Chapter 8 Baz
BAZ
The vision of loveliness—Arden!—came up as light as a feather, as if she weighed nothing.
Her hair was just short of shoulder length, chestnut brown at the roots tapering into blonde, framing a perfectly heart-shaped face with a trace of freckles.
She had small, capable hands and a compact, buxom figure beneath a flowered blouse and a pair of grass-stained jeans that hugged her curves deliciously.
She was—perfect. Baz felt as if some previously unknown part of him had clicked into place the moment he saw her. If this wasn’t the feeling of mate, he couldn’t imagine what else it could be.
“I’m so glad you were here,” she said. “Um, are they going to come back?”
“Not right now.” Just being this close to her sent his heart into overdrive. He realized he’d been holding her hand a little too long to be polite, and hastily dropped it, then realized he was probably coming across deeply weird. “Uh—do you want me to help you carry anything?”
“Oh.” Arden’s gaze dropped to the art supplies scattered around her feet, most of which she had dropped when Baz helped her up. “Uh ... no thank you. Just let me pack this up real quick.”
She crouched to gather her things. Baz handed her an open sketchbook with a half-finished painting of the meadow.
“Is this yours?” he asked, and then could have kicked himself. Duh. Who else would have painted it, the flower fairies? “I mean, it’s really good. It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Arden murmured. She kept her head down, her hair falling forward to hide her face, and closed the sketchbook quickly.
The sound of twigs snapping in the bushes made Arden gasp, and Baz moved quickly to interpose himself between her and whatever was coming through the woods toward them. What emerged from the woods turned out to be a sweaty, red-faced, disgruntled-looking Lexie.
“What in the world is the matter with you? You just took off running like you had a werewolf motorcycle gang on your tail. Fern’s the one who’s supposed to have the uncanny hunches, not—” She broke off. “Okay, wait, who’s this?”
“Lexie, this is Arden,” Baz began.
“I can speak for myself, thanks.” Arden straightened up, hands full of art supplies, started to hold a hand out, and almost dropped a paintbrush. “Hi. Lexie, right? It’s nice to know your name.”
“Uh, you too, I guess.” Lexie gave her an odd look, then turned to Baz. “Who is she?”
My mate, his brain promptly responded. But Arden looked like she was half a step away from simply running off into the woods, and he could hardly blame her; first she was threatened by wild shifters—he still would love to sink his teeth into their throats for scaring her—and then she had to deal with Baz and Lexie closing in on her.
He knew that he and his cousin could be a lot to take.
“The wild shif—er—wild clans were hassling her,” he said. “Arden, do you want to join us for lunch? It’s the least we can do to make up for the scare you just got. We’ve got lots of food as long as you don’t mind sandwiches and hot dogs.”
Lexie frowned at Baz. “I need to talk to you.”
“In a minute.”
“Now, Baz.”
“Why don’t you go ahead of us,” Baz told Arden.
“Uh ... okay.” Arden gave them both an odd look. She had finally gotten her art supplies stuffed back into a small day pack, which she slung over one shoulder and then headed for a path into the woods that Baz hadn’t even noticed before.
They followed her into the cool, shady edge of the forest. Baz looked around for signs of other shifters, inhaled deeply in case his blunted human senses could detect them, but there was no one.
The woods lay still and quiet in the heat of midday, with nothing but birdsong and the rustling of Arden’s footsteps on the path in front of them.
“Okay, now you can tell me what’s going on,” Lexie half-whispered, gripping Baz’s arm. “You’ve been acting weird and skulking around ever since we got here. Where on earth did she come from? She’s human, right?”
“I think so,” Baz whispered back. “I’m pretty sure she’s been living in one of the cabins at the edge of town.”
“What?” Lexie’s voice rose, making Arden glance back at them. With a tighter grasp on Baz’s arm, she leaned in to whisper, “And how long exactly have you known about this?”
“I didn’t know for sure,” Baz retorted in a fierce undertone, wrenching his arm out of her grip.
He hadn’t meant to put some alpha “push” behind it, but he must have, because Lexie missed a step, stumbling where there was nothing to stumble on.
“So yeah, I’ve been investigating on my own.
I didn’t want to bring it to the rest of you until I found out more. ”
“You know, maybe Declan has a point about you,” Lexie muttered, not looking at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You should’ve told us, Baz.”
“You’re right,” he said, which seemed to derail her irritation.
“And I’ll keep it in mind for the future.
But at the same time, it doesn’t make sense to get everyone worked up over what might have been a passing hiker who was long gone.
I saw a few signs that could’ve pointed to someone staying here, or meant something completely different.
You know Declan’s a loose cannon at the best of times.
And if there was danger, Fern would have told us. ”
“Okay ... true.” Lexie shoved her hands in her pockets and nodded ahead of them, where Arden’s two-tone hair glimmered in the sunlight piercing the leaf canopy overhead. “So who is she?”
Baz had no good answer for this. “Her name is Arden.”
“I got that part. How long has she been staying here? Does she have a claim on the town too? Is she from here?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have a chance to talk to her before you barged up.”
“Yeah, that’s because I was trying to talk to you, when you shot off like you’d just remembered you left the stove on. Understandably, I wanted to find out what was going on. I still don’t think I know what’s going on.”
“The wild shifters were threatening her. I drove them off.”
Lexie’s thick brows, a few shades darker than her hair, went up toward her hairline. “Wild shifters? The same one from last night?”
“No, different people. Two of them, elders, I think—a man and a woman. They weren’t happy that Arden was here.”
Lexie turned her gaze on Arden ahead of them. Baz tried not to focus too closely on the enticing flex of her curved ass beneath her jeans, where sparkly rhinestones on her back pockets flashed as if to get his attention.
“Why don’t they like her?” Lexie asked. “What’d she do?”
“Nothing as far as I can tell. They just decided to run her off because she’s human.”
“Maybe we should take a page from their book. Baz, I know most of us have human moms and relatives. And they’re great people, obviously. But we have secrets to protect.” Her voice dropped until it could barely be heard, even by a shifter’s sharp ears. “Think about Declan and Maida.”
“I am! Believe me.” Once again his gaze drifted to Arden. She glanced back, and then looked quickly away. Something in his chest thrilled to have even that much of her attention.
Lexie was eyeing him. “Why are you so fascinated with this woman? I’ve never seen you like this with anyone before.”
Baz slowed, placing more distance between the two of them and Arden. “I think—I think she might be my mate.”
Lexie’s response was something less than ecstatic. “You think? Aren’t we supposed to know?”
“I don’t know what it feels like! I’ve never had a mate before!” He hastily tamped down his voice when Arden looked back again. “This is supposed to be the most joyous occasion in a shifter’s life. You’re not looking happy for me.”
“I’m not looking happy because—listen. You admitted you aren’t sure. You and I both know that there are some people who can do things that most people can’t. People like Uncle Gannon and Fern. What if this Arden woman is a little like that, and she’s made you believe that she’s your mate?”
Baz stared at her. “First of all, Fern would never—”
“I know Fern would never. But can you completely deny that it’s a possibility?”
Baz huffed angrily. It was impossible to believe that his attraction to Arden, the way that his entire being thrilled the moment he saw her, was something she was doing to him on purpose.
But he had to admit that he couldn’t be entirely sure.