He stifled a smile. “It’s not easy to settle into a pack, especially if you’ve been living among humans for a long time, but Harley’s found her place.”
“Good. But if you ever need me to talk to them, just say so.”
An hour later, as they were getting ready to leave, Tess shook his hand. “Well, it was really lovely to meet you, Jesse. Now take care of my niece. Oh, and be sure to give this to the little pup who saved Harley.” She put a stuffed bear in his hand.
“I will. It was good to meet you, Tess.”
“You don’t mind if I have a quick moment alone with my niece, do you?”
Harley almost smiled at the way his mouth flattened. He totally did mind. “I’ll just be a sec.” With an unhappy grunt, he headed to the rental car. Harley waited until he was inside the vehicle before she turned back to Tess. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I approve of your choice, and he certainly cares for you. I worried when you told me his true mate died. It reminded me of Matt and Sandra.”
Matt, Tess’s cousin, lost his fiancée in a boating accident. Four years later he married Sandra, a sweet woman who he truly loved, but he was never able to let his deceased fiancée rest. Harley remembered Darla well. She’d been nice enough, but she’d also been curt and self-centered; the couple had argued often. Matt seemed to have forgotten the bad stuff. He built up Darla and put her on a pedestal, making Sandra feel inadequate and second best.
Harley remembered Sandra once crying to Tess about how painful it was to be with a guy who regarded his past partner as his soul mate. In Harley’s case, the female who Jesse lost literally was his soul mate. It was little wonder that Tess worried.
“Matt still speaks of Darla as if she was saintly,” said Tess. “I can understand why a person might want to forget all the bad things when they lose someone, but Matt takes it to the extreme. How does Jesse speak of the girl he lost?”
“He doesn’t. He only really spoke of Torrie once, but he did reassure me that I wasn’t second best. I brought her up in conversation a couple of times since then . . . I guess I’m just curious about her, and I don’t want him to think he can’t ever speak of her to protect my feelings. But he just changes the subject.”
“He strikes me as the type of person who doesn’t easily share.”
“He doesn’t, and I can accept that. Especially because he’s been pretty open with me about other things. And everyone’s entitled to their emotional privacy. I’m pretty guarded myself. It’s just . . . I need to know he can open up all the way before I put all my faith in this relationship and tie my soul to his.”
“Which is not only perfectly reasonable, but smart. It protects both of you.” Tess rubbed her arm. “He can’t know it hurts you that he doesn’t share things about Torrie unless you tell him. Talk to him about it. Don’t put any pressure on him, just let him know what you’ve told me. It’s all about communicating.”
Harley smiled at her. “My own personal agony aunt.”
She chuckled and held out her arms. “Hug.” She gave Harley another tight squeeze. “Don’t wait so long to come visit me.”
“I won’t,” Harley said as she walked to the car. “Promise.”
When Harley slid into the passenger seat, Jesse switched on the ignition and asked, “What was that about?”
“Girl stuff. So, what do you think of Tess?”
“I like her. She’s very different from Lily.”
Harley waved at her as they drove down the path. “I know. All three of the sisters are different. I never spent much time with Marlene because she’s always in her lab. The woman has an IQ higher than mine and yours combined.” Neither of them spoke for a while, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. “If you’re worried that living with that kind of luxury means I won’t be content in a lodge, you’re wrong. I’m not a materialistic person. I shop at thrift stores, stay at simple hotels, and drive a rickety car—or I did until the whole bomb situation.”
Shame slithered over Jesse. “I did have a moment when I wondered if Nat and Kim’s concerns were warranted, but it was a small moment. To be fair, that mansion is five times the size of our lodge.”
She liked the sound of “our” lodge. “My grandparents’ place is even bigger.”
“It’s hard to believe that Lily turned her back on it all. She’s self-centered enough to prefer that lifestyle over being with Clive, whether he’s her true mate or not.”
“I think she did it as a ‘fuck you’ to my grandparents. April and George aren’t very loving. April thinks of Marlene as ‘the smart one,’ Tess as ‘the musical one,’ and Lily as ‘the pretty one.’ But April doesn’t place much importance on ‘pretty.’ She has high standards and is very strict and critical. Lily bore the brunt of that because she didn’t fit the mold.”
“You think that’s where her undying need for attention comes from?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her mother. “I think that when she failed to get it from April, she rebelled in every way possible. Then along came a shifter—a guy her family would never approve of—wanting to claim her. Going with him was the ultimate form of rebellion. It probably also made her feel special to have a true mate; she’d never been special to anyone before. That would have been more important to her than money.”