Roar For More (Online Shifter Dating Agency Romance) (4 page)

Chapter 4

Jesse wondered if he’d wound Aubrey up so much that she would change her mind by the morning, but when the time came, she was as good as her word, waiting by Claire’s store at eight A.M. sharp for their expedition to begin. She even paid him in advance.

Here to prove me wrong
, he thought. As for Jesse, on the other hand, he had completely lost his sense of humor regarding taking this city girl on an arduous adventure. He had hoped that focusing his mind on something would help him to feel better, but the truth was he felt much worse. There was no enthusiasm in his bones for movement when he woke, and he had to apologize for being ten minutes late, something that had never happened before. Whatever virus he had was a complete drag, and he was slightly grumpy when Claire was quick to pick up on that fact when the two of them entered her store to pick up their climbing equipment.

“Hey, you really don’t look any better, Jesse!” she exclaimed. “You sure you’re up for this expedition?”

“I’m fine, Claire. Once I get moving, my limbs will forget this bug.”

“Oh, are you unwell?” Aubrey asked. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“It’s nothing,” he replied. “Just some virus.”

She chewed on her lower lip as she regarded him, looking far more worried than he expected her to.

“What are the symptoms?” she asked, eyes wide.

“My legs and arms just feel a bit heavy, that’s all.”

“How long have you have these symptoms?”

“Oh, a week or so. Really, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing,” he replied.

Why do women always sound so panicky just because you’ve picked up a bug?
he wondered. He’d known this one less than a day and she already sounded like his mother. At the same time, however, he had to admit that it was sweet how much she already seemed to be worrying about him.

After picking up all their supplies and bidding Claire farewell, their day’s trek to the reservoir got under way. On a mission as she was, Aubrey was relieved to get going and attacked the trail before them with great enthusiasm. Jesse had to tell her that a steady pace would be better in the long run, otherwise she would soon burn herself out. He avoided adding a joke such as,
especially as all you have had to power that body is a bundle of lettuce
, but in truth he was quite envious of the spring in her step. If some similar quality could return to him at some point on their trip then he would feel more like himself again.

The first two hours of their journey would be a fairly easy trail, but the ground would soon rise all the way, and Jesse expected to see some of Aubrey’s enthusiasm drain away by the end of it. This didn’t happen, however. Aubrey’s pace remained strong and she still looked as if she would like to go faster; break out into a run even. There was not a bead of perspiration on her forehead, unlike his own (this was only because of his bug, of course) and he had to admit his respect for her was growing with every step.

“Hope you don’t mind me saying this,” he began, also hoping that some better quality of conversation than they’d had previously might distract him from the growing ache in his limbs. “But I didn’t imagine you as someone who gets out and about like this very much.”

“Well, I’m happy to surprise you, Jesse,” she replied with a smile.

“Fair enough. Guess I did underestimate you. But then again, I did advise you on those shoes and clothes, so I can take some credit for it, right?”

“Ha! Fine, I’ll give you that. These shoes are great. I’ve been keeping some things from you, though, so I guess I can forgive you.”

“What’s that?”

“I actually love hiking!” she replied with sudden glee in her tone. “I haven’t done it in years, so I was curious to see if my legs would keep up, but I was up for the pain even if not.”

“So when have you hiked before?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.

“When I was a girl, with my Dad,” she told him and, although she smiled, he was perceptive enough to see that there was sadness on her face. She was treading a form of melancholic nostalgia, and he didn’t have to play detective to figure out why.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess he’s not with you anymore,” he said.

She shook her head. “That’s right. I’ve had difficulty not thinking about him ever since you told me the reservoir was up here, to be honest. I know this probably sounds weird, but I almost feel as if I can remember him better, doing something like this that reminds me of him. I always figured it’d make me miss him more, which is why I haven’t hiked in ages. I’m glad we’re here, though. It just makes me think of all the good times I had with him, and it doesn’t feel bad at all.”

“Sounds like he must have been a great guy,” Jesse said, his voice gentle.

“He was…he would have liked you, I’d imagine; a shifter who loves hiking.”

“What…was he a shifter?”

“Yep.”

This was a massive surprise to him. He hadn’t picked up on any animal scents from Aubrey, so there was no way she was a shifter herself, and the gene was usually dominant.

“Why on earth didn’t you say so?”

“We all need to be respected for who we are, don’t we?” she replied. Of course this was a very tactful response, considering it was the kind of sentiment Shifter Rights protestors had been using to champion their cause for years. She was completely right of course, he had to admit. It shouldn’t have made any difference to his impression of her knowing that her father was like or unlike his own.

“Sure,” he replied, “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“Obviously I didn’t inherit the shifter gene. I’ve got a bit of an animal in me, though, I just keep it hidden,” she said with a cheeky smile.

She was joking of course, but whatever she meant by it there was no helping the twinge in his loins.
Change the subject quickly,
he thought.
Before you pounce on her right now.

“I hope having a shifter father hasn’t held you back in the city,” he commented. “I know there’s a lot of intolerant folks everywhere, but the anti-shifter ones really seem to gather in the bigger places.”

“Well, the thing is,” she replied, “he’s totally responsible for me being here today. Even though he’s not around. So how’s that for influence?”

“How do you mean?” he asked, confused.

“The work I’m doing; it’s shifter related.”

“Oh?”

“My father got sick in the end from a rare disease that only affected shifters. It’s what stole him away from me, and it’s exactly why I do what I do.”

“You’re researching rare diseases?”

She nodded. “I work finding cures for rare
shifter
diseases, to be precise. Like the one we have on our hands now.”

“What’s that?”

“Guess you don’t follow the news much, huh?”

“News? Dull as dishwater, usually, but I do wish I knew what you’re talking about.”

“Well, they’ve been trying to keep it quiet for the last few months, but the news is spreading slowly. There’s an epidemic underway; quite a few shifters have died already. You really haven’t heard anything about it?”

He shook his head slowly. “Nope.”

“Well, so much for the power of the media—although I guess mainstream news is still pretty light on shifter content. The irony is…” Aubrey trailed off, stopped in her tracks and turned to face him directly. “Look, I’m not supposed to be talking about this due to ethical reasons, but seeing as we sort of know each other, I feel like I should tell you. But no matter what, you can’t tell the rest of the town. This kind of information is sensitive, and it could cause problems.”

“I promise to keep whatever you tell me under wraps for now,” he said with a firm nod.

She sighed. “We suspect the source of this outbreak to be from your water reservoir.”

“You serious?”

“I’m afraid so, although we aren’t certain yet. So when we get there, take it from me—stand back and don’t go near. Don’t touch it and certainly don’t drink out of it.”

Jesse didn’t argue with that. He recalled being completely uninterested when Aubrey had told him that her expedition was ‘scientific’. Now he wished he had pried further from the start.

“Tell me about this disease,” he asked as they got going again. “Is it pretty nasty?”

“Oh, there are much worse ones in terms of the symptoms,” she replied. “But it’s pretty debilitating. Some bright spark thought up the name “The Cripple” for it; basically it robs shifters of the use of their limbs. Gradually, over a fortnight or so, they just curl up and die.”

“Limbs, you say?”

“Yes…oh, don’t worry,” she said, realizing the earlier reference and catching a look of apprehension on his face. “In all the cases we’ve seen so far, it disables shifters by the end of the first forty-eight hours. That’s why I asked how long you’d felt bad for.”

“Oh, good.”

But Aubrey stopped again in her tracks and looked at him with renewed interest. He saw that he was no longer ‘Jesse the hiker’ in her eyes, but a subject of her study, and this thought made him uneasy.

“On the other hand,” she said, stepping near and regarding him closely. “If we are at the source, and it’s as contagious as we think, it would be very strange to find no obvious signs of it manifesting.”

“But the forty-eight hours thing means I’m okay right? And I haven’t heard of anyone else in town being sick, and like I said yesterday, there’s a lot of shifter folks up here.”

“Hm, okay. Do you mind if I…touch you?” Aubrey asked, indicating with her hands that she meant his neck. He shook his head to tell her he didn’t mind, though not knowing quite what to make of it. “Don’t get too excited…I’m a professional scientist, remember,” she added.

Jesse didn’t know what to say to that. Was she hitting on him? Surely not. She’d seemed so shy yet aloof when he first met her. It must have been a joke.

Aubrey was not concerned to linger over whatever she meant, however, but was quickly undergoing some kind of light physical assessment of him.

“If you ask me to cough and drop, I’m leaving you out here in the wild,” Jesse said with a grin, and she rolled her eyes.

First she placed her fingers lightly on his throat; checking his pulse rate, he presumed. After that he had to once again go through the enjoyment of having someone manipulate his face cheeks so as to see how bloodshot his eyes were, just as Claire had done the previous morning. This he did while biting his lip, far more bothered by the knowledge that he was being forced to pull a stupid face than by the idea that he might have a rare disease.

“Can I see one of your arms?” Aubrey asked. Jesse nodded and removed his jacket. Her study of him became far more tender as she ran her fingers over his skin, and if he hadn’t known there was a scientific purpose then he would definitely have interpreted this as sexual.

At least she trusts me, despite me being a shifter hillbilly all alone with her out in the wilderness,
he thought.

Jesse didn’t ask but could only imagine she was studying what his blood flow looked like. She was clever for sure, and her next step was to take the lid off her mineral water and press it for about thirty seconds onto one area of his skin before releasing it to study the effect.

“Hmm…” came the verdict.

“That’s it? Hmm?” he asked. “After all that? You gonna put my mind at rest or what?”

“I’m sure you’re fine, Jesse,” she said with a smile. “I’m just thinking.”

“Well, I’ll come back next week, shall I?”

Thankfully she took his joke in good spirits and laughed. It was a remark that related to his frustration at being kept in the dark, rather than because he actually thought she was dim-witted. Clearly she was quite the opposite but enjoyed being teased.
Not stuck-up or snooty at all,
he reflected.

“You do have some of the signs, Jesse. I won’t lie to you—sorry for not checking sooner—but you’re well past the usual forty-eight hours and the signs are still quite dull, as if you’re a first dayer.”

“So that means I’m okay, right?”

“Well, it could be just a flu, but it’s not that simple. I’d know for certain if I had you in my lab.”

“Who you have in your lab is your own business,” he said with an amused smirk. It was his turn for sleazy jokes now, but she was unperturbed and did not let him interrupt her train of thought.

“Every disease has people who, for whatever reason, are immune or highly resistant to its effects. There could be something different about you that either makes its progress slower, or fights it off completely. Or it could just be a flu, like I said. But there’s no way for me to know which.”

“Go with your gut,” he said, growing more concerned even though she was clearly trying to make him worry less. “Do your instincts tell you I have it?”

“Um…I think…yes, maybe. I don’t mean to alarm you, but it actually makes perfect sense.”

“How do you mean?” he asked with a frown.

“Well, if we’re right about the source being close to here, then it’s similar to… how can I explain it? Like in the Amazon…”