by Roxie Ray
This was the kind of help I appreciated. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else physically guarding Harley when I was perfectly capable, but I wasn’t able to dig into the systems that Mav could. “I appreciate it.”
He tipped his head toward Harley and let the door close.
“He’s not coming in?” she asked, confused.
“No, he’s going to do his police thing and find out what he can now that we have a bit more information about Tyler.”
I saw the lightbulb go off in her head when she realized why he was leaving. “That makes sense, duh.”
We both chuckled at her response. I couldn’t help but marvel over how damn cute she was.
I put my hand on the small of her back and escorted her to a table. Someone had come in and claimed the table she’d sat at with Tyler, but that was good. No need in her going right back to the spot she’d been nervous. Oh, shoot. Maybe she wouldn’t want to eat here. I didn’t get a big fear reading off of her, but better to ask. “Are you sure you want to eat here?” I put a little pressure on her back, so she’d look at me. We were halfway down the row of tables, headed for the only open one in the very back corner.
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked. “It’s the most convenient at the moment.” Her reaction made a warm glow rise in me.
Our mate is brave and resilient.
“I worried you’d be nervous eating here after Tyler was in here with you.” I held out a chair for her, with her back to the door, then I sat in the corner, so I had my eyes on the room the entire time.
She waved her arms at me and laughed. “Oh, poo. I’m not worried about that. I mean, he freaked me out at the coffee shop, but I still go get a cup as often as I can.” She hummed, a low sound that was far sultrier than she meant it to be, I was sure.
Eros and I didn’t miss how sultry, however. I had to curb my physical reaction, stopping myself from taking her hand across the table and drawing it to my lips.
We were determined to get to know her, get closer to her. But I wasn’t planning to claim her. Or bed her. I still had my own past to be wary of. I’d protect her until we figured this out, but that didn’t mean I could just pack up and move in with her. Things were still complicated for me.
As soon as we put our order in, and she apologized to the server for the disruption a few minutes before, me nodding along to her apology and smiling, she leveled a stare on me.
Geez. When she got serious, I wanted to jump and do whatever she was about to ask me.
That didn’t bode well for me being an independent beta male.
“Who was he?” Harley raised one dainty eyebrow and waited for my explanation. “And why did you come with Maverick, and so fast?”
I’d hoped she’d be so relieved we came that she wouldn’t think to ask that.
She cocked her head and continued before I could answer the first question. “And why’d you leave me breakfast?”
Damn. Eros chuckled. At least one of us found it funny.
You were an idiot. I tried to warn you, but you didn’t heed my advice. Now you must explain yourself.
“Okay, well, I came with Mav because we were together when you called, and it was faster than calling in reinforcements. We got here so fast because we were already on our way into town. He rode with me in the truck.”
She looked out the window, curious about what he was doing for a ride now.
Smiling at her perfect profile, I replied to her unanswered question. “I believe Ava is here in town shopping. He’ll either catch a ride home with her or have whoever’s on duty at the station take him.”
She nodded and looked at me again. “And my other two questions?”
Might as well get the personal stuff out of the way first, then focus on Tyler. “I left breakfast because I was rude to you before. A dick. And it’s been bothering me.” All true. I hoped to avoid telling her why I’d had a change of heart.
“Why after all this time? What made you decide to apologize now? And why do you think you owe me an apology?”
Fuck. Time to think fast. “We run in the same circles. You and your girls, me and the Kingston guys. It seemed unlikely we’d be avoiding each other in the future, and Ava told me how much I hurt your feelings. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t like you. I just, uh, don’t warm up to people very easily. I push most away and make friendships slowly.”
There. That was a lot of truth, leaving out the parts I couldn’t tell her yet, if at all. I’d managed not to lie, and that was the important part.
Too bad she still looked suspicious. “What’s your aim? Do you want to date?”
“Not necessarily. Just being friends is fine with me.” Eros growled at me, but I couldn’t help it. Harley getting romantically involved with me was a problem for her.
She finally shrugged and seemed to accept it, just as our food was set in front of us. We smiled at the server and Harley took a bite. “Okay,” she said around her club sandwich. “And Tyler?”
I chewed my bite and sighed. “Mav is looking into him from the police angle. He claimed to be a PI hired by a family member of yours who just wants info on you. To check in on you.”
Her face blanched. “Damn him.” Dropping her sandwich on her plate, she made a disgusted sound.
“Who?” I asked. She knew who it was.
“My father reached out recently. Called my Nana. I told her I don’t want to talk to him, and that was that. But apparently, that was not that after all. I guess he can’t respect my wishes.” After wiping her hands on her napkin, she pulled a phone out of her purse, then hit a few buttons.
“Hey, Claire.” She paused and I heard the woman, Claire, respond to her as clearly as if she’d been sitting at the table with us.
“Oh, hello, Harley. Doing okay?”
“I’m well, thank you, and hope you are.”
“Having a nice day with your Nana,” Claire said. “Would you like to speak to her?”
“Yes, if she’s awake.”
Harley smiled and nodded at me as Claire spoke. She thought I couldn’t hear the other side of her phone conversation.
“She is. One sec, I was in the kitchen.”
“Good. Could you ask her a question for me?”
“Sure, hang on.” Another pause and half-grin as she waited for Claire to walk to the bedroom.
A rustling sound came and I faintly heard Claire tell her Nana that Harley was on the line.
“Hello, darling,” Harley’s Nana said. “Are you okay? You never call in the middle of the day.”
“Yes, of course,” Harley lied and rolled her eyes at me. I smiled at her in response. “Nana, question. Did you ever speak to my father again? Tell him I didn’t want to talk to him?”
“Yes, I did. He called back the next day, and I told him you were comfortable in your life and didn’t need any disruptions. He said he understood and that was it. Why?”
“Someone was asking about me. It was probably someone I went to school with or something, but I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t have been him.” Harley closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath that she let out slowly to keep her grandmother from hearing.
“I was quite clear with him on the phone. He got the picture. I don’t think he’ll be bothering you.” I wondered if it bothered her to be so aloof with her own son.
Well, sweet Nana was wrong about that. Harley thanked her and hung up.
“Seems likely it’s him,” I said. “What is your relationship like with him?”
She smiled, but it was the sad smile of someone who knew loss. “There isn’t one. He left when I was an infant. Mom left not long later, saying she couldn’t handle being a single mother. I was raised entirely by my Nana. I’ve seen Mom a handful of times over the years but haven’t seen hide nor hair of my father ever in my life.”
I didn’t realize I’d reached my hand across the table for hers until I felt her small, warm hand in mine. The back of her knuckles felt like silk as I rubbed my thumb along
them. “Do you think he could be a dangerous man?” I asked.
Her face paled. “I have no idea. He’s been out of our lives for so long we don’t know what he’s capable of. Do you think he could be involved in something that could be a threat to me?”
I wished I could answer. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that her father sent a dragon PI. It was almost certain that he himself was a dragon. But why didn’t Maverick know him? “Did you grow up here in Black Claw? Were you born here?”
She nodded. “Yes, in the hospital that Charlotte works at. My dad grew up here, but I’m not sure where my mom was from. Nana didn’t know her very well. She lives close, but I don’t see her often at all.”
She fixed me with another of those stares that made me want to reach up and grab the moon so she could have it. “Why are you helping me? Why do you care now?”
Shit. What was I going to say?
11
Harley
When I asked Stefan why now, his face paled. He was trying to think up an excuse. “Tell me the truth,” I demanded. My head still reeled from finding out my father was so interested in me that he’d send a freaking private investigator. Now I needed to know why Stefan was all of a sudden my bestie.
He sucked in a breath when I asked for the truth. “It’s not new. I was always interested. Very interested.”
The man sure had a funny way of showing it. “You could’ve fooled me.” I wasn’t about to let him give me a bunch of bullshit. If he wanted to be friends, he’d better own up to all of it.
“I had my reasons for running and pushing people, mainly you, away, but I’m done running. It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got the rest of the day off,” I said.
He chuckled and took a big bite of his sandwich, giving me the opportunity to do the same. I was nearly in hangry mode but didn’t want to be rude by stuffing my face when we should’ve been talking.
“While the question is on my mind, let me ask this first,” he began. “Could this be your mother, not your father?”
I shook my head. I’d finish telling him most of my story. It was somewhat tragic, poor pitiful me, but it wasn’t all that long or eventful. “No, Mom’s got a new husband a few counties over. I hear from her every few months or so. She didn’t totally disappear, but she definitely didn’t raise me. She’s got two-point-five kids, white picket fence. What she expected to have in life before I came along and threw her plans out of whack.”
He looked furious. “She left you with your grandmother, continued her life, and then when it was more convenient, married and had more kids? That she then raised?” His jaw clenched and he set his sandwich down.
I couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction. “I made my peace with it long ago. And she has apologized. I do think she meant the apology. We have as good of a relationship as we can have, considering all that happened. When she married Frank, she offered me a place to live with them. But by then I was in middle school and very attached to Nana. Plus, still very angry at her at that point. I declined her offer and stayed here.”
He smiled and reached over, touching my hand again. He really couldn’t seem to stop touching me. It was sweet. If Tyler had done it, I would’ve been freaked out, but when Stefan did, it made me feel warm and safe. Weird.
“I’m sorry they did that to you,” he said. “You deserved better.”
What a nice thing to say. “Thank you.”
“You’re very lucky you had your grandmother. Many don’t have that.”
That was something I was very aware of. “I was blessed with Nana. She was the most amazing mother to me.”
He ducked his head and looked pained. Stress showed plainly on his face.
This time I reached over and touched his hand, tracing my fingers along his knuckles. “You didn’t have anyone?”
He looked up at me in surprise. “You’re astute.”
“I read the regret on your face,” I said. “You’re very expressive.”
He blinked several times, then burst out laughing. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that in my entire life.”
Now he was just messing with me. “Oh, come on. I can read your emotions like a book!”
He shook his head and picked his sandwich up again. I was glad I cheered him up again, but he couldn’t possibly claim to have a poker face. “How else do you think I was so easily able to tell you hated me?” I laughed and took a bite of my pickle, but my words wiped the smile off his face.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well...” I spoke around the crunchy pickle. “I tried to flirt with you, as you know.” I begged my face not to flush, but of course, it did. The redhead’s curse. I wasn’t ashamed, but even the slightest bit of embarrassment brought bright color to my cheeks.
He nodded. “I wanted to flirt back, honestly I did. But getting involved with me is a terrible idea.”
“I doubt that, but the point is, you looked disgusted every time I tried.”
His jaw dropped. “I wasn’t disgusted!” This time he reached around our plates and grabbed both my hands. “I swear on my life. I was trying to give more of a stoic reaction as if I hadn’t noticed that you were flirting. I was interested, I am interested, more than you know, but I needed to discourage you. It wasn’t disgust; it was...” He looked around as if searching for the word. “Regret. Disappointment.”
Wow. “I believe you.”
He let go of my hands and smiled tremulously. I wondered if he knew that I saw his vulnerability. The thought of me not believing him had significantly upset him. Maybe he was used to people not being able to read him? I didn’t understand why, because his emotions painted his face like a museum full of Stefan feelings. “Why were you alone?” I asked.
He sighed, then sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen.” That was difficult for him to admit for some reason. It made my heart ache to think about a younger, ganglier version of Stefan struggling to get by on his own, without anyone to love him or care for him.
“You’re twenty-two?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“You act older. More mature than any other twenty-two-year-old I’ve ever known.” I laughed as he ducked his head again. “That’s a compliment.”
“How old are you then?” he asked. “You’re mature as well.”
I knew what he meant, but it was the perfect opportunity to tease him. “Are you calling me old?”
His jaw dropped. “What? No!”
“You think that because I’m single and twenty-eight that I’m mature? Does that mean old maid in Stefanland?” I put my hands on my hips and furrowed my brow for good measure.
He sputtered, shaking his head and holding his hands out. “No, that wasn’t, I didn’t... Wait, you’re twenty-eight?” His face went from mortified to surprised, then back to mortified. “I wasn’t calling you old. Twenty-eight isn’t old!”
Putting my hands back on the table, I burst out laughing. “I was messing with you,” I admitted. “I’m not mad, and I knew what you meant by mature. But yes, I’m twenty-eight.”
He gaped at me. “I had no idea you were so mean.”
That only made me laugh harder. “Oh, stop it,” I said between my giggles.
He laughed along with me. “You really had me going.”
Tears leaked from my eyes. “You were so mortified.”
The next thing I knew, a pickle hit my nose. I stopped laughing with a gasp. “Did you just throw a pickle at me?”
He straightened his back imperiously. “Got you to stop laughing.”
I wasn’t about to start a food fight, but fair was fair. I dipped my finger in my sandwich and got mustard on the tip. “I have pickle juice on my nose,” I said. Without bothering to try to hide it, I reached across the table with the mustard on my finger, boldly aiming for his nose. He had ample opportunity to grab my hand or duck out of the way.
Instead, he lifted his head and captured my finger in h
is mouth. When he sucked the mustard off the tip of my finger, my breath caught in my throat. Desire washed over me in a way I’d never experienced before.
Oh, sure. I’d been horny before. I’d had a few dates that got pretty hot and heavy. I’d watched porn now and again. And I had a little device stashed away in my bedside drawer for the times I couldn’t stop the itch.
But this was different. The sensation of sucking around my finger made my nipples tighten and face flush. It was probably purple by the time he released my finger. “There,” he said.
His face, expressive as always, heated. His eyelids were lowered, and lips plumped out after my finger dragged out of them. “Now that’s settled.” I wanted to drown in his husky, deep voice.
“Indeed,” I whispered and pulled my hand back to my side of the table, then into my lap.
If I’d been a different person, I would’ve launched myself across the table, then dragged him to his truck for a quickie.
But I wasn’t, I was me. That was not an option.
He cleared his throat. “Any idea what made your Dad reach out after all this time?”
I took a long, cooling draw on my iced tea and willed my cheeks to pale again. “No,” I said after blotting my mouth with my napkin. “It makes no sense.”
“Well, your father, or whoever hired the PI, is determined, according to Tyler. He said his client isn’t likely to give up.” He smiled, sympathetic. “Sorry to tell you.”
That worried me. What if it wasn’t my father, or if it was, what if he was dangerous? We didn’t know much about him.
“Don’t worry.” Stefan seemed able to read my face as well as I could his. “I’ll take care of you.”
He’d said that very specifically. That he would. “You will?” As if I needed taking care of. A bit of protection wouldn’t be unwelcome, but I could take care of myself.
Stefan’s eyes widened as he nodded. “And Maverick and the Black Claw PD, of course. But I want you to know I’m here for you.”
We finished our meal quickly after that uncomfortable exchange, both of us stealing glances at each other. I couldn’t get the feeling of his warm, wet mouth around my finger out of my mind. The way my cheeks burned, I was sure they were at least pink, probably more like dark red or purple, the entire time. If I could think about anything else but kissing Stefan, I’d be able to calm down.