Running Free (Northern Shifters)

by Jorrie Spencer

  Especially when they might be well-meaning and friendly.

  “Why’d you stay away from your twin so long?” asked Jancis, and the usual amusement that danced in her eyes was absent. There was only frank curiosity. He remembered she was a twin too.

  Zach stared back at her, unsure how to explain in a way that he was comfortable with. Either Trey hadn’t told them what he’d correctly inferred about Zach, that he had amnesia, or they were asking an obvious question and wanted confirmation. It didn’t seem the latter, as she said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to ask an overly personal question. I was out of line.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Zach admitted.

  “All right,” responded Angus. “Then perhaps you can tell me what your intentions are when it comes to Sally.”

  “Dad!” Jancis winced. “Sally will kill you for that.”

  “I’ll take that chance.” Angus kept his tone mild.

  “You told me not to give Zach the third degree. Hypocrite.”

  Zach couldn’t help but think these were the strangest set of wolves. Trey coming down on Sally for her involvement with him; Angus demanding to know if Zach was honorable or something of that nature. Jancis calling her father names, with admittedly very little heat.

  Were wolves always like this? He tended to think of them as vicious, not…meddling in awkward, protective ways. Still, Zach rather liked they were looking out for Sally—at least in theory. Answering the question was an annoyance.

  He chose to face this head-on and pulled in a breath. “You might not think I’m the right person for Sally.”

  Angus’s blank face didn’t deny it, and Zach soldiered on.

  “Especially since she’s so full of light and humor.” It sounded corny, yet right, and Zach felt torn between embarrassment and a kind of stubbornness to state his point of view. The thing was he actually couldn’t describe the way she shone, or her smile, and that was as close as he could get. He wanted them to understand he appreciated her.

  Both Jancis and Angus stared at him nonplused, Angus having cocked his head, his brow furrowed, like Zach’s meaning was unclear.

  Jancis grinned in sudden delight. “Really.”

  Zach dug in. “Yes.”

  “Or, perhaps you mean, she’s full of light and humor when she’s with you.”

  Taken aback, Zach insisted, “It’s the way she is.”

  Angus smiled too, the daughter and father expressions matching. “I am glad to hear it.”

  Zach didn’t know how to respond and found it easiest to pick up a boiled egg and start eating it.

  At that, Jancis threw a glance at Angus. “I’m heading out to find this new Sally and see her shine. You can take Zach around the town, etcetera.”

  She gave Zach a wave and disappeared, and a now-amiable Angus waited for Zach to get ready for his tour. Zach had expected a bit more of the third degree after Jancis’s parting shot, but he’d apparently passed muster, even if he didn’t know how he’d managed it.

  The tour itself went by in a bit of blur, despite Zach trying to take it all in. There was a homey restaurant in the small town run by a woman named Eden, there was Angus’s expanding house—they were putting on an addition because, Zach gathered, people kept coming to live with him—and there was a clinic with a doctor who was also the town’s second-in-command. Teo, who he’d met last night.

  The most interesting building was the school, though it wasn’t operating on Saturday, and Zach’s walk through the empty building didn’t do much to increase understanding beyond observing the large gymnasium and an ample supply of computers. He had no memory of school himself so had little to compare it to. Still, there was a sense of people who cared in the way the school was designed, furnished, decorated. He liked that.

  The rest of the day passed in a whirl of people—he met a teacher and the principal, as well as a young man named Caleb, who was Angus’s foster son and showed real eagerness for meeting Storm. It seemed Caleb knew what it was like to grow up shifter in human society.

  Sally appeared, but she stayed on the edges when he would have preferred her at his side. However, when he began to tire later in the evening, having cycled through any number of wolves of all kinds of ages, she suddenly stood in front of him, a look of understanding directed towards him. “Ready to head home?”

  He was. He wanted to be back in his own bed, Sally with him, but she meant her house and her couch.

  He took his leave, saying goodbye to his hosts and appreciating their enthusiasm for further visits, even if he was worn out by all the socializing.

  Once at Sally’s, she gave a sharp good night and disappeared into the washroom. As the shower started running, Jancis popped into the living room. “I hope you’re not sleeping on the couch on my account.”

  “No,” said Zach slowly.

  The mischievous look in her eyes dimmed, and she informed him: “Sally really likes you. You be good to her. She deserves that. Good night.” Then Jancis disappeared as abruptly as she’d shown up.

  Zach settled himself on the couch, not pleased at being admonished but nevertheless reassured Sally liked him. Wouldn’t Jancis know? He tried to stretch out and his feet hit the end. This was not the most comfortable bed ever, but he would manage. He was very tired. Who knew meeting so many people could be so exhausting? He feared his thoughts about Storm, about Sally, would whir, and he’d be up all night, but in seconds he had dropped off into deep sleep.

  It felt as if it was the next moment when he woke to find Sally looking down upon him in the early-morning light. Her expression was pensive, perhaps sad, though she wiped that clean from her face and smiled at him.

  “Everything okay?” He sat up.

  “Of course. We should head out, since we said our goodbyes last night.”

  Zach tried to clear the sleep from his mind.

  She continued to hold her smile, like it was painful.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Something seems wrong,” he persisted. He couldn’t stop the words from coming out. “Do you wish you were staying in Wolf Town?”

  “No.” The word was flat, emphatic. Her arms crossed in front of her. Another day and she might have wrapped herself around him delightfully, but not this morning. “I want to return to your neighborhood. See you and Storm.”

  “Good,” he said a little too fervently. Maybe Wolf Town wasn’t the best place for romance, and they could pick it up again when they got home.

  Her expression softened.

  “What do you think of me bringing Storm up here to visit?” he said as they moved to the kitchen.

  “It’s a fantastic idea,” she said, a bit more herself. He asked her about the school, since it was a safe topic for Sally, having worked there.

  By the time they were packed into the car and on their way, things felt more normal between them, and something inside Zach relaxed. After all, he was going home, and Sally was coming with him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sally should have taken comfort in the fact Jancis had dismissed Trey’s concerns about Zach. However, Jancis dismissed Trey whenever possible, as though that compensated for an unrequited teenaged crush on the man that still embarrassed her. Sally frowned. She was a little worried about Jancis, who felt strongly, passionately, yet did not date. Whenever Sally tried to approach the topic, even obliquely, in an attempt to let her friend know she was someone she could confide in, Jancis steered the conversation elsewhere.

  “Something wrong?” asked Zach between songs. They’d only driven an hour.

  Well, she could be in-the-moment truthful. “I worry about Jancis.”

  “Why?” Zach said this as if there being anything to worry about when it came to her friend was absurd. Jancis put on a good front. Sally could grant her that.

  “She’s actually very guarded in her way.”

  “Oh.” He looked like he didn’t know what she was talking about.


  “I mean, I’m guarded, but that’s obvious to everyone, right?”

  “You’re guarded.” Zach paused. “I’m beginning to think I don’t know what that means.”

  If Sally hadn’t been driving the car, she would have doubled over. As it was, she clutched the steering wheel tight and laughed hard. When she was done and Zach was smiling at her, if uncertainly, she said, “You’re right. I haven’t been at all guarded with you.” The guilt hit her again, but less so because, well, he didn’t sound much like he felt taken advantage of. Maybe she needed to take Trey less seriously. Still be careful, but—

  “Are you different around me than around others?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t jump into bed with everyone.”

  He shifted in his seat. “I wasn’t just referring to…sex.”

  “You set me at ease,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to make this all about me.”

  Another pause. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “God! Neither do I.”

  “Um.” Zach was puzzled.

  She gripped the wheel even tighter. Get out the words, because she had to say something. “I really like you, and I don’t usually tell men I really like that I really like them.”

  “…okay.”

  “You’re in kind of a transitional state here, and I don’t want to be in your way—”

  “You are not in my way.” He sounded very definite. “Who told you that?”

  “No one has said it exactly.”

  “What did they say? Is this about Trey and my inability to be an adult because I’ve got amnesia? I’ve decided I am not Trey’s biggest fan.”

  She glanced at Zach, given his almost bitter tone. “It’s not that you’re stigmatized, Zach.”

  “What a relief,” he drawled.

  She needed to stop glancing at him, because his gaze had turned incredibly heated, which was sexy as hell, but she was driving down a twisting highway.

  “My life is in transition too,” she said more softly. “Not as much as yours, but after years on my own, I’m part of a community, and I feel I’m still finding my sea legs there. It felt strange being back in Wolf Town.”

  “Okay.” He brushed nonexistent dirt off his jeans. “I wouldn’t want you to do anything you didn’t want to.”

  “I just need to sort things out in my head.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod, felt an echo of his hurt. He perceived she was trying to let him down.

  “Maybe we can go on a date,” she suggested.

  He tensed, but the tension was eagerness not stress. “I’d like that,” he said in a low voice which went straight to her bones. God, he got under her skin.

  This, she knew, was what Trey had been trying to warn her away from. The intense feelings a wolf developed strongly and immediately when they wanted to be mated with someone. He had seen right through her like no one else had, not even Jancis.

  She wanted to be mated with this man and she barely knew him. Her wolf didn’t care about that. Sally needed to do her damnedest to slow things down, without turning Zach away. Bond without bonding.

  If that was possible.

  “I think,” she said, “we need to find a safe subject while I drive. Something calming.”

  Zach rubbed the back of his neck, clearly casting about for topics. “I could tell you how I came to live with Storm in a house separate from his grandparents.”

  “Yes, why is that? Why aren’t you all together?”

  “It’s what I asked for,” he explained. “When I was first trying to live among regular humans, the idea of sharing a house with them presented too much of a challenge. Of course, I didn’t quite realize the size of their place.”

  “Their house is a mansion.”

  “Yes, but they didn’t protest or argue, they were so relieved to find someone to help them with Storm. I mean it took a while for them to allow him to stay with me full-time. Even if he was too much for them to handle with his energy and his tantrums. They were very worried by his behavior.”

  “Storm has tantrums?” He’d struck her as a vivacious little boy but not bad-tempered.

  “No longer. It’s not part of his regular personality.” He paused. “Connie and Arch tried to keep him inside during the full moon, you see, for fear they’d lose him. A very real fear, I might add. He’s calmed down since he’s been able to run with me.”

  Sally thought of Aileen then, who had been lost to the wilderness as a child, but didn’t think it was her place to share Aileen’s past. “I’m so glad you found him, Zach, for his sake.”

  His mouth twisted. “I wasn’t at first, not entirely. It was an adjustment, to say the least. Yet as the first year passed, I began to understand he might have done more for me than I have for him. I was so lost in my horse I’m not sure I could have come back without a compelling reason.”

  He glanced at her, as if to see if she was judging him for such an admission.

  She cast him a smile before putting her eyes back on the road. “It sounds like you were perfect for each other.”

  They got home midday, and Sally refused to come in the house, said she had things to do and wanted to check in with Rory. “Let’s plan a date next Friday, okay?”

  “Friday,” Zach repeated. He knew it wasn’t far off, less than a week, yet it felt like she was avoiding him.

  “It’s hard for us to see each other during the week, Zach,” she pointed out.

  It wasn’t. He had plenty of time in the day and thought she did too. Still, he nodded, and before he could say more she took off.

  Patience, he needed patience, even if he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe this was a wolf thing that would get explained to him at some point.

  When he went inside, he stopped thinking about Sally because there was a phone message from Storm. Zach called Connie and learned Storm wanted to come home as early as possible. An hour later, the pup ran into his arms with questions and clinginess, even though it wasn’t much past midday. Zach spent the afternoon building a fort, drawing horses and watching a video. It settled him, being back home with his child.

  “Did you meet the wolves?” Storm asked. Zach was going to get more questions from Connie later. To be exact, tomorrow, once Storm was off to school. They both understood just how sensitive Storm’s hearing was, and neither wanted the child overhearing them.

  “I did.”

  “Were they nice?”

  Zach smiled. “Yes. They showed me the town. It’s small but has a school and a restaurant and a doctor and other wolf children.”

  “Do they have TVs?”

  “Well, yes.” Zach didn’t know where that question came from.

  “Okay,” said Storm as if that made everything normal. Maybe it did. He moved on to describing the indoor gym Arch had taken him to yesterday.

  In the evening Storm dropped off to sleep early, worn out from a weekend without Zach or with grandparent activities, or both.

  It was easy to rouse Storm the next morning, and the child was happy in his regular routine of being walked to school and dropped off. Connie was there, and once they both said goodbye to Storm, she drove Zach home. Their conversation was short, to the point. Zach had to admit there wasn’t a Montessori school in the town, though he couldn’t imagine she’d been expecting one. She wasn’t pleased by the idea of Storm going up to visit. On the other hand, her mistrust continued to ebb as time went on and no wolves associated with the town plowed into their lives to take control of Storm.

  “They’re courting you,” she warned him as she stood to leave.

  Which made Zach think of Sally, inappropriately. Connie would have a fit if she understood the depth of his feelings for the wolf.

  “Next they’ll want you living there.” There was a current of sadness in her statement.

  “They were only talking about visits.” Yet the truth was Zach continued to toy with the idea Storm would be safest in a town surrounded by wolves. He didn’t inten
d to voice such an opinion yet. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that.

  Tuesday began, as always, with Storm hard to rouse but once he was up, he bounced off the walls. Zach appreciated that the school didn’t keep Storm chained to a desk. Other non-wolf children benefitted from this approach as well. He did wonder what it would be like for Storm to meet another shifter child. Not that it was a requirement for friendship, but just to understand he wasn’t unique or abnormal.

  Caught in these musings after dropping Storm off at school, Zach didn’t notice a car in his driveway until he was almost home.

  Dana’s car. Fuck. He was finding her interest in him increasingly bizarre. He kept a low profile and people left him alone. He didn’t know how to make sense of her. He kept walking, feeling a little grim about facing her.

  She got out of her car as he reached the drive, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to brush by her and go inside without a word.

  “Hi, there,” she said with a forced smile.

  “I’m busy. Goodbye.” A bit abrupt, but it got the point across. He nodded once and walked to his front door.

  Unfortunately, she jogged after him and said, “Zach.”

  “What?”

  She looked away for a moment, no longer smiling. “I have a question to ask you.”

  He didn’t reply, just waited.

  She twisted her hands and gazed at him. “Do you know Stewart Hambly?”

  He went stock-still. All he could think was he wanted to keep Storm far, far away from that name. He hadn’t wanted to hear it again, and here was Dana throwing the name at him.

  She almost crowed at his reaction. “You do! Listen,” she said eagerly, stepping closer. “I really need to speak with him. You have no idea how important this is.”

  He stared, unwilling to tell her the man was dead. Unwilling to tell her anything. “I can’t contact this person. I can’t help you. Now stop talking to me.” He marched up his steps.