“It’s okay.” Dakota sighed. “I probably overreacted. I know life’s not a bed of roses for you either.”
Tina’s mother Maureen was convinced that the only path to the riches and prestige she craved was snagging a rich man. Maureen was always humiliating Tina by having affairs with rich married men, and pressuring Tina to find a sugar daddy who’d move them out of their trailer park. Once, Tina had fallen in love with the very hot but very poor high-school quarterback, and he’d seemed to love her back. Maureen had made sure she broke up that romance – by seducing Tina’s boyfriend.
Tina had about as much chance of marrying for love as Dakota did.
“Well, at least one of us is going to be happy. You’re going to disappear,” Tina said triumphantly. “Remember when I went away to cosmetology school in Oregon? Well, I made friends with this girl, Jamie Roberts. I just got off the phone with her. You know that huge shifter land grant in New Hampshire? Her pack arranged to send her there to get her away from some guy they don’t approve of. But she doesn’t want to go, so you’re going to take her place, and she’s going to run away with her boyfriend. They’re going overseas.”
Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Aha. Okay. And to think they call me the crazy one.”
“No, it’s perfect! I’ve got it all worked out!” Tina protested. “I’m going to drive up the coast and meet up with her and get her identity card tonight, and we’ll swap out your picture for hers. And she’s going to give me her bus ticket too.”
“But what if her pack calls and wants to make sure she arrived safely?”
“Well, it’s a new territory, so there’s not going to be any cell service, internet, anything like that. It’ll be pretty hard for them to get ahold of you.” Tina looked her up and down. “She’s larger figured, like you, but she does have shorter hair. We’ll just give you a quick haircut. Other than that, you’re good.”
Dakota frowned. Could this possibly work? Shifter identity cards were pretty easy to alter. They didn’t even have an online database like humans did; shifters liked to maintain a low profile.
“What would I do for work?” she said.
“Do anything. Waitress. Babysit. It would be like a vacation in the beautiful mountain region of New Hampshire.”
That did sound tempting.
“Bottom line. Do you want to be forced to marry Roy?”
Dakota found herself actually considering it. It was probably her only chance. She and Tina used to meet up in an abandoned hunter’s cabin when they were in high school; nobody else from her pack knew about it. She could hide out there and wait for Tina to bring the fake ID and bus ticket…
“My dad would search everywhere for me,” she pointed out.
“How would he find you, though? He wouldn’t know you had a fake ID and new name, and he doesn’t know about the cabin, and the shuttle you’d be taking leaves from Los Angeles the day after tomorrow.”
“But how long would I have to hide out?” Dakota felt a clenching in her chest. There were many, many things she hated about being here, but still…she liked some of the pack members, and she clung to the hope that someday her father would come around.
“Probably just a few months,” Tina said. “If Roy’s that much of a man-slut, he’ll move on and find someone else, so then your dad can’t force you to marry him. And your dad will be so grateful to see you again, he’ll back off and let you marry whoever you want.”
Or he’ll lock me in my room until I’m a hundred years old, Dakota thought. But she’d deal with that when the time came.
Tina was right; Roy was eager to marry so his father would let him start his own pack, and he wouldn’t wait for Dakota.
Even a few months living under another name sounded so tempting. No more people being fake to her face and spitting insults behind her back. People could like her or hate her, but it wouldn’t be because she was the daughter of Brandon Sheffield.
“Let’s do this,” she said. “Where’s a pair of scissors?”
Chapter Three
“Looks like the Montenegro pack chickened out,” Anders said to his cousin Miles Williams, the Alpha Prime of the Fenris Pack.
Anders, Miles, and the pack Omega Baldwin had arrived at the town square early – and been disappointed.
“Yep. What a surprise.” Miles flicked an annoyed glance across the town square at the shuttle bus that had parked there a few minutes ago. The last of the shifters had climbed off…and all of them were either females, or species of shifter other than wolf.