First stop: the clothing shop. And a decision formed in my mind. Amy and Cat drifted through the aisles, hands patting the clothing hanging on the racks as they made little noises of satisfaction and curiosity and occasionally held up something suspended from a clothes hanger. I followed, trailed by the boys and doubtful that I had any need of any new clothing that I couldn’t also use on the farm.
Their arms filled with a variety of different tops, sweaters, and pants, Amy and Cat looked at me expectantly. “Come on, Jessie,” Amy said encouragingly. “Grab something and let’s go back and try stuff on.” She reached over to a rack and picked something out for me, holding it boldly up against my chest. “What size are you? Ten? Twelve?”
I took the top from her and turned it around to look at it a moment. Cute, but I was having a tough time getting excited about clothing. “It depends on the manufacturer.”
Pietr and Max tried to appear interested in the conversation, but I could see the glaze wash across their eyes as we talked clothing styles, sizes, and companies.
“Let’s go, girls,” Cat instructed, grabbing our hands and heading toward the store’s back. “We’ll have a little impromptu fashion show.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the boys and noticed the spark of interest lighting Max’s eyes.
“What do you think, Pietr?” I said, turning and waving the top in his direction. “Should I toss this on and hop out and show it to you?”
But no spark of interest popped in Pietr’s eyes, even though he nodded politely. “Sure, Jess. I’d love to see you in it.” Maybe it was depression. Healing as a simple human sucked.
I contained my sigh and turned to begin the long march back to the dressing rooms, bumping into Amy, who had stopped ahead of us. “What’s wrong?”
She glanced from her clothing, low cut and pretty things—things that reminded us that Amy was certainly female—and then looked at Max and swallowed hard. “I thought it was going to just be us girls,” she explained apologetically.
Max cleared his throat and jabbed Pietr in the ribs with his elbow. “Horashow—good,” he said, although I could tell he was lying, “Pietr and I will go over to the game shop and see what new shooter games there are. You girls find us there. Sound good?”
“New shooter games?” Like they didn’t have enough experience fighting bad guys regularly. But I saw the look of warning in Max’s face and knew what he was thinking. That as much as he would rather see Amy trying on clothes and having a good time, he would easily sacrifice his happiness for hers.
“Oh. Oh, sure.” I nodded. “You guys go on. We’ll catch up later.”
Max leaned forward and kissed Amy gently on the top of her forehead. It was such a gentlemanly thing for him to do, so unlike the rogue that Max was happy to play, it made my heart hurt just a little bit to see how we all had changed: some because of the cure, and some because of cruel circumstance and the actions of crueler people.
Amy just stood there and tried to smile at Max’s gentle show of affection, but I knew that even being given such a tender kiss was somehow killing her.
Pietr looked at me, nodded, noting the distance between us and the fact that Max and Amy also stood in that distance acting as two small walls, and merely said, “I guess we’ll see you in a little while.”
I wanted to scream.
The guys left and Cat grabbed Amy’s shoulders, turning her toward the dressing rooms and our goal of trying on new clothing to change our focus from the way everything seemed to be going. Amy smiled at Cat, trying to wipe away the underlying current of frustration that seemed to shadow her nearly everywhere as we all headed to the back of the store.
“Look,” Cat proclaimed, “three rooms all together as if they were waiting for us. Your room, madame?” she asked, giving Amy a gallant bow as she opened her dressing room door with a flourish.
The cashier, who also seemed to be relegated to tending the dressing rooms, just looked at us and sighed. No one got paid enough to do retail and deal with us—that’s what I was certain she was thinking.
Cat likewise opened a door for me, and I stepped inside, hanging up my single top on the hook that was still full of recently discarded tops and bras. The floor was strewn with discarded pants and the mirror had seen better days. Seriously? Was that a kiss mark in the upper corner?
Someone had evidently loved seeing themselves in something they’d tried on.…
Probably Jennie or Macy … I shivered at the thought as I began to tug my shirt up. And then I stopped. And just listened for a minute.
“Knock, knock,” Cat said, and I knew she was outside Amy’s dressing room door, being playful and encouraging. Just like Amy needed. Not like me, grumpy and frustrated. “Come on, come on,” Cat encouraged her.
Cat had become such a good friend to her … and I was selfishly falling into my own problems again—problems Pietr had seemed to help alleviate shortly after his arrival in Junction and now problems he seemed to exacerbate by still being in Junction, but not being so much the Pietr I’d fallen in love with.
The door squeaked open and I heard Cat oooh and ahhh and I felt even worse. “It looks so adorable on you,” she said. “Come on out here and give us a spin. Jessie,” she called, rapping on my door. “Jessie, come here and see this top. Amy makes it look spectacular.”
I stepped out of my dressing room and looked at Amy, standing before Cat, her mopiness slipping away temporarily as she did a little spin so that the hem of the shirt caught in the breeze she made and fluttered slightly. She smiled the smile of someone temporarily forgetting the horrors that had so recently happened. The way she had so recently been brutalized by someone she thought she’d loved.
It was a smile I had been hoping I could sometime inspire. But Cat had managed more frequently. And as grateful as I was that Amy was smiling, I felt guilty that I wasn’t the one who had helped my best friend get to that moment again.
“Doesn’t she look delightful?” Cat prompted.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You look great in that, Amy.”
But when she looked at me she must have realized there was something else going on behind my eyes and she blinked, the smile tumbling from her lips. “Are you okay?”
That only made me less okay. I shouldn’t have been the one bringing her down. I shouldn’t have been letting my problems add on to her problems. Yet there I stood in the back of the clothing store with two of my very best friends and I couldn’t be the friend Amy needed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “You do look wonderful. I just can’t … I just think I need to go and have a talk with Pietr.”
Amy nodded eagerly. “I agree. You two haven’t been the same since … Maybe a talk would help. Especially if it’s the type of talk you used to have before you two wound up at Homecoming together,” she said with a wink.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Those were some great talks.”
“Go,” Cat instructed. “Whatever is on your mind, you need to get it out. You have your cell phone, and we have our cell phones.… We’ll catch up.”
I nodded, took down the shirt hanging in my dressing room, the shirt I had yet to try on, and hung it up on the waiting rack of rejects.
Then I headed out of the store and down the hall on my way to the game shop, determined to have a long and important talk with Pietr about the fact that the guy I was dating now was far from the guy I had started dating just a little while ago. And that as normal and as gentlemanly and as polite as my current boyfriend was, I missed the less than perfect Pietr that I had become so quickly used to.
And with every step I took, I thought about the little things I missed. The way he touched my cheek with his too hot hands, the way he pressed his lips so eagerly to my own, the way he pushed his body tightly against mine and wrapped me in his arms so much like steel.… The hungry way he used to look at me, as if he were all wolf and I were merely a lamb. I wanted all of those things again and so much more.… I wanted his focus to be on me—so there
was no doubt in my mind that I was the most important thing in his world.
It sounded selfish in a way—to want to be the most important thing in anyone’s world, the center of anyone’s universe—but it was completely honest of me.
We needed to start all over.
With honesty.
So when I came up to the game shop and saw the two of them inside looking at all of the different video game options, I paused. I reconsidered my stance on everything. Because standing there, staring so intently at a video game Max had just handed him, was Pietr. Staring with the same intensity he used to turn on me.
It was partly the fact that the very same intensity still existed, and partly the fact that he no longer used it on me but saved it for games and studying for school that made me turn away from both of them and head out.
Out of the store, out of the mall, my cell phone to my ear, I called for a ride. They were fine without me. Sometimes even happier without me. And they certainly deserved a break from me.
So I slipped into a cab and had the cabbie drive me all the way home so I could sink back into what I did best and take some time for myself. Which gave them time for themselves. It seemed to be the least selfish thing I could possibly do.
We slipped through Junction and I let it breeze past me: the storefronts still decorated for the holidays, the snow making everything seem a little bit cleaner—all the little things that usually brought me joy meant very little to me that day. The cab’s radio hummed with the song “Sometimes Goodbye Is a Second Chance” and I thought that perhaps the break that the afternoon would give would allow us all to catch our breath and come back to a better and happier attitude when we saw one another at school the next day.
The cab pulled up at the bottom of my driveway, the cabbie eyeing the long, snow-covered mess speculatively. “Don’t sweat it,” I said, “I can walk.” I handed him the appropriate amount of cash—what I would’ve spent on lunch—and headed up the long driveway and straight to the stables. There was always some work to be done around the farm and at that moment I needed to immerse myself in work, to be with the horses and no one else.
I entered the barn door, slipping between hay bales and a stack of buckets. It was that period in winter when hay actually smelled like springtime. Like hope. In the barn the temperature difference was tremendous. I pulled off my hat, tucked my gloves in my pockets, and unzipped my jacket.
My hand reached for the pitchfork, but my mind flashed back to the time Derek and Pietr got into their epic rumble here, crashing into hay bales and rolling across the paddock outside. My head buzzed with warning, my scalp prickling like Derek was still somehow nearby. Part of him was, I knew—part of him lingered in my head.
Shivering, I pulled myself back to the present and decided no pitchfork. I grabbed the shovel instead.
Rio was the first to spot me and she let out a happy snort of recognition. The other horses likewise noticed me coming down the broad aisle, each responding in their own particular way, with a toss of their mane or a nod of their head or one stomp of their foot—trying to get my attention first.
But Rio always snared my attention immediately. When it seemed no one else was there for me, Rio had been my stalwart companion and friend. She listened to me complain and cry and scream and stomp more than anyone ever had and after each of my rages or depressions was over, she was there to nudge my shoulder or push her snout into my back and make me get up and move forward.
She was more than a horse, more than a pet—she was my best four-legged friend. I propped the shovel by the wall and picked up the brush hanging on a peg by her door.
“Hey, girl,” I said, opening her stall door and sliding inside to stand beside her, my hand on her cheek and drifting down her well-muscled neck to trace gently along her shoulder and back.
Brush in hand, I placed my left palm on her rib cage and stroked the soft-bristled brush along her chestnut coat, carefully following the way the hair grew and turned and created sleek and subtle patterns across her body.
“I just don’t know what to do,” I whispered. “He’s different. Changed.”
She pawed the floor, straw crackling beneath her hoof.
“I know. He was supposed to change—to not be this half-man, half-wolf that was dying as fast as he could live. I expected that change.…” I moved back to her head and focused on brushing out her mane. “I expected victory,” I confessed. “I never thought a single hard-won victory could still feel so much like defeat.”
She tugged away from me and I realized I was pulling a little too firmly on her mane.
“Sorry, Rio,” I said, carefully adjusting my grip and pressure. “I just had different expectations. I thought I’d get all the heat and the fire that was Pietr but without the danger of him being hunted because he was a wolf. I thought I’d have the passion but not the limitations. But it was a devil’s bargain. Maybe it was destiny that he could only be Pietr—this studious boy—or Pietr the quickly dying werewolf. Maybe you can’t have it all. Maybe some things can’t work both ways.”
I focused on separating one stubborn tangle, determined that today something would go right—something would go my way.
“The thing is, I told him I’d never let go. I promised I’d stick by him. And when I said that, I meant it. But it’s harder than I thought. He’s so very different, it’s like he’s not that Pietr I knew at all. Like he’s not the Pietr that I want.”
My cell phone buzzed, vibrating in my pocket and I pulled it out to see Pietr’s face and number on the screen.
Maybe he was calling because he was worried. Maybe he missed me and wanted to know what was going on.
Or maybe he’d just realized what day it was and wanted to remind me that our weekly D&D night was coming up.
It was my turn to bring the chips.
As much as I wanted to answer—as much as I wanted an answer—I couldn’t bring myself to actually accept the call. I couldn’t make myself hit the button. So I just turned off my phone and returned to brushing Rio.
It was as I stepped back out of her stall that I noticed a difference in all the horses’ demeanors. The barn was suddenly quiet, a strange stillness shrouding everything within. All the horses had turned their attention in one direction and it was then that I saw him standing there.
Gabriel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jessie
“Hey,” I said, as if it were totally normal to have someone suddenly show up in my barn unannounced and uninvited. Dammit. I should have picked up the phone. “Do you need help with something?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes, I think you can help me with something, Jessica,” he said, approaching the stall.
I thought about my options. I could go out Rio’s back door and wind up in the main paddock and pasture, or I could go forward and through the stall door and wind up nearly nose to nose with Gabriel.
“What can I help you with? If you’re looking to learn how to ride a horse, I can probably teach you, but I don’t do impromptu lessons.”
“Maybe if you come out here, we could talk about the scheduling,” he suggested.
“I’m capable of talking right where I am,” I said. There was definitely something wrong here. Gabriel was not looking to learn how to ride a horse. Gabriel was looking for something else, something that made my stomach churn and my feet still in the straw of the stall.
He’d sniffed me. He’d tracked me. I’d expected it, and yet, here I was, unprepared. Darwin would so define me as thoroughly selected against.
“So when’s a good time for you to come back and start lessons?” I needed to buy some time so I could figure out what weapons were at hand. I looked at the brush. Awesome. I could groom him to death.
Glad I spent time with Alexi keeping up with hand to hand, I was also very well aware as a werewolf, Gabriel had a great deal more power than I naturally came by or had even with training.
He stood at the stall’s door, his hand resting on the handle, hi
s face close to the bars. “Looks like you have a schedule out here, a calendar of some sort,” he said. “Let’s look at it together. I’d hate for us to come up with a time that you find out later just won’t work with what you already have on your schedule.”
“Very considerate of you.”
“I do my best.”
I tried to subtly reach into my jeans pocket and pull out my phone again, but Gabriel saw the move and yanked the door open, leaping into the stall.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he snarled, grabbing my wrist to pull me tight to him.
“Ow!” I cried in anger at myself as much as at him.
“I’d say I’m sorry, Jessica, but I’m not. You’re the means to an end for me. You’re the greatest gift I could give someone really, really important. The weird thing is, I don’t even know why you’re so valuable. I mean, I get that you’re somehow connected with curing werewolves. But none of us want the cure. We’re happy being who we are—that’s something most people can never say.” He paused, dragging me a foot forward. “And the fact you’re dating Pietr? I couldn’t care less. But I think you may still help me achieve my goals. And I’m very much into achieving my goals. So you’re going to come with me, like a good girl, and you’re going to do exactly what I tell you.”
“The hell I will!” I slammed my booted foot down on his instep and watched him pull back in pain as my elbow caught him in the gut.
He was barely winded.
I shoved away from him, past Rio, as she snorted and stomped, and I fell against the door leading out to the pasture. I pushed open the door, the rush of cold stinging my face. But he grabbed me by the waist and took me to the ground as Rio danced away, shrieking her distress and struggling not to step on me as I thrashed beneath him on the floor.
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