by Fleur Smith
Barrett tutted at her. “Well, whoever hit you clearly didn’t knock the sarcasm out of you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had a week. Month. I don’t even know. However long it’s been, it’s been a hell of a time.”
“Okay and where exactly have you been?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You get hit by a car, disappear for weeks, turn up randomly and don’t know where you’ve been?” It sounded like his concern had well and truly melted away into irritation.
“No. I didn’t exactly stop and ask the dude who kidnapped me for directions to his house.”
A low growl echoed down the line. Clearly Barrett was losing his hold on his bear form in his anger. “Kidnapped?”
“Okay, maybe not kidnapped. He was helping me. Or at least I think he was. Until—” Bambi cut herself off before she blurted out about the arrow. Nothing would stop Barrett charging out with revenge on his mind if she mentioned that part of the story.
“Until what?”
“Nothing. So now you know I’m alive, and I really need your help.”
“Of course you do. What do you need?”
“I need you to take me to Doctor Wilson at the hospital.”
“What? Why?”
“Dude, I told you—I got hit by a car and then . . .” She trailed off before realizing that it might be the push Barrett needed to get himself over to her apartment to help her out. “And then shot with an arrow.”
“Did the guy who kid—”
She knew what he was going to ask, and decided to cut him off before he could. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t want to tell him the full details either. There might have been something up with Samson, and she might be wondering why he’d suddenly decided to return her home, but that didn’t mean she wanted him in hot water with her brothers. “It was an accident.”
“An accident?” Barrett sounded skeptical. Not that she could blame him.
“Yeah. I needed to spend a little time healing in the forest, and I think he thought I was a good target. You can hardly expect him to assume his prey might also be his houseguest.”
“Houseguest? I thought you said he kidnapped you?”
“I-I mean . . .” she stammered as she tried to come up with a suitable explanation. “Just come pick me up, will you?”
“Fine. But you owe me.”
“Add it to my tab.”
“You know one day I’ll be calling on you to pay that tab, don’t you?” Bambi could hear her brother’s smile down the phone as he said the words.
He might have been a grouch at times, but he was a teddy bear when it came to her. All her brothers were, but Barrett was the one who had found her when she was little, so he had a softer spot than any of the others.
“I THINK you’ll live,” Doctor Wilson said as he finished inspecting Bambi’s wounds.
She resisted an eye-roll. Barely. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, doc.”
“Whoever patched you up did a decent job. Sure, it’s little more than field surgery, but it was better than most repairs I see in here.”
“I’ll be sure to pass on the compliment if I ever see him again.” She gritted her teeth as she hopped down from the bed. “When do you think I’ll be able to get back to work?”
“Work? I wouldn’t even think about that yet. You need time to recover first.”
“Unfortunately time off for recovery won’t keep the moldy roof over my head.”
The doctor glanced up at her with a look she recognized buried deep in his gaze. “The offer is still there if you ever want it.” On meeting the disdain in her expression, he raised his hands. “No pressure, of course.”
“Look, Nate.” She stepped closer to him. “It’s not that I’m not grateful for what we had. I am. I’m just not right for you.”
He took her proximity as an excuse to brush a hand over her ass. “We were good together, weren’t we?”
Her breath shortened as she considered just how good they had been together. Maybe once more, for old time’s sake. “We were.”
His lips brushed over hers. “We could be good together again. And if you move in with me, you don’t have to worry about your job or your crappy apartment.” The words were meant as a whispered seduction.
Only they had the opposite effect. They were a bucket of cold water over Bambi’s head as she recalled all of their fights and his insistence of control over who she could and couldn’t see. She placed her hand on his chest and pushed him away.
“No. I’m afraid I’m still not willing to give up my glamorous existence.” She offered a wry smile to confirm neither of them thought her life was actually glamorous. “When you find the right woman though, you’ll make her very happy.”
With a sigh, he handed her a script. “Something for the pain if it gets too bad.”
She snatched it out of his hands. “Thanks, doc.”
Before the words were out, she was at the door. When she pulled it open, Barrett stood on the waiting for her.
“You’re still here?”
He shrugged. “How else were you going to get home?”
“Uber?”
“Don’t be absurd. Besides, I wanted to be here in case the doc caused any problems.”
“He’s a pussycat. I could’ve have handled him.”
Barrett’s belly laugh echoed through the corridor as they walked toward the parking lot. “First, I’m not sure a panther can really be called a pussycat. And second, you shouldn’t need to handle anything when you’re still recovering from your ordeal.”
“Shouldn’t need to handle anything? Does that mean you’re going to come to my apartment and be my slave until I’m completely healed?”
“Not likely. I’ll make sure you’ve got what you need, but I’m afraid that’s it. I’ve gotta get back to work before the old man fires me.”
Bambi snorted. “As if he would. Especially if you tell him you were helping me.”
“That would require telling him what happened to you.”
A shudder ran down Bambi’s spine at the thought of her Papabear finding out about Samson and the events that had led her to where she currently was. Knowing her adoptive father, he’d tear the entire forest apart trying to find Samson and make him pay for kidnapping me. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Much better to do what I was planning on doing and just moving on with my life.”
“You do need to look after yourself though.”
She patted her brother’s shoulder. “I always do.”
He raised a brow at her and then glanced around with a skeptical look.
Despite him not saying a word, she understood exactly what he meant. “Almost always.”
“So, what happened exactly? Last I heard you were planning on trying some genius new scheme to find your parents.”
Her cheeks reddened as she recalled the visit to the witch she’d made before she was hit by the car. “Fate,” she muttered. The warning the witch had given her—the dangers of inviting fate to intervene—rushed through her for the first time since the words had passed the other woman’s lips.
THE IDEA of visiting the witch had come from Mack, one of the other girls at the club where Bambi worked. Mack had sworn black and blue that the witch had helped her reunite with a lost love with a fate potion.
When she arrived at the address she’d been given it was not what Bambi had expected at all. She’d been looking for a twisted little shack with overgrown gardens, surrounded by wind chimes, and possibly with a clowder of cats hanging around outside. Instead, it was just a typical house in a standard suburban street. The shock of the discovery served her right. After all, she knew better than to put any stock in stereotypes and assumptions.
Even Mel herself looked like a young office worker returned from a long day in the office. There were no long draped robes, hooked noses, or black frizzy hair. Instead, her hair was black with purple streaks, pulled into a high ponytail that sent a cascade of curls do
wn her spine.
The witch, Mel, opened the door and welcomed her inside. “I see you've decided to take me up on my offer to let fate intervene.”
Bambi didn’t dare ask how Mel knew that. As soon as she’d stepped foot inside the house, it had felt anything but normal. The walls seemed to pulse with energy that wrapped around Mel and put Bambi decidedly in her place.
After taking a steeling breath, Bambi decided to speak. She found the words that came out weren’t the ones she’d intended to utter, but rather the truth she had planned on sugar coating. “I'm not sure it's the best idea. You said on the phone it was dangerous.”
Mel didn’t even break her stride as she led Bambi deeper into the house. “I said it might be dangerous. But so is living.”
“What?”
“Living is dangerous, my dear.”
“What should I expect if I take it?”
In response to Bambi’s question, Mel held up a small vial. “I don't know.”
“You don't know?” At that moment, Bambi doubted her sanity.
“Fate isn't a simple matter. It twists and turns and guides you down unexpected paths. This potion is fate distilled and therefore, I don't know what you should expect.”
“So there’s a risk if I take this potion?” Bambi asked with the vial poised in between her fingers.
The witch smiled. “There is. But you’ve got to ask yourself if the reward may be greater?”
“There’s no way of knowing that is there?”
“There’s only one I can think of.” A coy grin twisted the corners of Mel’s lips.
With a shaky breath, Bambi downed the potion, paid and thanked Mel, and then left the house again.
At first, she felt no different and began to wonder if she’d just been ripped off.
Then, her thoughts turned to tasty morels, and she knew exactly where she needed to go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“SON OF A bitch!” Bambi exclaimed, causing Barrett to pull up short.
“What is it?”
“The potion!” Bambi said, her voice pitching high and sounding dangerously close to hysterical. “That’s why I was in the field.”
“Slow down. Start again. What potion?”
She explained the story of her visit to the witch as they continued to Barrett’s car.
Barrett was surprisingly quiet as they arrived at the car, but the moment they were inside the cabin, he turned to her. “How could you be so stupid as to go to a witch for a potion you know nothing about?”
“I needed answers, Barrett. I need to know who my family is.”
Barrett was quick to cover up the hurt on his face at the implication that he wasn’t family to her, but wasn’t quite quick enough.
“You know what I mean, Barr. I love you guys, and I know we would all fight to the death for each other, but I want to know how they could leave me, and I think Samson might be the answer.”
“Samson?”
“Yeah. He was the one who found me, remember? Out of all the fields in the world I could have gone to, on all the days I could have gone, it was a day when he was driving past, one where those guys came around the corner in just the right way to hurt me. It’s all linked.”
Barrett stared at her as if she’d lost her marbles. “That’s . . . quite a stretch, Bambi.”
She grinned. “No. It’s not a stretch. It’s fate.”
“Fate?”
“Like the witch’s potion promised. It was fate that led me out there. Fate that led me to Samson. I need to find him again.”
“Surely if it was fate, you would have learned something useful?”
“You might not believe me, but I know deep in my bones that fate played a role in getting me to his house. But what I don’t know is why?”
“It was a coincidence. That’s all.”
Bambi shook her head. “I don’t believe that. It doesn’t make sense.”
He turned to stare at her. “But a witch’s potion giving you magic fate powers does?”
“Exactly.”
He shook his head. “I think I need to take you back to the doctor. Clearly you’ve bumped your head or something.”
“No. I haven’t. Nothing has made as much sense as this. I feel in my bones that I’m exactly right about this.”
Barrett just stared at her with one raised brow.
The look unnerved her and not only because it meant he didn’t have both of his eyes on the road. “What if I can prove it to you?”
He turned away then. “How exactly can you prove your life is being governed by an invisible hand?”
“We’ll find Samson’s house. He’s got the answers. I’m sure of it.”
“Let’s assume for a moment that you’re right—”
It was Bambi’s turn to look skeptical.
“—let’s assume,” Barret repeated when he caught her expression. “If you’re right, in fact, especially if you’re right, he might be dangerous.”
“I don’t think he’d hurt me.”
“And what exactly is your basis for that assumption.”
“The fact that I’m here. That I woke up in my own bed. It would have been easier for him to knock me off while I slept, and no one would ever know where I was or who did it. He didn’t do that though. He only ever helped me.”
“Until he shot you with an arrow.”
“While I was in my deer form.”
“Does he know that?”
Bambi considered that for a moment. “I don’t know. He said he was aiming for something else, but I think he didn’t want to admit what was happening.”
Barrett shook his head and stared at the roof of the car for a moment. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
As Bambi understood what her brother meant, she grinned. “Thanks, Barr, you’re the best.”
“Let’s just hope I don’t need to maul anyone today,” he replied.
IT HAD BEEN dark when Samson had dropped Bambi off at her apartment. Thankfully he’d been able to wrestle some basic information out of her without waking her fully to work out the directions to her place.
The instant he’d left her alone, he’d raced back to his cabin to digest what had happened fully. Things were going wrong, just like his father had warned. That’s why he was supposed to stay away from people—all people. A rule he’d broken to help Bambi, and of all people, she was probably the worst person he could have brought home.
He sat near the fire and clutched his hair. What he wouldn’t give to have his mother or father back again to help him through this disaster.
It was impossible that he could have imagined the deer he’d shot transforming into the girl, wasn’t it? It seemed to go against every logic in his world, and yet somehow made so much sense.
For the longest time, he stared into the fire and tried to bring his breathing under control.
As the sun rose over the trees, he climbed to his feet, grabbed some equipment, and headed into the forest. Even though he had a specific destination in mind, he dragged his feet because he didn’t actually want to arrive.
Despite the way he appeared to meander through the woods, he moved with purpose. His destination was somewhere deep in the woods. Somewhere his father used to go on more introspective days, and somewhere Samson himself had returned to since his parents’ deaths.
He needed answers, and it was the only place he could think of to get them.
CHAPTER NINE
“WHICH WAY DO you want me to go?” Barrett glanced around the forest, thankful he’d taken the old truck when Bambi had called and not his BMW.
Bambi turned her head from one side to the other, her brows furrowed. “How am I supposed to know?”
He stared at her incredulously as he waited for her next instruction before he could go any further. “You’re the one who was convinced you have fate on your side.”
“Maybe it’s worn off?” she muttered as she glanced from side to side again. “It was a while ago that I got the potion.”<
br />
“How long was it supposed to last?”
“I don’t know. She never said.”
“She never . . .” Barrett pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to keep himself under control. “You didn’t think to ask?”
“I was in a hurry.”
He sighed. “In a hurry to die, clearly. I thought you knew better than that, Bambi.”
“Barr, I don’t need you to be overbearing right now.”
“Overbearing, ha ha, don’t think trying to be cute and funny will stop me from telling you off.”
Bambi snickered. “You mean it won’t stop you from bearrating me.”
“Bambi, seriously. We’re in the middle of a forest that you insisted we drive into and now you don’t know which way to go, and you’re saying that the magic pixie dust you believe led you this far might have worn off so now we’re just lost in the middle of nowhere.”
“We’re not lost. I just can’t say where we are right now.”
“Or where you want to be.”
“I’m sorry, okay, is that what you want? I dragged us—” She cut off and yanked open the door.
Barrett was trying to figure out what had her moving in such a rush. Then he didn’t care what had caused her to run from the truck because she was disappearing into the forest and he didn’t want to have to shift to his other form to track her. He turned off the ignition and climbed from the truck to follow her.
“Bambi! Wait!” he shouted as he ran after her. She didn’t slow down though, and before long, he’d lost her through the trees. “Goddamnit!”
Although he could shift into bear form and try to sniff her out, it was clear she didn’t want to be followed. Otherwise, she would have waited for him.
“I’ll give you an hour, Bambi!” he shouted after that. “After that, I’ll be coming in to grab you, even if it means I drag you back kicking and screaming!” Despite his threat, he worried he’d be unable to find her—especially if the witch’s potion was still in effect. If that was the case, he could only hope she wouldn’t be gone for weeks this time.
