by J. K Harper
Riley and Joe had known one another since before they could toddle or talk. Joe’s human mother had grown up in an equally close friendship with Riley’s mother, Elodie, and they passed the friendship tradition down to their two sons, who'd been born within weeks of one another. Since Joe had grown up here in Deep Hollow, as had his parents and grandparents before him, he knew as much about shifters as any human could.
But he would never fully understand all the intricacies of being one. Riley often found himself sharing more with Joe than he did with anyone else, even his own clan. But not everything. Joe knew Riley worked hard to keep his bear from giving in to too much wild restlessness, but even he didn’t know how touch and go it had been lately.
The only one on the face of the planet who knew that was Marisa.
Wherever she was. Damn, he was worried about her. Grown-ass woman or not, kickass mountain lion shifter or not, he was worried. He could admit it. Pretty, sexy, locked-down, confused, confusing woman. His bear hummed inside him just picturing her.
Joe cackled softly. “What the hell look is that on your face, bear? What were you just thinking about? Your face just got mushier than Natalie’s does when she watches her favorite soap opera.” Joe’s stay-at-home wife, Natalie, who homeschooled their two children while also running a thriving Etsy business, had only one vice in the world, as Joe liked to say. That was her soap operas she enjoyed zoning out to every day while she ate lunch and the kids napped.
Had his face gone all soft and mushy? Interesting.
Riley headed back down the hall to the lockers where he and Joe kept extra uniform sets and began changing back into his street clothes. They were officially closed for the day, and he was ready to get out of here. To maybe go look for Marisa. “What look? I never get a mushy face. Shut your pie hole. You’re imagining things.” He tried to keep his tone light, but Joe wasn’t buying it.
“Wait a second,” Joe’s voice drawled again, the way it always did when he was noticing something. “Could this have anything to do with a certain outcast shifter who’s been staying with you all up at the lodge since the bridge battle? Mountain lion, right?”
Riley snapped his head around to pin a look on Joe midway through yanking off his uniform jacket. “What the hell are you talking about, human?”
Joe settled his hands on his hips and shook his head, a wide grin slowly unfolding on his face. “Thought so. Everly was talking to Jessie this morning, who told her you and that mountain lion shifter had some sort of spat. Apparently, or so she said, the energy between you guys was kind of wild.”
Riley kept his jaw tight as he thought of what an ass he’d been to Marisa yesterday. In front of the others, too.
“So Everly told Natalie about it, who texted me about it later.” Joe shrugged. “It was news to me. I was just waiting to see if you were gonna say something about her.”
Everly was a local shifter whose family ran Deep Hollow’s most popular watering hole, The Tank, which was just a few doors away from the Mountain Muffin bakery where Jessie worked. Apparently, they liked to flap gossipy lips to one another. Nothing stayed secret for long in this small shifter town.
Riley swallowed a groan. Thinking about Marisa must have made his face go soft and stupid. Enough so Joe would have noticed and finally felt like calling him on it. Not looking at his friend as he yanked off his work shirt and pulled on one of his own, he said casually, “Yeah. So what?”
He couldn’t fool his best friend, and he hadn’t really thought he would. “Oh, hell no. Don’t pretend to get all secretive with me, Riley Walker. I can read you like an open book.”
Silence beat for several moments before Riley finally turned and looked at Joe. Joe was giving him the beady-eyed look Riley knew well. The one that said, We’ve been best friends practically since the womb. Even though I’m human and you’re a shifter, I know you better than anyone, even your own family. Cut the shit and get real.
Yeah, of course there eventually had been women after Riley’s mate had been killed. Years later. But just casual, one-night-stand women to scratch his natural itch. One and done, and he moved on.
Marisa, though…. She was different, and Joe could sense it.
Riley exhaled a long sigh. “Her name’s Marisa. Mountain lion shifter. She was with the outcasts, we took her back after the bridge battle because she was hurt and just—”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Brows lowered, concern edging into his voice, Joe finished for him, “Because she’s crazy and is asking every strong shifter this town has to put her down? Because she’s a nutcase?”
Even though there was no censure in Joe’s voice, only simple curiosity as he recited what everyone in town already knew by now, Riley felt a sudden protective rage flare up. His bear rumbled in him and his eyes must have started to glow, because Joe’s eyebrows raised. As Joe slowly unfolded his arms from in front of him, letting his hands fall to his sides with palms up in a “peace” gesture, he looked away instead of directly at his friend. Never in his life would Riley hurt Joe or any of the humans in town he knew and trusted. But Joe understood shifter etiquette well enough he knew how to behave around them when their animals got agitated.
Shifter etiquette said looking one right in the eyes at the wrong moment could be seen as a challenge. That was something a human would never win.
Riley sucked in a long draw of air, let it out, and pulled in another long, deep draw of calming breath inside him. He was impressed with how steady his voice was when he answered, “I know what everyone says. And honestly, I thought it was true at first too. But she’s not crazy, Joe.”
Joe stole a look at him and kept eye contact, slowly nodding.
“She’s not crazy.” Riley heard the conviction in his own voice. “Those outcasts did a fucking job on her, and she’s just—she’s been hurt bad somehow. I mean, on the inside. Something messed her up, and from what she told me, she also had a pretty crappy childhood.” A frown darkened his face. He wanted to hurt anyone who had ever hurt her. Even her own family. “But she’s not crazy. In fact, she’s pretty damned interesting, and the twins love her. And—fuck it,” he exploded. His fist slapped into his other hand.
He’d been such a shit to her because he liked her, and that was terrifying as hell. It was time for him to just man the fuck up and admit it out loud. “Fine. I like her. I really like her, and so does my bear.”
Another long silence stretched between them as Joe digested Riley’s admission. Finally, he murmured, “Well, okay then. That’s pretty huge.” He shrugged almost casually, turning to change into his own street clothes, but the deep meaning of his words lingered, almost vibrating in the air.
Joe knew as well as anyone that after the trauma Riley had suffered when his mate had been murdered, his bear had been shut down for years. For a shifter’s animal to like someone new, to actually be interested in them, was a big deal in the shifter world after something as devastating as the loss of a mate.
“But…” Riley paused. He looked at the backside of the desk shoved into the locker room. The fake trim was peeling off and it had wobbly legs. They really needed to get it replaced, but there wasn’t money for that, either. “She took off as her cat yesterday. After we had our… whatever the hell you called it. Spat.”
Joe cocked a brow at him. “And why’d you have that?”
Riley growled. “Fine. I’ve been a dick to her. A pretty shitty one to her yesterday.”
“Because you like her, and it freaks you the hell out.”
There was a long pause of heavy silence as Riley looked at Joe, and Joe simply looked back at him, straight on. Not backing down an inch this time, even though Riley knew his eyes had to be reflecting his bear. But Joe wasn’t challenging Riley. Just looking right at his truth and daring Riley to own it.
Finally, he gave a stiff nod. “Yeah. No one else knows.”
Now Joe guffawed. “Hell if they don’t. Open book, my friend.” His tone softened. “Everyone would u
nderstand why. Hell, if anything ever happened to Natalie, I don’t think I could ever look at another woman again without feeling sick to my stomach.”
Riley frowned down at his work shoes, shoving them each off with the opposite foot. He lightly kicked them into the bottom of his open locker.
“But it’s okay to really like another woman, Ri. Grace wouldn’t mind.” Joe’s voice was soft but firm. “She’d have hated to see how much you’ve suffered.”
At his mate’s name, Riley nodded, eyes still on his feet, working his jaw from side to side. Joe was right. It would have hurt her to see the angry, closed-off man he’d become after she died. Emotions roiled through him at her memory, as always. But the emotions were just the old anger that he’d yet to catch her killers.
He would honor Grace's memory forever, keep it alive for the cubs' sakes, but she was gone. He’d truly accepted that several years ago.
Now it was Marisa’s face he saw in his mind. Her face, her enticing scent, her agonized cry as she shifted.
And all he wanted to do was keep her from experiencing any more pain.
“Yeah,” was all he finally said. He looked up at Joe. “Marisa is—well, I'm not sure what she means to me, exactly. What I do know for sure is she’s not crazy. And she hasn’t come back since she ran off. I don’t know where her head is right now, but I don’t think she’s in a good space to be out there alone.”
“She’s a mountain lion. I’m thinking that means she’s pretty good at taking care of herself.”
“Yeah.” Riley’s voice was soft. “She’s a lot more badass than she seems to think she is. But still. She needs someone to remind her of that.”
His phone buzzed. Grabbing it up, expecting to see a text from either of his cubs, his heart stuttered at the words there from Abby instead.
Marisa came back. We’re all meeting for dinner in town. You and the cubs want to join us?
Casual, simple words exploded his world into something bright and excited. “She’s back,” was all he could manage. “She’s okay.” Even he could hear the relief that shot through his voice.
Joe nodded then grinned. “So. What are you gonna do now?”
Riley knew his face was smiling, but he couldn’t seem to stop it. “Tell my hooligan children we’re eating in town with their favorite mountain lion shifter. Then, as soon as I see her, I’m apologizing to her for being a jerk.”
Joe’s eyebrows raised as his grin got bigger, but he didn’t say anything more than, “Sounds like a good plan, bear. Have a good time. And hey, don’t be a stranger at our place. Bring that lion lady over some time. I’m sure Natalie would like to meet her. I might need to meet her too,” he said casually as he turned and sauntered back down the hall, whistling lightly under his breath. “Gotta see who’s interesting enough to finally start making you not be an asshole half the time anymore.”
Riley reached down, grabbed one of his dirty socks, and chucked it right at Joe’s back, hitting it dead on. Joe yelped and threw him the finger over his shoulder. But he still sauntered away without looking back, whistling, and, Riley was sure, still grinning big.
He grunted to himself as he yanked off his work pants and pulled on his jeans, but a grin had crept onto his face too. Joe was a good friend. Only good friends could understand. “Good job, boss,” he murmured his daily mantra like a prayer, for once saying it not just to himself, but to his actual boss too. “Good job, bear.”
Then he hustled out the door, determined to get to Marisa and apologize. Determined to tell her she didn’t need to run anymore from whatever was hurting her.
Determined to be honest with her about the fact that he really fucking liked her, that she definitely smelled damned good, and that there was no way in hell he was going to let her be put down.
Because she deserved to live.
7
Abby and Quentin argued above Marisa’s head as she sat on the plush leather couch and examined the painting that hung on the wall. Set in snowy woods that looked like the forest around the lodge, a dark storm brewing overhead as fat snowflakes wafted down, the painting depicted a bunch of different shifter types running in the woods—grizzly bears, black bears, big gray timber wolves, red foxes, mountain lions like her bad kitty, panthers, bobcats. In the skies above flew bald eagles, golden eagles, hawks. Two dragons swooped in the far upper right corner of the painting, one black, the other silvery gray.
She stared at the dragon shifters in the painting, transfixed. She’d met exactly one dragon shifter ever. Pix. Pix was nothing like she’d thought a dragon shifter would be. She was small, smart, funny, and could hold her liquor and crack a side-splitting joke. She was down to earth and friendly, not a snooty rich person like Justin and Nefarious and the other outcasts had said dragons were like.
Marisa had realized over time that a lot of what they had told her was complete bullshit. That shouldn’t have surprised her. What should have surprised her was how long she’d allowed herself to believe it.
Just like all the shifters she had met so far at the Silvertip Lodge, not a single one of them had matched up to her assumptions of what they’d be like.
ASS-umptions, girl. Finger pointing at her, angry drunk face shouting down at her. When ya ASS-ume somethin’, you make an ASS outta U and ME. Got it, girlie? Dumb bitch, how the hell could you have come from me?
A vision of Derek, trying to protect her while their monstrous parents raged and spat and yelled and hit, flashed into her mind. He'd always tried to protect her, even when they were little. Then she unwillingly pictured him as his mountain lion, as crazed and enraged as hers was. As confused and lost, and still stuck with the insane, totally fucked up Nefarious Desperados. Being forced to fight for them, just like Marisa had.
The only family she'd ever had—she'd ever loved—and she couldn't do a damn thing for him right now. If he was even still alive.
Suddenly feeling like her throat might close up, feeling as if she might suffocate on memories alone, Marisa sucked in air. Breathe. Breathe.
Riley. Safe. Strong. Just as protective. She grabbed onto the remembered image of his face, his scent. Big bruin, huge humped shoulders, silvery cast to his dark fur. Gorgeous man, dark, shuttered eyes, hidden smile that for some crazy reason lit her up from within. Why? She still didn’t know.
Riley. The mystery, the conundrum that twisted her brain up into unsettled, intriguing ideas each time she thought about him.
Riley, not at all what she’d pictured normal, non-outcast bear shifters to be like.
Not at all what she’d ever thought a man could be like.
“Abby.” Marisa startled at the sound. Quentin, sounding defeated. Bear shifter, businesslike, definitely a little suspicious of Marisa. She’d sensed it from the moment she’d met him, even though he too was polite to her. Abby’s mate. Also Riley’s oldest brother. He and Riley looked alike. Same with Cortez. There was another brother, she couldn’t remember his name. He had dark hair and eyes. He didn’t look like them, but Abby had told her they all took after their father except that one, who'd gotten their mother’s hair and eyes. And there was yet another brother, one who’d moved far away and rarely came home anymore. Such a big family. Boisterous bear clan.
Derek’s face popped into her head again. She and her brother looked alike. So alike they could be twins, though they weren’t. Marisa squeezed the insides of her mouth together, her teeth stopping just short of biting her cheeks, until the image of his face went away. Too hard to think about. Too painful.
Quentin said, “I do not want to interrogate her. This is not actually the Spanish Inquisition, as you keep insisting.”
Abby, standing in front of the couch with her arms crossed as if she were guarding Marisa, cocked her head at her mate. “Oh, no? Then why did you call her in here to ask her a million questions about them? About the shifters she probably never wants to think about again, let alone talk to you about?”
Marisa stayed focused on the painting. Little cubs
tumbling around, bears and wolves and foxes, playing together in the snow. Was that a—a monkey up in one of the pine trees? She squinted. It was kind of orange. An orangutan? Weren’t they sort of orange? She used to call Derek an orangutan after they’d seen a TV show about monkeys and other ape-like creatures. He sure acted like one sometimes while they’d grown up. Dumb, dumb, sweet little brother she loved.
She flinched. No. Not going there. Breathe. Just breathe.
Quentin thrust a hand through his hair and glanced at Marisa. She flipped her eyes to his, expressionless, then looked back at the painting. It was a lot more interesting than his and Abby’s conversation. She could lose herself in it. Just drift into it. The painting reminded her of the snowy mountains her cat had run in for hours yesterday. So many hours. It lulled her. Felt so good, so free, so easy. Just running and not thinking about anything at all.
Stay here. Stay here, she ordered herself. With an internal shake, she dragged her gaze away from the painting and back to Quentin. He opened his mouth again, expression still troubled, but Abby cut him off with the sternest look on her face Marisa had yet seen.
“Enough, love. Look at her.” Abby gestured at Marisa, although her eyes didn’t leave her mate’s. “She’s exhausted from being out in the mountains overnight. She was alone the whole time. Just let it go for now. She needs to get back into this body.”
Abby’s eyes finally moved to Marisa, a thoughtful look moving over her features as she said those odd words. She needs to get back into this body. Marisa thought she caught worry in her expression, but Abby smoothed out her face and quirked her lips into a smile. “We’re all heading into town to grab some food. And you’re coming.”
Marisa automatically started to shake her head, but that firm look came back onto Abby’s face as she held up a finger. “No. This time you don’t get to bow out of it. You’re not a prisoner here, Marisa,” she added softly. “What you are, at least what I’m thinking of you as, is a friend. A friend we’re all just barely getting to know. We want to know you better. I was really worried about you.” She smiled gently. “Everyone would love for you to be there. Truly.”