Everleigh
She spent the whole week knowing that Roman was in town.
It was extremely disconcerting. She was eager for him to leave so that she could get back to normal. She found herself distracted every hour of the day, always wondering if she was going to run into him.
She also found that she kept looking out of the corner of her eye, thinking that she caught a glimpse of a male that looked like him. Each time it was never him, but it had led to several incidents of a racing heart and an interrupted client meeting.
She could deal with a lot. She'd been a working single mom for five years. But she did not appreciate having her work interrupted. It was her livelihood, the way that she supported her daughter. Losing out on a contract because of Roman was not okay. However, if he was in town on business, then it wasn't exactly his fault. She just wanted him gone.
She could still feel his lingering presence that morning, but she tried to ignore it. She usually made her daughter pancakes every Saturday morning. On Sunday mornings they hunted. But today they were out of pancake mix. "How would you like to go to the café and get breakfast there?" she asked.
"Yes!" her daughter yelled. "Pancakes, bacon, eggs, muffins!"
Just like most young shifters, her daughter had a hearty appetite. She usually never restricted how much her daughter ate, but they would have to have a conversation about not ordering five entrées when she eventually started going out to dinner with friends. If she wasn't careful, her friends would start to think there was a problem and wonder how such a small child could eat so many hamburgers.
But when it was just the two of them, she let her daughter order whatever she wanted to, especially when they were ordering breakfast because it wasn't too expensive.
They walked to the café even though it was a brisk morning. "You do have to put on a coat," she said to her daughter.
"Aw, Mom, you know I don't need it."
"I know, but what do we say?"
"I know. It's Alaska and it's cold and snowy so I have to wear a coat because humans do."
"Exactly. When we're alone in the woods, you don't have to wear a coat, but when we're walking down the sidewalk we have to. It's just one of those things."
Or maybe her daughter would rather live as a bear out in the wild. Maybe it was time to give her that choice. "Honey, you know I've told you some shifters like us don't live near humans, but they live far out in the woods, and they don't live in houses, and they hunt for most of their food?"
"Yes, Mommy," Eliza said.
"Would you like to try that sometime?"
"What about school?"
"Well, they don't go to school," Everleigh explained.
"No!" she yelled. "I like my school.
"I want to be a bear for one day. But no longer." Then she saw a husky dog she knew and wanted to pet it. She seemed to lose interest in the conversation, which Everleigh assumed was typical for a five-year-old.
She was probably too young to offer her that kind of choice anyway, but she would probably continue to do it periodically, just so her daughter didn't feel like she had been denied that choice. If her daughter ever chose to go live in the Alaskan wild, Everleigh would have to adapt.
She would not enjoy that at all and they would also have the task of finding a clan to live with. Or she would have to go back home to her own clan. Maybe it was her ego, but she never wanted them to think she came crawling back to them because she had nowhere else to go.
She would have to make it clear that it was her own choice. And that she was doing it because it was best for her daughter. But if she really did think her daughter would thrive living a more natural life, then she would suck it up and do it.
Part of being a mother was making sacrifices. Her own parents had never been able to handle the things that she wanted. She never expected them to move to a city for her. She just expected them to accept her for who she was. They loved her but they could not do that. She would do better for her own daughter.
They made it to the café, and she could still fill Roman's presence. But at least he wasn't inside the café. If that happened, she would have to convince her daughter to go to the grocery store and buy the pancake mix. There was no way she could sit in a café and eat with Roman there. Especially not with her daughter – she just couldn't do it.
The café was bustling. It was full of people she knew too. She saw a coworker and a client, as well as her daughter's kindergarten teacher, who was just finishing up her meal.
Everleigh tried to get her daughter to settle down and not bother her teacher, but the teacher came over and gave her a hug.
They had blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs, and muffins, just like Eliza wanted. Everleigh cherished these special times with her daughter. Living in a large pack, she'd never had one-on-one time with her parents like this.
She wondered what her parents would think if they could see her now.