by Anna Leonard
“You came back,” Maggie crowed, then quieted with a nervous look over her shoulder, but nobody raced down the street and into their alleyway after them.
“What’s wrong?” their rescuer asked again, more urgently this time.
Elizabeth felt the words flow out of her. “Someone...someone we know, just went into the police station. He might be...but I don’t know. I can’t risk it.”
Incoherent, but he seemed to understand. His hands let go of her shoulder, and instead one arm slid around her waist, while his other hand took up Maggie’s. “They’re going to be looking for two girls,” he said.
“Or two girls and a horse,” Maggie said, and when he glared at her she just smiled impishly. As far as she was concerned, her expression said, her sister and her unicorn could take care of anything.
“They’re looking for two females,” he said again. “Three people they might not see. They’re not expecting to see you with a male.”
Elizabeth flinched, the memory of the last male she had trusted still hot and fierce in her memory, the first sight of Cody’s body as they lowered him to the ground, the soft murmur of talk that cut off as she cried his name, the hands holding her back, keeping her from him...
The stranger kept talking, and she hoped neither he nor Maggie had noticed her momentary distress. “Even with me you’re noticeable right now. We need to get you out of those clothes, and dump the bags, and change your looks.”
“We need to get out of sight,” Elizabeth agreed, forcing the memories back to deal with the present. “But it’s too far back to the forest, and—”
“There is a motel at the edge of town,” he interrupted. “We can get a room there, figure out what we’re going to do next.”
Elizabeth heard the “we” and blinked; “we” sounded like more than a stroll out of town, but she was in no position to argue or question. Her instincts had been right to keep herself out of the police station, and had taken her to where he was waiting, and now they were telling her to go with this man. So she went, intensely aware of the warm arm around her waist, and the equally warm body pressed against hers, tall and sturdy and smelling unlike anything else she’d ever smelled—like some potent combination of clean sweat and the best aftershave and sunshine on grass. The smell caught in her nostrils, and made her want to turn and nuzzle into him, like a kitten kneading a freshly laundered blanket. Whatever else he might be, she was definitely responding to him as a male—a human male.
Stupid, stupid. Understandable—a friendly voice when she desperately needed one—but still stupid.
She had told him the truth, she wasn’t a virgin—there had been Michael back in high school, and then Drew, whom she’d loved but, in the end, not liked very much, but neither of them had ever made her feel like this, just from a touch of skin-to-skin, however innocently. Neither of them had ever made her feel both protected and strong at the same time, like she could tangle with anything, and win. Her knight-errant...knight and horse in one, just like a chess piece.
And he hadn’t shown even the slightest interest in her, that way.
Elizabeth leaned against him, and told herself it was just part of the act, showing the rest of the world a happy family unit, nothing unusual here, nothing to see, move along, no girl with unusual talents, no man who might or might not change shape, no woman trying to hide from her lifelong family because she was suddenly terrified of them...no, nothing at all unusual here.
For a moment, walking in step with a man whose name she didn’t even know—she believed it.
* * *
The motel was everything the town would suggest: small, slightly run-down, but reasonably clean and inexpensive. Their guardian went into the small white office and made the arrangements. When he came out, he had a single key on a plastic tag in his hand.
“I only had enough cash for one room,” he said, apologetically, pushing the shank of blond hair off his forehead as though embarrassed. “They don’t take credit cards for a one-night stay.”
Elizabeth gave a helpless shrug. She was in no position to play diva right then—and they had already spent the night together, after all, however bizarrely. “I promise not to take advantage of you,” she said, meaning to make light of the situation, but when he looked at her, something in his gaze made the words dry up in her mouth. Those dark eyes were filled with an intense hunger and need and a heat that bypassed her brain entirely and went like a lightning strike into her chest, spreading heat and sizzle all the way to her knees.
Oh. Maybe she wasn’t alone, feeling the way she felt? She blinked, her gaze locked on his, until he swore under his breath, barely loud enough to hear, and broke the connection by looking away.
Freed, she could breathe again, but her only thought had been the desire to take his face in her hands, turn his chin so that she could see those eyes again and figure out if that look had been meant for her personally, or if he just needed to get laid, and never mind that the last thing she needed was a quick hot anything. She wanted that look to have been for her.
But he refused to look at her, the muscle in his neck cording with the strain of keeping his head turned away, and he stared into the parking lot at the row of white doors. She didn’t know how to force the issue, or even if she should.
Maggie, heedless of the tension quivering between the two of them, grabbed at the key and started down the row of rooms, counting off numbers.
Their room was at the far end of the row, number seventeen.
* * *
The moment the key turned in the lock, Maggie made a mad rush for the bathroom, closing the door with a definite snick, and they heard the water turn on almost immediately, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing.
“She’s...not used to roughing it,” Elizabeth said, almost apologetically, uncertain how to react. Would he just look at her? Or did she really want him to? The flutters in her chest could go either way.
“And you are?” He looked at her then, and his eyes were hooded, bland, telling her nothing and making her wonder if she had imagined the earlier heat. Then he took her hand in his own, turning it over and looking at it carefully. She shivered at the feel of that touch, but forced herself to show no other reaction. That flash of heat and longing had been so fast, so unexpected, and gone so quickly, she might have imagined it. Stress, she told herself. Stress and loss and you’re lucky you’re still standing right now. Although if he didn’t stop holding her hands like that, his fingers sliding up and down her palm, she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be standing.
“Strong hands,” he said, almost conversationally. “Calloused but cared for. Nails neatly trimmed, no polish, cuticles groomed—you don’t bite your nails. You work with your hands, but not outside. Not roughing it, no, but not afraid of hard work.”
He suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing and let go of her, moving away. “You should use the shower next,” he said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay here. I’m going to go out and pick up some things. Lock the door behind me, and yes, I know you knew to do that already, humor me, all right?”
He slipped out the door like a man escaping a firing squad, and Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or amused. She locked the door and then, after a moment’s thought, went to make sure that the single window locked as well, before drawing the shades closed. Then she went to roust her sister out of the bathroom, already imagining the feel of hot water against her skin.
Or maybe she’d turn it to cold, after all.
Chapter 6
When Elizabeth came out of the bathroom half an hour later, dressed again in her old jeans and a fresh T-shirt she pulled from her knapsack, he was back, and Maggie was trying on a brand-new windbreaker in dark blue. The bed was strewn with plastic bags with the logo of a chain store on them, one she remembered seeing as they walked into town, and he pointed
to the smaller pile. “I wasn’t sure what sizes you wore, so I improvised.”
She put the thin towel she had been drying her hair with over the back of the single chair in the room, and went to investigate. The bags contained a couple of pullover tops in dark colors, and a pair of sweatpants, also dark, plus socks and a three-pack of cotton underwear, all in medium.
“Good guess,” she said dryly. Large, she would have been offended, and small was always risky. Still, she appreciated the effort it had probably taken for him to choose the items at all. “Thank you.”
He shrugged, still not looking at her. “They’ll have description of your clothing. I figured the more we changed, the better. And I didn’t know how many changes of underwear you’d stuffed in your bag.”
Two, in point of fact. She’d hoped to be somewhere with a Laundromat by then. Maybe not.
“Thank you,” she said again. She would repay him, somehow. Eventually. The feeling of being in debt was uncomfortable.
There was no windbreaker for her, but a heavy hooded sweatshirt. She pulled it on over her tank, and tested the length of the sleeves. A little long, but it worked.
“Libby, look!” Maggie pointed to the label on the hoodie. “A unicorn!”
Their companion winced; clearly he hadn’t noticed the logo.
“It’s okay,” Maggie said in response to his wince. “Unicorns protect girls, right? That’s why you’re here.” She nodded with absolute confidence.
“Right,” Elizabeth said, unable to help herself. “Young girls with garlands in their hair and horns resting in their laps, everyone knows that.”
She winced the moment she heard the double entendre, but he seemed to find that amusing, the way his narrow lips twitched and his dark eyes crinkled, as though suppressing a smile. And that look, that hot, heavy, considering look, was back in his gaze.
“If I put my horn into your lap...” he began, and Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him, reminding him that Maggie was in the room, and too young for ribald comments, even if he were joking.
She was pretty sure that he was joking. And if he wasn’t...what would she do then? That instant of heat between them... Elizabeth tried to dredge up some measure of concern, some worry at being in a motel room with a strange man, and couldn’t. It wasn’t simply that Maggie was there to play chaperone. Even after that look in his eyes, her every instinct told her that she had nothing to fear from him. Not physically, anyway. And even if he tried to play on her gratitude for rescuing them, Maggie was in the room with them.
She was honest enough with herself to admit to feeling a little bit of disappointment about that.
Maggie, ignoring their byplay, had tired of looking through her new clothing, and was busy taking everything out of her knapsack and putting it into the new carryall; like her clothing, it was similar to the one she had carried, only in a darker color.
“Bright colors attract attention?” Elizabeth asked quietly.
“Exactly.”
His terse response annoyed her. “So does saying ‘hey, you’ all the time. You know our names, but we don’t know yours.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, watching Maggie pack her things away, and didn’t say anything.
“Hello?” she prompted him.
Maggie stopped and looked up at him as well, her face brightly expectant.
“Josh. Joshua Mustang.”
Mustang? She started to make a joke, but the look on his face suggested that he’d probably heard them before. “Hello, Josh,” she said, trying the name out on her tongue.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
“Libby,” Maggie said, correcting him. “Her name’s Libby.”
He considered her then, studying her from toe to top with a quiet, somehow totally inoffensive stare that was as far from his earlier look as possible, but still carried enough weight to make anticipation curl in her stomach. “No,” he said finally. “Elizabeth.”
There really wasn’t anything to say to that, so Elizabeth took her clothes from the pile on the bed and went back into the bathroom to change out of clothing that suddenly felt too grubby to be worn. When she came out again, now dressed in fresh underwear and the sweatpants, Maggie’s new backpack was closed up and waiting by the door, and her sister was sound asleep curled up in the middle of the bed, next to where Josh was sitting.
“She just crawled up there and...out like a light.” He sounded bemused at her utter confidence in him, but not surprised.
“I guess she thinks that unicorns are magically good.”
“You don’t?” His mood totally turned around, he feigned hurt, placing a hand against his heart as though she had stabbed him.
She went with the change, falling easily into repartee. “You may be good, but I’m not sure that you’re magically good.”
He laughed at that, and Maggie stirred, but didn’t wake up.
* * *
Miss Elizabeth didn’t know how right she was, he thought, studying her in her new clothing, standing there across the motel room like a challenge. The long dark hair was even darker when damp, and it fell all the way down her back like a horse’s tail, but silken like... His imagination failed him. He had never seen anything so soft. His palm itched to touch it, to knot it up in his fist and...
The image of the first time he had seen her, just the day before, her hair being used as a rope to keep her from going to her sister’s aid, struck him like a slap and he recoiled.
“There’s a pair of scissors in that bag,” he said, his voice gruff as he tried to erase that memory. “Do you want to do it, or should I?”
“Do what?”
“Cut your hair. Don’t give me that look. It’s too damn recognizable, and it’s too damn easy to get snagged on something if you’re trying to run.”
He had been bumming around the country since he had been kicked out of the herd at nineteen, caring only for himself, and had no problems with being selfish and arrogant, among other things. He understood that about himself, made no apologies. But the look in her eyes when he told her to cut her hair... It made him feel like a total shit.
She had beautiful hair. She probably normally brushed it a hundred times every night, or something. Naked, draped in that shining curtain...
He couldn’t even blame the rut for the way he hardened at that mental image. There wasn’t a male alive and intact who wouldn’t sweat to have that under him. Over him. Josh almost groaned out loud at the thought of her riding him for true, her hair falling over them both, sweat gleaming on her dusky skin, the press of flesh against flesh where their bodies joined....
His mouth went dry and his fingers clenched into his palm with desire, his cock painfully hard, pressing against the seam of his jeans. Where the hell had his control gone?
Rut. It was making him near-crazy. That was all.
Elizabeth picked up the scissors and looked at them doubtfully. They were good scissors, hair-cutting shears he’d had to look for, and pay extra for. He wouldn’t ask her to do it with a cheap pair.
The look in her eyes was haunted, almost mourning, and he hated himself for asking in the first place, even with the most expensive shears, even if he could take her to the best salon in the country. He had to ask, though—and he had to insist. Every instinct in him warned that her hair was a weakness she couldn’t afford. Either cut it or dye it; just shoving it under a cap wouldn’t work, it was too easy for a hat to be dislodged, and the thought of someone else using it to restrain or hurt her made a rage rise in him that overrode even the fire-hot itch of the rut.
She worked the shears a few times, testing their balance. “My mother used to brush my hair out every morning. We’d sit on the porch, and she’d drink her coffee, and we’d listen to the sounds of the morning—people going to work, walking their dogs, the birds in the trees, and she’d
brush it, a dozen strokes, crown to ends, until there wasn’t a single knot or tangle.”
Josh felt a cold shaft of guilt hit him, right in the gut. “All right, this was a bad idea, we’ll find another way.” Maybe they could dye it blue, make it so outlandish people would see it, and not the face below.
“No. No, you’re right.” Elizabeth’s voice was low, but determined. “Everyone back home, anyone who might be looking for us, they know my hair. They’d never believe I’d cut it short. But...can we leave Maggie’s hair long?”
“Yeah. We can leave Maggie’s hair long.” Hating himself, unable to stop, he moved across the room, taking the shears from her hands. “Sit down.”
He moved the single chair in the room away from the mirror, so she didn’t have to watch, and she sat, obediently, if reluctantly. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and smelled like shampoo and the last remnant of pine from her bed the night before. He had stood over them the hours they slept, keeping guard the way a stallion would over his herd, and the irony of it did not escape him.
He was a Mustang. It was more than an ironic family name: it was what he was, in his four-legged form. The rut pushing him to find a mate was part and parcel of his heritage, the same as his shape-shifting, and as impossible to ignore. His time as a bachelor stallion was over. It was the season for him to settle down and start a family of his own, and not roam aimlessly anymore. But the rules were blunt: he needed a virgin. Elizabeth was smart, and brave, and the depth of feeling she had for her sister, the patience and caring, impressed him as much as her beauty and strength turned him on. He would take her to bed with pleasure, and give her as much pleasure as he could, in return, but this woman was not for him—and he was not for her. Not long-term.
All he could do was make sure that she and her sister were safe.
Lifting a length of her shining black hair in his hand, the damp strands clinging to his skin as though protesting his actions, he used the shears quickly, trying not to think about what he was doing. The strands fell to the floor, scattering against the pale carpet, until there was more on the ground than left on her head. The ends, rather than touching her waist, now danced just above her shoulders, and even under the crap motel lights the sheen reminded him of blackbirds flying overhead, their glossy feathers glinting in the sunlight.