by Kim Fox
She lowered her head. She hadn’t even thought of the repercussions to Keene.
“And if they catch a whiff of what your story is before you publish it than you’ll be right there beside me.”
She thrust her hands on her hips. “I’m not scared,” she said. “I’ve been threatened before by terrorists, drug cartels and Somali pirates. I can handle this.”
“I’d rather be up against a hundred Tony Montanas than one dragon shifter,” he said.
“Dragon shifter?” she whispered to herself.
He nodded his head. “I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”
Keene walked back to the kitchen where Sander was starting to prepare something to eat. Why wouldn’t he just take the footage? He could easily overpower me.
She entered the cabin and locked the door behind her. She took out her red notebook and scribbled some notes. She wasn’t sure if she was going to use them yet but she wanted to get her thoughts and ideas down just in case. She wrote down a catchy headline. Shifting to the Truth: Shifters are Real!
She got her phone and found Phil in her contact list. She stared at the little picture of him in his forties, his Facebook profile picture that was at least fifteen years old.
She cursed and threw the phone onto the bed. The thought of letting down Keene was too much to bare.
She pulled out her GoPro and uploaded the video into the Cloud, where she could access it from anywhere. It was safe to do what she wanted with it.
But what did she want to do with it?
Did she want to save Keene’s life the way that he had saved hers?
Or did she want to fulfill the vow that she made to her dying father?
She slammed her laptop closed and headed for the door shaking her head.
Chloe would keep the secret to herself.
For now.
six
Chloe sprang up on the bed when the dinner bell rang out. She didn’t realize that she had fallen asleep. With everything that happened, parachuting, almost getting eaten by wolves and getting the footage of a lifetime, her body just shut down. She had been running on adrenaline all day.
She got out of bed and her stomach was growling. The smell of barbecue filled the room through the open window.
Chloe fixed her hair in the mirror and glanced at her cell phone. Two missed calls from her boss Phil. He’s just going to have to wait. She still didn’t know what she was going to do.
The sun was shining as she made her way to the picnic tables. The Crew was already there digging into the large platters of food.
Keene ran to meet her halfway with a big smile on his face. She looked back at all of the people she had known over the years and no one was ever as happy to see her as he always was.
“My lady.” He held his arm out for her with a grin.
She wrapped her arm around his, her heart speeding up at the size and firmness of his tree trunk-sized forearm. He walked her to the table where the cook, Sander, was serving marinated strips of elk, grilled fish and some freshly steamed veggies.
Keene sat down beside her tucking his elbows in like a duck to give her some room.
“This looks great,” Chloe said. “I’m so hungry.”
Sander piled some fish onto her plate and winked at her.
Ellis turned towards her. “So did you get any good shots?” he asked. “Anything really interesting?” He raised his eyebrow over his eye patch. He was obviously trying to dig for information.
“Well your ugly face wasn’t there so it worked out,” Keene said, placing some grilled eggplant on Chloe’s plate.
“I’m better looking than you,” Ellis said.
“Oh please,” Keene said, pouring the rest of the bowl onto his plate. “Chloe will call you when she’s doing a story on pirates.”
Ellis looked down at the table and adjusted his eye patch. “Alexi says it looks sexy.”
“Well then I think she needs her own eye patch,” Keene said, before dumping the rest of the platter of fish fillets onto his plate. There was a mountain of food in front of him that spilled over onto the table. His ceramic plate was buried under the pile.
Ellis was stirring a pea around his plate with his fork.
“I think it looks good,” Chloe said, feeling bad for him.
His frown turned into a smile and he looked proudly at Keene. Keene turned away with a pink flush in his cheeks.
Quint stood up and served more wine. “No thanks,” Chloe said, covering her glass.
Amanda held her wine glass up and Quint filled it up. “Promise me you’ll put a picture of me in the article,” she said, taking a sip.
How does she drink that?
“Weren’t you in your pajamas?” Beckett asked.
Amanda waved him off. “Don’t worry she can photoshop something sexy on me right?”
Chloe swallowed her mouthful of elk. It was so good. “How about I take a few pictures of you standing beside the plane before I leave.”
Keene flinched and knocked over his glass of wine. It sprayed onto Finch.
“Ah man!” Finch said, looking down at the spots of red wine on his green button up shirt. “This is my favorite shirt.”
Jessica dipped her napkin in her glass of water and dabbed it on the spots. “I can get it out honey,” she said softly.
Keene picked up his glass. “That’s your favorite shirt? Seriously, Jessica, take this man shopping.”
“This shirt is in style,” Finch said. “Well it was before you put polka dots on it.”
“In style?” Keene laughed. “Maybe during the Nixon era.”
“Were you wearing that shirt when Pearl Harbor was bombed?” Ellis asked.
“I saw a painting of a caveman at the museum one time,” Sander said. “He was wearing that exact same shirt.”
Finch frowned. “I’m getting sick of the old man jokes,” he said. “I’m only five years older than you guys.”
“Yeah but you look fifty years older,” Sander joked.
“I’m thirty eight!”
“You mean you were born in nineteen thirty eight?” Quint asked.
Keene lowered his head towards Chloe and whispered. “You’re leaving me?”
“Well I wasn’t going to stay here forever,” she whispered back.
“Why not?”
“Keene,” she said. The guys broke out in laughter at something said at Finch’s expense. “I have a life back home. I have a job.”
Keene was about to say something back but thought twice and stayed silent.
Sander stood up and cleared the plates when everyone was done. “For dessert I have a delicious creme brulee with freshly picked strawberries that Jessica and Alexi supplied from the garden.”
Jessica’s cheeks reddened. Alexi wasn’t there. She was working at the diner.
“Sounds yummy,” Chloe said. She was going to miss these delectable dinners when she was gone. It would be hard to go back to freezer burnt TV dinners and leftover Chinese food.
She glanced around at the friendly, smiling faces. Actually there was a lot that she was going to miss. It was fun being around a group of friends, laughing and sharing good times. It was going to be really lonely going back to an empty one bedroom apartment. Chloe had friends but they were mostly work friends that she would go out for a drink with and the conversation rarely led to anything past work. It was nothing like this. These people were a family.
No. Not people. Shifters.
Quint handed her a steaming mug of coffee with a bowl of sugar. He dropped two cubes in it and winked at her. “Extra sweet just like you.”
She held the cubes up with her spoon and watched as they disintegrated into the black liquid.
These shifters were not like she thought they would be like. They were shattering all of her long held prejudices. She didn’t know what to believe now.
Keene lowered his hand under the table and placed it on hers. Yesterday she would have snapped it back and yelled at him but today was diff
erent. She turned her hand so they were palm to palm.
She was going to miss Keene most of all. He was definitely growing on her. His large presence was comforting and just felt right. She loved his witty humor and the way that he teased his friends. As harsh as the jokes might have been, Chloe could tell there was a deep love between them and the insults were the way that they expressed it. It was funny how men couldn’t tell other men how they felt and always had to express it in the weirdest ways.
Tomorrow she would be back in her bed. Her big, cold bed. Chloe hated sleeping alone. She hated the empty space next to her, the quietness, the loneliness. She giggled when she pictured how it would be to sleep in the same bed as Keene. She would either be crushed or would end up pushed off onto the floor.
“What’s so funny?” he whispered.
“Nothing,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “I was just picturing something silly.”
It was so hard to date in the city. She only attracted creeps and perverts or guys who would never call her after she stood up and they saw her large thighs. But Keene seemed to like her body. She definitely caught him staring at her legs more than a few times.
Keene inched his leg over until it was touching hers. Chloe didn’t move it. It felt right.
Maybe there is something here.
Keene rubbed his stomach as the guys stood up to clear the empty dessert plates.
“I’ll do all of the dishes,” Chloe said, standing up.
Finch snorted. “Yeah right!”
Quint grabbed the empty plate from her hands. “Don’t insult us.”
“I would like to do something,” she said. “I want to help.”
“We do all of the work here,” Keene said, standing up. He would handwash her socks if she would let him.
Ellis stood up. “If you want to help you can go sit by the fire with Jessica and Amanda so we have something beautiful to look at when we’re taking care of you.”
Chloe shook her pretty head, looking frustrated.
“They always insist,” Jessica said. “They love to serve women. It’s like it’s in their DNA or something.”
“It’s best not to argue,” Amanda said, getting up with her tea and a second serving of creme brulee. “And who would want too?”
Keene caught up to Ellis. “Can you take care of my dishes tonight?”
Ellis glanced past him at Chloe. “If you do one thing for me?”
“Anything,” Keene said. His time with Chloe was limited and he didn’t want to waste a second.
“Tell me I’m beautiful.”
Keene grabbed Ellis’ head with his two hands and yanked it over. “You’re a sexy beast!” he said, kissing his forehead.
He hurried back to Chloe. “Let’s go for a walk.”
She looked up at him, staring in his eyes for a moment and then nodded without saying anything. They walked side by side to the edge of camp.
The sun was setting, leaving them for the night to go party with the other side of the planet. It was the moon’s turn to babysit.
Keene walked with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t want to bring it up but he had to. He had to know if there was a team of SEA agents on the way to arrest them.
“Is there a polar bear playing on the evening news right now?” he asked.
“No,” she said. He exhaled in relief. “It’s going to be a special announcement during prime time.”
“Seriously?!?”
“No,” she said, looking at the ground as she walked.
They continued up a trail that led to a field of wildflowers. They were stunning during the day, a carpet of bright orange, pink and dark purple. At night they turned a dark shade of blue. In about an hour the moon would be right over the field, large and bright, casting its soft, gentle rays on them.
“So do you still hate shifters now that one saved your life?” he asked.
She thought for a moment and then exhaled. “I don’t know.”
“Why?” Keene asked. “What happened?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I was camping with my Dad when I was ten.” She breathed in heavy breaths as she tried to steady her nerves. “We went hiking. I remember him pointing out all of the names of the birds that we saw along the way. He was making them up,” she said laughing. “The peliguin, flamingocan, eaglejay. He was making me laugh. He didn’t know anything about the wilderness. We were pretending that we were explorers in a new land. He was calling me Chloe Columbus and he was Ferdaddy Magellan. We were swinging our sticks as we fought off the imaginary monsters around us.” She got choked up and held her mouth tight. “You would have liked him.” Her chin quivered.
“I like him already,” Keene said. He took her hand in his. She turned and faced him with pain behind her eyes. It broke Keene’s heart.
“I had to go pee,” she said, inhaling a deep breath. “I ran off the path and squatted in the bushes. I was sitting there trying to go when a man walked by me. He didn’t see me but I saw him. I can still remember what he looked like. He had a big, bushy handlebar mustache with a long button chin and he had a scar on his forehead like this.” Chloe ran a finger along the side of her forehead.
“Was he a shifter?” Keene asked.
Chloe nodded. “My Dad was still on the path. He didn’t see either of us. He just changed into a grizzly bear. Just like that.” She shook her head. “My Dad freaked out and caught his attention. I just sunk down in the bushes and watched. I was so scared.”
Keene’s heart was pounding, picturing the poor helpless girl. He didn’t want to hear what happened next.
“The bear saw my Dad and just lunged at him. My hero, my Ferdaddy Magellan, was mauled by the bear in front of me. It was quick at least. He didn’t suffer long.”
“What did you do?” Keene asked.
“I just squatted there,” she said. “The bear phased back into the man and he backtracked along his path, wiping away his footsteps from the ground with a stick. When he was gone I ran over and knelt down beside my Dad.” Her eyes shinned in the moonlight as they began to fill with tears. “There was so much blood. I barely recognized him. I promised him that I would find his killer and bring him to justice. I know,” she said, wiping her tears away, “what could a ten year old do?”
“Did you tell anyone what you saw?”
She nodded. “I told my mom. I told the police. They sent me to a therapist, a mean lady that always smelled like garlic, and I told her the story. I remember a lot of hushed talking. The therapist would whisper to my mom and she would look at me with tears in her eyes. Then one day she dropped me off at a center and told me that it was for my own good. She could barely make it through a sentence without breaking down in sobs. She said that I was seeing things and that my mind was playing tricks on me. But I knew what I saw. I knew it was the truth. But she didn’t believe me. Nobody did.”
Keene hugged her. She rested her head on his chest and her body shook as she cried. He could tell that she didn’t tell a lot of people this, if any.
She pulled away and wiped her eyes. Keene’s shirt was wet and sticking to his chest.
“I stayed in that terrible place for two years until I finally told them what they wanted to hear and they let me go.”
Keene couldn’t imagine what she had went through. And all that after seeing her Dad get murdered in front of her. Poor girl.
“Let’s walk,” she whispered, continuing up the path. She was still holding his hand. “I held that in for fifteen years,” she said. “I always knew that one day I would discover the truth. And when I did I would expose shifters for what they really were.”
Her words felt like a kick in the stomach. How could she lump him in the same group as that killer?
“But then you changed everything,” she said. She stopped and turned towards him. “You’re kind and gentle and sweet. You saved my life. You’re the complete opposite of what I expected a shifter to be. And now I’m struggling inside. I owe it to my Dad to tell the truth
but I don’t know what the truth is anymore.”
Keene cupped her cheek and wiped away a tear with his thumb. “Just follow your heart.”
“My heart says that I was wrong. That you’re a good man.” She held his hand to her face and looked down. “My Dad was gentle and sweet as well. I can’t help but think that he would be ashamed of the way I turned out. He would’ve told me to let it go. He would have told me that living a life full of anger with a heart full of vengeance was a waste. He would want me to let go of the hatred and bring love into my heart.” She looked back up at him. She was so beautiful. Keene could barely breathe. “He would’ve really liked you I think.”
She stepped towards him and raised her chin towards his. She was standing on her tippy toes and her mouth was still more than a foot away from his.
“This is where you lean down and kiss me,” she said. “I can’t reach.”
Keene chuckled and lowered his head to hers. Their lips met and Keene tasted the saltiness of her tears mixed with the sweetness of her mouth. She tasted divine. Better than he ever imagined. And he imagined it a lot over the past few days.
Chloe pulled away and licked her lips. “I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said.
He had a chance. She might stay yet.
Keene kissed her again.
The moon was so large that it made Chloe gasp. It hung over the field of wildflowers nearly as bright as the sun. It was a full moon tonight. The craters of four and a half billion years of asteroid impacts coated the surface. That’s what Chloe liked about the moon. It showed its scars. Keene held her hand and admired the view. She had shown him her scars tonight. And she breathed a sigh of relief that he was still beside her.
They walked through the field, the tall flowers rising up past her waist.
“I’ll take you back here during the day,” Keene said. “The colors are gorgeous in the sun.”
Chloe looked around at the carpet of flowers. They were open in their full summer glory and no one was around to admire them but her and Keene. It was as if the earth had built this breathtaking scenery just for them.