Runaway (Fox Ridge Shifters Book 1)

by Marianne Hull

  RUNAWAY

  Marianne Hull

  Runaway

  Copyright © 2020 Marianne Hull

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Find me at: www.mariannehull.com

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Crissy Grady crouched amid the crushed orchids and smashed pots, buried under the weight of despair. Moving forward despite the hopelessness of it all, she picked through the debris to find anything salvageable. There wasn’t much. Sean McGowan hadn’t been satisfied with throwing them to the floor. Clay pots lay in smashed ruins, orchid leaves ground underfoot, and even the plastic pots had been stomped on until the material tore. Little in her small apartment had been spared. Amid the scattered potting soil, glass from photo frames littered the cheap carpet, glinting in the overhead light. Every dish, every memento. Shreds of paper lay in drifts beneath the shelves where she had kept her collection of gardening, horticulture, and botany books. Used college textbooks, thrift store finds, it had taken her over fifteen years to collect them all. How? How did he keep finding her?

  A memory flashed in her mind—the two of them laughing and whooping in that stupid red Lamborghini. Bursting out of the owner’s garage like a rocket headed for orbit. They got away with it that time, but their flight didn’t last.

  Crissy pushed back the familiar wave of shame and scanned the room. He’d scrawled the word Traitor in red spray paint across the wall. A sliver of fear slid down her back, and she shuddered. This wasn’t sudden rage but calculated revenge.

  This was the sixth time he’d found her in the last seven years. Each time, she moved. Each time, she used up her precious savings to get the best false ID she could afford. And each time, he found her.

  Swallowing a gag, she skirted a mound of shredded clothes, reeking of urine, and hurried to the opened closet. High on the shelf, back in a corner, rested a box he’d missed. Nana’s box. To her inner eye, the one no one knew she possessed, it shimmered with the blue light of a spell. One of a handful of spells she knew, it protected her treasures.

  She eased the box down and into a hug, smiling a little as her chest loosened. She flushed with relief. The contents, the remainder of her inheritance from her great-grandmother and a few other precious items, were all untouched. After one last squeeze, she replaced it.

  Now if only she could find Milton, she thought as unease made her body tense once again. If Sean got his hands on her beloved gray tabby… He’d been outside the apartment when she left that morning. She crossed to the door and peeked around the jamb.

  “Milton,” she hissed. “Kitty-cat.” Bushes rustled on the opposite side of the cracked parking lot, and a shiny pair of yellow eyes stared at her from the shadows. Crissy closed her eyes briefly. Safe. He was safe. Tempted to chase him down and gather him up, she took a step across the threshold, then reconsidered. Being half-feral, he would take off if she approached too quickly.

  She turned back to the room and looked up at the wall. Traitor. For a moment, she stared blankly at the word. Pulling her gaze away, she spied the remains of an old clay pot crudely painted with pink and blue spots. She had made it as a Christmas present for Nana when she was seven. Nana’s phalaenopsis. One of the delicate white blossoms remained whole. She lifted it, and the plant came with it, torn but still whole enough to be re-potted. In a nearby heap of soil, one lone African violet leaf poked out. Tugging on it gently, she found a small cluster of leaves attached and even some root. Another of Nana’s plants she could save.

  The dendrobium she had cultivated from a cutting, the first orchid she had added to her collection after Nana died, was a total loss, as were most of the others. Her dream of having her own nursery, raising orchids for market, seemed very far away. As if she would ever have the kind of money that took.

  Why bother? She thought, her heart heavy. It would all come back to this in a few months. What else could he destroy but her own self? Reaching deep down to a place inside her that would never stop running, she set her jaw and continued to sift through the debris.

  A shadow filled the space where the shattered door no longer fit in the frame. Crissy started and froze, terrified her fears had become a reality. Had Sean had come to finish her off? She recognized the sheriff’s badge and relaxed, even if only a little. The landlord or a neighbor must have called him. She certainly hadn’t. With a restrained sigh, she set aside the stock pot she’d used to collect survivors and rose to face him. His uniform consisted of jeans and a flannel shirt. That was Montana for you.

  “You all right, ma’am?”

  “Um...” Her voice quivered. She straightened her spine, cleared her throat, and began again. “Shook up, maybe, but I wasn’t here when this happened.”

  “I’m Sheriff Espinoza.”

  “Christine Rourke.” She would lie, keep up the fiction. She wouldn’t be here much longer, anyway. Still, she didn’t like lying to the police. Her hands trembled, which made it easier to pretend shocked confusion.

  He surveyed the walls with their stark graffiti and let out a low whistle. “Traitor. That sounds personal. Any idea who did this?”

  She swallowed and faked a sigh. “No. None at all.”

  Skepticism rode in his raised brows and twisted lips. “No one’s made threats against you?”

  “No. I don’t understand. Do you think whoever did this mistook me for someone else?”

  Sheriff Espinoza stared at her for several long seconds, dark eyes hardening. “Perhaps. Stranger things have happened.”

  He questioned her further, and she told the truth, riding the razor-edged lie of omission. By the time he stepped out to his truck to radio a deputy to come and process the crime scene, she had a pounding headache. Rubbing her palms over her temples, Crissy gathered her thoughts and scanned the room for the things she could take with her. She couldn’t afford to replace her twin mattress or the urine-soaked clothing, but she would have to anyway. Her favorite red spaghetti-strap dress lay crumpled atop the pile. Longing to keep it, she reached out to pick it up, but her stomach turned at the idea of wearing it, no matter how many washings.

  “Mind coming to the station to make a statement?”

  She jumped at the sound of the sheriff’s voice. “No. Not at all.”

  “I have another call. Could you meet me there in about an hour?”

  “Of course.”

  “The crime scene tech will be here in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Good. Should I not touch anything?”
r />   “That would be a good idea.”

  She let out a relieved sigh when the sound of the sheriff’s truck faded down the street. Fifteen minutes. With so little left, she’d be gone in five.

  It took ten because she realized that while her mattress was ruined, the bed frame could be disassembled and taken with her. Her spirits rose when she discovered the survival of the cheap card table she used for eating and studying. Her laptop had been in the truck with her. She urgently plucked scratched photographs from broken frames and transferred her sturdy thrift store pots and pans to the bed of her little red truck. She had no time to scrounge for moving boxes. Then came Nana’s box.

  There was one last thing, and he came slinking through the doorway.

  “Milton!” She picked up the gray tabby and buried her face in his soft fur, a cool flood of relief washing over her. “Come. Into the truck.” His carrier was still on the front seat after a recent trip to the vet. Being lazy paid off this time. Without it, he had a bad habit of curling up under her feet while she drove.

  She scanned the small room, Milton in her arms. Never before had Sean caused this much destruction. She sensed the end of the game drawing near. One more town, one more ID, were probably all she had left. She shivered in the crisp fall air streaming through the broken windows and door, and abandoned Christine Rourke for good.

  As her sleazy apartment building receded in the rear-view mirror, her head echoed with Sean’s voice from ten years ago. When I get out, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.

  How long would she have to run? Not long, probably. Crissy would have to reconcile herself to the fact that she would soon die.

  ###

  Luke Baumann placed his bear paw next to the print in the mud beside Boundary Line Creek. If the wet-dog smell of bear mixed with human aftershave hadn’t already told him, the sheer size of the print indicated Bernie Schmitt had invaded Baumann territory again. Even in bear form, he managed to grind his teeth, then raised his head and growled in frustrated anger. A deep returning growl came from the dark shadows of the forest across the creek. Bernie was there, watching.

  Luke shifted to stand naked at the edge of the gushing water, the autumn wind sharp and cold against his skin. The beast lent him some warmth to make it tolerable.

  “Bernie!”

  Underbrush rustled, branches crackled, and an enormous Eurasian brown bear stepped out from beneath a pine on the far side of the creek. With fur so dark it was nearly black, and a full seven hundred and fifty pounds, Bernie made for no ordinary bear. The man he shifted into could make no such claim. Tall and slender, he looked like an academic or the craftsman he was. Nothing about him indicated the beast he could transform into or the level of crazy housed in his sandy blond head.

  Bernie shifted in a blurry flash of white light and rose from a crouch. “What are you going to do, Baumann? Come over here and fight me?”

  Luke bit back a snide reply. “We don’t ignore the boundary, Bernie. It’s there for a reason. To keep unfortunate things from happening.”

  “Like you killing my mate?”

  “Or you killing mine.”

  “It’s different.”

  Luke stiffened. Yeah, it was different. Bernie’s mate, Magritte, had died during a legitimate raid when she’d come at Luke and his nephew with an axe. What Bernie had done was murder, attacking a human woman who was only defending her home. The raw pain of the memory had been muted by time, a distant echo of the anguish he’d known for years after finding his mate’s bloody body lying in the snow. Bernie had insisted again and again that he hadn’t intended to kill Eva. After five hundred and sixty-one years, Luke still refused to believe it. The hatred between their clans ran too strong to even entertain notions of forgiveness.

  He forced his thoughts back to the present. “Are we really doing this again?” He inhaled deeply to keep his temper. There was no reasoning with him. “Stay on your side of the creek.”

  “Your boundary magic has grown weak.”

  “And you have none at all. Remember that.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Of course it was a threat. “No, just a reminder.”

  Luke shifted and deliberately turned his back on him. He followed his prints through the underbrush as they forged deeper and deeper into his territory, his anger intensifying with each step, a jagged thing full of years of hatred and resentment. Bernie was wise to remain on his side of the creek this time. Luke’s shifter aggression surged higher with each tuft of fur he found clinging to pine trees where Bernie had marked the territory as his own. Five of them. If he weren’t already in bear form, he might have shifted involuntarily. People considered Luke unusually gentle for a shifter, but Bernie could try the patience of even the mildest man.

  For a mile the other bear’s prints invaded Baumann land before turning back. Luke would have to tell his nephew Neal, the chief of Clan Baumann, and Neal would have to call the Schmitts’ chief. Luke would try to find some necessary repairs in the barn while that happened.

  His bear grunted unhappily, wanting to go home and sleep but, sensing Luke’s need to guard his territory, made no more protest as he returned to further inspect the boundary magic. Though he couldn’t see them, his shifter magic made him sensitive to thin spots in the shimmering veil up and down the creek, so many he lost count. At least fifty years had passed since their witch had left for San Francisco. The clan needed a new witch very soon.

  After several more hours, Luke circled back to his truck, shifted to human, and quickly dressed in jeans, a red flannel shirt, and worn work boots. He called Neal while he drove the thirty miles to their apple farm. Light streamed from the doorway of their big white farmhouse when he arrived. Some of the windows were lit, casting shadows among the bushes in the yard, and his tension eased at the familiar signs of home.

  Neal stood silhouetted in the doorway. “How bad is it? What did you find?” Neal asked before he even shut the door.

  “Nothing too serious, just Bernie being an ass again.”

  Neal rubbed his hand across his face, then scratched at his early morning whiskers. “Remind me why we didn’t kill him.”

  Luke knew this was a rhetorical question, but he played along. “Because he outweighs me by a hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “Arrow in the chest, gunshot, poison...”

  “You know those things won’t kill a shifter.”

  Neal led him into his messy office and plopped into his big leather chair. Luke settled opposite him, the guest chair creaking under his weight. He stretched his long legs in front of him and hoped this would be over quickly.

  “We’re not killers, Neal. And we’ve put the days of raids and feuds behind us.”

  “Bernie hasn’t. More importantly, his brother hasn’t.”

  Luke’s jaw tightened, the tension returning at the mention of Franz. As much as Luke wanted to blame Bernie for following Clan Baumann through their many migrations, it had always been their clan chief—Franz Schmitt—who had dragged the entire Schmitt clan behind them, never allowing the Baumanns a safe haven for long.

  Neal reached for the phone, giving Luke a stern glance. “Don’t leave. I’m putting this on the speaker.”

  Luke pursed his lips in annoyance but obeyed.

  Franz’s wife, Ursula, answered, her voice thick with sleep. “Schmitt residence.”

  “Hello, Ursula. This is Neal Baumann. Please get your husband for me.”

  She sighed. “What’s he done?”

  “It wasn’t Franz. It was Bernie.”

  “That’s who I meant. One moment.”

  As fraternal twins, Franz and Bernie were as different as two brothers could be. Luke instantly recognized Franz’s deep, cultured voice when he said, “Hello, Neal.” While Bernie was a constant, petty irritant, something about Franz put Luke on edge, a nagging wariness that gave him the urge to lock the front door and bar the windows.

  “Franz,” Neal said.

  “What’s he done?”<
br />
  Luke snorted. “I found his prints and scent a mile into our territory this morning, and he’s marking trees.”

  “You know how he is. He’s baiting you.”

  “He had no idea I’d be there, Franz.”

  Franz paused, then said, “He’s growing restless.”

  “I need you to keep him under control,” Neal said.

  “I do. Why do you think I live out here in the hinterland rather than in some nice, comfortable city?”

  Luke almost snorted. The Schmitts lived out in the hinterland because the Baumanns did.

  Neal leaned forward, resting his forearms on a stack of bills, and said directly into the speaker on the phone, “Franz, don’t let it become necessary for us to take matters into our own hands.”

  “I have a great deal of respect for you, Neal, but I won’t tolerate any incursions. You go after my brother, the treaty is void.”

  “I won’t trespass, but if we find him on our side, he will be dealt with. This has gone on too long.”

  Franz’s tone changed, his voice deepening. “He’s my brother.”

  “Then find him a woman. He’s always better with a partner.”

  “He needs to find another mate.”

  Luke grimaced. The subject was a sore spot for everyone in the conversation. “So do I,” he said tersely, “but you don’t see me harassing Bernie for centuries.”

  “I’ll talk to him. Remember what I said, though. If I catch you on my land, there will be repercussions. If Bernie catches you...I can’t guarantee he’ll be rational.”

  He’s not rational under any circumstances, Luke thought, grimly pressing his lips together. It rankled that, even in bear form, Luke was no match for Bernie. In the one raid, centuries ago, when Luke had challenged Bernie, he’d only survived by running away.

  “Nothing on your land is of any interest to us, Franz,” Neal said.

  “Good. Keep it that way. As always, a pleasure talking to you.” Franz hung up with a sharp click.

  Neal punched a button on the phone and leaned back, folding his arms. “What were you doing out there, anyway?”