Page 4

No, Thank You

Claudine

Claudine hadn’t meant to end up at a hotel bar in Toronto, celebrating her big news alone—but there she was, in scrubs, ordering something called a Kir Royale while a Sarah McLachlan song about remembering played overhead.

“You passed one of those nursing exams that come with a big pay raise, didn’t you?” the bartender guessed when he set down a tall flute filled with a bubbly dark-red drink.

Claudine raised an eyebrow.

“What gave me away?”

He grinned.

“The badge. And the drink order. Pretty girl like you orders her own bubbly drink—means she’s got something she really wants to celebrate.”

With a chagrinned glance down, Claudine realized she was still wearing her RN badge.

She’d just come off a twelve-hour shift at Toronto General when she found the letter from the CNO—the regulatory body that administered NP licenses—waiting in her mailbox.

She wasn’t in the habit of smiling back at flirty men in service jobs, but she couldn’t stop herself from preening a little as she informed him, “Just found out I passed the Nurse Practitioner exam on my first try.”

“Then you definitely deserve this drink. Congratulations!” The bartender offered her a wink that started off complimentary but turned into a leering up-and-down look.

“But you’re celebrating alone? No boyfriend?”

“No boyfriend,” she confirmed.

Her lips tightened as she picked up the flute, averting her eyes so this guy wouldn’t mistake her answer for having a chance with her.

“The devil done cursed ya with that kind of face dutty boys like,” her mother had warned Claudine before she left Kingston for the University of Toronto.

“ Be careful up there in Canada now, Deenie. Find yourself a nice, stable doctor, and don’t go messing about with any those rude boys .”

Good advice.

That she’d followed.

Until her perfect med-student boyfriend disappeared from her life with nothing but a cryptic email.

No dating after that.

And, she’d quickly learned that her kind of singular focus didn’t attract girlfriends.

Most women her age were more concerned with work gossip and TV dramas than their life trajectories.

No other RN in the Critical Care Department had mapped out a 25-year plan to become a hospital director.

And since her mother would have already gone to bed back in Jamaica, there was no one who understood her enough to celebrate her achieving the second step of that plan tonight.

Not that it mattered.

Another piece of her mother’s guidance echoed in her head: All ya need is you, Deenie.

Make that a stone ya keep in your pocket.

Mentally rubbing the pebble she always kept in the pocket of her scrubs, Claudine raised her glass to the bartender to let him know, “All I need is me.”

“Feminist, huh?” The bartender huffed, but then the lothario look came right on back.

“How about letting me buy you that drink anyway?”

Claudine fingered her silver cross, her face hardening.

Apparently, he had managed to mistake her declaration of independence and a clipped two-word answer to his question about whether or not she had a boyfriend for an invitation.

“No, thank you.” She set the no longer quite so delicious drink down.

Why did men have to ruin everything?

“I insist.” He slid a cocktail napkin toward her.

“And if you want to thank me, you can write down your number. I get off in a couple of hours.”

Claudine opened her mouth to inform him she had cash to pay for her drink—and zero desire to thank him.

“No worries, friend,” someone else said before she could answer.

Two crisp Canadian bills landed on the napkin.

“I’ve got her drink money right here, and I’ll have a whiskey neat. Keep the change.”

That voice: Black Canadian excellence, only slightly tinged with a Jamaican accent, because he’d actually grown up here in Ontario, not just come for University.

Claudine turned. And blinked.

Then blinked again.

Even after ten years, she recognized him.

The med student she’d made the mistake of typing into her 25-year plan as Future Doctor Husband.

Before he abruptly ended their two-year relationship with an email about how he’d decided to drop out of his program and wouldn’t be coming back to the University of Toronto.

Or her. Ever.

Claudine’s heart stumbled, then dropped—straight into the ache she thought she’d buried years ago.

“Is it really you?” she asked, barely managing a whisper.

“What are you doing here?”

Then she saw the ring on his left hand.

A thick soapstone band with some kind of tribal pattern etched into it.

“You’re married,” she said flatly.

A shadow crossed his face.

“More like... ‘joined in ceremony.’ And we’re currently going through a rough patch. But yes.” His mouth twisted bitterly.

“In the eyes of her and her people, we’re married.”

“So then you’re planning on leaving her with nothing but a cowardly email, too?” The acid words slipped out before she could think about how she wanted to come across to the ex she hadn’t seen in nearly a decade.

“No, I took this trip to Ontario to clear my head. Not to repeat my worst mistake. I shouldn’t have left you like that, Deenie.”

To Claudine’s surprise, guilt replaced the tight, bitter look in his eyes.

“And, I apologize for how I ended things with you. You deserved better.”

Claudine blinked.

Then swayed. She hadn’t expected him to acknowledge her pain.

In her experience, men didn’t apologize for their cruel actions.

Especially men with medical degrees.

“So, I am assuming you never finished your schooling,” she guessed out loud.

The much less flirty bartender chose that moment to return with the whiskey, and the man Claudine had once thought she’d marry one day took it with a wry smile.

“Same old Deenie. You got me. I changed career paths after discovering I had a talent for—Hey, do you mind if I sit down and explain what happened? Maybe catch up on the last ten years, if you’re up for it.”

Claudine stared at him.

Blinked. Then answered, “No, thank you.”

He blinked back.

“What? You’re really saying no to me—your dream guy? The most handsome man you’ve ever met?”

“Read my lips,” she said, borrowing the popular American catchphrase.

Triumph swelled in her chest as she repeated.

“ No, thank you . You are the devil, and I rebuke you. Now, bye, boy, bye.”

Her ex’s mouth fell open.

And Claudine jerked awake with a bitter taste coating her mouth, like a metallic after-sheen.

Regret.

Because it had only been a dream.

A dream based on an actual unexpected reunion from twenty-three years ago.

And wishful thinking.

Because in real life, she hadn’t said no.

She’d invited him to sit down.

And he had ruined her entire life.

Why had she been having that dream so much lately?

Claudine rubbed at her pounding head.

It had been recurring almost nightly ever since she was forced to administer Sadie’s latest, and hopefully last, punishment.

Normally, it dissipated like a whisper as soon as she woke up.

But this morning, it lingered.

A cloud hanging over her head as she sat up in bed and pushed her feet into the pair of house shoes.

Claudine’s heart softened, looking down at the soft wool slippers.

Sadie had knitted them for her last winter.

Such a sweet daughter.

Since the day she was born, with no idea of how hard she had made her poor mother’s life just by existing, she’d been a huge, kind heart wrapped up inside a big, chubby body.

Both a gift and a living reminder of Claudine’s worst mistake.

But she loved that little idiot.

She did.

That was why she had to discipline her rightly.

Keep her safe. Keep her protected.

Even from herself.

Claudine rose from bed to make the two of them some corn porridge for breakfast.

But then she stopped, frowning.

Her door was closed.

Claudine never closed her door as it blocked out too much sound.

Living in a windowless, technology-free room, she’d come to depend on the rooster’s crow from the neighboring farm to replace the digital alarm clock that used to wake her up when she’d been a Critical Care Nurse.

That vaguely bad feeling turned into a knife of dread, twisting cold and sharp in her gut.

Something was wrong.

“Sadie?” she called out, yanking her bedroom door open to find an empty house, free of Sadie’s strawberry scent.

How late had she slept?

The metallic taste in her mouth took on a new tinct.

The memory of the nightly cup of tea Sadie always brought her before bed came back to her then.

It had tasted strange last night.

More bitter than usual.

But Claudine had ignored it.

Even though it was months later, she still felt a bit guilty about punishing her daughter the way she had after Sadie had walked into the house reeking of the mail steward’s spawn, Reuben Yoderwulf.

But now, understanding crashed over her.

Sadie had drugged her with valerian root—a plant that was harmless to humans but known to have a temporary sedation effect in shifters, with a metallic aftertaste left behind.

If Sadie had known her mother required a much higher dose to be put out, Claudine might still be sleeping.

In any case, the girl must have closed the door to her bedroom to increase the chances of Claudine not waking up in time to…

what?

An image of that weaselly Yoderwulf boy, who hadn’t dared to meet her eyes in church while Sadie was on punishment, popped into her mind.

A mind which Claudine then proceeded to lose.

She didn’t stop to put on proper clothes or even her prayer covering.

She charged outside in her nightdress, fury and fear powering her steps.

Her outsized strength hummed dangerously under her skin, and for once, she didn’t tamp it down.

Because she planned to use it.

She’d tear that cowardly boy who'd given her daughter such terrible ideas to go against her own mother apart.

Then, she’d drag Sadie home by the hair if she had to. Lock her up for six months this time. A year! However long it took to drain the stupidity out of her.

Foolish girl! Chasing false dreams of love. Claudine’s mouth twisted as she broke into a lumbering run.

Sadie didn’t know…love was a lie, a snare, a curse. Claudine had believed in love once, and it had left her pregnant, abandoned, and unable to function in the human world—much less stick to her twenty-five-year plan

She rounded the bend toward the mail steward’s house…

And stopped cold when she spotted something in the distance that she hadn’t seen with her own eyes in over two decades.

A bus. A transportation carriage, like the ones they’d used to ferry nursing students in for hospital visits.

It sat just beyond the town sign, which was as far as cars were allowed in St. Ailbe.

Its engine grumbled as a line of she-wolves in black bonnets and hand-sewn laundry bags repurposed as luggage climbed aboard.

Including one female who stood a good half foot above all the others.

“Sadie!” Her heart rattled, threatening to give out.

And then every single bit of color drained out of the world.

Later, she’d try and fail to recall exactly what had happened.

There had been tears. Sadie’s as she pleaded from the bus window, “Mama, please. Please understand. You want me to stay here forever, but I’ve got to try for something more.”

But Claudine couldn’t understand, couldn’t form coherent thoughts or words over the crazy lady screaming. Screaming so loud.

That crazy lady was her, calling Sadie every name outside the good book as her worthless best friend Naomi’s even more worthless father, Danso, held her back, along with three other full-sized males.

And even then, she’d managed to break away, thanks to the strength she usually kept hidden. “SADIE! SADIE, NO! NO!”

But by then, it was too late. The bus was already pulling away. She barely managed to claw at its metal exterior before it trundled down the road, kicking up dirt and pebbles behind.

Only then did the right words find their way to her mouth.

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!” she screeched after the bus. “YOU HAVE TO COME BACK. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!”

These were the right words. What she should have said. Finally. Sadie didn’t hear her, though. The bus kept going along with the spinning of the world.

But Claudine did eventually have to stop. Her arms dropped uselessly to her sides as she struggled to catch her breath.

Her daughter was gone.

And there was nothing she could do about what most certainly would come next.