by Holley Trent
She shook her head slowly.
Progress, at least.
“No, you’re not hungry, or no, you didn’t have breakfast?”
“Second one,” she said quietly.
He held his hand out a little farther. “Come on. I’ll get you something.”
She kept staring at his hand.
Okay, then.
Obviously, the woman needed a little more guidance, and he was impatient enough in general to give her plenty of guidance if doing so got her moving. “I’m going to touch you now,” he warned. “Okay?”
When she didn’t object, he pressed his hands under her armpits, got her standing, and at the electric crack that passed through him, he quickly pulled his hands away.
Fuck. He turned his back to her and shook out his hands.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Just static.” Magic.
It seemed to be attempting to jump between the two of them, muddling, and trying to find some middle ground.
Don’t touch her again.
He turned back to her and gestured toward the coffee shop’s door. “Okay? You want something here, or do you want to walk around until you see something you like better? My friend Chris’s mother has a bakery down the street. They have good pastries. Not a whole lot of protein to be found in there, though. I imagine you probably want some meat.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. The diner, then. It’s pretty new. I’m usually only there late nights, but I’m certain they’re the only place in Norseton that serves a full breakfast.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Yes? No?”
“Up to you.”
“I already ate. I’m feeding you.”
“Whatever’s fine.”
He scoffed and got her moving by canting his head toward the corner. “You seemed far more opinionated yesterday.”
“I didn’t hurt so much yesterday.”
Oh.
She did have a bit of stiffness in her walk, and cringed slightly every time her right foot hit the pavement. Her right leg had been the more badly broken one. The fact that she was ambulatory at all was a miracle.
“You didn’t take the medicine I left you?”
She shook her head. “Not used to taking pills.”
“You need to take one as soon as you get back to the house. Your body isn’t going to heal itself quickly if you’re freezing up and tensing from constant pain.”
“I’ll be fine in a few days.”
“You know that for a fact? You’ve totaled a vehicle before and been tossed through a windshield?”
When she didn’t immediately step down from the curb to cross the street, he stared at her—and caught her cringing with one foot raised.
The stepping-down motions probably tugged on the muscles in her thigh in ways she didn’t like.
“Gods, you’re a mess.” Pathetic little waif. He took a bracing breath, slung an arm around her waist, hitched her up against his side as if he were carrying a mirror or an ironing board, and tried to ignore the sensation of Pop Rocks exploding in his body. Whatever magic she held was bombarding him, and she didn’t even seem to notice.
In spite of his imbalanced weight, he managed to get her across the street before the light changed.
He set her down and whispered a breathy, “Thank the gods,” when the little explosions in his flesh abated.
“Diner’s this way,” he said. “It’s on the backside of this block, and faces the front of the community, which is to say the gate and the road. This is as far as we’re permitted to expand in this direction. We like to have a buffer.”
“From who?”
“Vikings always have enemies. That hasn’t changed in a thousand years.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“Crazy is the norm around here. You’ll get used to it.” Assuming you stick around.
He held the diner door open for her and gestured for her to hobble in past him. “Go on. Don’t want to air condition the entire desert.”
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but seemingly thought better of it. No words passed her lips.
She stepped into The Shieldmaiden and paused at the host’s stand.
A server named Dean—one of Paul’s childhood neighbors—swooped over and grabbed a couple of menus from the stand’s box. “Hey! I never see you this time of day.”
Paul shrugged. “I’m usually at work right now. I had a change of plans for this morning.”
Dean canted his head toward Petra. “Who’s this?”
Petra made a soft growling noise that made him want to slap a hand over her mouth, but the deed was done.
Dean was piqued, standing with his teeth bared in a charming grin and with one eyebrow raised. “Well, well. Is she one of the wolves, or do we have some other new tasty morsels in town I need to go research more thoroughly?”
“I’ll show you a tasty morsel,” Petra muttered.
“Got a little ’tude, huh? Hey, I like it. Don’t stop being you. In fact, you can be you over at my place.”
Paul wanted to growl a little bit, too, but folks would have expected it of him. He tried not to give people what they wanted too often. “Dean, this is Petra,” he said through clenched teeth. “She’s new to the wolfpack. She’s been recovering from a bad wreck and just woke up from a healing sleep yesterday, so back the hell off, okay?”
Dean put up a hand in the sign language for “Scout’s honor.” Norseton had never had Boy Scouts.
“I only want to get some food into her before I go to work, so could you give us the speedy version of your service shtick today?”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Dean said, then turned to Petra. “Welcome to Norseton. Since you’re new around here, I’ll give you the same advice I give to all the wolves who show up.” He leaned in and whispered hoarsely, “Don’t eat the popcorn if you go to the matinees at the movie theater. It’s always left over from the previous night.”
“I’ve never been to a movie theater,” Petra said quietly.
Dean straightened up and wriggled his eyebrows. “I’d be glad to show you around. I know where all the best seats are.”
Paul took the menus from him and muttered, “Bark up another tree,” as he pushed Petra along to his usual corner table.
“Aw, Paul, come on. Don’t be a shit,” Dean called after him.
“Coffee and orange juice, please,” Paul called back.
Nearing the corner, he gestured to the booth, indicated that Petra should slide into it.
She didn’t. She stared at the table, and then up at him.
“You’d rather eat standing? I do enough of that at work, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’d prefer to put my ass in a chair.”
Thinking that maybe she wasn’t so hung up on chivalry, he went ahead and sat on the side facing the corner.
She slid in after him, although there hadn’t been much room. He’d been sitting right in the middle of the bench, so he moved over almost to the window. Her relative lack of width kept the arrangement from being entirely uncomfortable.
At least she’s not touching me.
He put a menu in front of her and turned to the breakfast section. “You need some bread to sop up the grease from all the meat I bet you’re going to eat. The pancakes are really good. They even have a rum butter available on request. How old are you, anyway? Can you even drink legally? You didn’t have a complete medical chart.”
She blinked at him several times in what looked like an unseeing fashion and then looked down at the menu splayed open before her. “Old enough.”
He drummed his fingers some more, and was still drumming when Dean swooped over with two tall glasses of juice, two empty mugs, and a coffee carafe.
Petra didn’t look up.
Dean mouthed over her head, “Dibs?”
Paul would have given him the finger if moving his arm wouldn’t have aroused Petra’s attention. He could do better than crude sign la
nguage. He was a telepath. They weren’t touching at the moment, so Petra didn’t have to know what he was saying at all.
As he pulled his coffee cup closer, he smiled at Dean and projected, “Fuck off.”
Dean narrowed his eyes. “You’re going above and beyond with the doctoring thing.”
“If this were just a doctoring thing, I’d leave you to your devices and give her the space to work out what you’re insinuating.”
“I’m just trying to get my shot before some other asshole discovers her. Isn’t there a cardinal rule against doctors fucking their patients?”
Paul nudged his glasses up his nose and swirled some sugar into his mug. “Who said I was fucking her?”
“You did.”
“I did no such thing, and even if I had, I would suggest at this point that you mind your own damn business. You understand me?”
“Crystal clear, asshole. When you came back last year, I thought you’d changed and become a pleasant person.”
“Apparently, maintaining the facade wasn’t worth my energy.”
Dean flicked a discreet middle finger at him, and then leaned onto the table with his order pad. “What do you want to eat, Doctor Strange?”
Paul was going to let the old insult slide. He was already exhausted by the conversation and wanted to move on. “This is actually my second breakfast,” he said. “I shouldn’t be hungry, but I’m going to order the steak and eggs anyway.”
“Might as well, right? You’re on your feet all day, assaulting people with that cold stethoscope of yours.” Dean looked to Petra. “And for you, Miss Prettiest Girl in the World?”
Dean had always been a guy who’d keep pushing his luck, but Petra didn’t seem so interested in snapping back that time.
Her gaze darted in a disorganized path around the menu page. Her breathing sped and cheeks darkened. When her fingers dug into the meat of Paul’s thigh, he got slammed with the full intensity of her uncertainty. Her brain was working in overdrive trying to sort and process menu items, and she wanted everything but nothing. There was some sort of interference that didn’t make sense to him, and it was greedy and hungry.
The wolf. Right.
Petra had to be getting feedback from two different parts of her brain and was too tired to make sense of any of it.
“Take it easy,” he projected to her.
She pulled her attention away from the laminated page and put it on Paul. She blinked.
“Can you hear me like this?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Trust me?”
A slower nod. It wasn’t exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence, but he’d run with it.
“Start her with the pancakes, Dean. Two eggs,” Paul said. He leaned to see Petra’s face.
She nodded again.
“Poached, scrambled, fried, or hardboiled?” he whispered.
“Scrambled.”
“Scrambled,” he repeated to Dean, and then caught Petra’s gaze again. “Bacon or sausage?”
“Sausage.”
“Links or patties?”
She furrowed her brow, and that niggling feeling of Both and Neither hit Paul again.
“One of each,” he said to Dean. “Also, do you have any fruit back there?”
“Blech.” Dean grimaced and made a sound of disgust. “To be honest? Nothing you want to eat. Commercial food delivery isn’t supposed to be here until ten.”
“Don’t worry about it, then. I’ll get her something later.”
Dean padded away with the menus, but not before sticking his tongue out at him.
Paul rubbed the burning flesh of his thigh where Petra had clutched him, and watched her stare at the tabletop.
While the surface was interesting enough with all the Viking-inspired graffiti under a coat of lacquer, he preferred for her to look at him. Ego was a known personality flaw among the Afótama. Most were likeable in spite of it. He wasn’t.
He whispered, “If you’re going to stalk me, at least look at me while you’re doing it.”
“Shut up,” she whispered back.
He chuckled and slouched lower in the seat, putting his feet on the edge of the opposite bench.
“I don’t even understand why I was following you,” she said.
He bit down on his tongue, remembering what Lisa and Graciella had said about being gentle.
Honestly, he didn’t really know what to say to the woman—whether he should be discouraging her advances or encouraging them.
The part of him that was a territorial Viking had a notable opinion—conquer and seize. He was driven to take her as his rightful plunder. The Viking in him wanted to get her home and keep her in his bed until she complained, and he’d never had a woman complain—at least, not when he was nude. The part of him, however, that was the professional, rational doctor said to let her take the lead.
Doing either would mean that he was going to commit to her, and he hadn’t decided that yet.
He let out a ragged breath and pushed her juice glass toward the hand she had resting on top of the table. “Drink that. Get your blood sugar up.”
She moved her hand slowly toward the cup, keeping her gaze on the tabletop. “You…have to work today.”
“I usually do on Saturdays, yeah.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure you’ll find plenty to do without me being around to poke and prod you. You’ll probably sleep most of the day after you’ve taken the painkiller.”
“Can’t sleep my life away.”
“You can spare a couple more days to heal. Where were you and Arnold trying to get to when you crashed, anyway?”
He didn’t think she was going to tell him, she was so quiet.
But then she turned her head slightly, fixed her beguiling dark gaze on him, and blinked a couple of times. “We take the trip at this time. Every year, I mean,” she said haltingly. “Me and Arnold.”
“What sort of trip?”
“Go home to Oklahoma and visit our mother’s grave.”
Shit.
The hand she had around the juice glass had started to shake, so he gently removed it and set it atop his lap.
She didn’t seem to mind, which was good for him. Suddenly, he could breathe a little deeper, and he knew why.
He had a hardwired drive to see to her wellbeing. If she hurt, he hurt. Psychic bruising. The Afótama had evolved to cling to their partners—to not abandon their connections. Paul had been doing everything in his power to not form any new ones, but he was no match for the Fates.
“Can’t always get close,” Petra said, “but we try anyway.”
“Why can’t you get close?” He stroked the back of her hand, massaged it in a gentle circle. Heard her quiet exhalation as her body relaxed beside his.
She put her face against his shoulder—whether she was hiding against him or taking in his scent, he didn’t know, but her proximity was doing dangerous things to his body.
The softness of her skin, her slightly cloying smell—natural, the best he could tell—the way her slow breaths tickled his flesh through the fabric of his shirt.
He wanted her clothes off, and not for some stiff, clinical examination of her bruises and bones. He wanted to touch her—to urge her compliance through pleasure rather than medical authority. And he bet she’d accede to his every request, in spite of the difficult front she tried to put up.
But he had no business thinking that.
She laced her fingers through his and let out another long breath. “When Arnold got kicked out of the pack after our mother died, I went with him. I wasn’t supposed to, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him being out in the world alone. We’d always been together.”
“Attached at the hip.”
“Something like that. Our mother wanted us that way—wanted to make sure we took care of each other.” She let out a dry, short laugh. “Maybe she knew she wasn’t going to be around for long, and what would happen after she went.”
“So
, they tried to split you up?”
“’Cause he would have gotten in the way, I guess.”
“Of what?”
“Of them getting to me. They already had some wolf picked out to give me to as soon as I turned eighteen, and Arnold had said no. They told him to leave. We were fourteen.”
“You’ve been running since fourteen? Shit, woman.”
She shrugged. “We didn’t have a choice. Wolves get put out all the time.”
“I’ve heard that male wolves getting expelled is common. I’ve never heard of any woman, except for Mrs. Carbone, being in exile with them.”
“Yeah, well, now you know. We were going to see my mother, and I don’t know what happened. Maybe I nodded off or something behind the wheel. Arnold was asleep, so he can’t tell me what happened, either. Just that I got thrown through the windshield and he got pinned against the dashboard.”
“That would make me want to never drive again.”
She pulled her hand from his, and then fiddled with the corner of her napkin. “That’s nothing I have to worry about. Don’t have anything to drive anymore. Getting that truck was hard enough. I don’t see us being able to buy a replacement any time soon.”
“Most folks in Norseton don’t have personal vehicles. They tend to co-op them.”
“Co-op. What does that mean?”
“A group of people will pool their funds to buy a vehicle, and then work out a schedule for sharing. Chris and I used to share an SUV. Don’t need to anymore. His wife brought her car when she moved here, so now the SUV is in my building’s garage collecting a coat of dust.”
“You never leave?”
“Rarely. I work a lot, and most everything I need is right here in the community.”
“But if you needed to leave—”
“I could. We’re free to come and go. No one’s making us stay in Norseton. We choose to be here. I came back, didn’t I? Spent all those years away, but I came back.” Hated to, but he had.
“And you—you like it?”
He took a long sip of his coffee and stared out the window at the stretch of desert between the restaurant and the community boundary.
“More now than before.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Petra fiddled with the key chain Arnold had left on the counter and tried to guess which of the keys fit the house door. She wasn’t used to having so many keys. She’d only ever had the one for the truck they no longer owned.