Crookshollow foxes box set: The complete fox shapeshifter romance series

by Steffanie Holmes

  "With any luck," I whispered to Ryan as he stacked his three frames behind them, "If we hurry I can get you out of here before anyone sees–"

  "James Alexandra Kline!"

  I spun around, my heart pounding against my chest. "Matthew, hi." I wiped my hair out of my eyes, certain my face must betray my nervousness. "It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?"

  Matthew folded his arms across his wide chest. "Darryl just came up to see me. He said the Raynard paintings still haven't been delivered. I gave you one chance, Kline, one big opportunity to make a name for yourself with the exhibition of the year, and you blew it–"

  Ryan stepped forward, eyes blazing. "Darryl needs to get his eyes checked." I gestured frantically at him to shut up, but if he saw me, he was ignoring me. He pointed at the bay we just finished loading. "All the Raynard paintings are right here."

  Matthew's eyes narrowed. "Who are you? Alex, you know you're not allowed unauthorised visitors down in the warehouse."

  "Uh … this is Damien. He's … uh, an intern from the university." I said hurriedly. "He's going to be helping me with the cataloguing."

  Matthew sighed heavily. He turned away, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. "Whatever, I don't care. Just get these catalogued today so they can be hung tomorrow. If you need me, I'm going to be yelling at Darryl."

  "Don't stress your vocal chords too much," I said. "You've got plenty more yelling to do before this thing goes public."

  He snorted. "Tell me about it. I didn't even want this bloody exhibition in the first place. Raynard is an arrogant shit. He must be running low on cash if he wants this exhibition so badly, but of course, we have to do it on his terms. We have to bow down to the great Almighty Artiste. Did you meet him yesterday? Was he as big a prick as I imagine?"

  "Oh, no sir," I stifled a giggle. "He's an even bigger prick."

  He snorted with amusement, then stormed off, yelling for Darryl.

  Ryan turned to me. "I'm hurt," he pouted. "Is that any way to talk about the man who saved your life?"

  "That wasn't the man," I replied. "That was the fox. I like the fox, but the man I'm still undecided about."

  He grabbed my wrist, pulling me close to him, pressing his broad chest against mine. "What about the man?" he growled, his eyes boring into mine. I wondered if he could feel my heart as it quickened against my chest. The tension between us crackled like lightning. I wanted nothing more than to reach up and press my lips to his …

  But I knew it would only end in heartache. He wanted me because he believed I was his fated mate. But that wasn't the way I did things. I needed to choose Ryan, and right now, I barely knew him. As Ryan leaned forward, his eyes burning with intense desire, I turned my head away, wrenching myself free of his grasp.

  He advanced again, and I backed away until my back pressed against a rack of crates. I held my hands up. "Don't come any closer," I warned. "I can't think straight when you're too close."

  Ryan looked confused. "Alex?" he breathed. "What's wrong? Don't you want this? Don't you feel something when we're together …"

  I shook my head, forcing myself to ignore the hurt look in his soft eyes. "It's not that I don't feel anything for you." I said. "It's this fate thing. I can't help but feel as if this … chemistry between us is forced upon me, because you're telling yourself that we're meant to be together."

  He took a step forward. "Why is that a bad thing?"

  "If I'm with a man, it needs to be on my own terms. Fate has no place in my life, Ryan. I want a choice. I demand a choice."

  His shoulders sagged, and he glanced down at his shoes. A long, expressive silence flowed between us, broken only by the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead. When he looked up again, that same self-satisfied smirk was on his lips once more.

  "Very well," he said. "You will have a choice, Alex. I just have to get you to choose me."

  "That's all I ask."

  I relaxed, feeling the awkward moment had passed. "C'mon, Damien." I said, heading for my office. "We need to get these paintings catalogued."

  8

  With "Damien", the attractive intern, helping in cataloguing, my two assistants completed their work on the Ryan Raynard collection in record time, even if there was an extraordinary amount of high-pitched giggling coming from their office. It wasn't even lunchtime when Ryan knocked on my office door.

  "Save me from their incessant prattling," he demanded.

  I looked up from my paperwork in mock surprise. "You mean you haven't gained any deep intellectual insights from your morning with Trixie McBimbo and Alice Legsakimbo?"

  "Conversational stimulation is clearly not their forte," replied Ryan. He leaned across the corner of my desk, eyes sparkling as he pushed his face so close to mine I could see the shadow of his stubble across his cheeks. I held my breath as the woody scent of him invaded my nostrils. "You can have a break now, right? I want to walk through the museum."

  His lips moved, but I barely heard what he said. I imagined leaning forward, pressing my lips against his, feeling the warmth of his touch against my body. Why does this have to be so hard?

  "Alex? Let's go …"

  "No." I registered what he was saying. That would be too dangerous. Anyone could spot him, recognise him. Out in the public galleries were actual art critics and collectors, people who would know what Ryan Raynard looked like, even after ten years.

  "I insist," he said. "I haven't been outside the manor in so long, Alex, except to hunt in the woods. I want to see artwork hanging on walls, not in books or on a computer screen. But most of all, I want to see it with you."

  My stomach flipped. I glanced at my phone. "I can take two hours, since my cataloguing team seem to work twice as fast with you around–"

  "I crack the whip," he smirked, tracing a path across my hand with his finger. I yanked my hand away. I couldn't focus when he did that.

  "I'll need to work late tonight anyway. There's still a lot to do to prepare your exhibition. But sure, I can take you through the public galleries, if you promise not to draw attention to yourself."

  Ignoring the jealous glare of Belinda from across the hall, I led Ryan through the staff lounge and out into the gallery itself. We started in the west hall, where his work would be displayed. Currently, we had a kinetic exhibit on display; a large section of the room had been given over to a garden of multi-coloured paper windmills glued to a fibreboard floor. Fans disguised in towering white mushroom-like sculptures blew the windmills this way and that. From the ceiling hung an enormous mobile – a neo-objectivist study in the style of early Rodchenko – of interconnected swirls and whirring gears made from hammered tin and wood. On the far wall, a metal ball rolled around in a strange, malleable corrugated maze, making a disharmonious gurgle as it rolled over the metal ripples. A plaque in front of the display invited the viewer to move the ball or change the course of the maze.

  Ryan stood in front of this piece for a long time, watching the ball roll back and forth, his brow furrowed. He did not reach out to touch the piece, although when two young boys pushed in front of him and started pushing the maze back and forth, he smiled.

  "This is a fun piece," he said. "But it's not art as I know it. I don't look at this and see into the artist's soul. I don't feel as if I've stepped into a world out of my being. I just feel entertained by the moving ball and that strange, otherworldly sound."

  "It's a statement about the world," I said. "Kinetic art is all about bringing the audience inside the piece itself, to show that each person is part of the problem, and part of the solution. This art is never static, it is created in the moment – right now, as those boys are playing, they are part of the work itself."

  "I see," he replied, and led me into the next gallery.

  For the next two hours, we walked arm in arm, looking and commenting on the paintings and sculptures on display. Ryan pulled me from piece to piece, scrutinizing every detail and leaning on me for commentary on the work, the artist, the treatment of
materials. We could have been any couple visiting the gallery, not the self-conscious gallery curator and the reclusive celebrity artist who turns into a fox.

  Ryan had a deep knowledge of the art world, but like much of his knowledge, it seemed to stop around the time he became a recluse. With his fancy public-school education, he knew much of the Renaissance, the Impressionists, the Pre-Raphaelites. We had an exhibition on Fauvism that engaged him for more than thirty minutes, as he painstakingly examined of every inch of the small canvases. But a photographic exhibition of political street art from the Middle East left him baffled, as did a video projection of two men blowing red-coloured bubbles into each other's mouths through a pink straw, interspersed with extreme panning close-ups of a cactus. To be honest, I didn't really get that one, either.

  "How do you survive as an artist when you don't even know what's big in the art world, or what the galleries and collectors are looking for?" I asked.

  "Simon takes care of selling my paintings and all the other business details for me. All I do is paint, read books, and hunt in the forest. It's very freeing, Alex. I don't have a thousand contemporaries swimming around in my head. I'm not part of a movement, or a school. When I want inspiration, I head into the woods. As such, my work does not look like anyone else's, because no one else is like me–"

  We paused in the door of our main gallery, where we had a permanent exhibition of works from the greatest painters of the last five hundred years. Ryan's gaze swept immediately to the Picasso on the far wall. His reaction was physical. His whole body stiffened.

  "Ryan? Are you OK?"

  He didn't seem to hear me. He was lost completely.

  "Ryan?" I waved my hand in front of his face. He didn't even blink. I followed at his heels as he stalked across the room like a man possessed. He stopped in front of the painting and stared, his eyes narrowed.

  I stood beside him, not certain what I should say or do. Was this some kind of fox thing? A shapeshifter trance? I glanced over again, and saw him blinking, his eyes filled with tears.

  "Ryan?" I tried again.

  This time he heard me. He stepped back, shaking his head, the spell broken. He rubbed his eyes, as though disoriented. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "All my life I have wanted to see a Picasso in the flesh. I've seen them in books, of course. I have thousands of art books in my house. But I've never seen one in life before. I've had Simon search for one for my private collection, but they're impossible to get on the black market unless you're a Saudi royal or an American rock star. I never thought to see one for real. The colours, Alex! It's just amazing."

  "I know," I whispered back. "The first time I came to this gallery, it stole my attention. The way he uses shape to convey every side of an object, as if he's reaching back in time and forward into the future at once. Sometimes I come here to eat my lunch, and I just sit and stare at it, wondering about the mind behind such a work."

  "Don't tell anyone that I …" he pointed to his eye.

  I laughed. "You mean that you got a piece of dust in your eye? No, Ryan, I won't ruin your street cred, as long as you don't tell Matthew I eat in the gallery."

  "Deal," he took my hand, clasping it in his own, the heat of his touch radiating through my arm, up through my body, clutching at my chest. "Thank you, Alex. Thank you."

  Eventually, I had to say goodbye to him and head back to the office. I had so much to do to prepare for the exhibition, and Ryan decided I'd be safe enough inside the gallery. "Marcus could hardly come in here with all these people about," he said. "I'll be back at 7 pm to pick you up. Give me the keys and I'll get out of your way."

  I backed away, shaking my head. "I'm not giving you my car."

  "Why not?"

  Did he even have to ask?

  Ryan set his mouth into a firm line. "Fine. I have other ways of getting around."

  "Ryan Raynard, if you shift into a fox within the walls of this gallery, I shall never forgive you. What are you going to do?"

  "I want to walk around a bit, explore Crookshollow in the daylight, feel the pavement beneath my feet again," he smiled. "Perhaps I'll find a restaurant for dinner."

  "I'd like that," I smiled. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, the hot echo of his lips lingering long after he'd stalked from the room.

  9

  There was so much that needed to get done in order to have the exhibition ready for the opening in two weeks. I forced myself to forget Ryan for a few hours and focus on my work. At 4 pm, we closed the west gallery, and I supervised the installation team as they packed down the kinetic exhibit in preparation for hanging Ryan's paintings. It was no easy feat. The exhibition was moving on to a London gallery, which meant that every single paper windmill had to be individually wrapped in tissue paper and packaged so as not to bend or squash them. I had taken my laptop in with the intention of catching up on emails while I supervised, but when it became clear we weren't going to be able to leave until midnight, I grabbed some paper and tape and joined the fray.

  We didn't finish packaging flowers until nearly 9 pm. When I swiped my way out of the door, I saw Ryan waiting for me, leaning nonchalantly against a pillar as if he'd only been standing there a moment. He'd changed his clothes, and now wore an exquisite pair of black jeans and a leather jacket. A pair of designer sunglasses perched on his head.

  "You look …" I struggled to find the words. He looked smoking hot, more like a rock star than a famous artist.

  He gave me a brilliant smile. "I decided if I was going to take the brilliant Alex Kline out for dinner, I should look worthy of her company."

  I blushed. "I'm sorry. Things took longer than they were meant to. I never want to see another paper pinwheel for as long as I live. How long have you been waiting? Do we still have a booking?" I asked him, my chest swelling as he grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the street.

  "I haven't been waiting long," was his reply. A cab waited on the pavement, the engine idling. Ryan held the door of a cab open for me.

  "What? No limo?" I joked. "In the movies, billionaires always drive around in limousines."

  "A limo seemed awfully tacky," he replied. "I won't stay rich if I spend all my money on frivolous indulgences. You're talking to a guy who used to slum it in Belfast, remember?"

  "With all due respect, there's slumming it, and then there's slumming it. Actual poverty versus what spoiled rich kids do when they've read too much Hunter S. Thompson and want to be rebellious." I settled myself into the seat. "That leather jacket must have cost a pretty penny, Mr Slumming It."

  "And I don't regret a single cent," he replied, as he bent down and kissed me.

  The kiss shocked me, but as soon as his lips were against mine, I was completely under his spell, his smell and touch intoxicating me. I opened my lips and he slipped his tongue inside my mouth, probing into the warmth. He lifted his hands to my cheeks, pulling my face against his, forcing himself deeper. I tried to wrap my arms around his torso, to pull him into the cab, longing to feel the strength of his muscles pressed against my skin, but the door was in the way.

  He pulled away. I leaned back, struggling for breath, my mind racing. Why has he stopped? Does he not want me? Am I so terrible that even though he hasn't seen a woman for ten years, he is completely turned off by me?

  I hid my disappointment behind anger. "That wasn't fair."

  He grinned at me wickedly. "No way, it was completely fair. I'm just making certain you have all the facts before you make your choice, Alex."

  "What choice?"

  He hopped into the seat beside me, and nodded to the driver, who pulled out into the street without a word. Ryan lowered his head toward me and whispered, so the driver couldn't hear, his breath tickling my ear. "I heard you this morning, and I respect your needs. You want to be able to choose your mate, to be in control of your destiny. That's what frightens you about me and what I've told you – you fear your choice has been taken away. Well, I am giving you back that choice. You may take me as yo
urs, or reject me, and I will not force anything upon you. You did not ask for any of this, and I respect that. But, I want you, Alex, and I am used to getting what I want. I aim to show you what a life with me might be like."

  I jammed my hands under my legs, and closed my eyes. It was so hard to think when he was right there beside me in the car, the scent of his skin mingling with the leather of the seats. I'd only known him for two days – it was far too soon for me to say whether he was … a mate. I tested the word under my breath. My mate. It was so primal, so protective, so much better than "boyfriend". It felt almost … natural.

  I shook my head. I barely knew the guy. Sure, it felt as if I'd known him for years, because I'd lived and breathed his artwork for so long, but Ryan was not his paintings. He was infinitely more fascinating, more confident, more seductive...

  It's your choice, his words echoed in my mind. He was giving me what I wanted. So, I would give him what he wanted – a chance to win me over.

  The cab pulled over. Ryan grinned at me. "We're here." He quickly paid the driver, jumped out of the cab and came around to open the door for me. I stepped out, my head spinning as if I'd already consumed a few glasses of wine.

  I was surprised to see we hadn't stopped in front of a restaurant. Instead, we'd parked at a small, log cabin–style home, at the end of a quiet street bordering Crookshollow forest. The front path was decorated with fairy lights, and comical witch figurines and ceramic cats peeked up from between the garden rows.

  Ryan marched right up to the door, and raised his hand to knock, but before he could, the door swung open, and a petite woman of about sixty pulled open the door. She wore several long black wool shawls and dangly crystal earrings that brushed against her shoulders. Her jet-black hair was pulled back from her face and tied in a loose bun, wisps of it dangling free, framing her kind face and piercing, intelligent eyes.

  "Well, well," she drawled, her hand on her chest. "Ryan Raynard, as I live and breathe. You give an old woman a heart attack, calling out of the blue like that, and then arriving two hours late for dinner. I thought I'd be six feet under before I saw you outside the walls of Raynard Hall again."