“A friend from down south,” he said briskly. “Can I grab two Elkhorns?”
The woman winked at Danika. “He doesn’t have many friends,” she said in a loud whisper before she turned toward the taps to pull his order.
Danika chuckled and Bracken felt the back of his neck warm with embarrassment. “Don’t listen to her,” he muttered.
“Whatever you say...” she replied with a smile. She leaned on the bar next to him and looked around the room. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you come here often.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Maybe a little,” she said. “Do you always neglect to ask your dates if they drink beer? Or am I a special case?”
Bracken felt the blood drain from his face. Shit.
“Uh...”
Danika laughed and shoved at his forearm playfully; the brief contact sent a jolt through him and he blinked in surprise. “I’m just fucking with you. I have definitely been known to drink a beer or two. Besides, Cassie told me you don’t go on dates... I figured you’d be shit at it.”
Cassie. The traitor.
“Hey, that’s not fair—”
“Look man, if the shoe fits, buy a few pairs,” she said as Cecile set two massive pints of beer down on the bar. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet to pay, but Cecile held up a hand before Bracken could protest.
“This never happens,” she said and gestured at the two of them. “First round is on me.”
Bracken had never been more embarrassed in his life. First, his date had tried to pay for their drinks, and then Cecile...
“Goddammit.”
Danika laughed and grabbed the handle of her beer. “I knew it.”
BRACKEN GROWLED UNDER his breath and wrapped his hand around his beer glass. Danika clinked her beer against his and winked at him. “Don’t take it too personally. Everyone sucks the first time they try something.”
She tilted the glass back and took a gulp of the tawny liquid and Bracken did the same.
He couldn’t decide if the date had started off well, or if it was a complete disaster, but at least she was smiling.
Chapter 7 - Danika
It took every bit of willpower for Danika not to fuck with Bracken’s head. He was nervous, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to leap on that insecurity—but it was also kind of endearing. She didn’t think a guy who looked like Bracken Quinn could be nervous, especially on a date. It made her wonder if there were other things he wasn’t prepared for...
They had moved from a bar to a small, sticky table, and she narrowed her eyes as he got up to get a second round of beer. It had been a long time since she’d chugged beer like a teenager, but it was easy to do in his company. However nervous he was, he was fun to be around and easy to talk to, and she found herself laughing for the first time in a long time...
Gideon would shit his pants if he knew that she was out with someone else.
Especially another shifter.
Especially a bear.
“What are you smiling about?” Bracken asked when he came back to the table with two more beers in his hands.
Danika sat up and took the beer he offered her. Their fingers touched briefly and she felt a small tingle shiver up her arm.
“I was thinking about bears,” she said boldly as she raised the glass to her lips.
Bracken raised a curious eyebrow. “Oh, really? What about them?”
She shrugged and took a delicate sip of her beer. “This is really terrible, by the way.”
He nodded and smiled. “I know. So... what about bears?”
“I dunno. You’re just... Have you ever thought about how you can kind of tell what shifter someone is by how they look?”
He snorted into his beer. “No.”
She made a face.
“I mean, I know you can smell them, but for someone like me... How am I supposed to tell?”
“So, you can just look at someone and know what kind of shifter they are.” He sounded skeptical, but Danika was feeling confident.
“Yeah,” she said and leaned on her elbows to look around the bar.
“Okay, let’s test you,” he said. He pointed to a table just to their left. “That guy.”
Danika turned subtly to look at the shifter at the table. He was definitely a shifter, she knew that right away. He had a lean, hungry look to him. One she recognized from Texas.
“A wolf,” she said softly. “That one was easy... There are a few in here.”
He nodded and she felt a small stab of victory. He tilted his head toward a darkened corner of the bar that was lit only by the eerie green glow of cheap painted glass lights. “The pool table.”
She narrowed her eyes and focused on the men at the battered pool table. One was human, he was also drunk and probably getting hustled for whatever was in his pockets, but that didn’t really matter.
She frowned slightly. The animals here were different than the ones she’d encountered in Texas. The one on the left was short and stocky with broad shoulders... the other taller with slender legs and a nervous look to him.
Suddenly, it came to her. “A deer... and something else. Definitely not a predator.”
“Do you want a hint?”
“Maybe...”
Bracken took a gulp of beer, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and said, “Baaaaa.”
Danika’s eyes widened. “A sheep? No way.”
He nodded. “Bighorn Sheep. Stubborn motherfuckers.”
Danika giggled into her beer as she took another drink. Bracken had been right, she was having fun.
“You said you’d show me the city,” she said suddenly. “I know there’s more to Anchorage than this place. At least, I hope there is.”
“I did say that, didn’t I...”
She nodded meaningfully and then felt her stomach twist a little as Bracken smiled.
He grabbed her beer out of her hand and got up out of his chair. “Where are you going?”
But he was already walking toward the bar.
Danika chewed on her lip and tried to decide how she was feeling. She was... relaxed, and hadn’t felt anxious or angry the entire time she had been with Bracken.
That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
But a sign of what, exactly?
She looked up as Bracken came back to the table then laughed sharply. “Solo cups?”
Bracken shrugged. “They like me around here.”
“Is that even legal?” she whispered nervously.
“We’ll try not to make a big deal about it,” he said with a wink. “Come on.”
Danika pulled her coat off the back of her chair and struggled into it as fast as she could. She could feel people watching them, but she tried not to care.
“Where to now?” she asked as she followed him toward the front door of the bar.
“The glaciers have been calving, so there should be some nice chunks coming through the harbor...”
“Calving?”
“That’s what it’s called,” he chuckled.
Danika tugged her jacket over her shoulder and zipped it up as Bracken balanced the red plastic cups in one palm and opened the door. “After you.”
She smiled quickly and squeezed by him. Blood rushed to her cheeks as her breasts brushed against the hard wall of his chest and she half jogged away from the bar’s front entrance, then jumped off the high curb onto the street.
“So, where are we going?”
Bracken stepped out of the doorway and held out one of the red cups. “Down to the water, come on.”
Danika took the cup from his hand and smiled. “I haven’t been anywhere near the ocean in so long,” she said as they walked away from the bar.
“I’m guessing you’ve never seen a glacier either?”
“Uhhh... I’m from Texas,” she snorted. “The fact that it could snow this week kind of terrifies me.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Bracken replied. “How long a
re you planning to stay in Anchorage anyway?”
Danika frowned into her beer and took a drink. “Have you ever noticed that bad beer tastes better in these cups?” she asked.
Bracken laughed. “Nope... Never noticed. Nice avoidance tactic.”
“Thank you,” she said primly.
“So you haven’t made a decision?”
Danika shook her head and took another sip from the red cup. “Not yet. Do I have to?”
“No way. This is your life, you can do what you want.”
His words hit her harder than she had expected. But he was right. It was her life, and she could do what she wanted without being worried that Tessa would tell Gideon she was hanging out with a bear.
If she were back in Texas, she would have confided everything in Tessa already. Gideon would already know. And he’d already be pissed.
But she was thousands of miles away from Texas.
3,892.5 miles to be precise.
Thousands of miles away from Tessa and her lies, thousands of miles away from Gideon and his betrayals.
Thousands of miles from everything she’d left in a literal smoking ruin behind her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The harbor was just ahead of them, and the light from the setting sun had painted the sky in pinks, blues, and oranges that rivaled Texas’s sunsets.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. So... what are we looking for?”
Bracken didn’t look convinced, but he pointed out to the harbor and Danika realized what she had been ignoring the whole time she’d been in Anchorage.
“Just that,” he said.
A massive block of ice, jagged and uneven, and almost as tall as the cruise ship that rested just offshore, floated in the middle of the harbor, lit from within by the setting sun, and it made her stop short.
“That— That’s...”
“From a glacier a few miles away,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she answered in a hushed voice.
“A little bigger than the ice cubes you’re used to,” he teased her.
Danika laughed. “Just a bit.”
He reached out to take her hand, and Danika didn’t pull it away as his fingers slid around hers. “Want to get closer?”
She nodded and allowed him to pull her along toward the edge of the parking lot that bordered Resolution Park. “The parking lot?” she laughed. “I haven’t drunk beer out of a plastic cup in a parking lot since I was a teenager.”
“Me neither,” Bracken admitted, “but this is the best place to watch the ‘bergs when they go by.” He pointed to a bench at the edge of the parking lot. “Wanna sit?”
“It’s starting to get cold,” Danika said, but she wasn’t that cold and the sunset was beautiful.
He sat down and leaned back against the weathered wooden bench. Danika hesitated for only a moment before taking a spot next to him. She was close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body, yet not close enough to touch him. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to. It had been way too long since she’d thought about having someone’s hands on her body...
But that was ridiculous. This wasn’t a romantic date.
Was it?
Bracken looked over at her and then looked back out at the harbor. “You know, if you have questions—”
“About what?”
“About shifters—”
Danika shook her head. “I think I know everything I need to know about shifters.”
“Like I said... Not all shifters are the same.”
Danika sighed heavily. “I know, I know. Maybe I’m just not ready for... all of that. Y’all are complicated animals.”
Bracken snorted. “We definitely don’t like being called animals.”
Danika was starting to feel like she never said anything right. “Shit. I’m sorry... that was totally not—”
“Not what you meant to say?”
She sighed again and shook her head. “No. It definitely wasn’t.”
“Wanna try again?”
“No. I’ll just fuck it up. I fuck everything up.”
Bracken brought his plastic cup to his lips and took a long drink. “You know that what happened to you wasn’t your fault, right?” he asked finally.
Danika took a drink. “Yeah, you said that.”
“I meant it.”
“You don’t know anything,” she laughed.
“I know enough,” he said defensively.
They sat in silence, just watching the water, until Danika couldn’t take it any longer. “So what is this ‘call’ thing supposed to feel like anyway?”
Beside her, Bracken stiffened. “It’s different for everyone,” he said.
“So the Great Mother just... whispers in your ear or something? Do you get a fortune cookie? Some kind of sign?”
He shifted uncomfortably, as though he was trying to figure out what to say without saying too much. “It’s not... it’s hard to explain. It’s something powerful. Something you can’t ignore...”
She smiled to see the big man squirm. He sure didn’t act like she thought a bear should. He was—different.
“Not something you have to be convinced of.”
He’d said that on purpose and it was her turn to shift uncomfortably.
Bracken coughed slightly. “How... How did your ex—”
“How did he convince me?” she asked pointedly. Bracken nodded but didn’t look at her. “I was in a bar with my girlfriends and he came in with a bunch of his packmates. We danced a little. Drank a lot. And he listened to me talk about whatever I wanted to talk about... He wasn’t like the other guys I’d dated. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. He took me out for nice dinners, put me up in a really nice hotel... By the end of the weekend, I would have believed anything he said.”
She could see Bracken nod out of the corner of her eye and she felt self-conscious and stupid.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about this. He’s out of my life now.”
“How did you get away?” he asked.
Danika snorted. “I started a fire in the front yard and hopped on a bus heading north.”
Bracken turned to face her and she laughed aloud at the expression on his face. “I’m serious, that’s exactly what happened.”
“But—”
“Look,” she said. “Everything he ever said to me, did for me, or promised me was garbage. So I lit it on fire. Literally and figuratively.”
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Bracken chuckled.
“You’ve been warned,” Danika said sternly. She tapped a finger on his chest and grinned at him over the edge of her Solo cup.
“I didn’t really answer your question,” he said and Danika hastily swallowed her mouthful of beer.
“What question?”
“About the call. I didn’t answer you properly.”
She turned fully toward him and leaned back on the bench expectantly. “Okay. I’m ready. Hit me with the shifter’s honest truth, so I can tell all of the human world what to expect.”
Bracken took a deep breath and set his red plastic cup down on the grass beside his boot. “It’s something you feel. When you meet your mate, it’s like... it’s like the animal inside me is supposed to recognize them. Recognize their scent, their laugh, the tone of their voice—everything about them is perfect for us.” He paused for a moment. “At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen.”
“So... you’ve never experienced it?”
“Well, no. Obviously. Otherwise, I’d be happily mated and wouldn’t be sitting on a bench with you...”
Danika laughed. “Right, right. And Cassie— She’s not...” Bracken recoiled slightly and Danika laughed harder.
“Cassie is like my sister... I’m going to pretend you didn’t mention that at all. Cassie would never let me hear the end of it if she knew.”
“So how are you supposed to really know?” Danika pressed. She didn’t know why she wanted to
know so badly—maybe it was just to prove to herself that she wasn’t broken. Bracken wouldn’t lie to her. At least, he didn’t seem like the type.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Danika was feeling bolder than usual and she held out her hand. “What if it’s simple... like a handshake?”
Bracken looked at her hand in confusion. “That seems a bit...”
“Simplistic? I mean, I guess you’ve shaken a lot of hands, you would have known by now if there was—” She frowned and thought harder. She hadn’t felt anything but lust for Gideon, an infatuation, and the desperate need to show him that she believed him... He’d convinced her of their bond, but it had never really felt real.
Suddenly, it dawned on her.
“I know.”
Bracken’s eyebrows rose. “You do?”
She nodded. “I surely do. It has to be something more... intimate.”
He shifted on the bench beside her, and Danika realized how close they were sitting. “Intimate?”
She leaned forward. “Yeah. You know... a kiss or something. You don’t kiss everyone you know, right? Not on the lips anyway.”
“No...”
“And you have kissed people before—”
Bracken’s eyes narrowed. “Obviously. And before you ask—”
Danika laughed. “I wasn’t gonna.” She took a breath and tried not to focus on the way her heart was beating. Bracken hadn’t moved away. “Can I kiss you?” she asked softly.
“Can you... what?”
“Kiss you. I just... I just want to know.”
He looked nervous all of a sudden. “Know what?”
She looked into his stormy gray eyes and smiled. “I guess... I just want to know that I’m not crazy,” she said. “You can say no if you want.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do,” he replied.
“I asked you, remember?”
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 57
