“Good heavens, what’s happened here?”
“Nothing much,” Olsen said, one corner of his lips quirking into a grin. “We just had a shift that we weren’t expecting.”
“Goodness! Are you boys okay?” The two of them turned their tear-stained faces toward her, and Dolores was relieved to see that they were no longer crying.
“They’re good. But they’re going to need some more clothes,” Olsen said, glancing at the two piles of shredded clothes that lay on the ground.
“Oh, of course. I’ve got plenty of new clothes in the office for exactly these kinds of mishaps,” Tamika said. “Come on, boys.” She took their hands and led them back inside the school buildings.
Dolores crouched down beside Olsen and looked at each of the remaining children carefully. They were all big eyed, but there were no tears or obvious signs of distress. “Are you guys okay?” she asked each of them by name, and they all nodded. “You want to go back and play?” They nodded again. “Okay, off you go. But no fighting this time!”
“Are you okay, Dolores?” Olsen said to her, as soon as they’d all scampered off. Then he laid his hand on her back. The sound of her name on his lips. That touch again. She felt the heat of his hands coming through her shirt, right onto her skin, and it calmed her instantly. She started to get to her feet, but he was quicker, standing up and extending his hands to help her. As his big hand enveloped her own, she felt another little jolt.
Automatically, they positioned themselves side by side, eyes constantly sweeping across the play area.
“Yes, I am now. Thank goodness you were here though. If I’d been alone, I don’t know what I would done.” She passed her hand across her forehead, aware that she had a lot to learn about shifters, and although Tamika had told her that it’d take a while, she wanted to be a perfect teacher to them as soon as possible.
Olsen’s sparkling blue eyes regarded her kindly. “You would’ve done just fine,” he said. “Considering that was the first time you witnessed a shift, you’re pretty coolheaded.”
Dolores let out a strangled laugh. “What makes you think that was my first time?”
He shrugged. “Just a hunch I had.”
“You’re right. And I wasn’t expecting it at all. Tamika told me that shifters don’t usually start shifting until the teens. I don’t think I’m cut out for teaching little shifters.”
“Tamika’s right. But from what I understand, there’s still a lot to learn about human-shifter offspring, and it looks like these kids might start very young.” He gave a dry laugh. “But don’t worry about them shifting. They were as surprised as you were.”
“It was amazing the way you calmed them. And you’re not even the same species –” she broke off, worried that she’d said the wrong thing.
“The species is less important than asserting dominance,” he said. “The secret to teaching shifters is understanding that they all live in packs and clans, and they look up to the leader. As long as they understand that you’re their leader, you’ll be fine.”
“So I’m supposed to be like – like an Alpha?” She gave an involuntary giggle. The thought of her being an Alpha was so ridiculous.
“Pretty much.” He grinned. “It might seem strange now, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. And their parents will expect you to be the Alpha when you’re teaching them. Don’t worry.”
Dolores looked up at him, startled.
“Something happened with the parents of one of the kids you used to teach, didn’t it?” He said, in a much softer voice.
“How did you know?” She heard her voice quavering, and felt her pulse beginning to pound.
He shrugged. “I just sensed it. From the way you get real tense when the subject of parents comes up.”
She stared at the floor, her lips working, but no sound coming out. “Something happened,” she said at last. “Something that made me think I could never be a teacher again.” He nodded, somehow sensing that she couldn’t say any more about it.
“Dolores –” he said haltingly. “I’m sorry about that message I sent you. It was dumb.”
“It was very… cryptic,” she replied meeting his gaze, and registering embarrassment in his narrowed eyes. “What are you, the Marlboro man?”
Olsen kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot, which suddenly made him look endearingly vulnerable. “I guess I’m not one for writing a lot,” he said.
“It’s okay. I got the message – I think. Except – what was the deal with the truck?”
He looked so deeply uncomfortable that somehow she burst out laughing. She clapped her hand over her mouth. Damn me and my inappropriate laughter. But, to her surprise, Olsen threw his head back and laughed too. It was such a deep, rumbly, unrestrained sound that it set her off laughing again, and they both laughed for a long time, as if each other’s laughter was infectious.
“I think I was trying to say I’d see you later,” Olsen said. “But I can’t rightly remember now.”
“That was one of the interpretations I came up with while I was sitting in a motel the night before I moved to Hope Valley,” she said.
“Really? You spent time trying to interpret my dumb message?” He looked impressed and a little ashamed at the same time.
“What can I say? I can never say no to a challenge or a puzzle.”
“I can tell you’re real smart, Dolores.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. He was looking at her with such an intensity that her breath caught in her throat.
“Here we are!” Tamika trilled appearing beside them, with the two boys in tow, each wearing a brand-new pair of jeans and T-shirt. “Off you go and play now, and no more fighting, okay?” They both nodded seriously and scampered off. “I don’t think we’ll hear a squeak out of either of them for a while now,” she said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t manage to stop them shifting, Tamika,” Dolores said.
“Don’t be silly! I never would’ve left you alone with them if I knew there was any chance of that happening. You coped very well, my dear.”
“Oh, it was all down to Olsen.”
Olsen scratched at the earth with his boot again. “It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “I better get back to work now.” He nodded to each of them in turn and walked off with his long, powerful strides.
“Olsen was great at handling the boys,” Dolores said to Tamika, as they watched the children playing.
“Yes, he’s a natural. He seems to really understand kids.” Tamika sighed. “He’s just come back today to make some minor alterations to one of the buildings. I’ll miss him when he’s gone, that’s for sure.”
Dolores fell silent, very curious about this big, kind shifter, who sent her incomprehensible messages, but seemed to know exactly how she was feeling. I wish things were different, she thought. And then she startled. What the hell am I thinking?
9
Olsen sat on his back porch, head tilted back to catch the light drift of the evening breeze, bottle of beer in one hand and phone in the other. Dolores. He had to stop running into that little, curvy human, because she was starting to get under his skin. He’d had fun talking to her today, and there were precious few humans he could say that about. Tamika was great. She understood him as well as his clan did. But most humans upset him with their doublespeak – the way they said one thing and meant another. Dolores wasn’t like that. Her words were true. He’d like to get hold of that parent who’d hurt her, and pummel the life out of him, because he knew, as well as he knew his big, clumsy feet, that it had something to do with the scar on her face that she was always so anxious to hide. The thought of her mischievous green eyes burst into his brain. The kind way she’d laughed at him. And she didn’t hate him for sending her that stupid truck. She was one smart lady.
He’d told himself that he wouldn’t look at her profile again. But before he knew it, he was scrolling to that little orange app on his phone again. Her profile was right at the top of all his matches, as usual. He tapped on her photo to enlarge it, a
nd those green eyes seemed to look right at him. He could tell from the little green dot above the photo that she was online now. What smart-assed guys was she talking to? Being wooed by? He could see her with a lion, or maybe a jaguar. Some guy whose brains made him a lot of money; who wore nice suits and drove around in fancy cars. He let off a rumble of frustration. And his message alert beeped. He dropped the phone in surprise, and it bounced all the way down the steps, testing that rubber casing once again.
He retrieved it, and dusted it off, hoping it wasn’t from Dolores. But there was her thumbnail, right beside the message. His heart bounded in his rib cage. She’d written him a long message, again. He stared at the message for a long time, his breath coming in snorts. Damn her. Why couldn’t she leave him to his simple ways, instead of freaking him out with all of those words? And there was no-one left to help him. All the other bears seemed to be mad at him. Or bent on forcing him to get a mate.
His fingers itched to hurl his phone again. To throw it in the river and be done with it, once and for all. To be done with this whole damn human experience. Why don’t I just run? Run deep into the woods and never look back? Keep going until I find my own territory. Some place where I’m not constantly forced to be something I’m not. He got to his feet and tore his shirt and jeans off, and stood naked on his deck poised for his bear to burst out of him. But tonight, it was slow to come. Usually so ready to inhabit his most natural form, it dug its claws in, and took it shape reluctantly. But, at last, it was there. 500 pounds of brown bear, huge and fearless, and unencumbered by the complications of the human world. He threw a backward glance at his cabin, at the possessions he’d paid for with the human labor he hadn’t needed to do, and he ran, deep in the forest and away from Hope Valley.
10
And that’s what you get when you ask a guy out for dinner, Dolores thought, staring at her Shiftr inbox two days later. She hadn’t intended it to seem like a date. Her message had just said:
Hey, Olsen,
You rescuing me from situations seems to be turning into a habit. I just wanted to thank you again by inviting you for a bite to eat one evening if you’re free? Let me know what day’s good? My diary’s pretty wide open right now. Let me know?
Best, Dolores
And before she’d had a chance to change her mind, she hit send. Hot currents of shame flooded her cheeks, then her entire body as she read through the message again. It was awful. Truly cringy. But I wanted to thank him properly. And, just as importantly get some advice from him on how to care for my Shiftr charges, she reminded herself, again.
But he evidently agreed with her assessment of the message, because he hadn’t replied at all. Her inbox stayed depressingly empty. Well, not empty – as she’d had a dozen messages from other shifters – but she’d avoided reading them. Because, somehow, all she cared about was receiving Olsen’s reply.
“Maybe I just need to face facts,” she muttered to herself, as she opened Shiftr for the tenth time that day. He was happy to help me out when I was a damsel in distress. But he doesn’t want anything else to do with me. Okay, I get it. She jabbed half-heartedly at the first message in her inbox. It was from a handsome, dominant lion shifter, and it said, Hey cutie. I think you and I could have some fun together ;)
With a groan, she swiped on it and sent it to the trash. She opened the second message, which was from a wolf shifter. And the third, which was from a leopard shifter, and the fourth and fifth, which were both from bear shifters. They were all the same. Flirty, awkward. All guys who wouldn’t want to date her when they knew what she really looked like. One of the bears seemed very nice though. His name was Niall, and he’d actually made the effort to ask questions about the things she’d written on her profile. She clicked on his photos. He had a nice face too, with intelligent brown eyes and a strong jaw, but it didn’t give her that feeling she got when she looked at Olsen – Wait – what the hell am I thinking? Did that thought really enter my head? She shook her head hard. No. I’m not attracted to Olsen; I’m just grateful for his kindness, and I guess I’d like to have him as a friend. Yes, that’s all. Which was why she was hurt by him ignoring her message. She clicked on Niall’s profile. He had some cool hobbies that she wouldn’t have expected, like ballroom dancing. But he was only a 60% match to her. Whereas Olsen, by some freaky chance, was an 98% match.
She opened Niall’s message again, and noticed that he’d sent it the day she signed up to Shiftr. Guilt flickered in her mind. What right do I have to be upset that Olsen hasn’t replied to me, when I’ve been ignoring this poor guy for more than a week? Right away, she started typing out a reply:
Hi, Niall,
I’m sorry for the delay in replying. I’ve just been super busy starting a new job. To be honest with you, I’m not really in the dating market at the moment, but I’m happy to make new friends online if you like?
Yours,
Dolores
She hit send. And then she replied to the other guys, also telling them that she wasn’t looking to date.
By the time she’d cooked dinner for one – tagliatelle with marinara sauce and lots of parmesan – and brought it to her dining table, she had two replies. The first was a tirade from the lion, complaining that it was false advertising to create a dating profile when she wasn’t interested in dating. It was so arrogant and vain that it made her giggle. “I guess he’s got a point,” she muttered as she hit delete. “Although what he doesn’t understand is that I had little choice in the matter.”
The second was from Niall, and it was a sweet message. He said that he understood where she was coming from, and he was always happy to make new friends. And, since she was new in town, he’d be happy to show her around sometime. Dolores’s heart leapt. She’d been so busy with school and settling in to Hope Valley that she hadn’t had time to be lonely, but she knew that would change when the weekends rolled around. She replied right away, saying she’d love to be shown around and that she was free this coming weekend.
Dolores sang to herself as she stood at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes. Things had improved a lot over the last few days. Her new job was going well – really well, in fact. She loved all of the kids. They were all a handful, every last one of them. But they were soft-hearted underneath it all, and she could tell that their parents had instilled good morals in them. They were also insatiably energetic, curious about the world, and endlessly fascinating. The parents were amazing too. She’d met them all by now, and they were very interested in their kids’ education. But not in a pushy way. More like they were excited and grateful that she was teaching them. And Tamika was awesome – so warm-hearted, fun and eccentric. It really was her dream job. And now she had a comfortable home in a lovely town, and a kind bear shifter called Niall wanted to be her friend. The new environment and the kindness of the people around were helping to slowly restore her faith and heal her scars from the past.
When she was done, she dried her hands and checked her phone again. Still nothing from Olsen. “You win some, you lose some,” she muttered. But her words sounded false even to her own ears.
Next morning, Tamika caught Dolores as she was entering the school grounds. “Good morning!” she trilled.
“Good morning, Tamika!” Dolores replied, trying to match Tamika’s upbeat tone. She could never understand how some people had so much energy in the mornings. She was usually yawning until right before the kids walked in.
“I’m glad I caught you, my dear. How are you fixed for Sunday night? There’s a gathering of a lot of the shifters and their mates, and I thought you’d like to come and get to know everybody. It should be a lot of fun!”
Dolores grinned. “That sounds great!” she said. “But as it happens, a guy I met on Shiftr – just as a friend – has offered to show me around town, and then he mentioned there was some kind of party on Sunday night.”
“Ooh! Who’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“His name’s Niall, and he’s a be
ar shifter.”
“Oh, Niall. He’s a really nice guy.” Tamika’s warm brown eyes flashed with mischief. “Are you sure you’re only interested in him as a friend?”
“Yeah, totally. I’m just not ready to date yet. Besides, Shiftr has got us down as a 60% match, which I’m guessing isn’t great.”
“Oh dear. No, it’s not. I think you’re right – best to keep things platonic. By the by – have you had any better matches so far?”
“No, not really. Just 70s and 80s,” Dolores lied, crossing her fingers behind her back. There was no way she was going to mention her embarrassing 98% match with Olsen.
“Well, when the time’s right, I’m confident you’ll find the perfect shifter for you. And in the meantime, it sounds like we’ll be at the same party on Sunday, so I look forward to introducing you to everybody then!”
They’d arrived at Dolores’s classroom door, so they broke off from the conversation, and devoted their attentions to welcoming the kids and parents.
11
Niall leapt out of bed on Sunday morning with more energy than he’d had in a long time, a single thought screaming across his brain. His bear rumbled deep in his throat and stretched, its claws pushing at the ends of his fingers, eager for its morning run in the forest. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins as he opened the door of his tidy, well-organized cabin and gave it free rein. Today’s the day! he sang, as his smooth skin morphed into thick, brown fur and his body began to double in size. Today he was going to pick up Dolores in his shiny new Nissan SUV and take her out on a date. All day long.
He’d long since given up on dating. To the rest of the clan, he made out that he was still seeking his mate, but six months ago, he’d pretty much decided that it wasn’t going to happen, and he was destined to remain a bachelor forever. But then Connor had gotten on his case again, and he’d logged into Shiftr, and there she was. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Short, dark-haired and with full, luscious curves. Her olive-green eyes had stared out of her profile photo, telling him that she was the one.
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