“Is it possible to tell from a blood test?”
“I don’t know. Shifters don’t get sick. Hospitals are very alien to us. I’ve never heard that it’s possible, but we just don’t know.” Jessica sat down beside him and squeezed his hand.
“It all sounds positive. I have a strong feeling that he’s going to make it.” Christian turned his head to meet her eye and smiled at her.
“Thanks so much for being here with me, Jess. Just having you here makes me feel so much less afraid.”
“Is there something else? I feel like your father isn’t your only worry right now.” He blew out a long breath through his nostrils.
“I hate the fact that I’m even saying this. But, the reality is that, if something were to happen to him, my life would change dramatically. There would be a lot of responsibility falling on my shoulders. My father is a very powerful man among bear shifters. He’s like the equivalent of a state governor, or maybe royalty. It’s hard to describe it. He’s a clan leader. The alpha.” Jessica nodded.
“I understand. And what would be expected of you?” she said hesitantly.
“I’m not sure exactly. But my mother wants to speak to me this evening. I feel like she’s preparing for the worst. Which makes me so mad at her, but at the same time, I understand why she needs to do that.”
As he finished speaking, Jessica noticed that his lip was trembling. This big, powerful man, her best friend, being in such pain tugged at her heart. She lifted a hand and cupped his jaw.
“It will be okay, Christian. You’re the strongest person I know. There’s nothing you can’t handle.”
He turned his head to look at her, regarding her with dark, questioning eyes. She was dimly aware of his stubble brushing her hand as his lips parted, his head inched closer to hers, and suddenly, they were kissing. It was a soft kiss at first, his lips pillowing against hers tenderly, but it quickly became urgent, his mouth hard and hungry, his fingers tangling in her hair. She returned his kiss with an equal passion. The louder the alarm went off in her brain, telling her that he was her best friend, the harder she kissed him, desperate to shush it up. Her body responded, giving in to the urges that she’d repressed deep inside herself for so long. Christian pressed her against his incredibly hard body, and she longed for more, wanted to wrap her legs around his waist, to feel him right there, in that tender place that ached for him. He drew back six inches and she stared at him panicked, certain that he was about to freak out. But he merely gazed at her, his pupils dilated, before he dove in again, kissing her as if he was drowning and she was the lifeline. Jessica was lost. Lost in a fog of hunger and euphoria and shock, and then somehow, through the fog, came a gasp. She jerked away from Christian and leapt to her feet.
“Christian! How could you?” Christian’s mom was standing in front of them, her eyes open wide, hand clamped over her mouth, and two red spots burning on her cheeks.
“Mom!” Without another word, his mom spun around and stalked out of the room. Christian went after her, and Jessica slumped back on the bed, listening to their retreating footsteps. She could still taste him, and her lips tingled from the roughness of his kiss, her cheek from the scratch of his stubble. She smoothed her hair down, vaguely aware that it was all tangled. Wow. Her head was spinning, and her heart was beating so fast that she thought it might stop. Christian just kissed me. And I kissed him back, was all she was capable of thinking. How many times had she fantasized about Christian taking her in his arms and pressing his mouth on hers, before she’d clamped right down on that thought to stop it from getting out of hand? Many times, she admitted. He was one of the two most amazing men she’d ever met, and he was gorgeous. That body pressing against hers. His hands in her hair, on her waist. She never imagined that anyone would kiss her so hungrily. Least of all her best friend. But it felt so right. At the same time that it felt so wrong.
Raised voices came from somewhere in the house. She got up, went through the door and tiptoed along the passageway. Christian and his mom were in a room at the other end of the hall. Her voice was clear, broken with grief, but still strong.
“After all we’ve done. Moving you away from London, coming to the US. And it was all a waste. You got in touch with Jessica again, didn’t you? You found her on the internet or something?”
“No, mom. It was a coincidence. I told you that already and I’m not a liar. You didn’t need to do all that. I know you did it because you thought Lucas and I were getting too close to Jessica.” There was a pause and some muffled words, then his came through more strongly. “No, don’t try to deny it. I heard you discussing it a week before you snatched us away in the middle of the night, taking away everything that we knew and cared about. But you didn’t need to. The three of us were friends, and we never would have done anything to sabotage that.”
Jessica clapped her hand over her mouth. Christian and Lucas’s parents took them away because of me? And Christian knew about it? Now she understood why his mom was so upset to see her. She sprinted back to her room on tiptoes, blocking out the raised voices.
She couldn’t stay in the house a moment longer. Snatching up the bag she’d brought with her, she crept back along the passageway, down the stairs, and out of the front door. Once she was outside, she started to run, eager to put as much distance between herself and Christian’s mom as possible.
A quarter a mile later, she was puffed. She bent over, gasping for air. As she straightened up again, the enormity of what had just happened hit her with full force. So many thoughts crowded into her mind. She’d missed the two boys so much when they were taken away from her. But they’d been taken away because they were close? It didn’t make any sense. She bit down on her tender lower lip, moments away from tears. Now wasn’t the time to have a break down. She looked around. She was close to where the taxi had dropped her, which meant she was still some distance away from the main road. She started walking. And then she remembered the taxi app Tamika had thoughtfully installed on her phone, explaining that it worked all over the US. She opened it and saw that there was one taxi three miles away. She set the pick up address as her current location, and waited. Before long, it arrived.
As they reached the main road, she changed her mind about the drop-off address. She didn’t want to go back to the airport. She’d come here to support Christian in a difficult time. He’d been relieved to see her. If his mom didn’t want her around, fine. But she was going to be a good friend and stay as long as he needed her.
“Can you recommend a good motel nearby?” she asked the driver.
“Lonely Pines. You wanna go there instead?” came the gruff, immediate reply.
“Yes please.”
“You’ll have to pay the price of the original ride. It’s automatic on the app.”
“That’s fine,” she said, full of relief. She texted Christian on the way, explaining why she’d left, and saying that she wouldn’t be far away.
The motel was fine. Wood paneled. Kind of rustic. Photos of a locally-famous waterfall on the walls. She got a soda from the vending machine and cranked the air con up high. Then she lay on the bed, staring up at the wood-paneled ceiling, thinking. If her mind was spinning, her body was no less active. She seemed to be tingling all over. She felt totally alive. As if she could feel the blood pumping through her veins. Had Christian kissed her because he was caught up in the moment, or did he want her too? She thought back to their teenage years. The three of them had never acted as if they were any more than friends. What exactly had made his parents think that they were getting too close? She thought about the way the guys had sprawled on her bed, often the three of them together, watching a TV show, or listening to music. She’d trusted them implicitly as friends, which was why she’d often lie with her head on Lucas’ thigh, Christian’s fingernails absently scratching her head. Had the guys seen it that way too, or had it been something completely different to them?
Her phone rang, making her jump. She blinked at the sight
of Lucas’ name on the caller ID, having expected it to be Christian.
“Hey, Lucas.”
“Hey. Have you heard about Christian’s dad?”
“Yeah. I went to see him actually. I’m staying in a motel not far from his parents’ place.” There was a long silence.
“Did he ask you to go?” he said at last.
“No. I made the decision myself.” She paused, wondering whether to tell him what she’d heard Christian’s mother say.
“Jess –” They’d both started speaking at the same time.
“What is it?”
“Last night. We saw each other at Rusty’s.”
“Yes.” She didn’t know what more to say.
“I was on a date.”
“I thought so. So was I.”
“It was terrible. She was a really great girl, but all I could think about was you. And then you walked in, with that guy. I was consumed with jealousy like never before. It was all I could do to stop myself from storming across the room and punching him. My date saw my face and asked me what was wrong. I told her we had to go. I drove all night. Trying to get these thoughts out of my head. And now I’m in the ass-end of nowhere. Jess, I promised myself I’d keep this to myself, and never tell another soul, as long as I lived. But it’s no use. It’s eating me up inside, and I have to tell you. Jess, I’m in love with you. I always have been. I tried to ignore it. I thought I’d got over it, during all those years of separation. But the second I saw you, it was back. I don’t know what to do. Sense tells me I should get as far away from you and Christian as I can, and never lay eyes on you again. But I hate the thought of losing you as friends as well.”
Jessica didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So she did both.
“What’s funny?” Lucas said, his voice full of anguish. She wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand.
“What’s funny is that I’m also in love with you. But I’m in love with Christian, too. I’m in love with both of you.” There was another silence.
“You are? Now I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is the best and worst news I’ve ever heard.” She heard him take a long, ragged breath. Does Christian know how you feel?”
“I –” She broke off, unwilling to tell him what had just happened. “I think he might.” Lucas was silent again.
“Something happened between you, didn’t it?” he said loudly, accusingly.
“There was a moment. We kissed. It was accidental.” The phone went dead. “Lucas?” She called him back, but it went straight to voicemail. In utter frustration, Jessica punched her pillow. Then she pummeled it repeatedly. She loved Christian and Lucas, and it seemed they both loved her. It was an impossible situation. This isn’t supposed to happen. She picked up her phone to see if there was a message from Christian. Nothing. She tried Lucas again. His phone was still turned off.
Hours passed, with nothing better to do than pace around the grounds of the motel, until the receptionist thought she was crazy. She went out to a restaurant around the corner that the receptionist had recommended and ate a bland, tasteless burger. Then she came back and lay on the bed again, staring blankly at the TV. She was in love with both of her best friends. At the same time. Did she love one of them more than the other? How was she supposed to choose between them? Her head was spinning. No, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t break the heart of someone that she loved so much. She’d have to go back to England. There was no way she could be around those guys anymore. She’d stay as long as Christian needed her, and then she’d leave. She thought of her job and Tamika and Hope Valley and she wanted to cry again. Her world was shattering and falling apart. She finally had found a place where she belonged and now she had to leave. She’d never been anywhere that she’d felt as much at home as she did in Hope Valley. She was different here. A better version of herself. A much happier one. She was more confident. It was easier to speak with people. They thought she was interesting. No one in England had found her that interesting before. She was always the outsider, the odd one, the different one. But here, in America, in Hope Valley, she stood out for who she was, not for who she wasn’t. And when Christian and Lucas arrived, she felt like the luckiest girl in the world. They were all the friends and family she needed. She was startled to realize that she hadn’t thought about her old life in England for a long time. She imagined flying back there, arriving at Heathrow airport, amid all the dreary announcements in clipped English accents. Then trudging back to her parents’ place, under gray skies and relentless drizzle. All the jokes they’d make about her adventure in the US not working out. Having to rent yet another overpriced flat in a rundown suburb, because only bankers could afford to live in the nice parts of London. The overcrowding on the metro; the way everything was so expensive and so full of people. She couldn’t stand it. But what other option did she have?
At long last, her phone rang.
Christian’s voice was gravelly and broken, as if he’d been shaken to his core.
“Jess, are you still in Wynter Hollow?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come over? I’ve got something very important to ask you.”
“Of course.”
In fifteen minutes, he was knocking on her door.
He looked terrible – drawn and exhausted. She hadn’t planned to touch him, to make things worse. But she couldn’t deny him; the look in his eyes twisted a knife in her heart. He held his arms out and she fell into his embrace. She laid her head against his chest, and he rubbed her back and stroked her hair, as if she was the one who needed comforting.
“Come and sit down,” she whispered at last.
“Wait, I brought some wine.” he said, going out of the door again. He returned, opened the bottle of red wine and poured it into two tumblers.
There was nowhere to sit but the bed, so they sat as they had earlier that day, but with a little more distance between them.
She sipped her wine, while he took a large gulp of his.
“I knew I’d need a drink before I asked you this,” he said with a humorless laugh.
“What is it?” she asked gently.
“My mom told me today that she wants me to find a mate immediately. If anything happens to my father –” He broke off, swallowed several times. She squeezed his hand while he forced his emotions back under control. “If anything happens to him, his successor needs to be mated, or the whole clan will be severely destabilized.” Jessica blinked, the language of clan politics so unfamiliar to her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we could be destroyed by other clans. There needs to be a stable power base to show the other clans that we’re a force to be reckoned with. And that begins with a mated alpha.”
“So?” she prompted when he didn’t continue.
“I’ve told her that I can’t mate with another shifter. However politically motivated this union may be, mating is for life, and the idea of being with a shifter is abhorrent to me. It’s hard to explain why, but I can’t even stand the scent of female bears. I spent my formative years among human females, and, despite my parents’ best efforts, I can only consider mating with a human. I told my mom this, for the hundredth time. And made her cry, again, with that look of total disappointment on her face.” Jessica’s stomach knotted as she began to grasp what was coming next.
“In the end, she said, okay, she understood, and blamed herself for bringing me up around humans. But that didn’t change things, and I need to find a mate immediately so that my dad can see me successfully mated.” He took a deep breath, his strong chest rising and falling. “Jess, what I want to ask you is, will you be my mate?”
Jessica stared at him, too stunned to speak.
“But your mother hates me,” she blurted out. He smiled.
“She doesn’t hate you at all. She just saw you as a threat to the shifter mating that she wanted for me. As soon as she understood that I could only mate a human, she mentioned your name. She knows you
well, knows that you’re a great person, and that I care about you a lot. She said that if I insisted on mating with a human, I couldn’t find a better one than you.”
“What does mating mean? Would it be just for show, or would we be together, together?” she said. Christian’s eyes became very intense, huge black orbs.
“Yes. We’d be together, Jessica. We’d be expected to have cubs, and live together as married couples do. Although of course, it would be far more intense, because we’d be mated.” A shudder ran all the way through Jessica’s body, ending right between her thighs.
“Wow,” she said, stunned out of all eloquence.
“I realize this is a pretty incredible thing to ask. And of course, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important. I never thought of you as a mate.”
“You didn’t?” she murmured.
“Well, only in momentary fantasies. Or that time on the canal in London, when we kissed. But I felt like I didn’t have the right to think of you that way. You were my best friend. You and Lucas. And then we were forcibly separated, and I didn’t expect to see you again.” She frowned.
“In that case, how can you contemplate having me as your mate?” He took another long breath.
“You’ve always been my soul mate, Jess. The person who sees right through me and who understands me more than anyone else does. And as much as I’ve been trying to fight my feelings for the sake of our friendship and for the sake of my friendship with Lucas, things have been different since we found each other again. And it’s been nearly impossible for me to keep my feelings for you platonic. That kiss earlier was only a taste of the passion I have for you.”
Jessica’s stomach flipped as her gaze flickered from his eyes to those full lips she’d kissed only hours ago. She was attracted to him, overwhelmingly so. Her body still tingled from their kiss, as if he’d awoken something that had been dormant inside her for so long. And she couldn’t imagine being closer to anybody on earth. Except for Lucas. When she thought of Lucas’ lips, of kissing them, she felt exactly the same as she felt about Christian. How could I be Christian’s mate when I love both of them equally? she thought.
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