Chapter Two: Just a Kid

Gabriel packed his black full-size pickup truck carefully.  He did not know if he was going for a few days, or a few weeks, or even for months.  He only knew he had no intention of returning until he had found her.  He grabbed an old paper map of the United States, and a marker.  In his hometown of Puller, he put an X. His finger traced a line vaguely northward toward the next town.  It was going to be like a game of Hot and Cold. He would just have to keep moving where the inexplicable sensation in his chest felt stronger.   

His mother and father came out to the driveway to see him off.  His mother was encouraging as always, her blue eyes warm and hopeful, her lips curving in a smile.  She was happy for him, happy that at least he had some shred of hope.  His father, on the other hand, looked grim.  Thomas Shephard had already called this a "fool's journey".  He also knew his son well enough to know that nothing the older man said could dissuade Gabriel to stay once he had made up his mind to leave. "Take care, son," was all he said, as he offered his beefy hand.  Gabriel was taller and broader than his father, but the old man still had the strength to crush his fingers in his grip. 

 Elena put her hands on her son’s face and smiled softly.  "You find her, Gabe, and bring her home."  He nodded and leaned down to kiss her plump cheek. 

 "I'll call you," he promised as he climbed in the driver's seat.  He shut the door and rested his arm out the open window.  He looked at his parents, his hard, stern father, his soft, gentle mother.  They were total opposites, yet they balanced each other perfectly, making a strong and complete whole.  Thomas’s arm slipped around Elena’s shoulders as he met Gabriel’s eyes across the short distance and nodded.  He might not approve of Gabriel’s choices, but deep down he knew, a wolf needed his mate. 

 Gabriel put the truck in gear and headed out toward the gates.  Three Oaks was a small pack in a small, quiet community, so they didn’t require heavy security.  There were only two watchmen on duty, manning the gate to the old estate.  The guards waved at him as he pulled through the gates and asked no questions; they were used to watching the Alpha’s oldest son leave the pack. 

 The process was much more tedious than Gabriel anticipated, and his hopeful excitement soon turned to frustration.  His internal compass was far from accurate, and at first it was a process of trial and error.  Gabriel drove to the next town, and tried to compare, was the pull stronger, or weaker?  If it was weaker, he had to backtrack, and try another direction.  After a couple of weeks, as he slowly progressed north and east, the pull became stronger and stronger, and he took fewer wrong turns, back tracked less.  He was impatient, but his hope grew.   

 It wasn't just his imagination.  She was out there, and he was going to find her. 

Sometimes he slept in hotels.  If the weather was fair, he would find some place to pull off the road and spread his sleeping bag out in the bed of the truck.  As he drew closer to an unknown destination, the dreams also grew stronger, but more alarming.  He never saw her face.  She was never more than a shadowy figure moving, always just out of sight, always disappearing.  She cried sometimes and her weeping tore him up.  Gabriel could feel her emotions, and mostly what he felt was fear.  

 Why?  Why was she afraid?  He longed to call out to her, to comfort her, to reassure her that he was coming, he was near.  Even though she was nothing but a shadowy, faceless dream, he already felt an instinctual need to protect her.    

He reached New York state found himself somewhere in the Catskill mountains. Summer was waning into fall, and it was getting colder at night.  Here and there leaves were beginning to turn from green to gold and red.  On that night it was rainy and dreary, so he found a motel in a small town and took a room for the night.  He took in his duffel bag and realized he would need to find a laundromat soon, as his supply of clean clothes was dwindling.  

The hotel room was old and tired, typical of so many rooms he had seen in his work.  Even though the sign said “no smoking” there was the slight smell of stale cigarette smoke lingering in the carpeting.  He dropped the bag on the end of the bed and headed straight for the shower, to wash several days’ worth of grime and odor from his tired body. 

He wrapped the rough hotel towel around his waist and went back to the bed, digging through the bag for his last pair of clean underwear.  He relaxed back on the thin, lumpy mattress and took out his phone.  He had a few texts from his friends and family, polite inquiries.  

"Hey man, where are you now?" 

 "Have you found her yet?" 

 And one from his mother, "Did you remember to eat today?" 

But the most interesting text came from his little brother, Ryan.  

"Hey man, I was just thinking about this and talking to Chrissy.  Do you think the reason you haven't found your mate before now is because she hadn't come of age?" 

 "Chrissy is months younger than I am... I saw her almost every day at school, but I never felt anything toward her until she came of age." 

The idea that had never occurred to him.  Was his mate just a girl?  He frowned at the phone.  Werewolves came of age at their eighteenth birthday.  That was the day their wolf became fully awake and aware.  If his mate had just appeared on his radar because she had turned eighteen, Gabriel could pinpoint her birthday to that day in mid-August when he had first dreamt of her.   

 His mind reeled with the implications.  He was twenty-eight years old, soon to be twenty-nine.  He had expected a mature young woman near his own age, not some kid.  And what would she think when she found out her mate was a much older guy?  He scrubbed his face with his hands, feeling the scratch of the stubble he had not bothered to shave off.   

 He picked up the phone again, and dialed his mother.  She seemed happy to hear from him, and he felt that familiar stab of guilt.  “Sorry, it's been a while,” he grumbled in an apology.  When he brought up Ryan’s conjecture, she didn’t seem the least bit surprised.  She had probably already thought of the same possibility.  It was entirely possible that his mate situation was regular conversation around the family dinner table. 

 “It does make a lot of sense,” his mother said after a long pause, “I think he might be right.” 

Gabriel groaned.  " What do I do?" 

"Gabe,” his mother spoke in that mother-knows-best tone that was somehow comforting and irritating at the same time.  “The Goddess has paired you for a reason and a purpose.  It is no mistake and no accident, have faith in that.  But I would go slowly if I were you.  Don't barge in and scare the girl, or offend her family.  Build trust, prove your worth... then the age difference shouldn't be such an issue." 

"But Mom... if she is just a kid...?" 

"You have waited all these years to find her... will you reject her now because she is young?" 

Reject her?  The suggestion turned his blood to ice in his veins.  No.  Never. Gabriel the man might be questioning, but inside his wolf was snarling at him.  Reject his mate?  Over his dead body!  With every mile that he drew closer to the mysterious woman, he felt more alive.  She was the other half of his soul.  He needed her like he needed air to breathe.  Sure, it might be awkward at first, but in time surely the age difference would not matter. 

 If there even was an age difference… it was just a guess. He tossed the phone aside and closed his eyes. The rain pattering against the glass window lulled him to sleep. 

 He was in the woods again.  He had come to this place so often in his dreams it was familiar to him.  He was sure it must be a real place, for the landscape was so detailed and unchanging.  A great oak stood ancient and alone in a stand of younger white pine.  There was a hedge of wild blackberries that edged a clearing to the west. Across the clearing there was an old cellar hole, and an overgrown orchard.  At the northern tip of the clearing was a great big slate rock formation that jutted up into the sky, like a finger pointing south. 

 Suddenly he felt a great tearing pain in his shoulder.  So much so that he cried out and clutched it.  Looking at his own shoulder, and probing it with his fingers, it was fine.  Somehow, he knew the pain was hers, and he was feeling it through the supernatural bond that connected them, soul-to-soul.  He peered through the trees in the fading light.  He felt, more than he saw her shadow moving, somewhere beyond the clearing.  Still holding his throbbing shoulder, he began to move as silently as he could toward the shadow.  He skirted the small clearing, and moved toward the western edge.  She was there, a barely visible silhouette.  She too was holding her shoulder, which seemed to sag at an unnatural angle.  He stopped and watched in horror as she approached a tree, and grasping one of the lower branches with the injured arm, wrenched the dislocated shoulder back into the joint.  She cried and dropped to her knees, and so did he.  He felt the excruciating pain as if it was his, and sweat beaded out along his brow.  He jumped up to his feet and ran toward her.  He'd never gotten this close before.  He felt that this time he would reach her, he would see her, he would know her face. 

She also sprang to her feet, and seemed to be looking around.  "Who is there?" Her voice seemed to carry directly to him, a soft alto. 

She felt him!  For the first time she seemed to sense his presence in the woods.  But she only seemed more frightened.  He felt her fear in the pit of his stomach like a twisting ball of anxiety.  She bolted and ran with incredible speed back into the darkness.  She was as swift and graceful as a doe, and just as shy. 

 Gabriel awoke in a sweat.  He felt so many emotions.  He was upset and angry... She was hurt.  She often seemed to be in pain.  If someone was hurting his mate, Gabriel would bury them.  But he was also elated that she had finally sensed him.  He had heard her voice, not only crying, but this time speaking, like an angel in the wilderness.  And he was frustrated... he had been so close, and yet still he could not see her face.  He rolled over to look at the alarm clock on the bedside table.  It was just after midnight, but he couldn't sleep, and he couldn't wait any longer.  He grabbed his duffle bag and tossed his dirty clothes back inside. He needed to get back on the road.