The Wolf in the Mansion [A Siren Adult Fable]

by Gracie C. McKeever

  Deja smiled and nodded.

  "Why can I remember that and my name but not what happened to me earlier?"

  "I'm not a doctor, so I can't tell you with any degree of certainty."

  And yet he trusted her with more certainty than he would any doctor.

  Why was that? Did he not trust doctors in general? Had one hurt him? Or did he just know they couldn't do anything to help him that his own superior healing abilities couldn't do for him?

  Deja sat down and patted the space to her right on the mattress, waiting for him to take the seat beside her. “The brain is vast, mysterious terrain, even to the experts, I'm sure. They know more about it than they did a century ago, but they're learning more and more about it every day. And me, I'm certainly no expert."

  "I think you're more of an expert on me than you realize."

  "Oh please,” she sputtered, trying to wave off his conviction. “Anyway, my own advice to you is not to force your memories. They'll come. Some of them already are coming back."

  Yes, the ones pertaining to you. “What if all of them don't?"

  "In answer to your previous question, what I saw was a naked man clinging to a rock on the lake and barely alive."

  He wondered if he'd be better able to follow the thread of their discussion and Deja's thought processes if he hadn't been conked on the head earlier. “What else?'

  "That's it."

  "There has to be more than that."

  Bullet wounds.

  He received the thought only as a fragment, like she hadn't meant it to slip out. “I had bullet wounds?"

  "You were bleeding when I found you and I'm not sure from what. I just assumed bullet wounds since I'd heard shots a little before finding you."

  He'd been shot, yet was completely healed and showed no evidence of it. “Did you see a wolf?"

  "I heard what I assumed was one but it could just as easily have been a coyote."

  "I doubt it,” he mumbled and wondered why her mentioning the possibility of a coyote wounded his pride.

  She stood from the bed and glanced down at him. “Are you hungry?"

  Not for food.

  He almost said it out loud, if only to see her gray eyes widen with understanding, except she might have heard him already.

  Lincoln peered at Deja as she silently headed towards the kitchen. He thought he was in the clear until she stopped and glanced over her shoulder with a wicked grin lighting her face.

  "Food will have to do for now."

  * * * *

  "Where's my father?"

  It was the one question she had never thought she'd hear, had thought her love, her devotion—unlike her own mother's lack thereof—was enough to sustain Shawn. But when she looked back into the brown eyes of her son, his father's eyes, she knew that her mother was right, she would never be enough.

  Deja guessed she was lucky his question hadn't come sooner. Shawn was, after all, a curious and intelligent child. That he'd waited this long had been a blessing ... and a curse.

  She couldn't remember how she had gotten him off to school without giving him a concrete answer, but she had, the guilt of what she had deprived him of eleven years ago and now following her all the way to work and out to lunch later that afternoon where Lincoln found her sitting on a park bench across from the office.

  More than the powerful sexy sight of him standing tall beside the bench in his expensive corporate gear was the vibe of sadness and loss that flowed from him. Here was a kindred spirit, here was another soul crying out. Here was someone in as much, if not more, pain than her.

  She knew about his wife, Dahlia, who had died in a car accident a year before. At least she knew what she had heard in the halls and at the water cooler, most of it probably embellished and warped but information she hungered for and fed on nonetheless.

  None of what she had heard about ‘the grieving widower,’ however, matched the strong and detached man she encountered. If she weren't a sensitive, she never would have picked up on his sorrow and pain, knew from the psychic wall he erected around himself that he went out of his way to make sure no one knew what he was feeling.

  But none of this stopped Lincoln from making a beeline to sit beside her on the bench.

  Deja didn't know she had tears in her eyes until he pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and handed it to her.

  "I would say it can't be that bad but I'd be lying and we both know better."

  She sniffled, patting her eyes with the handkerchief. “Yes, we do.” She put the material just under her nose to sample the spicy scent of his cologne and natural musk, knew it would stay with her long after the day was over. Reluctantly, she motioned to hand it back to him, but he waved her off, as if knowing she needed and wanted a piece of him to keep her strong.

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  She felt his guard go up as he asked, like he wanted to make sure he didn't share any of himself while she was sharing herself. He was at least as gifted as her, able to send and receive thoughts at will. She wondered about the dead wife, whether she had been as gifted and if not, had that been her attraction to him, that she was ‘normal'?

  She turned to see him staring at her, the concerned look in his eyes making her feel ten times worse that she was making such a big deal about her problems with her son when he had lost his wife. No one in her life had died, after all. “It's nothing I can't handle."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Do you have any children?” She almost immediately regretted the question when she saw his expression of anguish. Almost regretted, except that she felt his walls slipping and was able to get closer to him, touch his memories and spirit.

  His eyes widened, just briefly, as he felt her brush against his consciousness and he reached out to catch and hold her hands. “You know I don't, don't you?"

  "It wasn't either of your faults."

  "I know.” The grin he gave her was one of resignation. He knew she was reading him and had decided to let her as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do, as if she was normal. “We'd always planned to, but we just never got around to having any. We thought we had all the time in the world."

  "You're young. You still have time."

  He just stared at her.

  "There's someone else out there for you.” I could be that someone else. She was that close to saying it out loud but realized she didn't need to when she saw the look on his face. He'd caught her thought and didn't seem appalled by it.

  Did the possibility of them appeal to him as much as it did to her?

  He squeezed her hands before releasing them to catch her by the shoulders. “Just tell Shawn the truth. He can't fault you for that."

  "Do you know what the truth is?"

  "There's someone else out there for you, too."

  No one she trusted as much as she trusted Lincoln McCabe.

  He smiled as if hearing her and the fact that she knew he had didn't embarrass her because she did trust him.

  He stood to leave but not before leaning down to brush her hair away from her face and kiss her forehead.

  She closed her eyes, felt him raising his wall again, but not before she reached in to caress his soul where she knew he was most wanting and vulnerable.

  You're not alone.

  He shuddered and gasped, pulled back to glance at her one last time. “Neither are you."

  * * * *

  Deja woke to a gorgeous morning dawning outside the cabin windows and the even more gorgeous sight of Lincoln McCabe emerging from the steamy bathroom with a towel slung low on his lean hips, looking like an erotic fantasy come to life. It was enough to make up for her restless night.

  She stretched and licked her lips as he made his way over to her bed.

  They'd split the king into two single beds last night and gone to bed after having a simple meal of soup and sandwiches.

  Deja had justified the split telling herself she wouldn't have been able to sleep without some sort of separ
ation. Not that she had gotten much sleep last night for wallowing in their past liaison and wondering about the best way to make a pass at the man without seeming like the desperate, horny woman she was trying so hard not to be. Counting sheep just didn't cut it when you had a wolf in sexy man's clothing tossing and turning not ten feet away.

  "How did you sleep?” he asked as he paused at her bedside.

  Deja gaped at the water glistening on his bronzed skin, wanted to slurp up every drop from his muscled chest and follow the light, happy trail of hair arrowing down from between his pecs to his bellybutton and beyond. She wanted what was slowly burgeoning beyond, beneath that white towel contrasting so nicely against his tanned skin. “Huh?"

  "Did you sleep well?"

  "Well enough.” She threw back the covers and got out of bed thinking that she should be asking after him how he'd slept, not the other way around. He was the one with the baffling head wound. “I see you got an early start.” She glanced back at him as she headed towards the kitchen and the scent of brewing coffee and tea.

  Had he felt her dreams and gotten up so early to get away from them and her? Did how close they'd once been embarrass him? Scare him?

  "I would have started breakfast too, but you don't have much in the way of food."

  "I know and in addition to getting you some clothes, I'm going to remedy the food situation this morning when I go into town."

  "You have a thing about getting me into clothes, don't you?"

  "Surely you don't intend to walk around in a towel your entire time here, do you?"

  "I suppose not."

  "Good, we're on the same page then."

  If she didn't get him covered up soon she was going to spontaneously combust from the desire sizzling through her body.

  "Speaking of your time here, we need to start figuring out what happened to you and how best to get you home where you belong."

  "How do we do that?"

  "I could call your brother and—"

  "Cyril? No! No way."

  Deja gawked, heart tightening at the conflicting emotions gleaming out of Lincoln's eyes.

  Were more of his memories coming back? Why didn't he want Cyril to know what had happened to him? Did Cyril have something to do with Lincoln's injuries?

  Strangely, the latter idea wasn't too unlikely to consider and that scared her.

  "What about my parents?"

  Deja frowned, hated to be the one to tell him that, on top of everything that had happened last night, his parents were gone, but she had no other recourse. “Your parents are, uh ... your parents are dead."

  "Dead?"

  "They were killed in a plane crash when you were in your early twenties. They left the business to you and your brother.” Besides not wanting to appear like a voyeuristic rumormonger, she felt weird quoting pieces of Lincoln's own biography to him.

  To her knowledge, Lincoln was the company's creative and financial genius, had been all but running the company since before his parents’ deaths. The will had just made everything official, leaving controlling shares of McCabe Associates to their youngest son. At least this was the story spreading through the office grapevine when Deja started at the company.

  The things she'd heard about Cyril had been a little less flattering, mainly painting the older McCabe as a globetrotting, skirt-chasing playboy, hell-bent on spending his family's fortune as quickly as they could make it. Until shortly before he'd hired Deja, he'd barely had anything to do with the company, outside of using its money for his personal pleasure.

  But was all this a reason to think him capable of murder?

  "Lincoln, I'm ... I'm sorry.” Deja reached up to put a hand on Lincoln's shoulder and squeezed. His skin was still moist and warm from his shower and she just wanted to bury her face against his chest and saturate her senses with the fresh, masculine scent of him rather than deliver meaningless platitudes.

  "Why? You didn't kill them."

  "I'm just sorry you lost them. I know what it's like to lose someone you care about."

  "I can't even remember whether I cared about them or not."

  "I'm sure you did.” She rubbed his back, then squeezed his shoulder again, didn't even realize she was doing it until he glanced down at her and grinned. “What?"

  "Do I bring out the mother in you?"

  She snatched back her hand and chuckled. “The mother, the cheerleader...” The hot and bothered nymphomaniac.

  Tempting fate, Deja took Lincoln by the hand and led him to the kitchen table. “Let's put a little something in our systems, then we'll work from there."

  "Sounds like a plan to me."

  * * * *

  Lincoln couldn't explain why he'd reacted so strongly against the idea of Cyril knowing he'd been injured. He especially couldn't understand why he didn't want his own brother to know about his amnesia. Somehow, he thought the man might use it against him. In what way, he wasn't yet sure, but he thought it might have something to do with Cyril's jealousy of him and their family company.

  He wasn't sure how he knew there was enmity between him and his brother, but he did, could feel it like another living, breathing entity between them.

  Jealousy and hatred like that wasn't something he could forget, and Lincoln wasn't surprised that of all his memories of the past, these impressions of his brother stayed crisp and clear.

  The animosity had been there for as far back as Lincoln could remember if his dreams last night were any indication.

  What had he ever done to Cyril to bring on such ill will except be?

  He paused from his pacing in the middle of the cabin's living room, the impact of his parents’ deaths suddenly hitting him as if he had just lost them yesterday instead of more than a decade ago and in a way he had just lost them. The moment Deja told him they were dead, he'd felt an instant emptiness in his chest as if someone had ripped out his heart. He could only imagine how he had reacted at their actual death.

  Lincoln swallowed hard, closed his eyes tight as if this could bring the memory of them, their faces, back to him. He didn't know whether he felt so lousy because he couldn't remember two of the most important people in the world to him, or because he couldn't remember much of anything about his life before last night.

  Lincoln opened his eyes to take in the room, tried to find comfort in the homey feel of the quaint accessories, finding it in the ephemeral warmth of Deja's presence, her scent and spirit pervading every nook and cranny of the cabin. It soothed him even when he felt totally alone in the world, a man without family, memories or a home, a man without everything but his fear and mistrust.

  Again he wondered about Cyril. What sort of relationship did he and his brother have?

  He could just picture the man, a few years older, a slightly taller version of himself, but it was the memory of the eyes that captured him—intense and cold. Was Cyril like this in all aspects of his life? Or was he cold only in business? Had he been as intense when he pumped two bullets into Lincoln?

  Lincoln violently shook his head before putting his face in his hands. After a long moment, he raked both hands through his black hair to his nape as if to wipe away the unendurable thoughts.

  He paced some more before mental exhaustion soon overtook him and he walked across the room to sit in the cushioned pine lounge chair. He peeked outside the clear glass doors, longing to be outside, tempted to go out on the porch before he remembered Deja's warning about him being seen by any of the lodge's staff and her having to explain his presence.

  Lincoln didn't want to bring unnecessary attention to Deja or tarnish her reputation, but just as important, he didn't want to put his current refuge in jeopardy. He wouldn't, no matter how much he wanted to, shed the towel and run through the woods in his wolf form, free of the human angst and sibling rivalry he sensed permeated his life.

  The lodge staff was already on the lookout for a wolf in the area and probably wouldn't hesitate to try to capture him, if not shoot him on sight.

&n
bsp; Was that what happened to him last night? Had he been out enjoying the freedom of his animal shape before he took a wrong turn and encountered a frightened or trigger-happy human?

  There he was, denying the truth again, giving his brother the benefit of the doubt when he knew Cyril was responsible for his injuries.

  All this thinking and wondering was getting him nothing fast, except for a gigantic headache that could only be making the amnesia worse. He needed to stop forcing things, do what Deja had so wisely suggested and be patient.

  Though he wasn't sure about much surrounding his past existence, he sensed he wasn't a patient man by nature and knew he was eager for Deja's return for more than just the food and clothes she would be bringing back.

  Lincoln wanted answers, especially the answers he knew Deja could help him get. He wanted all this as much as he wanted Deja.

  Something in him craved her, knew his destiny was linked to hers somehow, and linked in a way he hadn't been linked with her before his injury.

  Had the injury intensified their link? Was what happened to him last night his chance at redemption, an opening to correct his past mistake with Deja? He'd walked away from her when it had been the last thing in the world he'd wanted to do. He'd needed to do it, but he'd never wanted to.

  He told himself he was wiser and older, that Deja could give him a second chance even if he didn't deserve it.

  Lincoln's heart and cock throbbed in unison minutes before a car pulled up out front.

  Deja was here. His answers were coming.

  Chapter 4

  Deja paused on the front porch and took a deep breath, not quite ready to face Lincoln with what she had found out in town. She was not quite ready to look into those exotic, almond-shaped blue eyes and tell him how his brother was trying to discredit him since he'd been ‘missing'.

  From their first meeting, Deja had known Cyril was a selfish opportunist only in the business for what he could get out of it, not for what he could contribute. But she didn't think he was anywhere near this cutthroat and ruthless. Maybe he had shot his brother.