by Carol Davis
But you fear everything that’s different, he thought.
“Please,” she whispered.
“I’ll show you where I live,” he offered. “If you’ve seen it… maybe you can make a better decision. A sensible one.”
“I am making a sensible decision.”
Aaron shook his head. “It’s your entire life, Abby.”
She’d run away from that other man, out across the open water in a not entirely seaworthy boat, entirely on impulse. Because she was upset. She might well be doing the same thing now, and if that was her entire reason for being here, then Luca was right: she might not be trustworthy.
She might be…
No. He couldn’t believe that.
In the back of his mind, he heard his brother say, Before the desire becomes too strong… But it already had.
He loved this woman. They were meant to be together.
This would work, he told himself.
It had to.
“Come, then,” he said, and turned her toward the door. “I’ll show you where I live.”
Nine
“We need to walk some distance,” Aaron said. “Can you manage that?”
Her feet had healed somewhat over the last couple of days, along with the scrape on her leg, but that didn’t mean her shoes had improved. By the time they reached the settlement, she’d be hobbling again. That made him wish he could produce something better for her, the type of strong, durable shoes he’d seen people running in on the mainland, or at least the kind he and the rest of the pack wore.
Instead, she pulled something out of her giant bag: two small, thin pieces of cloth. “I wear these sometimes when it’s hot,” she said. “They’re footsies. So my feet don’t get all sweaty and stink. They’re ugly, though.”
Humans, Aaron thought with an inward sigh. More concerned with looks than safety.
She sat on the edge of the bed and slipped the pieces of cloth on over her feet—they fit like socks, but didn’t come up as far as her ankles—then put on her shoes. When she stood up, she was smiling with satisfaction, as if she’d just equipped herself properly for a very long journey. Up a mountainside, maybe, or all the way to the moon.
He could see a flicker of doubt in her eyes, though, one he was fairly sure had nothing to do with her feet. She’d picked it up from him, he knew. His doubt, his fear.
“We can do this,” she said, but there was a wobble in her voice.
They set off hand in hand, though they needed to separate after they’d gone some distance down the trail leading to the settlement. It was only wide enough for one person, and he moved ahead so he could hold aside anything with thorns or barbs or broken ends that would tear her skin. Because he’d walked the trail many times, he could also warn her about protruding roots and animal burrows that made the ground uneven. She seemed to take all that in stride, though. She walked confidently—or she was at least pretending to be confident.
The sun was almost at its highest point in the sky when they reached the hilltop that overlooked the settlement. They were still more than a quarter of a mile away from the closest structure, but the hill offered a view of nearly everything.
Abby stood looking at it in silence, her expression serious and contemplative. Then she asked quietly, “How many people live there?”
“At last count, fifty-nine.”
“Really?”
“It varies. But never by much.”
“It looks like one of those reenactment villages. Plymouth Colony, or something like that. Very simple.”
“It is simple. But productive.”
“You’ve always lived this way?”
Aaron nodded. “Always.”
“And you normally live down there. Not at the cabin.”
“I do.”
“With no electricity,” she mused. “And no plumbing.”
“There are wells. And we collect rainwater in troughs and barrels. We have candles and oil lamps for light, and we cook over open flame, as you’ve seen. We have no need for the ‘conveniences’ you have on the mainland—although many of us do prefer using a toilet house to voiding ourselves in the woods,” he added with a small smile. “Our lives here are very simple and uncomplicated.”
“You don’t need to pay any bills. Or taxes.”
“No.”
“I guess that’s pretty attractive.”
She didn’t sound as enthusiastic as he’d hoped she might. Both her tone and her expression were very serious, as if she was thinking through every little bit of this. That was a good thing, he told himself—if she’d given up thinking of this as a lark and was sorting through what life here truly involved.
“You just live here in peace,” she said. “And you don’t bother anybody else.”
“No one here has any desire to bother anyone.”
“You just want to be left alone.”
“Yes,” Aaron said.
She was silent for a long time, gazing down at the settlement, picking at the strap of her bag with a fingernail. There seemed to be an entire cascade of thoughts going through her head; a human might not have noticed, but the wolf side of him was able to pick up the tiniest of changes in stance, scent, where her eyes were focused. Heartbeat, breathing. A large part of what he was showing her appealed to her, he knew. But not all of it. That would take time.
“This is a beautiful place, Abby,” he said. “A good place.”
She nodded, but it seemed to be more in simple acknowledgement that he had spoken than to agree with him.
“I have a home,” she said.
“I understand.”
“But it’s–” Her breath hitched. “It’s just a place to live. A roof over my head. You know?”
“I understand the difference.”
“Aaron…” she said. When he raised an eyebrow, she went on, “It seems hard to believe that there’s a place like this. Something that’s so simple. Do you get along here? Like each other? Help each other?”
“For the most part. We have our disagreements.”
“Like you and your brother.”
Rather than answer that, he looked down the hill and scanned the settlement carefully. He was looking for signs of life down below, someone going to fetch water or tend to the animals. It wasn’t quite time for the midday meal, so his packmates weren’t likely to be at home eating, or at the gathering place where they could share a meal outside in the sunshine. They’d be going about their daily chores: washing clothes, teaching the children, tending to the gardens.
One by one, he was able to pick them out. Almost a dozen were visible from where he was standing.
Then he spotted something he’d been leery of seeing. Down below, at the edge of the woods surrounding the settlement, a big gray wolf was prowling through the trees. The animal was moving slowly, with somewhat of a limp.
His father, Jeremiah.
He wondered if Luca had already returned to the settlement, if he’d told their father what was happening.
Beside him, Abby let out a squeak, and he grasped her hand in his own. She huddled close to him for a moment, breathing shallowly, alert and wary. Clearly, she’d seen the animal down below—but she didn’t seem truly afraid, at least not as much as humans normally were. Maybe her distance from the wolf allowed her to view it somewhat dispassionately, as she would an animal at a zoo, or if she were looking at it on a television.
Then the wolf disappeared, swallowed up by the trees and underbrush. For a couple of minutes there was no sign of movement in that area. Then Jeremiah reappeared a short distance away from where he had vanished, this time in human form and accompanied by two other men: Caleb and Mason, two-thirds of the circle of elders, the ones who made every important decision for the pack, the ones who would ultimately decide whether Abby could stay or go.
Their being with Jeremiah now didn’t seem at all like a good sign.
“Is that the Welcome Wagon?” Abby asked nervously.
“My father,” Aaron sai
d. “The gray-haired one is my father. The other two are elders.”
She took her hand back and, for a moment, used both arms to hug herself. She looked from Aaron down at the three men, then back at him again.
“It’ll be all right,” Aaron told her. “They just… want to talk.”
She didn’t answer.
Damn, Aaron thought. There was no doubt in his mind now that his father and the others had expected him, that they were down there to intercept him before he could reach the settlement. He’d have to explain himself to them before he could speak to anyone else, before he could begin to win some sympathy for himself and Abby.
But were they willing to listen?
“They’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet, are they?” Abby asked softly.
“No,” he admitted.
The way she was breathing told him how nervous she was, now that they were so close to the settlement—something that would likely get worse when she was face to face with his packmates. Except for the children, they were all taller, bigger, stronger than she was, and that wouldn’t help her wavering confidence.
Be strong, Abby, he thought. Stand strong.
Before he could speak again, she grasped his hand tightly and pulled it close to her side. As she did, he found something new in her eyes.
“When I moved away from my family,” she said quietly, “it was like this. I didn’t know anyone in the city. I didn’t have a job set up ahead of time, or a place to live. I just got in my car and went. I had to do things one at a time. And, sure, I was scared. I’d never done anything like that before. But I got it done. I found an apartment, and a job—without any help from my family, or anyone else. And here, I figure I’ve got an advantage.”
That seemed unlikely. “What’s that?” he asked.
“I’ve got you on my side.”
She grinned in a way that was a little awkward and frozen, and her breathing was still anything but steady.
“Right?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “I am very much on your side.”
Swiftly, with a deep, wobbling breath, she squared her shoulders, picked up her bag, and nodded in the direction of his father and the elders. “Then let’s go arbitrate this,” she said firmly. “Time’s a-wastin’.”
Ten
You’re not wanted here.
The three men looked like the embodiment of every cliché Abby had ever heard about small towns and outsiders. They might as well have been standing underneath an enormous neon sign that spelled out their lack of willingness to hear whatever she and Aaron had to say.
No, setting up a new life for herself after she’d left her father’s home hadn’t been easy, not a bit of it, but this…
Her mind was reeling as she and Aaron made their way down the hill. She clutched her travel bag with one hand and Aaron’s hand with the other, wishing she could take larger, more determined steps but afraid she’d trip over something, fall head-over-backside down the hill and land in front of those three humorless-looking men with her skirt rucked up around her waist. Or she might knock herself out completely. That was certainly possible; there were a lot of trees in the way.
By the time they reached the bottom of the slope, her hands and feet were ice-cold, and she had to resist the urge to look to Aaron for support. She had to seem strong, sensible, and capable. Someone these people would see as an asset to their community, not someone they ought to give the bum’s rush to.
The three men didn’t approach. Instead, they waited for Aaron to lead Abby closer to them.
“Alpha,” Aaron said quietly.
That was an odd greeting. She’d expected him to say “sir”—or maybe to walk her on past the men to one of the buildings that were now only a short distance away. To his father’s house, maybe, or someone’s office.
Did anyone here have an office? she wondered.
“Your brother came to me,” said the man Aaron had identified as his father. Then his gaze fell on Abby, and for a moment she felt more naked than if she’d left all her clothes behind at the cabin. “As well he should have. You’re aware of custom in situations like this—and yet you seem to have completely ignored that in favor of indulging your impulses.”
Aaron’s breath came out in a little whuff. “It’s not an impulse,” he said. “I admit I’ve gone against custom, but it’s not an impulse. I come to ask you and the elders to accept this woman as my mate.”
For a moment, the older man was silent. Then he turned to the others and said, “A moment to speak to my son, Alpha?”
Again with that alpha thing. Weird, Abby thought.
“Granted,” one of the other men said.
He was the oldest of the three, Abby guessed, because his face was somewhat lined, and his hair had thinned more than the others’ had. But how old any of these people were was a puzzle. She’d taken Aaron to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, and he’d said Luca was older, but that would put their father at fifty-ish, and he didn’t look that old, in spite of his gray hair. She’d seen him move with somewhat of a limp, but other than that he seemed young, strong, and vital. And the other two…
“Stay right here,” Aaron instructed her.
Then he moved a few steps away with his father, leaving her to endure the scrutiny of the others.
“It’s really beautiful here,” she said, trying to paste a smile onto her face, knowing it was stiff and phony.
Neither of them responded.
As had been the case during Aaron’s argument with Luca, she could hear only bits of what he and his father were saying. She could pick up the tone of it, though: Aaron’s deference to the older man, and his father’s indignation. Unsurprisingly, Aaron was on less of an equal footing now than he’d been with his brother, and she understood that he was reluctant to say too much, to press his case too strongly.
No, this wasn’t going to be easy.
She forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply, and not to fidget, not to grip her bag too tightly. Worst job interview ever, she thought, and then had to fight back the urge to grin stupidly.
Finally, Aaron came back to her side and took her hand.
“I ask your permission for us to go to my father’s house,” he said to the two stonily silent elders. “We’ll remain there until you send word for us to meet with you, if you find that suitable.”
“You agree with this, Jeremiah?” asked the man everyone had called alpha.
“I do,” said Aaron’s father. “It seems to be the most sensible choice, given the situation.”
“Very well, then. The damage has been done. We’ll discuss what should be done to mitigate it, and then sit in judgment.”
Somehow, in the blink of an eye, the two men disappeared. That startled Abby a lot more than their initial appearance had—and, actually, it startled her more than seeing that wolf in the woods had. She’d forgotten all about seeing the animal down here, less than ten minutes ago, and now she began to wonder where it had gone. For all she knew, these people kept it as a pet. That wouldn’t be any stranger than anything else that had been happening.
Either way, their absence didn’t seem to mean that the situation had gotten any better. Aaron’s father—Jeremiah—was now as stern as all three of them had been, put together. She remembered how unhappy Aaron had seemed a couple of days ago, when he’d brought up the subject of his father. Now that she’d met the man, Aaron’s attitude seemed understandable. Jeremiah made Abby’s own father seem like the life of the party.
“Come,” he said.
He turned and began to walk toward the village, leaving Aaron and Abby little choice but to follow.
How far they had to go, she wasn’t sure. But there were people all around them: men, women, a few children, some of them in jeans and t-shirts, some in what looked like handmade clothing. Once Abby and Aaron had actually reached the cluster of small, hand-hewn buildings, there were more and more people staring, as if they’d been called together to do just that. All of
them looked curious; a couple of them seemed a little annoyed. One wide-eyed little boy crept closer, but a woman Abby imagined was his mother swept him quickly away.
There seemed to be a lot more than fifty-nine onlookers. It felt like hundreds. Maybe thousands.
“Don’t let them intimidate you,” Aaron said quietly. “It’s our way. Until the elders confirm you, you’re an outsider.”
No kidding, Abby thought.
If their aim had been to make her feel like a criminal, they’d certainly succeeded. With each small building they passed, her heart pounded harder and harder, until it seemed to fill up her entire body.
At last, Jeremiah ushered them into what she took to be a house. That guess was confirmed when the door was closed behind the three of them and she had a chance to look around. This place was three or four times the size of Aaron’s cabin, and seemed comfortable and homey; there were simple curtains hanging at the windows, the braided rug in front of the hearth was clean and bright, and the smells of what must have been a good meal lingered in the air.
“This is your home?” she asked Aaron.
He nodded, with a glance at his father. “My family’s.”
From the sound of it, there were a number of people close by outside, talking amongst themselves. Abby caught a raised voice or two, the whine of an unhappy child, and from farther away, someone shouting instructions.
She was debating finding a place to sit down when Jeremiah turned to address the two of them. Or, rather, to once again address his son.
“You were in Separation,” he said sharply. “The time of contemplation.”
“I did plenty of contemplating,” Aaron replied. “I contemplated until I thought my brain would turn to dust.”
“You’re of age. You’re past the time when it’s good sport to flaunt the rules. I thought better of you.”
“Father–”
Unlike his son, Jeremiah was dressed in loose, dark trousers tied at the waist, simple shoes, and a light-colored shirt Abby supposed could be called a blouse. It looked very eighteenth-century, the clothing of a simple farmer, and it made her wonder if he’d ever been to the mainland, if he’d ever had anything to do with people who weren’t… whatever these people were.
