by C. P. Rider
"Technically, I murdered him."
"That's true. You were protecting me."
"Us. I was protecting myself, too. Because I'm capable of handling my own life." I jabbed my finger at him again. "I am one hell of a dangerous woman, Lucas Blacke. You'd better believe it."
A slow grin spread across his face. "I believe it. And I apologize. For everything that happened today and yesterday."
Nope. It wasn't going to be that easy. "I will work on accepting your apology."
"You do that." He nodded, tugging at the drawstring on his sweatpants as he backed toward the door. He was obviously planning to shift and run home in tiger form. "I should go. I streamed Titanic last night because Lestat has never seen it. We were at the part where Jack and Rose fog up the windows on that 1912 Renault when King called."
"First off, you are entirely too involved in that cat. Also, that's a terrible movie."
"What?" Lucas's brow furrowed. "It's a cinematic masterpiece."
"I'm not talking about the cinematography. I'm talking about the raft scene."
"Oh God, you're one of those people. It's a movie, relax."
"Jack fit on that raft."
"I will not have this discussion with you while you're weak because it's likely to devolve into name-calling and slap-fighting, which is foreplay for us, and you aren't up to what comes after that. Besides, you're still pissed off at me."
"Fine." I swayed on my feet, righted myself.
"I'll see you later then."
He was leaving? Sure, I was mad at the man, but it seemed a little callous for him to just walk out after everything that had happened.
I glanced over his muscled shoulder to the gold-limned predawn sky through the windows. "Technically, it is tomorrow."
"It is, isn't it?" A tiny smile curved his mouth. "Maybe I should … stay. Since it's already … morning." He chose his words the way a wine connoisseur chooses a bottle of white. "Or we could go to my house and … finish the movie."
"Maybe."
"I'm sorry, Neely." He dropped his chin, let his arms dangle at his sides. "For not telling you about Julio and for getting defensive the other night."
I hadn't slept, I had cleaning to do, and cookies to deliver. Lately, it seemed like every time I moved forward two steps, something happened to set me back three. I was beginning to think the entire universe was set on wrecking any shot I had at happiness. Yet here was this beautiful, powerful, flawed man standing in front of me, his arms open and his head down, asking me to forgive him in word and bearing.
Maybe I was a fool, but I simply did not have it in me to turn him down.
"Thanks. I'm sorry, too. For not respecting your boundaries."
"Thanks."
I let out a long sigh. "Let's go to your place. I'm not sure I could sleep here knowing there's a giant mess in my kitchen, and I need to rest. We'll have to take my Mini since Chandra took the truck."
Lucas gave me a smug little smile and held up my car keys. Jingled them.
"You are very sure of yourself," I grumbled as I went to lock the front door and post the closed sign in clear sight of the street.
"I'm not, not really. But I am hopeful."
Six hours later, I woke up in Lucas's bed with my birthday bracelet around my wrist. A smile spread over my face when I saw the pretty gold chain, lock, and "sun." It meant a lot that he'd taken the time to put it on me. I had no plans to take it off again.
My peace charm, the one with the pink crystal inside, was across the room hanging from a drawer knob on Lucas's dresser. The healing one around my neck had a chunk of crystallized salt inside of it, and the color of the salt had changed from stark white to a murky gray. The charm had done its job well. I was tired, but I didn't feel like throwing up anymore.
Lucas was gone. I was alone in the bed except for Lestat, who was dressed in a tiny orange T-shirt with a tiger printed on it. White fluff protruded from the arm- and neck-holes of the shirt, giving the cat a husky look. He stomped onto my chest and flopped down.
"You know that T-shirt makes Lucas angry."
Lestat's response was a gruff purr. The purr of a cat who didn't care what anyone thought about his new favorite shirt.
I grinned and gave him a kitty high-five, which was me sticking his paw up and patting it while trying not to get scratched. Then I slid out of bed and went into the bathroom. I'd taken a quick shower last night before crawling between the sheets and sliding into a short coma, but I felt groggy and gross and needed to take another.
When I got the water halfway to boiling, I stepped into the steamy spray and let the heat sink into me. I had my own soap here, but I used Lucas's because it smelled like him, and I found that comforting after the way my life had been pummeled into submission yesterday.
What in the name of all the deities in the universe was Julio Roso doing in Sundance? Why, after all this time? Neither of us resembled the people we once were, and there was no reason for us to have ever met again. I hoped he'd taken the hint and left town, but I doubted it. He'd looked like a man with an agenda.
I was really tired of being at the top of everyone's agenda.
"Neely, hurry up and get out of the bathroom. I want to ask you something."
Chandra's command boomed through the house. Although Lucas's home was huge, the alpha hyena managed to reach every corner of it with her low, smoky voice. I finished my shower and dressed.
"I'm out," I called back as I headed into the living room.
Chandra kicked a floor pillow aside and plopped onto the sofa. "Everything okay?"
"No. Everything sucks." I wasn't going to pretend it didn't, either.
"Yeah. Near-kidnapping, drugged with a magic dart, and long-lost ex-fiancé. You ticked off all the boxes on the shitty month list in only one day."
"You forgot one. I also heard from my dad last night."
"How did that go?"
"Answer-dodging and half-truth spewing, the usual. Oh, and he wants me to move to Texas so he can lie to me there." I tossed the floor pillows into an organized pile. "I told him no. He can just as easily lie to me over the phone. No reason to change my life to accommodate him."
"Ouch. Another box ticked."
"What can I say? I'm the physical embodiment of a country-western song." I dropped onto the sofa next to her and pulled a cushion onto my lap. "Also, you missed that I turned thirty. Where's Lucas?"
"Nothing wrong with turning thirty. Better than the alternative." Chandra stretched her arms over her head and her back popped. "Alpha is out with Dan on group business. One of our shifters got drunk last night and started pushing his wife around. That's not something we put up with."
"He went with Dan?"
"Yeah. Believe it or not, that coyote is usually the levelheaded one of our group."
I plucked at the cushion. "It's probably just spikers who set him off."
Coyote shifter and Blacke group third, Dan Winters and I had an antagonistic relationship. It had been that way since the day my uncle was murdered—when he'd witnessed a scary display of my spiking power. And I hadn't exactly helped things between us when I spiked him a few weeks ago. It had been an accident—his fault for walking into the line of fire—but he didn't see it that way.
"Whatever it is, he'd better pull it together. Alpha won't put up with that for long."
Somehow, I doubted Dan would ever pull it together where I was concerned. He hated me too much.
"Lucas always handles these sorts of problems for the group?"
"Now. Amir and I used to. Thing is, and I'm sure you'll find this hard to believe, I lack diplomacy when it comes to domestic violence."
I widened my eyes dramatically and slapped my hands on my cheeks. "You?"
She grinned. "Amir wasn't any better, so now Dan and Alpha do it. Dan goes because Alpha has about as much tolerance for that bullshit as I do, and he sometimes needs talking down." She lifted her head. "Anyway, I thought I might drive into La Paloma with you today."
"No, this was all my idea. I have a couple of things to pick up and you mentioned you needed to make a delivery there. Thought you might appreciate the help."
"I would, thanks."
"We'll make your delivery and then head to Rosie's, where we'll stuff ourselves full of Mexican food."
"Ah, Chandra." I made a heart sign with my cupped hands. "Whatever souls are made of, yours and mine? Same."
"Poor Ms. Brönte. You butchered her happy little quote about doomed, toxic love." Chandra chuckled. She had the perfect voice for a chuckle, low and a little raspy. "Come on, let's get to the bakery. I'll help you load the delivery truck."
Chapter Nine
We loaded the boxed cookies onto the racks in the back of the delivery truck and were on the road by eleven. One wall of the kitchen was still a disaster, but I'd deal with it when I got back. I needed to get these Dia de las Muertos cookies delivered to the steakhouse. This could be a steppingstone back to doing business with more restaurants in La Paloma.
"King did a good job on this old girl," Chandra said as we chugged along in the slow lane, topping out at a shivering fifty miles an hour. The delivery truck had been shot up a few months ago, when Saul Roso came to Sundance, but was up and running again thanks to King's expertise and his very lenient payment plan.
"He did, but I can't concentrate on that because I'm still reeling at the fact that you knew that quote I messed up was from Wuthering Heights."
"What? I read."
"For fun? Because I'm curious. I know what you used to do for a living, I know you watch old TV shows when you're sad, and that you love guns and the color black. I know you prefer iced coffee with a little sugar syrup but drink it hot with cream only on cold days. I know you like mantecadas better than conchas, and you drink top-shelf whisky when you drink it at all, but I'm curious about what you like to do for fun. As much time as I've spent with you lately, I honestly don't know."
Chandra wrinkled her nose. "I don't love guns. I learn everything I can about them, and I use them to protect myself and others. They're a tool."
"That surprises me."
"Does it?"
"Well, yeah. You have so many."
"Sometimes they're necessary. I may not love them, but I will always do what is required to protect myself and my group."
I peered through the windshield into the distance, at the line where the ribbon of yellow-dashed black asphalt met blue cloudless sky. If an artist were to draw the horizon line exactly the way it looked now, it would come across as amateurish, almost childlike in its ruler's-edge lines and color simplicity, but it would be entirely accurate.
"Do what is necessary, yes. I need to learn that mindset. I need to think faster, act faster." I felt her gaze settle on my face as I changed lanes to pass an even slower vehicle. "I need to be more like you."
"A little. Not too much, though. There's only room in the world for one me." From the corner of my eye, I saw her crack a smile. "And one you."
On either side of the sunbaked, lonely highway lay stretches of alfalfa fields, some fragrant and verdant, some harrowed and ready for seeding. Towering stacks of rectangular hay bales, each the size of a semi-truck trailer, stood in symmetrical lines on the edge of each field. Attached to one of the huge stacks was a vinyl banner that read, Burn a bale, Go to jail. Apparently, there were people who actually went around burning up other people's animal food. I supposed it shouldn't surprise me; human beings are capable of all manner of idiotic and evil things.
As are shifters.
"This is peaceful. Quiet and empty," Chandra said. "Nice. Like the end of the world, but in a good way."
"Yeah." This was my favorite part of the nearly hour-long drive—well, hour and twenty minutes in the delivery truck—into La Paloma, California. There hadn't been another car on the road for miles. We'd passed the last one a couple minutes ago and I couldn't see so much as the red pinpoints of a pair of taillights in the distance. I felt like the only person in the world—except for Chandra, of course.
And who better to have with me in the event of an apocalypse? Aside from Lucas.
My stomach grumbled as we pulled off the highway and onto city streets. I had skipped breakfast, electing instead to satiate my appetite at Rosie's, one of several Mexican food restaurants in town. Rosie's served a comfort food item that wasn't available anywhere else in the world, as far as I knew. Quesadilla especial. This La Paloma delicacy resembled an empanada in appearance, but it was lighter, filled with cheese, and deep fried until golden. It was crispy, gooey, melt-in-your-mouth heaven, and I hadn't had one in four months.
Oh yeah. I had been Jonesing big time for a special quesadilla.
We delivered the cookies to the steakhouse restaurant and headed for Rosie's.
"Slow down. You're embarrassing me." Chandra rolled her eyes as I dropped a puddle of salsa verde onto my plate and dipped a chunk of the piping hot quesadilla into it.
"Please. Nothing embarrasses you." I stuffed the cheesy goodness into my mouth and held up a finger indicating she should wait for the rest of my comment until I was finished chewing. "You just thought you were going to get my leftovers."
"Not after I saw that gleam in your eye when they brought out your food. I was worried for the server. Thought he wasn't getting all his fingers back after he put that plate in front of you." She polished off her third carne asada taco and dumped salsa over the fourth.
"If he'd been any slower, he wouldn't have."
"Right. You know, you talk a lot of shit for a woman who apologizes too much."
"I'm sorry, what was that? I apologize too much?"
Chandra slow blinked at me.
"Damn." I ate some more of my quesadilla. "I wasn't actually apologizing to you. I was being sarcastic. It's not the same."
Chandra took a bite of her taco.
"Do you think that's part of my problem?" I let the question hang there for a half-second, and then followed it with, "But I like being nice. It's who I am."
Chandra chewed her bite of taco.
"But I also need to stop saying ‘I'm sorry' so much. And stop being sorry. Plus, I need to act faster. Be more ruthless."
Finally, she spoke. "Yep."
"That's it? You drop that criticism about my apologizing too much, which I assume is a commentary on how I ended up giving Casa de Carne a ten percent discount because I felt my cookies weren't as good as last year's—"
More chewing from Chandra.
"—and you say nothing but yep."
She spooned guacamole on her taco.
"Good talk." I scowled down at my food.
Chandra grinned as she went to stick the spoon back into the bowl of guacamole between us, and her gaze drifted toward the front door. Whatever she saw there wiped the smile off her face. The spoon clattered to the table, spattering us both with little green dots.
"No way." She lowered the taco to her plate without looking at it or me. "What's she doing here?"
A small, slender woman with blonde hair and very pale white skin walked through the door. She was dressed like the other servers, a Mexican-style, off-shoulder, white top with puffed sleeves, black skirt, black tennis shoes, and a black apron. There was a pretty sort of softness about the woman, as if I were viewing her through the lens of a very kind camera. She smiled at the cashier, spoke with another server, and then her gaze drifted to us.
All the color—and there hadn't been much to start with—drained out of the woman's face when she saw Chandra.
I wanted to read her thoughts so badly I had to force myself to stare down at my plate so that I wouldn't. Meanwhile, Chandra projected emotion at me, her brainwaves as dark and roiling as a stormy sea.
The blond clasped her hands in front of her as she approached our table. "Hello, Chandra." Even her voice was soft, ethereally pretty.
Chandra stood, tossed her napkin on her plate. "Excuse me."
And then my friend, the
dangerous ex-assassin hyena shifter, badass alpha second of the Blacke group, fast-walked out of the restaurant.
I found Chandra in the driver's seat of the delivery truck wearing black shades and her usual don't-screw-with-me attitude. The engine was running, the radio was playing a loud heavy metal song, and the air conditioner was blasting. It was in the nineties again. The desert southwest seemed to have a vendetta against fall and always did its level best to stretch summer straight into winter.
"Hey." I climbed in on the passenger side clutching my sack of leftover food and a large sweet iced tea. I wasn't going to argue about it if she wanted to drive.
She stared straight ahead, saying nothing.
"I paid for lunch. I was going to anyway, but I envisioned a battle. You leaving took the fun out of fighting over the check."
Again, I got nothing.
When I'd buckled myself in, she reversed out of the parking lot and headed in the direction of DiscMart, the large chain discount store at the other end of La Paloma where they sold everything from auto parts to groceries.
I didn't ask about the woman. The thing about Chandra was, she wouldn't answer your question unless she'd planned to tell you anyway. So, I figured I'd wait for her to tell me. Or not.
When we were halfway across town, she turned down the radio and asked, "Did you read me?"
My straw made an empty slurpy sound as it hit the bottom of the white foam cup. I shook the crushed ice around. "I'm going to give you some time to think about what you just asked me, because I can see that you're upset," I said. "Then you can try again."
She sucked in a breath through her nose and puffed it out through her mouth. "That was a shit thing to say. Sorry."
"Forgiven. Forgotten." I shook the cup again. Poked the straw around.