by Carol Davis
.
Shifter Island
Book One: Lost
by
Carol Davis
.
Copyright © 2016 by Carol Davis
All Rights Reserved
CarolDavisAuthor.com
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Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
One
“How long you plannin’ to be gone, honey?” the old man asked.
He and Abby both looked at the little boat bobbing alongside the dock. Forever, Abby thought. I’m never coming back to this stupid, awful place—not ever in a million years. I’m going home and staying there. But she couldn’t say that. The old man wanted his boat back, sooner rather than later. It was a piece of junk, just an old wooden boat with a motor on the back, but it was his piece of junk.
“I don’t know,” she said. “An hour?”
The old man nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “That’s fine, then. Just be careful.”
That made Abby frown a little. “I can handle–”
There, she had to cut herself off, to keep herself from getting angry.
She’d had enough of people telling her what to do. Specifically, with Lane Parker telling her what to do. This was supposed to have been a romantic weekend on a pretty little island a few miles off the coast, the getaway she’d been wanting for a long time. She’d had visions of bubble baths and glasses of champagne, long walks, maybe a picnic in the sunshine. The website for the resort that Lane had picked out showed a beautiful grassy area that was perfect for picnics—it even had a view of the water.
Instead, Lane had spent the last two days picking out other things for them to do together. A lecture on the environmental damage being done by the businesses on the mainland. A class on flower arranging that Lane insisted would be useful.
When he wasn’t doing that, he was complaining about the clothes she’d decided to bring, or picking out her meals.
Yes, he was good-looking, and he had a great job at one of the best law firms in town. He’d be a partner within five years, he’d told her many times. He drove a nice car. Two nice cars, in fact. He was a catch, as her grandmother would say, but he made her feel stupid and useless, just like her dad and her brothers always had. And for that matter, most of the boyfriends she’d ever had.
Abby’s nose started to prickle. No! she told herself. She wasn’t going to cry, not here in front of the old man.
But he’d noticed something was wrong. “You okay, honey?” he asked.
She looked past him, up the road that led to the hotel. Lane had still been sleeping when she left, but it was possible he was up now. Looking for her, wanting to tell her what she should eat for breakfast, in spite of the note she’d left him that said, Going home now. Pls don’t call me. A.
“I’m fine,” she muttered.
The old man paused, then bobbed his head again. “All right, then. There’s a life jacket there under the seat. You got plenty of gas for an hour. Just be sure you mind the rocks if you get in close to shore.” He patted the pocket of his baggy pants. “Call me if you get into trouble. You got your phone?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have my phone.”
He held her hand as she climbed into the boat, holding on firmly when the boat rocked a little. She settled herself on the seat with a smile she hoped looked genuine, half-expecting him to say something about her outfit. Jeans and a sweater would be better for early-morning boating, she supposed, but Lane had insisted she bring nothing on their trip but dresses. She held her breath for a moment, but the old man said nothing. He even took a peek at her legs before he let go of her hand.
“Thank you,” she said.
She felt bad, a little, about stealing his boat. But she’d make sure he got it back eventually, if she could find someone on the mainland who was willing to bring it back to him, so it was really just borrowing, not stealing.
You have to go now, she thought.
The old man untied the boat and gently pushed it away from the dock. “Go on and start ’er up,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.
What if she couldn’t do it? Would he think she was helpless, too?
But the motor started on her second try. She’d had a lot of practice with those pull-starter things; her dad’s old lawn mower started the same way. That, at least, she could do—though of course Lane wouldn’t be impressed that she could start up a lawn mower, or a boat. Other people were supposed to do those things. Not Abby, who was supposed to look pretty, show a lot of leg, and arrange flowers.
The old man winked at her and smiled. “There you go, then,” he said.
Yup, Abby thought. Here I go.
The ride out to the island on the hotel’s big “high-speed shuttle” had only taken about twenty minutes. How far that was, Abby wasn’t sure. Five miles? Ten? Two? But it didn’t matter. She’d be back at the mainland soon. She could call a cab from the harbor and be back home in less than an hour. The cab ride would be expensive, but worth every nickel, and once she was back home, she could start making sure she never saw Lane Parker again.
She started humming as the boat bounced over the waves. The water was choppier than she had expected, but nothing she couldn’t handle. The weather was beautiful, bright and sunny, with just a mild breeze, and the ocean had never intimidated her. As she looked out across the waves, all she could see was freedom.
After what felt like about fifteen minutes, she could see land off in the distance, surrounded by early-morning mist. It didn’t seem as wide as she thought the mainland should be, but maybe the harbor sat out on a little finger of land. She’d see the tip of it first, then more and more as she got closer.
Right?
She couldn’t hear herself humming over the sound of the motor, so she began to sing, louder and louder: her go-to song, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” She remembered singing it with her mom when she was a little girl, the two of them dancing around the house as they got their chores done. It had always made both of them happy, even though neither one of them could sing very well.
Lane wouldn’t let her sing. Her voice made him cringe, he said.
Just a few more minutes, she told herself, watching that finger of land grow larger. Then this’ll be over.
She couldn’t see the harbor there, but she was still a ways out.
But… it was a big harbor. People moored their yachts there. There was a huge blue-gray building that housed a restaurant and a boat repair shop and a bowling alley, and across from it, the yacht club. The parking lot was big enough for a hundred cars. She ought to be able to see that, even from out here. She might have other faults, but there was nothing wrong with her eyesight.
That had to be the mainland. It was the only land in sight.
Something got very tight inside her chest as the boat bounced ahead and her big yellow overnight bag rolled onto her foot. Lane had made a comment about that, too, about how she’d rolled up her dresses inside it instead of…what? Packing them neatly with tissue paper, like she was the Duchess of Whodywho? No, it wasn’t fancy-pants luggage; it was nothing more than a very large purse.
She didn’t own any fancy-pants luggage.
That tight feeling made it hard to breathe. She was a little queasy, too, from all the bouncing around.
She’d done it wrong, she realized. She’d circled a little ways around the
island so she’d be out of sight of the old man when she headed out over the open water. That way he wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t cruising along the shoreline to see the other side of the island, the part that had a bird sanctuary that her boyfriend had no interest in seeing. She was going to take some pictures before breakfast, she’d told him.
And now she was heading for the wrong finger of land.
Okay. No problem. She wasn’t heading for the harbor; she was going to reach land a little farther down the coast. All she had to do was find a dock and use her cell phone to call a cab. They’d pick her up no matter where she was, if she paid them enough.
People would do pretty much anything if you paid them enough.
She sang some more, loudly and off-key, because no one could hear her.
What seemed like hours later, she finally reached a dock, an old, rickety thing that looked like it had been built a hundred years ago. It was weathered and slimy with moss, but its being here meant there had to be something else nearby: a house, or a road, or… something. Either way, she was off that stupid “weekend paradise” island and back on the mainland.
Squaring her shoulders, Abby looped the little boat’s mooring rope over one of the dock’s battered pilings and carefully climbed out, then reached back into the boat and grabbed her bag.
Halfway home. Okay? You made it back to land.
Fourteen cautious steps took her off the slimy dock onto safe ground where she could set her bag down and fish out her phone. She looked back out across the water as she straightened up.
So much water. Miles of it, between her and Lane.
No Signal, the phone said.
What?
She couldn’t be that far from the harbor. There was cell service there; she’d seen people milling around using their phones, and Lane had used his to check the weather for the hundredth time.
Okay, maybe there were too many trees—she was surrounded by them. Big, old ones. Or there was too much rock. Or something.
“Just a hiccup,” she whispered. “Just… you can deal with this.”
Of course she could. In spite of what anyone else might think, she was a perfectly capable 24-year-old woman with a good job and a car and her own cute little apartment. She’d gotten very good grades all through school, and Mrs. Johns, her guidance counselor, had once told her she was a creative thinker. Her employee appraisals always said she was inventive. For crying out loud. You’re no dumber than anybody else. Think this through. Take a deep breath and figure out what to do next.
There was a path winding up from the dock into the trees. It had to lead somewhere. She could also get back into the boat and travel along the coast a ways, and look for the harbor. Or some other harbor. This wasn’t the eighteenth century, after all. There was civilization all over the place.
Just to be sure, she tried the phone again, but it still said No Signal.
The water looked choppier now. There were some whitecaps out there, a sign that the wind was picking up. She looked at the boat, wondering how much gas was left. The old man had said there was more than enough for an hour, but had he figured in how fast she’d be going? A lot faster than she would have gone if she’d just been trolling along the shore of the island. Frowning, she crept back out along the dock, reached down into the boat and jiggled the gas can.
It was almost empty.
Her stomach rolled hard. What if she’d run out of gas out there on the water?
What if…
No. NO. She wasn’t going to give in to this. She wasn’t going to cry; that was something Lane would expect of her. She’d gotten this far. All she had to do was walk out and find a road, then follow it to the nearest town. She was wearing comfortable shoes, and her bag wasn’t that heavy.
Go, she told herself.
So she went.
Two
Change is in the air.
How many times had Aaron heard someone say that? Dozens? Hundreds? As far back as he could remember, it had always been said with enormous gravity, like a pronouncement from the gods. By and large, his pack didn’t like change; they relied on things staying more or less the same. Maybe that was the reason for the gravity.
Things are changing. Be careful.
On the mainland, though, people said change was good.
Aaron growled softly to himself and tipped his head back so the afternoon sunlight would fall on his face. Yes, this time that the pack called the Separation was supposed to be a period of reflection and contemplation—a full month of it—but you could only ponder things for so long before they made your head pound.
You’re a creature of the wild. You’re not supposed to think. You’re supposed to act. Trust your instincts.
He glanced at the tick marks he’d made on the sheet of paper fastened to the wall. He couldn’t bring himself to count them, but he thought there might be seventeen. That meant another two weeks of being confined to this tiny cabin and the area around it. Two more weeks of not being able to prowl, to run free. For any wolf, that kind of confinement was torture, the worst thing imaginable. In its own way, it was worse than being torn to bits and left to die.
Gods, he wanted to run.
Instead, all he could do was roam this little patch of ground, gathering berries, trapping the occasional squirrel or rabbit, trying not to count the minutes as they crept by.
Change is…
He tilted his head a little and sniffed the air. As always, it was heavy with salt from the sea spray, and with pine. Wet earth. The scent of small ground animals and birds—and of his pack, the closest of whom was almost two miles away. If they’d been closer, he could have identified them. Amos, maybe; he lived nearest to the cabin. Or maybe Micah, who was fond of roaming the woods in this direction.
He’d spent all morning cleaning and tidying the cabin, though he was under no obligation to do that. It allowed him to move around, lift things, scrub things, work his neglected muscles in the smallest of ways.
“We all do it,” his father had reminded him the day before his Separation began.
That didn’t make this any more palatable. “Why does a wolf need to reflect?” he’d asked. “What are we supposed to reflect on?”
“Your future,” said his father. “Your place.”
Your place.
Confined to an island some twenty miles off the coast. It was an ample amount of land for a pack this size, but it still felt limited. The humans, after all—and the wolves who’d staked out territory on the mainland—had millions of square miles to wander across, however and whenever they pleased. Aaron had had a taste of that during his time of Involvement, his months of schooling among the humans. He’d also had a taste of how fearful and judgmental the humans could be, and how difficult they were to live amongst. He’d had to hold his tongue the entire time, for fear of offending one of them to the point that they’d dig into his past, his family history. That, he’d been told, was a problem every wolf experienced.
Here on the island, at least, they were left alone.
He listened to the trill of the birds for a minute, occupying the time by identifying which species they were. They too seemed to think change was coming, but they probably meant the weather.
Yes, the wind was shifting a little, coming now from the southwest. It brought with it slightly different smells: the wildflowers that grew in huge clusters on that side of the island, the scent of fish. Something spoiled and rotting—the carcass of something that had died or been killed in the woods. It might rain later on, which would add water to the barrels. If it was a steady, warm shower, he thought he might stand in it for a while without clothing so he could feel the water cascading over his skin.
There…
Another scent. Something very different.
Aaron tipped his head back and sniffed, his wolf’s senses on alert.
Not meat. Not prey. Something else, something that kindled a warmth deep in his belly and made his cock twitch.
Female.
&
nbsp; But… here? The rest of the pack was miles away, and the wolves who were closest to the cabin were all male. The females and the little ones were generally kept near the core of the settlement to keep them safe. No matter that there was no real danger here on the island, other than from the occasional violent storm; it was something that had always been done and likely would always go on being done as long as the pack had a single member left.
Aaron took a few steps across the clearing. The scent was still there, not moving. It was beyond the limits of where he was supposed to go, but his wolf was urging him to investigate, restrictions be damned. This was something that couldn’t be ignored, something he couldn’t overlook in favor of continuing to contemplate his toes and the dirt and the clouds.
It might be one of the adolescents, wandering somewhere she shouldn’t be. He could certainly sympathize with that, but the elders wouldn’t.
Another sniff.
No, this wasn’t a child on the verge of the change. This was a fully mature female, ripe and ready for mating.
And… human.
He moved on toward the edge of the clearing with a voice in the back of his mind warning him of how much his father would disapprove, and how that disapproval would spread through the entire pack. But really, what could they do to him? Keep him out here for another month?
Your curiosity will lead you to no good end, boy.
But he wasn’t a boy any longer. Not a young one in need of guidance. He was capable of making his own decisions. Restrictions or not, this was something that needed to be investigated, a female who might be injured. He could smell no blood on the air, but there could still be broken bones or damage that wouldn’t bleed on the outside. She might be trapped among the rocks. This far out, no one else was likely to find her, not as long as the wind was blowing from the southwest; it would carry her scent out over the water, not in-island, toward the settlement.
Moving cautiously, Aaron slipped between the trees on the balls of his feet. The birds went silent as he passed.
