11. Willow

ELEVEN

Willow

It shouldn’t have bothered me how easy it was for Lorna and Lily to replace me, but it did.

Replace me was perhaps melodramatic, but as I stood in the corner of my own store and watched them bouncing ideas off each other, I couldn’t help but feel slightly disgruntled.

Hanging up a new piece of art that had come into the store a few days ago, I was grateful for the fact it filled up the too empty walls. I clearly marked that it wasn’t mine, making sure the label was obvious to anyone who cared to look. It was a small hope, probably a naive one, but if the same people who broke in before came back, they would see the label and leave this piece alone. It didn’t deserve to be destroyed because of me.

While I knew I couldn’t count on much anymore, I really did hope that this one tiny label would save this piece from the destruction my own work had suffered.

“Willow, if there are any sales while you are gone, how do I deal with that?” Lorna asked, turning from my computer. “I found the packaging tape and everything, but I need more information.”

Standing back and looking at the newly hung piece, I admired it for a moment more before going to the counter to show Lorna how to log inventory. It shouldn’t be too taxing. The walls were sparse, and any art I had produced myself I hadn’t shared with anyone. I’d taken a couple of photos on my phone of ones I was sure Cannon and the others needed to see, but the rest I had destroyed.

Caleb Foster owed me compensation for the number of sketchbooks, pencils, and charcoal I had gone through. I’d bypassed paint. I had a harder time destroying canvas. The artist within me protested loudly. Plus, burning canvases brought unnecessary attention.

I knew it was silly, that I was being paranoid because of what had happened, but I had the constant itch between my shoulder blades that I was being watched.

I hadn’t told anyone of my fear. They would never let me leave if they thought I was being watched. It all sounded incredibly dramatic. I was a twenty-six-year-old woman, I had no parents, and I was an adult. No one let me do anything. I did what I wanted.

Which is why you keep asking for permission , I snipped at myself in the same surly tones as a teenager. The thought made me smile. I did ask Lorna a lot if something was okay, and she took everything in her stride so easily it was a difficult habit to break.

Noel was delighted that I’d asked her for help. While she had joked when she first came to my class that she was doing as many things as possible to keep her marriage from imploding since her boys were at college, I did think there was some truth in that. Only, I think the way she had done it was perhaps the opposite of what her husband had wanted.

Noel wanted her to be happy and busy, but not too busy to avoid actually spending time with him. The funny thing was, I think that revelation had completely passed her by.

Of the three of them, Noel was the hardest to convince that my taking a break was a good idea. Well, that was unfair; he agreed with the break, but he didn’t agree with the leaving town part.

I smiled as I watched her repeat the information she had just learned back to me for confirmation that she had understood it correctly. She also wrote everything down, a quality I admired. Both Lorna and Noel made me feel cared for. It was something I had rarely felt in my life, and I was clinging to it for as long as they let me. It had been a long time since I had a parental figure in my life, so the fact I currently had two made me feel rich.

“Are you all packed?” Lorna asked me, her attention on her notepad.

“Yes.” I had one backpack, and that was all I was taking.

“And your friend is meeting you in Baywater Creek?”

I shook my head. “No, Kettlebridge,” I told her. “Then we go to Baywater Creek.” I’d never heard of the town, but Cannon had suggested it, and his tone held a fondness I didn’t understand, but I didn’t argue.

When you need a diversion, you take the diversion offered.

The truth was, I was going to pretend to make my way to Baywater Creek, and after two of the four buses I needed to get there, I would get picked up by Doc, who would take us to Blackridge Peak. All very elaborate, but Royce was sure I was being watched, and I was sure he was right.

I would leave town, and if I was followed, they would follow the bus. Why I would be followed was as much a mystery as why they would break into my home and store.

Cannon was tightlipped when I asked if it was Caleb they wanted. With neither a confirmation nor denial, I was left to my own thoughts.

For someone like me, that wasn’t the best option. It didn’t help that I was seeing him everywhere. Caleb, not Cannon. Obviously. I scoffed at my stupidity. They all thought a break was the best thing for me. If they had asked me what I really wanted, it was to rest. I wanted to sleep undisturbed and wake rested with no new sketches to draw of the man who left me.

I really was on a roll for being a drama queen today.

“I’ve never heard of Baywater Creek,” Lorna told me, and I snapped out of my inner musings.

“Mm-hmm.” What could I say? Sorry, I haven’t either, and I only heard of it when a six-five giant told me to use it as an alibi?

No thanks.

“It’s in Colorado?”

Was it? I had no idea. I knew it was a town located along the route of the Rockies, but they stretched for over three thousand miles, covering six states and into Canada. Which state in particular Baywater Creek was in was unknown.

“Yup, it’s small.” I was fairly confident it wasn’t a sprawling metropolis.

“Isn’t it amazing how much we don’t even know about our own country?” Lorna shook her head slightly as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

Knowing there were shifters out there, living among us, men and women who could shift into wolves, I decided to not tell her how much she didn’t know about her country.

“It is a little.” When in doubt about what to say, I found it was easier to agree.

“And your bus is what time again?”

Now, I narrowed my eyes at her. She knew darn well what time my bus was. She had my itinerary memorized. “Okay, what’s going on?” Folding my arms across my chest, I fixed her with a steady stare.

She had the decency to blush. “I’m sorry, Willow, I’m just a worrier.”

Leaning towards her, I closed the distance between us and gave her a quick hug. “I’m going to be okay,” I told her, hoping it wasn’t a lie. “If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay, I unders?—”

Lorna’s eyes were wide with alarm. “No! I want to do this. I am really looking forward to it,” she admitted sheepishly. “But I worry about you, sweet girl, all alone after what’s happened to you.”

“I’ve been alone for a long time. It’s fine, I’m used to it.” It was an innocent offhand remark.

It did not need to take twenty minutes to appease my friends, assuring them that I hadn’t meant to insult them or our friendships. When they finally had their ruffled feathers back in place and were suitably soothed, I thought maybe a break would be a good thing after all.

Buses were strange things, I decided that morning. Convenient, more eco-friendly, kind of, but they just housed such a mix of travelers. Take me, a mid-twenty-something-year-old educated business owner. Most people in my shoes had a car and, more importantly, could drive it. Compare me to the older lady two seats down from me, who was reading a book, an actual paperback and not a tablet, who had her knitting beside her. When she wasn’t reading, she was knitting, the click-clacking of the needles soothing.

Both of us were maybe typical bus users? I wasn’t sure. Or was it the younger guy sitting diagonally behind me? His eyes had been trained on me for a while, and it was making me uncomfortable, but not in a predatory way. He just seemed to have staring issues. Then there was the guy at the very back who burped his alcohol-fueled breath for us all to enjoy.

This was the same bus, well, maybe not the exact bus, but the same route that took me to Whispering Pines. I had felt sad as we left the town, and then had spent the next ten minutes settling down into my seat with my bag and snacks for the journey. Then I turned my attention to studying my fellow passengers because my paranoid brain wanted to make sure that there were no obvious stalkers. Which is why I kind of knew who my companions were.

Plus, I liked to make up stories about them. The older lady was most definitely a grandmother and was knitting scarves for her grandkids to get them ready for winter. The younger guy, the one with the staring issues, had anguish all over him. I was sure he was recently brokenhearted, and I reminded him of that person. The drunk in the back, well, it depended on how loud his burps were. Sometimes he was down on his luck and heading home to put the pieces of his life back together. Other times, I imagined that he’d been run out of town, his past catching up to him in one way or another.

The bus was a story all by itself, warm but worn. Every creak and rumble echoed with the countless miles it had traveled. How many people had sat in these seats, carrying not just their physical baggage but all the extra invisible weight of their stories, hopes, and failures?

My idle musings kept me entertained and distracted for the first leg of my journey. The people, the stories I invented for them, even the bus itself—everything blended into a soft, harmless daydream that passed the time. But when I got off the bus at the station, as I stepped off the small step, something shifted in the air.

Scanning the platform, I searched the shadows until my gaze landed on the really large guy standing in the far corner. As I noticed him, he noticed me, his eyes locking on mine, unblinking and direct. Unease settled low in my belly, a coil tightening into a knot of apprehension as I fought down the feeling of panic.

I kept repeating to myself that I was overreacting. My imagination had been on overdrive over the last few hours, and this was probably just a guy waiting for the next bus. Trying to shake off the uncomfortable feeling, I moved to stand nearer an exit, and I felt his eyes follow my every move. Gripping the strap of my backpack, I debated whether I could outrun him if I suddenly legged it. I knew I didn’t have the speed or strength needed to shake him off.

My next bus rolled slowly into the station, and I surreptitiously glanced at the station clock. I’d planned the journey out roughly for presentation purposes, knowing I wasn’t completing it. I hadn’t looked too much into the schedules if I missed a connection. I was now regretting not being more meticulous in my fake journey planning.

I debated my options. I could run. No. I just knew I couldn’t. Scratch that. I could get the bus that I was supposed to. What could he do to me on a bus? I’d be surrounded by other passengers, and any physical harm would be restricted. Blowing out a breath, I wondered if that was the best option. Doc was meeting me at the next stop, and I had help if I needed it.

Or I would lead them straight to Doc.

Why are we suddenly at “them?” The voice in my head sounded like Caleb, and the mix of curiosity and amusement in the tone made me miss his presence even more.

I didn’t know what to do. The sudden sound of the hydraulics of a door closing from a nearby bus made me spring into action. I didn’t run away to be chased. I didn’t leap onto the bus to lead them to Doc.

I dived for the bus that wasn’t mine, making it just in time as the driver was closing the doors. My heart was pounding as I barely squeezed through, catching myself from face-planting and flashing my ticket with shaky hands. I hoped the driver wouldn’t look too closely at the wrong destination printed on it, and thankfully he didn’t. He did give me a look of exasperation as if to say he just saw me standing, purposely not getting on the bus until the last minute, but I didn’t engage.

Hurrying to the back of the bus, I sank into the seat, knowing I had gotten away with it when I saw the big guy standing on the platform, scratching his head as he watched the bus depart. It looked like he’d chased me in vain. It was a small distance between us, which was a relief, but I had no feeling of safety despite the fact the bus was moving out of the station.

Glancing out the window, I saw him take a phone out of his pocket, and I wondered who he was calling. Was I actually of any interest to him? Had he been focused on me, or was I losing my mind? Firing out a quick text to Doc, I explained I was on a different bus and then had to ask a fellow passenger where I was actually going. My text to Doc was concise, I didn’t want to explain over a text why I was on a different bus, in case he thought I needed a psych evaluation.

The bus was going to the same destination, sort of. It was just taking a more scenic route, and my stop wasn’t the last stop on its journey, which was fine. As my pulse slowed, the panic that had gripped me mere moments before began to feel distant. I began to think that my behavior hadn’t been rational, and now safe and warm on the bus, I felt a little foolish. The guy probably hadn’t even noticed me—I mean, why would he? I’d probably misread the whole incident.

Almost as if in a daze, I reached into my backpack and pulled out my notepad, dropping it open on my lap. A quick search and I found a blunt pencil, and without thinking too much about it, I started to draw. The lines were rough at first, but with each sure stroke, the tension I’d been holding onto started to fade. Shapes began to form, and slowly those lines began to take a life of their own.

Broad shoulders sat atop a bulky torso, heavy with muscle, slowly taking shape on the page. The posture was rigid, and the set of his shoulders was stiff, but there was something familiar in the way he held himself. A wide chest and long arms hanging at his side, it wasn’t until I started adding the facial details that I knew who I was drawing.

The man from the platform.

His eyes stared at me from the paper, as they had at the station. My pencil hovered uncertainly over the drawing as I noticed details about him that I had missed before. His eyes were hard, unblinking, and completely emotionless. His square face was hard angles and planes, not softened by his crew cut. His button-down shirt was pulled tight under his lightweight jacket, which I wasn’t sure he needed if I was correct in guessing what type of man he was.

His arms, which I had thought were simply at ease at his side, I now saw were taut with tension, his hands curled, almost as if he was fighting the urge to clench them. His stance was wide, feet apart as if he were braced for something, grounding himself in anticipation, as though he was ready to spring into action at any moment. As I looked at him, I knew I wouldn’t have outrun him.

But had I outsmarted him in my desperate bid to flee?

A shiver slithered down my spine as I held his stare, fear once more knotting in my belly. Not wanting to look at him any longer, I closed the notepad and my eyes, willing myself to forget.

It would be better when I got to the others. I repeated the thought over and over, trying to convince myself it was true. Once I was with them, I would be safe. I needed to sever this tie to Caleb and his world—his secrets and the dangers that surrounded it. Maybe then, just maybe, I would be of no interest to any shifter.

My life could return to normal once more .

Normal . The word felt as foreign to me as shifter had only a few weeks ago. But normal was all I had left to cling to. This sense of danger and unease all the time wasn’t for me.

I liked safe. I liked routine. My life had always been built around simple, almost predictable patterns. I needed stability. I liked things that made sense. Which I felt was probably the very opposite of a shifter’s existence. For the hundredth time, I wondered why the hell it was me who was tied to someone as unpredictable as Caleb.

He was everything that I wasn’t. A drifter, whereas I liked a place to call home. I wasn’t built for this kind of life. This excitement and worry weren’t for me, and I knew my ME would let me know about it sooner than I was ready.

Yet, here I was, on a bus with the wrong ticket, unable to let go.

With a sigh, I rested my head back on the seat, willing myself to rest so I was ready for the next step. I still had a mountain to climb. Literally. With a groan, I pressed the heel of my hands into my eyes, trying to chase the remainder away. Caleb wouldn’t be there this time to carry me.

Caleb.

Always Caleb.

No matter how much I ignored it, no matter how many sketchbook pages I covered, the pull between us felt so real that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cut it, even if I could.

I did know one thing. If there was a Luna…I hoped she heard me as I thought about what a sick and twisted sense of humor she had.

One other thing I would tell her…she could take her amusement and shove it up her ass.