by Penny Alley
Pushing past her, he went to the fridge to see for himself what was missing. She’d cooked less than half of one steak, but after taking quiet stock of his fridge, he couldn’t blame her. Not only was shopping his least favorite household chore, but cooking for one person sucked and how was anyone supposed to know on Monday what they’d want to eat on Friday anyway? He couldn’t exactly be angry at Neoma for feeding her child or herself with what little he’d provided, even if those steaks had been meant as a special treat for someone else.
“A-are you hungry?” Fingers plucking at the hem of her shirt, Neoma hesitantly offered, “I could make you something.”
Gabe shut the fridge. He stared at the door, every muscle tense, the fine hairs on the back of his neck and down his arms prickling to rise, aching to be irritated. At what? The frail, skinny kid standing at his table, seemingly trying to make the best of this whole, rotten situation?
She’s scared… You didn’t see her face…
Well, he saw it now. He didn’t want to, but he did. And it ate at him that instead of the Scullamy who had robbed him of his happily ever after, all he could see when he looked at Neoma was a victim he’d have broken his back to help under any other circumstance. Not that spy or the long-time blood enemy, but the young woman who had thrown herself under the enemy to escape…what? Deacon? Wayman? An assigned mate-match so abhorrent to her that literally anybody else was preferable to what awaited her back home.
He couldn’t bear it. The wound of what he’d lost was too fresh, too raw, and to throw guilt in on top of it… He had to get out of here, before he pitied her more than he already did. Or worse, forgave her.
“It won’t take long,” Neoma offered, her blue eyes so guarded and only growing more so when he threw up a silencing hand. She flinched back, her mouth snapping shut and her hands flashing back to shield her watching son—the true innocent in all of this.
Gabe patted the air between them and she flinched back even more, almost pushing the boy into the table. He was really watching now, dull amber coming into his eyes as protective ire roused the volka within. Gabe almost laughed at that. That was all he needed, to be seen leaving the house with a pup gnawing angrily at his heels.
“I can’t do this,” he told her, brutal honesty making his voice harsher than he intended, steely self-control making them nowhere near as hard as he wanted them to be. “I can’t be here right now. I can’t look at you. I can’t talk to you. Eventually, I know I’m going to have to find a way to get along with you, but right now…” He shook his head. “Right now, I just can’t.”
Neoma knocked her chair over in her haste to get out of his way when Gabe walked out of the kitchen. Halfway across the living room, however, he turned back. She remained where he’d left her, standing over that fallen chair, her breasts rising and falling with the shallow rapidity of her breathing. Her eyes were huge, locked on him, perhaps a little sad. He wasn’t sure about that. When he looked at her, her expression slammed against him as hard as any physical door. Damn, if that didn’t make her seem younger, paler, even more vulnerable than before.
“This is my house,” he told her, soft as thunder in the smothering quiet that had fallen over then. “If you’re going to live here, fine. But I want my yard clean, my house clean, and the next time your Alpha’s Bride decides to pay you a visit, you will be polite, you will open the door, and you will invite her in. Is that clear?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. She was a mouse; she’d do what he told her to, and he was an ass for thinking that and he felt every inch of one all the way back to his jeep. He held on to his temper, waiting until he was behind the wheel and the door slammed shut before venting it out in a long string of curses, every vicious word of which was hissed under his breath in case little volka ears were listening.
Gabe took a breath, and then another one. Drained, he sat there, heading resting on the back of his seat, staring aimlessly at the hardtop roof. Sighing, he scrubbed his hands through his short, dark hair. He started the vehicle.
Casey’s wasn’t the best bar in the state, but it was the closest, located ten miles out of town, midway between Hollow Hills and Grady. The décor ranked somewhere between biker bar, porn shop and taxidermy, the owner being an avid dabbler in all three. The glasses weren’t the cleanest and the food wasn’t the best. Unless one ordered the carnitas, in which case it was melt-in-your-mouth fantastic. Once or twice a month, Gabe made the drive up that winding mountain road for a beer and carnitas chaser, and about an hour of whatever in-season sport was blaring on the TV above the bar. Gabe had never been the sort to drown his troubles, but on this night, when all he wanted was to get so mind-numbingly drunk that he couldn’t see straight much less remember all he’d lost today, Casey’s was the first place that popped into his head.
And yet, when he turned out of his driveway and rumbled past work, turning onto the highway that bisected the small town of Hollow Hills, it wasn’t toward Casey’s that he found himself heading. He gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled hands that he couldn’t for the life of him relax and especially not after he made the turn onto Old Bueller Road.
This was the kind of bad idea most men made after they were drunk. The jeep bumped and bounced up that old dirt road, rounding each curve, unable to believe he was about to drive right up to the McQueens’s front porch. And do what, demand to talk to her? The Hunt was over. Maya had made her choice. She was Seth’s Bride and there wasn’t one damn thing he could do to change that. Acting like a creepy, stalker ex-boyfriend would only invite the wanna-be alpha and his brothers to pepper his tailgate with as much buckshot as they could lock and load.
This was crazy.
Just shy of the Dog Woods, an old and weathered sign that had more bullet holes than wood-grain, his feet suddenly rebelled. Stomping the brake, he stopped the jeep. For the longest time, he just sat there, idling, surrounded on all sides of the road by a thick curtain of trees.
Why hadn’t Maya come to him when he’d beckoned her? Why had she submitted to Seth? Gabe would have fought for her and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he’d have won. Didn’t she know that?
She had to have known, and yet she’d still accepted the McQueen’s Claiming. Not because she was actively choosing Seth. No, it could have been anyone on top of her. Instead, Maya had actively chosen not to accept Gabe. That was what was killing him. Sitting here, staring out the front windshield, all Gabe could think about was every time in these last few weeks that she’d deflected talking about starting their life together after the Hunt. Or in the last few months, each time she’d shied from a touch grown too intimate or turned her lips at the last second so that all he kissed was her cheek. She’d always smiled and he’d always assumed her reluctance due to crossing marital boundaries with a man who might not be strong enough to catch her.
If not for Neoma, he would have been. If not for her, he could have sat down with Maya and talked out her misgivings, whatever they might be.
He shouldn’t be here. Dropping his head on the back of the seat, Gabe rubbed his face. This wasn’t healthy. He could spend the rest of his life trying to puzzle through the whats and whys of Maya’s actions, but it wouldn’t change anything. She was as good as gone to him. At least she wouldn’t be leaving Hollow Hills. He might not have her, but at least he could still see her in passing whenever they met in town. God, what was he going to do when he saw her with children? Seth’s children with her darker skin and jet-black hair, and brown, brown eyes that crinkled in the corners the way their mother’s did when she laughed.
The pain cut through his gut with all the precision of a surgical blade. Then fate saw fit to give it a twist.
The slow grind of tires coming up on his tail gave Gabe a half second’s warning right before the car creeping up behind him pulled around to pass. Maya was in the front passenger seat, Seth was driving and the back of his four-door station wagon was filled to overflowing with boxes. Maya covered her eyes when
she saw him, and Gabe had no excuse, no reason for being where he was except exactly what he was doing: trying to get close to her. He knew it. She knew it too, and so did Seth and his brothers, each of whom drove slowly past him in a caravan of beat up trucks, loaded to the brim with all of Maya’s things.
The last truck to pass, Sebastian stopped in the road beside Gabe. Almost rolling his eyes, the alpha of the McQueens glared at Gabe.
“Yeah, yeah. Go to hell.” Annoyed, Gabe shifted into reverse just as Sebastian began to lower the passenger window. He romped the gas, backing up and cranking the wheel hard. The narrowness of the road ended with the forest and the entire back end of his jeep vanished into snapping and scraping branches before he got horizontal enough to turn all the way around.
He left Sebastian McQueen choking on his dust as he barreled back down Old Bueller toward town. His hands gripped the steering wheel, wringing the unyielding plastic grip, choking it with his fingers until it hurt. Hitting it hurt even more. Shaking it merely ran the risk of breaking his steering column.
Expended, feeling nothing now but foolish, Gabe sighed.
Damn it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two beers, a hot plate of spicy carnitas and chips, and seven televised hours of football later, Casey’s Bar gave up on the evening. It was two in the morning, and as the saying so often went, Gabe didn’t have to go home, but he couldn’t hide in the back corner booth forever. Once he was back in his jeep, home was the only place he had to go. He couldn’t avoid it forever and, the excellence of carnitas notwithstanding, tonight had been an eye-opening realization that he didn’t enjoy beer or football enough to want to spend the rest of his life haunting bars.
The front porch light had been left on for him. Knowing who had done that should have robbed the act of its welcoming glow, but for some reason it left Gabe feeling that much more bereft. He wished he could fold himself in all that anger he’d felt earlier, build a nice fat cocoon out of it and swaddle himself in the sheltering folds, but he couldn’t. Somewhere between the carnitas, the beer and the football, all that raw, wounded fury had abandoned him. As bitter a pill as Maya’s loss was to swallow, harder still was the realization that he simply was not made for holding grudges. Or maybe it was this grudge, in particular. He wasn’t having any trouble at all staying pissed at Wayman. Every time he thought of that roadkill-sniffing Scruffer springing at his back, it became all he could do not to hunt Wayman out in the bowels of the office basement, drag him out of bed, and mop the cell with him. When he thought of Neoma, however, all of that angry emotion failed him. Marcus had been right, and it galled Gabe to have to admit it, even if only to himself. He was already regretting what he’d said and done up on the Ridge—lobbing rocks to stop her from following him? The shame ate at him—and it had only been one day! How was he going to survive a lifetime with Neoma if he couldn’t hold onto his hatred of her for one day?
Pulling into the driveway, Gabe glanced at Colton’s cabin long enough to see his Alpha’s truck wasn’t there. He’d spent all week at Karly’s cabin; why should tonight be any different? Gabe tried to resent him for it, but he wasn’t built for that, either. At least one of them had gotten the Bride he’d wanted.
Gabe got out of the jeep as quietly as he could and sat on the porch to remove his boots. Chances were good both mother and son were sound asleep. If he could help it, he wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t think he could take another confrontation tonight. Not when all he wanted was to fall face-first into bed and let sleep do what the alcohol hadn’t—help him forget. Leaving his boots by the welcome mat, he unlocked his door, but all attempts at a silent entry were shattered when opening knocked the bottom of the door into a small tower of mixed vegetables stacked up just inside. She must have used every tin can from his pantry and the racket it made as they bounced and scattered would have awakened the neighbor, if only he were at home.
Scotty barely twitched an ear, which surprised Gabe, although nowhere near as much as the speed with which Neoma came up off the couch on which they were sleeping. She was on her feet faster than Gabe could react, the amber glow of volka aggression lighting up her eyes. She didn’t growl. She didn’t make any sound at all, but in that startled half second before he slapped the light switch on, bathing them both in the brilliance of 23 watts of target-enhancing compact fluorescents, Gabe knew had it been anyone but him coming through this door, the skinny, scrawny, frightened mouse of a kid that she was would have attacked.
Except in this light, at this hour, with two beers under his belt and none of his early anger driving him, she was looking less and less child-like. Neither she nor Scotty had removed their clothes to sleep, not even their shoes. She looked rumpled, her long blonde hair mussed, the gentle waves becoming a lion’s mane of tangles all around her face and shoulders, and her baggy clothes hanging on her in wrinkles. And yet, for all her frumpiness and the belying youth of her face, here and there Gabe thought he caught tantalizing glimpses of adult-aged femininity—in the tuck of her waist, the curve of her hips, the thrust of her small breasts peaking against the cotton of a t-shirt that, like her, was worn a little too thin. Her nipples were pebbled. Arousal could do that, but then so could cold. So could fear, for that matter, and of those options, he was more inclined to believe the perkiness with which she greeted him now to be absolutely the result of the latter.
Gabe waited until he was sure she’d recognized him before stepping over the threshold and the fallen cans, coming out of the shadows of the porch and into the full light of his living room. He didn’t know if it was a trick of the night, or the way she’d come awake, or the stress of the day, but those bruise-like circles under her wary eyes seemed darker than before. Her whole body shuddered under the fight-or-flight strain of his nearness, but with a flash of throat, she backed down. The amber glint of challenge was slower to fade from her eyes, but by the time he’d shut and locked the door again, she’d masked it, leaving only the pale-blue wariness with which she now watched him.
“Expecting someone?” he asked as he bent to pick up the scattered cans. She didn’t answer, but then, he really hadn’t expected her to. This was his town and his house, and he was the Alpha’s first lieutenant. No one would dare hurt her here. At least, no one from Hollow Hills. Pausing, his arms laden with cans, Gabe looked at her again.
Having waited until his attention was diverted, she’d backed up to the couch and now stood defensively positioned between him and her son. Her face was void of expression, as if daring him to notice she’d moved at all. She wasn’t trembling, but he could smell her fear in the subtle acidity of the sweat of her palms as she rubbed them against her jean-clad thighs. Lowering his eyes, Gabe circled both her and the coffee table, and took the food back to the kitchen.
She’d cleaned it. That was the first thing he noticed when he turned on the light. The table was cleared and the dishes washed, dried and put away (including the coffee cup he’d left in the sink earlier that morning). Swept and mopped, the floor shone. So did the stove. So did the fridge for that matter. She’d scrubbed everything, as if trying to remove all evidence that she’d ever set foot past his couch.
Except for that half eaten steak, of course. She couldn’t remove her evidence of that.
Replacing the canned vegetables in the pantry, he opened the fridge next. He had no idea why he felt so driven to look at it. Maybe because in the very back of his mind he couldn’t help wondering if she was so committed to erasing herself out of the house that she’d replace what she’d taken, but what he found instead appalled him.
She’d returned the uneaten portions of the meat she’d cooked, both for herself and her son. By the look of it, she must have done so immediately after he’d left the house that afternoon. The green beans, too. She’d found a spare Tupperware dish and placed them on the top shelf by the strawberries. Because of him, they’d stopped eating. Because he’d snapped at her, there was a child sleeping on his couch, with his face pressed up
against the back and a belly that might well be empty.
A shadow of movement caught the corner of his eye. Neoma didn’t come into the kitchen, but hovered in the doorway ready to bolt if he snapped at her again. “I’m very sorry.”
He could almost believe her too, and that was the problem. Her timid posture; those guarded eyes—she looked so damned sincere. Gabe didn’t want her to be sorry. If she was sorry, then that meant in some way she might really be as innocent as he was starting to believe she was. He wanted so badly for that not to be the case.
“I guess we’re all sorry for something,” Gabe said and shut the fridge door. When he edged past her in the doorway, Neoma got out of his way, but he saw it in her face when she suddenly realized she was no longer between him and the pup sleeping soundly on his couch. He stopped, motioning for her to proceed him. “Go on.”
Startled gratitude flashed through the blue of her eyes. Her eyes bothered him. Not just that eerie Scullamy blue so reminiscent of Deacon’s, or that sunken ill-fed quality, or even the gratitude itself, but…something he couldn’t quite put his finger on made it difficult to hold her stare. And then, just as quickly as he’d glimpsed it, that look was gone and Neoma was slipping past him, slinking almost, as if he were waiting to smack at her with a rolled up newspaper. That image bothered him too. It should have made him happy. He couldn’t understand why it didn’t.
Careful to keep a wide berth between himself and the couch, Gabe walked down the short hallway to his bedroom. He shut the door, but then just stood there, looking at his empty bedroom. The bed was as he’d left it that morning—neatly made with the covers turned down and bright red rose petals sprinkled like blood drops across the white linen sheets. As eager as he’d been to share his bed with Maya, the thought of lying here next to Neoma, every night for the rest of his life… It turned his stomach. And it wouldn’t just be her, either. It would be Scotty—that small, tow-headed boy with the all-too serious face, lying on the mattress between them the way he was right now crashed out in his living room.