by Chant, Zoe
Still, she took a stab at it. “Before you go, though—I don’t want to scare you, but I’ve seen a guy walking around the neighborhood shirtless lately.” Did shirtless sound more plausible than naked? Hopefully. “White guy, tall, dark hair, stubble? Sort of mean-looking, with really sharp features? Have you seen anybody like that?”
Susan’s eyes had gone perfectly round. “No, I haven’t, but that’s terrifying. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for anything like that. We can’t just have sex maniacs roaming around. There are children here! You can’t have that around Mattie! First the wolves and now this. I don’t know what’s going on here lately.”
“Maybe it’ll all be over soon,” Aria said.
“I hope so,” Susan said. Her voice was aching with sincerity. She gave Aria another one of those smothering hugs.
Then a tall, Armani-clad wall seemed to loom up next to them.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” their new arrival said. He had a warm, flawlessly courteous voice. “I’m a Deputy US Marshal. You seem distressed, and if there’s anything I can do to help...”
He drew Susan away from Aria’s non-existent front door, talking comfortingly to her.
“I heard Theo,” Colby said, resurfacing.
He’d joined her again just in time to get tackled by a pretty, petite woman with a sleek pixie cut—and apparently with enough strength and determination to give a bear-hug to a werewolf.
“God, Colby,” the woman said. “We send you off on your own for two seconds...”
“I’m fine, Gretch.” He patted her back. “I’ve got a few busted ribs, though, if you could loosen up a little.”
She separated herself at once.
“Sorry. We were just worried.”
“Oh.” Colby sounded genuinely flustered by that. “Well—thanks.”
He turned instantly to Aria, like she was his solid ground—and while she had to admit she liked that, it made her heart ache a little that he wasn’t willing to trust that his friends really cared about him.
“Aria, this is Gretchen, another Marshal in my office. Theo’s the one out there politely ripping your neighbor to shreds. Gretchen, this is Aria Clarke.”
“Colby’s all-time favorite nature photographer,” Gretchen said.
She had a nice, friendly smile that made Aria like her immediately.
They shook hands.
“And these are Aria’s parents, Ben and Doreen, and Aria’s daughter, Mattie—”
“Which one is the dragon?” Mattie said in a loud stage-whisper.
Gretchen’s mouth fell open slightly, but then she looked around the living room and took in all the demolished furniture. Her shocked expression turned rueful.
“I guess you didn’t have a choice there, Colby.”
“I’ve got a lot to catch you up on,” Colby said. “Believe me.”
He crouched down to address Mattie eye-to-eye, and Aria saw the tight wince cross his face as his stiff, sore muscles stretched.
“Theo’s the dragon, Mattie. Gretchen’s human.”
“I’m human too,” Mattie said to Gretchen, like it was something they could commiserate on.
Gretchen nodded sagely. “It’s got its ups and downs, doesn’t it?”
Theo-the-dragon reappeared, straightening his elegant cuffs. Aria couldn’t be sure at this distance, but she thought he might have been wearing cufflinks, which somehow made the night even more surreal.
Though not as surreal as the fact that he had his hands full with—
“Is that cheese?” Aria said.
She hadn’t meant for that to be the first thing she said to a dragon. But what else was she supposed to come up with when he hit her with that kind of curveball?
She wanted to add, a little defensively: This has been a very long day.
But Theo, who looked a little bit like a stray duke out of a show like Downton Abbey, didn’t seem to think her question was strange at all.
“It is,” he said. “It’s for you.”
He handed her the cheese.
First the Slinky and now this. She wondered if the rest of her life was going to be full of US Marshals handing her random objects.
Actually, she wouldn’t mind that at all.
And it did look like good cheese, the kind that would normally be way out of her price range. It was probably supposed to be paired with a better wine than she’d ever tasted, too.
At least Colby looked as confused as Aria felt.
“Theo, why is it cheese? Why did you bring cheese? Every time I think I understand you—”
“It’s a hostess gift,” Theo said. “I would have gotten something better, but obviously I was in a hurry.”
He looked around the room as if casting about for someone who would recognize the obvious value of bringing a hostess gift to a crime scene.
Luckily for him, he hit pay dirt right away.
Doreen Clarke stepped forward and neatly divested Aria of the cheese, giving Theo the warmest and most welcoming smile Aria had ever seen her offer a total stranger.
“Cheese is a wonderful hostess gift. That’s so considerate of you, Deputy—”
“St. Vincent, ma’am, but Theo is absolutely fine.”
Theo handed Colby a duffel bag.
“I figured between the out-of-town trip and any shifting wear and tear, you might need everything I could fit in here.”
“You’re my hero,” Colby said.
He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed off to the bathroom to change.
“He’s everyone’s hero for sparing us from looking at you in those pants!” Gretchen called after him.
Theo looked modest, though Aria would almost swear she had the sense of his dragon just behind his eyes, curled up and licking its claws like a pleased cat.
She decided it was that little hint of human mischief alongside all the draconian steel-and-velvet politeness-and-thunder stuff that made Colby like him—even when they didn’t understand each other.
“If you’ll allow me,” Theo said, “I can start tidying up in here for you.”
He edged past them and immediately began putting the living room to rights.
“Can we count the woman you were talking to as the newest member of your fan club?” Gretchen said, glancing out the front door. She added to Aria, “People always love Theo. And Colby and I love aiming him at people who are annoying, because he’s more patient with them than we are.”
“Susan’s very nice,” Aria said weakly.
“Nice but a bit much?” Gretchen said.
“Basically.”
“She was a little excitable,” Theo said diplomatically. “I just let her vent a little until she calmed down.”
In Aria’s experience, that usually took a lot longer. She was impressed.
“See?” Gretchen said. “He’s a miracle worker. I’ll help you with the clean-up, Theo, just give me a second.”
She dug into her purse and came up with a dark green wine bottle, which she offered to Aria butt first.
“This is my hostess gift. I figured that with everything that’s going on, you could use some fortifying. I’ve got some chocolates in here too, in case you don’t drink—you can still have them even if you do, but in that case, I’m going to sneak one first.”
Aria wondered if there was some kind of place online where she could leave a glowingly positive review of the US Marshals Service:
Five stars. Exceptional service, complete with magical creatures, a super-hot werewolf, and complimentary wine. Would be endangered again just to spend time with them.
“You’re my new best friend. Thank you.”
Gretchen grinned. She looked like she could have been Colby’s sister, Aria noticed: they had the same kind of playful quality to them, with a sadness just underneath. Only Gretchen felt unreachable to her in a way Colby didn’t.
Gretchen said, “And I know for a fact that Theo’s cheese makes a killer fondue.”
“What’s fondue?” Mattie said.
“Hot melted cheese or hot melted chocolate,” Aria told her. “You dip other foods into it.”
“I want to try it.”
“I’ll introduce you to some of my nieces and nephews,” Gretchen said to Mattie. “And you can all have a fondue party together. Somewhere without carpeting.”
She pitched in alongside Theo, Doreen went to put both cheese and wine in the kitchen, Ben took Mattie over to inspect the spilled books—and for a second, Aria felt like she was standing in the eye of the storm.
Everything around her felt strangely orderly, even after all that had happened. It had been a day of total chaos—and she still hadn’t had dinner—but for right now, it was surprisingly peaceful.
She had her family safe and together. She had Colby. She had his friends, whom she liked already.
And this quiet, calm hum of activity—of silly jokes and easy conversation—was what Eli Hebbert wanted to take away from her.
It only hardened her resolve. She couldn’t let that happen. This was her safe haven, the place she always returned to after all her wanderings, and Eli Hebbert had already done enough damage to it. He wasn’t going to do any more.
She was going to help Colby put him behind bars where she would never have to worry about him again.
Colby emerged, dressed again and now looking less like a little kid who’d just gotten a huge growth spurt for Christmas. The clothes Theo had packed for him seemed to be a combination of vintage gentleman’s wear, designer fashion, and just enough of a bent towards comfort and coziness to tie it all together in a way that was adorable instead of just astonishing.
He wore a shirt of black, rough-cut silk, open just slightly at the collar, a midnight blue jacket that looked like it was as soft as butter, and a pair of jeans somehow exactly the right in-between blue-black shade to match them both.
Aria’s impartial assessment was that he looked hotter than a supernova.
He handed Theo a square of ivory silk.
“I appreciate the thought, buddy, but I’m not wearing a pocket square. I’ve never even seen you wear a pocket square.”
“It’s not supposed to be a pocket square,” Theo said testily—and while he did in fact shove it in his pocket, it was his pants pocket and not his jacket one, and it was crumpled up into a ball. “It was supposed to be to help you to clean the blood off your face, you idiot.”
“It’s made out of silk!”
“To be fair,” Gretchen said, looking up from where she was hauling the busted coffee table over to the corner, “it’s not like he was going to have a handkerchief made out of medical gauze.”
“I’ll fix you up,” Aria offered. “I’m pretty good at first aid. You have to be, if you do a lot of camping alone.”
“And if you wander off where I told you there might be wolves,” her mother added.
True. She wanted the number of wolf stories going around to be zero.
And while she’d managed to forget Susan’s claims in all the fuss earlier, seeing her again had reminded Aria of just how close they both were to the preserve. Susan’s cabin was just at the other end of the block.
If Eli had been close enough to her house for her to spot him, then he must have been hanging around in the area a lot. He was familiar with it. If they stayed here too long, he could easily figure out when and how to strike again.
He would be regrouping after his brother’s death, sure. But he had a hard heart, so it wouldn’t take him long to bounce back. And the last thing she wanted was for her family to be collateral damage.
Colby must have noticed her spacing out. “What is it?”
“Eli’s still after me,” Aria said. “I don’t want him to come here again.”
“I don’t want him to come anywhere,” Colby said.
His eyes looked darker than usual, and she had the same sense she’d had with Theo—that his wolf was lurking just behind them, somehow more visible than usual.
“I don’t either,” she said calmly. “I want to sit here, drink Gretchen’s wine, and give you time to heal. But if I can’t have that, then I at least want to keep him far away from the people I care about. This is too close to his territory. If he’s comfortable here, he might get bolder, more aggressive. If anything happened to my family—”
“It won’t,” Colby said instantly. “Ben, Doreen, could you take Mattie to your house?”
“Of course,” Doreen said, already wrapping her arms around Mattie.
Colby turned to Aria. “Is that far enough away, do you think?”
“It should be.”
“Good. Then it’s just a matter of relocating us. No point in giving Eli turf he already knows. We tried me moving in with you. Want to try moving in with me?”
“I don’t want your place to get wrecked too,” she said, looking around at her demolished living room.
“Take one of the safe houses,” Gretchen suggested. “They’re all basically beige boxes with cheap furniture. If anything gets busted in one of them, it’s not going to break anyone’s heart. We just stocked number thirteen this afternoon to get it ready for that guy tomorrow—but we can make an emergency grocery run and stick him somewhere else. Take that one.”
“That sounds good to me,” Aria said. She looked at Colby. “As long as you’re not superstitious.”
“You’re all the good luck I need,” he said.
11
Aria handled everything.
“I can get that,” Colby protested, reaching for her bag.
She blocked him, her face full of determination and disapproval.
“I can get that. You’re hurt, I’m not. You might be a in a million-dollar suit, Colby, but you still look like you’re about to collapse. Just give me the directions to the safe house, sit back, and close your eyes.”
He’d been in the Army. There were certain orders he knew not to argue with.
And... if he had to admit it, it did feel good to lie back in the passenger seat and let her take the wheel for a while. If they got involved in some kind of high-speed car chase with Eli Hebbert, he would know right away. Short of that, there wasn’t a lot that could happen in a competition between wolf and moving car.
And as long as they were on the move, they were safe. The exhaust fumes, hot asphalt, and general smells of the road would slow down any attempt Eli made to track them by their scent, too.
They had a window of safety, at least for now.
He could afford to spend a few minutes just listening to Aria radio-surf until she hit on something she liked.
“Classical?” Colby said.
“My mom’s influence. My second-favorite kind of music, next to old school blues—and classical is easier to find on the dial.”
“You’ll have to teach me the classical, but I do know the blues. Who are your favorites?”
“It’s so hard to pick. Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Bessie Smith—Billie Holiday, which kind of takes me over to jazz a little, but she was so great I’d follow her anywhere.”
“Billie Holiday singing ‘God Bless the Child,’” Colby said. “She’s one of my favorites too.”
That rich, aching, somehow playful voice had felt, from the first time he’d heard it, that it had cracked open a path straight to his heart.
“If you got the symphonies from your mom, does that mean your dad is a blues guy?”
“No, believe it or not, he likes the fluffiest pop music you can imagine. He and Mattie have about the same taste.”
She fell silent for a moment, and all Colby could hear was her starting up the windshield wipers to ward off the first few drops of rain.
Then she said, “Mike, Mattie’s dad, was the one who introduced me to the blues.”
Colby waited for his inner wolf to bristle at the mention of any man who brought out that kind of wistfulness in their mate, but the mutt stayed unusually calm. Sometimes it picked up on things he couldn’t.
“What happened with you two?”
She sighed. “There
are two answers to that, kind of. The first one was the hardest to deal with but the easiest to explain: he died. In Iraq, before Mattie was even born.”
He opened up his hand and wasn’t surprised when she let one of her own fall into it, her fingers curling tight around his.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I served too, and I knew people who died in the line of duty. It’s always hard to lose someone like that.”
She nodded, and he could see her chin shaking slightly as she tried to keep her emotions in check.
He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to do that around him, but he also knew first-hand that sometimes, with grief, all you could do was power through it. Especially when it was no longer fresh.
He just had to hope that holding her hand was enough.
Because it looked like she was working her way up to something important. He didn’t know how he could tell that—he could barely see her face in the dim light off the instrument dials—but he did.
Maybe it was his wolf. Or maybe it was just his heart, meeting up with hers.
“The second answer,” Aria said, her voice calmer now, “was that we’d already fallen out of love with each other by then. I don’t tell a lot of people that, because it sounds like I’m saying his death didn’t hit me that hard. It did. He was my best friend. He set up his will to take care of Mattie and me, and I’ll always be grateful for that. We were head-over-heels for each other in high school, when I was a total ugly duckling. Before him, I didn’t really feel comfortable in my own skin. But...”
Colby waited.
“But even if he hadn’t gotten called up, we weren’t going to make it as a couple. The spark was gone, and we both knew it. It mellowed. By the end, we were just friends who happened to live together.”
He knew how that felt, too, but he wasn’t going to say that. He’d had relationships that had fizzled out because they had both known, in their heart of hearts, that they weren’t meant for each other.
But none of them had been with his best friend, none of the women had died, and none of them had ever had a kid with him. It wasn’t the same thing.
Besides, Aria was still going on, talking even faster now. She wasn’t pausing for him to insert his sympathies.