Grayslake: Lion to Get Her (Alpha Lion Shifter Romance) (Kindle Worlds Novella) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 8) (8 page)

If she’d been paying attention as she tromped to her car, or if there hadn’t been quite so many tears in her eyes, or if her vision hadn’t be bright red from fury, she might’ve noticed the rustling in the long, reedy plants outside her bedroom window that she couldn’t quite remember the name of.

As she backed her car up, then tore down her gravel driveway, leaving a cloud of gray-white dust in her wake, Rip pushed out of the bushes, adjusted the jeans he’d picked up from where he left them in the woods, and waved his hand wildly in front of his face, trying to catch a breath that didn’t fill his mouth with grit that turned to mud as soon as it hit his mouth.

He didn’t taste the dirt though. He didn’t even feel the tiny rocks that pelted him as she blasted off onto the main road, showering him with pebbles.

Rip’s gray-caked face drew into hard lines. He gritted his teeth and blinked against the cloud that blew past him. A few moments later, the cloud began to dissipate, but he was still standing there. Rivulets of sweat ran down through the matte-finish covering him, clearing tiny paths before drying into tiny, muddy balls. The sky opening up right then and there and striking Rip with a bolt of lightning that cooked his brain into pudding wouldn’t have made that one moment any more starkly awful.

“Why?” he asked the blowing dirt that was finally clear enough that he could see the road from where he stood. “Why not just...”

He looked at his feet, bare as they were, he felt just as naked. He’d never opened himself up to anyone like that, not anywhere near that quickly anyway. And to have her just run, he couldn’t figure out what he’d done to change her mind.

“It was going so well,” he opened his hands, stared into his scratched-up palms and whispered. “What the hell do I have to do?”

In the distance, he heard wheels squeal against pavement. She was probably a quarter-mile away by then, but his ears were so keen, and his attention so pointed and focused, that he knew it was Laney.

“No way will I let this go,” he snarled, clenching his fists. “I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care if I have to pull the moon out of the sky, I’m not giving up. Not this time. Not now. Not ever again.”

He scratched at the dirt with his toenails. Sweat ran down the sides of his face as he clenched his muscles and scowled. But then, a split-second later, as his anger and confusion melted into purpose; into desperate, determined, steely-eyed confidence. “I’m not letting you go,” he said again. “No way in hell am I going to miss out on the only woman I can’t get out of my mind. No way I’m letting the only girl that made me laugh, then smile like that get away. Not now, not ever. I don’t care what it takes, Laney, you’re mine. I’ll make you believe me. I’ll make you understand.”

His voice fell into low, almost dangerous tones. “We’re all animals,” he whispered. “Underneath all our rules and our bullshit, we’re just animals who want to get let out of our cages. Without you, I’m as pinned-in as anyone else. But
with
you? I feel free, like I never have. No way in hell am I gonna let this get away.”

Rip crouched down and with a single thought, ripped his jeans into ribbons as his legs twisted and his bones shifted. He threw back his head, with the huge mane cascading all around it, and shook the world around him with a roar so fierce and terrible that he thought Laney probably heard it.

“If you did,” he whispered into the air, “good. If not, you will soon.”

His legs flexed, his muscles flared like arc welders blasting, white-hot into action. He didn’t know exactly where he was going, as he’d gotten completely turned around and confused between the bouts of unconsciousness and the apparent narcolepsy he’d started to have. But none of that mattered just then.

Nothing was on his mind, including how he’d ended up in Redby Township of all damn places, at all. Not except Laney, and his single-minded drive to find her, claim her, and make her his.

And he wasn’t stopping. Not now, not ever, not until he had her.

––––––––

“N
othing happened,” Laney said. “I just had a bad morning. Hangover,” she claimed, though clearly not believing anything that came out of her own mouth.

“Right,” Elaine said as she pursed her lips. “You saw him again, didn’t you? Either that, or you finally figured out who he is. One of the two. And I’m not sure which would be worse.”

Even though the last thing in the world she wanted to do was engage even further in the hell that swirled inside her own head about what she was doing, Laney couldn’t deny herself the opportunity. “Wait,” she said in a short, curt voice, “what the hell are you talking about? You
knew
who he was?”

“No, not really,” Elaine said. “I mean I had an idea. I didn’t think it could possibly have been the same guy though. I mean, I know you’re kind of braindead about the whole world outside your head, but I couldn’t honestly believe you didn’t know who
Rip Black
was. He’s been plastered all over the damn news since he disappeared.”

“Yeah,” Laney said, “about that, he told me everything.”

“So you
did
see him again!”

“It’s a long story,” Laney said, even though it really wasn’t. She just couldn’t get into it right then, maybe not ever if she had a choice. There it was again though, confusion pecking at the back of her head; her undying need to
know
things that she couldn’t deny herself. She hated that she needed it, and she didn’t want to know any more than she already did, but she
had
to know.

“Did he do all the shit the papers say he did?” she asked, nervously watching the cubs gathering for Kiddie Time. Of all the things she wanted to do right then, entertaining a gaggle of pups and kittens wasn’t high on her list, but at least it would distract her a little. If nothing else, that would be a shred of welcome reprieve. “Because some of the things I read were pretty horrifying accusations. Some shit about being a terrorist?”

Elaine shook her head. “You’ve been reading gossip rags. The short answer is ‘no he didn’t.’ But that said, he’s been on the run from... well, someone. He’s all into the whole ‘be your animal self’ thing which apparently flies in the face of some people in power. Although, I have no idea in the world why he decided to disappear to
Redby Township
of all places. And what the hell’s going on out there?” She pointed out the front door where a modest crowd of people had gathered.

Laney shrugged her shoulders, ignoring the growing crowd. “I read one thing that said he faked his own death. To be honest, I thought it was really stupid and possibly the dumbest thing I’d ever read until I started reading more.”

“When did you read all this?” Elaine asked. “Did you have a big hot date this morning and then decide to research your new boyfriend? What the
hell
are they doing? Are we having some kind of news conference out front? I don’t remember anyone reserving the front steps of the library... well, ever, pretty much.”

For a moment, Laney was slightly confused about the whole goings-on. “It is kinda weird,” she said. “Looks like a press conference or something. But who the hell would—”

Laney shook her head. The only thought running through her brain was the worst thing she could imagine. Scary as hell, she imagined Rip sauntering up to the steps of the library and putting on a big show about something. Maybe political, or whatever he called what he did—not politics, but philosophy or... whatever it was—but she didn’t want any part of it.

At least, that’s what she told herself. Underneath the fear and the trepidation, she really did want to see him again. She wanted to tell him why she’d run, she wanted to bare her soul and tell him all her terrors. “If I let him in, then I have to admit all the things I’m afraid of are real,” Laney whispered under her breath.

Laney shook her head and apologized for grumbling. “Just forget I said that out loud,” she added. “I don’t much know what’s going with my brain lately.”

“Right,” Elaine said, “so about the reading. When did you do that, exactly?”

“It
does
take about twenty minutes to get here from my house, you know,” Laney said. “Wait, why are you side-eying me like that?
What
? I was only looking at the stoplights. I’m crazy, but not stupid enough to stare at gossip rags and dirt sheets on my phone in the middle of driving. Give me a
little
credit.”

Elaine stared at Laney for a second with her head cocked to one side as she studied her friend’s mood. Every few seconds, Elaine took the opportunity to scratch herself behind one ear, then the other, with her ever present pencil.

“Why do you do those giant crosswords?” Elaine asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“To pass the time? To keep my brain age down? Normally if someone asked me that I’d figure they were just making conversation but I know you don’t do that, so there must be some—”

“Is that it, or do you do them because if you sit around in the quiet and just think about things, you’ll fall apart?”

Laney curled her thin top lip into a snarl. “That was pointed,” she said, sagging her shoulders. “You really do think I’m nuts, don’t you?”

“We’re all crazy, baby,” Elaine responded. “But no, my point is that something’s eating you alive and it has been for a long, long time. I’ve never seen you in a slump this bad and before you respond with some kind of pithy answer to what I’m saying, it doesn’t have anything to do with sex.”

“Gee, thanks,” Laney said, frowning. “I guess I should take that as a compliment, but I’m not sure exactly how I’m supposed to do that. Mind explaining what it is that you mean?”

“I mean you’re brilliant and,” she paused for a second to scratch. “Listen, compliments aren’t exactly my strong suit, but no matter how I act most of the time, you’re my best friend and I
am
here for you. Anyway, you’re brilliant and you’re beautiful and you have no reason to feel shitty all the time, but it seems like any more that’s exactly what’s going on.”

For a long moment, Laney just sat there, alternating between listening and thinking.
Maybe it’s true
, she thought, biting down on her bottom lip.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m just some kind of emotional loose cannon with no sense of self control or sense of being reasonable.
“Oh God,” Laney said, as the realization hit her square in the stomach like a locomotive plowing straight into Superman’s brain and bouncing off. “I’m lonely, aren’t I?”

Instead of replying verbally, Elaine just twitched one of her eyebrows into a shape resembling a triangle. She had this way of making Laney work her way to conclusions that Laney would never reach on her own, but at the same time, getting Laney to think that she was the one who came up with the thought in the first place.

She’d learned a long, long time ago that the best way to get a stubborn-as-fuck lioness to come around to your perspective was by convincing them that
they had the perspective all along
. It was a good thing that Elaine grew up the youngest sister, and the brothers just above her in the pecking order were twins who turned thirteen when she was ten. Turns out, those lessons applied in all sorts of situations. Not just controlling hormonal, half-wild teenaged boys, but they could also apply very well to getting hormonal, half-wild lioness thirtysomethings to come around to reason and come down from the ledges that they got themselves all wound up on from time to time.

And somewhere deep in her brain, Laney appreciated it. She couldn’t count how many times Elaine had gotten her to take a few breaths and tune down the blood pressure when nothing else possibly could.

“Thanks, Wendy,” Laney said.

Elaine shrugged and gave her a brief smile. The other thing she’d learned over the years of being friends with Laney was not to gloat when she was right. It isn’t like Laney went crazy or anything, she was just sort of prickly about certain things, and that was the biggest.

“No, seriously, I know you’re doing that thing where you don’t want to get me wound up, but I really appreciate what you said. And I appreciate you listening to me. We aren’t the warmest and cuddliest friends, but I’d be a mess without you.”

“I know,” Elaine said with another grin. “But now you have to deal with
them
,” she hissed, drawing back like Dracula seeing a cross as the Kiddie Time crowd filed in and started looking around.

“Miss Langston!” she immediately recognized the voice as the high-pitched, adorably-lisped girl who first warned her about the presence of the man who had complicated every single second of her life since his discovery. It seemed like a damn eternity, even though it had only been three days since they met.

“Miss Langston!” the little girl repeated, this time punctuating her call with a tug on Laney’s shirt. “How’s your boyfriend? Did he ever get what it was he was moaning and carrying on about?”

“I, uh,” Laney turned bright red, an unfamiliar sensation to her. “He was just hungry,” she said. Laney shot a look back toward Elaine, and found
her
bright red, hunched over, and trying her best not to start hooting with laughter. Laney shook her head grimly. “Okay, enough about my boyfriend,” she said. “Wait, I mean, he’s not my boyfriend.”

Getting flustered was also an alien sensation to the normally stolid, sensible, reasonable Laney Langston. But in the last few days, she’d started getting used to being confused.

All the cubs and pups and kits were giggling at her. It reminded her of those moments on
Full House
or some other 80s family-style sitcom when someone kissed someone else, and the entire studio audience made a bunch of ooooh’ing and aaaahhh’ing like they’d never seen anyone lock lips before.

“Are you in love Miss Langston? With the big guy who was asleep in the floor and groaning?”

Laney laughed. Thank God she could still laugh. And at least she wasn’t in love enough yet to have any problem denying that she was in love. Except when she went to say no, the words hitched in her throat.