John? Who the heck was John?
I didn’t have to wonder who she was talking about for long.
“He always used to sit in my station before she showed up. If it weren’t for Laina, we would have been dating by now.”
“You don’t know that,” Bess sighed.
“I do, too,” Sally insisted.
“He was gearing up to ask me out right before she started working with us.”
“Maybe,” Bess conceded, although she sounded like she was placating her friend. “But that’s not Laina’s fault. She hasn’t done anything to encourage his interest in her.”
“That’s the only reason he’s still interested in her. She’s a challenge,” Sally huffed. “Most girls fall all over themselves around him since he’s so hot and his dad owns half of the town.”
I finally realized who they were talking about. The cocky guy who tipped well and had asked me out more times than I could count. He came into the diner for lunch several times a week and always had an idea of what we could do after my shift.
“Which was why you decided to play hard to get in the first place. But Laina’s not pretending not to be interested in dating him like you were. She probably doesn’t even know his name. That’s how little attention she pays to him. Not once in all the times she has waited on him have I heard her use it.”
Bess was right. I vaguely remembered John telling me who he was the first time he’d sat at one of my tables, but I hadn’t paid much attention. It was only my second day at the diner, and I’d been more worried about memorizing the menu than the customers’ names. He hadn’t bothered to introduce himself again—probably because he assumed I wouldn’t be able to forget him—and I had resorted to calling him my Mr. Club Sandwich because he ordered one every time he stopped by the diner.
“Yeah, well. That doesn’t seem to matter to John.”
“I feel kinda bad about inviting her up here with us without telling her why.” I pressed my cheek against the tree trunk, hoping Bess didn’t see me when her gaze darted over her shoulder in my direction. “Just because John said he would pull out all the stops to get her to agree to a date doesn’t mean she’d actually say yes.”
“Oh, please,” Sally huffed. “There’s no way she was going to turn him down this time. I had to do something.”
Bess’s voice sounded dreamy when she said, “It would be pretty hard to turn down a guy who hired a cover band to perform your favorite song, booked a hot air balloon ride because it’s something you’ve always wanted to do, and had Darlene at the bakery whip her up a dozen chocolate-covered strawberries. That’s about as romantic as it gets.”
My nose scrunched as I wondered how in the heck John knew all of that about me.
“I still can’t believe he did all that for her.”
I didn’t have to wonder if Sally didn’t like me anymore. The loathing in her voice made it more than clear that I wasn’t her favorite person. I would’ve felt bad for her over the whole John situation except she’d tricked me into coming on this horrible camping trip because she was jealous of me even though I hadn’t done anything. I’d always worried there was something wrong with me for never having a crush on a guy like other girls. But if this was what unrequited love did, then maybe I was lucky.
“You do get that this is only a temporary solution, right?” Bess asked. “Sure, you got Laina out of town this weekend so John’s plan went down the drain. But he can reschedule everything for a different day.”
“Not if she gets lost out here and never comes back,” Sally grumbled.
I stumbled backward at the venom in her tone, dropping the dishes on the ground. Both women whirled around to stare at me. Without the tree blocking me, they easily spotted me. Bess’s eyes were filled with remorse, but there was only hatred in Sally’s. Whirling around, I ran in the other direction, desperate to get away from them, while Bess called, “Laina, wait! Stop! She didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”
It was foolish of me to veer off the path when I couldn’t see where I was going because of the tears pouring out of my eyes. If I got lost out here in the wilderness, I couldn’t be sure Sally and Bess would bother looking for me. But with the way Sally was talking about me, it was entirely possible that I’d be safer with any wild animals that I might come across than her.
3
Keane
I’d always been a morning person. My grizzly loved roaming the woods first thing each day, making sure nobody had encroached on our territory. The land I’d purchased in the middle of the wilderness was perfect as far as my inner beast was concerned. All I had to do was roll out of bed, walk out to my back deck, and let my bear loose.
Normally, a couple of hours in the woods was all I needed to get a great start. Especially after I’d been away from my territory.
Not today, though. Changing back to my human form had been a lot harder to do than usual. The last thing my grizzly wanted to do was return to my cabin, even after spending an extra hour marking his territory. Literally.
My damn bear had raked his claws against a dozen trees and pissed all over the damn place. Laid down enough scent that no shifter would ever mistake this land for anything but mine. I wasn’t sure what had gotten him so agitated, but he needed to chill the fuck out.
Guzzling down a pot of coffee didn’t help. Neither did shoveling a stack of pancakes and a pound of bacon into my belly. When I stalked onto my front porch after breakfast and braced my hands against the wood railing I’d installed myself, I took a deep breath and finally figured out what was riling up my inner animal—the faintest trace of my fated mate’s scent was in the air.
My feet were bare as I stalked down the steps into my front yard, but I didn’t want to waste time going inside to grab my boots. Not when I had the chance to finally find the other half of my soul.