by Thorne, Elle
I’m sure lots of things in Bitter Falls are that way.
A part of him wanted to go to the secret walled-in garden. The other part of him wanted to run away from the pain of this place as fast as he could.
He pushed his coffee mug aside. This was the third cup he’d had. Dane looked at his late uncle’s attorney in disbelief.
“I can’t believe you couldn’t handle this without me. My attorney could have come.”
“It’s in the will Mr. Forester. Your uncle made it conditional. You had to be here,” Mr. Shelby said.
Randall Shelby was an octogenarian human, his faded blue eyes covered with the film of age, as some human eyes tended to. This was a problem shifters didn’t have, since they were granted longevity by their shifter powers. Mr. Shelby adjusted his tie, pulling on it to the left then the right, as if he weren’t quite accustomed to wearing one. He picked up a stack of papers from the table.
“Fine, already, can we get this started?” Every moment I’m in this fucking place brings Glory to mind. The heartbreak I must have caused her in her short life.
“As soon as all of the parties are here.”
“Parties? Like who else? The sheriff? The coroner?” Dane had no experience with will readings; no clue what or who to expect.
“Not exactly.”
“What would have happened if I’d sent my attorney instead of coming myself?”
“You’d have forfeited any and all claims to his property in Bitter Falls.”
Bitter Falls. Why the hell didn’t I just do that? Why am I so hell-bent on keeping this property?
He knew why. One reason only.
Glory. And all the memories he had of her. The property would be demolished to put a development in or an amusement park. The lake he and Glory swam in would be ruined by some developer or another putting a golf course in.
The fields they’d roamed… torn up and turned into a concrete something.
Yeah, there’s no way I’m letting that happen. Not to my memories. They are all I have, even if I don’t ever return here.
“So who else is coming?”
Mr. Shelby looked up from the papers, stood them up on end, then tapped them on the tabletop to make them even.
Dane’s fuse was running short. He rose from his chair far more loudly than he’d intended to.
Resembling insect feelers more than human hair, Mr. Shelby’s white brow cocked a notch.
The doorbell rang.
Dane whirled around. “About time,” he muttered.
The sooner we get this show on the road, the sooner I can get the hell away from the memories of what I did, what I could have done, and what I should have done.
He opened the door with a yank.
A funnel cloud sucked him into a vortex.
This can’t be.
The ghost of Glory, except it wasn’t a ghost, was it?
It was Glory. In the fucking flesh. The woman he’d known and loved and…
He shook his head, fruitlessly, as if that would clear it. He stared at the vision in front of him.
Still the same red vibrant hair, the same green eyes that pulled him into a place where they shared a life.
Except not right now.
Those eyes glared at him with anger, their depths lit with a golden glow—a combination of her ivy and her fury.
He wished his lungs would work, he needed air. The burning consumed his chest the same way the grief of knowing she was dead had for all these years.
His snow leopard was making a sound that Dane would have sworn was purring, only he knew his feline didn’t purr.
What the fuck?
His nerve endings played havoc on his body and mind, sending message after message that conflicted.
He swallowed, over and over.
“Glory.”
She took a step back, as if two feet between them wasn’t enough. “Dane.” Her voice was laced with vitriol. She gave him a tightlipped smile. “I’m here to see Mr. Shelby.”
Dane stepped to the side to allow her space to pass.
She walked past him, her pulse beating a fast tempo.
His own heartbeat settled in on hers and matched it,
He inhaled deeply, sucking in as much air as he could.
Big mistake.
Big fucking mistake.
What he pulled in was her essence. The scent of her hatred for him. And something else. Another emotion lingered in her scent—the aroma of her desire.
She might hate him, but a part of her still wanted him.
His snow leopard’s purring sounds turned to chuffs of satisfaction.
Yeah, well, just because you think her ivy still wants you, don’t forget her human hates us, he reminded his leopard.
His leopard snarled an argument back.
Dane shut him out, not willing to pay attention to his feline anymore. It would be folly to do so. He could tell from her expression and her scent that there was no hope for redemption. She was bound and determined to hate him.
That didn’t stop him from appraising her curves as she walked away. The way her hips swayed under the sundress, the way the fabric clung to every curve, reminding him of the heavenly body beneath the material. A body that was meant for him.
Used to be meant for me, he reminded himself. Used to be.
He heaved a sigh out as quietly as he could. A large exhaled whoosh of breath that pushed his hope out along with the lungful he’d taken in.
Now to find out what the hell my uncle had in mind when he had that will drawn up.
And to see how Glory fit in.
* * *
Glory’s hands were shaking. Her heart palpitated in her chest. Her body was covered in a film of sweat.
He’s here. He’s actually here.
And he had the nerve to look her in the eye and not say a word of apology for breaking her heart. For not being there for her when she lost her family.
How could he look so good? How could he possibly look better than he did on the screen? The rugged planes of his face that had haunted her nights had nothing on the real thing. The way his eyes gleamed, the flash of blue in the gray depths was something she’d never seen on the camera. The only time she’d seen that was when they were together.
The blue of his snow leopard. She knew what the leopard was doing. It was reaching for her ivy. It was trying to reestablish the bond they’d had once.
As soon as her ivy had tried to respond, she’d shoved her ivy back as far into the recesses of her mind as she could. There would be none of that.
His chest was wider. His torso narrowed to a vee that showcased abs, even beneath a black T-shirt. Dane’s muscle pushed the sleeves out, forcing the fabric to wrap around flesh banded with steel.
Where is Mr. Shelby?
She’d be damned if she was going to ask Dane. She’d find out on her own. She had nothing to say to him.
“Mr. Shelby?”
“In here, dear.” The older man’s voice called to her from the direction of the breakfast nook she’d sat at with Dane when they’d been younger.
Keeping her eyes focused in front of her, not looking around, not wanting to sink into a vat of memories, she made a beeline for his voice.
She strode into the room and found him rising to his feet.
Mr. Shelby held out his hand. “I’m glad you could make it.
She shook it, noting that his was warm and her own must have felt icy. As icy as the coating that surrounded her heart.
“I’m not sure why I had to be here.”
“Well, it’s the conditions of Frank Forester’s will. And I’d like to know that I did my best to fulfill his final wishes.”
She nodded, but the whole time her senses were tuned into Dane, behind her, approaching, his footsteps silent in his snow leopard stealthy way. She made to take a seat but found the chair being held out for her by Dane.
Glory had one brief second to weigh if she wanted to be a bitch and move to another chair or fake graciou
sness and accept his offer for a seat.
That’s all I’m accepting.
His fingertips brushed her arm as he pushed the chair in. She jerked away reflexively. Her skin was on fire with the heat a thousand suns where his flesh touched hers. Glory ran her fingers through her hair, feeling that it must be springing into the curls it was wont to yield to when she didn’t indulge herself in hours of taming the auburn mass.
She studied the table’s woodgrain pattern while she waited for Mr. Shelby to say his piece. Then she could get the hell out of here. She had no business being here. She didn’t know what he meant by “it’s in your best interest.” But she did want to know.
A cup of coffee was set in front of her. She nodded her thanks, recognizing Dane’s fingers. His hand. The scar over the knuckle on the middle finger. They’d been together when he’d earned that scar.
He’d cut his hand when he’d punched a tree in anger, on a different day, the day he’d told her was his father’s birthday. She knew that scar too well. She’d been the one who’d doctored it.
“So,” Dane’s voice huskier than it had been when they’d seen each other last. It was deeper even than it was in the movies where he played an action figure, super spy type. “What was it that my uncle wanted by having this…”
When Dane didn’t finish his sentence she looked up at him.
Dane’s eyes were on her. “This reading.”
“I have a letter. It has to be read at the same time with both of you in the same room, or not at all.”
“And if we hadn’t agreed? If one of us wasn’t here?” Glory had to ask.
“Then neither would see it, and Frank’s property would be turned over to a developer.”
Glory gasped. She’d thought Frank Forester loved the property. “What in the world would possess him to do that?”
“I’m instructed to read it aloud.”
“Uncle Frank seems to be a control freak, right about now.” Dane’s tone was agitated.
“Perhaps you should let me finish first, young man. Just because you are a shifter doesn’t mean you know everything.”
Glory bit back a sound of surprised.
Dane’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. That was his only reaction to the statement the older man knew he was a shifter.
“Oh yes.” Mr. Shelby nodded. “I know. And I knew about Frank, and all of you. There are some humans who know about shifters. Some humans mean shifters no harm, the others, those are hunters. To be avoided at all costs as they know how to subdue and incapacitate a shifter.” Mr. Shelby took a loud sip of his coffee. “Are we ready?”
Glory nodded. When Mr. Shelby didn’t begin, she looked at Dane expectantly.
He was unmoving.
“The sooner you let him start, the sooner I can get out of your hair.”
Forever.
Again.
“Ready,” Dane said, but he shook his head, as if denying something.
Denying what, she wondered.
Chapter Seven
Glory and Dane,
I’m glad you both agreed to be in the same place at the same time. I wasn’t sure I could make this happen.
I’m dead now, so there’s no way I can know for sure, but I’m hoping that the past has enough pull to bring you both here for this reading.
I’m going to try to cover a lot of history in as short a letter as I can. I’m going to ask one thing only, after the reading is done, please take a moment to talk about the things I’m telling you. I won’t make it a condition of the will. I will appeal to your decency and to your commitment to each other.
Glory looked at Dane. How the hell did Frank Forester know about them?
Dane shrugged.
I always knew the two of you were fated for each other. It makes what had to be done that much more heartbreaking. Dane, when Glory was still a toddler, her parents made a commitment. They agreed to an arranged marriage for their daughter to the son of a leading ivy shifter family. I’m not one who understands the ways of the ivy shifter clans. But I do respect them. I respect their taboos and their laws.
A frown made its way to Dane’s face, drawing his brows down in a vee, pulling a set of lines above the bridge of his nose. He had a question in his eyes.
Glory didn’t want to contemplate that question. She looked away.
So Dane, when I told you she was promised to another, and when I showed you the contract her parents showed me, I did what I thought was right.
I don’t think what I did was right now, in retrospect, but it is too late to change the past. And I feel responsible for the loss of her parents and her sister Honor. So how can I possibly bring to light my role in this?
Mr. Shelby cleared his throat. He paused. Was it Glory’s imagination or did his eyes seem a bit more watery than when she’d first walked in? “Frank Forester was an honorable man. His role in this didn’t sit well with him.”
Glory sat back in her chair, trying to absorb. She needed a moment before he continued reading. “Mr. Shelby, could we take a small break?”
“Certainly.”
What is he saying? My parents colluded with his uncle to tell Dane that I was promised to Perry?
She glanced at Dane.
His gaze was steady.
Is that’s why he left? Without asking me anything about Perry or the agreement or how I felt about something that was drawn up before I could even read?
She wanted to get up. To walk around, to do the things one does when one was in shock.
No. I want to run out of here.
Dane shook his head. “Don’t.”
How did he know what she was thinking? How could they still have that connection, where he knew her better than anyone else, and often better than she knew herself.
* * *
Dane couldn’t have ripped his eyes from her if he’d wanted to. He knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to escape. To sink away from the world—including him. She wanted to hide in her garden like she did when he’d first met her.
“Don’t do it, Glory.” He reached his hand out toward hers but kept it inches away. When she didn’t pull her hand under the table, he covered hers with his. “Please, don’t run.”
Where his flesh touched her, an energy field buzzed, running throughout his body.
How can she still affect me this way?
Glory shook her head, shock was clearly setting in.
She hadn’t known what drove him away.
Hell, he hadn’t even known all that. He didn’t know her parents had talked to his uncle. He only knew that one day his uncle had told him Glory belonged to another man.
Dane hadn’t had the hutzpah to tell his uncle he’d already made her his, that he’d taken her virginity. It didn’t seem to matter anyway, if she was already promised to another.
Crushed, he’d packed his bags and struck out on his own. He couldn’t have said goodbye if he’d wanted to. He would have choked on the words. And then when he learned her family had been attacked by shifters, there hadn’t been much point in life. He’d gone through the motions. Made a life—such as it was.
One fact repeated itself in Dane’s head, over and over again. If he had been told the full story, maybe there’d have been a different outcome.
No, this isn’t the time to give headspace to that.
“Please continue, Mr. Shelby.”
Dane kept his hand on top of hers, hoping it would keep her distracted, keep her there, something.
In the course of the last few years, I’ve learned that Glory’s family was annihilated by the same rovers hunting us.
Glory gasped.
Dane’s shifter senses picked up her pulse’s speeding pace.
Mr. Shelby looked up. Waited for a few seconds, perhaps giving Glory a chance to compose herself.
She nodded for him to proceed.
I’ve always refused to answer your questions when you’ve asked them, Dane. I know you were troubled by your father’s and Brad’s deaths. I could
n’t have you taking them on single-handed. They are experienced in the art of killing. They would have no problem killing a young solitary shifter.
I’m still going to kill those bastards. One day. Dane swore this to himself.
Dane held his hand up for Mr. Shelby to pause. “Rovers did it, didn’t they? Probably the same ones.” Fury was unleashed in Dane’s body, whipping through his veins, rushing to his nerve endings.
Mr. Shelby took a drink from his cup. “Please allow me to finish.”
“Continue.” Dane gritted his teeth.
Dane, I can only imagine your response to this right now. Heed my advice, please. Promise you will not seek revenge.
Again, Mr. Shelby stopped reading. He glanced at Dane, expectantly.
Dane didn’t respond.
Mr. Shelby’s gaze became pointed. He tapped one fingernail on the table.
“You are waiting for me to make a statement that I won’t seek revenge before you read more?” Dane knew his tone was terse, but he was unable to control the fury.
Mr. Shelby gave a small nod, the tiniest inclination of his head.
Dane looked at Glory. He couldn’t read her expression. Her eyelids were lowered over green eyes he’d always been able to read, she was hiding her emotions from him.
“Fine.” That was all he could say, and barely that.
Dane there is a condition to the property becoming yours. Else it will be given to a developer. You have to live on the premises for a month. Once that condition is met, all rights to the property will be transferred to you.
Glory and Dane, I owe both of you an apology for my role in the course your lives have taken. If I’d stood stronger, if I’d insisted a heart’s desires are more important than protocol, then things would have gone much differently.
Again, my apologies.
Francis Evan Forester
Mr. Shelby folded the letter in half, then slipped it back into the envelope. He slid it toward Dane, then slid another matching envelope toward Glory.
