by Alice Bello
Benjamin was here.
I smiled to myself.
That’s what Roxy had meant when she’d asked if I’d seen anyone I knew.
For some reason, I didn’t want to open the package yet.
I just wanted to lie here and touch it.
What if it was something I’d left behind in Durango and he’d driven all the way here to return it to me…
And he wasn’t coming back.
Oh, that would be bad.
I grabbed a pillow and held it over my face, screaming into it.
That would be terrible.
And a total load of crap, forgive my French.
I knew Benjamin. He’d be back to see me.
Or maybe I didn’t know him at all.
All those times he’d brought me food, or some flowers to brighten my room—Roxy’s mother’s room on loan. Or when he’d rent a DVD and we’d watch it.
He’d weaseled out of me that I was obsessed with English culture, and he sought out movies he thought I’d like.
I smiled the first time he’d done it, bringing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Not my kind of movie, but we did have a few good laughs over it.
When the sun rose and my new room was flooded in dewy, lovely light, I sat up, gently pulled the tape securing the brown paper and unwrapped the package.
More of his scent wafted out, to my nose’s utter delight.
Along with his scent was the aroma of an old book.
I loved books and would know the smell of aged paper anywhere.
I pulled out some wadded up newspaper and found exactly that, an old, moldering book, taking up the bottom of the box.
It was one of Winston Churchill’s many books, and one I had not gotten to reading yet.
I padded downstairs, took the long way to the kitchen through the dining room, leaving my new book on that great reading nook in the window, and then back toward the kitchen.
I pulled my new el-cheapo coffee maker from one of the unpacked boxes and went to work brewing some caffeine.
About the time the pot was done I heard the engine from last night growling as it got closer and closer, and then slowed as it rolled into my driveway.
I smiled as I poured two cups, leaving mine black, and putting a little cream in his.
Benjamin was sitting on the porch steps when I came out the front door, so I sat down beside him and handed him his cup.
Our fingers touched as he took the coffee, and I felt a little thrill surge through me I hadn’t felt before.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking out at my crappy little Toyota—that was dwarfed by the hulking, shiny new red Toyota truck.
Ha… funny.
It looked like a big bad Toyota wolf bearing down on my little Toyota rabbit.
“You took off before I could find your going away present, so…” He just left it out there as he took a sip of his coffee.
“I already have a copy of that one, but thank you.”
He let out a slow breath. “Liar.”
That I was.
“So why are you really here? The U.S. Postal Service passes this way every day.”
I knew exactly why he’d come.
“For you,” he said right before I could think it.
A thrill went through me, making my heart thump harder.
But I couldn’t be happy about it.
What good was I to him?
We were both broken.
He’d been broken by some nasty magic boogeyman that had possessed him and made him kill all his friends and do all sorts of horrible things to Roxy and her family.
And even though I knew and he knew that he’d literally had nothing to do with all that, he still remembered doing it. I knew he didn’t sleep much either, the memories of those atrocities making his dreams into horrors too terrible to bear.
But he’d helped me. He’d nursed me back to relative health.
Too bad I couldn’t shift.
And that meant I was going to die sooner than later.
Either because I couldn’t shift and it would slowly poison me, or I’d finally shift and my wolf would be a crazed killer and I’d have to be put down.
I felt a shiver thinking about Ty, the werebear sheriff, and clan alpha.
Would he be the one to kill me if that happened?
Was that why Maddox and Roxy had sent me here?
“You smell miserable,” he said, setting his coffee down beside him on the porch.
“What?” I licked my lips and tried to pull his words out of the cacophony of thoughts in my head.
They wouldn’t come.
“I said you smell miserable.” He turned and looked at me, his eyes so light and blue in the morning light. “You’re not happy to see me.”
No…
I shook my head.
“I’m happy to see you.” I bit my lips.
Don’t say it.
“I’ve never been so glad to see someone in my life.”
Benjamin let out a happy breath, a smile pulling at his lips.
I’d never really thought of his lips, but now, sitting here beside him… they were all I could think about.
“Good,” he said and nodded his head one time. “So what needs to be done?”
“Nothing,” I insisted.
He gave me a wide-eyed look, and then stood up and started toward the front door. “I’ll just have a look around—”
“Benjamin?”
“—and if there’s something that needs to be fixed, I’ll go to town and get what you need.”
I stood up and followed him, pointing my finger at him when he stopped and grabbed my finger in his, and looked me in the eye.
We stood there for a few heart-stopping moments, his eyes glowing blue and smoldering as he gazed right into my very soul.
Oh, god… that was corny.
I looked away and tried not to smile before looking back at him.
“I promised Maddox I’d check the house out,” Benjamin blurted out.
Oh…
He shrugged. “He just wants to make sure nothing’s leaking, ready to burst, catch on fire, or explode.”
I hadn’t even thought of that.
Old house, old wiring, pipes and… thankfully there wasn’t any gas going through the house, that I knew of. The water heater was electric.
I followed him to the kitchen where he turned on both spigots, pulled open the cabinet under the sink, and oh-so-gracefully slid down onto the floor and looked up at the plumbing.
He pulled out his keys and tapped and scraped on the pipes.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I asked.
Not that I wasn’t happy to see him… but, really. Did he know what he was looking at?
“I used to build houses, a long time ago, so yeah. I’m fluent in home maintenance.”
Oh…
More I didn’t know about the man.
He worked with Roxy’s brother, Bly, out in the mountains felling trees for a lumber mill.
A long time ago…
Now that I think about it, Roxy had said aging slowed down for shifters.
Not stopped, but slowed down.
The man looking around under my sink could be a hundred years old.
A moment later he came up from under the sink, brushed his hands off, grabbed a small LED flashlight from his pocket and went straight to a door I hadn’t even noticed yet.
A turn of a knob and a spooky creaking of hinges, and he disappeared down a flight of stairs to the basement.
I hesitated, not really wanting to go down into whatever was down there, but I felt like I wanted—no, I felt like I needed to be down there with him.
To be with him.
Cue the touching, romantic movie soundtrack.
And then grit your teeth when that soundtrack turned to horror flick cat-screech violins and creepy sound effects.
I huffed out a breath and headed on down the stairs behind him.
He was studying some
pipes up near the ceiling, and then went over and started looking through a metal electrical box.
I was surprised how competent he seemed as he checked the circuit breakers, and then traveled the entire perimeter of the basement, moving the light he held up and down the walls and stopping to look at where the walls met the flooring.
“This cellar was really well built,” he said, pulling the light up and taking a closer look at the wood of the steps leading up to the first floor. “The foundation is stronger than if it was new.”
He sniffed the wood of the stairs, his eyes closed as he took in its scent.
He looked at me and smiled. “No termites.”
“You can smell termites?”
“Uh-huh.” He moved around me, careful not to touch me, but close enough I could feel the heat emanating from his body.
I swallowed as I turned to watch him as he headed back up the stairs to the kitchen.
I can’t believe I just thought about his body.
I had to be out of my mind.
###
Benjamin went through the house, checking light switches, electrical outlets, the upstairs plumbing—he even got that stuck window in the bathroom to open using a putty knife he had in his truck.
Not only did the air lighten the moment he opened the thing, but I was struck by how beautiful the view was from that window.
And to my surprise, the window didn’t open from the bottom. It opened from the top.
Who knew?
The backyard trailed off into a densely wooded area. The wind was still whipping up the leaves and branches, and the breeze flowing into the house smelled of it. It was lovely.
I smiled. Something about that moment, standing beside Benjamin, looking out that window. It just seemed…
I shook my head and walked out into the hallway.
Get a grip!
This wasn’t some silly paranormal rom-com. This was my life… and my life was literally swirling toward the drain of life.
I put my hand over my mouth. I couldn’t start this with Benjamin… I couldn’t start anything. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. When I pulled my hand away I could see that my skin was even grayer than it had been the day before.
My life wasn’t going to be a long and happy one. It was going to be short and painful. And Benjamin had been through enough pain.
Wolves can be sneaky, though. Benjamin was just abruptly standing beside me—see, sneaky. He tilted his head and joined me staring at my hand.
“Next time you’re in town,” he said gravely, “you might want to get a manicure.”
I elbowed him in the ribs and tried not to smile. Benjamin could always make me smile.
“I can do my own nails,” I said.
“Can you?” he asked, rolling his beautiful blue eyes up as if searching the inside of his skull for the answer. And then those eyes shot to me. “Yes… but you never do.”
Did he really not see the gray seeping into my flesh? Could anyone really not see it?
I walked away from him, down the hallway. And that’s when I saw a duffle-bag sitting atop the bed in the room at the end of the hall.
I stopped and had two distinct and opposite feelings flood through me.
One was a thrill so strong I thought I was going to yelp from the mere force of it.
Benjamin was going to be sleeping just down the hall from me.
And the other was a deep pang. And it was cold and sour.
It was the dread of knowing nothing—absolutely nothing—was ever going to happen between me and Benjamin.
“I can always stay at the hotel in town,” Benjamin said from right behind me. He always seemed to know what I was thinking. No, he seemed to always know what I was feeling.
“No,” I shook my head. “That would be silly. You’ve come all this way… and there are like four bedrooms here.”
There was a long pause. I think Benjamin was giving me time to reconsider. After a moment he said, “That’s why I took the room on the end. That way we won’t be running into each other.”
Yes, no running into each other.
But there was only one bathroom.
Okay…
I needed to get out of there.
But we were out in the middle of nowhere.
I have a car.
“I’m going to town,” I said.
“I’ll drive you,” he said right back and started to walk down the stairs.
Wait! What just happened?
“No, that’s okay. I can drive myself,” I said, scrambling to catch up.
He was already at the front door by the time I’d caught up.
I was trying to get away from him, to have time and space enough to think.
And that wasn’t going to work if he tagged along.
He pulled his keys out and pushed on through the front door.
Wait! Stop!
Argh!
I reached out and grabbed his arm.
Time sort of stopped. Well, Benjamin stopped. And I felt that thrill thing again, a sudden spike in all my senses, probably in adrenalin too. And his arm was so warm. His flesh was soft and the muscles underneath…
Oh god…
He looked back at me and it was as if I was being consumed by something. A spell? The beginnings of spontaneous combustion?
But the warmth building in my chest was kind of a spoiler to what it really was.
I let go of his arm, stamped down on the word that was about to pop into my mind in bold though dreamy neon, and took a really big breath.
“I need to take a drive,” I said, my eyes closed tight. I felt time tick by as if there was a grandfather clock sitting on my shoulder.
I opened my eyes and looked right into Benjamin’s eyes. “Alone.”
Please, please, pleeeaase… just understand.
He smiled. And in that way that only Benjamin has he nodded and handed me the keys to his truck.
I blinked. “I have a car.”
He turned and looked out at the driveway.
Oh…
My car was completely blocked in by his big old truck.
“I can move my truck if you like.” He turned and gave me a very warm, very tempting stare. “I just can’t guarantee I won’t follow you.”
Oh gosh…
I felt parts of me tingle I’d never imagined tingling before.
I felt my face warm. I was pretty sure I was turning red.
I reached out and grabbed Benjamin’s truck keys and fled down the stairs. A few moments later and I was up in the driver’s seat of the truck and staring wide-eyed at the multiple control panel readouts, buttons, and levers.
It was like a freaking jet plane cockpit.
Okay… look for the basics.
Steering wheel: check.
Keyhole: check.
Gas and brake pedals: check.
I looked over and to my utter relief the transmission was automatic.
Thank heavens.
I put the key in the steering column and gave it a turn. The engine turned over and vroomed gamely. You could feel the vibrations up through the seat.
I looked up to see Benjamin staring intently at me, his strong arms crossed over his very, very nice chest.
I closed my eyes for a beat, trying to calm down, but more than anything I wanted to get out of there. I needed to drive or run, and I needed the wind to blow the thoughts right out of my head.
Ah, the windows!
I used the little buttons on the door to lower the two windows, and then I put the truck in reverse, let it roll back out of my driveway, and out onto the road. I stopped, shifted to drive and pushed down on the gas.
Not looking back.
Chapter 4
Okay. Though I was upset and confused… I had to admit driving Benjamin’s truck was fun. Being higher off the road was a pretty exhilarating sensation. Flying down the road, the truck eating the blacktop: that was awesome.
Maybe I should look into getting one of these?
<
br /> And then it wasn’t fun anymore.
I wasn’t going to be around long enough to buy a truck. I would never go to a dealership and pick one out. I’d never get to haggle about prices and options.
Just looking at my hands on the steering wheel proved my point: dove gray. Whatever sickness I had was doing just fine.
But I wasn’t.
By the time I dove into town I was well under the speed limit and feeling even worse than I had at the house.
At least at the house, there was Benjamin.
And my spirits dropped all the more.
I wouldn’t be around for Benjamin. We would never have…
Anything.
Oh god, I wanted to puke.
I pulled over and parked on the street, rolling the windows up, climbing out of the truck, and closing and locking the door.
I saw my reflection in the shiny glass of the driver’s side window. With the beautiful blue sky above as a backdrop, I looked more like a smudge than a person.
I leaned in and rested my forehead against the glass. It was cool, even though it was hot outside.
“Hey there, hungry girl!”
I pushed myself off the truck and blinked. Lauren, the waitress from Carly’s Burgers was standing on the sidewalk, laden down with at least a dozen shopping bags full of groceries.
“Are you alright?” she asked, her sweet, smiling face turning concerned.
No. “I’m fine.”
Lauren tilted her head and gave me a long, hard look. “People are never fine when they say they’re fine.”
I blinked back the moisture that was trying to well up in my eyes. My next breath sounded suspiciously like a sob. “What do people say when they’re fine then?” I was starting to babble.
With a tilt of her head, she commanded me to join her on the sidewalk.
We started walking as she spoke.
“Some people say they’re right as rain. Some like to be peachy keen.”
I smiled.
“Most people, though, still don’t mean they’re either. They’re just putting up a brave face. They’re just like all the rest of us…” I looked at her and she said, “They’re just barely hanging on.”
I swallowed a sob and tried to smile. But it didn’t quite make it.
“I don’t mean to get all up in your business,” Lauren said. “You just looked so sad back there.”
I’m sad because I’m dying, and there’s so much I want to do still.