by Roxie Noir
“I’ll take the cheeseburger—“
“The lady will have the wild greens garden salad, dressing on the side, no croutons, and she’d like to add grilled chicken to that. Unsweetened iced tea for both.”
Leah’s mouth was still open and she closed it, quickly, turning three shades of red. She looked down at her menu, and just nodded silently when the waitress asked if that was what she actually wanted.
Nathan saw pure red again and he had to fight against the bright white heat of shifting. It took every last ounce of self-control he had not to shift right then and there and tear Ian limb from limb before the other man could do so much as stand up, but he knew he couldn’t. Not here, in the middle of this restaurant. Too many witnesses.
“She was going to order a burger,” he said to Ian, doing his best to keep his voice calm and level and not the growl he felt.
Ian fixed him with that same icy calm glare.
“My wife could stand to eat a salad,” he said.
Leah looked desperately away, across the restaurant, her face still bright red.
“She was going to order for herself,” Nathan said. His voice was beginning to lower, and despite himself, he could feel the shift starting in his core, his bear taking over no matter what he did.
How could that asshole command her around like that?
How could he not see her for what she was — the most beautiful, gorgeous, insanely attractive woman Nathan had ever laid eyes on? Just thinking about her eating a cheeseburger got him halfway erect.
“This is not your concern,” said Ian, with the same infuriating calmness, the same almost-smirk on his face, like he knew that he’d already won.
Nathan pushed his hands down on the table and began to stand, fury lacing its way through his system, whispering for him to shift and tear this asshole apart and damn the consequences. To his right, Emily looked on, even more wide-eyed then before.
He caught Leah’s eye, her face now just a deep pink.
She shook her head slightly, her eyes pleading.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I like salad.”
Then reality came crashing back to Nathan and he remembered where he was, what he was doing. This wasn’t the deep woods, this was polite human society.
He sat back down and glared at Ian, breathing hard.
Chapter Twelve
Leah
Please don’t cause a scene, Leah thought. Please, please don’t draw any more attention to me.
It was bad enough that Ian — her future husband and soulmate, she automatically reminded herself — had decided she was getting a salad instead of a cheeseburger, as if one meal would magically make her skinny or something.
Her family ate at a restaurant once a year, and the rest of the time, things like cheeseburgers and fries were rare — most of her meals were chickens from their farm or veggies that she’d harvested. The Whitehorses weren’t poor, since there always seemed to be money when her father wanted it, but the rest of the family had to scrimp and save.
At last, Nathan sat, and relief flooded through Leah. The whole situation with him and Ian was quickly getting out of hand, she could tell, but she had absolutely no idea what to do about it. She hardly even knew any men that she wasn’t related to, and now there were two of them, fighting over her.
One of them she was going to marry, and the other she thought about almost constantly. At night, she prayed to hear his motorcycle coming up the driveway, even as she knew that she could never, ever disobey her father so seriously as to actually go off with Nathan.
Ian was going to be her mate, and that was that. She needed to stop having this schoolgirl crush on the other shifter.
It would help, though, if he didn’t keep showing up in her life.
After Nathan’s little moment, they sat in silence for what felt like an eon, though Leah knew it was probably about thirty seconds, Nathan practically growling and baring his teeth at Ian. She stared at her hands and picked at her cuticles, pretending that no one else in the restaurant had noticed.
Finally, the silence was too much and she had to say something.
“You ride a motorcycle?” she asked. It was the first thing she could think of, and she’d do nearly anything to break the tension.
Nathan’s eyes moved back to her, and it looked like he relaxed, visibly.
“Yeah,” he said. “Best way to get around, hands down.”
“I’ve never ridden a motorcycle,” said Leah. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
Nathan shrugged. “I guess,” he said. “But driving in a car is dangerous, flying on a plane is dangerous. You might even get E. coli tonight from your salad and die.”
He still seemed tense, something in the way he held his shoulders and neck, speaking to the table at first until, at the end of his sentence, his eyes flicked up to Leah. Then his body seemed to relax a little into itself, the simple, tiny motion releasing something deep inside Leah that responded to every movement he seemed to make.
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Thanks for that,” she said. “Now I’ll really enjoy my dinner.”
Nathan looked guilty, but there was a sparkle of something in his eye.
He was having fun, Leah realized.
“Sorry,” he said, a hint of a smile making its way onto his face.
“Maybe I’ll enjoy my danger salad a little more now,” she said. Leah leaned her elbows on the table, moving her body forward just barely. She felt like Nathan was a magnet, pulling her toward himself, even with Ian right next to her.
“You could be one of those inspirational posters,” Nathan said dryly. “Eat every salad like it’s your last.”
Leah licked her lips and moved her knife with one finger, just barely, tilting her head to one side.
“Tell me about Fjords,” she said.
She glanced at Ian for a half a second, not wanting him to feel left out of the conversation, but she felt caught up in the moment, tiny as it was.
She was pretty sure she was flirting with Nathan, and worse, she was pretty sure that she was having a great time doing it. Leah didn’t think she’d ever flirted with anyone before. After all, she rarely met men that weren’t somehow connected to her family.
Ian’s chest puffed up, and he sat up straighter, lacing his fingers together on the table in front of him. Emily, who’d been quiet as a church mouse this entire time, scooted back in her seat just a little, as if expecting him to explode.
“Fjords was founded about a hundred and fifty years ago by Thomas Rowland, my sixth great grandfather, the North Star clan’s first alpha,” Ian said, pompously.
Nathan raised his eyebrows, and Leah glanced over at him. She had to do her best not to giggle, and she didn’t even know why — because Ian was being such a weirdo?
Because it just felt good to be near Nathan?
Ian didn’t seem to notice any of this.
“Under him, Fjords was a small settlement. It soon attracted humans who had come to Alaska and the Yukon for the gold rush and who elected to stay in the area. For many years, it had a strong fishing industry, led mostly by the North Star clan.” He cleared his throat and looked around the table.
Leah desperately hoped that her face was composed and wifely. She felt anything but.
“The clan has always had a hand in the affairs of the town, usually running things. The humans do not officially know what we are, but most have some sort of informal knowledge.”
Informal knowledge? Leah thought to herself.
She didn’t dare look over at Nathan for fear that she’d burst into giggles at her fiancé.
Ian frowned, just a little, but he went on.
“We prize independence and a wild spirit over almost all else,” he went on, looking straight at Leah. “We are traditionalists, and believe in bear sovereignty. We frown on intermarriage as well as those who would deny or run away from their ursine heritage.”
She bit her lip, sensing that this might turn into a lecture of some sort. She still couldn’t
look over at Nathan, even though she wanted to make sure she wasn’t the only one who found this a little odd,
Leah glanced over at her little sister, still sitting ramrod straight in the chair, a very faint crease between her eyebrows.
Okay, good, she thought.
“Fjords is beautiful,” Nathan said.
Leah turned her head to look at him. Now he was on his elbows on the table, leaning in toward her. His eyes sparkled — no, blazed — with something she couldn’t name but that she found captivating.
“I mean, you’ve seen a lot of the town,” he said, looking down at the table almost shyly and then back up at her. “But in the summer, the bay is beautiful. Across it you can see all these glaciers that come down to the ocean, these gorgeous white ice cliffs.”
He rubbed his hands together and looked at them, thinking.
“You’ve probably seen the huge mountains to the south, right? You can drive across those and get to the national park, and it’s beautiful there, all these majestic fir trees and ice-capped rocks. It really feels like you’re in the middle of something spectacular. And there’s no one around, mostly, not for miles and miles.”
He looked up at her and smiled.
“It’s a wonderful place if you like that sort of thing,” he said.
“I love that sort of thing,” Leah said, nearly mesmerized.
Then Ian cleared his throat, loudly. The sound was nearly a growl, and right away, Leah’s heart skipped a beat.
What are you doing? She scolded herself.
“I can’t wait for us to make a life together here,” she said, and made herself smile up at Ian, putting one hand on his arm.
There was nothing. No sudden zap of electricity, nothing besides lukewarm flesh that barely responded to her touch.
I’ll learn to love him, she thought.
Then, at last, the food came, and everyone ate in silence.
Chapter Thirteen
Nathan
After the meal, the men both paid for their respective dates and, without much further ado, Ian began leaving.
“I’ll also be taking Emily home if you don’t mind,” he said solemnly to Nathan.
He’d almost forgotten about Leah’s shy younger sister, even though she’d been sitting next to him the entire night. He turned to look at her one more time and was struck yet again by how young she looked.
Almost as young as...
He shook his head quickly. Now wasn’t the time to think of that. He followed Ian and Leah out, Emily next to him, and he could feel his anxiety and desperation rising.
I have to see her again, he thought. I don’t care what I have to do. I have to see her again.
He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he didn’t deserve her and he knew that, come hell or high water, she was marrying Ian in a matter of days, and he was powerless to stop it.
The four walked back to the restaurant’s small lobby, which had two wooden benches, a few chairs, a bunch of ugly stuff on the walls, and both bathrooms.
Ian nodded at the men’s.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed off.
Nathan watched his back as the other man walked away, and he had an idea. A way to see her again, an even riskier idea than this one.
The moment the men’s room door closed behind Ian, Nathan turned to Leah, not caring that Emily was also nearby.
“There’s a place not far outside of town called the Pinnacles,” he said, his voice low enough that the people waiting for a table couldn’t hear him. He took a step toward her, not touching her, but she went wide-eyed. “It’s this outcropping of granite, and it’s an easy hike. It sticks up above everything around it, and from there, you can see everything. The town, the mountains, the glaciers, and most nights it’s dark enough that you can see the Milky Way overhead, even in the summer.”
“The Pinnacles?” Leah said, seeming a little lost at this sudden onslaught.
“In the winter you can see the northern lights but it’s too warm right now,” he said.
He took a deep breath. The men’s room door opened, and for a moment his heart stopped.
A stranger walked out.
“What window is yours?” he asked. “In the house?”
“Top floor, north side,” Leah said, breathlessly. Her eyes darted around to the other people waiting in the Applebee’s lobby.
“Midnight tonight,” Nathan said. “Look out your window. I’ll be there. If you don’t want to come, don’t, but I’ll be there, okay?”
Leah had turned bright pink, and she just barely nodded.
“I know this is stupid and dangerous, but I can’t just let this be,” Nathan said, his voice barely above a whisper. His hands were jammed in his pockets out of fear of what they might do — he wanted to take her face in his hands, tilt it up and kiss her long and hard.
If he let himself, he might just take her right there in the middle of Applebee’s, make her scream his name over and over —
“Okay,” she whispered.
Then the bathroom door opened again and Ian walked out. Both Leah’s and Nathan’s heads snapped around, and Nathan instinctually took a step backward.
Ian frowned, as if he knew something had been going on. But they hadn’t been touching, thank god, and there was nothing he could really say. Even if she was his fiancée, she could talk to another man in public, with her little sister right there.
“Shall we go home?” Ian asked, his tone still oddly stiff and formal.
Leah nodded, her color quickly returning to her usual pale.
“It was nice to see you again,” she said, nodding her head forward.
“I had a very nice time tonight,” Emily said, her small hand reaching out and touching Nathan on the shoulder. “Thank you for dinner.”
“You’re welcome,” Nathan said.
Then he watched the three of them leave through the double doors, still standing in the lobby of Applebee’s. After a long moment, long enough for them to get to Ian’s car without feeling like he was following them, he strode out into the cool air of the parking lot and hopped onto his bike.
It wasn’t even eight in the evening. He had to find something to do for four hours.
He ended up going home and watching stupid television for most of that time. He’d tried driving around some, but out of habit he kept steering himself toward Seward and the women fresh off the cruise ships, only to remember that there was nothing for him down there anymore.
Television, at least, provided some measure of distraction. There was a game show and then news before a long, tedious police procedural. They caught the bad guy and then, at last, it was eleven, late enough to head to Leah’s.
Anticipation hummed through Nathan’s veins as he walked to his motorcycle, bringing along an extra helmet. All at once he was excited and terrified: he’d get to see her again, alone for the first time, just the two of them.
On the other hand, he might get caught by her father or one of her brothers. Someone might see them.
Worst of all, she might not come out. She was promised to someone else, and he knew that the Whitehorses were very very traditional.
Maybe Leah was really, truly in love with Ian and just thought Nathan was funny. Maybe she didn’t want to get involved with someone she wasn’t promised to. Maybe that moment in her front yard he’d just been imagining — after all, what had she really said when Nathan spilled his guts to her?
A half mile from her house, he dismounted his motorcycle and left it by the road, in some bushes. Much too late he realized he should have brought the car, since at least that wasn’t loud enough to wake the dead.
Oh well, he thought.
Besides, she’d asked about the bike. He thought he sensed something wild deep down inside Leah. She’d had a circumspect upbringing, it was true, but he had the feeling that once she was out of her father’s house she’d be a real wildcat. The kind of woman who couldn’t be held back from anything.
He didn’t know how
he knew that, but he did.
At last, he could see her house from the road. He didn’t want to walk up her driveway, just in case someone else was still awake, so he fought his way through some bushes and vines to get to the field where the big farmhouse was.
For the first time, he didn’t think about the family he’d frightened out of there, all those years ago.
All he could think of was Leah.
He crept around to the north side of the house, his heart beating nearly out of his chest with excitement. The house was dark, but he couldn’t see the window that Leah had said was hers just yet.
Then, as he rounded the corner, there it was.
Her light was on, though there was a curtain over the window.
Nathan checked his phone to see what time it was. 11:53.
He crouched in the tall grass, just at the edge of the field surrounding the house, and waited.
Chapter Fourteen
Leah
Leah spent the ride back to the farmhouse feeling awful. Everything felt right and good when Nathan was around, but the moment he left, she felt terrible about him.
Mostly, she felt terrible about how she felt around him. When he was there, nothing else at all mattered, but in his absence, reality came crashing back down around her ears.
She was marrying Ian, not Nathan.
Leah sneaked a quick glance at him. He sat up perfectly straight in the driver’s seat, his hands at nine and three, and he stared straight out the car’s front window without wavering at all. He never even looked over at her, and everyone was silent for the entire ride home.
Even though she didn’t have a very good sense of who Ian was — nothing like the sudden, bone-deep understanding of Nathan — she got the feeling that he preferred to speak rather than be spoken to.
At last, they pulled up in front of the farmhouse, the sky just barely starting to turn a light blue-purple at nine in the evening. They were far enough north that it only got truly dark for an hour or two every night, and even then, the edges of the sky would be light.
