Ranger Knox (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Acadia Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  “Yes,” I say, taking a few moments to collect my thoughts in French. “I just heard I need to report here?”

  “Yes, Miss Nolan,” the woman says in English, and I wonder just how much my French has actually improved since I got here. “There’s someone who urgently needs to speak with you.”

  I frown at that; who could possibly need to talk to me? It dawns on me a moment later, and I’m about to tell the woman at the desk in the Norwegian Airlines uniform that if I’m late for my flight because of this, I will hold the airline itself accountable, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “Jacques, don’t even—” I say, and I’m not even sure in the moment if I’m speaking English or French. I turn around and Jacques is standing there, with Yann at his side.

  “Please, just hear me out,” Jacques says. “If you still want to get on your flight and go back to America when we’re done, Yann can get you in the express lane to go through security.”

  I look at Yann and my heart is pounding in my chest, but I have to admit, there’s part of me that was almost wishing for something like this to happen. What woman doesn’t want the grand romantic gesture?

  “Look,” I say. “I just don’t think we should see each other anymore...at least for a while.”

  “Because you think that I knocked up Hélène?”

  I stare at Jacques.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll admit that the fact you didn’t even see fit to tell me you were having sex with her…while calling her ‘Crazy Hélène’ and telling me to stay away from her—”

  “I have never had sex with her in my entire life,” Jacques tells me, and my heart sinks. If he had at least admitted it, I might be able to see past it; after all, we hadn’t been official, at least as far as I know, when he would have gotten Hélène pregnant.

  “She told me she’s pregnant,” I say.

  “And you trust her?” Yann snorts. “You do remember we call her ‘Crazy Hélène’, right?”

  “Yann, shut up,” Jacques says. “If I could prove to you that Hélène was lying—about everything—would you feel differently?”

  “How would you prove it?” I look at him in shock that he would even suggest something like that.

  “Would you believe it if it was her voice on a recording saying that she made it up?”

  “You could have forced her,” I counter.

  “No force,” Jacques insists. “I know that I’m a big guy, but trust me, I’d never lay a hand on a woman. Listen to this. Please, Nora.”

  “Maybe,” I say, after thinking about it for a moment. He takes out his phone, and pulls up a recording.

  “I made this while Yann and I spoke to Hélène,” Jacques says. “We knew that it had to have been something she said to you.”

  I listen to it, not all that inclined to believe that Jacques is telling me anything near the truth. But the recording seems genuine; the time stamp marks it as being from three hours ago, right around the time that I told Jacques that I was leaving the country. There’s no indication in the recording that Jacques or Yann are threatening anything other than that they won’t leave until Hélène comes clean.

  “Fine, fine,” Hélène says, close to the end of the recording. “I told your girlfriend that you and I had sex six weeks ago, and that I’m pregnant.”

  “I know for a fact that you’ve never had sex with me, and if you’re pregnant you definitely aren’t pregnant by me,” Jacques says. The three of them are talking fast, I have to keep re-listening to parts to make sure I’m catching everything, but they at least speak mostly clearly.

  “I’m not pregnant,” Hélène says irritably. “I gave up a night of drinking to make that story more believable.”

  I listen to the rest of the recording, and I don’t know what to think. I want to believe that Jacques is telling me the truth, but I don’t know if I can trust him; not after Ethan. Not after spending three years loving someone and thinking that someone was faithful to me, and then having everything thrown in my face.

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  Jacques

  “Why wouldn’t you just ask me about it?” I press, once Nora hands me my phone and headphones.

  She leads me outside, and I have to hope that she’s decided to skip getting on the plane. “I need to explain something,” she says slowly. “I don’t really know all the words, so I want you to be patient.”

  “Of course, of course,” I say. “Yann, maybe you should go visit Starbucks.”

  Yann leaves and I turn my full attention to Nora.

  “I never told you why I came to France,” she says.

  “Yes, you did,” I counter. “You wanted to study art on your own for a while.”

  “That isn’t the real reason,” Nora says. She looks down at the ground. “Before I came here, I was dating someone. I was going to become engaged; soon, even.” She looks up. “I’d met him when I first started college, and I thought…” she sighs.

  “What happened?” I reach out for her hands and she doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t meet my gaze, either; I think she’s about to tell me that the real problem is that she is committed to this guy back in the US.

  “I discovered, about a week before final exams, that he had been cheating on me for years.” She starts to look up and I can see tears in her eyes. “It was for that reason I decided not to date anyone seriously for a while. When...when Hélène said that you’d gotten her pregnant, I thought I was just repeating the same mistakes.”

  “But you know now that I didn’t cheat on you, don’t you?” I ask. “Please—please, Nora. You have to know that I would never do that. Not to anyone, and definitely not to you.” Her hands are trembling in mine.

  “I want to believe you,” she says. “I really do.” Her grip tightens on my hands. “But you have to understand why that is hard for me.”

  “What can I do to prove it to you?” I ask her. “Anything—anything in the entire world, ask for it, and I will make it happen.” I think about the wager that I made with Julienne, and smile a little bit to myself. “What if I get a tattoo of your design on my body?”

  “What?” Nora looks up at me and her eyes are wide, still half-full of tears. “You would...what?”

  “I will get a tattoo of your design on my body,” I tell her. “We can go back to Rouen, and go straight to the shop, and I will get Christophe to do it today, if you’ll just agree to trust me.”

  “Where would you get it?” I press my lips together.

  “Right here,” I say, releasing one of her hands to press it to the center of my chest; one of the few spots still available. “Whatever design you want. You could write, ‘Property of Nora Nolan’ and I will have that tattooed.” Nora laughs and acting on instinct, I lean in and kiss her. “You believe me?” I say it in English, hoping against hope that she’ll agree.

  “Fine, yes,” she says. “I believe you.” I hold her tightly and kiss her again, thinking that Julienne is going to get her forfeit early. But I am definitely going to wait until later to explain to Nora the significance of it beyond proving myself to her. For right now, all I’m concerned about is making sure that Nora believes me when I promise to never, ever betray her.

  And when I tell her that I’m in love with her.

  “You’d better call ahead and tell Christophe to get ready for you,” Nora says. “I am spending the whole trip back to Rouen designing something worthy of marking you as mine for the rest of your life.”

  I grin at her and barely even notice that Yann has come back.

  “She’s marking you? Whoa. You drive a hard bargain, Nora.”

  I laugh at Yann’s comment; he doesn’t know about my wager with Julienne either. I’ll fill him in later.

  “Are you willing to come back with me?”

  “I need to find out how to get my luggage back first,” Nora says. She sighs. “I feel like I might have overreacted.”

  “No,” I tell her. “Knowing what I now know about you, I should have worked ha
rder to make sure that you know that I would never do anything like that.” I give her a final kiss and wrap my arm around her waist, letting my hand rest on the spot where I tattooed her a few months before.

  It’s only fair, I think; I marked her—she should get to mark me. Maybe I can even convince Christophe to let her hold the needle for a few seconds.

  EPILOGUE

  jacques

  6 Months Later

  It’s the final night of our current tour and the crowd at Hipster Cafe erupts into a loud cheer, clapping as I strum the final chord of “Love Song” by The Cure on my Telecaster. I step back from the microphone, take a quick bow and motion for the crowd to applaud for the rest of the guys in The Four Pistols.

  I’ve gotta say, I’m in awe of how far we’ve come as a band—and with how amazing my life has become since Nora came into my life. Staring wide-eyed in disbelief out into the crowd, my mind begins to pour over the events of the last few months and my heart fills with a sense gratitude that consumes me; so much, it feels like it could fucking explode right out of my chest.

  Less than a month after Nora and I made things official, we started to realize that living directly across the alley from each other was getting to be ridiculous. What began as shacking up together only on the weekends quickly evolved into the two of us spending every night together.

  My place has a better view of the Rouen Cathedral and is a little roomier than Nora’s, so we decided it would best for her to let Claude know she’d be giving up her apartment to come live with me. It wasn’t something we spent too much time thinking about; we just knew it was the right decision. In no time, Nora used her eye for design to warm up the place, decorating it with stuff from quirky little boutiques, giving it just the right feel.

  Once Julienne got wind of this, her ball-busting kicked into overdrive. The relentless chiding that I once found irritating I now play into for fun, all the while giving her ammo by telling her how soft our new 1000 thread count sheets are, or how although pink, or salmon, whichever Nora likes to call it, wouldn’t be my first choice to decorate a bathroom with, I find it rather relaxing.

  I snap out of it the instant Yann puts his hand on my shoulder and whispers, “Good luck, bro! Knock ‘em dead.”

  A wide grin spreads across my face. I lean toward the microphone and announce, “Don’t take off yet; I have a special surprise for all of you tonight.”

  The majority of the main lights go down and only the small trail of lights leading backstage remain lit. I hand my guitar over to Daniel, our roadie, and make my way down the small set of stairs to the hallway and into the dressing room.

  The rest of the guys are already there, happily cracking into the large cooler of beer that our manager arranged to have ready for us. I peel off my sweat-drenched black tee shirt and grab a fresh towel from the rack nearby. The mirror in front of me is cracked in a bunch of places, and for a second, my eyes pour over the graffiti left by other bands that have played here, scribbled in black Sharpie, when I catch my reflection.

  My tattoos are such a part of the fabric of who I am, that I sometimes don’t even notice they’re there. My attention goes to the latest addition on my sternum that Nora sketched for me six months ago. My fingers slide over the outline of the freesia blossom, which symbolizes trust, and I remember how proud I felt to have an original design that she created permanently etched into my flesh.

  “It’s time!” Pascal calls, and in an instant, I grab a clean tee shirt out of my bag, yank it over my head and sprint back to the stage.

  When I get there, I see that Daniel has set a small wooden stool near my Martin acoustic guitar and lowered the height of the microphone stand for me. I slip the guitar strap over my head, take a seat and lean into the microphone.

  “Before I get started, I just want to thank you all for coming out. The Four Pistols wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for you guys. You’re the reason that we get up here and keep doing what we’re doing.”

  I catch my breath and pause for a moment. Beads of sweat begin to gather on my forehead.

  “Tonight, I have something very special to share with all of you; a new song that I haven’t even shared with the band yet. It’s probably my most personal song to date, and it’s about someone that’s very dear to me: my talented, beautiful girlfriend, Nora.”

  The crowd begins to cheer and I seize the opportunity to point her out. “In case you don’t know who she is, she’s right here in the front row,” as I motion to her. “I’m sure a lot of you in the back can’t see her so, hey, why don’t you come up here for a second, baby.”

  Nora turns red, makes and face and starts to shake her head from left to right. The crowd begins to chant, “No-ra! No-ra! No-ra!” as I lean forward with my hand extended, inviting her up to the stage.

  Reluctantly, she climbs up and fiddles with her hands for a few moments before folding them behind her. I turn back to the crowd and say, “Before I play the last song of the night, I want to tell all of you how this woman has completely changed my life. She’s the fuel that inspires my lyrics and the music I write. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her, and because of that, I always want her to be by my side.”

  With that, I stand up, place my guitar back on its stand and reach into the pocket of my jeans. I pull out a small, black velvet box and smile to the sea of people that begins just a few feet away from me.

  I lick my lips and bite my lip; I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous as hell right now. I get down on my right knee and stare up at Nora, whose hands are now clutching her chest, her face in utter disbelief.

  “Nora,” I begin, “the time I spend with you is as precious to me as you are. I want you by my side; not just today, or tomorrow, next week or next year. I want you by my side forever. Nora Nolan,” I look over and Yann gives me a nod of encouragement, “will you marry me?”

  The crowd screams with joy, but then, a hush quickly falls over the venue as everyone waits to hear her reply. Tears of joy stream down Nora’s cheeks and her eyes move from me to the crowd, and then back to me again.

  “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!”

  I stand up and wrap my arms around her, pulling her closely against me as our lips meet and we kiss for what feels like an eternity. I pull back and stare into her eyes. “I love you. I’ll always love you, Nora.”

  “I love you, too. More than you’ll ever know.” She leans down to the microphone, and with a new-found courage, starts speaking to the crowd. “Wow! What a night, huh? Now, who wants to hear Jacques’ new song? I know I do!”

  The crowd goes wild and Nora claps along with them and hops off the stage, reclaiming her place in the front row.

  Strapping on my guitar, I stop and smile, realizing that my boss, Julienne, has been absolutely right all along. God knows I’ll never bet against her again. I laugh to myself and settle back down onto the stool, strumming the first chords of my new song, “By My Side.” The crowd fades from my mind as I lock eyes with the woman I love and begin to dream of all the crazy adventures we’re going to have together.

  THE END

  North

  I was a rock star in one of the most successful bands in the Miami area.

  I had a new woman (or two.. or three… or four) every night…until I met her.

  Ain’t life a motherf*cker.

  Can you f*cking believe it? I had to go to rehab “for my own safety.” Pffft!

  F*ck it. I’ll spend a few weeks doing some bullsh*t art projects and waste some time listening to a bunch of idiot addicts bitch about how their parents never loved them.

  Just my luck, while I was just chillin’, waiting for my dealer to find someone else to blame for his stolen stash, I met my hottest wet dream in the form of a counselor who wouldn’t just let me slide.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t be in a worse situation, one little f*ck-up—a little fun in the art room with this counselor, the hottest piece of ass I’ve ever laid eyes on—and we we
re both on our asses in the street.

  To make things worse, the chick that I thought was my “hottest wet dream” became my angel. And I’m not about to let anyone—not even Big J and not even my own stupid f*cked-up self—ruin the little taste of heaven she gives me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  My head was throbbing; my mouth tasted as though I’d licked a sewer grate. As I woke up for the third morning of my detox, I realized I was actually sweating because the air conditioning in the building had frozen up—instead of the reasons I’d awakened sweating the two mornings before, which had been due to withdrawals and the hulking, slinking presence of nightmares dancing through my head.

  “Fuck,” I muttered into my pillow, throwing the sheets away from my body. I scrubbed at my face, closing my eyes to the fact that it was daylight; that one of the counselors would almost certainly show up in the next two minutes to tell me and my roommate that we’d better go ahead and eat breakfast because we had a "busy, busy day" ahead of us.

  “Fuck, man,” the guy in the other bed said to me. “Ever think this was a huge mistake?” I laughed.

  “Every damn morning I’ve been here,” I replied, flopping over onto my back.

  “Clean and healthy, right?”

  I looked over at Gerard, my roommate, and held up a fist in solidarity.

  A few minutes later, as I had expected, one of the counselors knocked at the door and then opened it. “Up and at ‘em, guys,” she said, smiling brightly. “Breakfast is served and if you hang around in bed you won’t get any before group.” I sat up and fought down the wave of nausea that rose with my body.

  “Yeah, we’re coming,” Gerard said. I raised a hand silently to acknowledge the counselor’s message and heard the door close as I stared at the floor, trying to get up the energy to move.