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“I think…” He needed to stop before he scared her more, and he’d already given January a lifetime’s worth of scares. “I think that you might be my mate.”
Chapter 10
January
As soon as January drove into Greenacre, the cut on her leg, which was well on its way to healing flawlessly, started to tingle.
Other spots tingled too, but she ignored the ones she didn’t want to admit to and focused on the ones that warned her of danger.
She was pulling up to a stranger’s cabin in the middle of just about nowhere. She’d never met this person, or his wife. Tavish had assured her they were good people. He’d also talked about clans, the clan leader, or alpha, and the fact that since his bear had done the unthinkable and shifted right in the thick of the city, he needed to tell Sam.
It would be better if she was there too, not because he needed someone to corroborate his story or a witness to Sam potentially taking off his head and punishing him within an inch of his life, but because he wanted her to be there.
He’d said all of that after he’d put it out there that they might be mates. At her incredulous expression and barely stifled gasp at that word, Tavish had backtracked fast, explaining about some of the shifters with mates and how that worked for them. January was still ruminating over the idea that she could be his mate—she couldn’t deny that there was some pull she felt towards him—had felt it the moment she first saw him despite being in pain. But the whole idea seemed crazy, she barely knew him and she certainly wasn’t looking for another relationship right now, no matter what Tavish’s senses were telling him or what her out of control hormones were telling her. Maybe talking to these people might make things a bit clearer, because try as she might her whole damn life still felt like an episode of some wild sci-fi show.
Greenacre, even in winter, was a source of loveliness that made January’s chest ache with its beauty as she skirted past main street, following Tavish’s directions from the evening before. He’d made her recite them after he gave them to her, unwilling to write them down, but satisfied that she’d committed them to memory before he drove her back to June and Greg’s house.
She took a right, glancing up at the towering pine trees. Some of them still had their needles and were fresh and green against a slate grey sky. Others bore naked branches, the tree long dead but still watching over the town—the kind of tree that stood sentinel for generations. Against it all, she could see the jagged peaks of mist-shrouded mountains not so far in the distance. It was another reminder that she’d travelled an hour out of Seattle. She was an hour away from help if she needed it.
These people could be luring her into anything. What if they didn’t let her leave? She pushed that thought out of her mind, when she’d seen Tavish change into a bear and back into a man, she’d had no sense of danger. If anything, she had the distinct impression in that scenario he saw her as the danger rather than vice versa.
A hot rush of emotion joined those tingles. She didn’t know if it was anger, fear or something else.Mates.This was what she got for letting June talk her into a date. A single, simple date. It should have been fun. Instead, it ended in an alley and then a pickup truck, talking about shifters and other such unbelievable things and essentially blowing apart her beliefs about the world. Oh yeah and then it devolved real quick into this man thinking she could be his mate.
She thought she was just going to have a bit of fun with a guy who was so beautiful that it made her body go into wonky disarray. She hadn’t signed up to be roped into this for life—but now that she knew what Tavish was, was that what was going to happen?And if it was, was it such a bad thing?
She hadn’t slept last night, then rolled out of bed around the same time June was taking her kids out the door to get them on the school bus. She smiled at her sister’s questions about her road trip that morning and had managed to slurp down a full cup of coffee, despite her rolling stomach.
Rolling was an understatement. It felt like coffee tidal waves slamming around in her belly as she pulled up in front of a cabin that certainly wasn’t one of those million-dollar rustic mansions. It was modest, but well built. Thick logs interwoven at the corners, but straight down the front and sides. A bank of windows, rectangles on top of rectangles, topped with triangles, peaked at the front to afford a panoramic view of the woods and mountains.
“This is crazy,” she muttered to herself. She parked and turned off the ignition anyway and sat there with the doors still locked.
The hair on the back of her neck prickled when she realized that she couldsenseTavish was already inside, even though his truck wasn’t anywhere near.
“Don’t be absurd. You can’t sense anything. It’s ten after ten and he said ten, so of course he’s already here. He probably walked. He wouldn’t be late for his alpha. Alpha. Do you hear yourself? Also, you’re sitting here having a conversation, out loud, in your car.”
She sighed. Things were going downhill fast. She didn’t talk out loud to herself, even if she was a bit of an overthinker.
There was no amount of overthinking that could be too much when it came to this.
She hadn’t quite summoned up the courage to get out of the car when the cabin’s wooden door opened and a slim, beautiful woman walked out onto the deck. She didn’t bother pretending that she’d come out for any purpose other than to smile straight at January and welcome her into the cabin.
On that note, she bailed out of the car and grabbed her purse, which had her phone inside. She’d turned on the tracker app that she’d made June install on her phone. Her sister thought it was a joke when she made comments along the lines of, “If I’m not back by this afternoon at two, call the cops,” but then, her sister thought she was going out for a lovely afternoon with a hunky man who was just a man and not at all a bear who was part of a clan of bears that the rest of the world knew nothing about.
“Hi.” The woman raised her hand. She had a beautiful smile. Her bright blue knit sweater hung off her frame artfully, her jeans hugging her long legs. She had on bright pink slippers with flamingo heads. Could a woman wearing flamingo slippers pose a threat? “I’m Lily. Thank you so much for coming.” She waited until January marched her wooden legs up the porch steps. “I know it’s not easy,” Lily went on, lowering her voice. “Believe me, I know. When I found out, it was, well, beyond the freaking pale, that’s for sure.”
“You’re not—?”
“Nope. I’m from Seattle. I got a job out here teaching dance at the school and community center and fell head over heels in love with Sam. When I found out he was part bear, it took a while to get used to. I think you’re very brave to drive all the way out here, but I promise that nothing is going to happen to you. We’re all very kind and sweet here, not violent or scary.”
“Um, okay.”
“It’s perfectly normal to be scared and nervous.”
January slammed her hands into her jacket pockets. She hadn’t even attempted makeup and had barely swiped a brush through her hair after her shower that morning. She probably looked like half-wild, unslept death.
“I’ve only been divorced for just over six months. I was separated for a year before that, but I’m not even ready to date again. This was all my sister trying to push me into having some harmless fun. Now, all of a sudden, Tavish is talking about us being mates. It all seems so fast, and I don’t think I’m ready for all this. I barely know Tavish. I mean, he seems like a really great guy, but the whole situation…” January shrugged, she was still trying to get her head around everything. Away from Greenacre, in Seattle, it was all so clear. She knew if she had an ounce of common sense she just needed to go home, get on with her life and forget what she’d seen.
But back here it all seemed so natural, so easy, like she could see herself slipping into this way of life. But that was crazy thinking. Her marriage breakdown was proof that there were no fairy tales and no happy endings—and she couldn’t let herself get drawn down that path again. At least not before she’d truly gotten over the divorce. “I’m not ready for anyone to be my mate. I don’t even live here and have no plans on moving. I don’t want to get trapped into this just because I know he’s a bear. I don’t even care about that. Truly. I just want to go back to Phoenix and resume my normal, regular life. A life I’m living on my own terms.”
