by Carol Davis
Over her shoulders, down her back.
Over her breasts. Tickling her sex.
Suddenly, every cell in her body seemed to cry out. Every inch of her wanted to be touched, stroked, explored. It’d been months since she’d been to bed with a man, since she’d had the kind of real release that came from being with someone who was both exciting and excited, someone who wanted to make love and not just get themselves off.
She thought fleetingly about Matt’s cousin—whether it would be awful to try to talk him into a quick roll in the hay. But God, no—he was Matt’s cousin. And while he seemed nice enough, he wasn’t exciting.
Another guest at the wedding, then?
Somebody she could find in the hotel bar?
God, Al. As if you do things like that.
Yes, she’d slept with people after only a couple of dates, but that sort of thing never ended well. Not that she felt guilty about it; she just felt… unfulfilled. Like sleeping with a guy who wasn’t Mr. Right was a waste of time and energy. Satisfying for a minute or two, then… not.
But good grief, she was horny.
There was a simple answer to that, but it didn’t seem like the right solution either.
Now feeling frustrated and a little annoyed, she quickly washed and rinsed her hair, scrubbed the rest of her body with one of the hotel’s puffy but bleachy-smelling washcloths, then stumbled out of the shower and grabbed a towel.
You need to go home. Get back to work.
If only. The wedding was still four days away. And she had to spend seven more nights in this awful hotel.
It’s not that bad, she tried to tell herself. You’re just stressed out. And there’s the dress, and the noise, and…
She’d seen a little girl at the airport that morning, obviously overwhelmed and exhausted. Three, maybe four years old, being tugged along by her parents when she clearly wanted to sit in one place until she got her equilibrium back. Even from a distance Allison had been able to see the little girl quivering with fear and frustration, and as she stepped closer she could see tears streaming down the girl’s cheeks.
The same way Julie had cried a while ago.
For a minute, Allison felt like crying that way herself—just giving in to her emotions, no matter how old she was. She was alone, after all. No one would see. No one would tease her about it later on.
No.
Just get some fresh air. Take a walk around campus. That’s one of the reasons you wanted to come back here—to see if everything looks the same. So, pull yourself together and get out of here for a while.
No crisp, stylish outfit this time. Forcing herself to smile, she put on those faded-out jeans with the little hole in the left knee, a comfortable bra, and her favorite striped t-shirt. She took a couple of minutes to dry her hair with the hotel room’s balky dryer, then pulled it into a loose ponytail.
When she was finished, she looked like the girl who’d lived in this town for four years as Julie’s roommate.
Allie the college student.
That felt good. That felt right.
She hadn’t expected her old neighborhood to look much different—and it didn’t. Most of the houses there had been built almost a century ago: big, rambling things with lots of bedrooms, tiny bathrooms, and almost no closet space. Most of them had been divided up into apartments for the college students back in the 1970s, when it became clear that that was where the money was.
A lot of her classmates had preferred the dorms on campus, but Allison had fallen in love with the charm of these old houses. She could look out her window and see trees, could take a book out to a lawn chair in the yard to study. She remembered falling asleep out there on more than one occasion, and waking up to see a bird or a squirrel watching her calmly.
She caught them watching her again now, from their perches up in the trees. Of course it wasn’t the same animals, but they still felt like old friends welcoming her back. That made her smile as she walked, and she could feel her tension bleed away more and more with each step.
Classes would start up again in a week or so, and she saw and heard signs that students were moving back in: a rental truck with its tailgate open, full of boxes and small pieces of furniture. Music blaring from an open window. Doors banging, voices calling out.
Caught by an urge to just soak up her surroundings, she sat down on a step at the foot of a walkway, certain that no one would object, or even ask her what she was doing there. A gray-haired man walking a limping beagle smiled at her as he passed by, and the dog nudged her shin, looking for a pat on the head. Allison was happy to oblige, sorry only that she didn’t have a treat to offer him.
She tried to remember who had lived in which house. Yes: her friends Chris, Donnie and John had lived over there, though the house had been painted blue then and it was now a pale gray. Donnie had been the cookout king of the neighborhood, hosting backyard parties at least once a week, even in the snow.
And over there? Kelly and Tracy.
And there, in the yellow house with the dark green trim: Chelle, Pats, and Kim. Next door to them, Dave and Tony.
Dave and Tony…
They’d had a commitment ceremony the week after graduation, and Allison had stayed in town long enough to attend. Home had been only an hour away, after all, and she’d used the extra time to sort out her belongings—a lot of them went to Donnie’s blowout yard sale—give the apartment a good final cleaning, and say goodbye to a lot of her friends. They had all promised to stay in touch, of course, but… well.
She’d said goodbye to this place with a wedding, and a wedding had brought her back.
Now, here she was, sitting in a neighborhood that had been her home for four years, and there wasn’t a single person left here that she knew. Okay, maybe Mr. Foley down the street still lived here—he’d only been in his early seventies when she left, and in good health. And maybe Cuz Whitney was still around the corner.
But, by and large, there were only strangers in this neighborhood now.
You can’t go home again. Right?
With a sigh she got to her feet and started walking again, thinking she might go as far as the edge of the college grounds. There wasn’t enough time to make a loop around campus; that would have taken another fifteen or twenty minutes, since she was ambling, not power-walking. And was there really anything there that she wanted to see? No; what she’d been interested in—even though she hadn’t decided that consciously until now—was these houses, the gardens with their sprawl of late-summer flowers, the beautiful old trees.
And her house. Hers and Julie’s.
Suddenly she felt incredibly old, as if she’d lived here decades ago and not just four years. Everything was the same, with just a few tiny exceptions (the color of Donnie’s house, the type of flowers in a couple of the gardens, a new fence in front of what had been Chelle’s place)—but it seemed as if a whole other person had lived here, someone with no actual connection to Allison Hayes the PR whiz except for a bunch of slightly hazy memories.
Come on, she told herself. Cheer up. You’re just tired.
Then she heard Julie’s voice as a whisper in the back of her mind. I thought you’d be first.
He was so right for you.
Tears welled up so quickly she couldn’t stop them. A couple of them spilled down her cheeks, and she swiped them away with a rough hand, hoping no one had seen, even though no one was nearby.
You and him—that was huge.
He was so right for you.
There were people nearby, she told herself. That man walking the dog, whoever was unloading the rental truck, whoever was playing that music. People could be watching her from upstairs windows, wondering who she was and what had brought her here. She’d done that kind of idle snooping herself, on quiet Sunday mornings when she wasn’t quite awake yet: peering out the window at someone walking by, wondering where they were going.
Home, she thought. I should be going home.
Home…
It was there, half a block ahead—the house she and Julie had called home for most of their college years. Still the same colors: white, with dark blue trim. Though a tree was blocking her view of some of it, there was the window that had been at the head of her bed, the one from which she could see most of the street. The house number was still displayed on a handmade plaque shaped like a big sunflower—some kid’s wood shop project, she had always supposed.
And there…
Oh, God.
Standing in front of the house, gazing up at what had once been her window, the way he always used to do when he came to see her…
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Luca.
Five
Luca had found himself unable to rest after he left the library. After gobbling down three slices of pizza from a place nearby, he’d slipped into a seldom-used parking garage, thinking he might find shelter there—as he’d done a few times during his Involvement—but the place was too damp, too dark.
From there he went to the park and sat on a bench, watching people walk past, some of them just wandering, some with an obvious destination in mind. That made him wish he had something in mind, some plan. Some magic spell that would locate Allison for him.
Maybe this whole journey was foolish. Aaron might be right; Allison might well be married now. She might be somewhere that he wouldn’t be able to find even if he spent the rest of his life searching.
No, he told himself.
The gods had meant for them to be together. The gods would help him find her.
The park still had a working water fountain, so he spent a couple of minutes drinking his fill, trying to wash away the disappointment that had grown like a cluster of weeds inside his chest.
That was all it was, he told himself—just disappointment. Part of him had hoped that he would find her right away, that she’d be at the marina waiting for him, or that her name would be listed somewhere that was easy to find, and he was simply disappointed that that hadn’t happened.
As he stepped away from the fountain with water dripping from his chin, he thought of something his mother had told him many times. Anything worth having is worth working for—and worth fighting to keep.
She was a wise female, his mother. Even now that he was grown, she still knew what to say to encourage and comfort him, to keep him going when he’d become confused and discouraged.
But when he’d told her that he needed to leave the island, she’d said nothing.
Maybe there was nothing to say.
He lifted a hand to wipe the water off his chin and almost stumbled as the wolf inside him surged against its walls. Normally, the animal would rest when Luca was tired. At this point in the afternoon, it should have been eager to sleep—but it wasn’t. It wanted its mate.
Wanted Luca to find her, claim her. It had waited long enough.
But how?
Among so many people? In a land as enormous as this?
On the island, it was never difficult to find another member of the pack. Yes, there were places to hide, but it was almost impossible to reach them without leaving a trail for the rest of the pack to follow. Luca and Aaron had tried many times as youngsters to find a hiding place that was truly a secret, that couldn’t be tracked down by their parents or their teachers or their playmates, but they’d never succeeded. They were young; they had always left clues.
Had Allison not left a single clue?
He walked around and around the park until people began to look at him with concern, and he supposed he had been muttering to himself. That wouldn’t do; it might prompt one of the humans to call the police.
He stopped long enough to pull a comb from his pack of supplies, then used his reflection in a window to comb his hair neatly and tidy his clothes. His Involvement had taught him how he should look and act to avoid attention, and he called on those lessons now. He needed to look like one of them. Someone who could fade into the crowd, at least until he decided what he should do next.
He was hungry again, so he found a quiet place at the base of a tree and ate some of the food his mother had packed for him, then returned to the fountain and drank a little more water.
The whole time, the wolf paced restlessly, whining from deep inside its chest.
Tonight he was sure the wolf would insist on coming out so that it could sit in the moonlight and howl, calling out to the rest of its kind how lost and in pain it was. Four years ago, it had tried its best to convince Luca to steal Allison away—to ignore what she said she wanted in favor of the bond they all felt growing between them.
Because it was a bond. It was their true nature telling them that they were meant to be together, no matter what they needed to give up.
But Luca had listened to Allison, not the wolf.
Now? The longer he stood here, the deeper and more agonizing the pain became. It was a fire deep inside his gut, threatening to burn him up and turn him to ash.
He was wasting time, the wolf told him.
He needed to hunt.
To track Allison down, the way he had once tracked down his brother.
Just as there had been no place on the island for Aaron to successfully hide from him, there was nowhere in this enormous land that he could fail to find his mate. How many other people there were didn’t matter, he told himself firmly. She was here somewhere—and he remembered her scent.
He would find her.
Yes, the wolf told him. Hunt. She isn’t far.
Are you sure?
Do you doubt me?
No. But…
She’s nearby. I sense her. It’s why I’ve brought you here now. She’s close. You can find her.
Still, he needed to steady himself. So much had happened over the past few weeks that he felt ill at ease, unsure, vulnerable. Micah had caught him completely unaware while he was roaming the woods thinking only of his displeasure with his brother, and then had nearly killed him. Then he’d had to watch his brother—his younger brother, by the gods—seal his bond with Abby. And he’d had to mend fences with Katrin, who said she had loved him since they were youngsters running through the woods.
He needed to set all that aside now, and listen to the call of the wolf.
Rather than stay in one place, he began to walk. He thought he might pick up a trail that way, if indeed Allison was somewhere nearby.
Years ago, she’d come frequently to the shops on this street, to the gardens on the east side of the park, to this bar, to that movie theater. He knew the routes she’d taken, which ways she preferred to walk because they were shorter, or safer.
He’d walked with her many times, and had always been disturbed by how frightened she became when something startled her after dark. No wolf was afraid of the dark, and he had longed to tell her he would always protect her—that nothing lurked in the dark that he could not defeat.
Except his own thoughts, he supposed.
Step by step, he followed the path she had most commonly taken, the one leading back to her home near the campus. From “downtown,” the place where all the shops were, it took only about twenty minutes to walk. He could have covered it in half that time, but he was tired and dismayed. He still was certain she no longer lived in that apartment, because it was meant only for students, but he thought seeing the house again might encourage him. Maybe, even after all this time, there was still a bit of her scent there, something he could follow.
There.
Yes, that was the one: the white and blue house with the trees that flowered in the springtime. He was both exhilarated and heartbroken as he approached it, thinking of a younger Luca expecting to see her gazing out of that big window, welcoming him with a smile.
If only she could be there now, waiting for him, smiling—but there was no one in the window.
When he reached the house, he climbed the two low steps leading to the walkway and stood looking at the front door, remembering the patter of her footsteps coming down the inside stairs so she
could fling open the door and throw herself into his arms.
He remembered the feel of her, the sudden warmth of her body against his, and how she had always demanded a kiss.
Inside him, the wolf cried out, almost in agony.
He wouldn’t be able to stay here if someone else lived here now. He wouldn’t be able to stand out here staring at the door, trying to will Allison to fling it open and run into his embrace. He would have to move on, and fairly soon.
But first, he would investigate a little.
Search for her.
He would have to…
His breath left him suddenly, as if it had been sucked out by a whirlwind, and the wolf became so frantic he thought it would explode out of his chest, a separate being once and for all. Or was that his heart that was suddenly so huge he thought he might die?
There.
She was right there, perhaps a hundred steps away, looking at him.
Like a miracle come to life, she was right there.
He wanted to run to her, to seize her and sweep her around in a circle the way he had four years ago, their bodies hungry and demanding, the two of them sharing each other’s breath as they kissed, each other’s heartbeat. But he was so numb with shock that he couldn’t force himself to take even a single step, so he had to wait and watch as she came closer, praying that she was glad to see him and not displeased.
She didn’t seem displeased. Did she?
“Luca.”
She was only a few steps away now, at the edge of the property. Her mouth was open a little. She was surprised. Unsure what to think, how to react. But… pleased. Yes? She was, wasn’t she?
Gods who made our father the first wolf, let her be pleased.
“This is… I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.
Slowly, carefully, he made his way back down the walkway to join her. He left a little bit of distance between them, a little more than arm’s reach. He would let her decide, he told the wolf. Even now, he would let her decide—even though he was sure it would kill him if she turned and walked away.
“I arrived this morning,” he murmured.