Chapter 2 #2
Belatedly, I notice that the table is stacked with a ton of food. Sausages, bacon, eggs, toast. Beau was cooking up a storm while I was getting clean.
I slide into my seat and stare at my heaped plate. “This…this is all for me?”
He gives a deep, throaty laugh. It’s a nice sound, and I think how I’d like to hear it some more. “Girl, I can hear your stomach rumbling from here. Dig in.”
So, I do. Things like this were rare treats on the territory. Most of the time, me and the other non-shifting species were lucky if we got fresh meat at all.
I feel like I’m eating like a beast, but I can’t help myself. I’m so damn ravenous. After that awful humiliation and rejection, I lost my appetite and didn’t eat for days. But looks like it’s returned with a vengeance. I don’t look up until I’m done, and then it’s with a flood of embarrassment.
Beau has cleared his own plate and he’s watching me with kind eyes.
“What happened, girlie?” he says.
I take a deep, in-out breath.
“My pack… I had to leave… my mom. She’s not—” I break off with a sob, bury my face in my hands as the last few days hurtle back to me.
“Hush, everything’s going to be okay now.” He takes one of my hands and draws it away from my face. Electricity fizzes and jolts. It’s too much—him touching me—and I almost tear my hand away.
“Easy,” he murmurs. Holding it in his own, huge one, he rubs his thumb back and forth across my palm. I close my eyes, focus on breathing, and the jolts soften into tingles. His touch is doing me good. Underneath all the trembles, it’s soothing.
“You lived in your pack, away from the human world, didn’t you?”
I nod. Swallow hard. “Always. But I… I had to leave…” My voice is tight, constricted with the sobs that are threatening to break out. I fight to get it back under control. “I was in danger.”
A low, rumbling growl rolls up from his chest. “What kind of danger?”
I clench my jaw. There’s no way I can tell him what really happened. How a guy, not even one tenth as attractive as him rejected me publicly.
“My pack’s feral,” I say at last. “My mom smuggled me out because she thought I was going to be killed otherwise. Or suffer a fate worse than death. But it was dangerous for her, too—” I take a deep, calming breath.
This I can tell him. “And as she was leaving me, she told me she’s not even my mom. ”
He goes very still. Then his thick eyebrows draw together. “Did she explain how she wound up raising you?”
“Nope.”
“I’m so sorry, girl.”
When I dare drop my other hand from my face and look at him, the pain in his eyes seems to mirror my own.
“I’m not surprised you tried to turn yourself into a river rat,” he says.
I gulp out a laugh, and suddenly, we’re both laughing easily. Two pairs of eyes fixed on each other’s, like there’s an energy force connecting us.
“You gonna tell me your name?” he says softly, when our laughter falls away.
I freak out a little when I realize he’s still holding my hand, but I don’t want to make a big deal of it by pulling away.
Besides, it feels too nice. I can’t help imagining how those rough hands of his would feel caressing me all over.
Heat sweeps through me, leaving yearning in its wake.
“I don’t really have a last name,” I say. Only my pack name, which didn’t officially belong to me, since I was a halfling. “My first name is Vanessa. I always hated it though.”
He shrugs. “So, change it.” He looks right into my eyes. His gaze is direct and pure. My river god who dragged me out of the depths.
Reborn.
The word shudders on the air.
“My mom called me Vani—” I break off, remembering my childhood fantasies, when I used to dream of having a different life entirely. “Savannah,” I say. “I always wanted to be called Savannah.”
“I like it. A woman’s name.” He nods approvingly.
Woman. A thrill goes through me. I’ve never thought of myself as a woman before. Not even when I was about to be mated and bred. Is that how this big, sexy man sees me?
“Suits you,” he adds.
Not a halfling, or a river rat, but a woman. My skin tingles all over and I tear my eyes away, no longer brave enough to look at him.
“We’ll get you some clothes that fit you properly. Some nicer stuff.” His voice is low, lulling. I lean into it, drifting on fantasy.
“Some of those feminine toiletries.”
Then I snap back to reality. My mom stuffed ten bucks into the pocket of my backpack. Aside from that, I have no money, at all. And why is this stranger being so kind to me? Mom warned me that guys who don’t claim you as their mate are only after one thing.
I didn’t really know what she meant, but now I do. And the thought of doing that thing with Beau is more exciting than I can say. But…I’m so confused.
I shoot a panicked glance at his home, which looks so nice and fancy. What does he want with me?
“It’s a schoolie,” he says.
“A-a what?”
“Used to be a school bus.” He narrows his eyes questioningly. “They collect little kids, take them to school.”
“I knew that,” I say, and we smile at each other, because we both know I didn’t.
He leans back in his chair. “Then you’ll know they’re generally bright yellow. But sometimes, when the municipality is done with them, you can buy em’ up and convert them to your own luxury home.”
“You converted this yourself?” I take in the pretty white and powder-blue exterior.
“Yup. Every last bit. It was a hobby of mine for a good six months. Now it’s my full-time home. I’ve got a motorcycle, too. Sometimes, I take off on the bike. Other times, I hook the bike up with a trailer, and off we go to a new place.”
“You always have your home with you,” I murmur, thinking how incredible that would be.
“Pretty much.” He looks happy at the thought.
“Can you show me around?” I blurt out.
He stills, and for a long time, he’s silent, like he’s fighting some internal battle.
I’m starting to regret asking, when he drags back his chair and leaps up. “Sure can.”
As I stand up to join him, I’m struck again by how he towers over me. Such a big, powerfully-built guy, but he treats me with such gentleness.
He gestures to the bus. “Savannah, meet Bertha.”
“You named your RV?” My heart gives a little flip.
His thick dark eyebrows tug together. “Of course. Would’ve been rude not to give this lady a name after all the time we’ve spent together.”
A flutter of emotion goes through me. Something like jealousy. Something like a wish that he’d want to spend a lot of time with me. My cheeks heat again at my own silliness.
He holds the front door open for me and I go ahead of him, up the steps.
There’s a lot of space in these schoolies.
He shows me around, explaining how every bit of it was converted from a public bus into a home, and I explore it all, fascinated.
I love the thought that he made all this with those big, strong hands of his.
He shows me the kitchen, the seating area, the bathroom.
The only thing missing is a bed.
“Where do you sleep?” I ask.
“Up there.” He points at what looks like a shelf, but he doesn’t move to unfurl it from its recess, like all the other things he’s shown me so far.
Together in this small space, his scent fills my nostrils.
He smells like pine forests and leather and tobacco.
I take several slow breaths in and out, each one flooding my body with euphoria.
He’s less than a foot away. If I take a step closer, we’ll be touching.
I can feel the heat of his body, and in the quiet I think I can hear his big heart thudding in time with mine. A beat of need. Of synchronicity.
His hands lift toward me, and I go real still, longing to feel them wrapping around my hips, pulling me against him.
His presence envelops me. My eyelids feel heavy and I let them flutter closed. My lips tingle.
There’s a whoosh of movement in the air and my eyes snap open again.
He’s stepped away.
“That’s all,” he says, in a businesslike voice.
I swallow down a boulder of disappointment. “T-thanks,” I manage to choke out, embarrassment already smashing through desire. I imagine how I looked to him, eyes heavy, lips pursed.
Probably shameful.
He walks out of the bus, and I stumble after him.
The sun is up in the sky now and it’s turning out to be a bright, warm day. Beau strides off across the parking lot, and the tension between us severs. I wonder what I did wrong.
I go to the table and gather up the breakfast things, then I take them into the little kitchen and wash them up. When I come back out, he’s pacing around a patch of pavement in a tight circle.
“Been thinking,” he tells me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts. “We need to get you someplace to stay.”
“Yeah,” I say, because he’s right. “But—” I barely have a cent to my name.
“There’s a bar over on the other side of town. Looks like they hire young people. Might have a room you can stay in.”
“Great,” I say with a brightness I don’t feel. Which makes me a brat. Because twenty-four hours ago, that would’ve sounded like heaven. But now… now the last thing I want is to leave Beau’s company.
Even though he’s acting like he’s desperate to see the back of me.
He looks at me assessingly. Then he darts indoors and returns with a small tool that he flicks open with an expert maneuver. A hunting knife. Before I know what’s happening, he’s grabbed the hem of the shirt I’m wearing and he’s slicing off the last eight inches.
“No—!” I yelp. “What are you doing?”
“Almost done,” he mutters, teeth gritted in concentration, and a moment later the excess fabric comes away.
“Your lovely shirt!” I examine the tattered ends.
“Need to make sure you look the part.”
As I stand still, too stunned to move, he unfastens the last three buttons and ties the two loose ends together. The fabric pulls tight across my breasts and waist. I feel him drawing me closer, into him, as if he’s molding me. A master craftsman, cinching me in his hands.
He stands back, measuring his handiwork. “Pretty,” he says. Then he lifts a hand and sweeps my bangs to the side. They’ve gotten too long to hang straight down, and somehow he knows this. This raw, masculine man has a tenderness about him that I’ve never come across in a person before.
As his hand drops, his fingertip grazes my cheek, then the corner of my lips. So lightly, I wonder if I imagined it.
But that thought is enough; heat floods me, spreading down through my chest, to that spot between my thighs that hasn’t quit aching since Beau came into my life.
“Too pretty. They’re gonna love you.” He says it in a strange way. Sad, almost angry, as if he doesn’t like the thought of that. Then he turns away sharply.
“Been working on your shoes.” He hands them to me. They’re cheap, black canvas. Embarrassing, like the rest of my clothes. But they’re no longer covered in river mud, and by some miracle, they’re almost dry.
“Thank you, so much—” I mutter. Words are nothing like adequate to acknowledge what he’s done for me.
“Can’t have those little feet of yours wet all day.” He coughs, casts around. “Are you about ready?”
I snatch up my dirty backpack, guilt flooding me. He probably had his whole day planned out before a little river rat intruded on it.
“Sure am.” I force brightness into my voice.
He pulls on a pair of sneakers. “Let’s go.”
I follow him across the parking lot, confused as hell. A big hollow opening up inside me again.