Chapter Four

Three months later…

“Paige? What are you doing?”

She heard Gavin’s voice, but she didn’t lift her head. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting at the kitchen table staring at the piece of paper clutched in her hand. She hadn’t even heard him come into her apartment.

“Paige?” His voice was filled with concern as he slid into the chair next to her. “What is it?” He took the paper gently from her hand, sliding it between her fingers.

She continued to stare at nothing, wondering how the hell she’d gotten so unlucky.

“Is this your assignment for your summer internship?”

She nodded slowly.

“It’s perfect, and it’s close by. Why do you look like someone died?”

She lifted her gaze to his.

“Jesus, Paige, you’re white.”

“Yeah, that’s Silvertip, Gavin. I can’t go to Silvertip.”

“Why not? You’ve always wanted to study in the mountains. Banff National Park is perfect.” He scanned the paper closely. “Sounds like the citizens of Silvertip are statistically in better health than other places. They live longer. They’re taller. Interesting data. I’m confused. You love this sort of shit. It’s what urban anthropology is all about.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “They live longer and stay healthier and grow bigger because they’re shifters, Gavin. Grizzly shifters.”

“Oh.” He smiled. “Cool. You never told me that. I didn’t realize there were communities of your people. You mean like all of the citizens of Silvertip are bears?”

“Not all. Most.”

“And your professor doesn’t know that, does he? I mean, he’s just interested in figuring out what those people eat or if their water is cleaner or if they have better air, a less stressful lifestyle, something like that.” He giggled. Giggled. “I love it.”

“I don’t love it.”

“Why the hell not?”

“First of all, the last thing I want to do is spend the summer surrounded by shifters. It gives me the creeps. And I’ll be the laughing stock of the community when they find out the farce of a job I’m there to do. But more importantly, remember that guy I met a few months ago at my parents’ house?”

“Wyatt something or other. Yeah. Does he live there?”

“Yes. His entire pack lives there. They own one of the two microbreweries.”

“Pack? You call them a pack? What does that consist of?”

She took a deep breath. She had deliberately never told Gavin much about shifters. The less he knew, the better. It wasn’t against Arcadian Law for humans to know, but it was frowned upon. Especially intentionally telling someone. In Gavin’s case, the blame lay with her attacker. Neither Paige nor anyone in her family ever would have told him. But he’d seen her attacker transition to grizzly form because the asshole either didn’t pay attention to his surroundings before he transformed, or he didn’t care.

She took a deep breath and blew it out. “A pack is an extended family. Blood relatives and anyone the family takes in. Some are tight. Often they live near each other. In the case of Silvertip, two main packs are living near each other—the Arthurs and the Tarbens. They’ve historically been in a feud, though I’ve heard they’re making amends. Each of those two packs owns a microbrewery in town.”

“That’s cool. Does your family belong to a pack?”

She nodded. “Yes. But it’s much smaller and more spread out. We aren’t as close as others. It’s harder when people live in the city. We can’t shift as often for fear of detection. We have a tendency to live more in tune with our human side.”

“Do you have like an alpha?”

She smiled. “Yeah. Each pack has a leader. My pack is spread out to the north of here. The Hart pack. We’re comprised of many different families.”

“I see.” He glanced at the paper again. “Did you ask your professor if you could switch with someone?”

“Yeah. He said no. He wants me to take this internship, and he was kind of confused by my request. I didn’t have a good reason to explain myself.”

“So, you have to go.”

“Looks like it.” She bit her lower lip, closing her eyes. She wondered how in the hell she could do this. Three months in Silvertip, Alberta. Three months surrounded by shifters for the first time in her life. She knew how potent their pheromones could be. Especially Wyatt Arthur’s. She’d only been near the man three times, and he’d almost brought her to her knees.

In the three months since she’d last seen him, she’d never gotten him out of her mind. She dreamed of him, awake and asleep. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on anything else, he was always there in the forefront of her mind.

Had he thought of her too?

Did he wake up in a sweat most nights from a dream that wouldn’t let go?

Paige had never been an overly sexual person. She didn’t like the idea of being touched. It gave her the creeps just thinking about having a man between her legs. Even though her rational mind told her that sex with the right person was nothing like what she’d experienced with that rapist monster her freshman year of high school, she couldn’t shake the images.

He’d ruined her for other men.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fight back the memories. His hands grabbing at her no matter how many times she told him to stop. He’d left bruises on her breasts and thighs. He’d jammed his fingers inside her and then his dick. She hadn’t been able to wash away his smell. It disgusted her. Sweat and stale alcohol.

“Paige?” Suddenly Gavin was in front of her, grabbing her shoulders. “Look at me.”

She jerked her eyes open, knowing she’d gasped or cried out. “I’m sorry.”

“Honey.” He tugged her against him, soothing her with a hand in her hair.

Suddenly, she had an idea. She shoved against him to meet his gaze. “Go with me.”

“Where?” His eyes narrowed until it dawned on him. “Silvertip?”

She nodded.

“I can’t do that. I have to get a job. I’m stretched thin as it is. I can’t take three months to hang out in the mountains. I need to be in the library doing research and working on my thesis. I can barely pay my rent.”

Her lip quivered. She hated asking this of him. He too was finishing his masters this summer. His degree was in Canadian Lit. He had a thesis to write. But she was desperate. “Please. I can’t do this without you. You won’t have to pay rent. I’ll cover it.”

He stared at her.

“It’s a paid internship. I can float us both. We’ll live frugally. Get a cheap apartment. You can spend the summer hiking and mountain climbing in between your research.” She forced a broader smile, loving this idea more by the second. “Please.”

“Do you realize what this would do to my mom? She already thinks we’re going to get married and have ten babies soon. I’m pretty sure she has china patterns picked out and a crib. If we run off and live together for the summer, she’ll probably plan an engagement party.”

Paige cringed. “I know. I’m sorry. I hate lying to her like this.”

“It would be tidier if you went without me and we pretended we broke up by the end of summer.”

“Gavin.” She gasped, her eyes growing wide as she grabbed his biceps.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I’m just pointing out how tidy it would be. My mom’s going to be so disappointed when we end this thing.”

“Then we won’t end it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Right. We’re just going to spend the rest of our lives in a fake relationship in order to keep our secrets tight and close.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Honey, I’d love nothing more, but one of these days, I promise you that plan is no longer going to be nearly as attractive to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m yours for as long as you’ll have me. Until you balls up and get your head out of your ass and come out of the closet, I’ll be your fake girlfriend. It’s not going to be me who decides to end this arrangement, Gavin. It’ll be you. When you meet the right guy, I’ll be history.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

All she could do was smile back at him. He was so full of it.

»»•««

“Can you believe how lucky we are?” Paige asked as she spun around in the apartment that was now all theirs for the summer. She didn’t feel lucky at all. She was having daily anxiety attacks from the stress of inevitably bumping into Wyatt, and this apartment was indeed absurdly small. It had no color, and it bored the hell out of her on sight. But she was trying to make Gavin believe she was excited about the arrangement and hide her anxiety.

“Lucky? I was thinking about how claustrophobic I already feel,” Gavin stated while tugging on his collar. “This is smaller than the place I had in Calgary, and we’re going to share it. I’ve had dorm rooms bigger than this.” He set his bike helmet on the floor next to the door and ran a hand through his messy hair. After some deliberation over the past week, they had decided to bring both his motorcycle and her car to Silvertip. He’d followed her. Her Nissan Versa was jammed with their belongings.

“Yeah, but the price is right, and we didn’t have to do anything to find it or get a special lease for the summer.”

“Uh-huh.” He wandered in farther, tagging the couch with the tips of his fingers. “This place is so…”

“Cute?”

“I was going to say bland. I can’t believe Alton lived here for two years. He must be a very boring man.”

She rolled her eyes. “He was saving money. And he didn’t care about anything except finally getting together with his mate.”

“Mate,” Gavin repeated. Paige had been telling him a bit about the inner workings of the lives of grizzly shifters, but he was still working on the jargon. “And you say mates are two shifters who are meant to be together.”

“Well, mates don’t have to have some sort of lightning strike to be together, but sometimes they just know. Joselyn and Alton knew from a young age. But since they were from the two rival families in town, they didn’t act on their instincts in order to keep peace in their families.”

“Until a few months ago.”

“Right.”

“And then they left town to get away from their families to move into your parents’ home and graciously leave us this quaint, unloved apartment for the summer.”

She grabbed his forearm and shook him. “I’m supposed to be the one freaking out here, not you. It’s only for three months. Do whatever you want to the apartment. Alton said he didn’t care. He was just glad someone needed it so it wouldn’t continue to sit empty. It’s not easy to sublease an apartment in a town this small.”

“Especially one with so much finesse,” Gavin grumbled. He wandered from the beige couch to the end table and then the kitchen area. It was all one room. A small room. “How many square feet is this place again?”

“Seven hundred.”

“Oh goody. The bedrooms must be monstrous. And let me guess, beige.” He turned from the functional brown table with two chairs to head toward the bedrooms.

He wasn’t wrong. There was no color in the apartment. The counters were a khaki Formica. The cabinets brown. The linoleum blocks of several shades of beige. The carpet, yeah beige. And the walls. She followed him to the bedrooms. The space between them couldn’t really be called a hallway. More like a place to step before entering the bedrooms. “You can have the larger one,” she stated.

He glanced at her and laughed. “How generous.”

She winced. “Least I can do. I don’t care anyway. I won’t be here much. I’ll be out doing research.”

“You going to start with the Arthur family? Go straight for the bane of your existence? Or hit the Tarbens first? From what Joselyn and Alton have said, it’s a crap shoot. Both are going to laugh at you.”

She cringed. “Yeah. They are. And no. I’ll do my best to avoid Wyatt as long as possible. Maybe I can survive the summer without running into him.”

Now Gavin laughed. “Honey, you’re not even going to survive the day. Alton told me how it is.”

“You spent way too much time with Alton in the last week.”

He shrugged, sitting on the edge of the bed and trailing a finger across the beige comforter. “He was more than eager to fill me in on your ways after he found out I knew about shifters. I’m super educated now. I probably know things you don’t.”

“You think so.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “Like what?”

“Like that Joselyn’s brother is most likely destined to be your mate, and you’ll never manage to avoid that fact.”

She bit her lower lip and then released it. “I don’t believe in that nonsense. Shifters choose their mates just like humans. If I don’t want to bind myself to Wyatt Arthur, then I don’t have to.”

Gavin nodded. “You keep telling yourself that, hon. But Alton tells me otherwise. He was there when you met Wyatt. He saw the look on the man’s face when you came into the house. He also told me about how you ran from the house with hardly a word. You knew it too. That’s why you’re scared. Besides, you just got through telling me that Joselyn and Alton knew they were destined to be together from a young age. So you’re saying Fate had a hand in their relationship, but you don’t believe it could happen to you?” He smirked.

Heat flushed her cheeks. He did know more than her. Or he was willing to face the facts more than she was. “Did you come with me for the summer to have my back, or are you suddenly going to play matchmaker and try to get me off your hands?” She stiffened, worried she might have hit the nail on the head.

He sighed. “Honey, I’ll do whatever you need me to do. It’s not in my best interest to have you bind—or whatever you call it—with some grizzly shifter. I’d lose my wing woman and my cover. But I also won’t have you hold yourself back if it’s something you decide you want to do.”

“I don’t want to have anything to do with Wyatt Arthur or any other shifter. I intend to keep my relationships here as superficial as possible. I’m hoping you’re on my team and you’ll help me.”

He pushed off the bed and came to her, pulling her into his arms. “You know I will, Paige. I’m always here for you.” He kissed the top of her head and then held her face to look into her eyes. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Trust me. I’m spending the summer with my boyfriend in Silvertip to do research. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

He nodded once. “Got it. Let’s get the car unpacked and get our shit moved into the glorious gigantic apartment, shall we?”

As they turned around to head back to the car, someone knocked on the door. Gavin lifted a brow, looking at Paige with a grin. “Think he’s already found you?” he whispered.

Paige glared at him, breathing in the scent of their guest. “No. That’s not a man. And whoever it is, she’s human.” She crossed the small room in three steps and opened the door to find a mousy woman of about five four with messy brown hair standing in the hallway. The newcomer smiled with exuberance and lifted her hand. “You must be Paige. I’m so excited to finally meet you. Can’t wait to work with you.”

Paige frowned, though she politely shook the skinny woman’s hand. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“Kelly, of course. Kelly Smith.” Her face fell. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Paige stiffened.

“I’m a reporter for U of C. My professor hooked me up with yours so I could shadow you this summer. Isn’t that awesome?” She beamed. Her smile was too wide for her face.

“Pardon?”

Kelly’s face fell slightly. “You really didn’t know anything about it?”

Paige shook her head. She still held the door with one hand and the frame with the other, a barrier of sorts. She could sense Gavin behind her, but she didn’t move or acknowledge him. She was still trying to wrap her head around this development. “You’re a reporter?”

“Yes.” Kelly stood taller, nodding.

“What is there to report on?”

“Your research, silly. We’ll be like partners. I’m so excited to get started.” It was the second time she’d pointed out how excited she was.

Paige wasn’t feeling the same emotion. Hers would have to be described as apprehension with a hint of horror. Excitement didn’t make the short list. “I see.”

“When do we start? I can be here in the morning.”

Paige lifted her brows. “Oh. I’m not sure yet. I just got here. I’m going to take a few days to settle in first. Can I call you?” Something about this woman grated on her nerves. How was she going to survive this already awkward summer with this damn human following her around?

Kelly reached into her purse and pulled out a card, handing it to Paige. The woman has cards? It didn’t say much. Just her name and phone number and some sort of title. A little ostentatious for a grad student.

“Okay, well, I’ll text you sometime tomorrow when I get my bearings.”

“Perfect. I can’t wait to hear from you.” Kelly bounced on her feet as she turned to head down the hallway.

Paige shut the door, turned around to lean against it, and moaned.

“What the hell just happened?” Gavin asked.

“I don’t know, but my life just got incrementally more complicated.”

“No one at the university told you a woman was going to shadow you this summer?” Gavin furrowed his brow.

“If they did, I missed it. I’ll check in with Professor Jefferson. Maybe there was an email I overlooked.”

“Apparently. I mean, what do they expect you to do? How on earth could anyone find your research interesting enough to report on it?”

Paige narrowed her gaze at him, waiting for him to realize how insulting that sounded.

He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Paige sighed. “I know. And you’re right. They must be desperate for stories if they’re sending a student from the school paper to watch me interview people about their lifestyle and eating habits.”