The Sea Wolf's Mate

by Zoe Chant

  Her stomach twisted.

  It had been fifteen years since Lainie last stepped foot in Hideaway Cove. Fifteen years since the last long, dream-like summer holiday she’d spent at her paternal grandparents’ rambling old house on the hill. A month of fishing, and swimming, and gorging herself on ice cream.

  Fifteen years since the late-night fights she’d had to pretend she couldn’t hear. Since her grandparents started to sigh and purse their lips when they looked at her. Since the vacation that had ended with her grandparents telling Lainie and her mom and dad never to come back. That they were no longer welcome in Hideaway, and never would be.

  Fourteen-and-a-half years since her father walked out on Lainie and her mother forever. Anywhere between fourteen and nine years ago that Lainie’s granddad had died. She didn’t know exactly, because no one had bothered to notify her or her mother, who were by then living in a small apartment in the city.

  Eight years since Lainie’s grandmother had gone into a care home. And four weeks since she’d died.

  Lainie groaned. Counting down like this usually helped. Separating a problem into little squares, and looking them one at a time made her feel more in control. But breaking up her life like this just left Lainie with more questions.

  The biggest question of all was the one she’d never dared speak. Not to her Mom, not to her Dad before he left, not even in her own diary.

  What did I do wrong?

  She gripped the steering wheel. It’s too late to worry about that now, she told herself sternly. Granddad’s dead. Grandma’s dead. Dad’s gone—who knows whether he’s alive or not, but he disappeared so completely he’s been declared legally dead. Whatever reasons they had for what they did have gone with them.

  Her grandmother’s will had come as a shock. The news had been delivered by a neat little lawyer in a fussy suit and shiny shoes, who’d clearly spent some time preparing his explanation of the situation.

  Mrs. Iris Eaves had left her entire estate to her only son, Mr. Anton Eaves. As Mr. Anton Eaves had been declared dead in absentia, the inheritance fell to his only child, Ms. Lainie Eaves.

  After fifteen years of being completely stonewalled by her father’s side of the family, suddenly, Lainie had inherited everything they had owned.

  Which was what had brought her back to Hideaway Cove.

  Lainie took a deep breath. You can do this, she told herself, mouthing the words. You’re a grown woman now. And this is business. You’re good at business.

  “And as for you,” Lainie said out loud, glaring at the steering wheel, “I did not pay through the nose for a rental just to have it die on me! Come on…”

  Holding her breath, Lainie turned the key in the ignition. The engine revved—and revved—and turned over. She sighed with relief.

  “One night, and then you can leave all of this behind you,” she promised herself. “A fresh start without Hideaway Cove.”

  Harrison

  Harrison squinted into the afternoon sun as he stepped out onto the main street of Hideaway Cove. Behind him, the front door of Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Parlor swung shut on a cacophony of children’s excited screams. He ran a hand through his hair, grinning at the scene he’d just left.

  As he stood on the sidewalk, enjoying the afternoon sun on his face, the door swung open and shut again behind him, jingling merrily.

  “How does it feel being the hero of the day, Sparky?” he said, looking sideways at the man who’d just followed him out.

  Apollo Jenkins—Pol to his friends, and Sparky to his boss, at least when his boss was deliberately teasing him—was tall and lanky, with blond hair that flopped over his face when he didn’t keep it tied back.

  Harrison always felt strangely land-bound when he hung out with him. His human form was heavy and sturdy beside Pol’s loose-limbed frame. He supposed they looked an odd pair, though oddness was nothing strange here in Hideaway.

  Pol’s human body sometimes looked almost as ethereal as his shifter form, with his Legolas-like hair and pale golden eyes. Next to him, Harrison couldn’t look more ordinary. Brown hair, crooked nose, tanned skin. His work often left him a bit grimy, with wood shavings curled into his hair or oil rubbed into the lines of his hands.

  Harrison wasn’t sure whether Pol had ever actually worked with his hands in his life. He certainly didn’t now. His particular talents meant he didn’t need to touch so much as a circuit breaker to look after Hideaway’s electrics. Which was why, while Harrison had been re-hanging the sign over the door that had come loose in the last storm, Pol hadn’t even taken a toolbox in with him to fix the broken ice cream freezer.

  But for some reason, right now Pol didn’t seem to be properly appreciating the fact that all he had to do was wave his hand over broken electronics to fix them.

  Pol groaned dramatically, and glared at Harrison over the top of a triple-decker cone piled high with sprinkles.

  “I think that just took ten years off my life. One per ear-shattering screech. Why didn’t we leave that job until tomorrow, again?”

  Harrison laughed. “If we’d left the job any later, Tessa Sweets would have taken twenty years off your life. The first real sunny day we’ve had in weeks, and the parlor’s ice cream freezers break down? Every kid in the town must’ve been breaking down her door since school let out. Imagine the chaos if the ice cream ran out.”

  Pol shivered elaborately and took a long lick of ice cream. “Well, frankly, I don’t know what their hurry is. It might be sunny, but have you noticed how the sun isn’t actually warm yet? Tessa had better gird her loins for public complaints if any of the little tykes get too cold and go crying home—oh, hello.” His expression of put-upon misery evaporated, and was replaced by a keen grin. “There’s fresh meat around. Ooh. Apollo likes.”

  “What are you on about?” Harrison raised an eyebrow at Pol, whose eyes were narrowed in concentration.

  “Oh, just a little exotic interloper. Weren’t you expecting an out-of-towner this weekend?”

  “Not until tomorrow. This must be someone else.” Harrison frowned. If an outsider was arriving in Hideaway, the residents had to be warned. Not least the excited kids in the ice-cream parlor behind them. “What’ve you got?”

  Pol closed his eyes. For a moment, his expressive face was still as he concentrated.

  “Hmm… oh nice. Sleek little body, small but punchy once you get going. A real smooth ride. And All-American, too.” He sighed and opened his eyes. “Only two-wheel drive, though. Whoever’s in the driver’s seat had a bit of trouble getting her over the ridge.”

  Harrison snorted. “What, at the town boundary? Was that your work, or the car’s?”

  Pol’s affinity with electrics was good for more than just fixing broken freezers. The summer before, he had set up a sort of blockade around the small shifter settlement of Hideaway Cove, to make sure no newcomers could arrive and catch the locals unawares. A drained battery or misfiring engine in the newcomer’s car gave the townsfolk time to shift back into human form, or swim out beyond the waves and out of view.

  It also gave Hideaway Cove a reputation for being a pain in the ass as a tourist destination. Who wanted to vacation somewhere where your phone (and only your phone) gets no reception, the WiFi keeps turning off, and your electronics kept dying on you?

  “A little from column A, a little from column B,” Pol replied absently. “As for whether our visitor is human or not, we’ll have to wait until she’s in sniffing distance, same as everyone else. But better safe than sorry, right?” He pulled out his cell phone, gave it a stern look, kissed it, and stuffed it back in his pocket. “There. The news is out: Beware, incoming potential human!”

  He repeated the warning telepathically, for the benefit of anyone not permanently attached to their phone: *Human visitor in town! Bewaaaare!*

  Harrison snorted. His own phone chirped in his pocket, and he knew everyone in the town would be receiving the same alert. “That’s the official wording, is it?”
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  “Signed off by the town council and everything.” Pol flashed him an angelic smile. “At least, that’s what the electronic version says.”

  “Don’t let the Sweets hear you say that,” Harrison said, grinning. “Interfering with town records—tsk, tsk.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Sweets held court over Hideaway Cove’s town council. Mr. Sweets was acting mayor, following the previous mayor’s retirement, and most people assumed he’d keep the position after the elections in a few months’ time. That was fine with Harrison. The old guy wasn’t the sort to cause trouble. In fact, he was so relaxed he seemed comatose most of the time.

  His wife, on the other hand, was always into everyone’s business.

  Harrison groaned. He’d managed to keep out of Mrs. Sweets’ sights for the past few weeks, ever since he’d finally convinced her he wasn’t interested in her granddaughter, Tessa. But he could already tell she was going to give him a headache over his work with the out-of-towner.

  Pol shrugged and licked up a glob of melted ice cream and sprinkles before it fell off the cone. “Well, I’m not worried about the Sweets. After all, I’m working for the next mayor of Hideaway, aren’t I? Even the terrifying Mrs. Sweets won’t be able to rag me about paperwork when you’re stomping around in the chain and robe.”

  “I’ve already told you, I’m not going to run for mayor,” Harrison said, sighing. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “The workshop’s enough for me. Besides, I would’ve thought the gold chain would be more your thing.”

  Pol shrugged. “Oh, sure. If I ever decide I want to live the cliché, the mayoral bling will be my first stop. Here’s our guest, by the way,” he added, nodding at the road behind Harrison.

  Harrison turned and raised one hand to block the late afternoon sun. A silver Ford Focus was making its way down the road, with the careful slowness of a driver unfamiliar with the local streets.

  Behind him, the ice cream parlor door opened again, and he caught Tessa Sweets’ voice as she warned the kids to stay inside. All the children in Hideaway Cove knew how important it was they didn’t give away the town’s secret to visitors, but their excitement over possibly seeing a human visitor might be too much for them, and they might lose control over their shifter powers.

  Harrison nodded in absent approval as the door swung shut again. Tessa was a good, responsible woman—so good, in fact, that he frequently had difficulty believing she was related to the awful Mrs. Sweets.

  He waved a greeting to the newcomer as the silver car drew closer, and caught a glimpse of the driver as she passed them.

  He saw her for less than a second. A flash of glossy blonde hair, and a round face mostly hidden by sunglasses. A Cupid’s bow mouth set in firm concentration.

  That one glimpse struck him like a thunderbolt.

  Harrison staggered backwards, leaning against the outside wall of Sweet’s Ice Cream Parlor.

  “Oh, hell,” he breathed.

  “What’s the matter? Stub your toe on the curb, big guy?” Pol elbowed him in the side as he finished off the massive ice cream cone. “Oh, geez, it looks like those kids are about to vomit themselves out of the shop. I’m off—see you at Caro’s tonight?”

  “What? Yeah. Sure.” Harrison had no idea what Pol had said. He was still staring after the woman in the car. His heart was pounding. She’s the one. She’s the one, it seemed to be saying, thudding in his chest and his ears.

  His feet started moving without any input from his brain, following the car, then stopped short.

  He watched as she turned up one of the few side streets off Hideaway’s main road. He knew exactly where she was going. The road led to Hideaway’s sole visitor accommodation: the Innlet.

  If she was staying there, she couldn’t be a relative come to visit family in Hideaway Cove. And Harrison hadn’t heard of any new shifters coming to town. So she was probably human, a random tourist who’d stumbled on their coastal sanctuary.

  Harrison imagined barging in there and asking the inn’s owner, little old Marjorie Hanson, if he could speak to her guest, and groaned. Even if he didn’t freak the hell out of the blonde woman by demanding to be introduced to her, that was a bad idea. It would be a one way ticket to being the talk of the town. And making the woman the talk of the town, too.

  As much as he loved his home, he couldn’t think of any worse fate for a visitor to Hideaway. Telepathic gossip moved faster than light; everywhere she went, she’d be the subject of whispers she couldn’t even hear.

  No. He couldn’t do that to her.

  Not to his mate.

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