The old woman chuckled and said, “I’m Madge. And I’m about to tell you something that you’ll believe, even if you know you shouldn’t.”
“Huh?”
“I’m a raccoon shifter,” said Madge. “I can shift my body into that of a raccoon and back again.”
Callie stared at the old woman, her head tilted sideways as she sized her up. It was uncanny. She was right. Callie actually believed her, though she knew the whole idea was ludicrous.
“See?” said Madge. “I told you you’d believe me!”
Madge turned her back and began gathering things from a shelf in the corner. She piled everything onto the small table and began to hastily peel and chop vegetables, throwing them into a large cauldron that was heating in front of the fire.
“Have a seat, dear,” said Madge, pointing with her paring knife to the chair directly across from her.
Callie laid her rain-soaked clothes neatly across the back of the chair and plopped onto it.
“Can I help you?” Callie asked.
“No, dear, your knife skills leave a lot to be desired,” said Madge.
It was true. Not only were her kitchen skills in general sorely lacking, but she seemed to cut herself anytime she got anywhere near a blade of any kind. She’d taken to getting her legs waxed because she cut herself shaving so many times.
“So, you said I have a brighter future,” Callie said. “Can you tell me about it?”
“Not yet,” said Madge. “But it’s on the way.”
“On the way,” Callie parroted. “What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out,” Madge said slyly, winking.
Once she’d peeled and chopped the vegetables and added them to the cauldron, she added various seasonings and topped it with water. Then she opened a jar of what appeared to be dried meat and added some.
“This will take about an hour,” Madge said. “Until then, why don’t we play a game of cards?”
“Uh, sure.”
Ok, so she was sharing a one-room cabin with an old woman who claimed to be able to turn herself into a raccoon and knew more about her than just about anyone. She was wearing clothing of questionable origin. And she’d lost everything practically overnight. But things could be worse, right?
As she began to smell the heavenly scent of cooking stew, she began to relax. Maybe Madge was right. Maybe something brighter was in her future. She could only hope, because surely it couldn’t get any worse.
Chapter Three
Seth could see the cabin in the distance. It had been six days since he left. The torrential rains that started soon after he left the den had slowed him down considerably. Even in wolf form, it was easy to lose his bearings when the rain was screwing with his senses.
It was too late to turn back now. He turned his head over his shoulder and looked longingly in the direction from whence he’d come, but he’d come this far. He might as well see it through. Besides, if he turned back now, his brother would never let him live it down.
He shifted just before the door and raised his hand to knock, but the door creaked open before he’d even finished balling his fist.
“Seth!” Madge greeted him warmly. “Please, do come in!”
“Did my brother send word that I was coming?” Seth asked incredulously as he stepped inside the cabin, allowing Madge to close the door behind him.
“No,” Madge said. “But I know why you’re here. And I’ve already found her.”
“Found whom?” Seth asked.
“Your mate, obviously!” Madge said.
“But… I haven’t even told you what I’m looing for,” Seth argued. “You don’t even know what type of woman I…”
“Nonsense,” Madge said. “I know what you want better than you know what you want. Have a seat.”
Seth slowly sat in the creaky old rocking chair that Madge had nodded her head toward. Madge pulled one of the chairs over from her table and sat down across from him.
“So your brother is insisting you need a mate, eh?” she asked. “He’s right, you know.”
“How did…”
“Oh, come now, boy,” Madge interrupted him. “You know all about me. And you believe more than you realize you do.”
“Look, Madge, I’ve heard all about what you do,” Seth said. “And I appreciate that some shifters have trouble finding mates and all. But really, I’m fine on my own. This settling down thing… maybe it isn’t for me.”
“You are lonely every day,” Madge said confidently. “You long for companionship every day. Just because you’re afraid of it doesn’t mean it isn’t right for you.”
Seth’s ears reddened. He shifted uncomfortably in the hard wooden rocker and said, “How do you know all this?”
“Stop acting like you don’t believe in fortunetellers,” Madge said. “You can tell yourself you don’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo all you want, but it doesn’t make it true.”
“Alright, then,” Seth said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. “Let’s hear it. What type of woman do I want?”
Madge grinned and said, “Ah, I love a challenge! No, no, don’t gloat. I don’t mean you’re challenging to figure out. You’re as easy to read as a nursery rhyme! I mean, you’re challenging me because you want to prove I can’t do it. But I’m about to prove you wrong!”
“Go on, then!” Seth challenged her, his eyebrow raised in amusement.
“Fine, fine,” said Madge. “You want an equal in nearly every way. You don’t want a spoiled brat or a crabby bitch. You want someone who is kind and has a good heart, but who isn’t afraid to stand up to you or anyone else. But at the same time, you want her to have a certain vulnerability so you can feel like you’re protecting her. And you don’t like skinny girls. You want a woman with curves and softness and subtle beauty, not some supermodel that looks as though she’s made of plastic.”
Seth blinked at her. Sure, she’d pretty much nailed him. But were his wants so different from other shifters? He didn’t think so.
“There’s only one little thing that might bother you about the one I found,” Madge said. “Poor little dear can’t cook to save her life.”
Seth shrugged and said, “As long as she’s not full of herself or spoiled, I’m good.”
“Yes, but I know you’ve always hoped for that perfect wife who could take over all the duties you hate to do yourself,” Madge said. “But you’ll get used to her, and she’ll learn to cook better than you in time.”
“Is that so?” Seth chuckled.
“Indeed it is,” said Madge. “Would you like to meet her?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have come all this way if I didn’t,” Seth answered.
“Good, because here she is now,” Madge said.
The cabin door opened, and Callie entered, taking a moment to wipe her muddy shoes on the mat just inside. She closed the door behind her, and Seth politely jumped to his feet to greet her.
“Callie, I’d like you to meet someone,” Madge said.
Callie had been observing the blackberries she’d gathered in a basket, having been sent into the woods hours earlier at Madge’s request. She glanced up, and quickly warmed with color at the sight of Seth standing nude before her, and her trembling fingers fumbled the hand of the basket, which dropped to the floor and tilted on its side, spilling berries everywhere. She turned her head.
“I… I…”
“Callie Reynolds, this is Seth, Alpha of the Primrose pack,” said Madge. “Well, do look at him, would you? He won’t bite!” Then she quickly muttered, “Yet.”
Callie slowly turned to peek at him through a curtain of her red hair. Seth extended his hand politely, and Callie took it. The instant their skin touched, a surge of adrenaline coursed through Seth’s body, causing his heart to hammer in response.
“It’s nice to meet you, Callie Reynolds,” Seth said, his eyes drinking in every inch of her. “I am Seth.”
“N-nice to meet you, Seth,” Callie stammered.
Her fragrance drifted up his nostrils in intoxicating tendrils that seemed to wrap themselves around his brain and sink into its depths. Her eyes, olive green and moody, were cast downward, and she peered up at him through a thick curtain of lashes. The white dress she wore was splattered at the hem with mud, and it hinted at the luscious, womanly curves underneath.
It was several long moments before he realized, with some embarrassment, that he was still clinging to her hand. Reluctantly, he released its softness, but her scent now lingered on his skin and mingled with his own, linking them inextricably in his mind.
Neither of them said anything, and Madge plucked the basket from the floor and began to gather the berries that had spilled. She said, “Both of you, sit, sit!”
Madge moved the chair in which she’d been sitting back to the table and held its back, waiting for Callie to sit. Finally, Callie obliged, and Seth took the chair across from her.
“You two get to know each other while I throw a little something together for you both to eat,” Madge demanded.
She began to scurry about the little cabin as though she were half her age, and Callie folded her hands and rested them on the table, staring at them.
“I apologize for my state of nakedness,” Seth said. “I know it must be startling to you.”
“It is a bit,” she admitted. “It’s rather… distracting.”
“Yes, I can smell…” he started to tell her that he could smell her arousal wafting in waves from her flushed body, but he thought it would be unwise. “I can imagine that it would be.”
“Oh, for goodness sake,” Madge grumbled, grabbing a blanket from her bed and tossing it to Seth, who caught it quickly. “Cover up with this.”
Seth wrapped the faded old patchwork quilt around his body and asked Callie, “Is that better?”
“It’s… less distracting,” she shrugged.
A smile almost twitched on Seth’s lips. He could smell disappointment on her. She’d enjoyed his body, and the thought gave him more satisfaction than he ever could have imagined.
He watched the human as she nervously wound a strand of her red hair around her finger and twisted it. His heart beat faster as she nibbled her lower lip, her eyes scanning the room and refusing to look directly at him.
She was a stunning creature. Her breasts were full and plump, her hips rounded and barely concealed by her thin white dress. He would have taken her right there on the table had he not been certain her kind would frown on such things. No, humans preferred courtship over the immediacy of sex. And most of them, he’d heard, preferred to couple in privacy.
“So,” Seth said, trying to break their awkward silence. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself.”
“There isn’t much to tell, really,” she said, and he detected a hint of deception in her voice. Her pulse quickened, and he could smell the harsh odor of sweat erupting on her skin. “I’m currently between jobs. I’m… temporarily staying here with Madge. I can’t cook, but I love to eat. I don’t know what else to say. What about you?”
“What would you like to know?” Seth asked.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“Do?” he wondered aloud.
“You know… for a living. How do you pay your bills?”
“Shifters do not have bills,” he said. “We claim our territory, and it becomes ours unless the humans push us off it. We hunt for our food. We barter with humans for the things we cannot find or make. Occasionally we steal if we cannot get something any other way.”
“I see,” she said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.
“You judge us for theft?” he demanded.
“No!” she said quickly. “No, not at all. I just… it was startling to hear you speak of it so openly.”
“We do it only when we must and only for things that are crucial for survival such as medicines,” he said. “So I feel no shame in admitting it.”
“You shouldn’t,” Callie said. “My father used to try to shoot the raccoons and opossums who came to knock over out trash cans in the middle of the night to steal food, but I would beg him not to. They weren’t causing any harm. They were just trying to survive. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re trying to survive.”
Seth nodded and said, “It doesn’t make it any easier. I hate taking things that don’t belong to me. But sometimes there is no other way.”
“I understand,” Callie said.
“So what do you, Callie?” he asked her.
“I work in the accounting department… um… that is, I used to work in the accounting department of a Fortune 500 company,” she quickly corrected herself.
“I don’t know what accounting is, nor Fortune 500, but it sounds important,” Seth commented.
“Not really,” she shrugged. “It’s actually a bit boring, but it paid the bills.”
“So why is it you no longer work there?” Seth asked.
“Long story,” she said, shifting again in her chair.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” Seth said, sensing her discomfort.
She said nothing, instead choosing to look down at her hands as they played with a string that was coming unraveled from the hem of her dress. She looked so helpless and vulnerable that he felt the overwhelming urge to shield her from whatever it was that was haunting her. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and smell the stress oozing from her pores.
Whatever it was, it must be something big. He just wished he could figure out what it was so he could help her.
Chapter Four
Callie was in awe of the man who sat before her. He was everything she’d ever found attractive in a man. He was taller than she, but not so tall that it made her feel dwarfed beside him. She was only five feet, six inches in height, and most men towered over her uncomfortably. But Seth was just a few inches taller, with a lean, muscular build that she found she couldn’t take her eyes off of. When he’d hidden it under the blanket, she’d been disappointed, but she never would have let on.
His hair was dark and cropped fairly close to his head. His eyes were dark and brooding, carrying some sort of burden that Callie could clearly see manifested within them. His jaw was well defined, curving along his jawline and drawing attention to his perfect lips, which were dusted around the edges by the slightest shadow of scruff.
It made her heart flutter just being near him. No man had ever had such an effect on her. In fact, after her last relationship, she’d sworn off men for good, and had, until recently, had every intention of sticking to that for the rest of her life. She hadn’t even missed men until this moment. Now she was sorely longing for his touch, his kiss, the feel of his skin against hers.
Not that she’d had many relationships. She had always been inept when it came to dating. She found it difficult to relate to men, and she was always afraid they found her unattractive even when they were telling her she was sexy.
It had come from her childhood. She’d always been a chubby child, and she’d been teased and bullied in school about her weight. Not only that, but her own parents had constantly reminded her that she should be eating less and exercising more, and while they may have done it with the best of intentions, their comments had only made her feel worse about herself.
Over the years she’d managed to find some confidence. She told herself she didn’t need to have the approval of anyone, least of all some guy who was more likely to break her heart than fill its emptiness. She’d discovered somewhere along the way that if there were decent men out there, she wasn’t likely to find one.
Now, with this stunning man staring at her as though she were the most beautiful creature on earth, she started to doubt herself. Could it be that she was destined for more? Was Madge right?
Seth kept trying to capture her gaze with his eyes, but she’d been shifting away. It wasn’t that she wanted to seem disinterested. She just couldn’t bear the thought of opening herself up fully to this man who had no idea what she was being ac
cused of and potentially finding out that he believed the lies, too. If her own family had lost faith in her, why would a stranger trust her?
His gaze was intense – burning. She found it hard to look away, though a large part of her didn’t want to. His eyes, like dark chocolate, captivated her. It was as if he could see into her soul, and he even liked what he saw. But even more than that, he seemed to like what he saw on the outside, which was more than Callie had ever thought she could hope for from a guy this gorgeous.
“Will you take a walk with me?” Seth asked suddenly.
The Alpha's to Share: A BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance Page 2