Chapter Thirty
KIT
Irushed over to the door before Louisa’s grandmother could attempt to open it. Her arms were cluttered with a mix of warm bags from the bakery and a stack of new books.
‘Such a lovely young man,’ she clucked, readjusting the goodies in her arms. ‘And so handsome when you smile.’
Despite the cool late afternoon air that rushed in as I yanked on the door handle, my face heated.
Two weeks had passed since Lucas had been turned into a wolf. For the first five days, I’d been obsessed with his recovery. I’d pestered Callum and Aster with messages demanding updates. The relief when they’d replied had lasted minutes before I was itching to ask again.
I hadn’t realised how morose I’d been before nightly calls with Lucas became routine while he continued to adjust in the mountains.
Louisa’s grandmother wasn’t the only person who’d commented on my smile over the last few days.
It seemed more people on the island noticed when I was down than I would have thought.
Listening to Lucas’s voice for hours each evening after I shut up the shop, hearing from him that he was well and recovering, smiling at his laugh as he told me about Aster and the goats’ latest antics – had brought my smile back.
I could only imagine what people would say once Lucas came home.
Even with my superior healing abilities I didn’t think I’d be able to keep my cheeks from aching with the smiles I wouldn’t be able to stop.
‘Thank you.’ My back pressed into Hamish’s dragon as Louisa’s grandmother walked out the door. ‘You’re beautiful when you smile.’
She let out a laugh that was as throaty as Louisa’s and walked down the street towards her pharmacy.
I hoped Hamish hadn’t heard her compliment. One of his favourite things to tease me about was how the older ladies of the island thought I was pretty.
I shut the door and came face-to-face with his smug grin.
‘What a lovely young man you are.’ He scrunched his nose in faux appreciation of my charms. ‘Such a wonderful smile with all your teeth intact. Not a denture in sight.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ It amazed me how he was able to sneak up on me, often when I was interacting with a customer in a way I’d rather no one witnessed and never when a queue formed or boxes of books he wasn’t interested in arrived. ‘You’ve got a lovely smile too.’
The grin avalanched off his face, replaced by his habitual scowl. ‘Fuck off.’
‘Gladly.’
I sidestepped around him, then gasped. My scarf had tightened around my neck. My heart swooped painfully as the fabric whispered across my skin.
It was caught on something.
‘No,’ I cried, jerking back towards the window display.
‘Fuck no,’ Hamish shouted.
He reached for my scarf. Having worked with him for years, I understood his concern wasn’t for me or my clothing, but for any damage I might do to his precious dragon.
Only the extensive training I’d endured with Callum and the years of practice being a werewolf stopped me from baring my fangs at Hamish and swiping with my claws.
‘Step back,’ I commanded, breathing deep through my nostrils to calm the panic desperately fighting its way free. I pressed my blunt fingers into my scarf, clutching it around my neck.
I didn’t have the innate authority Bonnie and Callum had been born with, but whether something had been imbued in me that could only be awakened in dire circumstances or if he did have some respect for his employer, Hamish dropped his arms. His expression flickered between annoyance and concern.
‘Your scarf is caught on a wingtip.’ His hooded eyes focused on a point over my left shoulder.
‘Okay.’ I flattened the soft green fabric against my throat. ‘Can you please detach it?’
Hamish nodded. Perhaps sensing something lurked under my skin, even if he didn’t know it was a panicked wolf, he carefully reached over my shoulder.
I couldn’t help the stutter to my breath as the fabric around my neck shifted at his touch. My fingers dug into my scarf, desperately keeping it in place.
‘There.’ One last tug, and a soft weight settled on my shoulder. Hamish stepped back. ‘You’re free.’
‘Thank you,’ I murmured.
I’d become adept at readjusting my scarves without removing them. I checked the front was tucked under my chin and resting across the top of my chest, then found the ends and made sure they were wound around my back and under my ears.
Hamish watched my nervous checking, his ginger eyebrows low.
‘Can you tidy the shelves over in romance?’ I asked.
Mindreading wasn’t a skill gifted to me when I became a werewolf, but I could practically hear the questions forming in Hamish’s brain.
Everyone assumed my scarves were a fashion choice until they asked me if I wanted to take one off or the wind caught an end and threatened to unwrap it.
Then they realised the choice wasn’t aesthetic but compulsive.
I had to wear a scarf, and naturally they wanted to know why.
My pack knew. They had to. It was impossible not to tell them after my epic freak out when I changed.
Everyone else on the island probably assumed I’d gone for a weird holiday in the mountains with Callum and had returned to the village with a penchant for neck warming.
To be fair, for most of the year wearing a scarf wasn’t unusual.
There were only a handful of days on the island when the weather was good enough that I wished I could bare my throat, could wear a T-shirt without feeling horribly exposed.
I didn’t know if my request was imbued with magic or if it was simply so unusual for me to ask Hamish to tidy anywhere but one of his specific sections of the shop, but he spared me one last frown and wandered off.
I wasn’t sure if I kept imagining him repeatedly looking over at me for the final hour before the bookshop closed. It felt like every time my hand patted the soft fabric covering my throat, he was watching.
My hand shook as I counted up the day’s takings, my heart hopping in stutters of panic no matter how many times I checked my scarf was safely in place. I slumped onto the stool behind the counter when Hamish left at closing time without saying goodbye. At least that was a return to normality.
‘He won’t remember it,’ I whispered, rubbing my hands over my face. ‘It’s not significant to him.’
Hamish’s curiosity might have been awakened, but any interest he held in my scarves would be brief. I’d ignore his pointed looks and questions, leave him to make his own assumptions. He was young. Maybe he’d decide it was an eccentricity of the elderly.
I jumped when my phone buzzed in my pocket. My fingers clumsy, I fumbled it free.
Lucas’s name flashed across the screen. Since we’d established a routine of nattering through the evenings together, I’d usually managed to shut up the shop and start making dinner before he called. I didn’t realise how long I’d been sitting on the stool, trying and failing to reassure myself.
‘Hey.’ I raised the phone to my ear. ‘I’ve just got to sort out the shop and then I can chat properly.’
‘Are you alright?’ Wind blustered down the line alongside Lucas’s voice as he walked to the furthest reach of the signal around Callum’s cabin.
He said these phone calls served a dual purpose; he didn’t go into Kit-withdrawal and they gave Callum and Aster a chance to dispel the rampant sexual energy between them.
I’d been glad Lucas had opted for voice calls instead of video when he said both those things.
A bright blush hadn’t left my cheeks for long minutes.
‘Yeah. Fine.’ I rushed over to the front door and twisted the sign to closed. The lock clicked into place and I gave the dragon window display a wide berth as I scurried to the back of the shop.
‘Busy day?’ Lucas asked.
That was a reasonable assumption. One I could go along with.
It was hard for a werewolf to tell if someone was lying on the phone.
We could pick out heartbeats if we tried, but it put a dampener on conversation to extend that much energy towards the other person’s inner workings, rather than the words they said.
‘Not really.’ I flicked off the lights and slipped into the narrow hall at the back of the ground floor.
I’d swapped my voluntary walk around the cottages for extra moments of privacy tucked inside since Lucas started calling each evening.
If I hurried past Bonnie and Joshua’s cottage while chatting to him, my Alpha might launch herself from an upstairs window to find out what was going on between us.
Which was nothing. Nothing but friendship. Which was fine. Good. Perfect.
‘Kit, are you sure you’re okay?’ Lucas asked as I climbed the stairs.
I stopped at the top. Usually, I’d head straight over to the kitchen and get started on dinner. I loved cooking meals from scratch, something which had been sorely lacking from my life while I studied law.
Tucking my chin into my scarf, I rushed over to the sofa. Despite my heightened werewolf metabolism, I wasn’t hungry. What felt more important right now was snuggling into blankets that held a hint of Lucas’s scent.
Kat hopped up onto the sofa as soon as I finished fussing. She curled into a black and white ball on my feet. I sank into the cushions, blankets bundled up to my ears.
‘Kit?’ The blustering around Lucas cut off.
On windier nights, he took shelter in a goat hut.
He said it was the main reason he’d mastered shutting off his enhanced sense of smell.
The pervasive stink of goat was inescapable to a werewolf without the ability to control their nose. ‘You still there?’
‘Yeah.’ I tucked a corner of the softest blanket under my cheek, breathing deep of the underlying earthy scent that had been fading every day Lucas had been gone. ‘Can I tell you why I wear scarves?’