Following Fabian
Page 19
He’d been yelled at plenty already. Three Shrews had screamed in his face, and the other two did a pretty fair job of it over the phone. Guess that meant they cared.
He scoffed.
“I do have to admit, I’ve felt a bit like a hanger-on since Astrid became a Shrew. A mascot,” Eric said. He pulled the refrigerator door open and located the canister of stock. “More so when the lodge became this fucking halfway house for the preternatural. It’s weird having everyone around you be special, and you’re just a cook. A guy who takes reservations.”
“I didn’t just hear that come out of your mouth.”
They all turned toward the sound of the feminine voice near the swinging double doors.
Maria stood with her arms crossed, and pretty face bunched into a scowl.
“Oh, boy,” Patrick mumbled. He gathered up his beer bottle and headed toward the gathering room, giving Maria a wide berth. Before putting his back against the door, he mouthed to Eric, “Good luck.”
“Here we go,” Eric muttered through clenched teeth.
“You forgetting I have mutant hearing?” she asked.
“I forget it every damn day. That’s why I’m constantly in trouble with you brats.” He turned his back to the room and lifted the lid off the pot.
Behind him, one of the Ursu brothers mumbled something in Romanian, and suddenly Soren, Peter, and Bryan filed out the back door, with Bryan calling over his shoulder. “Going for a run. Gotta expend some energy.”
Eric called back, “Cowards!” before the door closed behind them. He picked up the soup ladle and stirred in the stock as Maria edged up to the stove.
She didn’t say anything, but was distracting all the same. She didn’t have to say anything. Shrews didn’t have to talk for people to be able to figure out they were pissed. Most people, as evidenced by the suddenly empty kitchen, were smart enough to run away.
Eric couldn’t run. He had soup to deal with. Guests to feed.
While food was on his mind, he pre-heated the oven for the bread.
“Come on. Spit it out,” he said, and finally met her narrowed brown stare. “Give me my daily head-shrinking and let’s get it out of the way. I’ve got a busy afternoon ahead.”
“Uh-huh. Playing cook and taking reservations, right?”
“That about sums it up.”
“A job you’ve been doing more than competently for years, and now you suddenly have a problem with it? It’s not a good enough job for you all of a sudden?”
He sighed and tossed the ladle onto the counter with more force than was probably necessary.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t jump back. Just stared.
Typical Shrew.
“You know as well as I do that what I do here is more or less driving the Zamboni across the ice after two hockey teams have a bloody fight.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
He put his hand against his forehead and feigned swooning. “Strong words coming from you, Granola. I didn’t know you had that one in your vocabulary.”
“Yeah, I’ve got that one and a bunch more I’ll be more than happy to shake the dust off if I thought they’d do you some good, but let me tell you this.” She didn’t raise her voice above its usual moderate, slightly singsong tone, but there was an edge to it. She meant business, and when the flower child meant business, people listened because the alternative came with scary consequences.
“You think there’s something wrong with being normal, Eric? Do you know what I’d give to be plain-old Maria, and not have to worry about squeezing someone’s hand too hard when I shake it because I could accidentally break their bones? Or being anxious about the fact I probably won’t get to nurse and raise all those babies I thought I’d have? Be thankful. Always be thankful for what you are at the moment. Be glad you’re upright and breathing the air, and not flat on your back on the way out of this life. Count your blessings and pay them back.”
She gave him a quick tap to the shoulder that was probably meant to merely accentuate her point, but it hurt bad enough for him to hiss and grab the bruised joint.
“Shit, woman.”
She turned her back to him and strode to the door. “When your bear wakes up, that won’t hurt so much.”
“Thank fuck.”
“So, I’ll hit you harder then.”
She grabbed a banana out the fruit bowl and left the kitchen without another word.
He rubbed his shoulder some more and picked up the ladle he’d tossed.
“Count my blessings, indeed.” Now he remembered why he’d slept with her all those months ago. When she got bossy, all the blood drained from his head and shot straight to his cock.
The back door swung open, and the shifters filled the kitchen again.
“Eric, call your sister,” Bryan said, patting his rumpled clothes in search of something. He found his phone, tapped in a number, and put it to his ear.
“Gene’s bears have been on the property, and this time they left us a warning. Call her now, innkeeper, and put some fucking silver in your shotgun.”
The End
* * *
Look for the fifth installment in the Shrew saga—Eric’s Edge—in late 2015.
OTHER BOOKS BY HOLLEY TRENT
CONTEMPORARY & EROTIC CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
Den of Sin
Two Strikes
Ménage à Troys
As Sweet
O for Two
Winterball
Three Strikes
Hearts and Minds
Saint and Scholar
Calculated Exposure
Seeing Red
Storafalt Stories
Back to Storafalt
Teaching the Cowboy
Gift from Carolina
Non-series Books
Colleen’s Choice
My Nora
Sold As Is
PARANORMAL ROMANCE
Afótama Legacy
The Viking Queen’s Men
Non-series Books
Love by Premonition
Mrs. Roth’s Merry Christmas
Shrew & Company
The Problem with Paddy
Framing Felipe
Bryan’s Betrayal
Sons of Gulielmus
A Demon in Waiting
A Demoness Matched (Melt My Heart anthology)
A Demon in Love
A Demon Found
A Demon Bewitched
An Angel Fallen
For Holley’s complete backlist, including free reads, please visit her website http://www.holleytrent.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holley Trent is a Carolina girl gone west. Raised in rural coastal North Carolina, she’s a lady with Southern sensibilities, but in 2011 her adventurous spirit drove her to Colorado for new experiences. She lives on the Front Range with her husband, two kids, and two cats.
She writes snarky contemporary and paranormal romances ranging from sensual to erotic that are usually set in her home state. Her humor is sometimes subtle, often ribald, and regularly inappropriate. If any of her stories seem overly serious at first glance–keep reading.
She’s a winner of the inaugural CIM-RWA Abalone Award (for My Nora) and a three-time Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence finalist (My Nora, Calculated Exposure, and A Demon in Waiting). A Demon in Waiting was a RomCon Readers’ Crown finalist in 2014.
For Holley’s complete backlist, including titles from Musa Publishing, Crimson Romance, and Lyrical Press/Kensington Publishing please visit her website at http://www.holleytrent.com.
Want to chat about Following Fabian or another Holley Trent title? Catch her online on Twitter where she tweets under the handle @holleytrent or fan her Facebook page.
If you’d like to be notified of Holley’s new paranormal romance releases, subscribe to her newsletter.
COPYRIGHT
©Holley Trent
Published 10 February 2015
All Rights Reserved.
&nb
sp; Following Fabian is a work of complete fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictional or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Photography credits:
Woman: ©Maksim Toome via fotolia.com
Man: ©Yuri Arcurs via fotolia.com
Magnifying glass: ©Paul Barker via stock.xchng
WARNING: this story contains adult situations including sex and strong language. It is not intended for consumption by minors (age of majority as specified by your territory of residence).