Page 34 of Willing Prey

TWENTY-NINE

Claire

I wake up in the woods. Sunlight filters through the top of the tent.

Birds chirp and chatter. Cozy and cuddled in my sleeping bag, I feel all right.

Not great, not good, but all right. This was a smart move.

I’m stinging from yesterday, but it’s hard to mope when I’ve got a whole day in the woods stretching before me, a new novel in my bag, and a hammock already set up and waiting for me.

Fuck this guy.

Quietly, I lean back into the tent. The handle of my utility knife feels good against my palm, sturdy.

Though the tool’s primary purpose is cutting paracord and small branches, I’ve gutted fish with it, so it could do some damage.

Considering how agitated I feel right now, I could probably do some damage with my fingernails. Possibly my teeth.

Easy does it.

Don’t go full fight mode.

Yet.

There’s a good chance the person sleeping in the hammock is harmless.

But there’s also a chance they aren’t.

I creep close, but not too close. The hammock’s fabric keeps me from seeing the man’s face, and I don’t want to lean over and expose myself.

Knife clenched in my fist, I position myself about six feet from the head of the hammock.

Anger thrums through me, but it’s a nervous, nauseous anger, fueled by fear.

I’ve taken enough self-defense classes to know when things go bad, it happens fast. Violence needs to be on my list of possible responses.

Here we go.

“Can I help you?” My voice cuts through the quiet. Pride soars when it sounds controlled, braver than I feel.

The figure in the hammock stirs to life. I tense. It’s a man. I see the back of his head. Dark hair, chaotic in a way that’s so Shane it makes my heart ache.

Focus.

The man turns, swinging his legs over the near side of the hammock. My jaw drops.

It is Shane.

In my hammock, in the woods, at a campground when he should be at work. My heart wants to turn cartwheels, but my brain won’t let it.

“Claire.” His voice is rough, sleepy.

Sexy.

No, don’t go there.

He drags a hand through his hair, making it wilder. There’s stubble on his jaw, and he’s looking at me with an expression I can’t place. My rib cage is cracking open. The okay-ness I woke up with is devolving back into yesterday’s heartache. I want my peaceful morning back.

“Why are you in my hammock? How are you in my hammock?”

“You weren’t answering your phone.” He sounds wounded.

Mr. Moves in His New Prey Before I’m Even Gone is hurt by a few missed calls? I almost tell him there’s no signal but bite my tongue. Not his business. The contract’s up.

Just business, just business, just business.

“How did you find me?” The question comes out as sharp as the knife in my hand.

“GPS tracking. You didn’t take your watch off.” Shane rises from the hammock, starting toward me. Whatever he sees on my face stops him, and he straightens his shirt. He’s wearing jeans, hiking boots, and the T-shirt I wore out of the woods the day we saw the bear.

His words sink in. I don’t have to look at my left wrist to know he’s right.

Shit. Over the month, it’s become a part of me, as unnoticeable as the emotional support hair ties it sits beside.

Mortification makes me painfully aware of its presence.

I stole his prey watch and made him come find me to get it back.

It’s probably expensive, and he needs it to hunt Sophia.

“Oh fuck, I forgot I was wearing it.” Tucking the knife handle precariously under one arm, I unbuckle the thin black strap with speed that surprises me. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here. I would have brought it back when I realized, but who knows when that would have be—”

“Claire,” Shane interrupts. “I don’t want the watch.” Letting out a rough chuckle, he runs a hand through his hair. “Keep the watch, fling it into a lake, I don’t care.”

“Oh.” I pause, watch in hand, knife under arm, brain jumping to conclusions because this campsite is an easy two hours from his house, and if he came all the way out here—

No.

He takes my confusion as a green light, coming closer. I try to glare at him, but my face refuses. I want to smile, because hope—the flighty little bastard—is whispering that if he isn’t here for the watch, he’s here for me . Freezing again anyway, he raises his hands in a placating gesture.

“Can we talk?” he asks. “Or will you stab me?” The smallest smile teases at the corner of his mouth. It shouldn’t feel like glimpsing a sunbeam on a cloudy day, but it does.

“That depends, do you deserve to be stabbed?” My voice is lighter than I want it to be, relief that it wasn’t a stranger in my hammock and my traitorous body’s happiness at Shane’s proximity escaping when I need to be professional.

Maybe he wants another thirty days?

His grimace is sheepish, and surprising. “Probably. Gretchen would say absolutely.” After a moment he adds, “Margot too.”

Again, there’s a fluttering in my rib cage, hope making my breath hitch. “If you don’t care about the watch, why are you here?”

“Because I need to apologize.”

Silent, I watch him. He shifts side to side, uncomfortable, but I don’t offer him an out, even though part of me wants to. As much as I want to ease his discomfort, say don’t worry about it or it isn’t a big deal and wave off whatever his apology is for, I don’t. I’m curious to see why he’s sorry.

Sorry for acting like we were a couple when we weren’t?

Sorry for moving in your replacement before you left?

Sorry for not saying goodbye?

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he swallows hard. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

The lack of specificity is unhelpful, but it has to be Sophia. Margot’s sharp; there’s no way she missed how upset I was yesterday.

“Sophia didn’t hurt me,” I lie, wanting to save some sort of pride. “But it would have been nice of you to say goodbye.”

He opens his mouth and then closes it. “Wait. What about Sophia?”

“Your new prey .” Fuck, I wish I could be nonchalant, but my voice finally breaks on the word, and I can’t. “Margot was settling her in. She’s pretty. Long hair. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her.”

“God, Claire, no. It’s not like that. I swear.” He takes another step and eyeballs the blade. “I’d like to come closer, but I’d also like to remain unstabbed.”

I glance down at the knife. Sometime during our conversation I moved it from under my arm, and my knuckles are pale from how tightly I’m gripping it. Setting it down on the ground, I fidget, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands.

“Sophia isn’t prey. She’s Margot’s sister. Her apartment is getting painted or something, I don’t know. She needed somewhere to stay for a few nights.” He gives me an incredulous look. “Do you really think I’d do that? Hire someone else?”

“That’s the point of the contract, right? None of the hassle of a relationship. Thirty days and done. Strictly business.” As I say it, I feel in my bones how wrong that is. There’s nothing businesslike about the way he’s looking at me.

“Just business?” Shane’s jaw works side to side.

When he speaks again, his voice is low and rough.

“Do you think I’d spend every evening with you if it were just business?

Think I’d rush home from work because talking to you is the highlight of my day if it were just business ?

The things I’ve told you”—his throat bobs with a hard swallow—“may not seem like much, but it’s more than I’ve ever shared with anyone.

” If the woods caught fire around us, I’d burn, the emotion in his gaze impossible to look away from.

Shane keeps talking, his eyes fierce. “Tell me it’s just business to you.

That you honestly think that’s all there is between us. Tell me.”

“I thought there was more.” The words tumble out, choppy and fast. “But you never asked me to stay, never said anything about the end of the contract. I almost texted you before I left, but then I saw Sophia and…” My voice trails off, and I want to stop, but that feels cowardly.

“It hurt. It felt like I was being replaced. Again.”

“Never. I would never do that.” He drags a hand through his hair.

“I kept putting off talking to you, because I couldn’t figure out the right way to do it.

” An agitated chuckle comes out with his exhale.

“I’m not good at relationships. I like contracts, rules—clear expectations so that I know exactly what my job is.

I’ve always been this way. When I know what and how to do something, I can excel at it, but relationships don’t work like that.

And I’ve already fucked this up.” He gestures between us.

“And I will probably keep fucking it up.”

His use of the word excel jostles a memory to the front of my mind—what Gretchen said when she ran into Sydney and me at the coffee shop: He avoids things he thinks he won’t excel at. That man’s scared of anything that doesn’t have a handbook and KPIs.

Looking at his face extinguishes any final embers of uncertainty.

This isn’t ultracompetent lawyer Shane, or dirty-talking sex god Shane.

This is just Shane the overthinking human who hates making mistakes.

Considering that I bolted when I saw Sophia because of my own insecurities, I can appreciate this side of him as much as the other two.

“How did you fuck it up?” I keep my voice gentle, trying to coax out the words he’s tripping over. “We’re here, we’re talking; that’s pretty much Relationship 101.”

Shane steps toward me, closing the remaining space. “I wish I had asked you out properly. I wish I’d asked you to dinner, or a movie, or to feed ducks. Worked my way up to fucking in the woods like animals. I wish I’d started this the right way.”

He quirks up the corner of his mouth in a smile, but there’s sadness in his eyes.

Aw.