Chapter Two
Cam looked over his shoulder for the twentieth time. Not at the couple behind him, but at the pretty cat shifter trailing far back. God, she was pretty. Feisty as hell, but a looker for sure.
Her eyes were this frosty color that sat between bright green and nearly white, and her pupils were elongated. They’d been lightened since the second she’d found out the other rider…Birdie he thought her name was…was a hamster shifter.
Geez, he hadn’t even realized hamster shifters existed. Cats were rare enough, but rodent shifters? This was news to him.
Birdie and her human, Lance, seemed happy and excited just to be spending time together. There was a newness to their relationship that he could sense.
The cat shifter didn’t like them much, but he got the feeling she didn’t like many people. Interesting.
On the waiver, her name was Moira Jennings. Pretty name. He was absolutely looking up her registration as soon as she left.
He looked back again, but she was trailing even farther. Alright, that was enough. “We have another mile before we are stopping for brunch,” he told Lance. “Do you mind leading for a minute? I’ve ridden a trail into the snow. All you have to do is follow the trail. I need to check on Moira.”
“Her name is Moira?” Birdie asked over the sound of the engines. “We’ve been calling her Debbie Downer.”
“I can still hear you,” Moira called from way back.
“I can lead, no problem,” Lance said.
Cam dipped to the side between two trees and waited.
Moira was wearing a tight black sweater, and gray mittens, a black beanie over black, straight, shoulder-length hair.
Her skin was fair, but her cheeks were rosy out here in the cold.
She wore heavy eye liner, and her dark eyebrows were arched delicately under the edge of her beanie.
Her lips were full, and she had a small piercing just beside her lip, like a little sparkling dimple.
God she was pretty. His dick swelled against his pants, and he adjusted quick before she reached him.
“What do you want?”
“To check on you.”
“Well, check complete. Go back to leaving me alone.”
He sighed and watched her zoom past him. He bet no one in the world could get past the walls she put up, and that should make him run, but instead, it made him curious. Why had a pretty girl like her constructed those walls in the first place?
He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t. He wasn’t the type to go be a good match for anyone.
He was a loner who didn’t care about the needs of anyone but his customers.
It had always been like that. It was him and his career here with ATV tours.
Changing without mauling anyone. Eat, sleep, fuck occasionally and fashion every week just like the last and just like the next.
That’s how he kept his animal steady.
So why was this little prickly kitty shifter dragging his attention?
He was a freaking grizzly bear who stood twelve feet tall. She was probably nine pounds soaking wet when she was Changed. He was scared of nothing, and she was scared of a hamster.
They didn’t fit in any way.
“Get it together, man,” he growled to himself as he hit the accelerator.
You know what it was? It was the fear she’d shown him.
It was the vulnerability and going straight to him to keep her safe.
That had messed with his head. It had made him protective.
Yeah. That was it. He wasn’t interested in her, per se.
His animal had just enjoyed being needed for protection for a minute. That’s all this was.
Another hour and a half and she would be on her way to whatever hotel she was staying in, and probably soon after, she would be heading back to…
he frowned, trying to remember the information off her waiver.
He thought she’d written down that she was from Arizona but couldn’t remember the name of the town.
Arizona was a hell of a long way from here.
Yep, an hour and a half and she would leave and he would forget her and she would forget him.
End of their short story.
But when she slowed ahead, and turned around, waiting for him, his damn heart rate kicked up, and he hit the accelerator to speed up.
“I didn’t actually pee in your territory,” she told him.
Whatever he’d been expecting her to say, it hadn’t been that. “Okay?”
“Well, I know how disgusting you bear shifters can be, and I know you’ll be sniffing around your territory looking for my marking, but it’s a waste of your time.”
He ignored the disgusting remark. “So why did you go into the woods then?” he asked pulling up beside her on a wider part of the trail. It would be wide enough for both of them for half a mile or so. He had this trail memorized like the back of his hand.
She glanced over at him with her glowing, light, strange colored eyes, and then back to the trail as she picked along over the uneven snow. “I was having a moment.”
“A panic attack moment?”
“What? No. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
Her defensiveness said he’d guessed close. “I don’t like humans much either.”
“I don’t like humans or shifters.” She spat the last part out at him with venom.
“Why not?”
“Because they are annoying.”
“Oh, come on. Not everyone on earth is annoying. There has to be someone out there that is enjoyable to be around.”
“Nope.” She said it so flippantly.
“Why were you so pissed off that I’m single?” That question had been burning in his chest this whole ATV ride.
“Because you are trouble, and I don’t need any trouble. If you were married, or paired, or hell, in a relationship of any kind, I would be so turned off, I wouldn’t even want to say a single word to you.”
“Ah. So, you were cheated on.”
She threw a fiery glance at him. “Don’t ask me questions anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
“Because I figure you out too fast?” he guessed.
She hit the accelerator, but he kept pace with her.
“Stop following me.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about?”
“Who was the guy who made you hate being around couples, and who had you trying to escape Valentine’s Day. The Woodpecker Inn booked me all week with excursions that are solely UnValentine’s Day themed. Why are you here?”
“Why don’t you mind your business, Cam.” She flashed him an angry glance. “I don’t owe you or anyone any piece of me. Let me enjoy the scenery in peace.”
“Marsden.”
“What?”
“My last name is Marsden. Cam Marsden. You can look up my registration later.”
“Why would I do that? I don’t care.”
He shrugged. She had straight poison in the tone of her words, but there was something about her…something…hurt.
He liked her talking to him, even if it was just to berate him and throw up walls. He found it sexy for some reason. He liked a woman who could speak her mind.
“I was cheated on too. Long time ago. It sucks.”
“Do you make it a habit of pestering women when they tell you to leave them alone?”
Oh geez, no. He didn’t like that. He let his thumb off the accelerator and dropped back immediately.
Ah, she was right. He didn’t have a right to try and get to know her. She wasn’t inviting it.
He waited for the mouth of the trail to go wider and then sped up around her without a word.
He passed Birdie, and then Lance, and took his spot at the head of the group.
For the next ten minutes, he focused as best as he could on the winding curvature of the snowy trail that wound its way up the mountain.
When they got to the lookout point, he pulled over and gestured for them to park their ATVs.
Cam was so acutely aware of every move Moira made as she turned off her ATV, dismounted and stretched.
While he unloaded the blanket and brunch from the storage on his four-wheeler, Moira meandered up the trail a ways while Birdie and Lance chattered happily and stared out over the pine tree dotted canyon.
He settled the blanket onto the huge flat boulder he’d brought on a hundred other tours and set up the food.
When Lance and Birdie were all settled and snacking, Cam looked up the trail to see Moira sitting on a snow-covered boulder, one knee drawn up and her neck craned.
Her eyes were thoughtful on the view. If he had his camera, he would’ve tried to sneak a picture. Fuck, she was pretty.
He grabbed a bottle of sparkling grape juice and a container of poached salmon and tomato bagels he’d picked up from a café down the road early this morning.
“No,” she said blandly as he headed her way.
Without a word, he set the bottle of grape juice, a cup, and the food container next to her.
He turned and began walking away.
“What was her name?” she asked.
Cam halted, his eyes on the happy couple down the trail. “Sarah,” he said. He turned. “I haven’t said her name in a really long time.”
“How long is a long time?”
“Ten years.”
Even when she frowned, she was pretty. “Did you date after she cheated?”
“I fucked. Never dated though.”
She lifted her head in a thoughtful nod. “You boys can just do that.”
“Do what?” he asked, approaching her slowly so as not to startle her and get her hurling insults at him again.
“You can just sleep with women and feel nothing.”
A smile took his lips, and he gestured to the food. “I’m going to grab one of those for me. I’m starving.”
“Fine.”
He popped open the lid of the container and took one out. It was an everything bagel with salmon, tomato, dill and cream cheese and a bunch of seasonings that made it his favorite breakfast ever. The Woodpecker Inn had sprung for the best this week.
He handed it to her but didn’t make it a big deal. Just handed it over and reached for another one for him. And stood beside her rock, watching the scene below them. It always reminded him of a postcard here.
“How do you do it?” she asked after a few bites.
“Do what?”
“Just…sleep with girls and not feel anything.”