This was her damn town. She’d lived here almost all her life, just like him. She wasn’t the one who’d left his family farm in disrepair and skulked off into the night without a solitary word.
She wasn’t the one who’d duped everyone.
And she wasn’t going to wander around like the victim. No more poor, poor Cozy Meadows dumped by gorgeous, stupidhead Finn Donovan.
So she had two choices. Turn around and face the music, head held high. Or run.
Far. Fast. Away.
Her feet and her bruised heart liked option number two. But her pride and her grit said, “Blow me, Donovan.”
Composing herself while the seniors gathered in clusters just waiting for her to fall into a puddle of her teardrops, she squared her shoulders and turned around.
She waffled momentarily because she’d forgotten how utterly gorgeous Finn was. He never failed to steal her breath with his deep green eyes and hair the color of a starless Texas night. He stood there by the Christmas tree they’d decorated just a week ago.
Okay, maybe she’d forgotten his amazing body and the ripples of muscles beneath his comically small, very pink T-shirt that read, “Keep Calm And Paint Your Nails” and only came to just an inch or so above his waistband, or his bulging thighs encased in a pair of plaid golf pants clearly too tight for him.
But the hell she’d let it show.
He leaned up against a broom, crossing his bunny-slipper-clad feet at the ankles while waiting for her to speak first.
“Nice outfit. You shopping blindfolded these days?” she asked, pointing a finger at his shirt.
The seniors snickered.
But he grinned. The bastard. He had the gall to grin—perfect, devastatingly handsome, dimples and all.
“You don’t approve? I picked out this shirt from the bin of Goodwill donations at Winnie and Ben’s with you in mind. I know how much you like to get your nails done in the color pink. I’m a little hurt you disapprove.”
No. Nada. Nope. He would not remind her how turned on he claimed to get whenever she talked about her love of all things girlie. Finn had always said it made him hot all over just thinking about her pink-dipped nails wrapped around the handle of a hammer. He’d loved that she was both handy and feminine to the core.
Instead, she stared at him with a blank expression. She’d read somewhere, if you didn’t want your nemesis to know you gave a shit, be indifferent. It was like death to someone trying to get a rise out of you.
Indifferent girl was indifferent.
Finn’s eyes searched hers as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
“What? No witty retort? No saucy banter?” he asked, jamming his hands into his plaid pants with an innocent tilt to his head.
Rather than engage, she decided it was a better idea to be clear about her feelings. Not the old, torn-to-shreds feelings. The new ones she was going to work like a dog to cultivate.
“Do you have a minute?”
Finn raised a lone eyebrow and shot her a lazy smile. “For you? I have a lifetime.”
Gritting her teeth, Cozy pointed to the dimly lit hallway leading toward the kitchen without looking back at him.
His heavy footsteps behind her reminded her of the hundred and one times he’d chased her down the hall of his family’s ranch house as they raced to his bedroom to make love.
And even as her heart crashed in her chest and her legs felt like so much butter, she whipped around and pointed a finger at him and his stupid pink T-shirt that was too tight across his chest and showed off every muscle he owned.
As he leaned the broom against the wall, she attacked.
“Let’s be really clear on one thing. You’re a bag of dicks. A tried-and-true snake. You left here without a word on the day we were going to announce our engagement. I don’t want to remind you of not just the work the people of this town went to in order to throw us an engagement party, but the feelings you trashed in the process by callously skipping on out of here like you’d found the secret hangout for unicorns. You suck. You suck so many hairy balls your cheeks look like the pouch of a greedy hamster. You deserted me. And I defended you. In fact, most of your closest friends did, too. We rallied. We searched. We called. We all but sent in the rescue ninjas—”
“Rescue ninjas? We have those now? I was only locked up for a few months. You crazy witches,” he joked, clearly amused before he took a step closer, the scent of his freshly washed hair wafting to her nose.
“Shut. Up!” she hissed, stomping her foot. “Don’t speak another word. You’re not allowed to speak—not ever. Not to me, not to the people who clung to the hope you were alive for two agonizing months until someone saw you in a bar in Galveston, throwing back a bottle of whiskey next to a hot blonde with big poofy lips. You hurt me. You hurt me bad. I trusted you. I loved you. But I don’t anymore. In fact, I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out one by one than so much as glance your way.
“But you’re here in Paris again. Ironically working off your time served where I spend at least three nights a week, rehearsing with the seniors. I don’t have any say in the matter. If I did, I’d never have to look at you again because I would have waved my fancy magic wand and shipped you off to the farthest point of the earth. So that said, because I don’t have a choice in this, stay the hell away from me, Finn. Don’t talk to me. Don’t try to worm your way back into my good graces with your stupid jokes and your stupider charm. Don’t pretend nothing horrible happened between us. Just leave me in peace and I’ll do the same for you. Go that, Fugitive?”
Finn stared at her for a moment—one that felt like forever, his eyes penetrating hers, deep and intense, making her cheeks flush.
And before she even realized it was happening, Finn snaked his strong arm around her waist and hauled her close until every inch of her was pressed to every inch of him, making her nipples tighten and her breath catch in her throat.
He wasted no time pressing his talented lips to hers and soundly kissing the life out of her, slipping his silken tongue into her mouth and stroking her own before letting her drop to the ground with a thunk of her heels.
Finn grabbed the broom he’d leaned against the wall and winked. “Damn, I’ve missed you, darlin’. It’s daggone good to be home,” he said before sauntering off to the kitchen, the bunny ears on his slippers flopping as he went.
“Depends Patrol!” Clive Stillwell yelped from the other end of the hallway, where everyone had gathered in a cluster to watch the big showdown. “Let’s take him out!”
Cozy instantly flapped a hand up to stop them, inhaling deeply and trying to find her center. “It’s okay, guys. Really. I’m fine.”
“Yer cheeks sure don’t say yer fine,” Clive remarked, the pine tree branches in the pocket of his plaid flannel shirt so he could properly get into character, askew.
Cozy’s hands flew to her cheeks in guilt. “It’s just warm in here. Really, guys. I’m fine. It’s like it never happened.”
Glenda-Jo Ledbetter smoothed her hands over her graying hair before pulling the top of her housecoat outward and fanning herself. “Well, I’m glad somebody’s okay, because heaven and the sweet baby J! Phew, that man does things to my insides he shouldn’t be doin’ at my age.”
Flora nudged her hard with a disapproving scoff. “Hush, Glenda-Jo! He’s a dickknuckle. No swooning over the jerk or you’re betrayin’ our girl here.”
Glenda-Jo narrowed her eyes at Flora and planted her hands on her plump hips. “I never, not for one cotton-pickin’ second, thought he left without a dang good reason. Don’t know what it is, just know it was big. Feel it in my gut. Y’all will see. Mark my words. That hunk’s here to prove me right, too, and it’ll be just like a Christmas miracle. Until then, I’m gonna keep right on swoonin’ because he’s worthy o’ my undivided swoon.”
Gus made a disgusted face at Glenda-Jo and wrapped an arm around Cozy’s waist, pinching her cheek with grizzled fingers. “S’all right, Cozy-Coo. If ain’t none o�
�� these hens got your back, me and Clive do. You want we should shoot the bastard? Clive’s still real good at turnin’ a spell. You can still do the one where ya give him a goat’s head and the legs of a stork, right?”
Clive blustered, his weathered face sheepish as he smiled at Cozy with a raised fist. “Darn tootin’, I can. I’ll make him so sorry he ever thought ‘bout doin’ ya wrong.”
Flora bobbed her head, her smile sly. “Just this mornin’ I made sure I ‘accidentally’ spilled my whole lunch tray right at the foot of his ugly bunny slippers. Got creamed corn and mashed potatoes all over the dang place.”
“Yeah,” Norman Biddles agreed, pushing his Coke-bottle glasses up on his long nose. “And if you want? I can make sure my spastic colon kicks in. He’ll be cleanin’ the toilet for days!”
Cozy fought a giggle, still trying to keep her insides from jiggling out of control. Clapping her hands, she hitched her jaw toward the rec room.
“All right, you bunch. I appreciate the gang-like support. It means everything to me. But no animal mashups and men’s room mishaps, okay? I’m fine. Swear it on my hairspray and new lipstick. Now let’s get a move on and go get some more practice in. We really need to work on ‘Mele Kalikimaka’. The chorus is still a little rough. Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters would have apoplexy if they heard us mangle that song,” she reminded them.
“That’s cuz Gussie here can’t pronounce the words,” Clive said on a chuckle, giving Gus a playful elbow to his ribs.
As they made their way back into the rec room, Cozy paused for a moment and fought the urge to cry.
She would not cry over this man. She would not investigate why such a snake could still stir up so many deep emotions in her heart. He didn’t deserve that.
No more tears.
Chapter Three
“SO, LET’S TALK about this,” Jorge encouraged in his light accent as he trotted slowly beside her on their walk back to her basement apartment, his diapered belly scraping the ground.
“Talk about what?”
Jorge sighed. “Let’s not beat around the bush, Jefe. We’ve been together a long time—”
“You mean since that dark and scary night when I saved you from that knife fight in the middle of the mean streets of Tijuana,” she reminded him with a snicker.
“Yes, yes, my hero. Thank God for you and your magical time-stopping abilities or I’d have ended up either dead from the cold blade of El Guapo’s knife or in some dreadful puppy mill. I’m not worthy. You’re so courageous. It was fate that you happened to be lost while you were on vacation and ran into helpless me. This is me all attitude and gratitude. Blah, blah, blah. Now, the point here is this, you were wrecked over Finn. In fact, I’d say you still are. How do you feel about him being here now?”
She shrugged her shoulders and hauled her favorite red purse over her shoulder, the bells attached to it jingling. She couldn’t address the freshly opened wound just yet. Not even with Jorge, who’d been through it all right by her side, steadfast and true.
Instead Cozy replied with a monotone, “I feel fine.”
Jorge stopped right in front of Mrs. Meacham’s picket fence, decorated with blinking colored lights. “You lie. Tell me how we’re going to get through this. It was pretty obvious tonight that he still has feelings for you.”
“Uh, no. That was Finn trying to get a rise out of me, which I refuse to give him. I haven’t seen him in months and he saunters back in here like this is some big joke and lays one on me as though we’re still engaged? Like he didn’t hurt people? No. No amount of charm and gorgeous flashes of his perfect teeth are going to make this right. He disappeared, Jorge. “
“Cozy—”
“End subject, amigo, or I’ll make you wear that diaper with the fancy glittering snowmen on it all season long.”
She picked up their leisurely pace again, keeping her eyes on the ground to combat her hot cheeks and the rushing pound of her pulse in her ears. Damn Finn. Why did he have to come back now? Just when she’d settled back into her routine, jam-packed as it was. Things were a helluva lot better than they’d been in months.
“Cozy?”
“Uh-huh?”
“It still hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
“Like a knife to my gut—over and over.”
“Can I ask you something I’ve wanted to ask you since this all went down?”
“I have no secrets from you.”
“Why didn’t you reverse time that night Finn didn’t show up for your engagement party? Maybe you could have found out what really happened.”
“Shhh! You know I’m not supposed to talk about what my magic can do. Using those skills goes against everything we’re taught. It’s not allowed. I only do it in dire circumstances, and that means almost never.”
“You did it in Tijuana for me,” he prompted. Though his voice was softer and sympathetic now.
She stopped walking again and looked down at her beloved familiar, his round, pudgy face at constant war with his long, chubby body. She loved Jorge something fierce; seeing him so helpless that night had made her do something she could end up in big trouble over. But in that moment, nothing had mattered but saving him.
“He was threatening to kill you, Jorge. I couldn’t let him take out a helpless animal who couldn’t fend for himself.”
She’d never forget the night she’d met her beloved familiar fifteen years ago. Lost in the streets of Mexico, a little panicked, she’d landed smack-dab in the middle of a brawl between two men over a beautiful, sultry witch by the name of Mariah.
Jorge ended up an unwilling hostage, his plump body pressed up against the sweaty drunk’s T-shirt as he held a knife to his throat and Jorge’s stubby hind legs dangled helplessly.
“I ate a lot of enchiladas that day. Otherwise, I’d have outrun the lowlife cabron.”
Cozy smiled an indulgent smile. Every time he told the story, it got bigger and more dangerous.
“Is that the current story? The last time you told it, you were preparing to eat your way through his chest after you’d wrestled the fifty-inch knife from him.”
“It was a long time ago. My memory’s hazy.”
“The point is, I’m not supposed to use my ability to manipulate time. You know it, and I know it. If I get caught, I’ll end up in magic-abuse jail just like Finn did. So no, I couldn’t use it that night he left. I guess my fear of authority is bigger than my curiosity.”
But it hadn’t been because she wasn’t tempted—it had been because she was afraid to find out exactly what had happened. Of the million scenarios running through her brain on that horrible night, the worst was that he’d fallen out of love and had cold feet.
She didn’t want to know that, to feel it, hear it—worse, see it. And then she’d heard about Galveston and the blonde and voila, mystery solved.
“Have you wondered why he was in jail?”
Of course she had. Incessantly since she’d found out he was back. “Nope, and I don’t intend to give it another thought. He got there by doing something shady, I’m sure. He’s clearly not above shady if he could stand up a town full of people who were ready to toast his engagement just two hours before the actual event.”
Can’t wait to celebrate with the world that you agreed to be my wife. I love you, beautiful.
That’s what his text had said just hours before he’d gone missing. She’d saved it on her phone for months until, in the angry, final stage of her grief, after she’d heard about the blonde in Galveston, she’d deleted it.
“I was there. I remember that night like it was yesterday, Cozy.”
Knife meet heart.
She swallowed hard. “Well, he can’t stand me up anymore. So the subject of Finn Donovan is closed. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to hear his name. I don’t want to talk about feelings that no longer exist. Comprende, mijo?”
The soft purr of a car met her ears as it pulled up beside them. Finn leaned out the window, his d
ark hair high on his head in a manbun, his sharp cheekbones glinting beneath the Christmas lights on the quaint houses lining the street.
“Bonjour, Cozeee! It ees so good to see you! You are pretty as always!” called out Jacques, the talking GPS system in the Pacer that Winnie loaned to her parolees for their transportation to and from their jobs.
She closed her eyes and prayed for the earth to open up and swallow her whole. “Hi, Jacques. Good to see you, too,” she called as she began walking again with Jorge glued to her calves.
“Your hair’s pretty like that. It’s longer now. I like it.”
“Hair grows. That’s what happens when you’re gone for months.”
“Can I give you a lift to your place?” Finn asked as he rolled along beside her at a slow pace, the Pacer’s tires crunching the gravel.
Can I punch you in your perfect face with my fist? “No, thank you. We’re fine.”
“I wouldn’t mind a ride,” Jorge replied on a moan. “My feet are killing me, mi corazone.”
Finn braked the car to a stop and popped open the creaky door of the Pacer, still wrapped in an advertisement for a douche from the days when Winnie was forced to drive it as part of Baba’s punishment while she was on parole.
Winnie often told the story about why she’d kept the Pacer, not just because she loved Jacques but because it reminded her how far she’d come and how grateful she was to Baba Yaga for showing her the error of her ways.
It would be comical, like rolling-on-the-ground belly-laughing with Finn in his ridiculous pink shirt and bunny slippers. But none of this was amusing.
She just wanted him to go away. Disappear so he wouldn’t be close enough to touch—close enough to prod for answers. She didn’t want to know the details about Galveston and blondes; it would only serve to torture her.
“Hop in, Jorge.”
“If you get in that car, I’ll put you on the biggest diet of your life, pal. It’ll be kale and carrots for the rest of your days. You’ll never see a drop of gravy again.”
Jorge grumbled, his sagging double chin quivering. “You heard the boss. I think she’s just being petty. I mean, I feel like we can bridge this gap, can’t we, Finn? Make nice for the sake of the season? For the sake of the potential debris y’all will leave in your wake if you ever properly duke this out. Whaddya say, Jefe?”
Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More Page 40