into her arms. “And you won’t believe where.”
“Just tell me it has WiFi,” James begged.
Caroline paused. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “It...might not.”
“Oh, my God, Mom. That’s like the one thing I need. Where is it? Timbuktu?” James let go of her and retreated back to his chair.
“Costa Rica. A private island off of Central America, where there are only shifters.”
James stared at her.
“There won’t be a lot of other kids,” Caroline told him. “And we’ll probably have to homeschool, at least for a few years.”
“A tropical island?” James sounded deeply skeptical.
“It’s beautiful,” Caroline said coaxingly. “White sand beaches, palm trees, turquoise seas.”
“Yeah, that sounds like me,” James said in that sharply sarcastic tone that only teenagers could manage. He was thirteen, and sometimes seemed like a very old thirteen.
“Will you give it a try?” Caroline asked. “If you hate it…” her voice wavered and she caught herself twisting the hem of her jacket. She couldn’t voice a promise to turn her back on her mate and leave. But she couldn’t take her son to a place that he wouldn’t be happy.
Her face must have betrayed her conflict. James frowned at her. “You really want this job, don’t you.”
“It’s not just the job,” Caroline said, and she moved a pile of dirty clothes to sit on his bed.
James sat beside her. “What’s up?” he asked cautiously.
Caroline drew in a breath. Some parts of parenting were harder than others. “There are some things I never told you, about being a shifter.”
James was unhelpfully quiet.
“A shifter can have...a mate. And our animals recognize that person, and there’s this...connection.” Longing. Yearning. Knowing that he was the one, the person who could make her happier than any other...she looked at James, who was looking back quizzically. “It’s physical, and emotional, and basically undeniable.”
“Was Dad your mate?”
Caroline dropped her gaze. “No,” she said reluctantly. “I loved him, but he wasn’t. Some shifters go their whole lives without meeting their mates.”
“So you’re telling me this now—you met someone!”
Not just someone, him. Liam. Caroline felt like her chest was filled with swirling pressure and her red panda was purring in eagerness.
James punched her in the shoulder. “That’s awesome.”
Caroline looked up at him sharply. “You’re okay with this?”
“You don’t have to be a nun, Mom,” James scoffed. “Dad’s been gone a long time.”
Do you like sex? It was still the weirdest question Liam could have asked, and Caroline shoved it back.
“I want you to meet him,” she said. “I hope that you’ll like him.”
“What kind of shifter is he?” James quizzed her. “Is he nice? Does he have a job?”
“He’s...I don’t know what kind of shifter he is,” Caroline admitted. “We just met and we only had a few moments to talk. He works with the elders at the island, and he’s...nice.” So nice. She wanted to curl up in his lap and stay there forever nice.
James frowned. “That doesn’t seem like much to go on.”
Caroline flapped her hands uselessly. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “But I know him, I can feel him, it’s like he’s a part of me I never realized was missing. My red panda recognized him and honestly won’t shut up about how amazing he is and I can’t stop thinking about him.”
To her surprise, James put his arm around her and squeezed. “You don’t have to justify it to me, Mom,” he said kindly. “I’ll go to the island and I’ll try to like it.”
“If you don’t…”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” James reminded her.
“I want you to be happy,” Caroline said firmly.
“I want you to be happy, too,” James said. “You deserve a good job and a good guy. We’ll make it work.”
Caroline wrapped him into a hug, marveling over how big he was getting, and how smart and good-hearted. “Thank you, James.”
James squirmed out of