by Lynn Marie
“Hello, Michael.”
His head whipped around, but his expression softened. “How is it that you can still sneak up on me after all these years?”
“All those years of practice,” his mother replied with a chuckle and set roughened hands on the truck hatch.
“Here, let me help—”
She waved him off and lifted herself up next to him with surprising agility for a woman in her mid fifties. She grabbed his beer, took a swig, and made a face. “Cat piss,” she muttered under her breath, but didn’t hand it back.
“Thanks for the support back there. I saw the Elders give you the eye,” he said, smiling.
She rolled her eyes. “Well you know that, as a former First Wife and part of the Council, I’m supposed to be impartial at these sorts of things. But I don’t know how they really expect me to be impartial when my own son is fighting for his life.”
“Not my life, Ma. My position. My right.”
“I know, I know. It’s not a fight to the death. The ‘first sign of blood’ rule is supposed to protect you. But that doesn’t mean that brute Edna calls a son couldn’t rip out your throat and claim it was an accident.”
Michael fell silent and started cleaning dried blood out from under his nails with a pocket knife.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
He looked out at the cornfield stretching for miles over her shoulder. “It’s just starting to get old. I know Brock’s just the Elders’ champion to test me, but he’s next in line. They can’t think he’d be a better Alpha than me.”
“No one with half a brain would put that man child in charge of this town.”
“It’s not just him, either. I’ve been challenged at every moon this year. Dad always said they quit on him after four months.”
She gave him a rueful look. “Well, you weren’t exactly the golden boy in your teenage years, were you?”
Elders had impressively long memories and they couldn’t forgive his reckless youth. It wasn’t broken windows from his homemade slingshot when he was a kid, or the times Sheriff Spencer had brought him in for underage drinking and fighting. He was pretty sure sticking point was when he’d unintentionally parked his car in the middle of town hall with Cindy Laurel’s head in his lap.
His father had never destroyed town property. His father hadn’t been a horny youth. He’d never been a stupid kid or an irresponsible citizen. His father had lived and died in this town, and lived and died for it. He’d been the perfect son, the perfect leader, the perfect husband and the perfect father.
“I’m not the man he was, but it doesn’t mean I can’t lead. I’m a little sick of having to prove myself.”
His mother chuckled. “Them’s the brakes, kid. You think you’re not going to have to prove yourself once you’re in that chair?”
Humbled in that quick way only a mother could dole out, he ducked his head. “I meant I’m sick of failing with them. I’m missing something.”
“Maybe they sense a weakness in you that your father didn’t have.”
Michael opened his mouth to object, but stopped as his father’s voice rang out in his head. A leader did not pretend to be without weaknesses—a leader realized them within himself and overcame them. “Maybe. But what did he have at my age that I don’t have?”
“Apart from me?” she asked, covering her smile by taking a sip of her beer. “You have the capacity to be great, Michael. Greater than your father, God rest his soul.”
Michael sat back, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. Your father was a wonderful man. He was sweet and generous when he wanted to be, formidable when he needed to be, and always strong. But he was set in his ways and the ways of his father. You have ideas and the drive to get things done. That will make you great.”
“So you’re saying that I’ll win over the pack with my ideas?”
She snorted. “If the pack had been made up of women, perhaps. You’re up against men. Men need to see the sweat and blood. You win them over with strength—you make them yours with your ideas.”
Michael mulled that over for a minute. “You’re right. As usual.”
“And don’t forget it. I wasn’t kidding earlier about what I said when you asked what your father had at your age that you don’t.”
“You? What do you mean? I do have you to guide me.”
She hit his arm. “I didn’t mean me, literally. I meant the other half to your soul.”
“Don’t start on me about the mate thing again.” He groaned, but Evelyn’s image popped back in his head. Was it possible? He’d heard the bonding connection was instantaneous and her scent had all but knocked him on his ass. It was intoxicating—her skin’s natural perfume mixed with her arousal—and he’d had to have a taste. She was just a human, but she’d reacted strongly, too. In fact, she’d seemed surprised by and at war with the strength of her reaction.
“I’ll start with it if I want to. You’ll never understand until it happens to you, but once it does…” she paused, and suddenly looked far away, “you’ll never say that again. It feels like you’ve been walking around as half of a person for your entire life and then you find the other half and it’s as if… as if you are…”
“Whole?” he supplied, a little relieved by her description. It wasn’t how he felt about Evelyn. He wanted to fuck her silly for about a week, but he didn’t feel incomplete without her.
“Awake, I was going to say, but yours fits better with my metaphor. You’ll find it some day. Until then, we’ll just pray you make it through your next moons unscathed.”
Chapter 3
Evelyn clutched at the bottom of her dress, balling it in her hands fisted at her sides. The cotton was probably wrinkling as a result of the abuse, but her mind was elsewhere. She stared at the dimly lit barn, surrounded by the true darkness of living far from cities. Nothing lived all the way out here, except the noisy cicadas serenading the night. Well, cicadas and Michael. Presumably.
She glanced over at her car, contemplating retreat. She must have taken a wrong turn or read the address wrong. A barn in the middle of nowhere? Wasn’t this how slasher movies started?
The door swung open and she jumped. Michael stood there, a flower in hand. It was amazing how quickly her body reacted to the sight of him. Her shoulders loosened and her pulse kicked up.
“I thought I heard your car. What’re you doing standing out here?”
“I was convinced I’d gotten the address wrong. Well, either that or you were going to kill me and dump my body in a corn field,” she said, trying to be light as she moved through the long grass to the entrance.
When she reached the top of the hill that led up to the barn, she got a good look at him. His dark jeans and button down fit him perfectly, clinging just enough to set off her imagination all over again. When he smiled, she about melted.
Pull yourself together, girl.
“Well,” he began, pretending to consider it, “we are far enough from anyone that no one would hear you scream.”
She eyed him.
“But I had a different kind of screaming in mind,” he went on, eyes glinting with mischief.
Despite herself, she chuckled as her mind promptly launched itself into the gutter. She could give him a few ideas to turn her into a screamer… “Sure, tell her you’re going to kill her, then make a sexual innuendo to really put her in the mood.”
He laughed. “Sorry. I’m nervous. Let me try again.” He cleared his throat and held out the flower. It was a wild flower, she noticed, and she derived some strange pleasure from the thought that he’d gone out and hand picked it for her. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling her face growing warm as she absent-mindedly buried her nose in the sweet smelling flower. “You clean up pretty nicely, yourself.”
He reached for the hand not holding his gift and slowly lifted it to his mouth. He brushed his lips across her knuckles, then pulled her in to
place another on her lips. It was gentle and undemanding, and left her aching for something more substantial.
Breathing heavier than she should have been after such a chaste kiss, she pulled away. “So if we’re not here so you can murder me, why the run down barn?”
“It’s not run down,” he said defensively. “Just… unused. It was on the property when my folk’s bought it and they didn’t need it.”
“So it’s your family’s barn.”
He slipped an arm around her waist and led her into the dark room. Even as her eyes adjusted, she couldn’t see much more than hay and old farm equipment on the walls. “It is.”
“No offense, but the pizzeria would have been a bit more practical, I think.”
“Practical, yes. Impressive, no.” With that, he leaned over and flicked on a light switch. A room previously only lit by the candles in the windows was now flooded with soft, romantic light. Now, she could clearly see that a table for two had been set up in the middle of the room under a chandelier that had been fashioned from an old wagon wheel. A vase in the middle held more of the wildflower that he’d given her at the door. Candles all around the room added to the ambience.
Stunned didn’t begin to describe Evelyn’s expression. She tried to play it cool, but she couldn’t help looking sideways at him. He was watching for her expression.
“You did all this?” She wasn’t sure quite what she’d done to deserve it.
“Well any guy could take you to Pete’s Pizza.”
She smiled. “And I take it you’re not just any guy.”
“Damn straight. You hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Good,” he said, ushering her towards the romantic little set up. He held her chair. “We’ve got Bordeaux, homemade lasagna and tiramisu for dessert.”
“Now I’m impressed. That sounds amazing.” She noticed with appreciation that he had set the table. Paper towels instead of napkins, but no one was perfect.
He grinned. “I am trying, here.” He settled into his own chair and she had to stifle a giggle at the sight. He dwarfed the small, wrought iron chair and it creaked under his weight. He looked uncomfortable, but didn’t say anything.
“Michael,” she began as he started unwrapping the lasagna. The chair creaked again ominously.
“Yes?” he said, leaning forward to take her plate.
“That chair—”
She didn’t finish because as he moved back to serve her, the chair gave a terrible wrenching noise and collapsed underneath him. Evelyn jumped up as he went tumbling backwards. Her plate flew through the air, but his arm shot out at the last second and caught it before it shattered on the ground.
“Oh my God!” she cried, jumping around to table.
“I’m okay,” he said, sitting up.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I hate it when that happens.”
Evelyn pressed her lips together—she didn’t want to embarrass him by laughing, but suppressing it was nearly painful. They stood and she set down her plate on the table. The chair’s legs were bent parallel to the seat, making it look like a squashed bug.
“It was just its time, I guess,” she said somberly, but the laughter bubbled under the surface.
“How’s that for an ice breaker?” he asked.
“More like an ass-breaker.”
He looked at her, eyes wide. “That was bad.”
She burst out laughing and he joined in. “So what now?”
“Well,” he looked around. “There are some hay bales over there we could sit on. It’s not as elegant but I can put down the tablecloth so it doesn’t stick you through your dress.”
Well, the hay was a step up from sitting on the floor. More comfortable, anyway. “I’m game.”
They relocated their meal to the new picnic spot and they settled down, hay rustling underneath them with each movement. Michael lounged on his elbow and Evelyn tucked her legs underneath her. It gave her a distinct height advantage.
As they ate, Michael broke the ice. “So I want to know all about you. Tell me something.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, you’re beautiful, smart and classy, your puns could use some work, but we’ll overlook that…”
She laughed.
“So how is a woman like you still single?”
She chewed thoughtfully on the wonderful lasagna. “You know, usually I hate that question because it seems like a line, but it’s also like saying, ‘what’s wrong with you?’ But, I could ask you the same question, only I’d add charming, funny, destructive to chairs, and a surprisingly good cook.”
“Well, I do have a confession about that. My mother is the one who made this dinner.”
“Really?”
He winced and nodded. She found it eminently endearing that he’d wanted to impress her so badly that he’d asked his mother to cook them dinner, and that he was unpretentious enough to fess up to it.
“Give her my compliments, then.”
“Will do. So?” he prompted. “What’s wrong with you?”
She laughed again and realized that she was really enjoying herself. “I guess I never found what I was looking for and I’m not interested in settling for someone that doesn’t make me happy.”
A grin stretched his face and he whistled. “Good answer. What is it that you’re looking for?”
She set down her fork on the now empty plate, picked up her wine and leaned back on her free hand. “Someone… thoughtful, smart, funny, generous. I want a man who knows what he wants. Someone interesting and interested.”
There was a beat and Michael digested it, searching her face with his eyes. His eyes travelled downwards and she could practically feel them like a physical touch as they swept down her neck, breasts, stomach and over the length of her curled up legs. Her breath caught.
“Well,” he began slowly, “what a coincidence. I happen to be all those things.”
She chuckled. “I know I’m asking for a lot.”
“I, for one, am glad that you’ve got standards, and that no guy has passed them. It’s why you’re here with me now.”
Evelyn didn’t know what to say, so she lifted her wine to her lips to hide the smile and deflected. “Your turn. What’s wrong with you?”
“I kill women and dump their bodies in corn fields,” he dead-panned.
She choked and narrowly avoided spitting wine all over her dress. They laughed together and Michael handed her his napkin to clean her mouth.
“You had to make a joke when I’d get wine up my nose.”
He laughed. “Not my intention, but a bonus.”
She smiled in spite of herself. Michael clearly didn’t take himself very seriously. It was different from all her past experiences, almost relaxing in a way. And those dimples were too much. “So? Your reasons?”
“I suppose my reasons are the same as yours. Haven’t found the one.”
Studying his features, it dawned on Evelyn that there was a lot more to Michael than she’d thought initially. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but this seemed too good to be true. A devastatingly handsome man—who was attracted to her—who was enough of a romantic to admit that he was waiting for love. Funny, too.
“So tell me about this bakery. Have you always liked to bake?”
And he was interested. That was another tick in a pro-Michael box.
She smiled and leaned back on her hands, stretching her legs out in front of her. She stared down at her legs, where the hay had made compressions into her skin. “Ever since I was little. Dana, my sister, would always ask for dolls and musical instruments for her birthday and Christmas, but I was set after my easy bake oven. I didn’t ask for anything for years except more easy bake mixes. Oh man, did I love my easy bake oven.”
He took a sip of his wine. “Something that stuck as you got older?”
“If anything, my love grew when I realized that things didn’t have to take five hours to cook when you we
ren’t using a child-safe light bulb.” She laughed at the memory of the first batch of brownies with her mother’s help. There had been butter and flour everywhere and chocolate streaked on the walls, much to her mother’s dismay. Diane Montgomery did not enjoy being in the kitchen, but she’d loved encouraging Evelyn’s interest in it.
He smiled at her and his eyes darkened. Then, they dropped. “Have I told you how sexy you look?”
She felt her cheeks heating under the intensity of his stare. “Well, it’s the dress.” The deep V that showed off a respectable amount of cleavage and it made the most of her hourglass shape.
“It’s you.”
Her pulse started to race at the memory of the heated moment they’d shared in her store the day before. She let her eyes drift to his lips and was gripped with a fierce desire to feel them on her skin again—all over her skin. Blood rushed to her face and she felt it heat as Michael caught her eye. It was like he knew exactly what she was thinking.
So she changed the subject. “I can’t believe you did all this for me.”
“Why not?”
She faltered. “I guess I’m not used to someone going to such lengths…”
“Well, I think you deserve it.”
Oh, marry me, Michael. “I’m finding it hard to believe that you’re for real,” she muttered.
“Oh, I’m very real.” It came out barely above a rumble—the low tone sent shivers up her spine.
Sexual tension thickened the air to the point where it became hazy. Or maybe her vision was just blurring with desire. Her breath went in and out heavily and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.
She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a shake of his head. Again, like he was reading her mind, he slowly sat up. Gently, he used the back of his fingers to brush her hair off her cheek. Flattening his hand, he cupped the side of her face and held her still as he leaned in. She’d expected sweet and tender, but not the sheer passion.
As their lips met, she just about saw fireworks behind her eyelids. He brushed her mouth—teasing her before capturing her with his hunger. Tipping her head back, he deepened the kiss with his lips, his tongue, his teeth… She broke off to catch her breath and he moved his lips to her neck. Eyes still closed, she let her head drop back and moaned.