“I don’t think there’s anything here,” she said.
“Go ahead and check my neck and under my hairline. I can’t see back there.”
He leaned forward to start inspecting his legs, and Inga hastily moved around to his side, not least because his legs were slightly spread to keep his balance and from the back, she had a very clear view of his—everything. Moving didn’t help a whole lot, because now she got a good look at Luke groping his own thighs. Trying to keep her mind on the important matters, she ran her fingertips up his neck and around the pleasantly soft fringes of his hair. She kept losing her place, because now Luke was feeling around his own balls.
“Would they put itthere?” Her voice rose in a squeak. She had never watched a man grope his balls before.
“Gotta check everywhere,” Luke grunted.
He bent over further to run his hand down to his ankle, which made it even harder for Inga not to notice his ... everything she wasn’t noticing. She very firmly returned her attention to exploring his hairline. There was a noticeable scar behind his ear, a twist of scar tissue as if he had been cut or seared with something there. She pulled her hand away and glanced down to see the dog sitting on his haunches and looking up at her with his tongue lolling out, as if laughing.
Very funny, furball,Inga thought in the dog’s direction. “I didn’t find anything,” she told Luke, managing to keep her voice mostly normal. “Just a scar behind your ear.”
“Me neither. That was already there.” Luke straightened up, to her relief. “Which doesn’t meant there might not be something we didn’t find, but we’ve done the best we can do.”
“Good,” Inga said. She cleared her throat and turned her back so he could get dressed, trying and failing not to think about the soft warmth of his skin under her fingers. “Why don’t you get dressed again, and let’s go have breakfast.”
Now that she was no longer distracted by all that naked manflesh, she kept thinking,Microchips?
It was possible that the guy was simply crazy. Conspiracy theorists did have beliefs like that sometimes.
But he didn’t seem delusional. And if he had actual reasons to believe it, she wondered what she had gotten herself into.
Back in the cabin, Inga found a tightly sealed can of powdered eggs on one of the shelves. It wasn’t quite the same as the real thing, but she made a cowboy breakfast with scrambled eggs, a can of beans, and intense black coffee, as well as toast that finished off perishable supplies she had assumed would last her the entire time she was here.
“If you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to walk along the coast for a ways and try to find the Dingboat,” she said. “Er, that’s my skiff. If we can’t find it, we’ll still be okay; we can walk out if we need to. But I hate the idea that it’s just gone. I especially hate it because I didn’t tie it up well enough, and that’s a mainlander’s mistake. If my brothers find out about it, they’ll never stop giving me grief.”
“It’s gorgeous out there,” Luke said. He had finally slowed down after shoveling in several helpings of eggs and toast. The dog got a can of stew and the heel-end of the bread. “I’d love to see more of it.”
“Will you be warm enough? There might be a coat in the clothes we left here.”
“I’m not cold,” Luke said. “It’s fine.”
Inga grinned at him. “That’s right, you’re a shifter. So many of my friends are humans that I’m used to looking out for them these days. It’s so relaxing to just go out for a hike with a fellow shifter and not worry if a human is going to be able to keep up, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” But he had lost his smile. “That’s great.”
She really couldn’t figure him out. The microchip thing was still weird. Inga had begun to wonder, uncomfortably, if he might have been a victim of—well—an experiment of some kind.Her brother Eren had been out of touch with his bear for years after the experiences he had gone through. Could Luke have been through something similar?
If so, it’s not my business,she told herself firmly. She collected a water bottle and a couple of granola bars for snacking on the hike.He’ll tell me if he wants to talk about it.
LUKE
In spiteof his bold words, Luke did find it a bit chilly at first, but it was fine once they started moving. Inga gave him a water bottle. The dog trotted along with them, sometimes behind, sometimes in front, sometimes wandering off to the side to investigate an interesting smell.
Walking along the top of the cliffs was easy enough. The ground was rocky, with scrubby bushes and not much else to impede them. What trees existed were gnarled and sparse.
Inga carried the conversation at first, chatting lightly about her hometown, her brothers (two), her sisters-in-law (two), how lucky he was that he’d arrived in the spring and escaped the Newfoundland winter (if she only knew), and what she seemed to think were relatable anecdotes about being a polar bear shifter.
“Our house is built on pilings over the bay, and we have a trapdoor in the living room. The whole setup is so that we can go in and out under the house without being caught in mid-shift by the neighbors, though honestly I think my entire family is being hopelessly naive if they think half our neighbors haven’t figured it out yet. Anyway, the problem with having a trapdoor in the floor and two brothers is that sometimes people leave it open.I came in one time with my arms full of groceries and was just trying to carry them to the kitchen, and suddenly I found myself in freefall with my arms full of grocery bags filled with eggs, bread, and hamburger.”
Luke laughed. “Did you rescue anything?”
“Believe it or not, most of the eggs were fine, though we must’ve spent half an hour fishing them one by one out of the bay. The bread was the worst off. Let me tell you, bread soaked in salt water is pretty sad. We ended up using it for French toast and putting a lot of sugar on it.”
“I wouldn’t have minded growing up in a place like that. I was always moving around when I was a kid.”
Inga gave him a swift, delighted glance, her eyes bright, and he realized this might be the first time he’d talked about his past at all. “That must have been interesting, though. Was it mostly in the city? You must have had trouble finding places to shift.”
