Inga helped her haul her things up the hill, which aside from the baby consisted of a medium-sized but remarkably heavy cooler, the baby carrier, a large baby bag, and a backpack. “How long were you planning on staying, exactly?”
“Overnight,” Nita said gloomily. “I’m like a turtle, I carry my house on my back now.” She looked back at Rogue, who had leaped to his feet and followed them, but at a respectful distance. “So I don’t see a boat, which means your mysterious guest came overland. Unless a helicopter dropped him off.”
Inga suffered a tiny chill; that was way too close to the truth. “Yes, he—ah—he just turned up, along with his dog. He didn’t have any food with him, so I’ve been feeding him from the supplies here.”
“No food at all? No wonder you’re running out. What kind of idiot is this guy?”
Inga felt instantly defensive of Luke. Passing him off as a lost hiker was going to fail the minute he showed up wearing their brothers’ clothes, she decided; it was better to go with a vestige of the truth. “He’s a shifter. He figured he’d live off the land. Andhe was doing fine with that—” He really had been! “—but once he shifted back to chat with me and explain that he wasn’t really an animal, we figured he could stay here for a while. If no one showed up, he was just going to continue on with his original plan which was—uh—hiking up the coast with his dog in his shift form.”
“Whoa.” Nita had been looking more and more impressed throughout Inga’s speech. “He was really hiking the coast in his shift shape? That’s hardcore. I didn’t know people did that kind of thing anymore. Though it does sound like something your dad would do,” she added, smirking.
“Please don’t suggest it to him.” Inga glanced up the hill, where Luke still had not appeared. “If you want to go on in, I’m going to go find him and let him know we have company. Feel free to use anything in the cabin that you like and make yourself at home.”
She helped Nita drop off the supplies, then left, calling to Rogue. The dog, however, settled himself woefully outside the door, where he had been exiled, with his head on his paws.
“Fine, be that way.” She wondered if he’d belonged to a family with kids in his previous life, before he had ended up with Luke. Poor dog! They would have to try to reunite him with his former owners, if they could. She knew Luke would miss him, but if some family with little kids was currently mourning their dog, surely Luke couldn’t begrudge getting him back where he belonged.
She immediately regretted not having Rogue with her, because he could probably have smelled out Luke faster than Inga could find him. The thought of turning into a bear and scent-trailing him crossed her mind, but she stayed human for the present, calling Luke’s name softly. He hadn’t actually run away, had he? She didn’t think he wasthatparanoid, but she wasn’t running from an evil lab herself.
“Luke?”
“Shh!” Luke popped up almost in front of her, appearing from a clump of brush and rocks. Inga jumped. He was actually very good at hiding. And he looked unfairly hot, with his hair slightly scruffed and leaves in it—and he was completely naked, ohno. She tried to look anywhere but at Luke as he retrieved his clothes from the brush.
“Were you a bear?”
“I thought I might have to shift.” She heard the rustles as he got dressed. “Who was it? Are they gone?”
“No, but it’s okay.” Inga decided to look at the sky, which was nice and blue with high streamers of clouds. Unfortunately that did nothing but give her a blank canvas to imagine Luke’s lean, muscular body ... “It’s my childhood friend Nita,” she went on, forcing her brain back on track. “She knew I was at the cabin and came to visit me. She’s fine, I swear. She won’t turn you in.”
“Did you tell her about me?”
Inga dared turn to look at him. He was buttoning the shirt over his fuzzy thatch of chest hair. “I had to tell her something, because I needed to explain Rogue. I said you were a hiker who had been hiking the coast in your shift form, just in case she notices that those aren’tyourclothes you’re wearing.”
“You told her I’m a bear?”
“I told her you’re a shifter. Nita is a shifter too, and so is her baby.”
“She has a baby? With her?”
“Look, can you stop asking questions and just come back to the cabin with me? She’s going to be okay about it, Luke. I haven’t told her anything I didn’t have to in order to explain your presence here. I figured the more I lied, the harder it was going to be for us to keep our story straight, so we’ll just go with you being a lost hiker for now. Unless you have a better story, of course. Or you could stay up here, if you want.”
Luke sighed and ran his fingers though his hair, dislodging a few leaves. “No, you’re right, I can’t hide up here forever. What’d you say her name is? Nita?”
LUKE
Despite his reservations,Luke could see why Inga trusted Nita. She was a sweet, down-to-earth person who reminded him of Inga somewhat in her friendly openness, although she was a bit darker (brown hair, brown eyes) compared to Inga’s sunny coloring.
But the baby, Jo-Jo, was the real icebreaker. Luke had never been around a small child before. He wasn’t sure how old Jo-Jo was (under a year, definitely) but she was a happy, babbling chatterbox who, once she warmed up to her new company, talked constantly in a language of her own making with an occasional somewhat-recognizable word mixed in. Nita seemed to understand her better than the others, answering back in kind. Luke wondered at first if it was a shifter thing, then decided it was a mom thing.
Nita seemed a little unsure about him at first, too, though she asked him few questions about himself. This, he thought, might actually be a shifter thing. They were all a little wary about prying into each other’s lives—which worked out pretty well in his case. He volunteered that he was a polar bear, since Nita didn’t seem to know, and Nita rather shyly said that she and her daughter turned into seals.
“In fact, you’ll probably see it soon, because she figured out how to shift about a month ago, and now she absolutely loves being a seal. There’s nothing she likes better in the world. I’m probably the only mom alive who could just put her daughter in a wading pool and leave her there for hours without worrying anything bad is going to happen. Not that I wouldn’t worry anyway,” she added.
Inga seemed happier than Luke had seen her so far. She bounced around between the stove and the pile of new supplies as she prepared pancakes and scrambled eggs from the food Nita had brought with her, waving off all offers of help. Luke wondered if she’d been a little lonely with just him and Rogue.
As if on cue, the dog nudged up against Luke’s hand. Inga turned around from the stove, spatula in hand. “Luke, did you let him in? He’s supposed to be outside.”
“Sorry.” Luke supposed that Rogue must have come in when he and Inga did, though he hadn’t noticed him. It was amazing how stealthy a giant black dog could be when he wanted to. “Why were you keeping him outside?”
