Runaway (Fox Ridge Shifters Book 1)

by Marianne Hull

  Thoughts of Crissy naked in his bed distracted him. He refocused. The baby was due in two weeks, but at this rate the kid would be driving before the cradle was finished. When he almost ruined an entire piece with a sloppy cut of the chisel, he dropped his tool and went to the house to program Crissy’s number into his bedside phone. He’d already done the cell. And memorized it. He also wrote it down on a pad he kept on his nightstand. Just in case.

  At twenty minutes past midnight, he figured Crissy had made it home. He dialed her number.

  “Hello,” she answered warily.

  “It’s me. Um, Luke.” He closed his eyes. This is what being a teenager felt like in the modern age.

  “Hi, Luke.” At least her voice lifted.

  “I wanted to make sure the number worked, and I figured you wouldn’t be asleep yet.”

  “Riiight.”

  “Really.”

  “Well, I’m glad you called.”

  “Really?” He couldn’t help smiling.

  “Yeah. I’ve missed our conversations over the last few days.”

  “Really?” Okay, now I sound like a dolt, as Hugh would say. He had a sudden thought. “What are you doing Thursday?”

  “I work on Thursdays, at both the nursery and the bar.”

  “It’s Thanksgiving. Would you like to come over?”

  There was a pause. “I suppose.”

  “A few of us—me, Neal, Hugh, and Connie—have a feast and then play poker until we drop. Do you play poker?”

  “I do.”

  “We have lots of spare rooms. You could sleep over...in a spare room, of course.” He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut in horror at his own awkwardness.

  Laughter filled her voice when she said, “Okay. That sounds like fun.” She yawned. “I’m sorry. I’m pretty tired tonight. Sunday football crowd.”

  “I’ll let you go, then.”

  “Um, will you be there Wednesday night?” She sounded tentative.

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” He smiled.

  “Promise?”

  “You want me to promise?”

  “I sound like a little kid, don’t I?”

  “Liebchen, you sound perfect.”

  “Maybe...” Her voice trailed off.

  The optimistic part of his heart leapt. “Yes?”

  “I don’t work at all tomorrow. Maybe we could have dinner?”

  His heart didn’t leap, it soared. “I’ll take you someplace nice. In Redding.”

  “Would I have to wear a dress?” she asked with humor.

  “I would have to wear a suit jacket. Fair’s fair.”

  “All right. Pick me up at six?”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  She yawned again. “Sorry. Good night, Luke.”

  “Gute Nacht.”

  He put down the phone and collapsed back on the bed, hands behind his head, and smiled up at the ceiling. She was his. Definitely.

  ###

  Crissy’s royal blue dress had a tight-fitting, sleeveless bodice, and a flared skirt, which came to well above the knee. A lucky thrift store find that fit her perfectly. She had pumps and a shawl to match. She’d be freezing, but it would be worth it to see Luke’s expression when he arrived.

  Crissy spent twenty minutes trying to get her long hair into the right upswept style and finally brushed it out and let it fall down her back in shiny dark waves. A knock sounded at her door. She inspected her makeup one more time in the specked bathroom mirror and went to let him in.

  Luke’s reaction was everything she hoped for. He blinked, opened his mouth, closed it, and cleared his throat. “You look lovely tonight, Crissy.”

  “You look very fine yourself.” He’d worn a dark blue suit, complete with a darker blue tie. It made his baby blues pop. She gathered up her shawl and purse and let him usher her out to his truck. He helped her up into the high cab and shut the door for her. Crissy couldn’t remember a single date where the guy treated her so.

  “Music?” he asked as he started the engine. A country station came on with the truck. His hand hovered over the knob. “If you don’t like it, we can listen to something else.”

  “I’d rather talk,” she said.

  He snapped off the radio and put the truck in gear.

  Smiling, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We talk a lot at the bar, but there are interruptions all the time.”

  He blatantly stared at her legs. She was about to say something coy, but he said, “I should turn on the heat.”

  As he navigated the country highway, they talked the entire thirty minutes to the restaurant in the warm, dark cocoon of the truck cab. She was almost sorry when they arrived.

  He’d chosen Italian, an old-fashioned place complete with checkered tablecloths and candles in red glass globes.

  “I love Italian,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  She ordered penne, and he chose osso buco. “That looks very rich,” she said when their meals arrived.

  “I eat like a bear.”

  “Do you?” She raised her brows. “I wonder why.”

  “And you eat like a bird. Is there any meat in that dish?”

  “I eat very little for a while, and then have a huge meal of something I really like.” She forked up a bite of her pasta. “Like Chicago pizza. I can eat four slices.”

  “Four? Wow.” He cut some of his meat. She decided he had good manners but without fuss. “Tell me about Chicago.”

  “Well, they have the world’s best pizza, for one.”

  They spent most of the meal talking about the places they had lived. The clan had moved several times over the centuries—France, England, the Mid-West during frontier days. He seemed hesitant to talk details in a public place. Once they left the restaurant to return home, he entertained her with stories about life in the past.

  “Merry Olde England wasn’t so merry,” Luke said.

  “Why not?”

  “They didn’t have the Purges there, but the British were almost as bad as the Catholics. Shifters were tortured for fun in public, allowed to heal, and then tortured again. Though it got better by the nineteenth century, no one argued when Neal suggested we immigrate to America.”

  “Did that ever happen to you?” Crissy asked, but quickly said, “No, don’t tell me right now. I don’t want to imagine it. We’re having such a nice night.”

  “Okay, Liebchen. What else?”

  “How did shifters come to be? Did they evolve?”

  “Nope. We were created by the gods.”

  She turned down the heater. The cab had grown quite warm. “Which gods?”

  “No one remembers anymore, but they were a Germanic pantheon. Hunters.”

  “Hunters? So they...they created you to hunt?”

  “Nope. To be hunted. They were forbidden by Fate to hunt humans, but they wanted smart prey, so they made a hybrid.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Ja.”

  “How are you immortal?”

  “The gods were lazy. They got tired of using up their magic to make new shifters every time we died, so they made us immortal.”

  He signaled at the turn to Fox Ridge. Their evening was almost up, and Crissy didn’t want it to end.

  “Funny thing,” Luke continued. “When shifters first bred with humans, the children were the first witches.” He shot a grin in her direction. “You have a shifter in your genes.”

  “I thought it was witches.”

  “Maybe on both sides, for you to be so strong.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know about that.”

  Luke chuckled.

  “Seriously. Wouldn’t I have been levitating my teddy bears and cracking window glass or something when I was a baby if I was that powerful?”

  “Nope. That’s all BS. You have to be trained. That’s all.”

  Crissy said no more for the rest of the ride. They arrived at her apartment, and Luke escorted her to her door, even though it was only ten feet
. They stood there in the dark until Crissy shivered.

  “I should let you get in.”

  Impulsively, she stepped forward to put her arms around his middle, laid her head against his shoulder, and closed her eyes. For a second she had the panicked thought, What am I doing? But he felt so good. Big, warm, and strong, and oh so gentle. For a few minutes, she wanted something for herself even if would soon turn into a bittersweet memory. She willed those thoughts away and squeezed him tighter.

  He didn’t move at first. She wondered if she made a mistake; then his arms were around her, his face against her hair.

  “Liebchen,” he said on an exhale.

  Crissy leaned back. When he lifted his head she placed her palm on his cheek and took a good long look.

  “What?” he said.

  “You’re going to kiss me now, and I want to remember every detail of this moment.”

  ###

  Luke bit his lip. He had imagined the passion he was sure would come, but not this tenderness. His joy could not be contained as he lowered his head, and he laughed a little when he pressed his lips against hers. It was as if he were still a boy and it was his first time. This is what lips taste like. Mint and Crissy. He threaded his fingers into her hair. So that’s what it feels like. Heavy silk. She opened her mouth to his, and when their tongues touched, he stopped thinking. He floated, every part of him light as air.

  Their kisses were a gentle exploration to the music of soft sighs and a hum in Crissy’s throat. Luke felt his desire grow, and at the same moment he wondered where this was going, Crissy pulled away.

  “You know what will happen if we keep this up,” she said.

  “I know.” And he so wanted to go there.

  The rain clouds lowered over her face, sadness sifting through her emotions. “I can’t,” she said.

  “Not tonight but some night?” he asked with a half-grin.

  She shook her head and smiled. “You are a natural optimist, aren’t you?”

  “Ja.”

  She squeezed him again. “Oh, Luke, I shouldn’t. Really shouldn’t.”

  He didn’t think that, this time, his mate didn’t want him. Somewhere packed in all her baggage was a reason. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She frowned and pulled away entirely. “Not tonight. That’s not a subject for tonight.”

  He reached up and placed a palm against her cheek, her skin soft and smooth. The pain in her eyes became his pain, a heavy sorrow that swamped the joy of the moments before. He relented. “I’ll see you Wednesday?”

  “Of course. I’ll be in my usual place behind the bar.”

  “And you’ll kiss me again?” he asked, trying to get back some happiness.

  She laughed. “Good night.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  After Crissy’s shift at the bar on Wednesday night, Luke walked her to her apartment. They kissed at her door, but once again Crissy didn’t invite him inside. Displaying his typical gentle patience, Luke didn’t push her. When Milton came to her side with a mouse in his jaws, she used the excuse to pull away and send Luke home. Once inside, she’d given a big sigh and resolutely shoved any doubts and worries out of her mind. When she left him, as she undoubtedly must, it would be both wrenching and cruel to both of them. It was wrong, so very wrong, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was falling head-first into something she refused to call love with Luke.

  ###

  The shifters’ farmhouse was a huge thing of white clapboard and windows with real shutters painted indigo blue. A deep porch crossed the entire front of the house and continued along one side to the back. Except for a large pasture she glimpsed behind the house, apple orchards surrounded it on three sides, their branches now bare.

  Crissy parked her truck on the gravel drive. With a touch of nerves, she checked her clothing. She’d worn jeans and a long-sleeved white satin blouse, another thrift store find. After she crossed the scruffy lawn to climb the front steps, the bright red door opened before she could knock. Luke’s smile lit an otherwise gray, dreary day.

  “Come in, Liebling.”

  “Not your darling,” she said as she crossed the threshold.

  “No, no. Of course not.”

  It had become a game between them, and although it no longer applied, she humored him while he humored her.

  He took her bag and led her into the enormous front room. It had an atmosphere of having been decorated by three bachelors—comfortable, functional, but without a lot of frou-frou. Gray area rug, white walls with paintings and photographs scattered haphazardly, and lots of comfy recliners in neutral colors. The wooden furniture contrasted sharply with everything else. Lustrous finishes shone on a matched set of coffee and end tables. A massive hutch, carved with flowers and vines, held pride of place against one wall. Stacked on it she recognized the rainbow colors of a set of Fiestaware.

  One thing didn’t fit. “That sofa,” she said. Big pink and lavender flowers covered the sofa. Lumps popped out on every cushion. “It looks like you need a new one.”

  “Connie picked it out a long time ago when they were stylish.”

  “Who’s Connie?”

  “Come. She lives here.” He grabbed her hand to lead her into the next room, probably without thinking. A frisson traveled up her arm, straight to her head and then to points farther south, and she was very aware of the few square inches where her skin touched his, the warmth of his hand and its pattern of callouses.

  Perhaps she hesitated too long, for he faltered. In response, she squeezed his hand and said, “Lead on, MacDuff.”

  He turned, eyes still on her. “Connie!” he called out when he shoved open the swinging door at the entrance to the kitchen.

  A small woman with green eyes and a dark blond ponytail high on the back of her head, Connie was rather beautiful in an exotic way. She had a wide mouth with sensuous lips and a slight bump on her nose. Crissy wondered what her heritage might be. Hovering over her was a cat that looked a lot like Milton.

  Connie wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and then held out her right. “Ciao,” she said brightly.

  “Italian?” Crissy guessed.

  “Sicilian,” she said. “But I look as if I don’t belong anywhere at all.”

  Neal walked up and put his arm around her shoulders. “You belong right here with us.”

  Connie playfully punched him in the stomach. “Baste that turkey or it’ll be so dry we’ll all choke on it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a salute and turned toward the oven.

  Like everything in the farmhouse, the kitchen was big and brightly lit. The opposite end of the room held a heavy table that could seat at least ten. Carved vines and flowers also decorated this piece of furniture, as well as the matching chairs.

  Neal opened the top of the double oven and stuck a baster inside.

  “What can I do to help?” Crissy asked.

  “Keep Luke out of our way,” Hugh said, coming in from the door to the back porch with a big load of firewood in his arms. “He keeps trying to prove he can cook and ends up proving he can’t over and over again.” He backed through the swinging door and disappeared into the front room.

  Connie, on tip-toes to peak over Neal’s shoulder at the turkey, said, “At his age, you’d think he would have learned by now.”

  “I’ll give you a tour,” he suggested. He grabbed her hand. Same frisson, same awareness. She squeezed his back. Luke was like a teenager with his first crush, all excitement and nerves.

  He led her through the front room and down a hallway. “The offices are down here. We have a headquarters closer to the main road where we manage the apple and honey businesses. Employees do most of that.”

  “So what are these offices for?”

  He opened a door to reveal a wooden desk and tan file cabinets covered in stacks of papers. “Neal’s office. He manages the clan from here.”

  “He’s...not very tidy.”

  Luke snorted. “Actually, in some p
laces he’s a neat freak, but he doesn’t like doing paperwork.” He led her to the next doorway. “Now here’s the real neat freak. Hugh’s office.”

  Genealogical charts in many shades of ink covered all four walls. “He’s into genealogy?”

  “Yes. For shifter clans. He tracks membership.”

  “Why?”

  He reached up and ran a finger along the roster for the Schmitt clan. “It’s good to know who your enemies are.”

  She nodded. “I’ve been doing some research.”

  His eyes widened in alarm. “And what did you find?”

  “Actually, there’s not much real information out there. Myths and rumors, mostly. Seems shifters are known for their clan warfare.”

  He drew her from the office. “Does that bother you?” He sounded nonchalant, but she wasn’t fooled.

  “It seems to be in the past.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  She wondered if that was true. The subject obviously made him uncomfortable.

  He pushed open the next door. “My place.”

  Like everything about both him and the farmhouse, it was simple. Honest. Neither clean nor untidy, with its plain wooden desk, leather desk chair, and single tan filing cabinet, it was the office of a regular man. She liked its simplicity. Very much. Luke was uncomplicated.

  Crissy stepped into the room and picked up a life-like carved bear from the desk. “You?”

  “Yes.”

  There were four carvings in a row. The bear, a gorilla, a beautiful horse caught mid-stride, and a cat cleaning its face. “These are exquisite. How did you manage to find carvings for all your beasts? They look like they were made by the same person.”

  “They were.” She glanced up and saw his blush. “I made them. Do you want to see my workshop?” Again, the boyish excitement. His eyes lit up. Something bloomed in her chest. A combination of vulnerable emotions and hormones got the better of her. She reached up to place her arms around his neck and pull his face toward hers.

  A dam broke inside of her, releasing a flood of red-hot need. Before she knew what she was doing, her hands splayed across his broad back. Nothing could stop her now.