by Anna Lowe
His mind spun. Shit. How the hell would he explain that? The best he could come up with was, “I meant human territory.”
He hid a wince. That was his first full-out lie, and it burned.
She studied him closely. Too closely. “How many of your friends know about shifters?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose then quickly let go lest she catch that little tell. “We all know.”
She stared. “How? I mean, I never knew. I still can’t believe it’s possible.”
He tossed out the first thing he could think of. “We came across some in the military.”
“In the military?” Her voice hit a new high.
He touched her arm, which seemed to help. “Not all shifters are bad. But it’s very hush-hush, and we have to keep it that way.”
That was the tricky part — explaining to her why.
“Oh, you mean people will freak out if they find out?” She huffed. “Can’t say I’d blame them.”
He tried a different tack. “Well, no one would believe you, and you’re the one who would come across as crazy.”
That made her pause.
“And second, some humans wouldn’t understand. They would hunt every one down — the good shifters along with the bad. Most humans have come across lots of shifters without knowing it. Good shifters who wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Because you’re my mate, and I’d do anything for you, he wanted to say. The women who lent you clothes are shifters. My friends are all shifters. They’re good people, Hailey.
He tried a softer version of that as he drove, constantly checking the rearview mirror. “Let’s say someone you know well — someone you lived close to, even — was a shifter, and you didn’t even know it.” A flurry of all they’d done in the past few days paraded through his mind. “A person you trusted. Worked with. Laughed with. Shared meals with. Everything.”
She snorted. “What, like a roommate or something?”
No. Like me, he ached to say.
“Yeah, like a roommate. Someone who was always there and you never thought twice about. Let’s say you suddenly found out they were…maybe a different religion or something.”
“What would that matter?”
He nodded, reinforcing his point. “Exactly. It wouldn’t matter, because you know who they really are and what they’re like. That they’re good inside. So, little details don’t matter.”
“Turning into a wild animal is not a little detail. Lamar was a wolf.” She shivered. “And he hid it all this time…”
That bastard didn’t hide it long enough, his bear snarled.
Hailey shook her head and crossed her arms, resolute. “Anyone who hides a secret like that can’t be up to any good.”
Tim kept his eyes straight ahead and his lips tightly sealed.
“Do the police know?” Hailey asked a moment later.
He worked his jaw from side to side. Forget about the police — what would Hailey say if she knew the shorts she was wearing had been loaned to her by a bear shifter who was a cop? He could just see it now — driving by Dawn’s patrol car, giving a casual wave.
“No,” he said. “At least, most don’t, just like most humans.”
“So, no one can help me,” she mumbled quietly.
“I’ll help you. We all will.”
She turned to him with a grateful smile that nearly broke his heart. “Thank God for you. I mean it. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
Tim pursed his lips, and for a long time, the only sound was the rush of the pickup’s tires over the road.
* * *
“He what?” Kai bellowed.
It was an hour later, back on the plantation. The second Tim had gotten Hailey set up at his place with Jenna for company, he’d called a meeting with Cynthia and Kai — one of the dragons of Koa Point — at the main house. Connor was on the way, having escorted Lamar and his men on to the first flight to Oahu with the formidable backup force of Hunter and Dawn, who’d raced over immediately to assist.
“Lamar shifted right in front of Hailey,” Tim repeated, running his hands over his face. “She saw everything.”
Cynthia’s eyes blazed. “He puts every shifter at risk doing that.”
She looked up toward the second floor, where Dell was reading to little Joey. Chase was on patrol, and the shifters of Koa Point were on high alert, too. All were under strict orders not to show themselves in animal form anywhere near Tim’s place that night.
“Who is this Lamar?” Cynthia added.
Tim shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
Kai looked every bit as furious. “By the morning, we’ll know everything there is to know about that bastard.”
They were sitting in what had once been the first-floor parlor of the plantation house. Most of the time, the porch served as Koakea’s meeting place, but more private conversations took place indoors — especially with a human on the property.
“I would have killed him on the spot if it weren’t for Hailey,” Tim growled.
Torn the bastard to bits, his bear agreed.
“Who were the others?” Cynthia asked.
“A bear and a wolf shifter,” Tim said. He recounted everything he’d picked up on during the confrontation on the beach, including Lamar’s ties to Hailey’s would-be fiancé.
“So we need to question her,” Kai murmured, looking as dark as ever.
Tim jumped up from his chair so fast, it fell over in a crash. “Not tonight, you’re not.”
Kai and Cynthia stared at him long and hard enough to make his cheeks heat.
“I didn’t mean tonight,” Kai finally said. “She needs a break. Maybe you need one too.”
Tim glowered. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Is your house really the best place for her to stay?” Kai went on. “We could put her up at the Kapa’akea Resort with full security. Might be more up her alley, you know.”
That was a dig at Tim’s roughing-it shed of a house, and he knew it. Yes, Hailey was probably used to fancy places like the five-star Kapa’akea Resort. But she seemed genuinely at home in smaller, cozier, fixer-upper places like the house they’d just spent a week in. The moment he’d shown her his home, her tension had eased a notch or two.
“She’s fine here,” he muttered.
He was pushing the limits, and he knew it. Cynthia was in charge of the plantation, and Kai oversaw her. Both dragons ranked higher than Tim, and he’d never thought to question their authority before. But here he was, practically staging a one-bear rebellion.
It’s not about rank, his bear insisted. We have to keep Hailey safe and close.
He closed his eyes. Safe was one thing. Close, on the other hand, probably wasn’t a good idea. But it was too late to resist his attraction to Hailey. Which pretty much put him in purgatory now that Hailey had made her feelings about shifters clear.
“Three days,” Cynthia said, looking at him and then Kai. “We give her three more days, and then she has to go. Agreed?”
Tim was about to protest when Cynthia cut in.
“I understand her predicament, but she can’t hide here forever.”
“If the press finds out she’s here…” Kai muttered.
Tim went cold. It was bad enough harboring one human on the property. If the press tracked Hailey to Koakea, there would be dozens more. The snooping, inquisitive kind, armed with cameras and microphones. How could he and his shifter brethren possibly guard their secrets under that kind of scrutiny?
“Three days is plenty of time for Hailey to arrange for her own security and decide on her next steps,” Cynthia said decisively.
She might as well have banged a gavel, and Tim could barely refrain from glaring. But if anyone understood about moving on after a traumatic event, it was Cynthia. No one knew exactly what had brought the young dragon widow to Maui with her son, but it was perfectly clear Cynthia knew all about being on the run.
> “Three days,” Kai agreed, giving Tim a hard look. “You got that?”
Tim barely concealed his inner bear’s growl. No way.
He cuffed the unruly beast into place in a way he’d never had to do before. Keeping his clan safe had to come first, no matter how it gutted him.
“You got that, Hoving?” Kai repeated, glaring this time.
Tim gave a curt nod — the most he could get past his unruly bear. Yeah, he got it. Three days was all he had left with his mate. Some shifters were lucky and got a lifetime. Connor and Jenna had already enjoyed months together and still had years to come. Kai and Tessa were doubly lucky, what with rumors of a baby on the way. But him…
Tim nearly let out an angry roar. Three days weren’t enough, damn it.
It will have to be, Kai’s stern look said.
And, hell. The dragon shifter was right. Destiny was finicky that way. Some shifters won the forever lottery; others only got a day pass for a brief foray into love and luck. That was the problem with falling for a woman who would never accept his shifter side.
No, his bear pleaded. There must be some way…
He looked out over the midnight ocean. So vast, so emotionless. Much like his soul before Hailey had come along and added all that light and sparkle, like the moon did to the sea.
He stuck out his jaw. Three days were better than nothing, right? It would hurt like hell to give her up, but maybe it was better this way. He wouldn’t have to tell Hailey about his bear side if they only had three days. They could just make the most of their time together. Saying goodbye would kill him, but at least he would have something to look back on for the rest of his long, lonely life.
So he stood and moved stiffly to the door, making a plan as he went. He’d pack a lifetime into the days they had. He’d make her understand how special she was and what she meant to him.
And then? his bear cried.
He stared into nothingness. Then he would have to find the strength to let her go.
Chapter Eleven
Hailey spent a long time fretting that evening, no matter how Jenna tried to put her at ease. It was only when Tim returned that she stopped twirling her hair and pushing her cuticles back with her nails.
“Hang in there,” Jenna said on her way out. “However complicated things seem, they always work out.”
Hailey wanted to snort. Her grandfather had been mauled to death by wolves. That hadn’t exactly worked out. And Jesus, this was a whole different level of terrifying, what with a werewolf tracking her for an egotistical maniac who wanted her as his bride.
Hailey couldn’t see how the mess of her life could possibly work out, but with Tim taking up most of the doorway, the impossible seemed slightly easier to believe.
He stood there a long time after Jenna went, rubbing his shoulder along the doorframe in one of many quirky little habits she’d come to love. His expression was heart-wrenchingly sad for some reason, and she fished for words to comfort him.
He opened his mouth first, but she held up her hand.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather just…pretend tonight,” she said. “I know it’s childish, but sometimes, you just have to turn things off and make believe everything is fine. I swear I’ll face up to things tomorrow. But, tonight…”
Surprisingly, he looked relieved. Really relieved, like there was something he would rather not face up to either. “Never tried that before,” he admitted. “But, yeah. Pretending works for me.”
She bit her lip. He could have lectured her on making a mess of her life, especially getting involved with the likes of Jonathan and his thugs. He could have said enough was enough and cast her out to fend for herself. But he didn’t. He just looked at her and smiled, like having her there was all he needed.
“So,” she said, forcing a light tone. “Interesting place you’ve got here.”
He ran a hand along the doorframe. “You like it?”
She turned pink. One little gesture shouldn’t ignite the dirty part of her mind, but she couldn’t help fantasizing about his hands on her instead. Rubbing up and down. Touching. Possessing. Protecting.
Maybe she was suffering from some kind of rescuer complex. Or maybe it was the way his chest stretched the fabric of his shirt, because what woman couldn’t notice that? Either way, around Tim, a long-neglected sensual corner of her mind revved into overdrive.
Did she like the house? She cleared her throat, because saying I love it in a hoarse, needy voice just wouldn’t do.
“I do,” she managed.
She’d wandered around the outside already, and it was neat as a pin. Cute, too, what with an old-fashioned water pump and a coffee drying shed around the back.
Tim stepped forward, and her blood rushed, even though he only advanced as far as the next supporting beam. He thumped it and motioned around. “This whole place was a coffee plantation, and this was one of the sheds.”
The walls were rough wood, and starlight showed through gaps between the beams. Crickets chirped all around, and a huge tree sheltered the west side. The roof sloped at different angles in different spots as if the building had been added on to over time. Inside, the structure split into two levels — well, two-plus, because the place had all kinds of cellars, towers, and side wings stuck onto it.
“Dell calls it the shoehouse. You know that story with the old woman who lived in a shoe?”
Hailey laughed, because that fit the structure perfectly. There was a big living room in front, with a kitchen niche to one side. Three narrow stairs went up to an open second level that stood at about the height of her chest — like a loft, but a low one. There was a double bed up there set on short legs, plus a small reading light and books stuck into the open framework of the walls. She could already picture curling up there after a long day of work.
“I love that quilt,” she murmured, stepping over for a closer look at the appliqué work. The motif was an abstract pineapple pattern stitched in tiny, parallel lines.
“Dawn found it at a flea market. She makes some great finds.” Tim smiled a little and looked off into his memories. “She and Hunter gave it to me as a moving-in present, from one bear—” He stuttered and started again. “From one buddy to another.”
She looked around. Yes, the place was pretty bare. But all in all, it was more rustic than ramshackle, and homey as anything.
“How long have you lived here?”
“I’ve been on Maui for about two months, but I only moved in to this place a few weeks ago. It still needs a lot of work.”
It did, but he’d already made it into an inviting, cozy home. It was small and a little dark, like a log cabin, but the air was fresh, and she could imagine sunlight pouring in by day. With a few nice decorative touches, it might even make the pages of a lifestyle magazine.
“Your own little man-den,” she joked.
His smile wavered slightly as he mumbled his reply. “You could say that.”
The loft looked barely high enough for a man of Tim’s height to stand in, but the left side had a raised roof like a church belfry. Beneath the loft was a cellar that was too dark to see.
“You sure you’ll be okay here?” He motioned to the bed that Jenna had covered with fresh sheets.
She gulped, fighting images of curling up with Tim on that bed. Not for steamy sex like she’d daydreamed about for the past few days — just to cuddle up for the night.
“It’s perfect, but what about you?”
He motioned to the cellar.
“You can’t sleep there!” she protested.
“It’s fine. Seriously. Like you said, it’s my den.”
His voice was just as steady as ever, but there was something vulnerable in his eyes. Some terrible sadness where she’d seen hope shining before.
“But it’s dark. Cave-like. I can’t make you sleep there.”
“You’re not making me do anything I don’t want to do,” he said softly. “Plus, I guarantee once I get down there, I practically hiberna
te.”
She laughed. “Ha. Hibernate. That’s what I need to do. Then I can wake up a couple of months down the line and get my life back together again.” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “Just kidding. I swear I’ll only impose on you for one more night. Tomorrow, I’ll make a plan and move on.”
“Tomorrow?” He snapped his head up in surprise.
She gulped. Did he hate the idea as much as she did? In so many ways, she wanted to stay. Not just for safety but to feel as alive and free as she had over the past few days. And, damn. It would be nice to explore her feelings for Tim, too. But she was painfully aware that her attraction to him could be a function of being on the run. After all, she’d misjudged Jonathan in her desperation to gain some freedom from her mother and career. Was it just her desperation to get away from Jonathan that made her fall for Tim?
Her heart said no, but she’d already decided. “Tomorrow. I can’t possibly ask you for anything more.”
“Stay a few days.” Stay as long as you like, his eyes added. “And you don’t have to ask,” he said, so quietly, she nearly melted all over again. “I’m happy to help.”
The room was small enough that it only took her two steps to come right up to him, and when she got there, she slipped into a hug. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Their first touch was awkward, and she thought she might have made a mistake. At first, his arms were stiff and uncertain, but within seconds, he’d cinched her nice and close, just as he had on the beach. Even closer, if that were possible, and he held her tight. His body heat chased away the chill of fear, and his arms, circling her so carefully, created a wall no enemy could breach.
“I definitely don’t mind,” he mumbled, reminding her of his kiss. A kiss that had lit every on-switch in her soul until Lamar had appeared.
She kept her face buried in his shoulder, determined to shut Lamar and all evil away for the night.
This is all temporary, she tried reminding herself, but it was getting harder and harder to do.
“I don’t know where I’d be without you,” she mumbled.
“Aw, you’d be fine,” he said, sounding breezy. But his arms tightened in a promise, and she closed her eyes.