by Sammie Joyce
I heard the front door close and I whipped around to look at my father accusingly.
“You’re trying to get rid of me?” I choked. Instantly, Dad was at my side, wrapping me in his arms.
“No,” he replied softly. “Never. In fact, if you had gone with your mother, I probably would never have gotten over it but Lowell, you have to admit that you aren’t happy here. Ever since we got to Alaska, you’ve been different.”
I sniffled and pulled my head back to look at him, shaking my head vehemently.
“No,” I insisted. “I’m not different. I’m better.”
He studied my face and I could see he was trying to decide what to make of my confession.
“I admit,” I added begrudgingly. “I did some dumb things but I’m still learning my way, Dad.”
He met my eyes and nodded. Whatever he saw there, he believed.
“I promise that I’m going to improve my grades,” I continued. “And stop skipping school.”
He sighed.
“The real question is, are you happy here, Lowell? Because if you’re miserable, it’s going to reflect in everything you’re doing.”
“I’m happy here,” I assured him. “I’m so happy, in fact, that I’ve only applied to colleges in Alaska.”
He seemed stunned at the information.
“What? Really?”
I nodded because that was the truth. I was staying precisely where I was, near Davis, in the first place I’d wanted to call home in my life.
North to the future, that was Alaska’s state slogan, and it meant everything to me.
“Lowell,” Dad said cautiously as we parted from our hug. “Does this have anything to do with Davis?”
I flushed, both flattered and embarrassed that my dad knew me so well.
“Of course not,” I lied. “I’m just really happy here.”
“I’d hate to see you dropping all your dreams on your first love, Lowell. I mean, I think Davis is a nice guy but don’t throw your life away chasing after some guy, right?”
“Oh Dad,” I laughed. “I’m not going to throw my life away chasing after some guy.”
Davis was not some guy. He was my soulmate, my love and the man who had been encouraging me since day one. I wasn’t throwing my life away, I was building on it—with him.
Dad’s frown faded and a smile replaced it.
“If you’re happy, I’m happy, kiddo,” he replied, pausing to look in my eyes. “I’m sorry I called your mother here without talking to you about it. It won’t happen again. I need to accept that you’re a young woman now and can make your own decisions.”
The sentiment warmed me and I wished I could tell him how much I appreciated it. Dad was a great father, guiding me into my own. I wished that Davis had had the benefit of growing up with such a privilege.
I returned Dad’s grin, popping a quick kiss on his cheek.
“I’m going to have a bath and call it an early night,” I told him, the day’s events suddenly knocking the wind out of me entirely. Between the fight on the mountain and the love making on the peak, I was exhausted. “That… cold took a lot out of me today.”
“Feeling better though?” he asked lightly and I nodded.
“Good.”
Dad squeezed my arm affectionately as I passed him and bid me goodnight. As I wandered down the hall toward the bathroom, I replayed the conversation I’d had with Dad in my head.
He’d asked if me wanting to stay in Alaska had anything to do with Davis and I’d denied it but the truth was, it didn’t.
Davis had everything to do with why I wanted to stay here.
I still had an entire shifter community to win over and I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d succeeded. In the meantime, there was Davis.
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This is the end of Book Two, but story three is next in the series!
Book Three, The Depths of Winter, is up next!
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Turn the page to read a preview!
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Preview - The Depths of Winter
Book Three - Shifting Seasons Series
Sammie Joyce
One of Margot-Celine Doucette’s students seems very dreamy and distracted, when she used to be such a great student. When Margot-Celine investigates further, she finds a shocking truth about the Locklear family. After escaping a dangerous relationship, she’s absolutely against the idea of starting another one, especially with a man who is a beast half of the time. But she cannot stop the strong attraction she feels to Flint Locklear, even as she fears him.
1
Margot-Celine
Lost in the mass of printed essays on my desk, I had almost forgotten where I was, sitting in Novak High, after school hours. When I looked up and noted the near blackness outside the large windows, I felt a pang of annoyance spring through me. The days were much too short now, up there in the Alaskan wilderness. I was far removed from anything and everything I’d ever known from where I’d been raised in Eastern Quebec. In some ways, the scenery reminded me of my home on the St. Lawrence River, the high mountains looming behind as the landscape swam in green, even in the coldest seasons. Maybe that was one of the reasons I’d chosen Alaska as my escape.
However, I didn’t enjoy the heavy darkness that encumbered the winter months. It made me feel sleepy all the time, lethargic and perhaps a little bit melancholy.
The darkness was one of the reasons I’d chosen to stay at school and grade papers as opposed to bringing them home with me to do there. I knew that once I got in the door, I wouldn’t want to do anything but start a fire, change into my pajamas and settle down with a good book.
No, I needed to finish grading and then I could go home. Work before play—even if my play was meager compared to other women my age.
I wrenched my eyes back toward the page before me and stifled a grunt of disappointment.
Mon dieu, I thought, rolling my eyes as I tried to get through another excruciating essay. Quelle merdre.
Of course I would never say anything like that aloud to my students, in French or otherwise but sitting alone that Wednesday night, with only the buzzing fluorescent lighting to keep me company, I didn’t mind permitting a few unbidden and wicked thoughts into my head. As a French teacher, I endured more than most, particularly because my students didn’t take my classes seriously. They considered French a bird course, something they should be able to flutter through and that was devastatingly evident in the tripe I was reading.
As I graded Alex Mulligan’s paper with a C minus, I felt my spirits brighten some as I reached for the next in my pile.
Lowell Carey.
She was always provided good work. It was high time my eyes were given a break and I peered at the paper, the smile slowly dripping off my lips as I took in the almost incoherent babble in front of me.
“Quesque c’est, Mlle. Carey?” I mused aloud, sinking back against my chair to study the piece with a deep frown.
“Did you say something, Margot-Celine?”
I jumped at the sound of my name, my heart leaping into my throat as I turned to address the lean man standing in the doorway of my classroom. Sheepishly, I smiled, realizing I’d been overheard in my commentary.
“I was just talking to myself, Pat,” I told the math teacher. Patrick James grinned and nodded understandingly.
“I know those conversations well,” he conceded. “I sometimes give myself some great advice.”
He stared at me a moment longer, as if he was waiting for me to say something clever in return but he must have been used to my quiet way by then an he turned to leave.
Usually, my instinct would have been to let him leave. I wasn’t one for idle chatter or small talk, particularly not when I wanted to leave the school at some point that night. Yet as he moved away, something inside me forced his name out of my mouth.
“Pat?”
He paused to peer at me inquisitively over his shoulder. He seemed just as surprised as I was that I ha
d spoken out of turn to him. I had worked with him long enough for him to know I was acting out of character.
“Oui?” he jested lightly. I forced a tight smile, not wanting to encourage much conversation with him.
“You have Lowell Carey in one of your classes, don’t you?”
He nodded, his brow furrowing.
“Yes…” he conceded. Instantly, I picked up on his uncertainty.
“Have you found her to be a competent student?” I asked. Somehow, I felt guilty discussing the students, even though it was completely within our rights to do it.
Then again, there was little that didn’t make me feel guilty.
“She was, at first,” Pat replied, slowly turning back toward me. I was grateful that he didn’t inch too far into the room, his eyebrows knitting as he considered the question. “But it seems like she’s not even trying anymore.”
“I feel the same way!” I agreed, relief sweeping through me. The relief was followed by shame. I shouldn’t have been happy to know that Lowell was failing everywhere but I was glad it wasn’t only in my class.
“She is going to need to roll up her sleeves if she wants to get into a good college,” Pat continued, echoing my innermost thoughts. “Although I’d heard that she was having a bit of a problem with the transition from the move.”
“Oui, I had heard that too,” I replied slowly but the timing didn’t make a lot of sense. At the beginning of the school year, when she’d first arrived at Novak, her work and grades had been much better. If it was the move which had been affecting her, shouldn’t it have been a couple months ago?
“I wonder if everything’s okay at home,” Pat said and I found myself nodding in concession. I had noticed that she had seemed off the past couple weeks, tired and not paying attention but then again, she was a teenaged girl in her Senior year. I may not have been much of a party animal but I, too, had been eighteen years old once.
“I will have to have a chat with her tomorrow,” I sighed, retrieving the work from my desk where I’d dropped it.
“Bonne chance!” Pat chuckled and I frowned. Why did I have the feeling that I was going to need all the luck I could get?
* * *
My house was nothing more than a quaint cabin, tucked both in and out of town as so many other little residences were. It was a little refuge, a haven which made me feel both secure and nervous when I was there. If not for my trusty bull mastiff, Pascal, I probably never would have relaxed. There were far too many sights and sounds that were perfectly justifiable but terrifying nonetheless back there.
Thankfully, Pascal reacted to the slightest odd noise, dismissing the crickets and rabbits and growling if so much as a strange vehicle turned down the small road where my house sat.
There were neighbors but no one really close enough to involve themselves in my affairs, even if they knew who I was anyway. After all, in a town that size, it was impossible to stay anonymous. I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The following morning, I dressed for work, letting Pascal out to do his business. As I sat by the kitchen window, drinking my coffee, I heard him release a low growl of displeasure. Instantly, the hairs on the back of my neck raised and I looked around for him.
Instead, I saw a rust-colored Ford F-150 making its way down the road, away from the mountainside. I knew there was was nothing by a dead-end ahead and I wondered what the driver was doing that way. My eyes almost bugged out of my glasses when I saw who was driving.
Well look who it is! I mused, watching as Lowell passed my house, her face drawn and tired. She was just the girl I’d been hoping to see that morning and there she was, driving past my house before school.
Idle curiosity shot through me and I wondered where she’d been. I decided to ask her when I saw her in class.
Calling Pascal back into the house, I gathered my portfolio and grabbed my to-go cup, scratching my dog behind the ears before I left.
“Sois sage,” I told him in French and he barked at me, indicating that he was always good.
Humming, I climbed into my Kia Sol and made my way toward the school. Two more days until the weekend.
And then what? A little voice in my head mocked me. Do you have plans?
I shoved the taunting out of my head and descended the winding roads toward Novak High. It was embarrassing to know that I had no social life, no group of friends yearning to hang out and go out to a movie with on Saturday night.
It’s not embarrassing, I corrected myself firmly. It’s necessary.
So what if I didn’t have grandiose plans for the weekend? So what if I was a thirty-six-year-old French teacher who preferred the company of her dog to that of other people? It sure beat the alternative and I knew I would never fall into the same trap I had before. Never again, not when I had escaped by the skin of my teeth.
After all, having no social life was better than being dead.
* * *
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Don’t forget to download your free copy of Sarah’s Coming Out and enjoy this story full of secrets and mystery. Finding out she’s a shifter is just the beginning of Sarah’s troubles!
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Sarah's life hasn't been the same since her parents passed away. Losing them changed everything. Now she feels like she's losing her mind. When she falls in love with were-bear Shane, the truth soon comes out. Will the secrets her parents kept from her bring her closer to the man she loves or will she lose even more of the life she once knew?
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About Sammie Joyce
Paranormal romance is Sammie’s favorite sub-genre of romance. She loves shifters of all sorts. Protectors. Those who need protection.
Falling in love and finding love together. Realizing that your mate is standing right in front of you. The magic in those moments. These are some of my favorite parts of romance!
Writing is one of Sammie’s great loves. Paranormal Romance is her passion.
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http://sammiejoyce.com
