Morton tapped a ballpoint pen on the top of his shiny desk. “Oh look. It’s Nurse Ella, and only a week and a half into her impulsive yet prestigious return to the world of psychiatric nursing. I really thought you’d be in here day two of Crosby’s stay, but I’m impressed, princess. You’ve really put the ‘T’ back in the word trooper. Don’t ever let anyone call you a sissy. So have you worked your magic shrink skills and shrunk him back to remembering yet?”
Waving a tired hand at him, she snorted. “Yeah, yeah. I’m a real ninja-nurse, and no, nothing yet. So, mind telling me about this super-sekrit Crosby’s got locked in that fat head of his that has the pack in such an uproar?”
The more thought she’d given it while staring at her bedroom ceiling, all but tying herself to her four-poster to keep from banging down her guest bedroom door and hurling herself on top of Crosby, the more she realized, whatever was locked in his memory was of big-league proportions. Why else would the pack elders have asked someone to stay with him 24/7 and offered her a divorce like it was no big deal?
Crosby didn’t need critical care. He wasn’t going to collapse at any moment. While flashbacks could indeed be debilitating, and in some cases, much more severe for a paranormal, he was of sound enough mind to pick up a phone and call for help.
Something was rotten in Rockmont. If she could find out what smelled, maybe she could gently nudge Crosby’s memory enough to get him to come full circle, and thus, get the fuck out of her head.
Morton pressed a button on his phone with a square-tipped finger. “Hold all my calls, would you please, June?”
When Morton put all calls on hold, Ella’s experience told her it meant one of two things. There was a lecture coming—or he had something important to tell her. Ella hunkered down in her chair and waited while Morton steepled his hands under his full chin.
“I told you this wasn’t a good idea. I told you it was impulsive and as reckless as the day you bet Grady Wharton you could beat his wimpy ass in a race against his new souped-up Chevelle—on your ten speed bike.”
She gave Morton a sheepish glance. Yes. She could be impulsive, but Grady had been a showoff, and he’d been mean to Leon Lipknicki. Whatevs. “He was making fun of Leon’s older-than-dirt Yugo. I couldn’t let him pick on Leon. And I almost beat him… If he hadn’t been such a dirty cheater and taken that crossroad, I would have beaten him. And he was too a wimp. A wimp who didn’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘put your foot in the kitchen’. I mean, seriously, Morton. I was this close to walloping him on a ten-speed bike.”
Morton scowled at her. “And then you fell off that bike after crashing into Landon Clooney’s porch—and broke four bones.”
Ella sighed, rubbing her temples. “Please. We’re werewolves. It wasn’t like I didn’t heal.”
“That’s not the point, Ella, and you know it. The point is, you wouldn’t have missed your junior prom if you hadn’t allowed Grady to get the better of you. Now,” he paused, giving her the look, “I’d bet my next retainer that Crosby’s beginning to push all those buttons of yours because he remembers nothing and you remember everything, and even the trained nurse in you can’t keep from reacting out of bitterness to every single word he speaks.”
Yeah. He’d pushed a button. The “haven’t had sex in a coon’s age” button. “If you only knew. Look, he’s been at my house, eating and sleeping like this is some sort of upstate Club Med sans the sand, and he hasn’t remembered anything other than I used to tell him he did a shitty job of rinsing the dinner dishes. To boot, he didn’t even relate that memory to his past—he thought I’d said it during the course of our past week together. So, in my heightened Fear Factor-ish nights full of worry that when he does remember, this will all come crashing down around my ears, something occurred to me. Maybe he’ll never remember.”
That terrified Ella. If he kept right on being this Crosby, she’d never be able to tread water long enough to dodge his playful advances and continue to hate on him.
Unacceptable.
Morton’s round face went dark momentarily, but he hid it just as quickly, giving her a smug smile. “You know the terms of the agreement, Ella. I warned you this wouldn’t be easy, but you, being the levelheaded, savvy negotiator you are, insisted on making a deal with the pack. So, Monty Hall, how’s that deal working out? Do you want out because you picked the wrong door? Or do you really want that divorce from Crosby?”
Did she? Yesssss. Christ and a cocker spaniel, yes. She wanted a divorce from Crosby. The other Crosby. In the meantime, there had to be a way to get out of this mess and still get that divorce. “Yes. I want a divorce, Morton, and I know it’s rare for the pack to grant one.” When you were in, you were in, according to pack law. No matter how hellish the marital situation. But the pack had promised nothing that Crosby did, like his pre-amnesiac refusal to give her a divorce, would matter if she did this for them. “That’s why I jumped at the chance to make a deal.” Like a circus dog through a hoop, she’d jumped, all right.
“Jumped being the operative word here.”
She let her head fall to her knees and into the interior of her purse. “It was impulsive, okay? Is that what you want to hear, Mort?” She mumbled her defeat from inside her purse. “I just didn’t think it would be this hard. He’s not the man I threw out three months ago, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be the same supreme grand poobah of shitheads he was before he got clunked over the head—not fun and easy to be around.” While even to her own ears that sounded petty and ridiculous, it was how she felt.
So there.
The roll of the wheels of his chair against the hardwood floor and Morton’s gentle hand under her chin made her wince and simultaneously sigh in exasperation. He sat at the edge of his desk, hands now folded in a chubby fist in front of him, his eyes forcing hers to look at him. “I’m sure you didn’t, honey. But here you are—the proverbial rock and a hard place. We can call it off, you know. I’ll put the wheels in motion right now, if it’s what you really want.”
Ella’s shoulders slumped. What she really wanted was for Crosby to show even the remotest sign there was still some asshole left in him. Then she could continue forward with righteous indignation as planned. “I just want this to be over so I can go back to my life.”
“And stop liking amnesia-riddled Crosby?”
“Yes. Yes, yes, yessssss,” she said on an all-out whiny gasp. “I don’t want to like him. I despise liking him. He’s utterly unlikeable. But his amnesia’s taken away all of my will to hate him—and it has to end, Mort. It’s neither fair nor just that he gets to forget all the damage he’s done and be someone he’s really not.”
“But isn’t this the Crosby you fell so deeply in love with? The fun-loving man of your dreams?” He clucked his tongue at her.
“You mean the man I originally married? Yep. This is the exact same one. Easy-breezy, not a care in the world. But he turned into a bit of a prick, if you’ll actually allow yourself to remember the events and how they really played out.”
Morton tugged on the end of her hair with a chuckle. “You know, keeping my promise to your father has not been easy, kiddo. You’re a helluva handful. You have crappy listening skills. If I say it’s not a good idea? It probably isn’t.”
Ella’s heart clenched at the mention of her father, who’d disappeared twelve years ago when he’d been part of a rescue effort for endangered wolves. Werewolves were nothing if not humanitarians to the nth degree—especially when it came to wildlife. Contrary to popular belief, werewolves were technically half-human, too. They had no bloodlust for the kill unless it involved hitting the plastic-wrapped meat section at the local grocery store.
She’d been twenty when her father left, and when he didn’t return, Morton, his best friend and colleague at the firm, had filled the empty, sorrow-filled space in her heart with fatherly advice and warm hugs.
He just had this infuriating blind spot when it came to Crosby.
<
br /> “I was only trying to do what was best for me in order to move forward. Is that such a bad thing?”
“It’s only bad if moving on isn’t the right thing to do.”
Her teeth clenched. “So what you’re saying is, I should be all sorts of enamored with being forced to remain married to a cheating slug unless I do the pack’s bidding?”
Morton gave her his disapproving fatherly look. “Is that who you were married to, Ella?”
Okay. So she had no proof Crosby’d cheated. Not the kind that involved sperm samples and wrinkled motel sheets or even lipstick on your collar. But she’d seen what she’d seen—and she couldn’t unsee it. “I know what I saw, Morton. I’ve only said that a hundred times. I saw Crosby with a woman. A very svelte, hot-in-a-Budweiser-commercial kind of way woman. And they weren’t exactly sitting Shiva together when I saw them. I also know that Crosby said and did absolutely nothing to explain what I can’t unsee. In fact, he shut up tighter than a scared virgin’s thighs at a ritualistic sacrifice. So the only safe conclusion to draw is, yes. That’s who I’m still married to, and I don’t want to be married to that anymore.”
Morton sighed, tugging at his royal-blue tie to avoid meeting her gaze. It was what he always did when he was uncomfortable with a conversation. “Crosby’s a good lawyer, you know. He worked long hours. He was dedicated to the pack.”
Closing her eyes, Ella sighed with more defeat. It was the same odd, yet old argument about her marriage to Crosby. “But he turned out to be a crappy husband. I’m not sure how his lawyer-ese relates to what he did to me, but clearly his legal genius impresses you more than his duties as a husband.”
Oh, she was bitter. Bitter and hurt that Morton hadn’t done what her father would have done if he’d found Crosby had hurt his little girl.
Killed him. There’d be no need for a stupid divorce if Crosby were dead.
“Did you actually see any hanky-panky between Crosby and this woman, Ella?”
Her spine stiffened, forcing her to sit forward in her seat and clutch her purse. “Don’t you lawyer me up, Morton Hensley! Don’t twist this to suit whatever your need is to defend Crosby. I saw Miss Jugs with her tongue shoved down his throat. Did I really need to see them buck naked and frolicking playfully to satisfy your definition of infidelity?”
“But there was only the implication of sex, Ella. You have no proof they actually mated. A kiss is nothing more than just that. A kiss.”
Rising from the chair, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh yeah? Tell that to your wife of thirty years. I bet Ruthie would beg to differ. Kissing someone else just ain’t okay when you’re married. Oh, and neither is Facebook sex. Lest ye waffle.”
She’d had many long, tear-filled conversations with Morton’s wife Ruthie, who’d also taken on the role of surrogate pack mother to Ella when her father had gone missing.
Over many, many trays of freshly baked cookies, several boxes of tissues and a Lifetime movie marathon, Ruthie had consoled her, agreed with her, raised her fist to the sky in angry indignation for her.
She’d even stopped speaking to Morton until he’d agreed to let Ella lick her wounds in private and stop pressuring her to talk things out with Crosby. And that’s where they’d been for the last three months. At a virtual standstill.
In the beginning, Crosby had made an effort to try to patch things up, but any communication between them always ended the same. Him denying anything was going on with the big-breastie babe and plenty of tight-mouthed jaw clenching in between denials.
He’d told her the hot blonde was a client who’d made an unwanted advance on him. Period. One he’d turned down. He’d all but refused to delve deeper into the subject and he shot down every question she attempted to ask about the situation.
Somehow, after each interrogation, she ended up feeling like she’d been the one who’d done wrong, instead of him. He’d turned the tables with his refusal to give details and his warning that she’d just have to trust he was telling the truth.
Even if what he said really was true, and nothing had happened, couldn’t he have at least understood how hurtful it was to find him at his office, late at night, with a woman on his lap?
Couldn’t he see how suspicious it looked that, leading up to that moment, he’d been working long hours, was always too tired to do anything but collapse into bed and, worse, he’d stopped talking to her? The last four or five months of their marriage had been more like they were roomies—and that wasn’t the man she’d married.
The man she’d married was a sexual beast—sort of like the man he was now.
Finding Crosby with whoever that woman was had been the final straw in a string of rejections. So she’d thrown him out—much to not just Morton’s dismay, but the pack’s.
“Ella?”
“Do not,” she warned Morton with the snap of a finger in the air. “Don’t say another word. I have to go fulfill my duty to the pack now. Oh, and I also have to tap the grocery store—again. Because your golden boy eats like four teenagers. I hope the pack is paying expenses. I’ll save my receipts,” she said over her shoulder with sarcasm.
“Bye, Ella-Belle,” Morton called, his voice cheerful. “Don’t be late for dinner next Saturday. You know how Ruthie is about sitting down by six.”
She gave him a mental flip of her middle finger as she let the door swish closed behind her. Head down, she ambled toward the elevators, only to pick up the scent of heavy perfume just before crashing into the wearer of the abomination to her nose.
A woman. A gorgeous woman, whose purse fell to the floor in a plop of leather. Ella instantly stooped to help her pick up the contents—only to find a pair of wide, baby-blue eyes assessing her.
“I know you,” the female drawled, plucking her wallet from the floor with red-manicured fingertips.
Ella’s chin lifted. Indeed. Scrubbing at her eye, she nodded at the young woman. Wow. She was even more perfect in the light of day. Super blonde, super tanned, super ripped. Boo-hiss. “You sure do.”
Her thickly fringed eyes, innocent and perfectly lined, gave Ella the once-over. “You’re Crosby Nash’s assistant, right?”
Is that what he was calling his wife these days? Before she reacted in typical potty-mouthed fashion, she paused and gave the woman a subtle whiff. She was human. Not that this surprised her terribly. In the effort to blend with the outside world, the pack did plenty of business with humans, just like everyone else.
Ella sniffed again.
She was also young. Very young. Totally explained Crosby’s knowledge of Twilight. Bet she was team Edward.
In the chaos of the night she’d found Crosby with this woman, Ella hadn’t bothered to investigate her deeper.
It was a defense mechanism, for sure. If she knew as little as possible about this alleged client who was so adept at borrowing her husband’s lap, the easier it would be to block her very existence from her mind. It was like closing your eyes and telling yourself the monster isn’t really under your bed.
“I was his assistant. I’m not anymore. We broke up because I’m a crappy filer and my coffee-making skills were on par with making mud.”
Her laughter tinkled in Ella’s ears, light and sweet. “I imagine he was a very demanding boss. I know he was very demanding with me.” She gave a slight shiver and shot Ella one of those looks of unspoken understanding girlfriends gave one another when they wanted to express the virility of a man.
Okay. She was out. So out. No details. If she could put her hands over her ears and la-la-la her way out of this, she’d do it.
Yet, her instinct to probe this bodacious babe further just wouldn’t kick in. She should be kicking her Clairol Number 222 blonde ass from here to Sunday for all the trouble she’d caused. She should be interrogating her about that night while she salivated over her immobilized-with-fear form in true, maniacal-werewolf fashion.
To boot, she should really want to kill the woman for calling her Crosby’s assistant. In fact, it sh
ould make her feel downright stabby.
Yet, the vibe this woman threw was anything but maliciously man-stealing.
“Oh, I’ll just bet he was demanding. I’m Ella Stills, by the way.” Because Ella was a firm believer you should always know the name of the bitch who might still reconsider taking you out.
She offered her slender hand with a warm and definitely genuine smile. “Marina Preston. Nice to meet you.”
Nice, nice, nice. She had a name now. That was very nice. “Nice to meet you, too. I’d love to chat Crosby some more, but I have to run.” Ella pushed herself upright, but Marina grabbed her by the arm.
“Can I ask you a question?”
The hesitance in her voice, the wary look in her eyes, struck Ella as odd, making her pause. God damn it. Why wouldn’t this woman just let Ella hate her all right and proper like?
“Sure,” she found herself responding with a smile, as if they were old friends and not archenemies.
“Have you seen Crosby since you two parted ways? I’ve been trying to get in touch with him, but some man named Harry Levine said I should come to the office and see a Morton Hensley, because Crosby was out of the country on business.”
Really? Well, well. She patted Marina’s hand. “Nope. I haven’t seen him, but if I do, I’ll tell him you asked about him.”
“Oh, that would be awesome. Thank you, Ella,” she cooed, swiping the length of her hair over her shoulder.
Awesome.
“Marina!” a harsh voice called from the elevators, anxious and gruff. “What have I told you about getting ahead of me? If I can’t see you, I can’t protect you.”
Protect her? Ella took in the man who slipped his hand under Marina’s elbow. Tall, reed-thin and in an impeccably neat suit, he shot Marina an irritated glance. A bodyguard, maybe?
If he was some kind of bodyguard, she had to wonder what they were making bodyguards from these days. He didn’t look like he could take Pee-Wee Herman, let alone someone who might pose a deadly threat.
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