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“I love being out where the city lights don’t outshine the stars and moon,” Luke said. “I think that I would like to get a house out in the country sometime soon.”
“That sounds very nice,” Jamie said.
“You’ve been very quiet tonight. Are you okay?” Luke asked. “A penny for your thoughts.”
Jamie didn’t quite know how to say what was on her mind. After a couple of seconds she said, “I have fallen in love with you.”
Luke stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Jamie. His eyes were wide with that deer in the headlights look. He stared at her in stunned silence.
Jamie nodded and said, “I understand.”
She walked away, leaving a shocked Luke staring after her. Jamie hoped that he would come after her and say something – anything – but he didn’t. A rock dropped into the pit of her stomach and tears welled up in her eyes. Her chest hurt. Jamie felt like a fool and her heart was broken.
Once she shut her front door, she felt as though the world was locked out. A glass of wine called her name when she walked into the enveloping warmth of her house.
“I guess that makes things easy for everyone,” Jamie said. “Carl gets what he wants, and Alexis sort of gets what she wants. She might not get Luke, but at least I won’t be in her way, in her mind. Maybe she’ll leave me alone now.”
Her own voice sounded lonely and sad in the emptiness of her house.
“Who knows. Maybe he’ll think about it and we can work on our relationship. He might grow to love me over time,” Jamie told herself.
She honestly didn’t know what to think. A hot bath and another glass of wine sounded perfect.
Her bathtub was full of hot bubbly water and she was about to get in when she heard a loud pounding on her front door.
“What the hell?” she said.
Hoping against hope that it was Luke, she peeked out the window. Dillon stood on her porch, shifting from one foot to the other.
Jamie ripped open the front door and asked, “What’s wrong? Did something happen to Clara or Zeke?”
“No. You have to get out of here. Brent, the bartender at the resort, overheard Ryan and Alexis talking tonight. Ryan told Alexis that you are a bear shifter. Hunters are on the way. You have to go right now,” Dillon said, all in one breath.
Jamie’s heart stopped and her breath caught in her throat. She ran into her bedroom and grabbed a backpack. She threw in a change of clothes, a picture of her parents, and a couple other important mementos, and rushed out to her car.
“I’ll stall them as long as I can. You have to get to the shifter world,” Dillon said.
Jamie drove as quickly as she safely could on the snow packed roads in the dark. She panicked every time she saw the flash of headlights in her rearview mirror.
Sliding to a stop at an obscure and rarely used trail on the mountain, Jamie jumped out her car. She dropped the keys onto the floor and shifted. Grabbing her backpack in her mouth, she lumbered up the mountain toward the portal to the shifter world.
26
Luke
Luke stood under the bright clear skies, stunned. Jamie had told him that she was in love with him. He wasn’t sure what to say. He cared deeply for her. Was it love?
He walked around for a while trying to sort out everything in his head. What he did know was that he felt bad about how the night had ended. He wanted to continue dating Jamie and seeing where their relationship went. Luke was sure that, eventually, he would fall in love with her and they would take the next step. It just wasn’t today.
Hoping that Jamie was still awake, he texted her, but she didn’t reply. Thinking that she was just upset, he drove by her house. He would knock on her door if he saw any lights on. However, her car was gone.
“Where the hell is she?” he asked. “She probably just went for a drive, needing to clear her head.”
Although it was dark and some parts of the roads were snow packed and dangerous, that was the only explanation that he could think of.
When she didn’t answer his text early the next morning, he drove by her house again. Her car still wasn’t there.
“She must be at the café already.”
