by Chant, Zoe
But despite the constant frisson between them, it was incredible how comfortable she was around him. Normally, she would never have told a date about giving in to her sweet tooth; she would have been afraid to see his gaze flicker down to the round curve of her stomach.
Like he was thinking, Obviously.
But Colby hadn’t done anything like that. And what was more, she knew he never would.
He was a good, smart, sweet, funny guy who looked at her like she was a bit of cake batter he wanted to lick off a spoon.
There was no way she was going to let him be killed by a werewolf. Or two werewolves.
Any number of werewolves.
Her house was close to the preserve, so it didn’t take them long to reach her neighborhood. They were almost there when it occurred to her that they hadn’t stopped off at Colby’s first.
“Colby, don’t you need to go home? Get some clothes and a toothbrush?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “I did some texting. Home, in the form of my good friends Theo and Gretchen, will come to me. We work together, and they can get a go-bag ready for me now that they have a spare minute.”
“And it takes two US Marshals to pack a bag?”
“That’s not nice,” Colby said, swinging the car into her driveway. A suppressed smile twitched at the edges of his mouth. “Maybe their skills lie in other areas.”
“Seriously, though.”
She realized she was prodding mostly because she wanted to know more about him. He’d talked about his childhood, but she was woefully ignorant about his present. She knew who he was, on some essential level, but she wanted to know all the little details, too. What was his favorite sport? What did he like to read? And who were his friends?
Luckily, he seemed happy to satisfy her curiosity.
“Gretchen could pack a picture-perfect overnight bag in a scarily efficient amount of time, but she’s not much on amenities. Theo, on the other hand, is all amenities. The guy will throw in luxury freebies you wouldn’t even know existed. He comes from old, old family money, and he likes spending it on friends. It’s just fun to see what he’ll put in. He once packed me a black-tie outfit, and I don’t even know where he got it. But he needs Gretchen—or his girlfriend, Jillian—to make sure he remembers things like toothbrushes.” He grinned. “Besides, Gretchen eggs him on into including some extra-weird rich people stuff.”
Aria had heard enough workplace horror stories from her friends that she’d never felt like she was missing out by her career mostly being her and her camera. But Colby almost made her feel wistful about not having that kind of fun, friendly office to go to every day.
“They sound great. Is it just the three of you?”
“And our boss, Martin. He’s great, too. Really down-to-earth, genuinely cares about people. He’d go to the wall for any of us, anytime.” He unclicked his seatbelt. “Anything I should know about your family?”
He’d been relaxed and smiling, but then his face tightened up just a little.
“I mean, as opposed to my friends,” he added. “We already talked about my family, kind of—and you heard me tell Luke about my dad—so...”
Was he embarrassed? He would be far from the first person Aria had met to think of his friends as his family, especially when he didn’t have his dad around anymore.
But there was a time and a place to poke around somebody’s insecurities, and she had a hunch that it wasn’t “parked in her driveway, with her parents waiting inside and a killer werewolf on their tail.”
So she kept it short and to the point.
“You probably have them pegged already. Dad’s the outdoorsy type, like me. He used to be a park ranger, and he taught me everything I know about the woods.”
“Which is a lot,” Colby said. He didn’t even sound like he was trying to flatter her, just like he was noting a fact. “That nature preserve felt like your territory.”
It was funny that he’d said that almost the way Eli had—only Eli had accused her of trespassing on his territory. Colby had implied that her love for it and knowledge of it made it as much hers as anybody’s.
The same word, but a completely different feeling behind it.
“And your mom?” Colby said. “She feels more like the ‘tickets to the symphony’ type than the ‘name that bird call’ type.”
Aria laughed. “She actually does have season tickets to the symphony, so you’re right. She works as a curator at the art museum.”
“Opposites attract, huh?”
“Apparently. She wanted to get married in a church and have the reception in a ballroom, he wanted to get married outside and have the reception be a cookout. They couldn’t be more different. But they make it work somehow. They’ve always been head-over-heels for each other—it was even kind of embarrassing when I was a kid.”
“Mates,” Colby said.
“What?”
He bit his lip, with a cute oops look on his face.
“Um—that’s what my dad and his friends always called it. You know, like soulmates. People who are completely right for each other underneath, no matter how weird it seems on the surface. Sometimes people just have unbreakable bonds.”
Unbreakable would be nice. She had always grown up in the comfortable shade of her parents’ secure, obvious love for each other, but it was hard to say how often that kind of love came around. It hadn’t with her and Mike, Mattie’s dad.
And it’s way, way too soon to think about whether it has for you and Colby, Aria told herself firmly.
“Then yes,” she said, trying to steer herself back on topic. “They’re mates.”
At some point, she’d have to get into the story of Mike, but that was another thing that could wait until they were out of the driveway.
“Ready?” she said.
*
Aria had called ahead and explained the situation to her mom—as much of the situation as she could explain, anyway. And she’d been completely clear about the fact that all she needed was a few minutes to cuddle her daughter and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. Then she wanted her family out of the firing line as fast as possible.
Her mom had apparently decided that this meant that they should all have dinner together first.
Her dad, thankfully, had ordered pizza.
But her mom objected to fast food. So Doreen, of course, was assembling what seemed like the world’s most complicated and time-consuming salad.
“I said we were in a hurry, Mom. I want you guys to be safe.”
She looked longingly at the stack of pizza boxes, which were radiating the warm, familiar smell of her standard order of pepperoni, mushroom, and green pepper. She’d had a hard day. She deserved melted cheese. Under normal circumstances, she’d love one of her mom’s elaborate, colorful dinners. But a salad wasn’t exactly comfort food, and this one wasn’t exactly fast.
“And I don’t want the firing line anywhere near you,” Doreen said. “So the least you can do is give me another hour to get to know the man who’s supposed to be protecting you.”
“Colby won’t let anything happen to me.”
Her mom viciously snapped her knife down through some celery and looked down at the cutting board with a distinctly bloodthirsty expression.
“I wish I was doing this to this Hebbert man’s neck.”
“Badass,” Aria said. “But I’d feel better with you guys further away.”
“This weasel,” Doreen said, apparently meaning Eli Hebbert, “isn’t going to be any more likely to spring out at you just because you took the time to have a proper family dinner.”
“He might! That’s how time works!”
Colby put his hand on her arm, steady and warm, and Aria abruptly remembered that she was a woman, not a cranky teenager dealing with her I-always-know-best mother.
She and her mom had gone through one or two rocky patches over the years, but they’d always come out stronger for it. She was certainly old enough—and enoug
h of a mom herself—to put together what was happening here.
Her mom had restrained all her parental worries on the phone. She’d been calm and reassuring, and she was going to be calm and reassuring for however long all this lasted. Mattie would be totally safe in her grandparents’ care.
Her mom just wanted one last hour to coddle her before she went off to do something dangerous. She had been like this right before the Arctic and Sahara trips too.
“Sorry,” Aria said softly. “I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”
“And punctual,” Colby added. “I understand your concerns, ma’am, and I want you to have the info you need to trust me. But I’m with Aria on this. I’d like to get you all out of the way.”
“It’ll be fast,” Doreen said. “And delicious. I have a lot of faults, but being a bad judge of recipes isn’t one of them.”
Her tone suggested that Aria better not even try naming any of those supposed faults.
“Hand me those blackberries for the homemade vinaigrette.”
“There’s a bottle of ranch dressing in the fridge,” Aria said, just because she knew both bottled salad dressing and ranch in particular horrified her mother.
The idea of it produced a shiver almost as notable as the one raised up by the thought of Eli Hebbert and his “dogs.”
“Oh, relax, Mom. I’m just kidding.”
“I never know with you,” her mom said darkly. “Shortcuts here, shortcuts there. Dirty dishes piled up to heaven.”
“I can wash,” Colby volunteered.
He looked like he’d be happy to have something to do. If Aria had to guess, she’d say he found her mom just the littlest bit intimidating, which was an unsurprising reaction even from a US Marshal.
Luckily for him, he had just found one of the surest ways to her mother’s approval.
“That would be very sweet of you, Colby,” Doreen said gracefully. She glanced at Aria. “Always look for a man who’s willing to help with the dishes. I dated my share of men before your father, but none of them ever helped me wash up after dinner. Not until him.” She paused. “Of course, half the time he also suggested we just do paper plates and eat outside, like animals—”
“Animals being, of course, notorious for their use of paper plates.”
“—but you can’t have everything.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
It occurred to her that she should maybe try to keep up the flimsy pretense that her relationship with Colby was strictly professional.
“I mean, I’d keep that in mind if that were at all relevant to our situation.”
Her mother snorted. Colby, his hands now covered with soapsuds, smothered a laugh of his own at that undignified sound coming out of Doreen Clarke, of all people.
“Okay,” Aria conceded. “It’s a little relevant to our situation.”
She went up to the sink and bumped shoulders with Colby.
“You’ve proved your willingness to wash dishes. Why don’t you go do Marshal things like... establish a perimeter? If that’s a real thing? And I can chat with my mom for just a second, if that’s okay.”
Colby shook the water off his hands. “I can establish any perimeter you like.”
When he was safely out of earshot, Aria turned back to her mom.
“Yes, we’re going to go on a date. But any guy might run for the hills if you start praising his domestic skills in front of him before we’ve even had dinner.”
Doreen had been patting the blackberries dry, but now she stopped, fixing Aria with a serious, warm look. She looked like she was weighing whatever she was going to say next.
“Honey, I don’t think the reason you’ve stayed single all these years is because you were heartbroken over Mike. He was a good boy, but he just wasn’t right for you. And I worry that you wound up thinking that if things couldn’t work out with him, they wouldn’t work out with anyone. And that’s not true, baby.”
“I know that.”
In theory. She knew it in theory. She breathed in the clean scent of the dish soap, which was, according to the bottle, designed to smell like “mountain freshness.” Not that she had any clue what that meant.
“Mom, what’s ‘mountain freshness’ supposed to smell like?”
“Dish soap,” Doreen said promptly. “And this tendency you have to change the subject with a joke—you get that from your father. Especially when it’s not that funny.”
“It’s sweet that you’re trying to tell me I can still find love even though I’m humorless and the house is a mess.”
“I never said you were humorless. I just implied that you had the sense of humor of a man in his sixties.” That voice was far too sweet to be believed. “If you want to come to any conclusions based on that, they’re your own. And I’m only saying—”
Aria put one arm around her mom. “I love you,” she said quietly. “But can we do this later? When there’s less going on?”
Doreen took a deep breath, and Aria could feel that rarest of things: her mom was agreeing to let this go.
“I’m only saying that a proper vinaigrette requires a balance of flavors. If you’d just read the cookbook I gave you last Christmas, you’d know.”
Aria smiled. “Do people actually read cookbooks?”
“People who want to learn how to cook do.”
“I know how to cook!”
“I’ve seen nothing to indicate that,” Doreen said loftily.
Colby knocked against the wall right where the living room changed into the kitchen. “The perimeter is officially established. And Mattie’s solved her Rubik’s cube, so she’s officially smarter than I am.”
Mattie, grinning ear-to-ear, was tagging along behind him, swinging the Rubik’s cube at her side. “Am I really?”
“Definitely,” Colby said.
“Then I’m going to be an astronaut.”
That was a new one. Aria was used to her daughter’s revolving door of glamorous future career options, and it always delighted her that Mattie had enough interests and enough confidence to treat her future like an enormous game of dress-up.
And, as a matter of fact, she used to daydream about space sometimes, too. Maybe she could secretly keep her fingers crossed that the astronaut goal would stick.
Colby instantly engaged Mattie in a discussion about what planets and moons she’d like to go to and what aliens she’d like to meet. He stood side-by-side with Aria, drying the dishes she washed, while he carried on this cheerful conversation with her daughter.
Aria felt an immense longing inside her. Homesickness for a home—for a life—that she’d never had.
This is what your family is supposed to be, a little voice inside her whispered.
And that felt right to her.
But she was way more used to listening to the nastier little voice that spoke up next.
Sure, he flirted with you. Sure, he wanted to kiss you. But do you really think it’s likely that he’ll stick around? Do you really believe that love at first sight is going to strike you, of all people, and now, of all times? When your hair is messy and you still haven’t lost that extra weight you gained at Christmas? What happens when you travel for work, and he sees you after you’ve been stuck taking camping showers for a week?
He looks like a movie star. He could have any woman he wants. Why do you think you’d be more than a fling?
Well, maybe he wanted her. He seemed like he did, anyway. And if he wanted her right now, it wasn’t that far-fetched to think he might keep on doing it.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that this kind of thing didn’t happen to her. Not to Granola Breath—ugh—Clarke who owned half-a-dozen pairs of hiking boots and only one pair of high heels (that always gave her blisters).
Her mom was right. Whether she was always aware of it or not, she had believed for years now that if a good guy like Mike hadn’t been able to stay in love with her, no one could.
Except—
Except that was bullshit, wa
sn’t it? That was dumb. She hadn’t stayed in love with Mike, either, but he would have made some woman an amazing husband.
The fact that things hadn’t worked out with her first love shouldn’t mean more than the fact that things hadn’t worked out with his first love.
And if she hadn’t had any serious relationships since then, maybe it was because she sabotaged them before they even got started.
The mean little voice inside her head wanted her to stop returning Colby’s smiles and lingering glances, to stop believing that this could be—screw it, that this was—the beginning of something. And then he might give up, because who could keep on flirting with a brick wall?
And then the mean little voice would say: See, I was right. He didn’t really want you.
Well, she wasn’t going to let that happen this time. She knew enough about nature to accept that sometimes people were predators and sometimes they were prey, but it couldn’t possibly be natural for a person to prey on herself.
She could be afraid of Eli Hebbert. That made sense. But she was done being afraid of feeling things.
She leaned a little to the side, resting her shoulder and the curve of her hip up against Colby’s warm, solid body, and he gave her one of those delicious grins that made her feel like she was going to melt right down to the floor.
Damn straight.
“Dinner is served,” Doreen said. She fixed Aria with a particularly proud smile, like she’d been eavesdropping on her thoughts and knew the conclusion her daughter had just come to. “I’ll just go put the salad on the table—”
Then Colby dropped the glass he was drying.
It shattered against the kitchen floor.
“Oops,” Mattie said, giggling. She was always happy whenever adults were the ones to break something.
But Aria could see the look on Colby’s face, and she knew it wasn’t just that the glass had slipped out of his hand. His face had gone rigid.
Rigid and... strangely ferocious. She couldn’t put her finger on how, but it was like he suddenly had the narrowed, singular concentration that she had captured in hundreds of photographs—but only on the faces of animals, never on the faces of people. People just didn’t have that kind of primitive focus.