Page 32 of Wolves’ Midlife Reunion (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #3)

It was so cold, but he’d finally reached the shore.

He pulled himself up onto the rocks with the last bit of strength in his arms, falling onto a patch of sand before rolling over onto his back.

He tried to catch his breath, but his lungs had worked so hard, they didn’t feel like they’d ever recover.

For a long moment, he simply lay there. He didn’t know what to do. He only knew that he’d made it.

He just didn’t know where he’d made it to.

Sitting up, he looked around. Several large boats were docked nearby, giant gleaming hulks with shining windows. He knew what they were, but it’d been so long since he’d seen one that they felt alien to him. He watched them for a while, bobbing slightly in their moors.

A man stepped off of one. He whistled to himself as he strode up the dock in his crisp white uniform. He was heading somewhere but stopped and turned. “You okay, man?”

He realized the guy in the crisp uniform was talking to him. Fear pierced through him, an instinctive worry after being imprisoned for such a long time. He tried to answer, but no words came out of his mouth.

The boater crouched down, but he kept his distance. He braced his forearm on one knee. “You’re soaking wet. Did you fall in?”

That, at least, was an easier question to answer. “No. I swam.”

“Swam?” The boatman’s dark eyebrows lifted, and his hazel eyes swept over the harbor. “A bit chilly for a swim, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. It’d been so long since he’d spoken to anyone.

He always felt confused, like his brain was underwater.

He’d tried to remember a time when it wasn’t like that, but he’d never been successful.

Taking a deep breath, he tried again to explain.

“They held me prisoner on the island. I don’t know for how long anymore.

I got away, though—this time. I’d tried before, and it didn’t work, but this time, it did. And I swam here.”

“Okay,” the man said slowly. He adjusted his hat, which was as bright white as his clothing. “Hey, I’d like to help you if that’s all right.”

He shouldn’t trust anyone. His mind might not work right, but that was one thing he knew with all certainty. There was something about this guy that he trusted, though, something he found familiar. Still, he couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know that you can.”

“My name is Jace. Jace Brigham.” He moved forward and held out his hand.

Slowly, he returned the gesture. When he grasped Jace’s hand, he once again had that feeling of something being shared. “I’m…I’m…I don’t know.”

“You don’t remember your name?” Jace asked.

He shook his head, frustrated all over again.

“I see.” Jace rubbed this thumbnail against his lip. “I get the sense that you’re like me, though. I can’t really say much more about it, not out here, but do you know what I mean?”

A secret. Something he’d kept hidden about himself for a long time, but he wasn’t the only one holding it. It was cloudy, but the knowledge was there somewhere. “Yeah. I think so.”

“That’s a start,” Jace said with a nod. “Do you know where you live?”

He shook his head. “I only know that I want to go there. I don’t even know what it looks like. It’s just a feeling I have more than anything.”

“Hm.” Jace rose and reached a hand out to help him up. “It won’t be an easy task, but I’d like to do whatever I can. I have some friends that might be able to help.”

Slowly, he got to his feet. He was exhausted, his muscles and bones weak from the long swim. It gave him a sense of hopelessness that weighed his body down even more than his wet clothes. “I don’t see how you can.”

Jace rolled one shoulder. “My friends are pretty talented, to say the least. Come on. My car’s right over there.”

With little choice, he followed Jace. He didn’t like having to rely on a stranger for help. Though he couldn’t understand why, he felt he shouldn’t need to. It should be him that people were coming to for assistance.

“Listen, I know this sounds strange,” Jace said as he dug his keys out of his pocket. “If you don’t have a name, do you mind if I give you one? I just feel like it might make things easier.”

“I guess.”

“We can keep it simple. John, for instance. John could be anyone,” Jace theorized.

“Okay.” John. He tried on the name in his mind. It didn’t feel like his own, but how could he know? “Are you sure you want me to get in your car? I’m going to get the seats all wet.”

“They’ll dry. Trust me. I spend all day on the water, and I’ve gotten them wet myself. It’s no big deal.”

The car roared to life beneath them. Even moving through the parking lot made John cling to the armrest as the world passed by.

“You okay over there?”

“It’s been a long time.” He reached up to run his hand over his face and down his beard.

It was wet, just like the rest of him. John couldn’t remember why he’d grown it out in the first place, although at least that was a memory he didn’t particularly miss.

“What are your friends going to do to help me? If I don’t have a name and don’t know where I live, then I don’t know what they can do. ”

Jace flicked on his blinker. “They’re very resourceful women.”

“You’d bring a stranger home to women?” Somehow, John knew that wasn’t right.

But Jace chuckled. “I might as well tell you right now. Even though it might sound unbelievable, they’re witches. Powerful ones. I’m betting they can tap into your mind and at least figure out who you are and where you belong.”

“And if they can’t?” John asked dejectedly.

He couldn’t allow himself to feel hopeful about this.

A witch that could peer into his brain sounded like a delusion, a nightmare.

Maybe he hadn’t made it to shore after all and was drowning, and these were the last images his mind had decided to show him.

“Then you can get a hot shower, fresh clothes, and a good meal. I don’t think you’ll mind that.”

John’s heart surged at the mere thought. It was more than he’d had in a long time. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

They pulled up in front of a large house. John peered at it uncertainly through the windshield, eyeing the columns that held up the portico and the awning windows between them. “Do you live here?”

“Several people do, actually. I can explain it all later. For now, let’s get you inside.” Jace brought him in through a side entrance.

A woman with choppy black hair appeared. She smiled at Jace, but her eyes widened in surprise when she saw John. “Who’s this?”

“This is John. I found him down at the docks, and I thought we might be able to help him. John, this is my partner, Erin.”

She stepped forward, smiling at him sweetly as she studied his face. “Hello, John.”

“I’m going to take him to the guest suite to get cleaned up. Is Maeve around? I think we need her help.”

Erin stretched up onto her tiptoes to kiss Jace’s cheek. “I’ll go find her.”

A few minutes later, John was led into a bedroom with an attached bathroom.

Jace made sure he had towels and searched a cabinet for some clothes.

“I think these will work well enough for now. I’ll leave you to get cleaned up.

Use anything you need in the bathroom. Then come on out, and we’ll see what we can do. ”

“Thank you,” John said sincerely. When Jace was gone, he stood for a moment in the middle of the bedroom and listened to the house.

Footsteps sounded above him. He didn’t know these people, and now that Jace had driven him around, he felt even more lost than he’d been when he arrived on shore.

But he wasn’t trapped. His body told him he wasn’t in any danger, and it felt so good to let that go.

He stepped into the shower, watching the soap foam up and wash away down the drain.

When he’d finally warmed his bones and dried off with an incredibly soft towel, John caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Automatically, he jerked back from his reflection.

Even clean, his shaggy hair and scruffy beard bothered him.

Jace had said he could use anything in there.

It only took the opening of one drawer to find a pair of scissors and a razor, so he trimmed and shaved away his beard.

His hands were uncertain as he worked, but taking all that off felt like lifting a weight from his shoulders.

He raised the scissors to his hair but then put them down again and just combed it back instead.

That would have to wait for someone who knew what they were doing.

He put on the clothes Jace had left out for him.

As he did, John sensed something familiar in this house.

It wasn’t the house itself. He didn’t think he’d ever been there.

It was nice, but it didn’t feel like a place he belonged.

It was a different sense, as though something else in the house was a part of him.

His jumbled thoughts had been a way to occupy his time while he’d been locked away.

Out there, they were a frustration and an annoyance.

John emerged into the living room where he and Jace had been a short while ago. His new friend Jace was there, along with Erin.

Jace rose. “Looking good, John. Come on over here. This is Maeve.” He waved his hand toward another woman who was seated regally in an armchair.

She was much older, with her hair mostly gray and crow’s feet by her eyes, but her skin had a youthful glow, and her figure was lithe.

Maeve rose from her seat and glided toward him, taking one of his hands in both of her own.

Her fingers were soft against his skin as she tipped her head to the side and studied his face.

“Welcome, John. Jace has asked us to help you, so we’ll do our best.”

He recognized something in her deep brown eyes but didn’t know what. That seemed to be the theme for him, though.

“You’ve already met Erin. This is my daughter, Chelsea.” She gracefully gestured to the other woman on the couch, one who’d had her back to him when he’d walked into the room.

He turned to greet her. Chelsea had thick red hair that fell in long spirals around her shoulders and had the same brown eyes as Maeve. She was gorgeous, and something about her moved him inside. It was more than attraction, but John didn’t know how to explain it.

Chelsea smiled at him in greeting, but her smile quickly faded. Her face paled. Though everyone there had studied him with interest, Chelsea was staring. She swallowed, and her chest heaved.

Erin, seated next to her, put a comforting hand on her arm. “What’s wrong?”

But Chelsea’s eyes remained locked on his. “Your name isn’t John,” she gritted out. “It’s Beck. And I thought you were dead.”

“Beck?” Maeve repeated, looking from her daughter to John and back again.

Erin sucked in a breath. “It can’t be! Are you sure?”

Beck looked at Jace, but the other man seemed just as confused as he was. These women seemed to know him, but it didn’t make sense. Why didn’t he recognize them?

Chelsea stood slowly, uncertainly. Her lips trembled as she took a hesitant step closer to him and studied his face. She blinked away tears, and her breath came unsteadily. “I’m absolutely sure. Beck Alexander, where the hell have you been?”

Something inside him reacted as he took in her wide eyes, their earthen brown so deep and dark.

This woman was absolutely beautiful, and he had the distinct urge to move toward her, to hold her, yet he couldn’t.

His body and mind were warring in the confusion that’d taken over not only him but apparently the entire room.

Chelsea. Did he know that name? For that matter, even the name Beck didn’t seem any more familiar than John had. “I wish I knew.”