by C. C. Hunter
“Fine, but you’ll regret this,” he snapped, his threat clear in his tone.
She looked at his bright eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Holiday and Burnett trust me. If I go to them with problems about someone, don’t you think they’ll listen?”
She immediately understood what he was saying. “What problems? I haven’t done anything!”
“But who do you think they’d trust more, me or one of their freeloading students?” he said. “So why don’t you just come back with me?”
“Why don’t you go to hell! I’m pretty sure there’s a special spot for you there.” She didn’t know what made her angrier: the blackmail threat, or his freeloading comment. Because damn him, she wasn’t freeloading. She’d already spoken to Holiday about paying her back.
She swung around and left Cary.
She walked over to Brandon who stood watching them, concern tightening his expression. Aware her eyes were probably a pissed-off orange, she glanced away, keeping her eyes away from his gaze. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears and she recognized the emotions making it race. And it wasn’t just anger.
Fear.
If I go to them with problems about someone, don’t you think they’ll listen? As much as she wished it wasn’t so, Cary was right. Holiday and Burnett would believe Cary over her. How could they not? She was, after all, the daughter of a rogue.
“Let’s go,” she said, glancing down and busying her hands by putting on the helmet.
Brandon hesitated one second. “Fine, but it’s another thing I’m going to need an explanation about.” He crawled onto the bike and she crawled on behind him.
She wrapped her arms around Brandon and leaned in. “Cary Cannon is an asshole. How’s that for an explanation?”
“I figured that out all by myself,” Brandon said, as he started the motor and drove off.
She felt Cary’s glare on them all the way out of the parking lot.
* * *
Fredericka held on tight during the ride. When he pulled up in front of the gallery, another car was parked in front.
“Damn it. We’ve got company,” Brandon muttered. A frown sounded in his voice, and she felt his muscles tense beneath her hands. She wasn’t sure if he was annoyed because he’d have to delay their conversation or because he didn’t like the person waiting in the silver Saturn parked in front of the mailbox.
Or maybe both.
However, for Fredericka it gave her just a few more minutes to decide how to answer Brandon’s questions about Cary.
The garage door opened and Brandon pulled in.
“I’ll be right back.” He took his helmet off. His bandana stayed in place. “If you don’t mind, go on in and I’ll be in shortly.” He frowned. “It’s an old boyfriend of my sister’s.”
“Sure.” She watched him walk out, but couldn’t help wondering why his sister didn’t take care of her own boyfriend issues. Or maybe that was just what brothers were for. She wouldn’t know, never having had one.
Having already gotten caught eavesdropping, she escaped into the house. Her first step inside made her realize again how pretty the yellows and reds made the kitchen. But as warm as the colors were, the room was cold.
She walked into what would be the gallery part of the house. An odd quietness seemed to echo within the rooms. She realized what it was, or wasn’t. Her gaze moved to the wind chimes. Dead still.
Pulling her coat tighter, her mind focused on how she was going to explain Cary’s possessive attitude, she moved to the window facing the backyard. Her breath caught when she saw the new piece of art that Brandon was working on.
It wasn’t finished, only about half of the large piece of wood was carved. But there was no mistaking what it was.
A wolf.
Chapter Eight
“Damn it’s cold in here.”
Fredericka nearly jumped when she heard Brandon. She’d been so shocked at his wolf sculpture that she hadn’t even heard him walk inside.
“You’re carving a wolf?” She turned.
“Yeah,” he said and she noted he was looking right at her, no longer hiding the scars. But the bandana still hid his forehead.
“Why?”
He shrugged and moved to stand beside her. “I’ve had a fascination with them. Got it from my grandmother.”
Inhaling again, she checked to see if there wasn’t a hint of were in his scent.
It was there, wasn’t it? Or was she just hoping?
“Why did she like them?” she asked, feeling his warmth from his shoulder beside her. Warmth like a were? It had to be were, didn’t it?
“She was an odd duck.” He stared out the window. “You going to tell me about this teacher?”
She closed her eyes and all of a sudden she decided to go with the truth. She glanced at Brandon. “I used to like him. We never … I mean…” She glanced back out the window. “Because he’s my teacher we decided to wait until I graduated to let our feelings go anywhere. But … I recently realized that he and I aren’t really a good match.”
“You mean with him being an asshole?” he asked.
She grinned, and looked up at him again. His eyes were so blue she wanted to just lose herself in there. And it wasn’t until now that she realized how tall Brandon was. He stood a good six inches over her five-eight frame.
Very few guys made her feel feminine. And yet somehow he managed to do it.
“Yeah.” Then she recalled Cary’s threat and her smile faded.
“What are you going to do?” He lifted one of his brows.
“About what?”
“I mean about his trying to blackmail you?”
She shook her head. “How did you…? You were too far away to hear what he was saying.”
“Guess your voices carried,” he said, repeating her earlier words back at her. “I’ve always had extra keen hearing.”
What else did he always have? She was a breath away from asking, or from reaching up and pulling off his bandana.
“How did you get your scars?” he asked.
Her breath caught and thoughts of seeing his pattern flew out the window. She should have known that by showing him her scars that he would ask. And yet exposing her physical scars was nothing compared to exposing her emotional ones.
When she didn’t answer, he started speaking.
“My mom was an alcoholic. She’d sober up for a year or two and then go back to it. Back and forth.”
It only took a second for his tone to completely pull her in. She listened with her heart, because somehow she sensed how hard this was for him to say.
“When she’d get bad, I’d go live with my grandmother—sometimes I’d stay for six months or more, until my mom would sober up. Then my grandmother died when I was eight, and I started going to stay with my dad during her bad times. That’s what she called them, too. Her bad times.”
He paused to look out the window. “I was fifteen, back at home with my mom again. I already had my driver’s permit. She came to pick me up from football practice. She was drunk off her ass again. I told her to let me drive. She wouldn’t. She got all mad and for a reason I’ll never understand I let her talk me into just giving in.”
He closed his eyes for a second. She reached over and laced her fingers through his. Their hands came together like pieces of a puzzle that belonged side by side.
“She missed a turn, and ran into a tree. She wasn’t wearing her seat belt. She was thrown out of the car and died immediately. I was knocked unconscious. The car caught fire. A cop saw the accident and pulled me out.”
The words “I’m sorry” were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say them, because even though she was, they weren’t enough. She just squeezed his hand.
And after swallowing the emotion down her throat, knowing she owed him the same thing, she started talking.
“My mom died giving birth to me. It was just my dad and me. He was … I suppose you could say he lived o
n the wrong side of the law. But I guess I loved him because … he was all I had. We were always on the run. He’d have his girlfriends watch me. I was five. This girlfriend was … on something. I don’t know what kind of drug, but she’d take it and get mean. She … believed in the adage: ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ Only … her rod was a heated spoon.”
“Oh, hell!” he said and he turned her around and pulled her into him. Her head came to the wonderful spot on a guy’s shoulder. Between his warmth, his scent, and having his arms around her, the pain in her chest lessened.
She stood there just holding him, and letting him hold her. It suddenly dawned on her that the eerie silence she’d found in the house earlier had vanished. The wind chimes, the ones that seemed to play by themselves, were back to making music.
Finally, she pulled back just a little and rested her chin on his chest and looked up at him.
“We’re a pretty pathetic pair, aren’t we?” she asked, teasingly.
He shook his head. “No,” he said, completely serious. “We’re amazing. Look what we came through.”
Her chest tightened with his declaration. “You yes, but … don’t give me that much credit. You don’t know me all that well.” And when he found out …
He leaned his head down. His forehead rested on hers. “Something tells me that you don’t give yourself nearly as much credit as you deserve.”
Their eyes met and held and she was positive he was going to kiss her, or would have if her phone didn’t ding with a text.
Suddenly the moment felt awkward. She pulled away and snatched her phone from her back pocket.
The text was from Holiday. Its message was short.
Can you be back here by four? Need car. Holiday.
Fredericka wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. Cary was behind this. He’d already started initiating her punishment.
“Problem?” Brandon asked.
“Uh, no, not really,” she said, deciding not to pull Brandon into this. “I just have to be back in…” she looked at the time, “in two hours.” She pushed back her concern. “Why don’t we start scraping off the paint on the porch? I’ll come back tomorrow afternoon and we can start painting then.”
“You really don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Hey, I offered, remember?”
He smiled. “Okay. I’ll get the tools. You go figure out what all you think should be painted. Oh, and I’ll order us a pizza. I mean, if you like pizza? I’m starved.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
When he walked out, she looked back at her phone. Holiday’s text still showed on the screen. A feeling hit that she’d better come up with a plan, or Cary would try to ruin everything: her work at the gallery and whatever type of relationship was blossoming between her and Brandon. Hell, he could get her kicked out of Shadow Falls.
Yup, she’d better come up with a plan. And fast.
* * *
By the time pizza arrived they’d finished prepping the bottom half of the porch to paint. Brandon and she ate sitting on the concrete steps, and they chatted about the ideas for the gallery, about art, about the weather. It almost seemed as if they’d both had enough of hard discussions and agreed to keep it light.
Light was good.
Light was comfortable.
When they’d finished off the large meat-lovers’ pizza and each drank two glasses of sweet iced tea, Brandon went and pulled two ladders from the garage for them to start getting the top half of the porch ready to paint.
Fredericka noticed that for the most part, he no longer hid his scars from her. But something told her he was still very aware of them. And it made her extra careful not to focus on them. Even though her eyes kept wanting to go to his forehead where the bandana seemed to slip down on his brow.
The last thing she wanted was for him to think she found him unpleasant to look at. Because it was quite the opposite.
He only wore a T-shirt and jeans. And she’d enjoyed working at his side, watching him work. Watching him move. Watching his muscles shift like liquid beneath his skin. And a few times she felt him watching her and all she could think about was the kiss the text had interrupted.
Part of her worried the reason it hadn’t happened was because like her, Brandon was concerned about them having a relationship while she sort of worked for him.
He set up the ladders on opposite sides of the porch. “Be careful, these ladders are old and wobbly.”
“I’m sure they’re fine.” She grabbed her wire brush and started climbing. Brandon did the same. They worked side by side, comfortable. Not talking. But it wasn’t an awkward kind of silence. The sound of their wire brushes raking across the wood was pleasant. Every now and then they’d crawl down and reposition their ladders. After a while, she set her brush down on the top of the ladder and reached in her back pocket for her phone to check the time.
Brandon glanced at her.
“I should be heading out in a few minutes,” she said.
“Already? Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Yeah,” she said. And she meant it. She’d had fun. “I’m gonna get that last little spot,” she said and slipped her phone back into her pocket and climbed one more step.
She was almost to the top when she felt the ladder start to lean. A squeal left her lips as the ladder went one way and she went the other.
Somehow, and she didn’t have a clue how, Brandon managed to get down his ladder and position himself beneath her. She free-fell for about five feet and then he caught her.
“Gotcha,” he said, his blue gaze staring down at her with concern.
Breath held, she became aware of being in his arms. Held close and solid, not even a wobble in his stance. Considering she wasn’t one of those hundred-pound petite gals, it was amazing he could even hold her up. Brandon was strong. Stronger than your average human. And his hearing was keener. His temperature warmer.
He had to be …
She blinked and that’s when she realized he’d lost his bandana. Instantly unfocusing her eyes, she stared at his forehead to get the answer to the question she’d longed to know since she first laid eyes on him.
What was Brandon Hart?
Chapter Nine
She stared at the answer.
Human, mostly human, with were and a smaller percentage of fae.
“You okay?” Brandon asked.
Was her off-focus stare at his pattern confusing him? Did that mean he didn’t know what he was?
Considering he was about 75 percent human, she supposed it was possible. She’d never lived among mixed breeds to know what they knew or didn’t know. But it was true that some kids at the camp hadn’t known when they arrived.
So, she supposed, it was possible that Brandon was completely unaware that he wasn’t all human.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
“Yes, I … I’m just stunned a little. You … moved really fast.”
“I’ve always been fast on my feet,” he said, still cradling her against him.
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone actually held her. And it appeared he wasn’t even straining to do it.
“Strong, too,” she muttered.
“What?” he asked.
“I said … you can put me down.”
He smiled. “Or not.”
“You’re going to hold me all day?”
“It wouldn’t be a hardship.” His smiled faded. “But I’m not sure it would be wise, huh?” He set her down.
Perhaps, she should have let what he said go, but the words spilled from her lips. “Because I kind of work with you?” she asked.
“Yeah. It might be … awkward.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We should probably think it through, before … jumping into anything.”
She inhaled, unsure what to say. “I guess I should…” she motioned to her car, “get going.”
He nodded. She turned to go.
“Ricka,” he said her name. Or her n
ickname, and oddly, hearing it didn’t feel so bad this time.
She faced him.
“Are you going to be okay with that teacher?”
She nodded, not really sure, but still so high on his touch that she didn’t want to think about it. “Everything new can feel a little awkward.”
He smiled, but his blue eyes still looked torn. “I know.” He took a step closer and reached up and brushed a few strands of hair off her face. Then he leaned down and his lips touched hers. His scent, like the outdoors, filled her senses. And he tasted like … like pizza, and a little like sweet tea. His tongue slipped so easily into her mouth, and she felt herself lean into him.
Then, way before she was ready, he pulled back. He ran a palm down his face; she ran her tongue over her bottom lip.
He sighed. “Okay, I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you did. I … liked it.”
He exhaled. “Me, too. That’s the problem.”
Grinning, she met his eyes. “Maybe it’s not that big of a problem. Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow? I’ll come over after school. We can paint.”
He nodded. Right then a phone rang inside his house.
“Tomorrow,” he said and reached over and squeezed her hand before running inside for the phone.
* * *
Still smiling, she got into the car and wished it was already tomorrow. Starting the engine, she pulled out of the drive. She looked at the house as she pulled away. And that’s when she saw her.
Brandon’s sister, Linda, stood at the side of the house, in front of a flower bed, the same one Fredericka had seen her at yesterday when she’d pulled away.
Had his sister seen Brandon kiss her? For that matter, had she been home all day while Fredericka and Brandon painted?
Fredericka waved, worried his sister might not approve of her. The woman waved back. Suddenly, leaving without even speaking seemed rude. She pulled the car over to the side of the street and put the car in park. She got out of the vehicle, prepared to just offer a quick hello and good-bye. But when she stepped up onto the curb and looked up at the side of the house, the woman was gone.
Vanished.
Fredericka stopped and just stood there, a cold breeze sent goose bumps up her back. She started to get back in her car when she heard, or maybe just felt something behind her.