Page 63 of The Gathering Storm

She located Andrea’s number and placed the call, certain this was one battle she could easily win.

Will spent the week leading up to the exhibition putting out fires on a variety of fronts. On Tuesday, Eric called in sick with the flu, sounding so bad Will had pity on him and told him to take as much time as he needed. Eric promised to come in as soon as he could, but his absence left a hole Will had a hard time filling. He ended up tending bar himself around finalizing the roster for Friday’s exhibition and juggling the extra duties piled onto his plate.

On Wednesday, half a dozen non-local Daughters approached him individually and demanded to be put on the roster for the upcoming competition. Will called Rebecca, who suggested a blind draw for some of the matches, and offered to organize the setup of an extra set of mats to accommodate the additional fighters.

Robert had finally been dismissed from the hospital, but he was confined to home, so Will was still covering for the older man. Research was slowly trickling in. Soon, Jaran’s descendants would be found and their DNA samples matched against the bones Sigrid had told him about. Tired as he was, even he was anxious to know who the bones really belonged to.

And he was tired. His days were getting longer, his sleep shorter, and the few minutes he could spare every day for Sigrid weren’t nearly enough to satisfy him.

The crush he’d had on her was gradually morphing into something deeper. He was doing everything he could to slow down the leap into love, but none of his efforts pulled him away from the brink he was teetering on.

On Thursday, he spared a precious half hour in his office for re-ordering supplies. The extra crowds drew heavily on The Omega’s stockpile of craft beer and hard liquor. Oddly enough, the crowd’s favorite had shifted from chicken tenders and fries to fish sticks and homemade potato chips. The kitchen was going through a twenty pound bag of russet potatoes every day, and running out well short of closing.

Maybe he needed to hire someone just for prep work.

Will threw down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and scrubbed his palms over his face. Fatigue ate at him, wearing him down under the mountain of stuff he still had to do. Replenishment drinks and high carb snacks for the exhibition, sorting out the steady influx of visitors, his mother and her stubborn high-handedness, and for fuck’s sake, he still had to man the floor tonight.

He closed his eyes against the fluorescent lights glowing overhead. Five minutes of rest, just five minutes to not worry about anything, or plan, or juggle, or think.

A knock hit the door, startling him awake. He rubbed a hand over his face, blinked sleep out of his eyes, and said, “Yeah?”

Casey poked her head in and scrunched her face into a grimace. “You look like crap, big brother.”

“Just what I needed to hear. What’s up?”

“We’ve got a Daughter out here who says she has a score to settle with another Daughter. They want to have a juried fight tomorrow night, with a high-ranking Daughter as the final judge.”

Will bit back a curse. “Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Yeah, sure.” Casey eased all the way into his office and shut the door behind herself, then leaned back against it. “Mom’s livid about Sigrid.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“She’s gone quiet, like she’s planning something.”

Will propped his elbows on the edge of his desk and dropped his head into his hands. Damn it, why couldn’t she just accept this one thing? He’d never asked anything of her, and always done what she’d asked. Take over the bar at sixteen so she and Dad could take off? No problem. Set aside college for a couple of years so Casey could finish high school here instead of on the road? Will had it covered.

All his life, he’d done exactly what his mother had wanted. He’d toed the line so hard, his shoes were permanently worn at the tips. Now when he was on the verge of finding love, when his relationship with Sigrid held so much potential, why couldn’t his mom just back off and let him figure it out on his own?

A soft hand stroked down his back, and Casey said, “Are you really sure you want to defy her?”

Will huffed out a laugh, shook his head. “She can’t run my life forever.”

“No, but she can make it hard on you. You know what she’s like. She has to have her way, and she’s too hardheaded to forgive somebody who doesn’t bend to her will.”

“She’ll have to if she wants to see me again.”

“Will, c’mon. Don’t say that.”

A thin thread of fear wove through Casey’s words, and he understood without her saying exactly what would happen if their mother couldn’t accept his decisions where Sigrid was concerned. Wilhelmina would withdraw her support of Will, or possibly disown him, and in the doing, she’d forbid the rest of the family from having any contact with him. He’d be isolated, a pariah. The People would turn their backs on him, and on Sigrid, too, for aiding his defiance. There’d be no safe haven for them, nowhere they could go to escape his mother’s judgment.

Oh, she’d suffer, too. Abandoning a Son came at a high price, but if she was mad enough, if she felt it was the only way to bring him to heel, she’d cut him off without a single hesitation, leaving him friendless, jobless, homeless. He had enough stashed away to survive for decades, but all the money in the world wouldn’t fix the severed ties to his family and friends.

Will stood and pulled his sister into a hug, tucked her head under his chin, and smoothed his hands up and down her back. “Don’t worry, Case. It’ll be ok.”

“You can’t know that,” she said into his chest, her words so soft they were barely audible.

“I can. Don’t worry, ok? You’re still my kid sister, no matter what.”

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