The Baby Shift- Mississippi Read online

  The Baby Shift: Mississippi

  Shifter Babies Of America 15

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  “Is that the last one, then?”

  Alice packed the suitcase into the trunk of her car and sighed heavily, trying to banish the tightness from her throat as she thought about saying goodbye to one of her closest friends. Ella’s husband owned the bed and breakfast where Alice worked, and over the years they had become quite close. Ella was like the sister Alice had always wanted. Leaving her was going to hurt.

  Alice tried to tell herself that it wasn’t forever, that someday she could come back here, to the life she’d built. Back to the people who had taken her in and treated her as one of their own when she’d been young, frightened, and alone.

  But something inside her whispered that this was it, that this was goodbye. It might have been an illusory premonition, or gloom blowing in with the storm clouds that sat on the horizon. Or, if she were honest with herself, it might be that even after more than a decade in New Orleans she still thought of the small shifter community where she’d grown up, tucked away in the woods near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as home.

  “Alice? Is there anything else you need to bring?”

  This time Ella’s words were enough to pull Alice from her reverie. She pasted on a wooden smile and turned to her friend. Ella stood with Aidan, her three-year-old son, somehow perched on her hip despite the swell of her stomach. It wasn’t just Alice who would be losing a friend. Her son Patrick had just turned two, and he and Aidan had been inseparable from the moment they were old enough to play together.

  “You’re going to have to stop carrying him soon, or he’s going to associate having to walk on his own with his new little sister…yes, this is the last of it.”

  Just as she spoke, raindrops started to fall from the sky, a blessing and a curse as they stole the precious last seconds with her dear friend even while shortening the painful goodbye. She quickly gathered Patrick into her arms and buckled him into his car seat before embracing Ella one last time.

  Shortly after that, it started pouring down in earnest, taking away precious last glimpses of Alice’s home as she was forced to keep all her attention on the road. Then the storm let up as quickly as it had begun, temperamental as only a summer storm can be.

  Alice rolled down the window, welcoming the moist, alive smell of water and vegetation as she drank in the sight of proud but mournful cypress trees. Mississippi might be the place that her soul still called home, even after all these years, but Louisiana held a piece of her heart, too. It didn’t seem like it should be possible to love two places so completely. Unbearably bittersweet, and likely to tear her heart in two.

  With an effort she set aside thoughts of the life she was leaving behind and turned them instead to the life she was returning to. She remembered warm summer days, followed by balmy summer nights spent swimming in the creek, and walks to school on brisk winter mornings spent laughing with her friends. And she remembered the day she’d been sent away, on the very day of her mother’s funeral. You aren’t my daughter, and with your mother gone, I won’t pretend that doesn’t matter. You have no place here.

  Alice had been raised in a shifter community—her father was a wolf shifter, and her mother was human—but when she’d hit puberty she hadn’t started shifting when her friends had. Her mom had said it would come, that she was just a late bloomer. But she heard the whispers, knew what everyone else thought. That she was a bastard, the unwanted result of an affair.

  Alice had known the rumors. She just hadn’t known her father believed them, too. Not until the day that she had to watch one parent be lowered into the ground, only to be cast out by the only father she’d ever known.

  Now her father was sick, possibly even dying. She’d been asked to come home and take care of him. He hadn’t asked her, of course. Her cousin Sharon had called her to ask her to come home. Shifters rarely got sick, and the idea of something that could kill one of them had most of the community afraid to go near him. Ella’s husband Victor had tried to talk Alice out of going, pointing out that she owed nothing to the man that had cast her aside. For Alice though, there really was no choice.

  She held no illusions and wasn’t expecting a tearful reunion. Still, there was no choice. However he’d felt about her those last few years, before that, he had spent years loving her. Thinking that her mother had been unfaithful, though…it had broken him, made him into less than he’d been before. Alice couldn’t truly hate him for that. Not while her heart broke for him.

  Even with what was sure to be a painful reunion, Alice looked forward to coming home. She could still picture the layout of the community—its own little village, away from prying eyes—with its small café and general store. That was really all that made up the town, apart from the houses. There wasn’t even a gas station. The shifters valued their privacy too much to do anything that might alert the world to their presence.

  Idly Alice wondered if that had changed. She’d been away so long—since she was 15 years old—and part of her wondered if so much time had passed that the place would be completely different. That wasn’t possible though. Her community was so unchanging that it was almost stagnant.

  Swamps and marshes began to give way to solid ground, and gradually the trees transitioned from cypress trees with their veils of Spanish moss and tupelo trees to tall, stately pines that towered on either side of the road. One by one the miles rolled by, bringing her ever closer to the past she’d thought was forever behind her.

  Chapter 2

  Several hours later, and all too soon, Alice found herself taking the turn off Interstate 59 that would lead to her childhood home, nestled into the woods next to De Soto National Forest. The air smelled of pine trees and wildflowers, like home. It was lighter somehow too, free of the humidity that forever plagued the swamps. Nerves, nostalgia, and hope twined into a complex tangle in her stomach, the emotions tying her stomach in knots.

  The town was the same as she remembered it, small and simple. A tight-knit, honest community…one that had cast her out without even a backward glance from most of its residents. Alice took a deep breath to calm her nerves, but it did no good. On a whim she stopped in front of the small restaurant in the center of the small village, hoping that sitting with a cup of hot coffee would help to calm her nerves and ready her for a confrontation with her father that was sure to be unpleasant.

  The restaurant, like the few other businesses in town, had no name. There was no need for marketing in a place this size, with residents who had lived there for generations. People around town always called it Mel’s though, perhaps after the original owner. Alice had never thought to question the name in her childhood. Even now it was a stray thought, a clear effort of her subconscious to distract her from all the changes that were threatening to drown her.

  Alice efficiently unbuckled Patrick from his car seat. He was still drowsy from sleeping through most of the dri
ve. Car rides never failed to put him to sleep. It had definitely been more pleasant than dealing with a fussy toddler for the entire trip, but every blessing had its price. Alice doubted he would be able to sleep tonight with all that rest and the excitement of a new place to explore.

  He clung to her, still more asleep than awake, and his familiar, trusting embrace calmed her. She held him tight and breathed in the baby shampoo smell of his hair. A poignant love so intense, it bordered on pain filled her chest. This would be a good thing for him, a chance to see his roots and be a part of a community that would love and accept him for who he was.

  His father had been a shifter who’d been passing through New Orleans, a guest in the hotel. He would grow up to become one, too, and wouldn’t have to deal with that obstacle the way that Alice had. She’d tried to contact the father to let him know about the pregnancy, but the information he’d given when he checked into the hotel had been false. And now, with her living in a different place, there was almost no way that Patrick would ever have the chance to meet him.

  She couldn’t give him a father, but this place was the next best thing. All the people around him would help to raise him. ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ wasn’t just a saying here, but a way of life.

  “Alice? Alice Hampton, is that you?”

  A smile curved her lips as she turned to face her old friend.

  “Chris Preston, it surely is.” Chris had been one of her dearest friends growing up and had been well on his way to becoming more when her father had shipped her away. His blue eyes had a hardness now, an edge that hadn’t been there in childhood, but she ignored her misgivings and embraced him with one arm while holding Patrick with the other. The rest of him was just as she remembered, lithe strength and gorgeous blonde hair that had made more than one girl at their small school swoon.

  “What brings you back?”

  “I’m here to take care of Dad. I’m sure you’ve heard that he isn’t doing well.”

  “Alice. You don’t owe that man anything. Not after…”

  It brought warmth to her chest when she realized that Chris was still rushing to her defense, even after all the time that had passed.

  “I don’t,” Alice smiled to Chris as she spoke, trying to soften the anger she saw in his eyes, “but even if things ended badly, he’s the only father I ever had, and one decision that he made while grieving and nursing a broken heart doesn’t change that.”

  “You’re too kind for your own good, Alice. I guess some things never change. Were you heading into Mel’s or leaving?”

  “I’m just getting here. I thought I’d grab a cup of coffee and try to wake up a little from the drive before I head over to Dad’s house.”

  “Stalling, huh?” Chris’s gaze was warm, maybe even…flirtatious? But then, his eyes locked on something behind her and his mouth drew into a grim line.

  The voice she heard coming from behind her was grim and determined, rough and low…and it sent a shiver right up her spine. She turned and faced, as was inevitable in this town, another person she knew from her past.

  “Derrick. How are you?” She didn’t know Derrick as well as she’d known Chris. He seemed the other man’s complete opposite. His features were dark, his build untampered strength. He was a few years older than her, and even as a child he had been serious, driven. That put him firmly outside the group that Alice had been friends with. They’d been so carefree, so damn young…

  “Alice…and who’s this little one?” He motioned to Patrick, who was still half asleep with his head nestled on her shoulder.

  “This is my son Patrick,” she replied. Patrick glanced up at the sound of his name, slowly beginning to come awake to survey his new surroundings.

  “Well welcome, both of you. Are you here to take care of Don?”

  “Yes. Sharon called and said he hasn’t been doing well.” She was surprised when her voice wavered on the last words. Compassion filled Derrick’s eyes when he saw the pain in her own. Funny, it hadn’t been an emotion she would have expected from such a stoic man. From Chris, sure…if he hadn’t been so angry on her behalf that he couldn’t understand that she still loved the man who had raised her.

  “I’m glad you’re here for him. There’s something about—”

  Chris cut the other man off. “Alice and I were just about to grab a cup of coffee, catch up on old times. I can fill her in on Donald’s condition.”

  Alice wondered about the cause of the obvious bad blood between the two men but kept her questions to herself as she bid Derrick farewell and allowed Chris to lead her into the restaurant. Coffee and conversation with an old friend calmed her and gave her the internal peace she knew she would need to face her father again after so many years.

  Chapter 3

  Alice squared her shoulders and took a deep, calming breath before walking up to the door of her childhood home. It was obvious that her father had let it fall into extreme disrepair, although it looked like someone was doing some upkeep recently. The roof looked new although the rest of the house was broken down and worn. A few sawhorses and a circular saw, along with a pile of fresh lumber, gave evidence to the fact that someone was working on it still. Was it her father? Maybe he wasn’t as sick as she’d been led to believe.

  Sick or not, Alice was almost certain he would be infuriated to have her show up on his doorstep.

  “Well, one way or another it will be over by the end of the day, right?” She wasn’t sure if she was talking to Patrick or to herself.

  “Day,” Patrick seemed to agree, she thought with a wry grin.

  She rapped against the door with her knuckles, even though it felt, after all the years she’d called this house her home, that she ought to be able to walk right in. Somehow she doubted that walking right in would sit well with the man she still thought of as her father.

  She expected to hear his heavy, sure-footed stride moving toward the door to answer it, so the wavering voice that carried to her through the window that was opened next to the front door was an unwelcome surprise.

  “Derrick, is that you? ‘Bout time you got here, boy—” The statement was interrupted by a low groan that she could tell he struggled to keep muffled.

  “No. It’s…It’s Alice, Dad.”

  Silence met her statement. She waited for another moment or two, then shrugged to herself and twisted the knob to enter the house. Alice would care for him if he needed it, whether he liked it or not. Giving her the silent treatment wouldn’t make any difference. Actually, that might be preferable to him lashing out verbally in front of her son. His grandson, though she doubted he would see him as such.

  Her father sat on the couch with an afghan thrown over his legs, despite the warm breeze that flowed through the open window. He still had a large frame, but he had lost so much weight that his clothes hung on his skeletal frame. Even his skin looked less healthy. It seemed swollen to her, and there were some lesions on his forearms. Her heart twisted in her chest.

  “Dad—”

  “Donald. Don’t call me that. My name is Donald.” Not even Don, as his friends and her mother had called him. He wanted her to address him formally, as though they were no more than acquaintances.

  “Okay…Donald. This is my son, Patrick. Your…I mean…”

  Patrick was struggling to get down now, so she put him down. The child had never known a stranger, and it seemed that today would be no exception. He went straight to the couch and climbed up beside her father, settling himself in immediately as though the two had known each other years instead of mere seconds.

  “Donald is sick?” he asked with concern, placing a chubby little hand on his grandfather’s cheek.

  “Yes, I’m sick.”

  The admission had to have cost him, Alice reflected. Donald Hampton had never been one to admit weakness. She had a feeling that no number of years passing could have changed that.

  The softness that had entered his voice faded as he turned his attention to Alice once
more.

  “Alice, why are you here?”

  “Sharon called. She said…”

  “That I was dying, and no one wants to come near me for fear that it’s contagious?”

  A denial, a way to salvage his pride, died a quiet death on her lips before it was ever spoken. She wouldn’t disrespect him by skirting around a truth that he obviously understood all too well.

  “I…yes. That’s what she said. And I know I’m the last person you’d want here, but…well, I’m what you’ve got.”

  When he didn’t answer, she took it as acceptance and started to clean the house. It was obvious that it had been neglected for far too long. Had he been sick for so long, or had he just quit caring long before the illness took him? A question she would never ask, and therefore a question she would never know the answer to. That was just as well because either answer was sure to break her heart.

  The familiar tasks calmed her nerves, gave her a distraction from the need to make small talk that was welcome to both her and her father. She stopped only once, to lay Patrick down when he began to get cranky—it was a big surprise that he was able to sleep after all his time sleeping in the car—and the late afternoon was passed in a productive silence.

  Chapter 4

  Her father fell asleep soon after Patrick had, and a quiet peace settled over the house. Alice scrounged through the fridge and cupboards and managed to find enough to make a hodge-podge stew, but it was obvious that her first stop in the morning should be the grocery store.

  Her father, either for sentimental reasons or because he simply didn’t care, hadn’t changed anything throughout most of the house since her mother’s death. Some things had faded, and others held new chips and dents, but other than that it seemed like she had never left, like she’d stepped back in time to an era when she was loved and accepted, when she’d never tasted heartbreak’s bitter poison on her tongue.