12. Willow

TWELVE

Willow

The bus journey wasn’t as long as I thought it was. When Caleb and I traveled in Lily’s truck, it felt like we were always in the car. But then, at the time, I wasn’t taking into consideration the fact that Caleb had taken detours from his destination and then double-backed on himself.

We’d had the whole wolf-in-the-road incident, and as I journeyed on the bus, I thought about that. How naive had I been? He’d told me that he saw a program where alpha wolves were dominant and you needed to stare them down. It had sounded plausible.

Had it?

No. It had sounded like he was batshit, but had I challenged him? No. Why? Because the alternative for an explanation of what to do when in a face-off with a wolf is not I’m a shifter and can communicate with them .

No one was ever going to come to that conclusion naturally. So maybe I needn’t be so harsh on myself for believing it .

Maybe.

I flipped idly through my notebook, reviewing the sketches and drawings that I had done since getting on the bus. The man from the platform was featured in detail on two pages, but there were other images and snippets of scenes that made no sense to me.

There was nothing of Caleb, and I found myself flipping back further until I found a simple sketch I’d done of him where he was shirtless, jeans hanging low, and feet bare. He was looking to the south, and I wondered what held his attention so often, as it was a familiar pose for him to be looking in that direction.

I knew it was south, I didn’t know why.

I knew it was a direction he focused—fixated—on a lot. Caleb’s gaze always seemed to drift that way, and I had spent too many hours wondering what unseen something pulled his focus so. Because I knew it wasn’t a casual glance. The intensity of his focus was in his posture, in his narrowed stare, and I wanted to know the answer as to what place it was that he couldn’t let go of.

Or who.

Was it another part of his past? The past he kept from me. Kept was an exaggeration. Caleb owed me nothing. Well…he owed me a huge explanation about a lot of things, but his past? Was it really something he needed to share?

He was a loner, always distant, even when we were in a truck driving for hours. I couldn’t help but wonder what made him that way. What had happened to turn him into someone who thrived on solitude, who kept everyone at arm’s length? Would I ever find out, or would part of him always remain distant and a mystery?

But as the bus ate up the distance, I was honest with myself and asked possibly the most important question of all. Did I need to know? Would understanding what broke him change anything between us, or was I just fixating on him like he fixated on that direction south?

Caleb Foster fascinated me.

Even without the knowledge he could change shape and become a wolf, he would have been intriguing. There was something about him, raw and magnetic, that drew me to him long before I knew the full extent of his secrets. Caleb had a quiet intensity. The way he looked at me, and others, like he was already thinking a step ahead—it captivated me.

I wasn’t one for psychic connections and star signs and all that, despite my current circumstances, but I did feel like there was an aura around Caleb, one that made you feel like there was so much more . Even with his quiet ways, there was a weight to his silence, and I wanted to know what it was that he found so heavy to bear the burden of. It was that mystery and depth that would have made anyone want to peel back his layers and look closer.

Doodling a few simple flowers beside the drawing I did of him before, I wondered if the fact that I was drawing scenes of him was more than “peeling back layers.”

In this, I was the intrusive one. He had no say in the matter, and to an extent, neither did I. With one last look at the sketch, I closed the sketchbook and turned my attention to the countryside. The bus rolled steadily along, and through the dirty window, streaked with fingerprints from passengers before me, and dirt from the road, I watched the Colorado landscape stretch out before me, and my fingers itched to paint it. Tall pines towered over the highway, the afternoon sun showing the deep dark green of the needles. The mountain peaks of the Rockies loomed in the distance, snow evident on the highest peaks, a reminder that autumn was here, and winter wouldn’t be far behind. Looking at the peaks, my eyes taking in the details like never before, I wondered which one Caleb was on.

As the bus climbed higher, the dense forestry thinned a little, opening up to wide expansive fields, and somehow their vast emptiness added to the beauty of the land. I needed to learn to drive, I promised myself. One simple road trip, and the car would be overflowing with paintings and art.

A few ranch houses were scattered across the landscape, breaking up the scenery. I saw some cattle, but other than them and the cars on the road, it was all very serene. As the bus took me further away, I felt the bubble of anxiety that I had been holding onto since the bus station dissolve a little. Even the air inside the bus felt cleaner, and the silliness of the thought made me smile.

It was so peaceful, a complete contrast to what was happening in my mind, yet the wild beauty of the landscape and those mountains casting their shadow over the land had a way of reminding me how small I was in comparison, and in the grand scheme of things, so were my problems. While I told myself this and had an “I am a blip on the radar of time” moment, I could still feel the knot of tension lingering in my stomach, and the sense of unease that had followed me since I boarded this bus was still ever-present.

No matter how beautiful it was, I still wanted to know if the man at the station was waiting for me or if I truly just had an overactive imagination.

All too soon, I was picking up my stuff and getting ready to disembark. I needed to catch one more bus to get to Kettlebridge.

I followed the limited directions to get a local service, half expecting a rickshaw or something to be waiting to take me to the next stop. Instead, I saw the familiar shape of someone I knew.

“Doc?”

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading, checking his watch before getting to his feet. “You’re early?”

Glancing at my own watch, I saw that I was. “Oh.” The bus I was on was supposed to be more scenic, which it had been, but I thought I got in later. “I must have read the timetable wrong.”

Doc took my backpack off me, without asking, and the feminist in me wanted to protest, but I was also relieved as it was heavy, so I decided that I could let it slide this time.

“Why is this so light?” Doc asked, hefting it over his shoulder. “Is there another bag?”

He thought it was light ? “Um, it’s heavy. No, there’s no other bag.”

Doc smiled. “Okay, you ready?”

“Yup.” I followed him to a truck, and I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Ned waiting, but I was. “Oh, hi?”

Ned was wearing shades, and I had to say, he looked very appealing in his dark khaki jacket, denims, and black boots. He had that whole bad boy vibe. Which I hadn’t appreciated before, and now, knowing he was probably watching me check him out, I wished I hadn’t appreciated it at all.

“Hey,” he greeted with one of those slight dips of his head, all cool-like and hip. “You got any sketchbooks you need to show us?”

“Right in there, eh?” I murmured, saying thanks to Doc, who opened the truck’s back door for me.

Ned wasn’t fazed by my remark. “Do you?”

Pulling on my seat belt, I opened the backpack and handed the whole thing to Ned, who was in the passenger seat. Doc was already signaling to pull out. “A few of them are new.” I was going to explain about the guy from the station, but Ned was ahead of me.

“When did you meet him?” He was twisted around in his seat, looking at me, his sunglasses in his hand, maybe so I could see how pissed he was in case his tone of voice hadn’t been a huge indicator.

“It’s a bit weird?—”

“Explain weird.”

I gave him a look as irritated as his own. “If you let me speak, I’d be happy to.”

Ned held my look for a moment longer before he gestured for me to continue. I caught Doc’s look in the rearview and bit back my snappy retort. Quickly, I ran through the events at the bus station, noting that Ned became stiller and stiller until it was quite unnerving, and I couldn’t help but think of Caleb confronting the wolf in the middle of the road.

Doc pulled over, the engine idling as I finished. They exchanged a look, and with a low curse, Ned was out of the truck, striding away from it, a phone pressed to his ear .

“What just happened?”

“Tell me again,” Doc instructed gently.

I fidgeted with the seat belt, looking over my shoulder to see if I could see where Ned had gone. “There was a guy on the platform at the bus station. He was huge, like them.” I jerked my head to the way that Ned had gone. “He was standing off to one side, and he was just…staring at me. I thought I was being paranoid, but then I thought about everything I know now, and I don’t know. I didn’t like it.”

“Staring at you?” Doc’s voice was low, but there was an edge to it, and I wasn’t sure if it was aimed at me or not, but regardless, it made me sit up straighter. “Did he follow you? Say anything?”

“No, he didn’t speak. He wasn’t close to me. It’s why I was able to get the other bus.” I thought about him standing there, scratching his head when I tricked him. “I think I surprised both of us when I jumped onto the other bus.” Glancing over my shoulder one more time, I looked for Ned. “I felt it was weird, I take it you agree?”

“I think it’s not normal,” he told me with a grim smile, “but then, nothing rarely is.” Doc leaned back in his seat. “You sure he didn’t follow you?”

“I don’t think so,” I told him uneasily, “but I don’t know. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who caught a bus, know what I mean?”

Doc was nodding. “So, he could be in a car behind the bus?”

“I don’t know.”

His fingers drummed off the steering wheel as we waited for Ned to return. “If someone’s watching you, we need to find out who and why. A shifter rarely stalks human prey.”

“Human prey ?” I asked. The high pitch of my voice could have broken glass.

Doc winced. “Poor word choice,” he said with a sheepish shrug.

“Is this something I need to be worried about now?” I demanded.

“Probably not.” Probably? “We’ll see,” he added with another apologetic smile.

Silence fell between us as we waited for Ned to return, but the silence and the previous conversation were making the truck feel claustrophobic. “Is he connected to Caleb? To the pack?”

“I don’t know.”

I watched the clock as the time passed slowly. I had so many questions, but it was unlikely that Doc knew the answers. Between my racing heart, gulps of air, and already overcrowded mind, I was sure I was going to snap under the mounting tension.

Looking out the back window again, I was relieved to see Ned coming back. He looked grim and serious, and I already hated whatever he was going to say.

Reaching the truck, he stooped to look through the open window at us. “We’ve got more to do here,” he told Doc. I was pretty certain he wouldn’t tell me anything.

“Like what?” I asked him, my voice tight.

“Cannon isn’t sure who it was,” he said with barely a glance at me. “He’ll look into it.” He swept his gaze over me. “The break-ins and now this,” he said, turning back to Doc. “Someone’s interested in her.”

“Who?” I asked, jumping in before Doc spoke.

Ned shook his head, stepping back, and then with a sigh, opened the door and got in. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We going to the Peak?” Doc asked him casually, almost indifferently, ignoring my silent back seat meltdown.

“No.” Ned turned to look at me. “Cannon wants you close, but we don’t know if this guy”—his finger jabbed at the portrait of the man from the station—“is friend or foe, so until we know, we keep you close.”

I waited, and when he said nothing further, I gawked at him. “Is that your pep talk? Am I supposed to be reassured?”

Ned sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Look, you’re tied to Caleb. People may know more than we thought. The link between you two is dangerous. It could have gotten out.”

“Caleb on that mountain is dangerous,” Doc grumbled.

My anxiety levels were possibly at their peak. That’s what it felt like. “Why would anyone care if I was tied to Caleb? I’m just me. Plain and simple.”

“Who has a mind link to an alpha,” Ned reminded me as if I needed it.

I was just a regular person, or at least I had been until Caleb came crashing into my world.

“We won’t leave you alone,” Doc assured me.

I nodded, though the reassurance didn’t settle my nerves. I didn’t sign up for this. Drawing a few innocent sketches of a hot guy shouldn’t have led me here. I felt like I was drowning, and the water was so deep I wasn’t sure if I’d ever make it back to the surface .

“We need to stay here tonight,” Ned told Doc. “See if she’s followed.”

Doc looked back at me. “You okay?”

“Does it matter?” Neither of them answered and I think that pretty much summed it up.

Doc merged with traffic, and as I buckled my seat belt, the weight of everything pressed down on me. Whoever the man at the platform was, it was clear this wasn’t over.

And I didn’t know what to do with that revelation.