by Zoe Chant
She didn’t sound happy about it. Her hands were twisting together; no, Arlo saw as he looked closer, she was rubbing her ring finger. Her empty ring finger.
He’d thought he was an arrogant dick. Now he knew he was an asshole. Only an asshole would be as relieved as he was by something that clearly made her miserable.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was rougher than he’d intended, and he braced himself for her to flinch away, like people usually did when he started growling. It was all he deserved, after all. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, don’t be.” She didn’t even seem to have noticed the roughness in his voice. She tucked her hands into the too-long sleeves of her sweater. “It’s a sensible question. If there was anyone waiting up at home for me, I’m sure they’d be glad to know I wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Her voice grated and Arlo was walking towards her before he could stop himself. He just managed to veer off at the last second and stand beside her, staring across the dark water towards the coastline, instead of wrapping his arms around her.
Jacqueline sighed and stopped rubbing her ring finger. “Not that it’s really home anymore, anyway.” She stared out over the water, her eyes squinting as though she was staring into the sun.
Before Arlo could say anything, she shook her head. “God, listen to me rabbiting on. You’d think I’d be happy to meet someone who doesn’t already know everything about my life.”
She glanced at Arlo nervously. He hoped his expression was reassuring. He wasn’t a good judge of what other people thought of his face, for the most part.
“That must be one thing small towns all have in common, shifter or human,” he said.
“Hah!” Jacqueline looked as though she was smiling despite herself. “We don’t have telepathy, though. God. I can’t even imagine how much worse that would be. Or maybe it would be better, maybe I would have—”
She took a deep breath and ran one hand over her eyes in a gesture that Arlo suspected was meant to look like she was pushing her hair off her forehead, not buying time as she got her feelings under control. “Forget it. I was meant to be somewhere else tonight, celebrating a, a fresh start. That’s going to have to wait until the kids are safe.”
Arlo’s wolf whuffled its approval. Of course she was going to stay with the kids. And with him.
Arlo frowned. We don’t know that. We can’t just assume everything’s going to be all right. Not with—he sighed. Not with me involved.
“You can always celebrate in Hideaway Cove,” he suggested.
She actually smiled. Which he didn’t understand, but hell, it was a win anyway.
“You know, that sounds even better than my original plan,” she said. “What do you recommend?”
Dinner. With me. Here on the boat, under the stars, with all the time in the world to get to know each other.
Arlo swallowed. “There’s a good restaurant in town—Caro’s Hook and Sinker. Best chowder you’ll ever eat.”
“Celebrating a fresh start in Hideaway Cove. The town where people can turn into animals.” Her voice echoed with wonder. “You’re right, that does sound better than the Spring Fling, and being pawed at by the same guys who’ve been trying it on since I got single. Why did I ever think having a fresh start in my home town was a good idea?”
Longing flooded Arlo’s veins, along with a protective anger at these men who’d bothered her. He should have said he would take her to Caro’s. Invited her.
Or would she think he was as irritating as those men in her home town?
Jacqueline’s eyes slid towards his and her cheeks went slightly pink. “I just want to be clear, what happened before, it’s nothing to do with—well, what you can do. The wolf thing. Or the kids, of course.”
Her cheeks went even more pink and she looked down at her hands.
“This is the first time you’ve ever met shifters.” Arlo said. “You’re taking it well.”
“Have I ever met people who can turn into animals before? I think I’d remember that.” Jacqueline shook her head. “But it’s… I don’t know. I feel like I should be more surprised than I am, but I’m not, and anyway the important thing here is making sure the kids are safe. So I’m not complaining. In fact…”
Her cheeks darkened again and she made a small strangled sound. Arlo jerked towards her, and just stopped himself from placing his hand over hers. “What?”
Jacqueline was still shaking her head. “I just figured out why I’m so fine with it all,” she explained, laughing ruefully. “It’s because you’re all from Hideaway Cove.”
Arlo sat back. “Hang on.” He couldn’t help the alarm bells going off in his head. “How so?”
“Don’t worry.” Jacqueline raised her hands. “No one in Dunston has a clue about shifters. Your secret’s safe.” She pushed a stray curl off her forehead and leaned against the railing again. “Hideaway Cove is our closest neighbor but no one really knows anyone from there. Which makes sense, since you’re trying to keep yourselves secret. But it also means you’re sort of like the creepy empty house at the end of the street that everyone says is haunted.”
Arlo laughed. “Ghost stories?” I’ll have to tell Harrison. He’ll be thrilled.
Jacqueline grimaced. “More like you’re the boogeyman to blame for everything that goes wrong. Silly stuff, like—oh, you know. The mail’s late, must be Hideaway’s fault! The wind’s coming from Hideaway way, watch out for electrics playing up!”
“Wait.” If he’d just heard what he thought—that was even better than ghost stories. “Electrics?” Arlo asked carefully.
“Oh, like… after this last storm. It came up the coast from Hideaway, and ever since then phone lines have been getting crossed, the mayor’s electric car keeps doing wheelies down main street by itself…” Jacqueline trailed off. “What? You look like the cat who got the cream. I’m missing something. And—” Her expression changed, back to that almost-panicked wariness when she’d said she didn’t belong here. With him. Arlo’s chest tightened. “It’s okay if it’s a shifter thing, you don’t have to tell me.”
The more secrets you keep, the longer she’ll feel like you’re pushing her away. Arlo’s stomach twisted. Is this what Harrison had felt, when he met Lainie?
“It is,” he said out loud, “but mostly it’s a work thing.”
“Now I’m even more confused.”
“I’ve been having a long argument with a friend of mine about… certain things. I’d like to be there when you tell him that story about the electric car doing wheelies.”
Jacqueline raised her eyebrows. “He’s going to lose a bet?”
“I’m going to win the I-told-you-so of the century.” Arlo grinned.
“And…” Jacqueline licked her lips and Arlo’s eyes tracked the movement. He met her gaze again to see it bright with curiosity and… excitement? Anticipation?
Damn it, he wasn’t good enough at this. Telling people’s feelings just from what they looked like. It was easy with the kids, but Jacqueline? She was a closed book.
He took a deep breath, but Jacqueline got in first.
“You’re going to introduce me to this friend of yours?”
She still had that look in her eye. Arlo cleared his throat.
Please let this be the right answer. “Yes? There won’t be any avoiding it, sorry. Hideaway Cove’s pretty small. As soon as we dock, it’ll be all questions.”
Jacqueline was quiet for a moment. Her eyes searched his. Whatever she found there seemed to reassure her.
“Then maybe I’m meant to be here, after all,” she said quietly.
Arlo’s hand was less than six inches away from Jacqueline’s. A shiver of wolfish anticipation went through him and he tightened his grip on the railing. Like he’d told her only a few minutes before, his wolf didn’t understand human worries.
“I think you’re exactly where you need to be,” he murmured, his voice as gentle as he could manage. He wanted
to say more, but his wolf was too bristling-high inside him, every nerve on edge, for him to make human words.
He stared pleadingly at Jacqueline and slowly, like the sun rising over still waters, her face lit up. Her smile was tentative, only half-believing, and God, he needed to say something, anything, to push that smile from a half-believing sunrise to full midday heat.
“Would you,” he began, and stopped to clear his throat. “Would you like…”
9
Jacqueline
Jacqueline didn’t breathe as she waited for Arlo to finish the sentence. Even her heart seemed to have stopped, as though her body didn’t want to risk the thud of her pulse in her ears blocking out whatever he was about to say.
“…Dinner,” he said eventually, and Jacqueline would have been disappointed if it wasn’t for the sudden flash of regret in his eyes.
He hadn’t meant to say dinner. At least, she thought not. Hoped not. God, she was practically dizzy. She wasn’t even making sense inside her own head.
But—he said she was meant to be here. And that she was going to meet other people from Hideaway Cove. Those didn’t sound like the words of someone who was going to tip her overboard the moment they were close enough to shore. They sounded like someone who wanted to spend time with her.
Oh lord, she thought, and swallowed down a sudden bubble of giggles.
He was still looking at her, an expression of mild panic in his eyes. Something inside her melted.
“Dinner?” she said, and leaned the tiniest bit closer to him.
“The kids cleaned me out of fresh food, but…” Arlo shrugged tightly.
Was he nervous? How did a man who looked like that get nervous? Oh God. She should be nervous, but instead, she was edging closer to him, like he was some sort of giant mouse and she was a hungry cat.
“Cornbread isn’t hard to throw together, and there’s… tins of, uh… it’s bachelor rations, but better than nothing. Since Tally ate most of your meal earlier.”
Dinner. A shiver of anticipation went down Jacqueline’s spine. She might be reading this whole thing wrong but until she had proof either way, couldn’t she just enjoy pretending?
And if she wasn’t reading Arlo wrong…
The shiver of anticipation turned into electric delight.
Jacqueline took a deep breath. “Dinner sounds lovely,” she said.
“Right.” Arlo’s lips hooked into a bashful smile. “Good.”
Jacqueline couldn’t help smiling back.
Arlo crept below decks and returned with a box from the pantry. Jacqueline joined him next to the cooker.
“Can I help?”
“Sure. Could you oil the pan? It’ll need a few minutes to warm up.”
Jacqueline sat down beside Arlo and took the frying pan he handed her. They worked together in silence for a few minutes, Jacqueline lighting the cooker and Arlo mixing ingredients. By the time the pan was hot enough and the mix was ready, Jacqueline’s mouth was watering.
Her stomach gurgled as Arlo tipped the dough in to cook. “Sorry. I’m starving, and that already smells delicious.”
“Wait until you try it before you make any judgements. I’m only used to cooking for myself.” Arlo fixed the lid on the skillet.
“The fish earlier was amazing. The bite of it I had, at least.”
“You have to be a worse cook than me to ruin fresh fish and bread someone else baked,” Arlo demurred. “This could burn, or not cook through, or…” He waved his hand as though encompassing a world of terrible cooking disasters.
“I see a fresh stick of butter in here,” Jacqueline announced, digging in the box. “That’s enough to fix anything, in my books.” Her stomach growled again and Arlo gave her an apologetic look.
“I should have noticed Tally was staking a claim on your plate.”
“I didn’t want to stop her. God knows when those kids last had a hot meal.”
“They won’t have to worry about that anymore.” There was a strange growly undertone to Arlo’s voice. It wasn’t threatening, though. If anything, it reminded Jacqueline of watching him curl around the kids downstairs. Warm and protective.
“It’s amazing they’ve made it this far. Impressive, I should say. But I bet they’re more than ready to stop being tough adventurers and just be kids again.” Jacqueline’s heart fluttered. “They’re lucky you were nearby.”
“They’re lucky you were.”
Jacqueline snorted. “What, so I could almost get myself drowned in front of them? Add some trauma to everything they’ve been through?”
“I would never have let that happen.”
Jacqueline swallowed. The protective growl in Arlo’s voice was so deep it rumbled in her bones, somehow grounding her and making her feel like she was flying all at once.
She met his eyes and let herself sink into them.
“I guess I’m lucky too, then,” she breathed.
Arlo’s gaze was warm and intense. The way he was looking at her, hopeful and bashful, pupils so dark they made the night seem bright… No one had looked at her like that in years. If ever.
“I’m the lucky one,” he murmured.
He turned back to the pan. Jacqueline tucked her hands into her sleeves, even though she wasn’t feeling the cold anymore. Her damp hair was catching the breeze, but the warmth bubbling inside her swept away all the night’s chill.
Maybe she would get her spring fling, after all.
10
Arlo
They will be safe here. Won’t they?
Doubt had started prickling at the back of his neck when Jacqueline went to bed the night before and now, even the blazing mid-morning sun wasn’t enough to burn it away.
There was no reason the three shifter children wouldn’t be safe in Hideaway. The small town was a sanctuary for all shifters. They’d even taken Arlo in after he turned up in town, all snarled coat and teenaged surliness. Arlo wasn’t sure even his closest friends, Harrison and Pol, knew how much the Sweets meant to him. Neither of their shifters were pack animals. Well, sure, maybe the Sweets weren’t either—he didn’t know how gators lived in the wild—but Ma and Pa Sweets had been better parents to him than his own pack had been after his mother’s death, and now, assuming this Eric didn’t show, they’d do the same for—
He shivered. Why does that feel so wrong?
“Cannonball!”
Dylan whooped and raced along the deck.
*Don’t—* Arlo shouted, but it was too late. Dylan leaped off the side of the boat and landed in the water with a splash, his laughter echoing in Arlo’s mind. Tally, who was sitting beside Arlo and “helping” him steer the rudder, chortled. *We’re not anchored anymore. Don’t make me turn this boat around!*
“He’s okay!” Jacqueline called over from the bows. “Gosh, they’re fast in the water, aren’t they?”
There was a clatter as Dylan launched himself at the boat, shifted back into human shape midair, and scrambled aboard. “That was fun!” he gasped. “I’m going to do it again!”
His excitement fluttered against Arlo’s mind and Arlo laughed despite himself. There was no point trying to reason the kid into behaving, that was for sure. After what the three of them had been through during the storm, this was probably the first chance Dylan had had to cut loose in ages.
Arlo decided to take a different tack.
“Don’t you want to see Hideaway Cove when we come around the bluff?” he asked.
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up. “Are we almost there?”
“You tell me. Can you sense we’re close to other people like you?” The older shifters in Hideaway Cove kept their telepathic presences hidden, but the kids wouldn’t be so careful, especially on a sunny weekend morning. The waves would be singing with excitement.
Dylan scrunched up his face. “Umm…”
*Reach out like you’re trying to talk to someone who’s too far away for you to see,* Arlo advised him.
*Reach out? What do you mean? We’re
just talking.*
Arlo laughed. *And that’s why every other shifter around can hear you when you do. Don’t think about it like you’re just plain talking. Go look for someone to tap on the shoulder and whisper in their ear.*
*Okay…* Dylan screwed up his face until his eyes almost disappeared. *Um…*
His telepathic voice faded out. He gasped.
*You got it?*
Dylan’s eyes were shining. “There’s heaps of people there!”
“Maybe a few hundred.” Arlo leaned back and grinned, not hiding how pleased he was.
“A few hundred?” Kenna emerged from below decks, her eyes wide. She stared at Arlo in dismay and then looked out towards land. “And they’re all waiting for us?”
“They don’t know you’re coming, yet,” Arlo reassured her. Kenna had been below deck all morning, “getting ready”. She’d been completely silent except for the occasional bolt of anxiety, but Jacqueline had reassured him that that was completely normal, and had loaned Kenna the contents of her handbag.
Her forehead wrinkled. “But—you told us yesterday we’re really loud…” She bit her lip. *Dylan we’ve got to be careful, we don’t want to be annoy—oh no…*
Kenna’s face fell and Arlo held up his hands. “Don’t worry. You won’t annoy anyone. Day like this, half the kids will be on the beach, shouting about how much fun they’re having to anyone in telepathic distance. You’ll fit right in.”
Kenna didn’t look entirely reassured.
Jacqueline walked over and Arlo’s wolf perked up. She’s—
Yeah, yeah, I know. Happiness shivered across Arlo’s skin as Jacqueline stepped down beside him.
He ran a careful eye over her. She didn’t look any the worse for wear after her time in the water. Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks slightly flushed from the wind. Her red curls danced in the breeze.