Trouble in a Fur Coat (The Fur Coat Society Book 1) (11 page)

Silver nervously tugged at the hem of her dress. The air tonight was sticky and hot, as it had been for the last several days. Silver was glad she had worn a light sundress, even though she had worried that it would be too chilly after dark. The sun had set over an hour ago, but Silver was still sweaty from the unusual early June heat wave sweeping across Chicago. She was walking along the lakefront path with Jack, one hand intertwined with his and one hand gripping the fabric of her sundress.

She wasn’t sure why, exactly, she was so nervous. True, this was a first date. But it was a first date with someone she had known pretty much her entire life. And the evening had gone better than she could have hoped for so far. They had enjoyed a lovely, romantic dinner by candlelight at a small, popular bistro named Ruxbin. Silver had never heard of the place, but Jack said it was one of his favorites. He told her they changed the menu seasonally, and he always thought the new menu couldn’t possibly be better than the last. But, somehow, it always was. Silver wasn’t sure she believed him, because the meal they’d had tonight had quite possibly been the best of her life. Maybe her judgment had been clouded by the fact that she was high on new love right now, but the carnitas, duck, and oyster had all been to die for. For dessert, Silver had indulged in the most delicious chocolate cake she’d ever tasted, topped with white chocolate mousse. It literally melted in your mouth. The place was BYOB, and Jack had brought two bottles of exquisite Cabernet Sauvignon. The two of them had polished off both bottles, leaving Silver full, buzzed, and happy.

The whole meal had been perfectly relaxed. They had told stories, talked, and laughed until Silver’s mouth had hurt from smiling. By all accounts, it had been a perfect first date. Silver couldn’t help but notice how much better the evening had been than any of her dates with Joe. True, Joe had been fun to hang out with when his parents weren’t around. But Silver hadn’t even realized until tonight how much of a spark had been missing from that relationship. There was definitely a spark between her and Jack. In fact, there was more than just one spark. It was like fireworks were going off in the room all night. Silver was head over heels for Jack, and he obviously felt the same way about her.

As if the night hadn’t been wonderful enough already, Jack had asked her if she wanted to go for a stroll by the lake to walk off some of the food they had eaten. Silver had gladly agreed. She needed time to let her food settle, and, besides, what could be more romantic than a moonlit stroll along the water? They had been walking for a long time now, and Silver’s dark, wavy curls had frizzed out quite a bit from the humidity. Her makeup was melting off, and little beads of sweat were running down her back. On any other first date, Silver would have been mortified by how awful she surely looked. But this first date was different. It was Jack. It might technically be their first date, but he had already seen her looking her worst thousands of times. She didn’t feel the need to be anything but herself around him.

So why this nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach? Silver bit her lip and tried to sort out the way she was feeling. It probably had something to do with the fact that Jack had abruptly, almost angrily, changed the subject when Silver casually mentioned wanting to tell her parents about Mr. Astor and the eye scanners. The angry flash in his eyes had only lasted a moment, but Silver couldn’t get it out of her head. Even now, as Jack talked at great length about the different kinds of anesthesia he had to administer to patients for his job, Silver fretted about whether their different views on how much to tell their parents about the threats to shifters would end up being a constant argument between them. Silver had a feeling that the subject was going to come up more and more as time went on. The scanner threat wasn’t likely to go away anytime soon. The Fur Coats could lie low for the time being, but at some point they were going to have to take action.

Jack seemed oblivious to how much the issue was bothering Silver. At some point, after they had been walking for over an hour, Jack stopped to sit on a secluded grassy spot that overlooked a rocky trail down to the water. Once they were seated, Silver could no longer keep her mouth shut.

“Jack, don’t you worry that we’re going to wait until it’s too late to get help? What if the entire shifter world ends up in trouble, and we didn’t do anything to stop the threat while we still could?”

Silver forced herself to look over at Jack, whose face was lit up brilliantly by the full moon. He didn’t say anything for a long time, and when he finally spoke, his voice wasn’t angry. It was soft, and wistful.

“I don’t know, Silver. I worry about a lot of things. I had hoped that by moving to Chicago, I could escape my identity as a shifter. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just that living by clan rules always seemed so limiting. I wanted to be my own person, and not have to answer to anyone for being part bear. For a long time, I thought that living in a big city gave me enough anonymity that I wouldn’t have to ever explain myself to anyone. I guess part of me is still having a hard time accepting the fact that my days of living secretly as a bear among men are numbered. Talking to our parents about it makes it seem so real. I hate that. And I know they are going to want to swoop in and bring some sort of organized plan of attack in. I just don’t think it’s necessary yet. We don’t even know exactly who we’re fighting. I mean we know about Joe’s dad, but we don’t know who he’s working with. There are just too many variables.”

Silver frowned. “You’re stalling, Jack. We don’t know all the details, true. But we probably never will. What’s the real reason you’re so resistant? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

It was Jack’s turn to frown. He drew in a long breath of air and then let it out slowly. “I just don’t want to be part of a clan anymore. It’s as simple as that. I love being a bear. I love being a shifter. But I’m something of a loner at heart. Sure, I like having all my shifter friends. But you guys are enough for me. I don’t need a big fancy clan with a bunch of rules.”

Silver didn’t speak for a full minute as she looked out over the dark water. The black waves were topped with silver edges where the moonlight hit them as they rose and fell. Finally, she looked back over at Jack and shrugged. “I don’t think that asking our parents for help means you have to go back to living under structured clan rules. Times are changing, and our parents understand that. At least, mine do. They know that I’ll probably never come back to Alaska and settle down into clan life. I like being here in Chicago. I’m not here for the anonymity of a big city, though. I’m here for the dance opportunities. I’ve always been good about hiding my shifter side, because it was drilled into me from such a young age. But, lately, I’ve been wondering if maybe that was a mistake. Sometimes I fantasize about being able to casually drop into conversation the fact that I’m part bear. I dream of a world where shifters are just accepted as normal.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Jack said.

“I don’t know, either. But I’d like to think someday things will be different. And I worry that if we don’t stop Mr. Astor before he and his cronies stir up public panic about shifters, that we’ll find ourselves fighting a losing battle. We should take the initiative, and beat him to the punch. If we could somehow show the world that we’re not dangerous, before Mr. Astor convinces everyone that we are, then maybe shifters everywhere could live in peace.”

Jack chuckled softly, then reached over and grabbed Silver’s hand. “You’ve always been a dreamer, Sil,” he said.

Silver smiled to herself in the darkness. The warmth of his skin against hers felt delightful, and she wondered why it had taken them so long to acknowledge their feelings for each other. They could have had many nights like this already, sitting close to each other and just enjoying each other’s company. Maybe they didn’t agree on how to deal with the eye scanner situation, but at least they knew they cared about each other. At the end of the day, no matter what happened, they would have each other’s backs. What more could you ask for in life than a friend and lover who would stand by you no matter what?

“So, Mr. Anonymous shifter,” Silver said, after several minutes of silent reverie. “When’s the last time you shifted.”

Jack looked over at Silver and widened his eyes. “I don’t like that mischievous glint in your eyes. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of shifting right now?”

“Why not? It’s dark enough. There’s no one around right now. We could splash around and have a lot of fun out here in the lake.”

“No way, Silver. It’s too dangerous.”

“Why? No one’s going to see us. And if they do, they’re just going to freak out and run away because they’re terrified to see a bear.”

“And then call the cops.”

Silver shrugged. “We’ll be shifted back before the cops get here.”

She stood up and started pulling her clothes off with her back to Jack. She wanted to show off her lean dancer curves for Jack, and stripping so that she could shift without ruining her clothes was a cheeky excuse for letting him see her naked. He probably knew that’s why she was doing it, but she didn’t care. That was one benefit to being a shifter—being naked in front of your friends wasn’t really all that uncommon. Everyone just accepted that sometimes you had to take off your clothes to shift. It had been a normal part of life growing up.

“Silver,” Jack’s voice came from behind her, sounding slightly panicked. “You really can’t shift here. This is ridiculous. What happened to what you said a minute ago about hiding your shifter side?”

Silver glanced over her shoulder and grinned at Jack. “Come on. Shift with me. Just for a minute. Nothing’s going to happen. It’ll be fun.”

Jack frowned. “No way,” he said, but his voice faltered a bit.

Silver smiled. She knew she was breaking down his resolve. “If you don’t shift with me then I’m going to roar really loudly,” she said.

Jack let out an exasperated sigh. “You are nothing but trouble.”

“Trouble in a fur coat,” she said with a wink.

Then she let out a low growl and started to shift. Her smooth human skin quickly thickened and then became covered with soft, brown fur. Her face morphed into the face of a bear, with two perfectly round ears and a wet, black nose. Her hands and feet turned into large grizzly paws, complete with long, razor-sharp claws on the end. Silver took a deep breath in and then started running toward the water. It had been too long since she’d last shifted, and it felt good to get all the kinks worked out of her muscles. Her strong grizzly legs carried her toward the water at full speed, and she went splashing into the waves without slowing down.

When she turned around, she saw Jack on the shore, shaking his head in exasperation as he stripped off his clothes. He let out a growl that sounded similar to the noise Silver had just made, and then he started to morph into a bear as well. His skin went through a thickening process similar to what Silver’s skin had just done, but when the fur started to appear it was the thick white fur of a polar bear. His head became the large white head of a polar bear, and his hands and feet changed into fearsome paws. He padded toward the water, much less enthusiastic than Silver had been.

Slowly, gracefully, he stepped into the lake and waded out until he was near Silver, where it was deep enough to swim. Silver always marveled at how agile the polar bears were in the water. She was a good swimmer, but the polar bears were absolute experts. They had webbed paws, which made their movements in the water smooth and effortless.

Jack swam over to her and nuzzled his bear nose against hers. Silver nudged him back, and then playfully jumped up and onto his back, trying to dunk him. She managed to get his head under for just a moment, probably because she caught him by surprise. He was a much bigger bear than she was, and as soon as he resurfaced he easily dunked her under in return.

For a moment, the distant city sounds of the evening were completely muffled by the water, and Silver closed her eyes as she enjoyed the calm silence that filled her ears. The only sound she could hear was the whoosh of water rushing by her as her head slid downward through the water. This was heaven. Being here in the water, with one of her childhood friends, reminded her of all the good old days. Memories of summers spent splashing in Alaskan creeks came flooding over her. For the hundredth time that day, she breathed out a prayer of thanks that her parents had been such good friends with so many of the bears in Jack’s clan. She was lucky to have known him most of her life. The fact that the man who had now captured her heart had known her so long only made things sweeter between them.

Silver resurfaced, and spent several more minutes splashing around, roughhousing in the water with Jack. His dark bear eyes were filled with delight, and he seemed to have forgotten to worry about whether someone might see him. He splashed and dunked and rolled in the water, his fur plastered to his skin in wet clumps. Silver’s heart felt like it would burst right out of her chest as she watched him so full of joy. The moonlight shimmered off of his wet fur, and even though he was in bear form she could have sworn she saw him smiling. Her heart beat faster within her chest. Was this what love felt like? Silver had never felt any emotion this strong toward Joe. This was a different kind of relationship. One where her heart was truly involved. This was more than just a simple affection toward someone. This was an all-consuming passion that burned her up from the inside.

Finally, Silver could no longer wait any longer to kiss Jack. She let out a roar, not caring who heard her. With a rush of powerful energy, she shifted back into human form, then swam back through the cool water toward a spot where her feet could touch the bottom. She stood there, grinning at Jack, and waiting for him to shift as well. He followed her lead, shifting quickly back into human form and then swimming over toward her.