Shifters Forever The Boxed Set Books 1 - 6 (38 page)

A
week later
…

Sara appraised Joe as he helped her out of his truck, something he insisted on doing. She knew it gave him pleasure, so why not let him? He’d cleaned up, put on a pair of pants other than jeans, and pulled his hair into a low ponytail. If she had to confess to it, she’d easily admit that she liked him straight from the forest, hair loose, flowing, just like his spirit did, wearing the grubby jeans that clung way too tightly in all the right places when he was turned on.

“What?” He raised a brow. “What are you looking at?”

“You.” She reached up and kissed him.

“Happy?”

“More than I ever thought I could be.”

“You don’t care that I don’t need a mansion or a fancy car? You’re good with my cabin, the woods, and the simple life?”

Nothing about this man she loved was simple. Uncomplicated, yes. Simple, not a chance. He was the most amazing man she’d ever met. He was one with the forest and could see things she’d never been able to, even in her bear form. He said he was just like his grandfather. His grandfather must have been one hell of a man. Joe told her he’d been a Speaker. She knew very little about that stuff, but if Joe’s connection to the forest was any indictor, she was in awe of his grandfather, the one they’d called Old One.

“Joe, I’ve never cared about that materialistic stuff.” She doubted she could express to him how little any of that mattered when she was lying in bed next to him, her body flushed, her breathing and pulse erratic from his love. Or how she felt when he brought her coffee and made pancakes in the shapes of forest animals for Ivan. Or the way he taught Ivan how to throw a tomahawk with precision. Ivan would have the best of both worlds—shifter and Speaker.

“Ready?” he asked.

She smoothed her dress. Everyone was getting together for dinner at Grant and Chelsea’s place. She hadn’t met Grant or Chelsea yet; they were the only two from Bear Canyon Valley she’d yet to meet. They’d extended their honeymoon, and now they were back and had invited everyone to dinner.

Ivan had spent the night at Marti and Tanner’s with Marti’s son Dominic, whom Ivan was already calling a cousin. Tanner’s truck was outside, meaning Ivan was already here.

Joe took her hand and helped her up the grand staircase. Their house was impressive. More like a mansion, really, and it was almost out of place in the beauty of the woods, yet somehow the architecture, the wood, the layout of the entire building made it work. It resembled a fortress, and knowing the history of the valley and shifter territory disputes, Sara wondered if it hadn’t been used for exactly that.

The door opened, revealing a handsome man with a curvy, full-figured woman next to him. Both were beaming. Definitely the recently returned honeymoon couple. Their smiles were contagious.

Chelsea hugged Sara, meeting them on the landing before they could make it to the door.

“I’m so happy.” She squeezed Sara in a tight embrace. “Joe deserved someone wonderful.”

Sara’s joy swelled inside her chest at the welcome.

J
oe stood
and raised his glass. “Cheers to the return of Chelsea and Grant.”

They all raised their glasses.

Grant stood. “Cheers to a wonderful new addition.” He coughed. “New additions, Sara and Ivan. And to one of my best friends finally having someone.”

Astra rose. “Kane and I bought tickets for Europe. I’m going to find Anya. Mae said she’d been visiting Vax’s brother.”

Across from Astra, Doc rose to his feet. “I bought a ticket to Europe as well.”

Mae paled. “What?”

Outside the windows, the sky went suddenly dark. A crack of thunder preceded a lightning flash.

“You can’t.” Mae’s voice was low.

Another crack of thunder followed on the heels of her words.

Bear Canyon Valley was losing a shifter. And not just any shifter.

N
ext in the
Shifters Forever
Series:

A
ttraction

T
his is
one we’ve all been wanting. Plus a couple of twists!

Y
ou knew
this was going to happen, didn’t you? Vax has a series. Check out
www.ellethorne.com
for more on Vax and his friends. It’s in the shifter pages! It’s also available… Keep reading!

S
econd chances are great
.

Why doesn’t sexy shifter Jake Evans, known to the Bear Canyon Valley shifters as Doc get it?

Mae’s brewing up a storm. She’s successful at finding mates for all the shifters in the valley.

All but one. The one she’s in love with.

A
crash
of thunder preceded Mae as she stormed into her home. Before she slammed the door behind her, a flash of lightning lit up the sky, making a stunning backdrop for the olive-skinned, full-figured beauty.

Of all the damned nerve. She stomped her foot. Kicked at a chair’s leg.

Ouch. Damn it. Why was she acting like a teenager?

Him.

It was all his fault.

How dare Jake… No, she corrected herself, she shouldn’t be thinking of him as Jake. He was Doc to everyone else, and as many years as she’d known him she’d have thought that by now she’d become accustomed to that moniker.

But he’d always be Jake to her.

Jake.

The man she’d fallen in love with.

Correction: he was the shifter she’d fallen in love with. She’d thought after Brad had died that she’d never find love again. Her heart had been broken. She’d been content with the dream she had of rebuilding Bear Canyon Valley into the shifter community that it used to be.

She’d only been good friends with Jake… Doc… Oh, the hell with it. She couldn’t call him Doc. Just couldn’t. He’d always be Jake to her. Sexy, amazing, musclebound Jake, the bear shifter.

When she’d run into Jake again, he was a widower too. He’d been married to Astra’s mother, who was killed in a shifter battle, leaving behind a little girl that Jake had had to raise on his own, his stepdaughter Astra. He’d buried Astra’s mother and taken Astra to Florida, where he’d done a wonderful job of raising her. Then he’d come back to Bear Canyon Valley.

Mae smiled at the thought of Astra, who had gifts, just as Mae did. Not the same exact gifts, but supernatural gifts, just the same. She should look into Astra’s gifts to see if she needed help, though she felt she was the last person who had a right to do so, since she’d ignored and avoided her own gifts for so long.

The rain outside subsided a bit as she thought of Astra.

“I have got to get control of my emotions, or I’m going to create a flood in this valley,” Mae muttered to no one in particular, since she had no company.

Well, no human or shifter company. She had her black cat, Zorina, but that wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like Zorina could talk.

How dare Jake decide he was going to go to Europe? How dare he leave her behind?

No
, she told herself,
how stupid of me to fall in love with him.

The rain began again. More torrential now, with thunder and lightning flashes punctuating her every dark thought.

She should have known better. Of course Jake only thought of her as a friend. Well, then, she was a shitty friend, because she’d slipped out of Grant’s home without an explanation other than that she didn’t feel well.

She’s braved the hammering rain and wind, tears blinding her. And she’d come home.

To pout. To sulk. To cry.

She threw her purse onto the sofa. It bounced, and her tablet flew out and crashed to the floor, right on the tail of another boom of thunder.

That was followed by a knock on the door.

Who in the world would be knocking on her door after nine o’clock on a Friday night?

Of course, remembering that it was a Friday night didn’t help because then she thought about her standing Friday nights with Jake.

Guess those weren’t dates so much as they were two friends going out
, she mused bitterly as she headed toward the back door.

J
ake looked
around the mostly empty table in Grant and Chelsea’s dining room. The help was picking up the plates gingerly and quietly, being careful not to disturb anyone. They obviously sensed the tension in the room.

“Wow. Guess I know how to break up a dinner party.” He flashed a rueful grin at his stepdaughter.

“Doc… You didn’t…” Astra’s words trailed off. Her beautiful, luminescent green eyes studied him as if he were a child. Astra had always called him Doc, though on rare occasions, she referred to him as Dad. Either name worked. He was the only father she knew, and she’d told him many times that he was the only father she wanted.

“What?” He shrugged. “All I said was that I was going to Europe too. And poof, there goes Mae. Poof, there go Tanner and Teague. Poof, damned near everyone cleared out.”

Chelsea and Grant were sitting across from him at the long table. Chelsea was smiling at Astra in that way that women had, the way that said they knew what the other one was thinking and they agreed completely.

Jake turned toward Grant. “You have a clue what I did wrong?”

Grant shrugged. “I’m staying out of it.”

Well isn’t that just great.
Jake rose. “Excuse me. I think I’m going to go out for a beer.”

Grant laughed. “Yeah, like that’s going to do anything.”

True. Alcohol had no effect on shifters, but it would give Jake an excuse to get out of here and go somewhere to think. He knew exactly where he was heading to.

Astra rubbed her temples. Kane looked at her, concern on his face.

“Are you okay?” Doc leaned closer, listening to her pulse with his shifter hearing. It was weak, slow.

“Yes. Just a headache.” Astra stopped rubbing and took a sip of water.

“She gets those far too often,” Kane said. “And they’re increasing in frequency and strength.”

Astra laughed weakly. “Doctor Kane, I presume?” she teased him.

“I’m serious.” Kane frowned, brows dipping on his stern face.

“It’s fine. Probably the weather. Barometric pressure, or sinuses, or something.” Astra waved him away with a smile.

Kane looked at Jake pointedly. Jake got it, without further instructions. He’d need to look into the situation.

Sheesh. He should ask Mae. Except she’d stormed off.

It was something he’d done. That much he’d figured out, but he wasn’t sure exactly what.

M
ae opened
the door and gasped at the drenched sight before her.

“Tanner. What are you doing here?”

Tanner, soaked after walking in the pouring rain between his truck and her front door, looked like a puppy that had been playing in puddles. A big, muscular puppy.

“Better question is, why are you opening the door without bothering to see who it is?” He frowned, and his handsome face with its trim beard was stern.

“Don’t be silly. Who would be out here that could be a danger to me?”

The moment those words left Mae’s mouth, she realized how stupid they were. She could easily think of several threats and dangers.

Chelsea’s psycho ex, Derek.

Jeff, the unstable, stalker realtor who was hung up on Chelsea.

The rover shifters who had attacked Kane.

She looked down to keep Tanner from seeing the chagrined look on her face.

“But what are you doing here?” she persisted, holding the door wider and handing him a kitchen towel to dry his face with.

Teague stepped in behind Tanner, equally soaked, equally handsome, but with a clean-shaven face.

“Teague too? Did you call in the National Guard as well?” She made a show of looking behind them.

“Why would we do that?” Teague asked. “Didn’t you just say that there’s no one out here who could be a danger to you?”

She avoided answering that question on the same grounds that she hadn’t answered the last one. “Where are Marti and Kelsey?”

“Kane and Astra are giving them a ride home. We wanted to check on you.”

“Two big ol’ bear shifters coming to check on me.” She gave them the eye. “I don’t think so. What gives?”

They looked at each other. Tanner went first. “Mae, you know we owe you. You helped us out when we needed you most.”

Mae cocked her head. “And you wanted to make sure I was okay because…” She waved her hands, urging them to move forward with their explanation.

“You got pissed when Doc said he was leaving. You left in a huff. A somewhat subtle one, but still a huff. And then a storm happened.”

“So you’re thinking that I have something to do with the weather?”

“Come on, Mae. It’s us.” Teague said. “We know what you can do. We lived here. We saw the rain during times that other areas had drought.”

“Coincidence,” Mae harrumphed.

“Coincidence too that every time you’d visit Brad’s gravesite it would rain in the cemetery, and only the cemetery?”

Damn them. They were way too perceptive.

“You’ve known all along,” she mused.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tanner said. “And we haven’t told a soul that you’re an element caster.”

“Why didn’t you mention it a decade ago, or more?”

“Mae.” Tanner put his arm around her. “You’re like our older sister.”

Teague winked at her. “Though when he was a teenager, Tanner did have a crush on you.”

Tanner jerked his arm away and turned a deep red. “I was a kid. Damn.”

Mae slapped Teague’s arm playfully. “Don’t embarrass your brother.”

“On a serious note,” Tanner added. “We would never divulge your secrets. But we do know that Doc’s announcement bothered you.”

“That’s my issue to deal with,” she reassured the hunky bear shifters. “There’s more you’re not telling me. You know I’ll find out.”

“Fine.” Teague caved first. “Kane found a scent.”

She frowned. “A scent of what?”

“Kane thinks it’s polar bear.” Tanner’s face was grave.

Marti, Tanner’s mate, had a son who was a polar bear. Mae knew that Marti didn’t want it getting out that she had a polar bear shifter child.

She shook her head. This wasn’t good. First of all, it meant there was a trespassing shifter in their territory. Secondly, it made her wonder if there was a connection to Marti’s son Dominic.

She reached for a teapot, wanting to keep her hands busy. She filled it with water and put it on the burner.

“Let me see. I’ll call—” Good grief. She’d almost said Jake. She couldn’t call him, anyway, because things had changed. They weren’t as close as she’d always thought they were. He’d planned a trip to Europe without even mentioning it to her until it was a done deal.

“Let me do some thinking,” she told them.

“Why don’t we call Doc?” Tanner asked.

Clearly, like her, he knew that was the normal way things were done. They would call her or Jake and then she and Jake would get together and talk and come up with solutions.

“No. Don’t go calling Doc.” She set the table with three cups for tea. “The man has a trip to plan and suitcases to pack.”

He’s embarking on more than a trip. He’s embarking on a new life.
One that doesn’t involve me.