by Zoe Chant
Jamie was doing lazy loops around other skaters and the children, and Devon realized that Marta wasn’t talking about skating or even jogging. He didn’t know what kind of answer to give the nosy old woman.
Marta tucked his hand into her elbow and clearly expected him to skate with her, so Devon obediently did, finding, as Jamie had warned, that he had terrible balance at her slower speed.
“You’re a good fit for Green Valley,” Marta said approvingly, as they navigated around a flailing child.
“Er, thank you?” Devon said hesitantly. “I like it here.”
“Your sister doesn’t,” Marta said flatly.
Devon winced, but Marta went on unsympathetically.
“Of course, at that age, she wouldn’t like it anywhere.”
There was a gaggle of older boys just arriving that Devon realized were about Abby’s age, maybe even in high school. He looked anxiously around for his sister. She was helping Clara back to her feet and while he watched, she became aware of the newcomers.
Devon stumbled in his skating and nearly fell when he saw his sister’s expression of longing and embarrassment, and when Clara scrambled after her friends, Abby looked lost. Devon nearly left Marta, but she was stronger than she looked, and led him around in a curving arc away from them.
Jamie swept up behind them at that moment. “Can I steal Devon back?” she asked Marta. “The hockey net is free and I want to see if he can score.”
“I think he already has,” Marta sniffed. “But we’ll see if he can hold onto his points.”
“What did that mean?” Jamie asked, as they cut across the ice. Devon could only shrug helplessly.
A pair of badly battered hockey sticks had been left in a snowbank. There was no hockey puck in sight, but Jamie found a chunk of ice that the last group had been playing with. “Let’s see your moves, broken lynx boy.”
Devon nearly face-planted; only the hockey stick saved his balance. “What do you mean?” Did she know he was a lynx?
“Like your business,” Jamie reminded him. “Broken Lynx?”
“Right.” Of course. That’s all it was.
Jamie flipped the ice chunk back and forth in front of her. “Are you just going to let me win?” she taunted him. “Or are you going to try to get this away from me?”
They played hard, and Devon only landed on his ass once, but he pulled Jamie down with him, to her protest of “Foul! Illegal contact! Penalty box for you!”
He kissed her, because she was laughing and gorgeous and red-cheeked and everything to him, and he heard laughter that he thought was at their expense and didn’t care.
Then he realized that it was the cluster of older kids that was laughing, and he let go of Jamie when he spotted Abby across the pond, sitting on the ice with Clara, Aaron and Trevor hovering over her. The older boys were approaching her and Devon felt his hackles rise as he surged to his feet, forgot he was wearing skates, and nearly fell into Jamie.
“Uh-oh,” she said, observing the same thing. “Trouble in paradise?”
Devon kicked off on his skates. He wasn’t fast enough to get to Abby before the pack of trouble-makers got there, though he might have been if he wasn’t at least trying not to make a spectacle out of himself. He skidded to a stop in a spray of ice as the boys clustered around Abby. “Are you okay?” He glared around protectively, daring any of them to taunt his sister.
He heard Jamie come to a less dramatic stop at his heels, which is when he became aware that he’d completely misjudged the situation. The boys’ laughter hadn’t been cruel, and Abby was glaring daggers at him as they melted back from his forceful approach and went to take over the hockey ice.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Aaron was whining. “Clara pushed me!”
Clara sputtered in protest. “I was falling! It was an accident!”
“She didn’t push you!” Trevor came railing to Clara’s defense. “You pushed Abby!”
They bickered over who had done what until Abby snapped, “Forget it,” and got to her feet, refusing Devon’s hand to help her up. “It doesn’t matter! I hate this town!” She skated angrily away to the shore and sat down to pluck at her skate laces.
“Oops,” Jamie said, at Devon’s elbow.
“She’s a runner,” Devon said despondently. “When she doesn’t know what to do, she runs away. I guess I’m glad, because it’s better than fighting. But…” Devon closed his eyes. He’d already messed up by barging in where his sister didn’t want him.
Abby had gotten her boots on and was sprinting back along the road. Was she running faster than she should? She knew that being a shifter was something they had to keep secret, and she and Devon had talked about how careful they had to be for years.
“Will she be okay?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah.” Devon wanted to explain how he knew, but in front of a big chunk of Green Valley pretending not to watch was not that place. “It’s not that far to town and she always comes back.” He’d been watching her strength develop over the past few years, and knew she could protect herself from anything she found on the trip.
He wanted to hold tight and protect her, but he knew he couldn’t.
Not Abby. And not Jamie. He had to let them be who they were, and that was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
17
Devon met Jamie with a groan, collapsing into the chair opposite from her at Shaun’s bakery.
The bakery, Jamie had long since decided, was the very best part of the wave of billionaires in town. Shaun made excellent pastries and served decent coffee and didn’t care if anyone nursed a cup for several hours. He sometimes brought them samples, if their timing was right.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Jamie asked, pouring more sugar into her coffee.
“Abby,” Devon said. “She says she has...concerns.”
“About us?” Jamie asked, suddenly worried.
“No,” Devon said, with a flicker of short-lived relief. “About...growing up.”
“Oh,” Jamie said, trying to remember herself at that age. “Oh. Haven’t you had the talk?”
“We had the talk,” Devon said, and then he was quiet while Shaun brought him a cup of black coffee without prompting.
“Well, sort of,” he went on. “It was as awkward as you might imagine. I got her some books. Told her I’d answer any questions she had. But what do I know about girls? I can barely talk to girls. I mean, I’m not a girl. I’m not even close to girl-like. I had totally different problems at her age.” His voice grew near-hysterical as he went on and he took a bracing sip of coffee that was far too hot and swallowed reflexively and then spent a moment gasping in pain.
“Wait,” he said, looking up at Jamie. “You’re a girl.”
“Yeah,” Jamie said cautiously, not liking the direction their conversation had suddenly taken. “You should know.”
He blushed adorably, and plowed on. “Could you talk to her? Just, answer her questions about...you know...periods and stuff? Make sure that she’s okay, that this is all normal? I don’t want to be one of those oblivious dads—moms—brothers—whatevers—that brushes something off because it makes me uncomfortable, but…”
“But it’s totally making you uncomfortable.”
“It’s totally making me uncomfortable.”
Jamie stared at him. He stared back, with those beautiful golden-green eyes full of despair and hope.
“What makes you think I could help her?” Jamie asked.
“You’ve got a lot more experience being a girl than I do,” Devon assured her. “And there are questions I just can’t answer.”
Which is how Jamie found herself knocking at the door of the house while Devon went to work at Gran’s.
“Devon isn’t here,” Abby said sullenly. Her eyes looked red, and Jamie had a moment of pity for her.
Puberty was hell, and it had to be hard growing up with just a brother to go to with questions. They were new in town, Abby didn’t have friends yet, and there were n
o female family members to reach out to. Jamie wondered what books Devon had found for her. His taste in literature ran dry and technical. Jamie wondered if she should have brought a selection of racy romance books with decent heroes.
Abby was starting to squirm before Jamie finally said, “He asked me to come talk to you. About, you know, changing.”
Abby’s eyes got wide. “Are you…?”
“One of you,” Jamie said jovially, hoping to lighten the situation. “And he thought that if you had questions about things, that I might be easier to ask. Can I come in?”
Abby stepped aside, looking understandably wary, and closed the door behind her.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Nah,” Jamie said. “I had too much coffee at Shaun’s as it is.”
Abby got herself a can of pop from the fridge.
They sat gingerly at the kitchen table and stared across it at each other.
“I’m…”
“You’re…”
“Go ahead,” Jamie said, as gently as she could. “I don’t bite.”
Abby continued to be silent, staring at her untouched pop.
Jamie cast deep for a way to start the conversation. “I know it seems like a big secret, like something you shouldn’t talk about. But it’s all sort of natural, and it happens at about this time, and you can’t go back to who you were, even if you sort of wish you could.”
Abby’s face flashed a hundred emotions, just like Devon’s did when he forgot to cover it with a frown.
“But it helps to know that other people went through it, and it feels more normal after a while.”
“It feels...normal?” Abby asked, so wistfully that Jamie’s heart broke for her a little.
“I promise it does,” Jamie said. “Eventually. The first little while, each one is just weird and unpredictable and believe me, I cried my eyes out more than once when it was new and crazy. But you sort of figure it out after a bit, and there are some tricks and tips. Like…don’t wear white pants. Ever. And always have a change of clothes in your locker.”
Abby giggled. “I figured that one out already,” she said bashfully. “Last week.”
“Let me give you my number,” Jamie said impulsively. “And if you ever need me to pick you up or bring you something, you can text me. Any time.”
A slow, shy smile was blooming over Abby’s face. “Okay,” she said gratefully. “Thanks.” Then she added, “So, what are you?”
Jamie was puzzled by the question. “Your friend?” she offered. Your brother’s friend with benefits seemed inappropriate. She certainly wasn’t ready to confess to more.
Abby looked pleased by that answer, but shook her head as she wiped the condensation off of her pop can. “I mean, what are you? A lynx, like me and Devon? Aaron, the little kid next door says he’s going to be a bear like his dad, and his friend Trevor is already a lion shifter. I guess he started kind of early.”
Jamie stared at her in confusion, feeling slow. “A lynx?” She was beginning to think they weren’t talking about periods.
“Canadian lynx,” Abby said proudly.
“Like...the lynx in Broken Lynx, the name of your brother’s business?” Jamie guessed. An inside joke, Devon had said.
“Yeah, Devon thinks he’s funny.” Abby had all the scorn of a little sister.
As Abby popped her soda pop open with a hiss and a snap, all the clues and hints and crazy things Jamie had seen growing up in Green Valley fell into place with the sharp sound.
They were definitely not talking about periods.
18
“Can I get you anything else?” Devon asked, trying not to fret over the idea of Jamie and Abby talking about…girl things. He gazed past the windowsill where Gran’s elderly cat was sleeping at the leafless trees and sleepy streets.
He shouldn’t have asked her to do it. It was his job, as Abby’s guardian, as her big brother. He should just suck it up and be uncomfortable, and make sure that his sister knew the things she needed to know, even if he had to spend an hour looking at unnerving diagrams on Google and reading forums.
He wasn’t any good at this job. No better at this than anything else he did. But it wasn’t a job he had the luxury of turning down. Abby deserved stability. Direction. A good example.
“Refills?” Andrea was saying, rattling her glass of ice cubes.
Devon turned to look at her blankly. “Right. You were drinking…”
“Iced tea,” Andrea said, an amused smile at the corner of her mouth. “Patricia has a diet pop.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Devon said, picking up the glasses. Fortunately, they were the only customers at the time. Patricia’s new baby, Victoria, was sleeping in a car seat on the bench next to her.
“You got girl problems?” Andrea asked, her voice teasing and low.
“No,” Devon protested.
Patricia made a chiding noise, then looked over Andrea’s shoulder to where the door alarm had just jangled.
Andrea turned at Patricia’s expression of dismay, then choked on her laughter as she said slyly to Devon, “Well, you do now.”
Jamie looked like a thunderstorm. Like the thunderstorm she’d once described rising off a wildfire, dark and furious and spawned from flames.
Devon stepped to meet her, at least in part to keep their conversation from Andrea’s prying ears.
“Was it awful?” he had to ask quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked you to—“
Jamie’s voice was as quiet as his, an angry hiss. “I had a lovely conversation with your sister about periods,” she said flatly. “And then I found out she wasn’t talking about periods at all. She was talking about being a shapeshifter.”
All the air went out of Devon. That was what Abby had been leading on about? He hadn’t shifted until well into high school, he should have been braced for Abby to hit this point earlier, being a girl. Relief surged through him. He could talk about that.
Except, of course, to Jamie…
She was glaring at him with icy blue eyes. Her cheeks were bright spots of color.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Devon suggested, putting Andrea and Patricia’s glasses down at an empty table and untying his apron.
“Let’s not,” Jamie said, loudly now. She glared beyond him at Andrea. “You! You’re one of them, too, aren’t you! This whole damn town is full of them and always has been. All the exotic animal sightings, the weird silences, the absurd number of not-so-closet nudists.”
Andrea didn’t try to deny it, nor the fact that she had overheard their hushed conversation from an improbable distance. “It’s not the kind of thing you just…bring up,” she said with an awkward shrug.
Patricia, peacefully, said, “It’s a bit of a shock when you realize it, isn’t it?”
“Are you one, too?” Jamie asked, looking betrayed. “Is everyone but me?”
“No, of course not,” Patricia said. “I didn’t know until I met Lee. You can see why it has to be a secret.”
“And there are lots of normal people in Green Valley, too,” Andrea said quickly. “But this place is great for shifters. Lots of wilderness nearby, a quiet community…not a lot of people who have embraced cell phones with cameras.”
“We came here because of that,” Devon said. “Growing up in a city was really hard, I wanted Abby to have something better. I was really hoping there would be other shifters here, given some of the news reports.”
“You should have told me,” Jamie cried generally. Then she glared at Devon. “You especially.”
Old George had come to the window of the kitchen with a frown. “Order up,” he called, glancing nervously at the door, where anyone could just walk in on their conversation about being shapeshifters.
Victoria chose that moment to wake up with an outraged wail, and the phone at the cashier’s station started ringing.
Devon chose to ignore all of it except Jamie. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said frankly. “I wanted to. I thought...you m
ight even be...but it’s…hard...” he didn’t know how to end the sentence.
“Oh, was it hard? Was it hard to tell me the truth? Was it hard to be honest?” Jamie’s voice went shrill and Devon couldn’t look anywhere but at her outraged eyes.
Patricia had picked up Victoria and was trying to comfort her. Andrea, finally deciding to be useful, got up to answer the phone. It stopped ringing right before she could pick up the receiver.
The old cat who had been sleeping in the window rose to tired feet, stretched thoroughly, and then gathered herself to jump down—shifting seamlessly into an ancient, white-haired woman as she went.
“Gran?” Jamie squeaked.
The walnut-textured woman stretched again, clearly not bothered by her own nudity, and reached for a folded garment that she’d been sleeping on. It proved to be a fleece dressing gown that she pulled around herself and belted with slow, careful fingers.
“Gracious, child,” Gran grumbled crossly. “All an old woman wants to do is have a nice nap now and again. Are you really only now figuring all this out? Goodness, you’ve gotten tall.”
“That’s not fair,” Devon said swiftly in Jamie’s defense. “It’s been a well-kept secret. Even I only knew there were probably shifters here, not for sure who they were.”
Gran glared at him. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Devon,” he explained. “You hired me this spring.”
“Hmm,” Gran said, looking him up and down. “Yes, I remember. You’ve got a feline look to you. Wildcat?”
“Lynx,” Devon said shortly, feeling very awkward indeed about the openness.
“That’ll do,” Gran said. “You’ve been keeping secrets from your mate?”
“Apparently, you all have,” Jamie said. Then she looked at Devon, eyes flinty. “What’s a mate?”
Gran’s laughter was like the crack of a whip. “What would you expect, child? It’s not the kind of thing you talk about in polite company. I’ll leave you to this, boy. Patricia, who is this squalling little angel?”
Patricia, bouncing her screaming daughter, angled the baby to view Gran. “This is Victoria,” she said, wincing.