Chapter 12
Nadja didn’t so much wake up as slide into consciousness. She pulled the quilt up to her chin and sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep but enjoying the in-between space too much to get up just yet.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so well.
It wasn’t an especially comfortable mattress and the curtains were so thin as to let even the low light of dawn into the room, but she was so warm that those complaints weren’t so great.
She shifted slightly, and her back pressed against something warm and hard.
Suddenly, she careened into being very much awake.
Robbie.
She rolled to face him. She had the quilt, but the top sheet was twisted around his legs.
He lay on his back with his arm flung over his eyes, back to looking almost as gray and feverish as he had when he’d stumbled into her office.
She put a palm against his forehead and found that he was burning up.
“Robbie?” she asked, gently prodding his shoulder.
He groaned.
“Robbie, what do you need?”
He didn’t answer, just kicked the sheet off and whined.
Nadja was on her feet in an instant. She went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet concealed behind the mirror, hoping like hell there was acetaminophen or something to bring his fever down. No luck. She went to the kitchen and began ransacking cupboards to no avail.
Maybe they would have medicine at the mess hall. Surely. And if not, maybe she could find that woman she’d met yesterday—Rose, was it?—and ask her if she had any. Nadja was walking toward her pile of clothes on the floor just as someone pounded on the door. She shrieked and clutched her chest.
From the other side of the door, she heard JJ’s deep voice. “Knock, knock.”
She wrenched the door open.
“Godsdamnit, JJ. You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“Nadj, we both know you can’t die from a heart attack.” He looked her up and down. “I take it the night went well?”
Her confusion lasted but a moment before she realized she had answered the door in her bra and panties.
In the movies, the heroine would have snatched a blanket or, preferably, the hero’s shirt to cover herself.
But she had nothing to grab, and JJ had seen it all anyway. Many times and much less covered.
She glared at him. “It’s not like that.”
“It could be.”
“It would be about fifty ethics violations.”
JJ snorted. “You know, for someone who supposedly hated painfully litigious bureaucracy, you sure do cling to it.”
Nadja chose to ignore that comment. “Robbie’s sick. I need something for his fever. Is there a first aid kid or some medicine in the mess hall?”
“He doesn’t need medicine.”
When she opened her mouth to argue, he held up a hand. “This is not some bullshit where I’m telling you that people don’t need to take medicine when they’re sick. He’s not sick. He’s just approaching his first shift. And there isn’t enough Tylenol in the world to help that. He needs to run.”
Nadja went to the couch and sat down heavily, dropping her face into her hands. JJ crossed the room and disappeared into the bedroom, where she heard him say, “Up and at ’em, sleepy head. It’s morning, you know.”
Robbie’s answering groan was loud.
“That was not a request. Get your ass out of bed.”
Moments later, Robbie emerged from the bedroom and shuffled across the small hall to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
JJ came out and sat down beside her.
“How are you, Nadj?”
She sighed and dropped her head back against the top of the couch. She was hungry, that was the primary answer. She would need to feed soon.
“I’ll be alright. I need to check in on my clients.” She didn’t specify which clients. “Is there a place that I can do some work?”
JJ stretched his long arms overhead with a groan. “There’s one computer with internet in the community center. And you can use the satellite phone if you need to make a call.”
“But there’s internet?”
He winced. “Technically?”
“Technically,” she repeated, deadpan.
“You can browse and check your email, but it isn’t strong enough to stream or do video calls or anything.”
Her stomach dropped. Without the internet, she couldn’t stream. Without streaming, she couldn’t feed. Without feeding, she—she couldn’t think about that. Not yet.
She looked at JJ. He was starting to grow a few gray hairs in his beard and at his temples. Just a few. They’d known each other a long time. And he’d helped her out before. Maybe he would be willing to help her out again.
“Hey, JJ,” she said quietly, “can I ask you a question?”
He turned to look at her, his eyes narrowed. “What’s up?”
“I need—”
Once upon a time, before Talk Roulette and Voyours, he’d been a lifeline.
Someone she felt safe with. Someone she didn’t mind touching, being touched by.
He’d been a wolf without a pack, just passing through World’s End on his way to a logging job further north.
But then he’d stayed a while. It had never been romantic.
Nadja didn’t know if JJ was even capable of that.
But it had been comfortable and easy. Two people scratching itches that nobody else could, two people hiding who they were from anyone else who might like to try to know them.
But it had been five years since Agatha had shown up on his doorstep in World’s End with her daughters and countless wounds, both visible and invisible, since he’d gone north to the Cascades and bought property that had once been an old church camp, turning it into a safe haven for any wolf with nowhere else to go.
Since he’d started a pack.
How was she supposed to sift back through all of that to begin to ask for such a favor?
Hey, JJ, I know it’s been a long time, but I’m about to starve to death—well, not death, but a catatonic state—and I need you to boink me real good to save my life. Could you do that, buddy? For old time’s sake?
She didn’t even know how to start. But just as she opened her mouth to try, the bathroom door opened and Robbie emerged, a towel wrapped low around his hips.
“You look like shit, pup,” JJ said, pressing his palms into his knees and standing with a grunt.
“I’m glad the siding matches the walls,” Robbie said weakly, leaning against the wall.
“What?” JJ asked with a laugh.
“You know the joke about the carpets matching the drapes?” Robbie panted. “I’m glad my outside matches my inside.”
“You feel like shit.”
“Piping hot,” Robbie answered with a shaky salute.
“Then we’d best get a move on,” JJ said. He turned back to Nadja. “Find me later if you still need help. I’ll bring your mate back by lunchtime. Come on, lover boy.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to fire back that he wasn’t her mate, but for some reason, she kept her mouth shut. Robbie shuffled toward the door, clutching the towel tightly, his tattooed knuckles looking white under the ink.
“Be careful,” she said.
He looked at her, his whiskey-brown eyes ringed by dark circles, and leaned in. She forced to herself to hold still, to not flinch away from him. She’d expected a hug, but it never came. Instead, she felt the hot, dry press of lips against her forehead, just above her brows.
With his lips still against her skin, Robbie inhaled deeply before pulling back.
“I’ll be careful, Doc,” he said.
And then he was gone, leaving Nadja standing in a cabin in her—what had Robbie called them? her drawers?—and wondering if he’d do that again.