The Depths 0f Winter (Shifting Seasons Book 3) Read online

  The Depths of Winter

  Shifting Seasons - Book 3

  Sammie Joyce

  Copyright © 2019 by Sammie Joyce

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Did you know there’s a prequel?

  Sammie Joyce

  The Depths of Winter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Sammie Joyce

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  * * *

  Abiding love honors the past and provides a legacy that will live on forever.

  Aspen, a bear shifter, is happy running through the woods with her best friend, Locklear. The wolf shifter loves her with all he has and ever will be. One day as they run through the forest together, they meet a stranger. Soon this stranger becomes important to them both.

  * * *

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  The Depths of Winter

  Shifting Seasons - Book 3

  Sammie Joyce

  1

  Margot-Celine

  Lost in the mass of printed essays on my desk, I had almost forgotten where I was, sitting in Novak High, after school hours. When I looked up and noted the near blackness outside the large windows, I felt a pang of annoyance spring through me. The days were much too short now, up here in the Alaskan wilderness. I was far removed from anything and everything I’d ever known, from where I’d been raised in Eastern Quebec. In some ways, the scenery reminded me of my home on the St. Lawrence River, the high mountains looming behind as the landscape swam in green, even in the coldest seasons. Maybe that was one of the reasons I’d chosen Alaska as my escape.

  However, I didn’t enjoy the heavy darkness that encumbered the winter months. It made me feel sleepy all the time, lethargic and perhaps a little bit melancholy.

  The darkness was one of the reasons I’d chosen to stay at school and grade papers as opposed to bringing them home with me to do there. I knew that once I got in the door, I wouldn’t want to do anything but start a fire, change into my pajamas, and settle down with a good book.

  No, I needed to finish grading and then I could go home. Work before play—even if my play was meager compared to other women my age.

  I wrenched my eyes back toward the page before me and stifled a grunt of disappointment.

  Mon Dieu, I thought, rolling my eyes as I tried to get through another excruciating essay. Quelle merde.

  Of course, I would never say anything like that aloud to my students, in French or otherwise, but sitting alone that Wednesday night, with only the buzzing fluorescent lighting to keep me company, I didn’t mind permitting a few unbidden and wicked thoughts into my head. As a French teacher, I endured more than most, particularly because my students didn’t take my classes seriously. They considered French a bird course, something they should be able to flutter through without much thought or effort, and that was devastatingly evident in the tripe I was reading.

  After grading Alex Mulligan’s paper with a C minus, I felt my spirits brighten some as I reached for the next in my pile.

  Lowell Carey.

  She always turned in good work. It was high time my eyes were given a break and I peered at the paper, the smile slowly dripping off my lips as I took in the almost incoherent babble in front of me.

  “Quesque c’est, Mlle. Carey?” I mused aloud, sinking back against my chair to study the piece with a deep frown.

  “Did you say something, Margot-Celine?”

  I jumped at the sound of my name, my heart leaping into my throat as I turned to address the lean man standing in the doorway of my classroom. Sheepishly, I smiled, realizing I’d been overheard in my commentary.

  “I was just talking to myself, Pat,” I told the math teacher. Patrick James grinned and nodded understandingly.

  “I know those conversations well,” he conceded. “I sometimes give myself some great advice.”

  He stared at me a moment longer, as if he was waiting for me to say something clever in return, but he must have been used to my quiet way by then and he turned to leave.

  Usually, my instinct would have been to let him go. I wasn’t one for idle chatter or small talk, particularly not when I wanted to leave the school at some point that night. Yet as he moved away, something inside me forced his name out of my mouth.

  “Pat?”

  He paused to peer at me inquisitively over his shoulder. He seemed just as surprised as I was that I had spoken out of turn to him. I had worked with him long enough for him to know I was acting out of character.

  “Oui?” he jested lightly. I forced a tight smile, not wanting to encourage much conversation with him.

  “You have Lowell Carey in one of your classes, don’t you?”

  He nodded, his brow furrowing.

  “Yes…” he conceded. Instantly, I picked up on his uncertainty.

  “Have you found her to be a competent student?” I asked. Somehow, I felt guilty discussing the students, even though it was completely within our rights to do it.

  Then again, there was little that didn’t make me feel guilty.

  “She was, at first,” Pat replied, slowly turning back toward me. I was grateful that he didn’t inch too far into the room, his eyebrows knitting as he considered the question. “But it seems like she’s not even trying anymore.”

  “I feel the same way!” I agreed, relief sweeping through me. The relief was followed by shame. I shouldn’t have been happy to know that Lowell was failing everywhere but I was glad it wasn’t only in my class.

  “She is going to need to roll up her sleeves if she wants to get into a good college,” Pat continued, echoing my innermost thoughts. “Although I’d heard that she was having a bit of a problem with the transition from the move.”

  “Oui, I had heard that too,” I replied slowly, but the timing didn’t make a lot of sense. At the beginning of the school year, when she’d first arrived at Novak, her work and grades had been much better. If it was the move which had been affecting her, shouldn’t it have been a couple of months ago?

  “I wonder if everything’s okay at home,” Pat said and I found myself nodding in concession. I had noticed that she had seemed off the past couple of weeks, tired and not paying attention, but then again, she was a teenaged girl in her senior year. I may not have been much of a party animal but I, too, had been eighteen years old once.

  “I will have to have a chat with her tomorrow,” I sighed, retrieving the work from my desk where I’d dropped it.

  “Bonne chance!” Pat chuckl
ed and I frowned. Why did I have the feeling that I was going to need all the luck I could get?

  * * *

  My house was nothing more than a quaint cabin, tucked both in and out of town as so many other little residences were. It was a little refuge, a haven which made me feel both secure and nervous when I was there. If not for my trusty bull mastiff, Pascal, I probably never would have relaxed. There were far too many sights and sounds that were perfectly justifiable but terrifying nonetheless back there.

  Thankfully, Pascal reacted to the slightest odd noise, dismissing the crickets and rabbits and growling if so much as a strange vehicle turned down the small road where my house sat.

  There were neighbors but no one really close enough to involve themselves in my affairs, even if they knew who I was anyway. After all, in a town that size, it was impossible to stay anonymous. I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  The following morning, I dressed for work, letting Pascal out to do his business. As I sat by the kitchen window, drinking my coffee, I heard him release a low growl of displeasure. Instantly, the hairs on the back of my neck raised and I looked around for him.

  Instead, I saw a rust-colored Ford F-150 making its way down the road, away from the mountainside. I knew there was nothing but a dead-end ahead and I wondered what the driver was doing that way. My eyes almost bugged out of my glasses when I saw who was driving.

  Well, look who it is! I mused, watching as Lowell passed my house, her face drawn and tired. She was just the girl I’d been hoping to see that morning and there she was, driving past my house before school.

  Idle curiosity shot through me and I wondered where she’d been. I decided to ask her when I saw her in class.

  Calling Pascal back into the house, I gathered my portfolio and grabbed my to-go cup, scratching my dog behind the ears before I left.

  “Sois sage,” I told him in French and he barked at me, indicating that he was always good, despite my constant warnings.

  Humming, I climbed into my Kia Soul and made my way toward the school. Two more days until the weekend.

  And then what? a little voice in my head mocked me. Do you have plans?

  I shoved the taunting out of my head and descended the winding roads toward Novak High. It was embarrassing to know that I had no social life, no group of friends yearning to hang out and go to a movie with on Saturday night.

  It’s not embarrassing, I corrected myself firmly. It’s necessary.

  So what if I didn’t have grandiose plans for the weekend? So what if I was a thirty-six-year-old French teacher who preferred the company of her dog to that of other people? It sure beat the alternative and I knew I would never fall into the same trap I had before, never again, not when I had escaped by the skin of my teeth.

  After all, having no social life was better than being dead.

  2

  Margot-Celine

  I found myself particularly antsy that day, waiting for last period to arrive when I would finally be able to speak with Lowell about her essay and whatever else was going on in her life. There was something about the expression on her face when she’d passed my house, something almost daunting that wore on me all throughout the day.

  Or perhaps I was looking for answers where there weren’t any, trying to make sense of how an almost perfect grade student had become such a slacker overnight, it seemed.

  For the most part, I turned my students to their textbooks, pretending to busy myself grading papers that I’d already marked, but my attention wasn’t on anything but Lowell that day for some reason I couldn’t explain.

  I’d have to have been blind and deaf not to have seen that there was something unusual about the town in which I lived, something mystic and elusive. Even a recluse like me couldn’t avoid hearing the weird stories which enshrouded us. There had been odd rumors about ridiculous things occurring, most of which I didn’t put much credence in. After all, I was a teacher, a woman of science. Whatever sights the students had claimed to have seen could easily be chalked up to overactive imaginations, but that didn’t explain the feeling that enveloped the area.

  Of course, most small towns, particularly remote ones, have colorful pasts and the ghosts which haunt them are better left untouched.

  When I’d first moved there, three years earlier, I had written off the uneasy sensation as my own sordid past creeping up on me. Yet as the years passed, I’d learned that I wasn’t the only one to experience the odd undertones of my environment. Of course, I’d simply learned to deal with it, dismissing it as part of my new home. It was still better than the alternative, even if I didn’t understand it. Not everything in life was meant to be understood, after all. Some things were better swept under the rug, in my opinion.

  Still, seeing Lowell on my private road that morning had stirred up something in me, something I’d suppressed. The mystery of the backwoods seemed to be in my face again and I found myself intrigued, even though I logically tried to dismiss it.

  By the time last period arrived, I was consumed with a nervous anticipation that I had no reason to feel, but when my hazel eyes rested on Lowell’s pale face, I read a troubling exhaustion that a girl her age shouldn’t know.

  What on earth has her so tired? Don’t teenagers just sleep all the time? I found myself wondering.

  “Mlle. Carey, will you see me after class?” It wasn’t really a question and probably one I shouldn’t have asked so openly in front of the others, but tact had never really been my strong suit. The students made taunting “oooh” sounds, foreshadowing her trouble. Lowell looked at me, a slightly accusing glint in her teal eyes, but to her credit, she only nodded curtly.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  “En français,” I chided.

  “Bien sûr, Mme. Doucette,” she grumbled and I smiled. I was always ensuring the children used French whenever they spoke in class. The unsettling part was the fact that they called me “Madame”. It had been a hasty decision when I’d applied to the school board. There was no real translation for “Ms.” in French and while I cringed to be called “Madame”, I also found “Mademoiselle” condescending somehow. So I’d settled for “Mme. Doucette” even though there were many things wrong with it.

  The period seemed to drag on forever, especially as I watched Lowell. Despite her clear tiredness, she kept looking out the window, her foot twitching like she might jump from the desk and bolt out of the room with a second’s notice. Her demeanor only enhanced my concern.

  What is going on with her? Why is she acting like this?

  I made it my mission to find out. I couldn’t recall her behaving in such a manner at the beginning of the school year and I was sure I would have noticed. Regardless of what it was, it would have to stop.

  When the bell finally rang, Lowell was the first on her feet, grabbing her knapsack as she made her way to the door. She’d either forgotten I’d asked to see her or hoped I had.

  “Lowell,” I called out sharply and she froze in her tracks, slowly turning, a look of guilt on her face.

  She’d hoped I’d forgotten and was trying to sneak out before I remembered. Was I ever so impish in school? I found it hard to believe that I was.

  “Right,” she muttered, sauntering back toward me. “You wanted a word.”

  “Bonne chance, Lowell,” Madison Beauchamp teased on the way out the door. Lowell gave her a scathing look but the blonde was already gone. I had to wonder what had happened between them too. When Lowell had first arrived at Novak, Maddy had reached out to the newcomer and the two seemed to have become fast friends. Overnight, it seemed, they had fallen out of favor with one another.

  I wonder if it had anything to do with being caught smoking pot together.

  The more I thought about it, watching the rest of the students file out of the room, the more I wondered if that wasn’t Lowell’s problem—drugs. My stomach churned at the thought. She was such a bright, beautiful girl with a golden future. The idea that she migh
t be throwing it all away to get high broke my heart.

  And if that was the case, I wouldn’t stand for it.

  When the last pupil left, Lowell looked at me impatiently even though there was barely a breath between the last student leaving and us being alone.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice.

  I was slightly taken aback by the rudeness of her question but I maintained my impartial exterior.

  If she is on drugs, her behavior might be unpredictable. I can’t take that personally.

  I mentally wracked my thoughts for any drug literature I’d read, but it was hard to do when Lowell was clearly in a hurry to leave.

  “Well?” she insisted when I didn’t speak right away. “Is there something wrong or not?”

  “I would say so,” I replied flatly, growing annoyed myself with her attitude. “I read your essay.”

  She balked and looked away, embarrassment coloring her face.

  “W-was it that bad?” she mumbled as if she didn’t know. I pulled it out of the drawer where I’d kept it, handing it to her for us to go over together.

  “It’s barely coherent French, Lowell,” I told her, trying not to sound exasperated myself. “I know you’re capable of better than this. Much better than this. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”