She saw Bracken around town a few times, more than a few times, and Cassie came into the diner almost every day to get coffee and lunch. She couldn’t escape them.
She’d start working on their usual coffee order as soon as she saw Cassie’s shocking blue hair from across the street, then Cassie came in and chatted with Danika about how she was settling into life in Anchorage.
“So, are you coming into the shop this week?” Cassie asked one morning.
“Uh, should I be?” she asked as she wound her way through the tables.
Cassie craned her neck to look back at the kitchen where Sal was working on their order, two Denver sandwiches and an order of hashbrowns. “I told you to come back in two weeks, it’s been three...”
“Oh, right, sorry. I’ve been working.”
“Sal, you gotta stop overworking this girl. I need her to come into the shop so Brax can take a look at her questionable life choice tattoo,” Cassie shouted into the kitchen.
Danika stared at Cassie with wide eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? You’re going to get me in trouble,” she hissed as she rushed behind the counter.
She rose up on her toes and looked through the passbar to where the big shifter was scrambling eggs at the grill and grumbling to himself. “Don’t listen to her,” she said hastily. “I don’t need the time off work.”
“Good,” he snarled. “You can’t have it.”
“I know,” she sang back.
SHE WHIRLED AROUND and set two coffee’s down on the counter in front of Cassie. “Sandwiches are almost done. Do you think you can sit here and not get me fired for like, three more minutes?”
“Tempting...” Cassie teased her.
“Fine. Fine. I’ll come in tomorrow morning. My shift doesn’t start until eleven.”
“Brax will be in the shop late tonight, you may as well come in after you’re done here,” she said. Danika crossed her arms over her chest and frowned.
“Tonight?”
Cassie pursed her lips and shook her head. “Yeah, he’s suuuuuper booked up tomorrow, and if you need any touch-ups, he won’t have time.”
“I don’t need any—”
“You’d better let a professional be the judge of that,” she said brightly and pointed to the passbar behind Danika. “Sandwich time!”
Sal slammed his hand down on the pickup bell and she jumped at the unnecessarily loud chime. “I’m right here!” Danika muttered. She turned around to retrieve the takeout boxes and set them down in front of Cassie with a tight smile on her face.
“Fine. I’ll come in tonight,” she said tersely.
“I know,” Cassie said with a wink. She opened one of the boxes and snatched out a hash brown. She popped it into her mouth and chewed happily. “See ya later!”
She scooped up the boxes, balanced the coffee, and headed for the open door before Danika could ask if she wanted a tray or a bag.
She leaned against the counter and let out a long breath.
Danika had been doing her best to avoid going back into Animal Instinct. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Bracken again, because she kind of did, it was just that...
What was her problem?
She wasn’t sure how she felt, or what had happened with that handshake. It must have been static electricity... But she hadn’t felt it anywhere else, not even in her motel room when she scuffed around in her wool socks.
She jumped as the pickup bell clanged again.
“All right!”
All of these thoughts would have to wait. Table 19 needed their six orders of liver and onions. Ugh.
AFTER WHAT HAD FELT like a very long shift, Danika stood on the opposite side of the street from Animal Instinct Tattoo and tried to decide what the fuck was going on in her head. It was an appointment. Business. Bracken needed to check on her tattoo and see how it had healed. If it needed touchups, he could schedule another time to do them. Simple. Easy.
Fuck. Why was this so difficult?
She took a deep breath, waited for the light to change, and walked quickly across the empty street toward the shop.
As Cassie had promised, the lights were on, and she could hear music. Classical music again. “Weird,” she muttered.
She swallowed her nervousness, grabbed the door handle, and almost screamed as Bracken’s big form filled the doorway.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.
She slapped his chest lightly. “You scared me, what the hell?!”
He held his chest where she’d hit him and chuckled as he stepped back to let her in. “Sorry, I thought you saw me.”
“Obviously not,” she muttered. “Why are you here so late?”
He shrugged. “I live upstairs, but I like to keep work separate. So I come down here to draw or paint when I’m not working. I’m not much of a TV kind of guy.”
“Upstairs?”
“Yeah, I bought the building a few years ago and converted the second floor into a loft kind of thing...”
She raised an eyebrow. If this was the part where he invited her upstairs, she’d have to firmly tell him ‘no.’
“It’s been a few weeks, how’s everything healing up?”
Danika blinked at him. He wasn’t making a move on her. She calmed down, just a little. “Really well, I think. It was itchy as all fucking hell the first week—”
“That’s normal.”
Danika rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, you might want to put that on the website FAQ for newbies like me. I thought I was going to die from not being able to scratch it!”
He chuckled again and Danika allowed herself to smile. She was only pretending to be annoyed with him, anyway. It was easy to relax around him, and that was something she hadn’t been able to do in a long time.
“Can I see?” he asked as he walked back to his station.
“Oh, yeah.” She felt like an idiot for the briefest of moments as she unzipped her coat and started to take off her layers.
“Warm blooded, huh?” he asked.
She shrugged and tossed another sweater on the chair. “I was born in Texas, so this has been a bit of a shock to the system. I know it’s supposed to be spring, but it sure as hell feels like winter to me.”
“Texas is a long way south,” he said.
“Too far south for you?”
He nodded and she felt stupid again. He was a polar bear underneath that human exterior... of course it was too far south.
“What made you want to come all the way up here?”
“Because it was the farthest I could get from Texas without needing a passport,” she replied quickly.
He raised an eyebrow and pulled a pair of gloves over his large hands. “I get it. Family can be a bit... overwhelming.”
“It’s not that— Well, it kind of is,” she said and then hesitated. How much did she actually want to tell him? Part of her wanted to blurt out everything. She hadn’t really talked to anyone since she’d hung up on Tessa. But this wasn’t the time, or the place.
Bracken sat down in his chair and looked up at her expectantly. “Do you want to talk about it? I have a black belt in family issues that I’m not dealing with.”
Danika smiled, and then laughed.
“Not my words, my sister’s assessment,” he admitted.
She shook her head. “Thanks, but maybe later... This is a business appointment, right?”
He dipped his head just a little and beckoned her closer. “Absolutely right. Let’s see the business.”
“Sorry, I smell like deep fryer grease,” she said sheepishly as she pulled up her shirt to reveal her torso.
“It’s okay, I could smell you from across the street,” he said casually. “What the hell was Sal doing making hash browns at this time of night?”
She laughed. “That was my dinner,” she admitted. “I can’t pass up a deep fried potato.”
“Good to know.”
She stiffened as his gloved fingers brushed against her skin and she sudden
ly felt self-conscious. Why hadn’t she worn a prettier bra this morning?
“It’s looking really great,” he said. “You’re a champion newbie.”
Danika smiled, but she was distracted by the artwork that covered his skin. She pointed at his arm. “I know I’m not supposed to ask stuff like this, but how many do you have?” she asked tentatively.
“How many what?”
“Tattoos,” she blurted out.
He leaned back in his chair and looked up at her with a thoughtful smile on his face. “I haven’t been counting.”
“Ok... then what was your first one?”
He pulled off his gloves, dropped them into the garbage bin by his feet, and pushed up the sleeve of his black t-shirt. His arms and shoulders were covered in tattoos, and she could only guess that they were everywhere on his body. There were symbols she didn’t recognize, and some she did, wound between old school sailor tattoos, and more realistic pieces.
He tapped a finger against a blurry tattoo of a bald eagle with a bright red salmon in its talons.
“My independence tattoo,” he said.
Danika picked up one of her sweaters. “Kind of like mine.”
He nodded. “Kinda. I was running away from something, too.”
“I’m not running,” she said defensively.
He looked at her incredulously. “A Texas girl in the wilds of Alaska who gets a tattoo to cover up a mate mark? Pardon me for assuming.”
Her temper flared briefly. “Hey! You’re not supposed to judge, you’re just supposed to tattoo!”
“What’s to judge? Regardless of what’s going on, you’ve done something terrifying, something not many people could ever dream of doing. It doesn’t matter what you’re running away from, but if you can’t admit it to yourself, then you’ll never be able to stop running.”
“Is that what you did?” she snapped.
He shook his head. “Not really. In some ways I’m still running, it just looks different now.”
Danika pressed her lips together and pulled her sweater over her head.
“If you ever want to talk—” he started.
“I don’t,” she said.
“Cassie makes great Thai curry, you should come—”
Danika shook her head. “I’m good, thanks.”
Bracken crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... You’re just new in town and you don’t—”
“If you’re going to say that I don’t have any friends, you can stop right there,” she said. She shoved her arms into her jacket and zipped it up. She didn’t know why she was angry, he was just trying to be nice. But she wasn’t in the mood for nice. Or any of the other feelings that were bubbling up inside her.
“I wasn’t...”
“Did it occur to you that I might not want any ‘friends’? And just for record, I don’t do shifters.” He got up from his chair and Danika realized how that must have sounded. “I— I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked and Danika blinked at him in surprise as he walked past her to a metal locker that was attached to the back wall of the shop.
“I—”
He dug in his pocket for a set of keys and they rattled against the metal as he unlocked the door. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but Cassie says I’m a good listener.”
She heard the clink of glasses and her eyes widened as he brought out a bottle of whiskey.
Good whiskey.
She hadn’t had good whiskey in years.
Danika crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her boots as Bracken poured two glasses of whiskey.
He turned back to her with the glasses cradled in the palm of one of his large hands. She reached for it eagerly and he laughed as she took the glass out of his hand.
“I guess I don’t have to ask if you drink whisky,” he said.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “I only drink good whiskey,” she replied with a sigh.
“Will you talk over whiskey?”
“I’ll think about it,” she murmured.
He pushed a chair over to her, but Danika shook her head, threw her down jacket on the floor and sat down on it. She crossed her legs and held the glass of whiskey with both hands as though it were a precious thing.
Bracken raised an eyebrow, and then sat down on the floor across from her. “You’re lucky I mopped before you came.”
She raised the glass. “Much obliged.”
He raised his glass to his lips and took a small sip of the golden whiskey.
“So?”
Danika did the same and savored the rush of heat that flowed down her throat. “So.”
He waited, patiently, and finally, Danika sighed heavily.
“He lied to me,” she said softly. “The call, that’s what he said it was.”
She did not have to look up to see Bracken flinch. Every shifter knew what the call was... it was the sign that they had found the mate the Great Mother had chosen for them.
“How could he lie to you?”
“I don’t know. He just... did,” she replied.
“But... how did you know?”
His question was gentle, but the wound in her heart stung when it heard it.
She took another sip of whiskey and the words came out in a rush. A flood. “I got a text. From another woman. He was seeing another woman. He was cheating on me... and she wasn’t the only one. He... He had a woman in every city he visited. Every time he was away on ‘Pack’ business—” She almost spilled her drink making sarcastic air quotes with her fingers and shook her head ruefully. “Every time he was away, he was with someone else. I was just... I was just... Something to pass the time.”
“How long?”
Danika frowned into her glass and took another drink. “Five years.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his head and she felt stupid for the thousandth time.
“I didn’t know,” she said bitterly.
“I didn’t say anything,” he said. “I’m just listening.”
She looked up at him, but he was looking down into his glass.
“You didn’t have to say anything,” she said, “I was an idiot. I should have known better.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“It’s true,” she retorted. “He said that it would ‘take time for the call to reach my heart,’ or some shit. He told me that I would fall in love with him. But I just... didn’t.”
Danika didn’t know what she expected from the massive man sitting across from her, but he was just a quiet presence. A comforting one. She had almost expected him to argue with her, or challenge what she was feeling, but he didn’t. He just nodded and sipped his whiskey.
They sat in silence and Danika had to stop herself from counting the seconds. She realized that she had never just— sat with anyone.
“Is there something wrong with me?” she asked softly.
Bracken sat up straight and his hand closed over her arm before she realized what had happened. Electricity rippled up her arm and she looked up from the glass of whiskey and into his unflinchingly pale gray eyes.
“No,” he said firmly. “There is nothing wrong with you. He lied to you. I don’t know why, or what he was trying to do, but he was wrong to do it, and the Great Mother will punish him for it in her own way.”
He pulled his hand away and stared at his palm in surprise. Danika allowed herself to smile just a little.
“I guess that makes me feel a little better,” she said. “Gid— My ex... he never talked about the Great Mother. Is that a big deal here?”
“She’s everywhere,” Bracken said easily, as though it was something everyone should know. “I guess you could say she’s a bigger deal to some shifters than others. I’d hazard a guess that it’s a bit harder to hear her in a big city—but I’ve never been anywhere bigger than here, so take that however you like.”
Danika braced her elbows on her knees and leaned toward him. The whiskey had warmed her just a little, and she was feeling a little daring.
“Has the Great Mother found you a mate?” she said in a teasing tone.
Bracken chuckled and drained his glass. “If you’re going to ask me questions like that, we need more whiskey,” he said.
Danika giggled and drank the last of her whiskey. “If that’s the price of answers? Yes, please!”
Bracken got up and walked back to the locker and Danika had a moment to think about what she was doing. She was sitting on the floor of a shifter-owned tattoo shop drinking whiskey with the owner and talking about— Talking about things she hadn’t planned on talking about to anyone who didn’t have a fancy degree on their wall.
What’s wrong with me?
A wave of self-consciousness swept over her as she looked up at the clock and realized how late it was.
“Y’know... I’m sorry. I should probably go,” she said as she pushed herself up off the floor.
Bracken turned around, a mixture of surprise and disappointment written plainly on his face, and Danika felt a small stab of guilt.
“Can I walk you back to your place?” he asked.
“My place,” she snorted. “No. Thanks. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
He glanced over her shoulder at the darkened street. “You do know that there are actual wild animals out there, right? Not just shifters.”
Danika stiffened slightly. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll be fine.”
“What if I’m not ready to let you go yet?” His question was teasing, but Danika wasn’t in the mood for playing around. Besides, she still wasn’t sure what to do with the confused thoughts and feelings that tumbled through her mind.
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 55
