by Zoe Chant
Everyone else in her family could hold whole conversations in telepathic shifter-speak, sending their speech out to as many or as few people as they liked. Toni didn’t have anywhere near that skill. The most she could manage was a sort of psychic shout – one that every shifter around her would hear, not just whoever she was talking to.
Everyone else in her family was a shifter. Toni was, essentially, human.
She would never measure up.
A bird whistled cheerfully above her head. Caught off-guard in the middle of her gloomy thoughts, Toni laughed. What was she thinking, worrying over things she could never change when the sun was shining and there was a whole forest to explore?
Toni heaved the last of the bags into the cabin and dusted off her hands. The paths at the edge of the campsite looked invitingly cool and shaded, full of the promise of adventure.
The sound of children whooping and yelling drifted through the trees. Toni grabbed a light sweater and water bottle and followed the noise. She would check what time the BMX activities finished for the day, and let the twins know she was going for a walk, before she headed off on her own.
She began to feel better the moment she stepped under the trees. Toni had always loved the outdoors, and now, the natural beauty of the forest seemed to wash her unhappy thoughts and insecurities away. Tall trees with leaves all shades of green swayed in the breeze, sending rippling sunlight across the ground. All around, summer flowers were peeking out, carpeting the woods with bright bursts of color.
This is what a real vacation should be like, she thought to herself. Not worrying about what other people think, or stressing over whether the kids are enjoying themselves – just relaxing and taking some time for myself.
Although it would be nice to have someone to share this with…
The path led out into a wide clearing, and Toni raised one hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she looked across it. Then she jumped quickly backwards. Something shrieked past her at waist-height.
Toni blinked as the flash of movement resolved itself into a small child on an even smaller bike. Just as she was breathing a sigh of relief that she had avoided crashing straight into the kid, the bike tumbled off the side of the track into a bush.
“Hey! Are you all right?” Toni rushed forward. Before she made it halfway to the crash scene, the kid got to their feet, jumped back on the bike and rocketed off down the trail. Toni hadn’t even had time to see whether the kid was a girl or a boy – just that they seemed to be mostly made out of mud. She winced slightly as she thought of what Lexi and Felix were going to look like by the end of the day.
“Don’t worry about her. The smaller ones are pretty bouncy,” called out a male voice. Toni turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered man walking toward her. With the sun behind him, she couldn’t make out his features. “You, on the other hand, should probably get out of here.”
Toni felt herself go red. Right. She knew she didn’t belong here. She didn’t need some rude stranger to pound the point home.
She was about to reply angrily when the man stepped forward.
“I mean – get out of the way!”
He reached out and grabbed Toni around the waist, swinging her to the side of the track just as two more cyclists raced around the corner. Then another two, and then lots more.
Toni didn’t want to think what would have happened if she had still been standing in the middle of the trail when the cyclists swarmed past. Nothing good, she imagined. She would definitely be sporting some new tire-track bruises at least.
Instead … the man was definitely still holding onto her.
As soon as she realized this, he let go, as though she’d spoken out loud. Toni mentally re-ran the last thirty seconds in her head. She was sure she hadn’t said anything. Well, maybe squeaked a bit when the BMXers rushed past…
When you felt his strong arms around you, more like, a voice in her head teased. She ignored it.
“I’m sorry about that,” the man was saying. “The trail from the cabins doesn’t usually come out this close to the bike path, but they had to re-route after some trees fell down last winter. It’s not a problem most of the time, but with this many kids…” He shrugged. “I think they get tunnel vision, and don’t even think about whether someone might step out in front of them.”
“Right,” said Toni breathlessly. “People … or bushes.” She nodded at the bush the first cyclist had crashed into. Another pair of legs was sticking out of it, waving energetically. The man made a noise that was half-groan, half-laugh, and bounded over to help.
Making sure the man’s attention was on the kid, not on her, Toni ran her hands down her shirt, smoothing the wrinkles from where he had grabbed her. She could still feel the heat of his arms around her. She had to force herself not to check if he’d left muscly-man-arm prints on her blouse.
And she could feel herself blushing. Not the angry red of a moment ago, either.
Her normal response to some strange guy grabbing her would be to slap him away, but even if this man hadn’t just saved her from a tsunami of tiny BMXers…
Toni watched as her mysterious savior plucked the child and bike from the bush, one in each arm, and set both upright on the path without breaking a sweat. She lingered over the view of his back and butt as he leaned down to check the kid wasn’t hurt. His t-shirt had strained over his muscles, and she couldn’t help but notice that his trousers were, well, well-fitted.
Toni realized her blush was going to stick around a while yet.
The young boy jumped on his bike again and disappeared around the corner. The man watched him go and then turned to Toni with a slight frown on his face.
“I should talk to Karen about this corner,” he said. “That bush is only going to last so long as a buffer.”
From this angle, instead of haloing his body, the sunlight lit him up, as though someone had set up a spotlight purely for Toni to enjoy the view. He must have been well over six feet tall, with dark russet hair curling over deep brown eyes. A thin, forest-green t-shirt stretched over a sculpted chest, and its sleeves rode up over his thick biceps. No wonder he had picked her up so easily – he looked like he was made of pure muscle, the sort you get from working hard with your hands all day, not popping steroids and veins in the gym.
Toni wasn’t sure whether she wanted to thank him for pulling her out of the way, or rip him a new one for grabbing her instead of warning her about the danger. Instead, she huffed a small word best described as Umph.
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