Chapter 1
Lyanne walked out of Vancouver International airport quickly without hesitating to glance behind her, she didn’t know where James had gone after they disembarked their plane.
He hadn’t spoken again to Lyanne after his initial few menacing words of, “Hello pretty lady. I wanted to make sure you made it home safely without being at risk from wolves.” He’d fallen silent throughout the rest of the short flight home, but she could feel him staring at her in a menacing way. Lyanne didn’t know what to think.
Why had he really followed her? Was Darian aware of James’ behavior?
God, the wilderness folk were a strange lot, Lyanne thought to herself and then remembered Darian with fondness. The way he touched her, his gentle manner with the snow hare and arctic fox. He wasn’t as weird as his friends were, and he’d seemed particularly put out the day the trio had called at his remote cabin unexpectedly.
She missed Darian already, Lyanne had grown used to his relaxed company and at last she could be herself in a man’s presence and not pretend to be anything she wasn’t. She longed to be held tenderly by his strong arms once more, to fall asleep with her head resting lovingly against the hard, warm muscles of his chest.
Lyanne came back down to earth with an abrupt bump as she made it out of the airport and tried to catch a cab home, it was chaos, with tourists everywhere. She’d give anything to be back in Darian’s remote cabin now.
She was looking forward to seeing Maggie though she’d missed her flat mate, and of course, Maggie knew nothing about Lyanne’s vacation, as she couldn’t contact her, so she was in for a shock. Their flat wasn’t far from the airport, and she was soon back in their cozy home. The first thing she saw staring at her from the little table by the front door was a photo of her and Nathan, Lyanne took one look and burst into tears she collapsed in a sobbing heap by the table.
For all his faults Nathan didn’t deserve to be attacked by wolves, he should have been on the flight home with her, but if he had been then everything would have gone to plan and she would never have met Darian. Lyanne didn’t really believe in the whole fate and destiny thing but it almost felt as though something had pushed her and Darian together.
Lyanne was still sat in a heap on the floor when the front door started to open, “Ly, you’re home, what’s happened?”
Lyanne looked up at Maggie and started to splutter, “Na…Nath…wolves,” was all she managed before she couldn’t talk anymore due to her sobbing.
“Deep breaths, come on let’s get you up first and on to a comfortable seat. I’ve been so worried I expected you home ages ago, they were going to start searching for you this week girl,” Maggie said as she put an arm around Lyanne. Between them, they managed to get her to her feet and into the flat’s small lounge where Maggie deposited her friend on the couch and went to make a hot drink.
Minutes later Maggie handed Lyanne a steaming mug of coffee and sat down beside her, “Okay tell me everything, what happened to you?”
Lyanne composed herself taking a long sip of coffee and said, “We had a snowmobile accident up in the mountains.”
“Wait a minute, what were you doing in the mountains? I thought you guys were sticking to the actual ski resort.”
“We were until Nathan got one of his idiotic ideas. He wanted to ski down the Staircase tree run Maggie, he hired a snowmobile and everything,” Lyanne was pleased she could talk about all of this with Maggie as she needed to tell someone, to her it all seemed like a dream now, so this conversation made it real.
“Typical of Nathan, what happened?”
“He went too fast and we hit a stupid fucking tree root Mags, the snowmobile went out of control. I was thrown clear but hurt and Nathan rolled with the snowmobile, I sat alone and scared.
Grace Draven
Judith Tamalynn
Noreen Ayres
Katie Mac, Kathryn McNeill Crane
Donald E. Westlake
Lisa Oliver
Sharon Green
Marcia Dickson
Marcos Chicot
Elizabeth McCoy