The Baby Shift- Texas Read online

  It was a new sensation for him, this desire to let someone else take over. Sam had never been sure exactly where he fell on the scale of alpha beta omega, but maybe that was because the scale didn’t apply to him. Maybe he could be both alpha and beta, both controller and the one being controlled. After all, he desperately wanted to see what Kirsty was like when she was in control. She made Sam want to try being a beta, made him long to worship the ground she walked on, spill his soul to her waiting ear and let her do with him what she would. His mind was just considering what a give and take of sexual power between them would look like, when Kirsty spoke us, breaking through Sam’s R-rated thoughts.

  “Can you drive me to my car?”

  Sam turned and raised his eyebrow in question. “I thought you ran here?”

  Kirsty shook her head, her blonde ponytail swaying back and forth as she did. “No. I drove to a spot off the highway and parked, then ran from there. I live back in Marfa, and it takes a while to drive, so I want to get home with plenty of time before this storm hits. It looks like a bad one, and I’m a nervous driver as it is.”

  Sam nodded. He could tell it was going to be a thunderstorm of epic proportions, but he also knew that by the time he drove Kirsty back to her car, there was no way, A, he would make it back to the cabin, or B, she would make it back to Marfa. It wasn’t a safe idea for either of them to venture outside at this point. Glancing back to the window, Sam saw that the storm had already moved a mile or two closer just while they’d been talking, and the air around them had grown still in the way it gets right before a torrential downpour, booming thunder and blinding lighting started.

  “I don’t think we have time. The storm is nearly here. See how close those clouds are? We’re only a couple of miles away from it, and it looks like it’s moving fast. But I doubt it’ll last long—storms this early in the day never do. Still, I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving you to drive that far until after it’s dissipated. I don’t want you to get stranded.”

  Kirsty deflated again, all her earlier excitement from their brief talk about running gone. “But … I need a shower. And clean clothes. And food. A chicken burrito from Chipotle was literally the only thing pushing me through those last few miles until I saw the bear.”

  Sam sympathized. Living as far away from civilization as he did, he often found himself fantasizing about fast food on his runs. He’d once had a craving for a Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell so bad he had actually started welling up when he realized just how long it would take him to drive and get one. One of the many pitfalls of being a park ranger. The freedom was great, but the lack of available greasy taco options was depressing.

  “I have towels here and a very powerful hot water tank, so you could shower and borrow a pair of my sweats, and in the meantime, I could make us some lunch? I can’t promise that my burritos are quite Chipotle-quality, but they’re pretty damn good if I do say so myself.”

  Kirsty shrugged. “Okay. At least I won’t have to pay extra for guac here.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Sam said, perhaps a bit overenthusiastically if the look Kirsty leveled him with was any indication.

  Chapter 4

  Sam hadn’t been lying; his hot water heater was magical. While Sam was slaving away at the stove, the smells of onion, garlic, and chili were wafting through the small house. Kirsty took a long, hot shower in his surprisingly spacious bathroom, letting the pounding water and peppermint-scented body wash slough off the sweat and dirt from her body. Once she’d washed and conditioned her hair, she reluctantly turned the spray off and stood for a moment, letting the water drip down her body and make its way toward the drain.

  Today had been a thoroughly strange day. She’d seen a bear, fainted, been rescued by a park ranger, and now said park ranger was making her a chicken burrito while she soaped herself up in his bathroom. And what made the day even stranger was that this Sam guy was exactly her type. He was a muscular bear of a man with shaggy brown hair, twinkling hazel eyes, and dimples that made parentheses around his omnipresent smile. He was so cute she could hardly stand to look at him, but more than once in their conversation, she’d found herself openly staring at him and having to quickly look away, lest he realizes that, to put it plainly, she had the hots for him.

  It had been so long since she’d dated someone, hell, since she’d even looked at a man and thought of him in anything other than a platonic way. For the past eight years, she hadn’t had time for dating. She’d gone straight from undergrad to her Master’s in Education, then to her first teaching job, which preceded her current one. In between, she’d done ten marathons, three ultras and countless little charity 5ks and 10ks around Texas. She’d taken continuing education classes, flown back east to visit her sister twice a year in upstate New York, taken month-long summer vacations with her girlfriends in Mexico, but never, ever had Kirsty allowed herself even an hour in her week to think about dating.

  Because dating was a distraction. How was Kirsty supposed to achieve her personal and professional goals if she also had to contend with the increasingly depressing prospect of dating in her late 20’s? She’d heard about Tinder, the disastrous dates women posted on Twitter where guys scheduled four dates in one evening, trying to decide which woman was the most attractive and beddable. She’d seen her friends get married, have kids, get divorced. She knew how difficult relationships could be, and she wanted no part in any of it. She had a full life and a great vibrator. She didn’t need anything else. Or so she convinced herself.

  But whenever she saw a guy like Sam, which was admittedly rare, the telltale stirring in her pelvic region begged her to break her rules, to just once throw caution to the wind and see if this was the guy who would be worth disrupting her life over. And she’d taken one look at Sam, and after deducing that he wasn’t out to kill her, her body had started screaming for her to jump him. But she couldn’t do that. She didn’t know him from Adam. He was just some random park ranger who’d saved her from a bear. He probably did that for every girl who fainted on his land, right?

  But because attraction isn’t rational, Kirsty couldn’t talk herself out of the tingles and warm sensations flooding her body as she dressed in the t-shirt and sweatpants Sam had kindly loaned her. Thoughts kept swimming into her head unbidden, of leaning over Sam and running her breasts across his chest hair, of crawling down his body, her tongue making a trail that led right to his cock. These were not the thoughts she wanted to be having, but her body didn’t give a damn. It got hot and wet anyway, and Kirsty had to run her wrists under cold water for a good five minutes before leaving the bathroom, convinced that Sam would see just how worked up she was the second she walked into the kitchen and think she was a freak, and not in a good way.

  But of course, when she stepped her bare feet onto the blessedly cold, hard tiles of the kitchen, Sam wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was feverishly texting on his phone, his thumbs flying across the screen. In front of him were two plates with the most delicious looking burritos Kirsty had ever seen, and that was a bold statement coming from a girl who’d spent a lifetime in the land of Tex-Mex.

  “Sam?” she asked hesitantly, not wanting to interrupt his text tirade, but at her voice, Sam looked up, startled for a moment before schooling his features and pocketing his phone.

  “Hey! How was the shower? Was the water hot enough?” Sam’s eyes roamed over her appreciatively, but Kirsty couldn’t quite interpret the look. Was he admiring her cleanliness or her attractiveness?

  “It was great. The hot water was exactly what I needed to feel human again. Thanks. And these clothes are super comfy,” Kirsty said, running her hands over the soft, well-loved t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. Sam’s eyes followed her hands, which Kirsty yanked back into her pockets when she realized she had been dangerously close to stroking her breasts where they touched the silky cotton.

  Sam cleared his throat and looked at a point just above Kirsty’s head as he pointed to the stove and said, “Here’s your burrito. I wasn’t sure whether you were a hot sauce girl or not, so I got out a few options, and you can pick your heat level.”

  “I am definitely a hot sauce girl,” Kirsty said, walking past Sam to the stove and grabbing the bottle of habanero hot sauce, which she proceeded to douse her burrito with. She caught Sam giving her an approving nod, and he followed suit, covering his lunch in three different hot sauces of varying heat levels from the display of sauces on the counter. Kirsty loved a man who could handle a little spiciness, but she kept that comment to herself, because the air around them was suddenly thick with a tension she couldn’t quite decipher, and she somehow knew that her comment would be misconstrued.

  Kirsty walked over to the kitchen table by the window furthest away from Sam’s couch and sat down on the cushioned wooden chair. Sam had opened two ice-cold beers and laid out napkins and cutlery, as well as a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa for them both. Christ, could he get any more perfect? Kirsty found herself wondering as she settled into her chair and added a scoop of salsa on top of her burrito.

  Kirsty took a bite of her burrito and nearly moaned in pleasure. Sam must have caught her euphoric expression, though, because a shy grin quirked the corners of his mouth as he bit into a tortilla chip, and he was so enraptured he didn’t even notice when a dollop of salsa fell onto his shirt. Kirsty had never had quite that effect on someone before.

  ---

  Sam was thankful for the burrito currently filling his mouth because it meant he was unable to open his gullet and say what had been running through his brain for the last ten minutes, ever since Kirsty had gotten out of the shower: Please fuck me. He was aware that there were more articulate ways to tell a woman he wanted her, was aware that saying such a thing to someone he’d only met an hour ago, and only met because she’d fainted when she caught sight of him, bordered on unethical. Plus, if she said no, that would make the next few hours they spent in each other’s company while they waited out the storm rather uncomfortable.

  Yup, he was very glad he had a mouthful of burrito to silence his inner dirty thoughts.

  That is until Kirsty asked him a question. “So, what made you become a park ranger?”

  Then, Sam wished he didn’t have a mouthful of burrito, because if his mouth were empty, he wouldn’t have felt like he was choking on partially masticated chicken as he tried to figure out how to tell this lie in a believable way.

  He assumed that he couldn’t go with the story he told his werebear clan, aka the true story, which was that he couldn’t take a regular office job for fear of shifting. Or rather, because he liked shifting. Or loved it, as the case may be. And it was true; Sam really, really loved to shift. He loved his bear self, loved how close to nature he felt when he was a bear, loved how simple life became when his animal instincts took over. And he couldn’t exercise that part of himself nearly as well if he was indoors from 9-5 every day. He needed to be outside, in some remote area where he wouldn’t constantly be running into people who would run screaming in the other direction at the sight of him, and a park ranger had seemed the natural fit for those needs.

  But since he couldn’t say that, instead, he said, “Oh, I’ve always liked the outdoors.”

  Kirsty gave him a look that said, “care to elaborate?” but rather than being even more mendacious, Sam switched tactics and turned the conversation on her. He hated lying anyway, but with Kirsty it made him feel disgusting inside like she deserved the truth from him. Weird, since he barely knew her.

  “What about you? What do you do for a living?” Sam asked, and he was so glad he did because the way Kirsty’s face lit up when she talked about her work was a sight to behold. Her eyes shone with excitement as she told him how she’d always wanted to be a teacher, ever since she was a kid. It was clear from the way she spoke with reverence about her students that she truly loved her job, and Sam found himself drawn into her stories about her students’ progress in reading and writing, her plans for the coming year’s classes. Sam had never thought that job enthusiasm could be sexy, but dammit, this woman had proved him wrong. Sam wanted to watch her talk about work all day.

  Their conversation eventually drifted to what had brought them to Texas; Kirsty had lived there her whole life, starting out in Dallas but eventually moving to Marfa after finishing her degree at the University of Houston.

  “Marfa? I’ve always wanted to go there! It sounds so cool from everything I’ve read. Like Austin minus all the pretentious hipsters,” Sam said, dipping his hand back into the bowl of tortilla chips but finding only crumbs.

  “It is. After so many years living in big cities, I really wanted to escape to the desert, but I didn’t want to be completely isolated. Marfa is kind of perfect for that. Just enough infrastructure to keep me sane without huge crowds of people raving about breakfast tacos.”

  “Breakfast tacos?” Sam asked, confused.

  “Tell me you’re not completely oblivious to the breakfast taco explosion that has been happening in Austin. You can’t sneeze without hitting a food truck selling the things. I mean, I love tacos as much as the next Texas resident, but even I get sick of people discussing what should and shouldn’t be in one.”

  “Agreed. The foodie culture is ruining Tex Mex for us all.”

  Kirsty grinned, and Sam was surprised by just how good he felt for having made her smile. He wanted to keep doing it.

  But then Kirsty asked Sam where he was from, and any happiness and ease vanished from his body because for what seemed the thousandth time in an hour, he was going to have to lie.

  “New Mexico originally. Child of hippies. My parents still live out there, but I moved here for high school and ended up staying.” Sam left out the part about his parents being werebear nudists who had home-schooled him until he was seventeen. He’d told that story to his adopted clan the first night he met them at a bar after high school, and they had, very plainly, told him that to everyone else, that would sound “super weird.” Instead, Sam claimed his parents were “hippies” which covered all manner of sins.

  “Do you ever miss home?” Kirsty asked, her question punctuated by a loud clap of thunder and a strike of lightning that briefly lit up the room. Kirsty jumped, then laughed self-consciously.

  “Let’s get away from the windows. Want to move to the couch?” Sam asked, getting up and clearing away their plates. Kirsty nodded and got herself settled on the cushions while Sam washed up. As he scrubbed at the congealed cheese on the plates, he wondered: did he miss home? Texas felt like home more than New Mexico ever did; there, he’d been overshadowed by his parents’ eccentric antics, whereas here, he was free to be himself. Free to live his life as the bear he was meant to be.

  “I don’t. Miss New Mexico. Texas is home for me,” Sam said, setting the plates on the drying rack and coming to join Kirsty on the couch. He didn’t miss the way she snuggled into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, her knees curled up on his lap. Sam didn’t mind the contact; in fact, he relished her warmth against him, finding that despite her slim stature, Kirsty was even cuddlier than Danielle. Just goes to show—never trust society to dictate who your mate should be. Bear-shifters might think they could only stay with big-bodied women, but Sam was certain he’d be happy wrapping himself around Kirsty like this for the rest of his days.

  “Yeah, me, too. I could never leave,” Kirsty said, her voice sounding low and raspy with fatigue. Rain began pattering at the windows, the strength of the drops slowly increasing until the windows were being hammered with streams of water so thick Sam could barely see outside.

  They talked for a few more minutes, idle chitchat that was mostly meaningless, but Sam could feel Kirsty collapsing into him, her shoulders sagging in fatigue and her chin resting more firmly on his shoulder. Sam remembered that she had run more than eighteen miles. She must be dying for a nap.

  Sam looked to the left at the window and saw that the rain had eased off, allowing him to see that the storm clouds were now directly above them. Thunder rumbled low in the sky, and Sam had just turned his head back to Kirsty when another strike of lightning hit, the bolt zigzagging in every direction as it sped down through the sky to some far-off destination on the ground.

  Kirsty’s eyes were closed, and Sam could tell she was near sleep, but he knew she’d be more comfortable in his bed than on the couch, so he gently shook her shoulder and whispered, “Kirsty? Kirsty?”

  Her eyes opened just a crack, and she smiled up at him. “Yeah?”

  “I think you’d be more comfortable in my room. I can carry you there if you like,” he said, knowing her legs must be exhausted from all that running. God, she must be a machine to do runs like that so frequently. He wanted to learn more about what she was training for, what races she did in the area. Hell, he just wanted to know more about her, period, but he knew he had to wait until she had napped. Otherwise, he wasn’t going to get anything intelligible out of her.

  “Could I? That would be amazing. But I can walk, don’t worry,” Kirsty said, her eyes slightly wider as she sat up, pulling her knees off Sam’s lap and lifting her head off his shoulder. Sam mourned the sudden loss of contact, of body heat, but schooled his face not to show just how bereft he felt. Instead, he gathered Kirsty in his arms, feeling the delicious weight of her against him as he got up and walked to his bedroom.

  “Sam, you really didn’t have to carry me. I could’ve walked,” Kirsty said against Sam’s neck. His spine tingled at her whisper, the rush of breath against his skin. Sam knew he didn’t have to carry her; this wasn’t the middle ages, and chivalry was an outdated concept. But he didn’t care. This woman deserved to be worshipped, deserved burritos and naps and being carried to bed forever, and the least Sam could do was treat her with the respect she deserved. With the respect of a mate.