by Amy Green
He sat tense for another moment, and she wondered wildly if she’d pushed him too far, if he was about to spring over the table at her. She doubted she could defend herself if he did. He was big, and muscled, and something told her that even in his human form, he was unnaturally fast.
She could have studied something safe and avoided all of this. She could have stayed in the library.
But the fact that he might leap over the table at her was terrifying—and exhilarating at the same time. I would like to see him move, she thought crazily. I would like to see him in action. It would almost be worth it.
He watched her for another minute, as if guessing what she was thinking. Then he took a breath, and his shoulders eased. He dropped his gaze to the table. And he picked up the pen she offered him, opened the file, and signed on the dotted line.
Anna couldn’t help but feel a wild beat of triumph in her veins, watching him sign. “Thank you,” she said to him, meaning it. “This is going to work out just great, I promise.”
“Sure,” Ian Donovan said, putting the pen down. “Whatever you say.”
When he looked at her, she smiled at him. This is really happening, she thought. My chance to study shifters up close. After all this time, it’s finally happening. He didn’t smile back.
She ignored that, ignored the idea in the back of her mind that she was about to spend three weeks with the most dangerous man she’d ever encountered, in possibly the most dangerous town in America.
“I’m going home to pack,” she said to him. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”
2
Incredibly, the woman actually came back.
Ian was surprised. After a year in here, he’d half expected Tuesday to roll around and pass like any other day—breakfast, an hour in the exercise yard, lunch, TV time, dinner, the evening alone in his cell. Part of him thought that Anna Gold would come to her senses, return to sanity, and go on with her life, leaving him in here to rot just like the rest of the world had.
But no. The guard came to get him just after lunch. Ian had packed his few belongings in his bag, just in case. When the door to his cell opened and his name was called, Ian grabbed the bag and followed, still thinking this might be a joke.
But what the hell—they booked him out. Stripped him of his prison shirt, gave him his old one back that they’d taken a year ago, along with his coat. Made him sign some pieces of paper. Handed him a paper bag containing his wallet, his ID, his watch, and the fifty bucks he’d had in his pocket when he’d been arrested. In less than an hour, they handed him his entire identity and sent him out the door.
She was standing in the front waiting room. She looked different today; she’d gotten rid of the too-serious suit and the too-old-for-her silk blouse. Today she’d put on a pair of jeans over the curve of her hips, topped with a sweater and a winter coat. Her long, dark brown hair was down, tousled in curls down her back, and she carried a knit hat and mitts in her hands, as if she was too warm to wear them inside. When she turned and saw him approach, she blinked her blue eyes and her face relaxed, as if she’d been worried. She looked like a nice girl, smart and pretty and sexy, and for a second Ian felt bad about what he was about to do.
“You made it,” she said. “How do you feel?”
Ian stopped a few feet away and looked at her. She had an elegant, narrow chin, a soft line of mouth, a straight nose, those blue eyes. She looked fragile on the surface, but the slashes of her eyebrows said that she was determined, maybe stubborn. He could see the line of her neck where it disappeared into her coat. He was suddenly, violently reminded that he’d been in prison for a year, and he hadn’t had sex for longer than that. Behind her, the door opened and closed as someone entered, and at the smell of the fresh air that followed, his wolf uncurled inside him, waking up.
No, he told it. Not now. Wait.
Her, his wolf said.
No. Not her. We’ll be leaving her soon. We’ll find another.
Her, his wolf said.
Ian forced his animal down as his pulse thumped in his throat. “I feel fine, I guess,” he managed.
“You don’t have a scarf or anything,” she said, eyeing his navy wool coat. “It’s cold out there, and the wind is biting.”
He walked past her toward the door. “I don’t need a scarf.” Truth was, he didn’t need the coat either. Or the clothes. Wolves were naturally impervious to cold. But he wore a coat when he went out anyway, so he would blend in—look human. He heard her footsteps behind him as he pushed open the door and walked outside, a free man.
That was when it actually hit him. Until now, he realized, part of him had assumed it was fake, a trick. But now that they’d actually let him walk freely out the door, now that he stood in front of the building with the whole world in front of him, it sunk in that they’d really let him go. That she’d made them let him go.
Run, his wolf howled, looking at the mountain peaks in the distance.
Wait, he replied. Not yet.
Her car was an old Chevy, boxy and ugly. Ian liked it. He liked the way it smelled like her, the way the seats were some weird old leather-plastic hybrid. Anna had put her hat and mitts on, and as she started the car, he could see the plumes of her breath in the cold. They mixed with his own. He glanced in the back seat and saw it littered with her belongings, packed in duffel bags.
“You’ve packed a lot for three weeks,” he said as they pulled out of the parking lot.
“Oh, um,” she said. She was nervous, fidgety. Ian could smell agitation coming from her skin. “About that. I’m between places to live right now, so I had to pack everything I own in here. I’ll line up something else while I’m in Shifter Falls.”
He stared at her. “You have nowhere to live?”
“I’ll figure it out,” she said with that confident stubbornness that had convinced him to sign that piece of paper three days ago. “My roommates were all moving out, and there was no one to take over the apartment, so we let it go. There are lots of places to rent in Denver. I’ll look at places while we’re doing our study.”
He felt bad, but he let it go. She was a grown woman, and she’d have to figure it out. “Okay,” he said, looking at the passing scenery. The snow had stopped coming down, but now it was hard and icy on the earth, a wet, white frost. He wanted to dig his paws into it and run until his wolf collapsed with exhaustion. And then he wanted her. Which was not going to happen.
“The drive is nearly three hours,” Anna said, interrupting the filthy turn of his thoughts. “I thought we might use it to get acquainted.”
“Acquainted?” He really needed to remember how to string more than one word together. Being locked up, silent, had taken an effect.
“Off the record,” she said. “Like, not part of the official study. I’d like to know a bit about your background, your life. And in return, I’ll tell you about me.”
I don’t want to know about you. Not a single thing. That will make it easier to do what I have to do. “Can we stop to eat first?” Ian said. He’d dreamed about eating a big hamburger for a year now, but at the moment his stomach was churning. Damn it, I need to be strong. “I’m hungry.”
“Oh! Sure, of course.” He glanced at her and she smiled at him, a tentative smile. He made her nervous. In his experience, most human women either hated or distrusted shifters. There were some who liked the idea of the kick of shifter sex, but that was all. None of them just wanted to be in a shifter’s company for any length of time, in daylight, with clothes on. Talking. Alone.
She was quiet for the next stretch of road, maybe thinking he didn’t want to talk yet, until he’d eaten. Considerate. When they passed a sign indicating a diner up ahead, she glanced at him. “Here we go,” she said, her expression serious. “I haven’t even asked. Did they give you any money?”
“I have some,” he said. Aside from the fifty bucks in his wallet, he had a pretty good sum in the bank, assuming he’d be able to access it. For a second his entire life looked bleak
as he contemplated everything he’d have to rebuild—money, job, his life in the Falls, aside from the bullshit of dealing with his mean, dangerous brothers. For a second, he felt the way he imagined a lot of cons felt: like he wanted to turn around and go back in. Just sit there in the quiet, with no hard decisions to make. Then he shook his head. It had been death in there. Without his wolf, it had been nothing but a sure, slow death.
The diner was old and run-down, but it would do. Ian looked around as he followed her inside, taking in the terrain. No problem. No problem at all.
They sat down in a booth—they were the place’s only customers—and Ian took in the smell of deep-fried grease, soaked in to every tile and rafter in the place. After a year of prison food, it was the best fucking smell in the world. He took a second to savor all the smells of the place, his wolf’s senses overwhelmed. When he opened his eyes he saw Anna looking at him, a smile quirking the corners of her mouth. “You look so happy,” she said. “What do you smell?”
He’d looked happy? He didn’t know how to take that. “Everything they’ve cooked today,” he answered her. “They make good coffee, and the chili is extra spicy.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Can you smell everything like that, all the time?”
“Only when I focus on it. I can turn it off if I need to.” He glanced down at the menu in front of him. “I’ve barely used my senses for the past year. You really don’t want to smell the inside of a prison.”
“You forget I was in there,” she said. “I did smell it.”
“Then you know what I mean.” He glanced at her. “How many shifters did you consider before you chose me?”
She dropped her hat on the seat next to her. “None,” she said.
That made him pause. “I’m the only one you considered for your study?”
“I thought you were perfect,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”
What did that mean? She was looking at his shoulders, his neck. Maybe she was just distracted. “You don’t even know me,” he said. “This isn’t a classroom, out here in the wilderness. You agreed to spend three weeks with a man you don’t know?”
“The idea is to get to know you, Ian,” she explained, as if this should be obvious. “Okay, it’s a bit risky, but I’ve spent all of my life in classrooms. I want to learn something on the ground for once.” She bit her lip. “Besides, if anything happens to me, you go back to prison. That’s not so good for you, is it?”
The waitress came by, and Ian ordered a burger with the works. Anna ordered a piece of apple pie with ice cream. He wondered what kind of woman ate apple pie for lunch. “Listen,” she said when the waitress left again. “I get that you’re mistrustful of people. I think it’s clear that it stems from your past.”
Ian put his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead. “Anna,” he said. “Let me ask you something. Why the fuck did you get me out of there? Why did you let them set a criminal free?”
“Because you shouldn’t be in there in the first place,” she said, her voice going low with outrage. “Ian, I read your file. You have two prior offenses, and—”
“That’s right,” he interrupted. “I have priors.”
“They weren’t violent,” she persisted. “Stealing cars? The only reason you did the time you did is because you’re a shifter. And as for the fighting…”
“Maybe I do that because I like to hit guys,” Ian said. “I like to make people bleed. Just like I like to steal cars.”
“You did it for money,” Anna said. “Fighting is easy money, and you win.”
Ian groaned. “You are fucking insane,” he said. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Well, now is the time to set the record straight,” she said. “That’s what the study is for.”
He had to get a grip. Less than an hour in his company, and already she was prying his head open, poking around his life, seeing too much. He was used to being invisible. Being invisible was useful. He couldn’t just sit here and let her keep lifting the carpets, peeking behind the furniture of his brain. Who knew what else she’d see?
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He didn’t look at her. He got up, walked to the back of the diner, and took the corner that led to the bathrooms. He kept walking, toward the back door.
This was for her own good.
Anna Gold should not be doing any study. Not of shifters, or of Shifter Falls. And definitely, definitely not of him. Worthless Ian Donovan, the piece of shit shifter who was probably going to get her killed. Once he was gone, she could turn around, go back to her life, and figure out something else. Because at least she’d be alive to live her life.
Still, he hesitated at the back door. She wasn’t just going to be angry about this. She was going to be hurt. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d hurt a woman. Maybe never.
He put his hand on the door. Do this or you’re going to get her killed, he reminded himself. Better she is alive, with hurt feelings, than dead. His wolf snarled—it wanted to run free, but at the same time it didn’t want to leave Anna behind before it had mated with her.
She’s not for us. We’ll find another, he promised his wolf again. Some women liked shifters, as long as it was just for sex.
Anna’s face, those serious blue eyes.
Ian pushed the door open and headed out into the snow.
He hadn’t gone a hundred feet before she found him. She fucking found him.
She came around the corner of the diner, her boots slipping in the snow, and shouted after him as he climbed the rise away from the highway, toward the trees. “Ian!”
He kept walking, unbuttoning his coat. It didn’t matter what she did—once he shifted, there was no way she could catch him.
“Come back!” she shouted. “I’ll call the police! You’ll go back in!”
That made him pause, but only for a second. He kept walking. They could put him back in if they wanted. They’d have to find him first.
“You don’t understand!” She was standing at the bottom of the rise, shouting up at his retreating form, not bothering to chase him. She probably knew how hopeless it was. “I’m going to Shifter Falls, with or without you!”
Ian stopped and turned.
She stared up at him, her breath coming heavy from her run around the side of the building, her cheeks red with cold. Her chin was up, her eyes defiant. “If you leave,” she said, “I’m going alone.”
He stared down at her. Fuck. “Go home, Anna,” he said. “Just go.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
Ian stared up at the gray sky for a long minute, looking at the clouds. God damn it. She’d do it, too. She’d get in that old Chevy and drive right into Shifter Falls. She’d walk right into—oh, Jesus. It didn’t bear thinking about.
She’d be dead without him.
Fuck.
“If I come with you,” he shouted down to her, “you play by my rules. You follow my lead. You got that?”
She glared up at him, still mad. “I got it.”
“No fooling around, Anna,” he said. “This is life and death, not homework.”
“I know the difference,” she said. “I’m not stupid.”
Fine. He started back down the rise toward her. If she wanted to do this, there was nothing he could do. Except keep her close and try to keep her alive.
Besides, he had a burger waiting for him. And he was fucking hungry.
3
Okay, she was mad. She could admit it.
Anna wasn’t a person who got mad easily. But damn Ian Donovan. She’d spent weeks working to get him out of there. Did that count for absolutely nothing with him?
He hadn’t even apologized. Not when he’d led her out into the cold, and not now, as he ate his burger and she picked at her apple pie. Not one freaking word.
She jabbed her fork into the melted ice cream on her plate and looked up at him when she noticed he’d gone still. He
was watching her, his green eyes wary.
And now she was even angrier. Because Ian Donovan was not only an inconsiderate ass, he was freaking good-looking. She’d noticed it during their interview in the prison, but when she’d seen him standing on the rise, his coat open, his beard dark along his jaw, his dark hair tousled, his gaze guarded as he’d looked down at her, it had hit her over the head. He’d looked completely natural standing there, with the snow beneath his feet and the trees behind him. Like he was a part of the landscape, wild and gorgeous. It was different than when he’d been locked up, trapped beneath fluorescent lights. And now he’d eaten his first hamburger in a year because he’d been wrongly locked up in prison, and she still felt bad for him and attracted to him at the same time, and it wasn’t fair.
“Okay,” he said, as if he had no idea he was silently driving her nuts, “I’m sorry. Just eat your pie.”
Anna dropped her fork. “You ruined my pie.”
He sighed. “My intentions were good. It was for your own good, okay? I thought you could just go back to Denver.”
“And what?” she said, glaring at him. “Go to my thesis advisors and tell them I have absolutely nothing, because I picked a subject who is a total asshole?”
His eyebrows rose.
“Forget it,” she said, sitting back in frustration. “Let’s just go.”
“Fine,” he said. When she reached for her wallet, he held out a hand to stop her. She could see his watch on his wrist beneath the cuff of his coat. A wallet and a watch and a coat—that was all they’d given him to start his life again. “I’m paying.”
“You don’t—”
