Silver Creek Lodge

Riley Harrison had not set foot near the Silver Wolf Lodge in ten years. As she steered her rental car into the gravel driveway and passed through the iron electronic gate, still open during the day, her stomach flipped at the familiar sight of the main house— a castle in the Rockies.

She parked in the guest area, got out of the car, and stretched her back. She’d been in the car for two hours since leaving the Denver Airport. It had been one of the few times she’d driven a car in the ten years since she’d left Colorado.

The May air was crisp, typical for the season, and the smell of wood smoke drifted from the cabins behind the lodge. A little puff of clouds blocked the view of the mountain peaks. A line of horseback riders meandered their way to the barn. She shaded her eyes and squinted but couldn’t tell who was leading the horseback rides now.

She went up the stairs and into the main house. It smelled the same. Inviting. Like walking into a pine forest. The scent of an apple pie wafted from the kitchen.

A young couple snuggled on the couch next to the huge fireplace on the far side of the room. She went up to the front desk, and her face split into a wide smile when she saw the man sitting behind the counter.

“Riley?” He stood up, eyes wide. “Is that you?”

She nodded, her heart too full to speak. Uncle Nate was older now, his face lined with wrinkles. He came from behind the desk and grabbed her off her feet into a bear hug.

He set her on her feet, his expression sobered. “Your father is upstairs.”

“How is he? He didn’t tell me much.”

“He’s had flare-ups before, but this one has him down.”

Ten years of regret shot through her. Her fingertips dug into the countertop, and she took deep breaths. I should have come back sooner. She’d seen her father once a year, but he’d come to her each time. She had refused to come back to Colorado after she’d left at age seventeen. “Is he going to be okay?” Even as she asked, she dreaded the answer.

“Doc says he’s never seen anything like this. Wants him to go into Denver to see a specialist, but you know your father. He’s nothing if he’s not stubborn.”

“I’m surprised he’s even here and not holed up in the cabin.”

“I practically had to drag him here by the ears.”

Riley chuckled at the image. “That’s my father.”

“Go on,” Nate shooed her away. “Go see him. He’s in room four. I’ll bring in your luggage.” He grabbed a key. “We’re pretty booked right now, but he’s in a two-bedroom suite, so you can stay with him.”

She kissed Uncle Nate on the cheek and squeezed his hand. Her uncle had been like a second father to her. It was only now that she realized how much she’d missed him. Missed being with family.

At the foot of the grand staircase, she froze. Tyler Vargas stood on the bottom step, directly in her path. Though it had been ten years since she’d seen him, she knew him immediately. He wore a Cardinals wool jacket over a white t-shirt and jeans. He was twenty-seven now, and the teenager she’d been head-over-heels in love with was a smoking-hot man.

He was grinning at her—she remembered those soft, demanding lips on hers—and his blue eyes twinkled.

Just like that, ten years fell away and only the shock of being frozen in place kept her from automatically going into his arms.

“You’re back.” His voice set every nerve on fire.

She nodded, her brain cells inoperable.

“Come here.” He closed the distance between them and pulled her against him. He smelled like wood smoke and outdoors and, well… Tyler.

Her arms remembered their way around his broad shoulders, and her body molded against him. It felt like coming home.

She leaned her head against his chest, just under his chin, and closed her eyes. She felt his heart pounding the blood through his veins. One thing about being a shifter, at least for her, was that every sense was heightened.

Then she remembered.

She was still mad at him.

She pushed back. “I have to go.”

He released her, and she ran up the stairs straight to room four and took a moment to compose herself before she knocked on the door. She wasn’t prepared to see Tyler Vargas. Not today. Though she’d known it was a possibility, every time the thought occurred, her mind pushed it away, unable to process it.

I’m here to see my father. That’s all.

She knocked on the door.

No answer.

Her heart pounding dangerously in her chest, she cracked the door open. “Father?” When she heard rustling in the room, she pushed the door open and peeked inside.

Her father sat in a chair in front of the window overlooking the mountains, a book in his hand. He looked up as she stepped into the room, and his face lit up.

“Riley! Come here.”

She forced a smile onto her face. “Father.” She put her arms around him, expecting the fierce hug he always gave her, but she could feel the weakness in his arms. She pulled back and studied his face. She saw past his façade to the pain beneath. He was hurting but didn’t want her to know it. “Uncle Nate said you won’t go to the doctors in Denver.”

He waved her off, and she sat across from him. “I don’t need them poking and prodding at me.”

“But they could do something to help with the pain.”

He shook his head. “You work in a hospital. You know that not everyone can be helped. They just want to run tests and experiment on me.” He stared out the window, his eyes downcast.

“Father.”

He looked back at Riley. “How are you coping with…everything in New York?”

She inhaled sharply. She knew what he was asking. They’d had one conversation about her heritage. It had been the first Christmas after she moved away. Only then because of her obvious distress.

Father, something is wrong with me.

“It’s something I manage.” She shifted on occasion, in the privacy of her apartment, with the doors locked and the blinds drawn. Always with raw meat on the counter to tear into. It wasn’t much, but it kept the urges under control.

It was different here. She could feel it already. That pull to run through the mountains, light of foot, all senses alert.

She sensed other shifters here as well. It was something she hadn’t understood growing up. Only by living far away from this community, in New York, where shifters were rare, had she felt normal and under control.

Even here, though, she was an anomaly among the bears and wolves and the occasional big cat. As far as she knew, there were no other white Bengal tiger shifters in America. Her mother had been from Bhutan and, unbeknownst to her father until after Riley was born, had been a shifter, a rare white Bengal tiger. She had passed the genes along to their daughter.

“Well.” Father pulled his glasses from his face and set them on the table next to his book. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“It sounded important.”

“I don’t think I have much longer.”

Her father wasn’t prone to dramatic statements. “Let me drive you to the doctor in Denver.”

He shook his head. “I want to spend my last days here, in this lodge nestled in the mountains. With my daughter here at my side.”

No. Every protective instinct kicked in. “They have treatments.”

“Riley. Stop.”

She closed her mouth and sat back in her chair, turning to the serene view of the mountains. Stubborn. Her father was stubborn, and it was going to be the death of him. Her hands were tied.

“I didn’t call you here for medical care.” He squared his jaw. “Or to argue with you.”

She returned her gaze to her father, took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. “I know, but you know how I feel.”

“I know you haven’t been home in ten years, so you’re used to having access to the best of everything.”

“That’s not why,” she muttered, but her father wasn’t deterred. He had things to say.

“I asked you to come because I wanted you at my side. Perhaps even to help me heal.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe having her near would help. At least for now. She’d let it go for now. Then she’d come back at him again. Her father wasn’t the only one in the family who carried the stubborn gene. “Of course. You’re right, Father.” She kissed him on the cheek.

She had a week before she had to return to New York.

Tyler Vargas lifted the ax and slammed it down, splitting the wood cleanly down the middle. The two pieces fell to the side of a respectable pile he had going.

He might not be able to run anymore, but he could certainly use his strength to be useful. He shot a look of disdain at the wood splitter sitting a few yards away. Whoever had ordered that thing needed to have their head examined. Who used a wood splitter when they could wield an ax for an honest day’s work?

He stood the next piece of wood on the stump, turning it to get the best shot for a clean cut.

And why had Riley Harrison chosen to find her way back here the very same month he’d chosen to come back to the lodge? Everyone said she’d left the day after high school graduation and hadn’t set foot in Colorado since.

Well, she wasn’t the only one. His exit had just been a little quieter and more unnoticed. She’d left without a job or a plan. He’d left a week later to play baseball, as planned. Nothing exciting or dramatic about doing what was expected.

The thing he hadn’t planned on was going alone. Riley was supposed to go with him, though he hadn’t gotten around to telling her.

Asking her. No one told Riley anything. He grinned as he split the log in half. That had been one of the things he loved about her. He always knew what she was thinking.

He knew why she was home. He just hadn’t expected to see her. He figured the old man, Joel Harrison, would go stay with his daughter while he recuperated.

He’d lost track a long time ago how many times he’d woken up in the early light of dawn with his thoughts on Riley and wet sheets. He’d come to think of her as the reason he almost always had clean sheets.

There was one image in particular that was burned into his brain. Riley Harrison getting up from their lovemaking, a satisfied smile on her face as she morphed into a tiger.

He hadn’t been high, and he’d never been prone to delusions or hallucinations. Doubtless seeing the look of horror on his face, she’d morphed back into her human form.

His only words to her then, moments after taking her virginity, had been, “What the hell?”

She’d taken off running back to her father’s cabin. He hadn’t had the clarity of mind to go after her.

That had been the last time he’d seen her.

Fast forward to today. He now knew about shifters. In fact, he had grown up among them and lived among them now. They were good people. Harmless. Good for the environment.

He took the wood he’d cut and stacked it neatly into a growing pile in front of the wood splitter. His goal was to hide the atrocity behind a mountain of hand-split wood.

Now he had to figure out what he was going to do about Riley Harrison.

The strenuous work hadn’t done anything to dull the pull he felt toward her.