Wild Reunion (Dark Pines Pride Book 3)

  Table of Contents

  Wild Reunion

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Also by Liza Street

  About Liza

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Wild Reunion

  The Dark Pines Pride, Book Three

  Liza Street

  Copyright 2017 Liza Street. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Keira Blackwood.

  Chapter One

  Eleanor knew she was screwed as soon as she walked into the grocery store.

  But she still tried to fight it. She darted into the produce section and cowered behind the mountain of citrus—oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit. The golden-brown color of Hayley’s hair was still visible, just past the cheese stand. It looked like she was heading into the frozen food section.

  Maybe Eleanor could get through this shopping trip without seeing Hayley Jaynes, although she doubted it. She’d heard Hayley and Jackson were back in Huntwood, building new homes on their family’s property. She’d even spied Hayley across the crowded bar of The A-Hole on open mic night. That disaster had been averted; maybe this one could be, too.

  Nah, she wasn’t that lucky. She turned on her heel and went to walk out of the grocery store. She could get take-out tonight and save grocery shopping for tomorrow.

  Except she needed cat food, too, dammit. Fido couldn’t eat take-out and he was completely out of food.

  Cats could eat french fries, right?

  No. And Eleanor was too cold to sit in her car waiting for Hayley to leave the store, and she was too environmentally conscious to drive around needlessly and waste gas. She made herself turn around. She’d do her freaking grocery shopping like a freaking adult.

  She marched through the produce section, tossing random items in her basket. She’d never had Romanesco before, but the spirally fractals looked appealing. She didn’t even like bananas, but she threw a bunch into her basket as well. She grabbed a pre-made container of sushi from the little counter between the deli and the fish counter.

  If she was careful, she might get all the way to the pet food aisle without seeing a Jaynes. It was a small store, but the aisles reached past head-height. She inched around the corner of the frozen food section and saw Hayley, who was bent over with her head in the freezer, cursing to herself.

  The curses were mostly muffled by the sound of the whirring freezers, but Eleanor caught enough to make sense of it. “Those dickwhistles better not discontinue Phish Food or I swear I’ll kidnap their cows and make my own damn ice cream…”

  Eleanor laughed to herself, remembering how Will used to be both baffled and amused by Hayley’s colorful language. She could picture him even now, the side of his mouth quirked in a half-smile, his dark blue eyes dancing. As soon as she thought of it, though, the pain came—a stab of longing and bitterness—and she hurried across the path to the next aisle. Two aisles to go, and she’d be safe in pet food.

  Hayley’s head snapped up as soon as Eleanor scooted past, but Eleanor didn’t think Hayley could have seen her.

  Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat. Two beats. It felt funny in her chest, like a squiggly fish flopping around. What did that mean? As soon as she got to the pet food aisle, she pulled out her phone. The Ask Dr. Bridges symptom checker was already saved to her browser, so she tapped it and typed in her symptom. Heart skipping beats.

  A series of follow-up questions popped up on the screen. Dizziness? She closed her eyes. Was she swaying on her feet? She didn’t think so. She checked No. Shortness of breath? No. Palpitations coming in groups of three or more? No. Did she have high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure? She didn’t think so, unless something had changed since her check-up a few months ago. No. She clicked submit answers, and then waited for the page to load. It took forever because the grocery store’s wifi was terrible. At least they offered it, thanks to their little cafe by the bakery.

  Finally, the big blue and white box popped up.

  Dr. Bridges’s thoughts: too much caffeine, too much adrenaline due to stress, premature ventricular contractions, atrial fibrillation. Contact your doctor if you think you have premature ventricular contractions or atrial fibrillation.

  Eleanor sighed. Stress. The palpitations were probably due to the stress of nearly running into her ex’s sister. But she’d be monitoring her heart over the next few days, just in case. She grabbed a bag of cat food from the shelf and carried it under her arm, then made her way to the check-out counters. Hayley Jaynes was nowhere in sight. Bullet dodged.

  The grocery store wasn’t usually busy this early in the afternoon, so they only had one checker. Two people were in line ahead of Eleanor, one of them with a cart full of goods. Eleanor looked sadly down at her basket of bananas, Romanesco, and sushi. She set the basket at her feet, and set the bag of cat food next to it. Then she got out her phone again. Her little toe had been hurting lately, after she’d stubbed it on her piano bench. Was it broken? She pulled up the Dr. Bridges site again and typed sore toe into the symptom checker.

  A long list of toe ailments popped up, and Eleanor’s jaw dropped. Some of the problems sounded more like shark names than toe problems—hammertoe, mallet toe, claw toe. She just wanted to know whether her toe was broken or not.

  “Hey, Eleanor!”

  The low, smoky-sounding voice was familiar. And it belonged to the one person in this town that Eleanor had been trying to avoid. She turned, slowly, wondering if she could instead jump over to the magazine stand and climb into the pages of O Magazine and be embraced by Oprah herself.

  She pasted a smile on her face. “Hi…Hayley, right?”

  Hayley’s light blue eyes crinkled up. “You remember me! I thought I saw you at The A-Hole a couple of weeks ago, but it was super crowded. How have you been?”

  Eleanor thought of Dr. Bridges and hammertoe problems. She thought of Oprah. She thought longingly of the graphic novel series waiting for her at home, Interstellar Love Connection, and how she would curl up in a pile of blankets with her unagi roll and the entire collection, and read through them again. She thought of what Hayley must think of her, standing here with her cat food and sushi-for-one.

  “I’m great,” she finally said.

  “So, I guess you’re seeing someone?” Hayley asked. “There was that guy, at The A-Hole?”

  “Oh.” Eleanor fought to keep her expression even. “Nathan. Yeah, we’re seeing each other.”

  The lie sat uneasily on her tongue, but maybe it would get back to Will. Nathan and Will had loathed each other throughout high school and beyond.

  She wanted him to hear about it, but she wished she didn’t care.

  “And what else are you up to?” Hayley asked.

  This was more comfortable ground. “I’m a piano teacher,” Eleanor said.

  “Really? You always were really good. I remember we went to o
ne of your recitals once. Or, no…was it the talent show at the high school? And you played an arrangement of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ that made my mother cry.”

  Eleanor took a deep breath. She’d been so preoccupied with herself, she hadn’t thought about what Hayley had been through. “I’m really sorry. About your parents, the fire, all of it.”

  “Thanks,” Hayley said, her low voice growing darker. She shrugged. “It was a long time ago, now. I’m just glad we’re back.”

  “Um…we?” The heart palpitations returned. Eleanor took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

  “Me and Jackson.” Hayley frowned. “Will’s staying away, but I’ll get him here eventually. Jackson’s getting married, so Will might come back then. Or, he better, before I have to drag his sorry jizzpickle here myself….”

  “Wow, Jackson’s getting married?” Eleanor asked. He’d always seemed so carefree and wild. Not as wild as Hayley, but still—Jackson settling down was one of the last things Eleanor could imagine.

  “Yep. You should come—you were always such a good friend, to all three of us. Jackson would love to see you there.”

  A good friend. That was all Eleanor had been to them. “Yeah, um, we’ll see,” she said.

  The line had moved forward while she and Hayley talked. It was Eleanor’s turn at the register. A display of dark chocolate bars in a wide variety of flavors faced her. Eleanor reached past Hayley and grabbed four bars of the salted almond flavor. She was going to need them later.

  “All right, gotta run,” Hayley said. “I was on my way out when I saw you.”

  “It was good to chat with you,” Eleanor said. She meant it, even though the “good” was accompanied by a lot of heartache she really didn’t need.

  “You, too.” Hayley waved and made her way to the door, moving on long, powerful legs that reminded Eleanor of Will’s leonine grace.

  And that was the problem—everything in the universe seemed to remind Eleanor of Will, especially now that Hayley and Jackson were back in town.

  Interstellar Love Connection was waiting for Eleanor at home. Along with a fuzzy cat and a pile of blankets. Eleanor focused on those things. She’d get lost in the ILC story and characters, snuggle with Fido, and cozy up for the night, and everything else—heart palpitations, bruised toe, and thoughts of Will—would fade into the background.

  Chapter Two

  Will shifted out of his lion form and stood naked in the woods. The wintry, early December air bit at his skin, but it was welcome after he’d run so hard.

  The only problem with the cold was the way it made his left leg ache a touch more, but he was used to that.

  Fat flakes of snow floated down, collecting on the nearby trees and the hood of his truck. A soft silence had overtaken the forest. As a mountain lion, he’d padded along silently, running when the urge struck, walking and stalking when he saw something interesting, like the wolf pack he’d shadowed for a few miles. There wasn’t a human soul anywhere nearby, which was just how he liked it.

  He found his stack of folded clothes in the plastic bag at the base of a boulder. He tugged them out and pulled on his pants. His shirt came next.

  He hiked back to his truck and drove to Squamish, British Columbia. The ethereal view of the evergreens collecting snow soothed him. That run had been exactly what he needed. No cell service, so Hayley couldn’t pester him about coming to Jackson’s wedding. No wifi, so his clients couldn’t pester him about when the next design would be in. Just Will in the quiet forest, and the hush of snowfall.

  His breath steamed up the truck’s windows, so he nudged the defroster into its highest setting. The white noise from the fans only added to the calm. Serenity—it surrounded him in the white sky, the trees lining the highway, the image of Round Mountain in his rear view mirror. The peace and contentment he felt—he’d only felt it in two places in his experience. One was running in the woods as a lion. The other place had been in Ellie’s arms.

  No. He had to shut down that thought, fast. He focused on the things surrounding him. The here and now. Trees. Road. Wipers moving snow from his windshield. The sound they made, that delicate whump, whump over the purr of his truck’s engine. The scent of coffee rising from his Thermos. Beneath that, the scents of Hayley and Jackson, getting fainter and fainter each day. Jackson’s scent was nearly gone—it had been two months since he’d last ridden in Will’s Raptor. Hayley’s scent was just a month old.

  He missed them, plain and simple.

  He made his way through Squamish and to the outskirts, where a tiny motel was situated. He’d sold the travel trailer after Hayley and Jackson returned to the Dark Pines territory. Will could either sleep in the cab of his Raptor, or, when he needed wifi or it got too cold, he could stay in motels.

  Leaving the “do not disturb” sign hanging on his door, he went into his room and sat down in front of his laptop. While running, he’d had an idea for the design he was working on. The client, Bookspirations, had recently had some success with a graphic novel adaptation. Now they wanted a site redesign. He didn’t do the computer and tech work, but he knew how to make something beautiful. Unfortunately, Bookspirations hadn’t given him much direction. They’d essentially said, “Make it look pretty.”

  But while he was running, Will had realized that although Bookspirations was a publisher and had dozens of books and series in their catalogue, they’d derived most of their success from a single series. He’d adapt the colors and even some of the covers’ fonts into his design. Even though the connection to the popular series wouldn’t be overt, the similarities might remind site visitors of the publisher’s success and foster a sense of confidence.

  Time passed as he designed a new logo for the company. He tied in elements from their old logo so it wouldn’t be wholly unfamiliar to their audience. He made three slightly different versions and emailed them to his contact at Bookspirations, and then sat back to look at the site as a whole.

  His phone buzzed, and he looked around. Where was it? The sound was coming from his coat, which he’d thrown on the bed. It buzzed again, and then a third time. He grinned and shook his head. It had to be Jackson, texting him. Jackson was the only person who sent multiple texts in a row, as if he’d have the conversation with or without Will’s input.

  He picked up his phone and felt his eyebrows raise at the sight of all the notifications. He’d missed several messages from Hayley. Jackson texted yet again, so Will decided to read Jackson’s texts, first.

  Jackson: Hayley said she couldn’t get in touch with you.

  Jackson: She’s worried about you.

  Jackson: Are you dead?

  Jackson: If you’re dead, can I have your truck?

  Will shook his head and wrote back, I was just on a run. Have some patience.

  Jackson: Dammit. I mean, glad you’re alive.

  Will: Funny. What’s going on?

  Jackson: Just getting ready for the wedding. Finishing touches.

  Will felt a pang in his chest. Guilt. He wrote back, I’m really happy for you.

  Jackson: Thanks. Anyway, answer Hayley’s texts so she’ll leave me alone.

  Will: Got it.

  He switched over to the text window with Hayley. She’d left him three text messages, all asking him to talk. Sighing, he dialed her number. He knew exactly what she wanted to say.

  “Oh good, so you’re alive, loin-lips.”

  The insult lacked her usual fanfare. “I was just on a run,” Will said. “Barely gone for four hours.”

  “Well, if I’d known that, maybe I wouldn’t have worried. Will, you know why I wanted to talk.”

  “I can’t do it, Hayley.”

  “Jackson is your brother, and he’s too proud to beg you to come to the wedding, but I’m not. I’m not too proud to beg, pester, threaten, cajole, or bribe. If I had something to blackmail you with, I’d be doing that, too. I’ll build you a house, Will. Anywhere you want. I’ll fill it with thousands of gallons of whiskey and pric
eless works of art.”

  Will closed his eyes, his chest feeling tight. “I can’t do it. Please stop asking.”

  The phone went silent. Hayley, without a response? Unlike her. He took the phone from his ear and looked at the screen.

  Call ended. Hayley had hung up on him.

  She’d never hung up without saying goodbye. Will set the phone down and kept his eyes closed. He deserved her scorn. Jackson’s anger. He hated hurting them, but what they couldn’t see was how much Huntwood hurt Will.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried. He had. Just a couple weeks ago, he’d been down there in the hopes of resolving an issue with the Spokane Pride. Just setting foot in the town had made his heart hurt so bad he’d thought it was bursting. And walking onto his family’s territory? At first, he’d been distracted by Hayley’s battle with Alec Lockman, but when that was over and it was just Will, Jackson, and Hayley standing in front of their crumbling childhood home, Will had been in so much pain that he couldn’t even think up a good excuse for leaving. He’d just left.

  And because no one had ever known about his feelings for Ellie, no one would ever know why.

  Chapter Three

  “Wrists up,” Eleanor said. “Imagine there’s a water balloon just beneath your hands.”

  Six-year-old Madison dutifully lifted her wrists and played through the time-honored favorite, “Sweetly Sings the Donkey.” The jangle of dissonant chords in the “hee haw” part made Eleanor cringe, but she covered it with a smile.

  “You’re doing great, Maddie,” she said. “Let’s run through the Christmas carol you’ll be practicing over the next week.”

  Madison nodded. “And then will you play something for me?”

  “If your granddad says there’s time,” Eleanor said.

  Madison got through “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas,” and Eleanor went over her homework for the week, assigning some new note-naming worksheets to help Madison along.

  Madison turned to her grandfather. “Can Miss Eleanor play a song for me?” she asked.