The Stranger Trilogy Box Set

by Isadora Brown

  The Anaheim Ducks ended up beating the Dallas Stars in overtime. Jane wished they didn’t have to sacrifice a point to the Stars, but at least the Ducks came away with two more to add to their standing. Her grandfather talked to Depogare—who sat behind them reading essays rather than watching the game, even though he was sitting three rows from the glass—during the intermission, but other than that, he was either focused on the game or his granddaughter. On the way out, the two broke down how they thought the Ducks played, and what this meant in the long run.

  When they reached her grandfather’s black Nissan Pathfinder, he turned to look at Depogare, still wearing his suit. “Now, I’m sure Janie told you of our impromptu dinner plans,” he said, his hands on his hips.

  Depogare nodded. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “I understand they deal with a private matter. I have no problem getting a table by myself in the vicinity, just as long as I have your table in my vision. I hope that will not be too intrusive.”

  Jane’s grandfather stared at him for a long moment before nodding his head once. “I suppose I can appreciate your dedication to my granddaughter. After what happened …” He shook his head, and Jane could see the worry clearly written in his cornflower blue eyes, the worry she knew he constantly hid as a way for him to protect her. “Thank you.” He stuck his hand out, and Depogare shook his hand. “I’m not saying I like you, but I respect you.”

  “That’s better than being liked,” Depogare said.

  “Exactly my thoughts,” her grandfather replied.

  They drove down the road and made a left into a shopping center where a movie theatre and three different sports bars resided. There was one upscale restaurant tucked away down a small road that opened up into a parking lot, and that was where Jane’s parents waited for them. Though the restaurant itself was a semi-formal Italian one, it was common for people in jeans and jerseys to enter after a game in order to enjoy a glass of wine and some appetizers rather than drink beer and eat Buffalo wings at a nearby sports bar.

  Jane’s parents, Tim and Edna, already had reservations, and since Depogare had not factored into their plans until recently, he decided to choose a seat located at the bar rather than wait for a table of his own. The bar still provided a good view of the restaurant itself and also offered the family their privacy. As Depogare retreated to one of the dark crimson bar stools, Jane shook her head.

  “This is so weird,” she muttered under her breath.

  Her grandfather and her father shook hands before he placed a kiss on her mother’s cheek. After they sat down and put in their drink order, Jane placed her menu on the table and gazed at her parents expectantly. There was no reason for them to call her over for a late dinner after a hockey game unless something was up; they knew she and her grandfather had a tradition of going to the Jack Daniel’s Club, located in the Honda Center, after the game to share a couple of appetizers and dissect the game play-by-play. Because of these reservations, she didn’t get her mozzarella sticks and jalapeño poppers. As much as she loved Gino’s, she had been looking forward to her fried food, especially since she couldn’t get them on the island.

  “How are you doing, honey?” her father began, keeping an air of calm about him. “I know you’ve been through a lot the past few weeks, and me and your mom wanted to check in on you and see how you’re holding up.”

  Jane gave him a look. “I’m fine, Dad,” she said, “as you know from the first time you guys came to visit me around Thanksgiving.” She glanced between her father—his hazel eyes, his black hair—and her mother—her freckles, her round face—trying to pick up any clues as to why they might want to talk to her. “What’s going on?”

  “What makes you think there’s something going on?”

  “Oh, Tim.” Edna shook her head, her chopped blonde hair following her round face. “Stop beating around the bush. I told you Jane would know something’s up the minute we insisted she dine with us.” She reached across to the middle of the table in order to grab a breadstick. “She’s smarter than you give her credit for.”

  “I never doubted her intelligence, Edna,” Tim replied, looking at her from the corner of her eyes. “I was only hoping to enjoy our meal before we drop this on her.”

  “The Ducks won,” Jane said. “Whatever you have to say can’t be all that bad, can it? It couldn’t possibly ruin the evening, right?”

  The two looked at each other, even as Edna began to mix the oil and vinegar on a small plate.

  “What?” Jane turned to her grandfather then. Certainly he would have answers. He would know what was going on. “What’s going on?”

  “Honey, maybe we should wait—”

  “Just tell her, Tim. Don’t draw this out any longer than we already have.” Her mother glanced up from her breadstick. “Honey, your father and I are getting a divorce.”

  Jane started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. Her father gave her an odd look and her mother pushed her brow up as though to say, Yes, my thoughts exactly. She took a bite of her breadstick after dipping it into his mix of oil and vinegar.

  “I’m sorry?” she managed to say, once she had gotten control of herself. “Divorce? How’s that going to work?”

  “Well, your father plans to move up to San Francisco to expand his business,” her mother went on after swallowing her bite of bread. “I didn’t want to leave Newport. You’re here. My family is here. Your father feels he needs to expand an already-successful company and take it up north because that’s what his mistress says would be best.”

  Tim choked on the wine he was sipping. The waitress made a beeline away from their table even though she was prepared to take their orders.

  “Now, Edna, there was a much better way to handle that—”

  “You’re right.” She looked at Jane, her blue gaze unflinching. “I’m sorry that came out of my mouth. It was petty and hurt you more than it probably hurt your father. The truth of the matter, Jane, is that I found out your father had an affair with a business associate from San Francisco.”

  “Affair is such a tawdry word, Edna,” Tim said. He, too, looked at his daughter. “We’re in love, Jane. We’re still together. We’re planning on moving in together over the holidays.”

  Edna lifted up her nearly-empty wine glass. “Merry Christmas,” she said, her voice dry as a desert.

  Jane turned to her grandfather. “Did you know about this?” she asked. He had to. If he didn’t, he would have clocked her dad upon finding out the news. Instead of waiting for an answer, she shook her head. “I want to go, Papa. I want to get Depogare and go back to the island. Please.”

  “You got it, baby doll,” he grandfather replied. Without another word, they stood and, after beckoning over Depogare, made their way out of the restaurant.

  3

  Sophie met Will in the small parking lot the school offered to visitors and parents who came during the holidays to spend time with their children. Catalina Island wasn’t known for its streets, and in fact, it was common for residents to forego cars altogether and ride around in a golf cart. The lot also housed any vehicles belonging to the faculty and staff. Sophie was actually surprised Will owned a vehicle, considering he could transform into a wolf and run faster than a car going forty miles per hour anyway. She wasn’t sure how much it would cost to transport the vehicle on the ferry to the mainland, but Will had been around for a couple of centuries now, so she was almost positive he had some money saved up, especially if this was an annual tradition.

  He was already by his pickup truck—Sophie wasn’t surprised that he drove a pickup truck, especially one made in the early millennium—and when he saw her, he grabbed her luggage and all but tossed it in the bed of the truck.

  “I have some valuables in there, you know,” she told him, making sure she sounded extra annoyed with him.

  “Said all your good-byes?” he asked with an amused grin, his hazel eyes lighting at just the sight of her.

  She nodded.

  “Let’s
go, then.”

  As Will drove away from the gated academy, she turned back and gazed out the window. AckPec had been her home for the past few months—a real, true home; something she’d never had before—and now she was leaving to go explore more of California. The only difference between her previous life—before she met Will, Dean Ethan, and Jane—and this one was that she knew without a doubt she would be back because she always had a home here.

  Will was quiet pretty much the entire ferry ride, which bored Sophie to tears. Luckily, she had bought an iPod with some of the allowance Dean Ethan Curtis had set up for her, and decided to tune him and everybody else out with music. Every now and then, she would look up at her companion, who had insisted they sit outside in the fresh air despite the cold temperature, and find him clinging white-knuckled to the edge of the seat. He tightened his grip every time a particularly strong wave hit the side of the ferry.

  It dawned on her after a while that Will hated being anywhere that wasn’t solid. She remembered him being especially snippy on the short plane ride to Catalina Island from Tahoe, where Ethan, Jared, and Will had found her. And now he couldn’t even talk to her as the ferry cut through the waves and rolled on the open sea. Sophie felt her lips curl up into a soft smile upon realizing such a fact; big, strong masculine Will Bennett was afraid of something. The thought made him adorable, which was definitely not a word one would normally associate with the shifter.

  Once the two had reached the mainland and were driving in the pickup truck, he was back to his usual grumpy self. He had classic rock on the radio—didn’t even offer her first choice of the station they listened to—and instead of using air conditioning, had rolled down his window, with his elbow resting on the frame while the other hand held onto the steering wheel. This forced Sophie to pull her red hair into a ponytail lest she’d want her just-washed tresses to get mussed up in the wind.

  “It’s going to be a drive,” Will told her without removing his eyes from the freeway. “Feel free to fall asleep or text people, or whatever it is you guys do.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a cell phone, Will,” she said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Well, do something,” he told her.

  She had wanted to talk, of course, about her feelings and his feelings and what that meant for the two of them and where they saw themselves. She wanted to talk about the feasibility of them being a couple and what they would have to do and sacrifice in order for that to happen. Apparently, Will was content with a wailing guitar and silence because he didn’t seem to be having any of that, not even idle chitchat. So Sophie leaned back against the seat and let herself drift off to the smooth movements the car ride provided her with.

  It was pitch black by the time Will pulled up in front of the cabin. He nudged Sophie awake, and after blinking away her sleep, she sat up. She tried to peer at the cabin in front of her, but the darkness prevented her from doing so. In fact, as Sophie let herself out of the truck, she found she couldn’t even look at the woodland environment the cabin itself was in. All she knew was that there were trees everywhere and she was standing in dirt. The night itself was silent, save for the soft hooting of the owls she was certain were looking at her with their abnormally big eyes from their perch on the trees. If Sophie wasn’t used to living in Tahoe before being sent to AckPec, she would have found the change in scenery more than a little disconcerting.

  “Are you coming?” Will asked from the porch way of the cabin. “Or do you intend to camp out underneath the stars?”

  Sophie glanced up, trying to find the stars, but the tops of the trees prevented her from doing so. She shot him an annoyed look and followed him over to the cabin. He unlocked the door and let her in, following her with both of their luggage.

  Sophie stopped in the darkness, causing Will to bump into her frame. She had no idea where anything was and didn’t want to trip. Will reached over—Sophie could feel him standing right behind her, could feel the tremor it caused her body—and flipped on a light switch. The light was dim, but illuminated the entire cabin, casting it in shadows. It reminded Sophie of moonlight.

  “I’ll take the couch,” Will said as he walked around her. “You can have the bed.” He took her luggage to the door straight across the room from the front door. “Bathroom’s attached to the bedroom, but I’ll always knock before I come in.” He left her luggage by the doorframe. “I’ll start dinner.”

  “You know how to cook?” Sophie asked, lifting her brow. This, unto itself, was a revelation. She hoped maybe throughout the ten days they would be here, he might give her more insight into who he was as a person.

  “I know how to do a lot of things,” he told her. “Go settle in. By the time you’re done, dinner will almost be ready.”

  Sophie nodded and all but dashed across the room. The cabin itself was quaint, with a dark couch that probably pulled out into a bed. There was a stone fireplace and rugs that lined the wooden floor, but there was no sign of technology whatsoever: no television, no phone, nothing. The walls were bare and the two windows were the same; there were no pictures, no curtains, no wallpaper. It looked lonely, but it was probably the exact thing that Will preferred, quiet and uncomplicated.

  The kitchen attached to the living room, and off to the side was a small folded-up table already set out and ready for two people to eat at. There were wooden chairs Will made himself, if Sophie had to guess, but only two of them. She wondered if he had brought anyone else here before, and then immediately banished the thought. He’d been around since the eighteen hundreds; there was a good chance he’d taken one of his many girlfriends—lady friends?—here, and it wouldn’t be fair for Sophie to be upset at that fact.

  Her room was very similar to the living room, in that it was small but cozy. There was a bed with purple bedding and a heavy, matching quilt, a chest of drawers, and a rug next to the side of the bed—which would be nice because if Sophie had to get up in the middle of the night, her bare feet wouldn’t have to touch the icy wooden floor. As Will promised, there was a second doorway that led into a small bathroom, which had a toilet, a sink, and a shower. Sophie smiled. She could get used to this.

  She unpacked, taking her time and trying to take in all of the details. She wanted to remember this moment. When she finished, she walked back out, where Will was busy setting up the table. It took another fifteen minutes before dinner was done—barbeque chicken, thanks to an indoor grill, and mashed potatoes with gravy—and Will set up the small table with candles to give their eating space a glow.

  Sophie warmed. It was romantic, actually. A trait she never thought she’d be able to associate with Will.

  For a moment, the two were silent, enjoying their food and the company. It surprised Sophie how delicious the food was; Will had a secret, a tasty secret, and she was honored he chose to reveal it to her.

  “Does it feel weird, being back here?” Will asked, after swallowing a bite of his meat.

  Sophie shook her head. “Not really,” she murmured. Usually, she was uncomfortable talking about her past, but if Will could share things with her, it wasn’t quite as disconcerting to do the same with him. “It is what it is, you know?”

  “I’ve never understood that phrase. To me, it just sounds like kids pretending to be okay with a situation they are most certainly not okay with.” He paused, his hazel eyes looking gold in the candlelight. “You can talk to me, Soph.”

  “I know.” Her eyes took in her food, not wanting Will to see the hesitation. “It’s hard. I’ve always been on my own. My parents gave me up when they found out what I was. They couldn’t reconcile that their daughter was a freak.” She smiled. “I was actually from Southern California, but I didn’t want to do the foster system … refused to. So I headed up north and wound up in Tahoe. I loved it there.”

  “You ever hear from your parents?” Will asked.

  She shook her head. “Nah,” she answered. “And that’s fine by me. What abo
ut you?”

  Will shrugged. “My whole family had the shifter gene, so I never felt like an outsider,” he explained. “But they started to die off, even the ones who had the gene but not the ability until it was just me. You learn to start a life with just yourself.”

  “It’s scary, isn’t it?” Sophie asked, locking eyes with him. “Being on your own.”

  “Not necessarily,” he countered. “Being on your own is easy. Living with yourself isn’t. When you’re with a partner, you don’t have to focus on you. When you’re alone, sometimes you’re haunted at night by yourself. You have to deal with it. There’s no getting around it. That’s the scary part. Dealing with yourself.”

  “Do you like yourself?” Sophie asked, though she wasn’t sure why.

  Will thought for a moment. “Yes and no,” he replied, and she could hear the honesty in his voice. “But I like myself more when I’m around you.”

  Sophie cast her gaze down, blushed, and returned with, “Yeah, I feel the same way.”

  4

  It was hard to come back to school after a dinner like that, but Jane had no choice. She didn’t tell Depogare what had occurred, and her grandfather didn’t say anything about it either. She was glad for that; sometimes she felt as though the only person who truly understood her was her grandfather. If she didn’t have him, she had no idea how she would be able to maintain her sanity. He bid her good-bye at the ferry and pulled Depogare aside to have a word with him. If Jane knew her grandfather, she knew he was probably telling Depogare he better keep an eye on her or else there would be hell to pay. And her grandfather meant it.