But along the way, Zoe had fallen in love with working with wood. She’d never expected that to happen. Zoe had never really been a hands-on kind of girl. She hadn’t played sports in school; she’d been too busy smoking cigarettes under the bleachers with the bad kids. She had never been an artist or a painter or a gardener or anything like that. She really didn’t like getting her hands dirty and all.
But when she started making things, the pride she felt when she held the finished piece in her hands was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Since Zoe had graduated high school and started traveling the world, she’d had this sense that nothing in her life was permanent or real. For several years she had enjoyed feeling unbounded by anything, but over time, her rootlessness began to wear at her soul.
When she arrived at the Bright Institute for Shifters and had taken up woodworking, Zoe suddenly felt at home. She was surrounded by people who cared about her. Truly cared about her. While she would always have a little bit of sibling rivalry with her brother, his wife Willow was fantastic. She’d made wonderful friends at the Institute like Heath, and she wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.
She hadn’t been part of a community, a real community, since she’d left the Midwest seven years ago. Now she was getting a taste of what community felt like, and she didn’t want to give it up.
The part of Zoe that been working with Dimitri Ivanov for the last three years knew that she should skip town as soon as possible. Like yesterday. The other part of her, the Midwestern girl whose family had been sustained by the generosity of the shifter community the whole time she was growing up, wanted to stay on Fate Mountain.
The child inside of her longed to be home. And this was the first place that felt like home in such a very, very long time. Instead of running away, Zoe put on her favorite girly coveralls over her short shorts and tank top. She donned a pair of practical shoes and put her hair in a ponytail. She was ready for her first day as an apprentice woodworker.
She took the bus from the Bright Institute into Fate Mountain Village, stopped at the cafe, and walked the rest of the way to Angus’s woodshop. When she arrived in the parking lot, she could see Angus working through the open garage style door. She walked up to him, holding a cardboard tray with two coffees in one hand and her protective glasses in the other.
Angus was sweeping sawdust out the front door into a big pile, and he looked up at her as she approached.
“Good morning, Zoe,” Angus said. “Is one of those for me?”
“I hope you like mocha lattes,” Zoe said.
“Chocolate and coffee? My favorite,” Angus said, lifting his coffee out of the tray. “Yum, thanks. Come on in the shop, and I’ll give you a tour.”
Angus showed her his workshop and pointed out all of the machines he had there. Zoe had trained on each of the machines and knew how to use them. Now that she was an apprentice for Angus, he would help take her education to the next level.
The young woman who had been to sixty-five countries over the last seven years thought it was funny that she was so excited about pushing two-by-fours through a bandsaw. But the hometown girl part of her told the traveler part of her to shut up.
The woodshop was Zoe’s new element, and she was not going to apologize for it.
“You’ve got really great equipment here,” she said, looking around.
“Almost as good as what they have up at the Institute,” Angus said.
“Your shop is more complete than the woodshop at the institute. I can’t wait to get to it. What are you working on today?”
“Nothing all that exciting. I’m constructing the bones of some custom cabinets for a new build up on the mountain. I really could use your help. It’ll make the project go much faster.”
“I love cabinets.”
“What are your favorite cabinets?” Angus asked absently as he began to pull sheets of Spruce from the stack near the far wall.
“I’ve been studying Louis the Fifteenth cabinetry and chest-of-drawers.”
“I love Louis the Fifteenth style,” Angus said, moving the sheet of Spruce to the bandsaw table. “What are your favorite pieces?”
Zoe helped Angus arrange the sheet on the table. “I’m fascinated by chests with secret compartments from that time period,” Zoe said, regretting her words as soon as they passed from her lips. She was trying to impress her new mentor and just put her foot in it.
“You know; I’ve been meaning to start a project with secret compartments. We should make one together as our first custom project.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” Zoe said, pushing her goggles over her eyes.
Angus turned to shut the shop door when a black SUV with Fate Mountain Police Department in yellow across the side pulled up in the parking lot. Zoe’s heart sank and she began looking for any means of escape. But it was too late, she was trapped.