18
“You weren’t kidding, Chase. This is spectacular.” Cecily stood on the cliff’s edge. Nothing but sky and snowcapped mountains greeted her in the distance. The dull roar from a waterfall cascaded over the craggy rock face across from where they made camp. “It’s hard to believe it’s the middle of summer when there’s snow on those peaks. And that water! It looks so crisp and delicious, makes me want to dive in, clothes and all.”
Chase stacked loose brush and a few small branches into a makeshift firepit. “Crisp is the operative word, love. It may be summer, but melting snow is the source of that waterfall. Trust me. It’s ice cold. But if you really want to go for a swim, I’m sure we could figure something out.”
“Yeah, no thanks. I do the polar bear plunge once a year for charity. That’s enough.” She rubbed her bare arms. “Still, it’s colder up here than I thought it would be for mid-afternoon.”
“I’m breaking out the Boy Scout skills, just for you. We need to be careful of sparks, though. He looked at her. “Of course, the sparks we’ve started on that blanket are a different story altogether.”
She stole a glance at the blue tartan he’d spread on the ground and wrapped her arms around her middle. Chase didn’t have to be explicit for her body to react. All he had to do was look at her and electricity zinged to her nether regions. Still, they needed to talk. How were they supposed to make this arrangement work enough for a baby if they continued as strangers? Great sex did not a relationship make.
“You might want to stack the larger pieces teepee style over the kindling.” She gestured toward the campfire.
He glanced up from the circle of stones he’d placed around the wood pile. “Very good. Obviously, you spent time in the woods.”
“Why obviously?” she questioned.
He shrugged, straightening. “You’re a shifter. I assume you cut your teeth in the woods as a teenager.”
“You would think so, but no.”
“Really?” He seemed surprised.
Cecily handed him the matches from their backpack. “When it comes to outdoor skills, you’re more shifter than me. You hunt, fish, you can track a path through the woods. Hell, you pointed out animal scat and recognized different bird species from their calls. Growing up, the closest I got to the woods were the grounds behind our summer house on Cape Cod. Dad would make a fire on the beach, sometimes, so I learned the basics from him.”
“I always thought shifters were inherently in tune with nature,” Chase replied, squatting to fan the small flame. “That nature was part of your blood, no prep required.”
She shook her head. “Maybe in the past, but not anymore. At least not in my pack. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I shifted into my animal form.”
“Then I’m glad I brought a shotgun with us.” He gestured toward the sleek rifle beside their picnic hamper.
She followed his eyes and winced inside. “I wish you hadn’t, but I guess we are high in the tree line.”
“Better safe than sorry. Bear, cougars, even wolves can be as unpredictable as they are stealth.”
She folded her arms, letting her gaze drift toward the dark beyond the trees behind them. “If I trusted my own skills more, we wouldn’t need a firearm.” She turned her eyes back to him with a shrug. “I hate the idea of taking aim at an innocent animal for following their instincts.”
“I would have still brought the rifle. If it came to a choice between protecting you or sparing a predator, I don’t think it’s a hard guess which I’d choose. Still, I hate hearing you sound so disappointed. As though you lost some of your identity. Your culture. My parents made a point for me to know as much about both ethnicities as possible.”
“Maybe.” She glanced toward the forest again. “I don’t know.”
“Still, when it comes to the mountains and forests, I’m as much a tourist as you. Like I said, I was a Boy Scout, so yeah, I know how to camp and make a fire. I can fish and track, but I don’t think that qualifies me as Grizzly Adams.” He paused. “I’m confused, though. You’re the rightful alpha of your group now that your dad passed, right?
“Right.”
“Well, don’t you need to know how to…to—” He lifted a hand. “I don’t know, run with the pack?”
Cecily laughed out loud. “Cliché much, dude? The Mohican Pack is more corporation than clan. Our pack council sits in a boardroom, not a lodge. It’s a business. The council my father was so concerned wouldn’t accept an alpha-female as CEO spends its days in a high-rise office on Fifth Avenue in New York.”
“But that feeling you had earlier in town. With the people in the pickup, and how you knew Dan was a wolf. What was that, then?”
She sat on the blanket watching the fire spark to life. “My inner cat is always there inside me. She’s like a sixth sense. People’s scents and body language speak volumes. My father taught me how to decipher those clues as a defensive tactic through my inner animal, but I could never survive the wilderness like you think. I was groomed for the wilds of Wall Street, not the woods, but at least the ability is there, albeit rusty.”
Cecily patted the blue plaid beside her. “That’s where you come in. My own personal mountain man with mad skills.”
“And what kind of skills are those, Madam Alpha?” he asked with a grin. “You want me to lubricate your rusty bits?”
She laughed. “Wow, now there’s an offer no girl could resist.” The humor between them hung in the air. “Seriously, Chase. I’m talking about the kind of skills that make me think our experiment is more than just the thrill of boy meeting girl.”
He grabbed two beers and slid in beside her on the blanket. “Opposites attract.”
“Yes.” She took a beer from his hand, letting her fingers linger. “Though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react.”
“Okay, Tina Turner.” With a smirk, he drew his knees up. “I get it. What’s love got to do with it, right?”
“Very good.” She lifted the longneck in salute. “There’s hope yet.”
Chase scooted closer and leaned over, kissing her cheek. “I think there’s more than just hope.”
She turned, meeting his lips. “You think?”
“Much more.”
Despite her inner cat’s purr, she pulled back, not wanting this to escalate to another tangle in the tartan. They needed to get to know each other outside the sheets. “Tell me about growing up in Boston. What were you like as a child?”
“It was pretty average, I guess,” he replied, tipping his beer to his lips. “What do you want to know?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. What were you like in school? Were you a nerd or a jock, or maybe you were a student athlete and the best of both? Your mom was obviously a good cook. Did you have family dinners on Sundays? What was Christmas like in your house?”
“Whoa, slow down, killer. I thought Malcolm would have provided a detailed dossier on me along with the prenup.”
She shoved at his shoulder. “Not funny, Chase.”
“But?”
A sheepish grin tickled the corner of her lips. “He offered.”
“Ah HA!”
She shoved at him again. “Hey! I turned him down, Mr. Judgy. I wanted this to happen as organically as possible, just as we discussed. Regular people find out about one another bit by bit.”
“Yeah, but they usually do so before they say I do.”
Cecily looked at him. “Are you sorry you signed up for this?”
“No.” Chase covered her hand with his. “So far, it’s been everything I’d hoped it would be.”
“Me, too.”
He slipped his hand free to reach for the picnic basket beside the blanket. “You hungry?”
“Always. But you still haven’t answered my questions.”
Chase flipped open the top of the hamper and dug inside for the fried chicken and potato salad they packed for lunch, along with crusty French bread and slices of thick chocolate cake.
“I already told you how I nearly lost the bar to a single hand of poker,” he said, licking excess frosting from his thumb. “That was right after my dad died, ten years ago. What I didn’t tell you was I lost my mother six months earlier. You talk about skills. I was a Boy Scout, that’s true, but my skills run deeper than that. We’re a military family. Army. My brother, Stephan, and I each served two tours in Afghanistan. I came home. He didn’t. Mom never got over Stephan’s death. After she passed, Dad just faded. It’s like he didn’t want to go on living, even for me. Afterward, everything was left to me. The bar, the bank accounts and the grief.”