by Rose Wulf
“Apparently he disagrees,” Brooke stated, the faintest traces of strain in her voice. The table wasn’t exactly lightweight.
“Well,” Dean grunted, glancing over his shoulder as he moved backwards toward the diner, “next time I visit her at work, I’ll be sure to make out with her in front of his tower.”
“That is so high school,” Brooke returned with another laugh.
An image of Lila, dressed in her cheerleading uniform, flashed across his mind’s eye for a second and a short, bitter laugh slipped from his lips. “Maybe,” he allowed, “but it’s also the language Judd knows best.” As they crossed the threshold again, Dean cast his gaze around, plotting the course least likely to crash them into anyone. “Where’s this one go?”
“Ah,” Brooke began, craning her neck to see around him, “right behind Shelly.”
Dean easily spotted the young hostess and nodded.
“Brooke!” another voice called, catching their attention and stalling their forward momentum. Dean’s head swung around, as did Brooke’s, and his gaze landed on Georgia, who was bustling through the crowd without a single armload. “Sorry,” she added when she reached them, gesturing vaguely toward the table they’d since lowered to the ground.
“I thought you weren’t going to make it today?” Brooke asked, shifting and letting her weight rest a little on the table.
“I got off early,” Georgia said with an absent wave of her hand. “Anyway, I ran into Paula outside and she said she’s looking for you.”
Brooke glanced down at the table, across to Dean, and looked back at Georgia. “Well, I’m kind of busy, so she’ll have to wait a minute.”
Georgia shrugged. “I don’t imagine she’ll know the difference,” she offered. As Dean and Brooke angled to continue hauling the table to its destination, Georgia turned her attention to Dean and asked, “Have you heard from Ari lately?”
“Not since she boarded the plane out of Naples,” he replied. Yesterday. It was exactly what he’d expected. She hadn’t promised to check in during layovers. He just hated that he didn’t know whether or not she was okay. He hated that he hadn’t seen her in nearly a week and that she wasn’t next to him right then. It scared him how badly he’d been missing her. But he’d managed to survive most of the week. Now he only needed to make it through the rest of the day. In less than twenty-four hours, Arianna would be home, next to him, where he could wrap her in his arms and finally chase away the odd chill of loneliness surrounding him.
Chapter Fifteen
Almost home. It was all Arianna could think as she stepped into the airport early Saturday morning. Around her, her fellow departing passengers yawned, stretched, and she distinctly heard someone mention needing breakfast. She certainly understood the sentiment, but she was a woman on a mission. She’d already opened Dean’s latest text, assuring her he was waiting for her like he’d promised he would be. All she had to do was find the baggage claim. Relief, excitement, and anticipation spurred her forward despite how tired she really should have been from her thirty-seven hour flight and she quietly navigated around the slower travelers as she followed the necessary signs.
Come on, come on. If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn the carousel was mocking her. The honeymooning couple who’d been two rows ahead of her for the last several hours had already snatched all three of their large bags and so had the businessman who’d been sitting directly in front of her. Her lone bag, however, was taking its sweet time coming around. Or at least it certainly seemed that way. It felt like an eternity of restless weight-shifting before she finally spotted her bag as it rounded the curve. She moved forward eagerly, sneaking in between two more people, and managed to swing it up in what must have been record time. As soon as the strap was mostly over her shoulders she was moving again, making her way toward the exit.
Dean was waiting. He was so close now she could practically feel the warmth of his presence. She was almost home.
Despite the hour, there were a fair amount of people crowding the pick-up area. Not that it mattered. Dean was tall, dark haired, and might as well have been the only man in the building for how long it took her to spot him. He stood off to the side of the waiting crowd, near the front, both hands tucked into his jeans pockets and a lightweight jacket over a plain black tee. For a moment, as her gaze locked with his and she increased her pace, she actually felt the sting of unshed tears. She fought them back, telling herself it was silly to cry just at the sight of him, but she knew it was more than that.
Her bag dropped to the ground, his arms came around her waist, and she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, uncaring of the people around them. He held her tight, his strong arms warming her from the outside in. She said nothing as she inhaled a deep, relieved breath of his scent. This was it, the moment that had made that ungodly flight tolerable. The moment that had encouraged her to push through that terrible trip. She’d done what her heart had insisted she needed to do, and now it was finally over. I’m home.
****
Dean brushed his lips over hers when they came to stand beside the passenger door of his Camaro. His fingers threaded her hair and her hands curled into the sides of his shirt, beneath the jacket he really needed to be taking off. It was the third or fifth kiss he’d stolen since she’d fallen into his arms at the airport nearly an hour earlier, but it wasn’t enough. He didn’t know how to describe the relief he’d felt at the sight of her making her way through the crowd of departing passengers, or at how willingly she’d let him pull her close. Worse, though, was the sharp, stabbing pain that had torn through him at the sight of the lone tear halfway down her cheek when they’d finally pulled apart. She’d been smiling, as he’d been, but that little tear told him everything he’d been afraid to know.
“Dean,” Arianna breathed when the kiss broke. She twisted her hands a little more into his shirt and the corner of her lips twitched with amusement. “Breakfast was great, but let’s go home.”
He chuckled, pressed a short kiss to her forehead, and let his hands settle lightly over her hips. “Sounds good to me,” he returned, unsurprised by the softness of his voice. He pulled completely away after giving her hips another squeeze and opened the door for her. She was right, after all. He’d insisted on taking her to breakfast before they hit the road—it was ridiculously early, and he figured if he was hungry then she was probably starving—but he was more than ready to get her home. Although he wasn’t so sure whether or not she was actually planning to stay with him, and he was reluctant to bring up an unhappy topic when they’d spent most of their breakfast discussing her heartless family.
It was probably a good thing he hadn’t gone with her.
“Oh,” Arianna declared as the car swung onto the road, “I almost forgot. I had an unexpected, um, let’s call it, an encounter, on Wednesday.”
Dean arched a brow at her and repeated, “Encounter?”
She took a deep breath and cautiously continued, “I met your uncle.”
He nearly slammed into the stopped car ahead of them at her declaration. He would never have even considered that a possibility. The last he’d heard, several years ago, his estranged uncle was living in England. “You what? How?”
Arianna leaned back in her seat as she summarized her encounter with Daniel Page—whose name she hadn’t actually gotten. “Don’t get me wrong,” she added, “but he’s kind of a jerk.”
Dean snorted inelegantly, flexing his hands over the steering wheel as he shifted lanes for the upcoming interstate entrance. “Minus the ‘kind of’,” he grumbled. “Daniel dropped contact with us while we were still in high school. But Mom let slip that Uncle Nicholas mentioned he’d reached out to Daniel again recently, in light of all the crap we’ve been dealing with. Needless to say, we haven’t heard shit from him.”
“That’s because he doesn’t believe,” Arianna mumbled. “He said as much.” She paused, shifted in her seat, and asked, “So … Nicholas is another of your uncles?
”
That’s right. She doesn’t know. It hadn’t even occurred to him to tell her about his mother’s generation of trouble with the Matthews family. But they were on the subject now, and he really had no reason to keep the information from her. “Yeah,” he replied. “Nicholas is actually the only other uncle we have left. He’s paralyzed from the waist down and living in Texas. He was a fire elemental, like me.”
Arianna turned a sympathetic, confused expression toward him as he’d spoken, and he wasn’t surprised by her responding questions. “Was? But shouldn’t he still have his power? What happened to the other two?”
“There was an accident,” Dean explained calmly. “He was in a car with his brother, Trevor, and they drove into a bad snow storm without warning. Trevor lost control of the car and the accident killed him. Nicholas survived, obviously, but Mom was never able to fully heal him. He doesn’t have enough heat left in him now to generate more than a spark.” He hesitated, took a deep breath, and added, “Our other uncle, Gregory, was struck and killed by lightning not long before the accident.”
“Oh, my god,” Arianna breathed, turning again and letting her head lean back. “You mean you’ve already lost relatives to these monsters, and Daniel still refuses to believe?”
“Pretty much,” Dean stated. “It all happened before Mom and Dad were even married, so Daniel was pretty well distanced by the time we came along. We’ve never been close, but I know it’s hard on Mom.”
“Of course it is,” Arianna said. She rolled her head to the side, facing him, and reached out to rest her hand over his nearest thigh. “I’m sorry for bringing up bad memories.”
Dean snorted and covered her hand with one of his, squeezing gently. “Ari,” he began, “considering all the crap you’ve been dealing with, I should be the one saying that.”
“You haven’t actually brought anything up, though,” she argued lightly, turning her hand in order to curl her fingers around his.
Reluctantly, Dean replied, “I can fix that.” He squeezed her hand again and continued, “Have you thought about where you’re gonna go? Your house isn’t exactly ready to move back into.”
Arianna groaned and flopped back into the seat, keeping her hand in his. “I hadn’t even given that a thought,” she admitted. “My car,” she said after barely a pause, “is my car ready yet?”
“Yeah,” Dean assured her. “I picked it up for you on Thursday. It’s at my apartment.” Allowing something of a grin to curve his lips, he teased, “And, for the record, I refuse to allow you to live out of your car.”
“Hilarious,” Arianna returned sarcastically. This time she was quiet for a second before asking, “What’s Georgia doing?”
“Staying with a friend, I think,” Dean said. “But I could be wrong.” Dragging his thumb along the back of her hand he added, “You can stay with me a while if you want, you know.” The words were strangely easy to say, despite that the idea of them was heavy. She had nowhere to go currently, and of course he would never let her be truly homeless. He even suspected that it was just assumed she’d be staying with him. But saying the words made the entire reality suddenly very real. And what scared him most was that he actually hoped she’d accept the offer.
“Are you … sure?” Arianna asked carefully, as if she could sense that this was a significant step to take.
He offered her a quick smile and replied, “I’m sure. But it’s up to you. If you’d rather arrange something else, I won’t take it personally.”
“As much as I appreciate that,” Arianna began softly, “I think, for now at least, there really isn’t anywhere I’d rather be.”
Her words danced through him, sliding under his skin, into his blood, and forcing out what remained of the chill that had plagued him since he’d left her at the airport the week before. He gave her hand another squeeze and replied, “That’s good to know.”
They drifted into a short, comfortable silence, and Dean found himself wandering down an unfamiliar path. This relationship he and Arianna had fallen into was unlike anything he’d experienced before, and all of it seemed to be for the better. He’d never been so immediately, undeniably drawn to a woman as he had been to her. He’d never so genuinely missed someone the way he’d missed her. Not even Lila, though he wasn’t sure he’d truly missed her at all. He suspected all he’d missed of her had been the illusion of their solid relationship. It was different with Arianna. Unexplainably, undeniably different.
“So,” Arianna began, dragging him out of his thoughts, “the big question. What’ve I missed?” It was clear, though she didn’t specify, that she was asking about their Matthews problem.
Immediately he flashed through his last encounter with Eric, the one that had nearly cost him his life. He hadn’t seen or heard a whisper of them since, which wasn’t sitting right with him at all. And he didn’t want to have to tell her about that confrontation, but he knew it would be stupid not to. She’d hear about it eventually. He couldn’t help but hope her reaction would be different than Angela’s.
“You’re an ass, Dean.”
Those were the last words Angela had said to him. She hadn’t spoken to him since. Not even through text message or email. He didn’t know how to make it better.
Releasing a heavy breath, Dean said, “The kid caught me with my guard down earlier in the week, and after he knocked me out, he apparently used my cell to call someone to rescue me. From what I’ve heard, none of us have seen or heard from them since.”
“He knocked you out?” Arianna repeated incredulously. She didn’t wait for a response, though, before sighing and declaring, “Whatever their stupid angle is, I’m glad they made sure someone found you. But how did he sneak up on you? Did he catch you at home or something?”
Cringing, Dean replied, “No. I was watching the sunset and not paying attention. And, yes, I know it was stupid to go out by myself.”
Arianna turned to look at him again. There was a note of cautious concern in her voice when she spoke. “Did something else happen? Your frustration doesn’t … sound right.”
Dean’s lips twitched as he slowed to accommodate the narrowed, windy road. “Doesn’t sound right, huh?”
“I’m serious, Dean,” she returned pointedly even as she released his hand, freeing him to better control the steering wheel for the more dangerous road. She shifted back in her seat, angled slightly sideways to watch him, and pushed, “What else happened?”
Fingers briefly drumming the wheel, Dean frowned at the windshield, but his actual response was interrupted by the unexpected, rapid-fire thunk-thunks of hail hitting the car. He simultaneously registered the sudden, drastic drop in temperature and instinctively slowed his speed. For a moment he was only confused, finding himself wondering how it was possible that it could be hailing—and hailing hard—on only one side of the bend in the road. He felt the car start to slide, and as he cursed and worked to keep them from swerving into the guardrail, the answer finally dawned on him. He knew exactly how it was possible.
“Dammit!” he cursed again as he managed to bring the car to a stop, only slightly sideways in the lane. They were sitting ducks if someone were to come plowing around the corner in the next few seconds, but he was more worried about their other problem. And there was no way in hell he or Arianna were going out like Trevor had. Ari…. “Are you okay?” He asked even as he turned to look over at her.
“Dean,” Arianna began, ignoring his actual question in favor of asking her own, “please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“Wish I could,” he said as he jerked the car into park and looked around.
“What are you doing? We can’t stop in the middle of the road!” Thunder crashed overhead, both echoing and drowning out her words. The sky lit up with lightning immediately after. Ominous and threatening.
“They’re gonna try to force us off the road,” Dean replied, reaching for the latch for his seatbelt. They’d been plunged into a lose-lose scenario and with ev
ery second that ticked by his anger kicked up another few notches. There was no way in hell he was going to risk Arianna getting hurt when he hadn’t even gotten her all the way home yet. “I’m gonna burn them out.”
“Dean,” Arianna called, her hand landing over his and keeping him from releasing the seatbelt. “This is what they want. They want to stick us here. If you go out there, they could strike you down, and in the meantime who’s to say another car won’t come around the corner and crash into us? We can’t be here!”
He hesitated, knowing she had a point. But he also knew if he continued driving there was no telling what their enemy would drop on them next.
“There’s probably a turnout up ahead,” Arianna continued, relaxing her grip of his hand slowly. “Let’s at least get to there before we get out of the car.” She paused, pulled back entirely in order to reach into a pocket, and added, “In fact, while you’re driving, I’ll call Blake and let him know we’re being attacked. That way someone will come looking for us.”
Wincing from the unintentional reminder of his previous argument with Angela, Dean relented and straightened in his seat. “All right, fine,” he grunted, throwing the car back into drive. It went against his every instinct not to go out there and confront the people who were threatening them, but what remained of his common sense knew Arianna was right. At the very least, he supposed, the tires would keep them grounded and help protect them from the lightning.
As if on cue, before Dean had fully straightened the car, a bolt of white lightning crashed into the ground mere inches from his door. He could feel trickles of the airborne electricity through the seams of the doorframe. “Dammit,” he growled under his breath.
Arianna released a breath, murmured “Thank you,” and put her phone to her ear. Nothing about the situation should have been at all comforting, but something about the tone in her voice in that moment soothed the raw edges of his flaring temper. So he focused on her voice as she continued speaking, this time into the phone, and let the sound of her words distract him a little from the danger around them. “Sorry, I know it’s early,” she said by way of greeting. “We’re on the interstate and someone just dropped a hailstorm on us. Seemed like a good idea to call for backup.”