Page 15 of Fighting the Lies

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kas' heavy paws crunched invitingly into the freshly laid snow. There hadn't been a massive covering overnight but enough to turn the picturesque Montana park into a scene from Winter Wonderland. He kicked up a bit of snow with one paw and flopped onto his back to pat it around with his hind legs. He threw it from foot to foot for a few seconds before it disintegrated around him and covered his nose. He shook his head and squirmed further down into the snow. Peace. Comfort. Home. This was where he was at his happiest, surrounded by white joy. A twig cracked. He was on his feet and ready to pounce in an instant. He sniffed, human. A second sniff had him letting his guard down when a warmly bundled Jane appeared. He shifted back into a human, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear him otherwise.

"You didn't have to change." She smiled at him and pulled off her sunglasses and placed them on her head. The reflective properties of the white snow caused an unnatural brightness to the day. "Brayden and Selene went for a run as soon as they saw the snow, so I thought I'd walk for a bit before starting breakfast."

"You know you don't have to cook every day?"

"I like too." She was avoiding looking at him. Probably because he was naked as the day he was born. It wasn't as easy for humans to overcome the shame of a naked body as a shifter did. He hadn't any clothes nearby, as he was planning on heading further up the mountain, so he placed his hands over his lap to hide his manhood and wiggled his bottom so it sank further down into the snow.

"Are you missing Death Valley?" He asked. Jane perched herself upon a rock.

"I thought I would. My life was there, and Selene can take me back if I need to go, secretly of course. I miss the regulars in the diner, but so much is happening here since I arrived I don't have a chance to think about it much. That’s probably why I still like to cook, though. It gives me the sense of providing." Brayden's mother still wasn't looking at him; instead, she was kicking at a bit of snow on the ground.

"Just as long as it doesn't get too much feeding a pack of shifters." He offered.

"I fed Heath and Brayden for years. I'm used to the volumes." Heath had been Jane's husband. He had died when Brayden was only a cub, and Jane had moved to Death Valley to escape her grief.

"Is it hard being here? I never really asked before. Just told you it was what you must do and come here." He'd brought Jane back into the pack’s fold for her protection after Nuka attacked Selene.

"There are a lot of memories. Out here in the plains especially. Many a time I would sit like this and watch him frolic in the snow. It was majestic.” Jane’s face turned dreamy, as if she were seeing the visions before her of a life when she was in love.

“I’m sorry I had to bring you back here.” He felt awful. This was the place where she thought that she’d live with her husband until death at an old age. Instead, it was the place that held her greatest nightmares. The place where she suffered the greatest heartache.

“Kas, please. I’ve spent more of my life without Heath now than with him. Before his death, he gave me the greatest gift ever in Brayden. I’m a lot stronger than I look.”

Kas shut his eyes and inhaled deeply. She was, indeed, the bravest women he knew.

“I sometimes forget you’re not the naïve sixteen-year old who came to live here all those years ago. Wide-eyed at everything you saw around you.”

“My first day was so scary. I kept expecting to be eaten.” She chuckled.

“Too skinny; you still are.”

“Done on purpose, so I don’t look tasty.” She stuck her tongue out at him. Despite being the wrong side of thirty-five Jane was more alive and vibrant than she had ever been.

“Cheeky.”

“I know why Selene and Brayden are really out here in the snow. They need to get away from the stress. Is that the same with you?” She changed the tone of the conversation. The joviality replaced with concern.

“I wanted a moment to clear my head. I didn’t stop looking at the papers when you all went to bed.” At around one a.m., Jane, Jessica and Katia were so tired that he sent them to bed for a few hours. They’d be no good in the state they were in.

“You promised you were going to sleep.” Jane tutted at him.

“I knew that I wouldn’t be able to, so I just kept looking.”

“Did you find anything?” She was on her feet, now, and coming over to him.

“Nothing of any use. I just keep coming back to her mother. She has to be alive. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” He pushed forward on his feet and got up. Jane looked away again. “I’ve got some clothes just up here.” He pointed further up the mountain.

“I’ll walk with you.”

He nodded.

“I don’t see how she can still be alive. You said that it was reported she died after Phillip was born?” Jane’s boots crunched into the snow when she walked. He was bare foot so was lighter. He was glad for his ability to not feel the snow. He just had to hope that he didn’t get frost bite when he wasn’t feeling.

“It was. She had a funeral, and I went. It was a time when Nuka and I still got along, and we went together in solidarity with the Bryants. We may have had issues over Emma, but they were a pack that we supported.” He held out his hand and helped Jane over an icy pass. Her little feet slipping on the rock formations and performing a dance.

“But all that changed?”

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