Page 16 of Cold Foot Croc (Wreck’s Mountains #3)

What else did she need?

The last two days had been a whirlwind of emotion, but she had something she needed to do now.

She needed to Change.

Garret had offered to take her to a lake he’d found off the beaten path. He would keep hikers back and take care of baby Breah. She was packing the baby’s things now, and waiting for Garret to come pick them up. Dylan was going to meet them there so he could meet the baby. Garret said he’d bought a bunch of presents for her already.

Breah was fussing in her crib, so Raynah leaned over it and picked her up, cradled her close. Raynah stooped to rearrange a couple of sticks she didn’t like the look of. She’d put her nesting debris around the crib, opened up the loft room, and put the partition away. Garret had dragged a bed in here yesterday from the furniture store so she had somewhere comfortable to sleep and heal up.

She liked the bed more than she thought she would. They had plans to go shopping for the living room furniture, and also the sitting room furniture, next week when she was feeling a little better. She was more comfortable using some of the money Damon had gotten for her, if it meant providing a good home for Breah to grow up in.

After tonight, and after years of not being able to Change into her crocodile, she had a feeling she would feel like a million bucks. The crocodile would speed her healing and vanquish this tense, humming, suffocating feeling that had consumed her body for so long. She hadn’t been able to Change in Cold Foot Prison thanks to the meds they made the shifters take, and then she couldn’t Change for the rest of her pregnancy in order protect the growing baby.

Tonight she would finally, finally feel water against her scales again. Excitement snaked up her spine, and Breah reacted with a soft cry.

“It’s okay, baby. Everything is okay. I’m just ready. Someday I’m going to teach you all about this stuff. I’ll teach you to swim when you are older. You can swim with momma. I will teach you all about the water.” And teach her about right and wrong, and protecting loved ones, and checking herself, and growth, and being a good person, and being a strong woman. She would be honored to teach her all of it.

Like her mom had done for Raynah.

Raynah studied her baby’s sweet face as she rocked her back and forth.

She still had the phone number memorized.

She might not live there anymore, or hell, she might not have the landline anymore. That thing had been ancient when she’d lived there. Mom probably had it disconnected years ago.

But Raynah had the number memorized.

She chewed on her lip. Emotions bubbled through her just thinking about hearing her mom’s voice.

“Shhhh-shh-shh,” she said comfortingly to Breah as she rocked her. That usually did the trick. It did the trick now.

Garret would be here anytime, and she would feel that relief in her chest. She liked when he was with her and Breah. She liked them all together.

Her phone sat on the bed, tempting her.

She had the number memorized still.

She had it memorized.

Dylan was meeting Breah today. She wished her mom and brother could at least know they had a granddaughter, and a niece.

She typed in the phone number that probably wouldn’t even ring and hesitated before she hit the call button. When she poked that call button, she paced away and back quick, then hit the speakerphone.

It rang.

Okay, what did that mean? The landline was still live?

The phone clicked, and an unfamiliar man’s voice answered, “Hello?”

“He-hello?” she stammered, shocked that someone had picked up. “Um, I was trying to reach someone, but they probably moved away a long time ago.”

“Who are you trying to reach?”

“Um, my mom. Adoptive mom. Cary Furrow?”

The silence on the other end felt so heavy. The man cleared his throat. “Is this Raynah?”

Chills crawled up her back as she rocked Breah. “Yes.”

“Cary is my wife.”

“Your wife,” she repeated softly. “She’s married.”

“Yeah. We got married a few months ago. Let me go see if she’s home yet. She goes straight to her greenhouse out back after work.”

Her mom had always talked about building a greenhouse in the backyard. She’d done it. “Okay. Hey, mister?”

“Tim. My name’s Tim.”

“Tim,” she said shakily. “It’s okay if she doesn’t want to talk to me. I just figured I would try.”

“Oh, she’ll want to talk to you.”

Shocked, Raynah waited for a couple of agonizing minutes until there was static over the phone and the man answered again. “She’s heading in here right now. Just give her a few seconds. She’s freaking out a little.”

“Okay. Thank you, Tim.”

“No, thank you.”

She frowned. What? Thank her for what?

“Ray?” Oh, her mom’s voice was just as she remembered it.

The utterance of the old nickname her mom used to call her drew a smile to her lips. “Hey, momma.”

“Ray,” she said again, emotion infused into the simple word. “Your brother’s gonna go wild.”

“I’m not meaning to cause any freak-outs. I just wanted to say some news.”

“Well go on then. What news?”

“Well, I…” Raynah swallowed hard. “I’m not asking for anything at all from any of you. I just wanted to say I had a little baby girl a couple of days ago. I just thought you should know.”

“A little girl?” her mom whispered. Her words were tear-stained now.

“Yeah. She’s amazing. And I was just thinking about all the things you taught me, and I just wanted to try the old landline and see…if…well, see if anyone picked up.”

“What’s her name?”

“Breah.”

“Breah is a beautiful name. The dad’s good to you?”

She thought of Garret and smiled. “Yeah. Very good.”

Her mom inhaled deeply and let off a long breath. “My husband is good to me, too.”

Raynah didn’t know how to respond.

“Ain’t no man hit me since…you know. I changed what I was looking for. I figured I owed it to you, after I was out of my angry phase.”

“I’m…” Raynah’s voice cracked, and she had to swallow a lump in her throat before she tried again. “I’m sorry for any hurt I caused you, but you should know I’m not sorry for what I did to that asshole. I would do it again, and just the same.”

“Good. We wrote you. Mace and I wrote to you. Did you get our letters? And our Christmas cards? They never came back to us, but you never responded. We figured you were angry at us after everything that shook down.”

“Wait, you wrote to me? While I was in Cold Foot?”

“Every month. One from me, and one from Mace. Once the dust settled and we realized the sacrifice you made, and when my life started improving, and when I lost that fear of Harold and accepted that he was really gone, we started writing to you. It was after the trial. The guilt ate me up something terrible. It still does.”

“I never got your letters.”

A pained noise escaped her mother. “We heard you got out of Cold Foot. Heard there was some bad stuff in there. Mace tracked down some sealed court documents that said something happened in a program you were in, and there was a lawsuit. Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened if it was true.”

Eyes overflowing, Raynah looked down at Breah’s face. She’d fallen asleep again. “I’m not sorry. I ended up all right. I have a Crew, and a good man, and this sweet little baby, and I’m not looking in the rearview anymore. There’s nothing for me there. I’m only looking straight ahead these days.”

“Can you send me a picture of her?”

“Raynah?” Garret called from below.

“I’m upstairs,” she called to him. To her mom, she said, “Of course I can.”

Her mom gave her a cell phone number, and Raynah sent over a picture of the day she’d had Breah. Sasha had taken a picture of her and Garret leaning on each other as he held Brea. Raynah looked a mess, but no one could deny the happiness in the photo.

“Oooooh,” her mom crooned. “I got the picture, Ray. I got it. You sure did get yourself the life, didn’t you?”

Garret made it to the top of the stairs and looked at her with worry in his eyes, but she patted the bed beside her, and smiled at him. My mom , she mouthed.

His eyebrows shot up and he removed his baseball hat, bent the curved bill in his big strong hands as he sat on the edge of the bed. Holy shit , he mouthed back.

“Garret just got here,” Raynah said. “He’s my…my…well, he’s mine.”

“Hi, Raynah’s mom,” Garret said near the phone.

Her mom laughed thickly. “Hello, Ray’s man. It’s nice to talk to you.”

“I’ll send you more pictures, okay?” Raynah offered. “If you want them.”

“I do. Give me a million. I’ll be giving your number to Mace too, if that’s okay. He’s probably going to start planning a trip for us to come see you. Would that be all right?”

“Sure,” she said, excitement humming through her. “I would like that. I’m living in Darby, Montana now. I would love for you to meet Garret and Breah.” They weren’t mad at her. They weren’t mad. The prison must’ve thrown away their letters. God, they weren’t mad. “You guys can call me anytime.”

“I’m going to probably go have a good cry, and then call Mace,” Mom said emotionally.

“You’ve made her month,” Tim said from the background.

“My lifetime,” her mom corrected. “Ray?”

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for what you did. I’m happy, and I know I wouldn’t have ever been that if I kept going the way I was going. I wouldn’t even be here. I think you knew that, and I think you just didn’t know how else to fix it. You just wanted to save me.”

Raynah scooted closer to Garret and hugged Breah closer. Her heart just felt broken wide open in a good way. Mom knew. She’d figured it out. She understood. She saw her. “You’re welcome.”

When they got off the phone, Garret was smiling so big. “Today is the best day.”

She giggled and rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s up there.”

He slid his arm over her shoulders and asked, “Are you ready to go? I have a surprise.”

He was humming with excitement, and she eased back to look up at him suspiciously. “What have you done?”

“Something I think you will like.”

“Something for Breah?”

“Something for you.”

He stood and grabbed the bag she’d packed full of baby supplies. “Come on, Lenace.”

She laughed at the nickname and followed him carefully down the stairs, cradling Breah.

He tossed her bag in the back of his truck and helped her up into the seat, then took the baby from her arms and buckled her into the new car seat he’d strapped into the back seat of his truck. She checked the other cabins as she always did when she left, to see who was still here, but most of the cars were gone. Everyone was probably working today.

She checked on Breah once…two times…three times. Her momma instincts were a lot bigger than she could’ve imagined they would be.

“And you were scared you would be a bad mom,” Garret said out of nowhere, as if he could read her thoughts.

“I wouldn’t ever let anything bad happen to her.”

“I know. Do you even realize how sexy that is?”

“Sexy?” she asked, baffled. Not her.

“You’re pretty, and smart, and strong,” he said, sliding his hand over her thigh. “And then you end up being a protective momma. The animal in me is just obsessed with you.”

“Even though the baby isn’t yours?” she had to ask. They hadn’t really had a chance to talk about it. Everything had happened so fast.

“That baby is mine,” he said. Truth. He absolutely saw her as that, and that conviction was what made Raynah feel safe to say the next words.

“I sure love you, Garret.”

He jerked his attention to her and looked so shocked, but hopeful. “Yeah?”

She nodded her head. “I knew it early, what this was. Why do you think I was so scared of it?”

A grin curved up the corners of his lips. He gripped the wheel tighter, buzzing with obvious joy. “Am I…am I going to Change? No. Yes? No.” He rolled down his window and leaned out. “She loves me!” he yelled into the woods.

A peal of laughter escaped her. “Garret Hoffman, you’ll make the baby fussy.”

“Oh she loves the excitement,” he crooned, checking the rearview mirror.

“What are we going to do?” she asked him softly.

“About what?”

“Your house. I like being around you.”

“Oh, Sasha and I have a plan already. She bought the house she fixed up from her landlord, and she’s hiring a property management company to rent it out to vacationers. I’ll be fixing mine up to do the same.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re okay with not living in your house? You love your house though.”

“I’ll love our house more. I know you can’t move down to the middle of Darby. Your Crew is here, in Wreck’s Mountains. Your nest is in that house. That’s Breah’s home. There is no rush. Whenever you are ready, if you’re ever ready, you just say the word and I’ll be moving in with you and Breah. Wreck already gave his approval. I asked.”

She sat there, stunned with happiness. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. I want to be around my girls. I’m not rushing it, but someday I want it all.”

“You want the family.”

“Hell yeah. I don’t want to miss anything. What if I missed her first words, or first steps, or her first Change just because I’m living between your place and Darby? I don’t want to miss out on kissing you when I come home from work, or hugging you at night, or watching movies in front of the fireplace.”

“It’ll be covered in baby toys, and sometimes I will be a frazzled mess.”

“Bring it on. I can’t wait to step on Legos.”

She giggled and wrapped her arms around his strong one, pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “What word do I have to say to get you to move in?”

“What’s the word from that stupid rap Cash made up?” he asked, frowning as he tried to remember.

“Peep.”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“No, I mean, peep. I’m saying the word.”

“You want me moving in now?”

She nodded. “I want it all, too. With you.”

His expression right now was so soft and happy, and it dredged up butterflies in her stomach. “You know I love you too, right? You can feel it?”

She nodded again. “I know.”

He pulled the truck to a stop, slipped his hand to the side of her neck, pulled her in, and kissed her. When he eased back, he said, “Something bothers me.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’ve been asked a lot who my Maker is.”

“We can find him. We can track down what happened—”

He shook his head and kissed her again, silencing her, then pulled back again. “I decided I don’t care about the why or the who. If anyone asks me who my Maker is from here out, to me, it’s you. You’re my Maker. You taught me. You cared.”

A smile took her face, and her heart felt so full. “Okay,” she whispered. “Tell them it’s me, and I’ll tell everyone you’re Breah’s dad.”

He nodded, and his heart was in his eyes. “Are you ready for your surprise?”

“Yes.”

He pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed the inside of her palm, then twitched his head toward the road.

She turned to find a newly-carved wooden sign that read Swamp.

She didn’t understand. “Where did that come from?” They were almost to the main road from the one that led down from the cabins.

“We made it.”

He turned by the sign, and sure enough, there was a newly-beaten one-lane dirt road.

“Who is we?” she asked, but she didn’t need to. Garret pulled into a clearing, and she gasped as she saw the huge pond. Earth-moving equipment was lined up on trailers to the right of the clearing, and the area around the pond had been cleared and leveled completely with the machinery.

There was a structure that looked like a small house across the pond, and beside it stood every single member of the Cold Foot Crew, and also Dylan.

“Me and Dylan came up with the idea,” Garret told her. “You told me your town had a fenced-off pond for you to Change in when you were younger. You shouldn’t have to plan a camping trip every time you Change. It shouldn’t be that hard for you.”

She couldn’t stop staring at the inviting water. There was steam coming off the top. “How is it not frozen?”

“Wreck invested in a pump that heats the water. We did some research on the comfortable temperature for crocodiles. And look.” He pointed way down the oval-shaped pond toward a structure that covered a big chunk. “It’s a heated bath house with water access, in case the air is ever too uncomfortable to Change in. We rushed in all the equipment and supplies. The Crew has been working their asses off to get it done for your first Change.”

“That’s where you’ve been disappearing to,” she whispered, tears burning her eyes.

“I took the week off work,” he admitted. “I’ve been out here.”

“And you got Dylan out here, hanging with the Crew,” she said with a thick laugh.

“He’s got to be involved. He’s my brother. He wants to be here.”

“I’m so happy,” she was barely able to whisper through the emotions clogging up her throat.

“Wait there, let me help you out,” he told her as he parked the truck in front of the small house. It was some kind of tiny home on wheels.

The ladies of the Crew were up front, waiting, and the guys were hanging loosely behind them, talking amongst themselves with Dylan. As Garret opened her door, she felt like every single thing was right with her world.

The effort that her people, her family, had put into this would never be lost on her.

Garret helped her out, then opened the back door and pulled Breah out, wrapped her in a blanket, and pulled her little beanie farther down her forehead. He handed Breah to Raynah and pressed his fingertips on the dip of her lower back, guiding her to the people she was beginning to truly love.

She couldn’t stop tearing up. Maybe it was the hormones still, or maybe it was the intensity of an open heart after having to be shut down for so long. The fight-or-flight survival part of her life was really done. It was really through.

The girls—Katrina, Timber, and Sasha—met her, and hugged her gently around the baby. They were all teared up too, and God, this moment. This moment.

The guys came and hugged her one by one as she uttered her thanks over and over. Dylan was last to hug her, and she nearly broke down in his embrace, just because of the look on his face as he beheld his niece for the first time. Oh, he was already wrapped around her little finger. “Can I hold her?”

She placed Breah gently in the cradle of his arms and stepped back, clasping her hands in front of her face as tears of happiness streamed down her cheeks. He couldn’t stop looking at her. Garret made his way to his brother, gripped his shoulder, and shook him gently, and Raynah could see it. Both of those men wore the same emotional expressions on their faces.

“Is the house for you?” she asked. “For when you stay out here with me?”

“Yes and no,” Timber said. “Want to see it?”

“Yeah. Give me the tour.”

“Okay. We all chipped in and got this in case you want any camping nights with Garret, or girls’ nights out here drinking canned margaritas and hanging out.” Timber pulled the door handle of the little house. “But…we mostly got it for Breah.”

Confused, Raynah climbed the narrow stairs behind Timber, following her inside.

And now she got it.

Where a couch would’ve gone, there was a baby crib. The place had electric and heat, and there was a little sign above the crib that said Breah’s name.

Through the small kitchen was a bedroom with two bunk beds, and there was a loft above that looked like it had two twin mattresses on the floor.

The Crew had created a safe place for Breah to sleep while Raynah Changed, and they had created a place for them to spend time together as well.

She loved this place even more now.

“You guys are something else,” she uttered, looking around at them, all crowded into the small home. King and Reed were standing just outside the door, wearing matching smiles.

Raynah nodded over and over, at a loss for words.

“You’re worth it,” Wreck said, breaking the silence. “Just so you know, we’ve all said at different times how you were always meant to be here. Katrina was supposed to drag you out of Cold Foot, and you were supposed to escape and join us. You and Breah. You weren’t on the list, but you should know Beaston sees you with us.”

“I was thinking about leaving this whole time,” Raynah admitted.

“We know,” Katrina said. “We could feel it lately. We had to be patient and not put too much pressure on you, so you wouldn’t feel trapped here. We wanted you to choose us.”

She belonged? She belonged. She really belonged?

“I take it back,” she said. “I won’t eat any of you, even if you tell too many dick jokes or rap about my butt.”

The Crew broke out into laughter, and just like that, the overwhelming moment lightened. Raynah would think about all of this deeply later tonight, when she was home and snuggled up next to Garret in bed. She would mull over everything that was happening here, and accept the beauty of it.

But for now, her skin was crawling with the urge to slip into that steaming water outside.

“Your eyes,” Garret said from beside her, brushing his fingertip over her cheek. “We should let you get to it.”

“Will you stay?” she whispered as the Crew filed out of the little home.

Garret nodded. “Of course.”

“I won’t hurt you or Breah. My animal knows you. She won’t hurt anyone here.”

“I know. I’ll stay.” He paused for a second, and then leaned in. Against her ear, he whispered, “I’ll always stay.”

Oh, he knew the weight of those last three words. She could tell.

I’ll always stay.

The fear was gone now.

The testing was done.

She was safe with the Cold Foot Crew.

She was safe with Garret.

No matter what happened from here on out, she would protect this life with the people she cared about.

No more urges to run for Raynah.

She and Breah were home.