The inspiration for this story came from a conversation with a friend years ago. If she finds this, I hope she remembers it as fondly as I do. :)
This romance is a slow burn. I hope you find it worth the read. Enjoy!
-- OM
Notes: Some of the characters are werewolves but the sex is human only.
Trigger Warnings: Some horror and non-sexualized violence.
——— = ———
Long after everyone else had departed the pack meeting, Giles and Carson sat on the back porch steps in silence. They were both Caucasian men in their mid-forties, but that's where the similarities ended. Giles' hulking frame dwarfed his otherwise perfectly normal, average-sized friend seated beside him. The larger of the two, with his short beard and long wavy hair, looked like he belonged in another time and place, maybe trapping furs and forging new frontiers through the Alaskan wilderness. Carson's buttoned-down appearance and glasses made him appear more at home in a modern, glass-walled office building.
Giles also happened to be a werewolf.
Carson was too agitated to to enjoy the cool evening, but Giles looked up and lost himself in the view of mountains in the distance. A few stars already shone above the treeline. The night would be clear for stargazing.
"Explain it to me again, because I don't see the logic," Carson asked.
Giles answered in his deep, throaty voice, "It's like this. The worst thing you can do for a young romance is encourage it. Having your parents tell you who you should find attractive is the worst. Sometimes young people want what they can't have. You should know all about that." He grinned at his friend.
Carson managed a smile at their private joke. In the thirty-plus years they'd known each other, only one thing had come close to terminating their friendship — an argument over the woman Carson would eventually marry. But that business had long since been settled. "Yeah, okay," he admitted.
"And Macks is feeling trapped here," Giles explained. "She's headstrong. She gets that from you, you know. More'n likely, she'll go without your permission anyway. So, if she brings it up, let her go to California. Support her choice. See how it plays out for a while." Truthfully, Giles admired Carson's daughter for her spirit and energy. Mackenzie was a force of nature. If he was a younger man... but Giles stopped his thoughts well before he wandered into fantasy.
"You mean the scholarship she applied for without telling us and still thinks I don't know about," Carson said with irritation. "What if she never comes back? What if she falls in love with someone there? Or gets pregnant or falls in with the wrong crowd? There's so many ways this could go wrong."
Giles laughed and shook his head. "Macks has always been responsible. Her outburst tonight... she had some good points. Forcing her to marry Connor --"
"I'd never force her. I just think she's not seeing the big picture. She's being selfish. And rude to Connor, quite frankly."
Giles huffed. "My nephew has looks, but he's kind of a moron when it comes to girls. I don't blame her for putting her foot down. Connor can win her over, in time. He just... needs to grow up a little."
Carson sighed. "Connor's fine. He's just young. So is she. All couples have to work at the relationship. They'd get used to each other if she just gave him a chance."
"She gave him a chance last year and he royally screwed it up," Giles laughed tiredly.
Carson said nothing. This part was true. He picked a piece of grass off of his pants and flicked it away.
Giles continued, "Besides, this is her home. And you're her family. She loves it here. She loves being outdoors, loves the animals, the trees, the fishing. She even likes snow. You think she'll be happy in a big city, and one that far south? Her whole goal is to work for the Park Service. She'll be back. And in the meantime, I'll work on Connor." He put a hand on Carson's shoulder. "She'll be okay. She will."
Carson just shook his head. Having his daughter leave home, to go so far away, to trust her to handle herself, and trust that she would return; it was a lot to ask. So much could happen to her. He peered at his friend, "Since when did you become the smart one?"
"Maybe all your lecturing over the years finally sunk in," Giles answered with a grin. "Or cooling my ass in jail a few times actually did me some good."
Carson laughed.
——— = ———
Mackenzie Innes had her nose in a textbook. Her first year of classes in California had been tough and they wouldn't get any easier before the semester was over. She had been afraid, at first, of being on her own in a new city, but she'd persevered. She was proud of how hard she'd worked. Her work ethic and common sense had even managed to impress a couple of notoriously tough professors.
She kept in regular touch with her family back home. Her father had given her a stack of phone cards and a brand new 2002 flip phone so that she could call whenever she wanted. Shockingly, her parents never brought up her betrothal or asked when she would move back home or anything. They offered to pay for her to fly back for the summer but Mack thought she should take a job, and they agreed it was the sensible thing to do. They asked about school (fine, thanks), they asked if she was dating (no, no one in her life), but they gave her her freedom. It was a novel and welcome change from the way they'd treated her growing up. She sometimes wondered why they were doing this, but didn't dare question it.
A knock at the door interrupted her studies. Still muttering passages from her textbook to herself, she got up and looked through the peephole.
You have got to be kidding me.
She opened it. "Connor?
What
are you doing here?"
"Surprise!" he said, greeting her with a toothy grin. It was the same old Connor. "Look! Flowers." He produced a small bouquet of yellow daisies from behind his back.
Connor had never once, not once, brought flowers when they were officially dating. Mack laughed and accepted them. As she held them in her hands and took in their scent, she realized they really did brighten her mood. "Thank you. Okay, since you've come all this way," she said, shaking her head, "you may as well come in."
Had Mackenzie known then that Connor would be dead in less than a fortnight, she would have greeted him with more warmth.
"Thanks! Wow, what a shithole," Conner remarked, dropping his dufflebag just inside the door.
It was true. Her apartment was terrible. It badly needed paint and the carpet was stained. It was full of old furniture that she'd either picked up off the street or found in thrift stores. She'd made a genuine effort at fixing it up, but there was no distracting anyone from the lack of professional maintenance.
"Yeah, yeah, okay. So, what
