One Hell of a Summer Surprise
“Easy, girl,” Stanley said to the horse, stroking her flank. “Easy.”
The brown horse’s name was Betsy, and she’d been stamping her hooves impatiently, the way she would if she was hungry or wanted to be let out of her stable.
Stanley thought he could relate to that.
The snow leopard in him had always enjoyed the feeling of being out in the open.
If it was nighttime, he might have shifted and gone for a sprint across the ranch.
For now, though, he’d like to take Betsy for a ride.
He gazed around the large barn at the other stables, some containing horses.
He’d always loved horses. Since his childhood days, he’d learned how to ride and take of them.
Riding a horse had always been his go-to solution whenever he needed to mull things over or get some air, especially at times like this when his mind was racing.
Betsy nickered softly, and he ran his fingers across her flank again. “You’ll be out in a bit,” he assured her, “and we’ll go for a ride, eh?” The horse gave another whinny, and he chuckled. “Yeah, I missed you, too. It’s good to be back.”
Only he wasn’t so sure about that last part.
The image of Allison glaring at him and asking him to leave remained at the forefront of his mind.
I don’t want to see your face, she’d told him. I don’t want you near me.
For a moment before that, he’d believed everything was fine.
When he’d walked up to her and kissed her, she’d responded with a fervor to match his.
Recalling it, he felt a part of him harden with desire.
She was just as beautiful as the day he’d gone missing, if not more.
He could have gotten lost in the softness and warmth of her body if she hadn’t suddenly shoved him away.
He scoffed at his own foolishness. What was he expecting? She was right—he had been gone for four years. And if he remembered correctly, he’d disappeared right after they’d had a fight.
It's not looking good for you, Stanley, he thought, feeling a twinge of shame.
She’d barely even let him get a word in. As she glowered at him and asked him to leave, he felt her anger and resentment.
He rubbed his eyes. He’d barely managed to sleep last night, what with the excitement of having returned to Earth after so long.
He’d managed to find his way to the ranch with only a couple of scratches on the truck.
Through the night, more memories of his life here had returned to him—including his wife’s coffee preferences.
It would take a while to get used to being back, he knew, but for now, all he cared about was that he was home.
And safe.
His mind flashed back to that cave. Just a day ago, he’d been kneeling at the edge of that pit, at the mercy of the Ice Melter.
The past four years on Frost Mountain had been more about survival than anything else.
And now ... he was back on Earth, back on his ranch. He had to admit, it was a bit jarring.
“Let’s get you out of your stable,” he said to Betsy.
Before he could open the small door, he heard footsteps, and two cowhands stepped into the barn. Stanley recognized them instantly: Aaron and Julian. Both men wore jodhpurs and boots, hats pulled over their faces. When they spotted him, they tipped their hats in greeting.
“Morning, boss,” said Aaron the shorter one, an unusual expression on his face. “Figured you’d be in the house, getting some rest.”
Both men had been visibly stunned when he’d driven the truck onto the ranch last night, even more so when they realized who was behind the wheel.
Aaron and Julian had worked on the ranch for nearly a decade.
They’d even been around when he stumbled through that portal and found himself on Frost Mountain.
Like Allison, they figured he’d probably skipped town or something.
“Yeah, boss,” the other man added. “Bit early in the day.”
Boss ?
It took him a moment to realize that they still worked for him. Stanley felt a twinge of embarrassment. On Frost Mountain, he’d been an ordinary man, not someone’s boss. It felt a little strange now to hear someone refer to him that way.
“Never too early for me, Julian,” he said. He rubbed his chin. “Four years, huh? This ranch doesn’t look like it’s aged a day. Tell me, what’s changed around here?”
Both men shared a look. Aaron shrugged. “To be honest, not much. The ranch’s pretty much the same as it’s always been, though a couple of cowhands quit a year after you disappeared. The town ... well, Torpe’s not such a hot place to live anymore.”
“It’s slowly turning into a ghost town,” Julian chimed in. “Nothing interesting ever happens around here anymore.”
Stanley guessed that by interesting , the man no doubt meant supernatural . Both men were shifters, as were many other workers on the property. In fact, the town was crawling with all kinds of supernaturals.
He nodded. “And Allison?”
The cowhands blinked at him. “Boss?”
“How’s she been?”
They glanced at each other again. “Well ... once you left, she wasn’t herself,” Julian said, and Stanley couldn’t help noticing the judgment in the man’s eyes. “Mostly kept to herself. The rest of us were worried about her. But ... I guess she’s doing better now.”
Guilt gnawed at Stanley’s consciousness as he turned to face Betsy. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for Allison. His disappearance had been sudden, without warning, even for him. No wonder she was so mad at him. As far as she knew, he’d run off with someone else.
“It’s a good thing you’re back now, boss,” Aaron said, a flicker of a smile on his face. “But where’ve you been, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Stanley shrugged. “Frost Mountain.”
“Frost ... Mountain?” There was a pause. “I’ve never heard of that.”
Stanley didn’t bother offering the man an explanation. He stepped back and led Betsy out of her stable. She nickered softly.
“I want to take her for a ride,” he said. “Clear my head a bit.” He heaved a sigh. “Me and Allison had a bit of a problem this morning.”
Julian frowned. “Problem?”
“Let’s just say I’ll be sleeping in the barn for the time being.”
Aaron looked at him like he’d lost his marbles. “You can’t sleep in the barn. I’m sure we can get you a room—”
“No.” Stanley smiled and shook his head. “I’ll be fine. It’s comfortable in here. Besides, once you’ve had to survive on Frost Mountain, sleeping in a barn doesn’t sound so terrible.”
Once again, the two men exchanged a glance. Once again, Stanley didn’t bother trying to explain himself to them. Right now, there was only one person who really needed an explanation, and she wouldn’t speak to him.
Great to be back home, he thought sarcastically.
“I gotta say, boss,” Julian said, “you seem strange.”
Aaron nodded. “Yeah. Reminds me of that other guy from yesterday.”
It was Stanley’s turn to be confused. “What guy?”
“Some new guy in town. People have been wondering about him. No one knows who he is or where he’s from, but he’s been spotted a couple of times since last night.”
“Yeah, there’s something funny about him,” Julian said. “Maybe it’s the way he dresses. From what I heard, he was wearing some kind of fur clothing, like he’d come from the North Pole.”
The cowhands chuckled, but all Stanley could do was stare. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach as the reality of their words hit him, and his inner snow leopard recoiled.
Johan’s in Torpe.
***
“So, how’d it go with Mr. Lucky last night?” Celine asked.
Allison couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She raised her coffee mug to her lips, unsure how her friend would react when she told her all that had happened. But that was exactly why she’d phoned.
“I didn’t talk to him much,” she admitted. “I left him at the bar last night.”
Her best friend let out a groan. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Allison. I thought I told you to find a date. How are you supposed to move on if you don’t actually try to move on? We’ve talked about this. You need to—”
“Something else happened last night.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “You hooked up with someone else?”
“No,” Allison said firmly. And she told her what had happened after she left the Blue Cicada, concluding with this morning’s interesting little encounter with Stanley.
“I told him to get out of the house,” she finished. “He’s sleeping in the barn now.”
For the next few seconds, Celine said nothing, and Allison couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were going through her friend’s mind. Stanley’s sudden appearance had come as a surprise to them. Neither of them could have imagined Stanley would return after so many years.
“This is ... definitely something,” the woman said finally. “I don’t even know where to start. I mean ... how come he’s back now ?”
Allison shrugged as though her friend could see it. “That’s what I asked him. I was so convinced it was impossible that when he returned, I thought I’d only dreamed it until he showed up in the house. Talk about an early-morning jump scare.”
Celine took her time to respond. For the first time in a while, Allison’s friend seemed to be at a loss for words.
No surprises there. Even Allison was surprised she was still talking.
Her mind was racing a thousand miles a minute, struggling to figure out exactly what the hell was going on—and seemed to be failing at it. It all made no sense to her.
For the second time this morning, an image filled her mind: Stanley standing in the middle of the road last night, staring wordlessly back at her. In the glare of the truck’s headlights, he’d looked more like a ghost than anything else. No wonder she’d fainted on the spot.
He had been a ghost. For four years, he’d been gone with no explanation and no way to track him. He might as well have been dead. Only now, he wasn’t. He was alive and well and on her property.
The thought made her heart flutter. All of this had happened so fast for her to process.
Asking him to leave had been a good call.
If she’d had to spend another moment in his presence, she wasn’t sure what she would have done.
Stanley had always aroused feelings in her.
Even now, back from the “dead” after all this time, that hadn’t changed.
Yeah ... she definitely hadn’t moved on.
Her mind strayed back to the memory of him marching toward the barn. She wondered what he was doing in there now. Was he thinking about her? Her pulse quickened at the thought, and she tried to dismiss it from her mind.
“You think sending him out of the house was overkill?”
“What?” Celine scoffed. “Of course not. If I were you, I’d have asked him to leave the ranch even and never come back. Don’t tell me you’re considering his feelings. Did he consider yours when he disappeared four years ago?”
As usual, the woman had a point. Still, Allison couldn’t help wondering about her husband. He was different, and it wasn’t just the bushy hair. She recalled the pained, faraway look in his eyes like he’d been to hell and back if she didn’t know better ...
Well, she did know better. She knew that he’d left after an argument. For all she knew, he’d used it as an excuse to abandon her and, for whatever reason, had now decided he could come crawling back to her and find her waiting for him with open arms. For a moment, that had almost been the case.
A thought crept into her mind just then. Had he left to be with some other woman? Her gut clenched. Regardless of what he looked like right now or what that might mean, he had left her. Maybe he’d grown tired of her and decided to find someone else.
Probably. But she couldn’t know for sure. She didn’t know anything for sure.
She took another sip of her coffee. “This is one hell of a summer surprise.”
“Look,” Celine said, “for now, you just need to stay cool, okay? I know this is weird for you right now, especially after everything you’ve been through since he vanished. But we’re going to figure this out. Just try not to let the fact that he’s back get to you so much.”
“Easy for you to say. I’m pissed as hell that he’s come back after so long, and I want him gone, but there’s a part of me that just ... I don’t know. I shouldn’t be happy that he’s back. I really shouldn’t.”
Yet there was no mistaking the way her heart jumped at the thought of him.
The image of Stanley walking up to her and kissing her, his strong arms holding and caressing her, had been burned into her memory.
In that moment, brief as it was, he’d awakened something inside her, something that, until now, she’d assumed was gone forever.
If she hadn’t broken the kiss and shoved him away, then .
.. things might have escalated. Stanley had changed over the years, and for the better—there was no denying it.
She could have let him continue kissing her, caressing her.
She could have let him peel her clothes off and make love like they had all those years ago, as husband and wife.
But desire and excitement weren’t all that accompanied the thought of him. And it was that lingering pain and resentment that had driven a wedge between them this morning. Allison was somewhat grateful for that.
She stared into her mug. Almost empty. She was going to need some more coffee.
“Just play it cool, at least for now,” Celine said. “And stay away from him. You don’t need him around anymore. As far as you’re concerned, your husband’s gone. He’s in the past. You grieved for him. No need to try to bring back what’s already ended.”
“You’re right, Celine.” Once again. Allison heaved a sigh. “I’ll make sure to stay away from him.”
And she meant that. She meant to stay away from him.
So why did she feel so much doubt?