Rhea shook her head. “Don’t be.” She smiled at him. It was warm and friendly. “Car problems?”
“More of a heater problem.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “Waste oil heater acted up all last winter and I’m tryin’ to be ahead of the eight ball this year.”
“What is a waste oil heater?” She smiled down as the smallest of Dave’s boys finally made it to their side.
“I do car work for people around here. Oil changes mostly.” He tucked the rag into his back pocket. “It burns the used oil up and heats the garage while I work out here in the cold weather.”
Dave’s tow-headed two-year-old stood at Rhea’s legs, pacifier stuck between his lips, little chubby arms raised in the air. She didn’t miss a beat, reaching down and grabbing the boy and swinging him up on her hip.
“What a cool thing.” She looked at the little boy in her arms. “What’s your name?”
“That’s Ricky.” David’s oldest son eyed the bag in Hagen’s hand.
Ricky swung a little arm at his brother while he popped the pacifier from his mouth. “No I not. I Batman.”
Rhea laughed, tossing her head back. “You are one cool kid Batman.”
Ricky grinned at her, his blue eyes squinting from the pressure of his chubby cheeked smile. Hagen could almost see Rhea’s heart melt as she looked at him.
Just as his broke.
He could never give her that.
The lie sat uneasy in his stomach. A bitter pill he chose to take just after his eighteenth birthday.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t give her that.
He wouldn’t.
Rhea’s eyes slid his way, her head held in place by a set of little fingers tangled in her mane. He felt her unease. It was heavy on his chest.
“What brings you to our neck of the woods?” David’s smile was easy and genuine. He was a good man and a good friend. One Hagen took every opportunity to help.
“I wanted to see when you guys would be available to start on another project in town for us.” Hagen forced his eyes to stay on Dave instead of the woman beside him, tickling a baby who looked way to comfortable in her arms. “We need another building put up.”
David nodded. “I think we can be ready whenever you are.” He glanced Rhea’s way and lowered his voice the way a man ashamed of admitting his place in life does. “Not much going on.”
“Hopefully we can change that real soon.” That was the only good thing to ever come out of what he was. The day he realized it could help the people around him was the only day Hagen didn’t hate the beast inside him. “Can you come down next week with your guys and we can go over what I’m thinking?”
“Sure thing.” Dave grabbed his hand in another firm shake. “Thanks man.”
“Thank you.” Hagen clapped his friend’s shoulder. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Dave blinked hard a couple times. He glanced toward Rhea and realized his son was using her hair like a curtain for what Ricky found to be a hysterical game of peek-a-boo. The little boy would pull apart the sheet of red hair and belly laugh when Rhea said ‘boo’.
“Ricky buddy, she doesn’t want your sticky fingers all in her hair.” David began to untangle his son from Rhea. “I’m so sorry.”
Rhea smiled at the little boy as she helped unwind her hair from his hands. “It’s okay.” She handed a hair free Ricky to his father. “I love kids.”
The knife in Hagen’s heart twisted.
“I think we’re going to head back.” He tipped his head toward Greenlea. “I’ve gotta get ready to take a group out tonight.” He lifted his brows in question at Dave.
Dave shook his head. “You don’t have to bring them something every time.” He grinned at Hagen. “Course they’d probably string you up if you didn’t.” He looked at the three older boys still waiting patiently for their candy. “They’re savages.”
Hagen pulled the candy bars he brought the boys from the bag in his hand and passed them out. “Aren’t we all.”
Dave gave him a smile as he turned to head back to his house. “Some more than others.”
Rhea didn’t say another word until they were halfway back down the mountain.
“Does David know?” She turned from the window that held her attention for the past twenty minutes. “About you?”
At least that’s what she’d been pondering this whole time instead of wondering why he had such a strong reaction to seeing her with the baby. She felt it, he knew she did, and it was only a matter of time until it came up.
At least now wasn’t that time.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He glanced her way. “I could see Jerrik telling him.”
She looked surprised. “Really?”
“Jerrik and I look at things very differently.” Like whether their genes should be passed down to affect another generation. “He has more of a fondness for what we are.”
Rhea nodded, her face unreadable.
But somehow he still knew she was struggling. With what he couldn’t tell, but the normal sense of comfort and quiet he felt around her was different. Had been since yesterday.
Maybe she was having second thoughts about what was happening between them.
Her hand pressed against his thigh and the familiar sensation he only felt around her pushed into him, slowly at first, then like the waves of the ocean, pulsing through his muscles, washing across his nerve endings.
She smiled at him. “Did David build the B&B?”
“He did.” Hagen relaxed back into his seat. “He and some of the other men that live around there built most of Greenlea.”
“If Greenlea becomes more popular then they will have better lives.” She squeezed his thigh a little. “They will have more opportunities.” She paused, her eyes moving across the truck cab to rest on him. “Because of you.”
“It’s not just me.” He shifted in his seat. “It’s all of us. We all want better.”
He brought her here to show her this was a place she could make a difference. There was work here for her to do. Give her a reason to stay. To want to stay. Not to make her think he was trying to impress her. He just wanted to do the right thing. For his family, for his friends, for the people who grew up like he did. Poor with limited opportunities to be anything else. Looked down on because of where they were from and what they were.
He didn’t want David’s kids to have to live with that. Kids didn’t deserve to be burdened before they were born.
That’s why he decided he would never have his own and did what he had to make certain it would never happen. What he was, it wasn’t easy, and it was only getting harder. Back in his grandpa’s days you could be caught on camera and everyone thought it was faked. Now, with the technology out there?
They could prove it wasn’t.
He couldn’t live with himself if he put his pain on his child. He wouldn’t.
Even if it meant he would never be able to have the life he wanted. This curse stole that life from him, cutting out the chance to give a woman he loved her own children. Worse than that, it forced him to swing the knife, or scalpel in this case. Carving away the happiness from his future and the future of any woman who would have him.
It was a situation he avoided, successfully, until now. Until a redheaded ball of fire stepped off that bus. And now he was faced with a decision. Let her go to find complete happiness with a complete man.
Or be a selfish prick.
Rhea slipped her hand into his, pushing more of the feeling that was becoming Hagen’s drug of choice into his body, flushing out the fear and worry with peace and wholeness.
He wasn’t just a man.
He wasn’t just the beast.
He was also a selfish prick.
16
“How long have you lived here?” Rhea followed Christine through the small cottage tucked at the edge of town. She looked around the bungalow, a little surprised at how normal it looked. No strange crystals dangling. No odd sculptures peeking from tabletops. No heavy
draperies smothering out the light.
Not the sort of place she was expecting a psychic to live in.
“In Greenlea, my whole life.” Christine paused at a small round pedestal table tucked at the back of the house next to a galley style kitchen. “In this house, five years now I guess.” She pulled out one of the spindle-backed chairs tucked under the pale oak top and motioned for Rhea to sit. “Tea?”
Rhea slipped into the chair, her body settling easily into the seat. Much easier than her mind was settling into the visit. Even if it was her idea, exploring what she’d always considered a limitation as anything different was a little strange.
Rhea swiped at the tiny tendrils of red waves still stuck to her forehead from the walk over. The humidity of her first days in Greenlea was back and just the thought of anything not filled with ice made her sweat. “Do you have iced?”
Christine smiled. “You like it sweet?” She pulled a large, clear glass pitcher from her refrigerator, the papery tea bags still dangling from the side and set it on the counter.
“Yes please.” Rhea rubbed her hands down the front of her legs, trying to rub off the clammy feeling collecting on her palms, more from nerves than the heat. She still felt a little odd around Christine. Maybe it was because Gail’s friend was the first person Rhea had ever met with gifts like hers, or maybe it was because Christine was the first person to know everything about her... abilities.
Even the parts Rhea struggled to acknowledge herself.
Christine handed her a tall glass then sat down in the chair beside her, taking a sip of her own tea as she did before setting it on the table. “How are you doing?”
Rhea swallowed a mouthful of the cold brew. “Good.” She wiped at a few drops of liquid from her glass that fell in a line across the smooth top of the table. “It’s just weird.”
Christine nodded. “I understand completely.”
“I just.” Rhea took a breath trying to sort out how she felt about exploring her abilities. Stretching her gift to see just how far it could go. “It’s not easy to work through the way I feel about it. It’s difficult to just let it be what it is.”
“What we are is not an easy thing to reconcile. I’m still not sure how I feel about it most of the time.” Christine’s eyes lost their focus for just a second and Rhea could swear a bit of sorrow hung in the air between them. “We’re caught in the middle. People don’t always like what we can do. It makes them feel strange to be around us. They don’t understand that suppressing what you are, it changes you.”
Rhea thought back to when it was easy for her to simply let it out. When she was young and naive and excited about what she could do. When it still felt like a gift instead of a burden that should be stifled. “It’s difficult for me not to still feel like I’m doing something wrong.”
Christine studied her for a second. “I wish I could offer more guidance on that.” She shook her head. “But I can’t.”
“Did your parents always accept you? The things you could do?” It was something Rhea couldn’t imagine. Her whole life, the part of it after her parents discovered what she was anyway, was filled with frustration and guilt. Both for her and her parents.
“My father died before I can remember but my mom...” Christine smiled, her eyes far away. “She was like me.”
“She could see things?” It was difficult to imagine. A parent who not only accepted you for all that you are, but understood you. Maybe even appreciated what you were.
Christine nodded as she stood, carefully picking up a gold-framed picture from a small china cabinet in the corner of the dining room. She handed the photo to Rhea.
An older woman with Christine’s eyes smiled out at her. For no reason other than an odd compulsion to do so, Rhea laid her fingertips on the picture. The same electric current she felt from Christine vibrated up her arm, bringing a gentle warmth and a sense of solid strength.
Christine’s eyes sharpened. “Rhea can you feel her?”
Rhea pulled her hand away from the photo. She rubbed her still tingling fingers together. “I...” She looked up at Christine. “I don’t know what just happened.”
Christine watched closely as Rhea tired to brush off the strange feelings brought on by a simple picture. “I think what you’ve discovered so far is only the tip of your iceberg.” Christine hesitated for a second before slowly pushing her hand across the table. “Would you like to know?”
Rhea hesitated. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe what Christine could do.
It was that she did.
Did she want to know what Christine saw? What if she wasn’t the woman Christine saw with Hagen all those years ago? Worse, what if she was and things didn’t play out the way she wanted?
Was the future something she really wanted to know?
Rhea shook her head. “I can’t.”
“I understand.” Christine pulled her hands back, letting them rest on her lap. “It’s probably best anyway.”
Christine’s reaction wasn’t what Rhea expected. Instead of looking upset at the refusal the other woman almost looked relieved. Rhea studied her for a second, trying to decide why that might be. Then it hit her. “Is it a burden? Knowing your future?”
“I don’t know.” Christine shook her head. “I can’t see mine.”
Rhea didn’t see that coming. She should have. While other people’s emotions were plain as day, laid out right in front of her to use as a map to navigate the world around her, Rhea’s own were harder to decipher. Dodgy little feelings she couldn’t always nail down. “Do you wish you could?”
“No.” Christine’s answer was quick and strong. Her eyes took on a sadness Rhea hadn’t seen in the woman before. “There were many times I wished I couldn’t see anything at all.”
“Why is that?”
“There’s nothing I can do to change what I see.” Christine swallowed and took a shaky breath. “Knowing someone you care about will suffer and you can’t stop it is the worst feeling in the world.”
A fist twisted Rhea’s stomach at the thought. How terrible to see it coming and be helpless to do anything about it. As awful as it was, the realization solidified the kinship she felt with Christine. Wishing you weren’t the way you were was something Rhea was more than familiar with. “I can’t imagine how that would feel.”
Christine’s eyes cleared, the sadness gone. Her mouth softened into the barest hint of a smile.
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
****
“No more overnights in the woods.” Hagen crossed his arms and stared down the smaller man doing his damnedest to look intimidating.
Chauncey’s eyes narrowed at Rhea before moving back to Hagen. “There will be plenty of time for sleepovers after we’re done here.” He crossed his arms over his narrow chest and planted his feet on the hardwood of the B&B’s entry way. “We’re staying in the woods.”
“No. You’re. Not.” Hagen tried to call on the beast, urge just enough of him to come out to scare the hell out of the pain in the ass facing him down now. But the beast ignored him, contented by Rhea’s presence beside him. “I’m not driving you up in the mountains and without me you’ll never find your way back.”
Chauncey’s eyes brightened and his lips quirked. “We don’t need you.” He tipped his head at Rhea. “We have Rhea.”
“No.” The elusive beast sprung to life, roaring as he burst through. Rhea would never go in the woods without him again. She was his to protect.
His.
Chauncey jumped back, his eyes wide as they stared up at Hagen. He gaped for a second, then straightened, tugging at the front of his shirt. “I believe that’s up to her.” Chauncey turned to Rhea. “We need to spend the night in the woods, you know that. The only time we— you, see anything is at night.”
Rhea slid her hand up Hagen’s back, the flat of her palm pressing tight against him until it rested between his shoulder blades. A slow heat formed under the spot where her body me
t his, growing in size and warmth as it stretched through his body.
“Why can’t we compromise?” Rhea smiled at him, her easy manner and the warmth she passed to Hagen making it easy to consider the possibility. “We go out in the evening and stay until a set time unless something interesting is going on. Then we come back.”
The beast grumbled as it eased back, satisfied with her proposal. “Fine.”
Rhea looked at Chauncey, one brow raised, her eyes intense and focused on him.
He dropped his arms to his sides. “Fine.” He huffed out and walked to the kitchen where Stewart was chatting up Gail while she made lunch.
Hagen turned to her. He didn’t want to go out at all. All he wanted was to be here with her by his side. In his bed.
But he wanted her to be happy more and keeping in Chauncey’s good graces would do just that. “I’m only doing this for you.”
She smiled. “I know.”
“No more wandering away.” He pulled her against him, breathing in her scent, soothing the last of the beast’s irritation. He kissed the top of her head, burying his face in her mass of hair. “I will be your shadow.”
Rhea tucked into his embrace. “I don’t have any reason now. I found the beast.”
A low growl rumbled through him at her words. The acknowledgment of what he was and her acceptance of it satisfied him in a way he never expected. It made him regret his agreement to her compromise.
But since he had there were things that had to be handled. “I have to go find Jerrik.”
She leaned back. “Why is that?”
“I figure Chauncey is going to be more of a handful now that he thinks he’s a seasoned mountain man. I want another babysitter at the daycare.” Hagen kissed her on the head. “Plus maybe then I can sneak you off behind a tree and have my way with you.”
Her eyes darkened at his suggestion. He felt the heat as it moved through her body in waves, settling in the spot he most wanted to be. Now. Later. Always.
He’d always been more perceptive than most people. It was one of the few parts of the beast he never hated. It served him well in life. Being able to see through people when they lied. Know when they told the truth.
Hagen Page 18