by Amira Rain
Anyway, when the little boy at the school thought he saw a wolf in the jungle today, Holden wondered if it might have been one of a few possible escapees from Wulfric Palms. Then, Jessica, the mom of the little boy who thought he saw the wolf, came to the school and told his teacher that just yesterday, he also thought he saw an elephant in the jungle. A blue elephant with neon green polka dots, to be exact. Meaning, this particular little boy might be prone to making up tales.”
“But what if he’s not? Or what if he is, but this time, the time he thought he saw a wolf, he actually did?”
“Well, that’s exactly what Holden thought, so he made a rare call to Eric, the alpha of the Clearwater wolves. Eric assured Holden that none of his men were anywhere near our village today, and he also assured Holden that he and his men tracked down and killed all remaining stragglers after taking out Dominic and his men. Eric said he’s ‘ninety-nine-point-nine percent positive’ they got them all, every last one.
Holden chalked today’s panic up to a little boy with an overactive imagination, but at the same time, he wants to be a little cautious, hence the patrols today, even though the likelihood of there being a threat anywhere near is probably pretty slim. Slim-to-none, I’d actually say.”
We arrived at the stretch of ocean where we liked to swim best, because this spot more than any other, was usually teeming with brilliantly colored tropical fish. After kicking off our sandals and peeling off our shorts and tops, we waded into the glittering turquoise water, and I was instantly glad Cora had dragged me out of the house. Once I was out in the waves, I floated on my back, gazing up at a baby blue sky, feeling all my cares and worries beginning to slip away.
A minute or so later, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Cora, who was floating on her back nearby, suddenly righted herself to vertical with a loud splash.
“Oh! Haley! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this! Well, maybe it’s not that huge a deal, but maybe of interest, anyway.”
Curious, I righted myself to vertical, too, and began treading water. “Well, what is it?”
“Well, it’s just something interesting that Conner told me. He said that while Holden was talking to Eric, he just happened to mention Hannah and Ashley, just saying that they were safe and sound, just in case Eric, as alpha of Clearwater, was wondering how they’ve been doing since they left.”
“And what did he say? Was he relieved to hear they’re all right?”
“Well, this is the funny part. He was relieved to hear, I guess, but he was surprised to hear that they are here in Sun Cove. See, they’ve more or less been missing for a couple of months. They never got along with anyone in Clearwater, and by they, I really mean Hannah, with her lovely personality. After a while, she apparently got sick of most everyone in the village disliking her, so she left, taking her little air-headed lapdog Ashley with her.
They said they were just going to live ‘off the grid’ in the jungle areas around Clearwater. Eric didn’t think this was a great idea with the Forms around, but Hannah apparently didn’t care. Being that she’s an adult, Eric couldn’t stop her from doing what she wanted to do. So, anyway, isn’t that strange that she and Ashley have just been wandering around in the jungle for months? I mean... what did they do all that time? And I wonder what made them suddenly come here to Sun Cove?”
Treading water a bit faster due to a flash of anger, I made a soft noise of disgust. “I’ll tell you exactly what made them suddenly come here to Sun Cove. Out there in the jungle, Hannah probably had a lot of time to think, and she probably realized how dumb she’d been to let Holden get away from her. That’s when she decided to come back here and try to sink her rude little hooks into him.” Trying not to let myself get too worked up, I floated back onto my back again. “Well, sorry, Hannah. He’s taken now. Or, at least... Well, kind of, anyway. He’s in the process of being taken back.”
Now on her back again as well, Cora floated beside me. “So, have you thought any more about Amy’s advice? To make a decision to trust Holden around Hannah and just leave it alone?”
I exhaled slowly, watching a pair of seagulls circling overhead, their bright white bodies almost seeming to glow in the sun. “No. I mean, yes, I’ve given it more thought, but I just don’t know if I’m up to the task of fully and completely making a choice to trust Holden around Hannah. He says he wants nothing to do with her physically, but... Well, you’ve seen her. She is drop-dead gorgeous. Holden is a shifter with a very high... ‘romantic drive,’ I’ll say. He’s also been known to give in to temptation, as evidenced by what happened this morning.”
“But that was with you. Someone he cares about on an emotional level as well as a physical level. So, even if Hannah ripped all her clothes off in front of him, you don’t think he’d be able to resist?”
I shrugged, even though the movement probably wasn’t visible to Cora, since my shoulders were partially under the water. “I’d like to think he’d resist... And for the most part I believe he would. But I’m just not certain. You know? That’s part of what makes me feel hesitant to just make a choice to trust him and then actually do it, like Amy says. I just feel like I need to stay on top of this situation or something... Like I still need to continually watch Hannah and Holden when they’re together.”
“Well, I think you’re about to get your next chance to do that. Don’t freak out, Haley, please... But look who’s home early from the patrol. Look who’s riding on his back. Up on the beach. Straight ahead.”
I’d already lifted my head out of the water, scanning the beach, before Cora had even finished speaking. Now, with my blood suddenly feeling like hot lava flowing through my veins, I saw the scene she’d described. Holden was in bear form, running across the sand at a fast pace, and Hannah was straddling his back, clutching hanks of his thick black fur with both hands. She was looking straight ahead, chin up, and even from a distance, I could tell that her full, pouty lips were curving in a smile. It appeared to be a smile of satisfaction.
Without lifting my gaze from the two of them, I spoke to Cora through gritted teeth. “They’re both dead. Absolutely dead. Hannah’s getting slapped across the face at least a hundred times. And Holden... Well, for lying to me, he’s going to get it even worse. He’s about to become the first shifter ever killed by a human woman’s bare hands.”
CHAPTER 14
As I began swimming for shore, Cora grabbed my arm to try to stop me. “Haley, please... Don’t do this. I only told you because I’m positive that there must be a perfectly good—and innocent!—explanation for whatever the hell is going on up there, and I was going to volunteer to go up there myself and find out what it is. Emphasis on myself... Meaning, not you.”
Trying to shrug her hand off my arm, I began swimming faster. “Sorry, Cora. I’m just not sure that you’ll be as good at murdering as I’m about to be.”
“Just listen to me, Haley. Please just listen. Holden has asked you to give him space. A major confrontation on the beach is not giving him space. Don’t blow your whole future with him over some crazy misunderstanding. Because I’m sure that’s all this is, and blowing your whole future with him is what I’m sure is going to happen if you storm the beach right now. He probably won’t ever take you back after this. Not if you make it so completely obvious that you still don’t trust him and have no intention of respecting his requests.”
A rapid doggy-paddle was the fastest I could swim, so I wasn’t having much luck shaking Cora off, especially since she was holding my arm in a vice grip.
I glanced over at her, panting with exertion. “Don’t tell me that if you saw Conner carrying some gorgeous ex-girlfriend of his on his back while in bear form that you wouldn’t be ready to send limbs flying all over the beach.”
“Look. I’m not saying I blame you for how you’re feeling. I’m just saying think this through. Please. For me. In case you haven’t noticed, I am very pro-Haley and Holden, and I am really just trying to stop you from making what I know will be
a huge mistake. So, please... Just slow the hell down and think about this. Don’t make me dunk your head under the water to try to get you to see sense.”
I finally stopped swimming, but only because Holden and Hannah had disappeared from view. Since Holden had been running, it really hadn’t taken them very long. It didn’t seem like either of them had even seen Cora and me.
Treading water across from Cora, who’d finally released my arm, I worked on catching my breath for a few moments before speaking. “All right. I won’t confront them myself. But I have to know what was going on. If Holden has been lying to me... If he really is involved in some kind of a relationship with Hannah... I need to know.”
I couldn’t think of how it might be possible that he wasn’t in a relationship with Hannah. In the village, riding on a man’s back while he was in shifter form was somehow seen as a pretty intimate thing, and a woman just didn’t do it unless the man whose back they were riding was their man. A man wouldn’t offer a woman a “lift” in such a fashion unless he definitely wanted that woman to be his woman.
Despite Cora’s reassurances that there would be some rational, innocent explanation for Hannah riding on Holden’s back, I could only think in a tunnel-vision sort of way. Holden had been lying to me. I’d been right not to give him my full trust.
In response to what I’d said, Cora nodded. “I’ll find out what’s going on... I’ll do it delicately and discreetly. In the meantime, you’re going back to your cabin, where you’re going to stay put and wait for me. Okay?”
I agreed, and the two of us began swimming back to shore.
***
A few hours later, I was pacing around my cabin, which I’d been doing pretty much since the moment I’d arrived home. The activity had only been interrupted by brief bouts of tearfulness so intense I’d had to sit on the couch while my shoulders shook with sobs. I felt like my heart was breaking.
Though at the same time, I was angry. I kept recalling how Holden had told me that he had no intentions of having any kind of romantic or physical relationship with Hannah, and how many times, and in how many different ways, he’d said this. I felt tricked. Betrayed. Though more than a bit vindicated at the same time, because I’d been right, I told myself. My instinct not to trust fully had served me well. However, needless to say, this feeling of vindication was cold comfort.
I hadn’t always had such difficulty giving my complete trust while in a relationship, but an experience with a cheating boyfriend some years back had changed all that. But unlike with Holden, I hadn’t really deeply loved this particular boyfriend, so his betrayal actually hadn’t hurt that bad. It just made me a bit wary. Now, going forward, I couldn’t imagine how I could ever give a man even a sliver of trust ever again.
Still pacing around and sniffling a bit around eight in the evening, I stopped dead in my tracks when Cora and Amy burst into my cabin, which was the only way their entrance could be described. After one of them had yanked open the door, they both came racing through the foyer, only pumping their brakes when they reached me in the living room.
With her long brown hair tangled and her face flushed, as if she’d run to my cabin with all haste, Cora took a few gulps of air with her hands on her knees before speaking. “He’s not cheating on you. He didn’t betray you. There was a perfectly innocent explanation for why Hannah was riding on his back this afternoon.
After this—after I tell it to you—if you still can’t make a decision to give Holden your complete trust now... Well, I think I think it’ll be the biggest mistake of your life, because he’s a good man who does truly love you, and he’s been faithful to you the whole time, even when the two of you haven’t technically been together. I know this for a fact. I could see it in his eyes.”
Pulse pounding, I stared at her, hugging my arms to my chest. “But what’s the explanation for what we saw this afternoon? How could Hannah riding on Holden’s back have possibly been anything other than what it looked like?”
With her face flushed like Cora’s was, Amy took me by the arm and began leading me over to the couch. “The age-old adage is true in this case. Looks can be deceiving. Let us explain.”
She and I sat on the couch, and Cora had a seat in a cream-colored overstuffed chair across from us.
She sat back, crossing one long, slender leg over the other, and looked me right in the eyes. “Hannah was badly injured this afternoon. She was taking a walk around the jungle in flip-flops, but the strap on one of them broke, so she was heading back to the village with one bare foot, and she cut it on a rock or something. She was gushing blood, and scared out of her mind, so she started screaming.
Holden, who was nearby, leading the surveillance patrol, came to help her. He shifted into human form, wrapped her foot with his t-shirt, and then shifted back into bear form to take her back to the village. He exited out of the jungle and ran parallel to it, along the beach, so that he could go with all speed without worrying about the uneven terrain in the jungle making Hannah fall off his back.”
I sputtered for a long moment, nearly speechless. “But, she looked perfectly fine when we saw them. On top of his back like that, she looked like, satisfied somehow. Like, almost happy.”
Cora shrugged. “Well, I can’t explain the look on her face, other than I’m sure that she was maybe happy that the result of her injury was getting a lift from Holden. But as far as her being perfectly fine, she absolutely wasn’t. Holden said that by the time they got back to the village, his t-shirt was almost entirely soaked in blood. From where you and I were in the ocean, we just couldn’t see Hannah’s injury, because they were heading east, to the village, meaning that Hannah’s injured foot, which was her left, would have been hidden by Holden’s big, furry body.”
Now I really was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to think. All I knew was that I was beginning to develop an actual ache in my chest.
Amy, who was sitting across from me on the couch, broke the silence after a few seconds. “Haley, no kidding. This was not Holden cheating on you or trying to start anything with Hannah in any way, shape, or form. She was truly very badly injured and needed help right away. She had a gash on her foot about half a foot long. Dr. Anderson was already stitching her up when I got to the medical center to check on her, and he said it was going to take at least a dozen stitches to close the wound. At least.”
After another brief period of silence, Cora spoke next, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward in her chair, looking at me. “Holden loves you, Haley. Even in the midst of all the drama about Hannah, he still took me aside at the medical center and asked me how you were doing today. And his eyes when he said it... He just had a look of a man who’s been very hurt, and still is hurt, but is still very much in love at the same time. He doesn’t want to let you go, but he just needs you to trust him.
He’s hurt because you can’t seem to, and he’s hurt because he’s never given you any reason not to, including today.” With a little glimmer of pain in her own eyes, Cora paused to take a deep breath before continuing. “I want to tell you something. You’re my friend, and I want to support you, but Holden is our community’s leader, and he’s my husband’s best friend, and he’s my friend, too.
I want him to be happy, and I want him to be treated the way he deserves. Which, of course, is not being treated with suspicion at every turn, even though he’s done nothing wrong.”
Still holding my gaze, Cora paused for another deep breath before continuing again. “I think if you can’t make a genuine, heartfelt decision to trust Holden completely, and then put that complete trust into action, like Amy has suggested, you should just let Holden go, and tell him that you’re doing so. I think this would be fairest to you both.”
I nodded, suddenly noticing that tears were freely flowing down my face. Sniffling, I abruptly wiped them away with the back of my hand. “I feel like a complete ass. When I blew up the lake, I told Holden I’d try to learn to trust him, but I
guess I haven’t tried very hard. I also told him I’d try to think things through better, but I guess I haven’t really tried very hard on that account, either, as I’m sure you well know, Cora, because you had to grab my arm today to keep me from going ballistic at the ocean.”
Amy handed me a tissue from a box on an end table, and I took it, dabbed my eyes, and blew my nose before speaking again.
“I’m ready, guys. I don’t want to lose Holden. I’m ready to give him my complete trust. I know I can’t just try anymore; it has to be a choice. A conscious act. I’m going to put that trust into action by giving him the benefit of the doubt, each and every time, until he does something to break that trust. Which....” I paused to blow my nose again. “Which, after learning the truth about him and Hannah today, I’m starting to feel in my heart that he’d never do. He’s told me that I can trust him, and now I believe that I really can. I’m ready to do it.”
Amy gave me a little smile. “Make it official, then. Say it out loud.”
I exhaled a shaky breath, and then attempted to return her smile. “All right. Here it is. From this moment forward, I’m not trying to trust Holden anymore; I trust him. Period. I’m giving him my complete trust, even though he doesn’t even know it yet.”
Just like that, I made a decision to simply trust Holden. I just had no idea how soon my new-found trust would be put to the test.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Late in the afternoon the following day, after I’d been working with Cora and Amy in our studio for several hours, I was ready to call it quits for the time being. Despite the time I’d put in, I really hadn’t accomplished much all day, because I’d been distracted, wondering how soon Holden would notice that I’d finally decided to trust him, and wondering if I should send him a brief letter telling him about my decision, even though he’d asked me not to contact him. I also wondered if he would indeed eventually take me back, as I desperately hoped, and if so, how long it might be before that happened.
