The Things We Water

Chapter 10

“Quit looking at me.”

“You quit looking at me.”

“I’m not even looking at you!” I laughed, side-eyeing Matti as we walked to my truck.

“I can feel you looking at me,” he argued with a sniff that had less to do with him being sick and more with him just being a pest. This was the first time he’d left the room since he’d gotten the brown plague the day before last. He looked like he’d been haunting abandoned hospitals for a century based off the dark circles around his eyes and the gauntness of his cheeks. This was the thinnest I’d ever seen him, and I had known him in his scrawny boy years.

And right at that moment, he was being the same pain in the ass I knew and loved because his heart was in the right place.

There was no hiding that I was sad they were leaving—not from his nose and not from eyes that had known me for most of our lives. I wouldn’t cry about it, I didn’t think. This wasn’t our first goodbye—not even our twentieth—and it wasn’t going to be our last either. It didn’t mean it wasn’t hard though. Every time was.

This time might just suck a little bit more because we’d lost two days spending time with each other while he’d been sick, and… for whatever reason, this goodbye felt different. A little more permanent. A little more scary, for me at least.

Duncan and I couldn’t exactly load into my truck and drive over if we suddenly wanted to.

I huffed at him. “If I was, it’s because you look like something that climbed out of a well.”

He huffed back as we got to my car, but he didn’t deny his appearance.

Maybe someone would try and exorcise him at the airport. “That’ll teach you never to ignore me again.” I nudged him with my elbow.

Matti snickered as I opened the truck bed and he grunted, lifting Sienna’s bag, then his, into it. I’d offered to carry it. He elbowed me back before slamming the tailgate shut and raising his eyebrows at me. I raised my eyebrows right back at him, earning me a smile and a hand on each shoulder.

“Sorry we didn’t get to spend more time together,” my oldest friend apologized.

“It’s okay.” I set my hand on one of his. “Thank you for coming with us. For helping me find this place. For everything.” That was the simplest way of putting it, wasn’t it?

“You going to be okay?”

“I think so,” I told him honestly, hearing the front door close. Sienna had gone into the nursery to tell Duncan goodbye one last time since he couldn’t come with us. Leaving the ranch wasn’t worth the risk, and he had a comfortable place to stay at the nursery. Matti had said bye earlier. “The donut is happy so far, and I hope I will be too.”

His perma-smile drooped. “When I first got here, everyone gave me a lot of breathing room the first few months, Nina, to give me time to get my bearings. Don’t take people giving you space too personally, all right? They didn’t say anything, but I remember them discouraging residents from getting too close to new people until their three months are up.”

I nodded at him, not surprised at all that Sienna had relayed to him that other than some of the parents here and the few people Henri had introduced me to, no one had come by to say hello.

Even though Sienna still hadn’t been feeling like herself the day before, we had gone to visit the two closest towns to the ranch after dropping Duncan off at the nursery. We’d spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon checking out the bigger town almost an hour away, buying groceries at the big box stores they had, and then stopped at the much smaller stores half an hour from the ranch, just seeing what they had so I could plan for future trips.

When we got back, I’d helped Maggie in the nursery again while Sienna checked on Matti and took a nap. After dinner, we’d spent time in my room, sprawled on the bed, watching television and talking while Dunky napped after another exciting day with his new friends. It had been a good last day with one of my favorite people.

Now I had to say bye to them for the time being.

The expression on Matti’s face got even more serious. “I’d planned to go with you and see if we could find some of the people I knew when I lived here, but none of them came to say hi either.” He scowled. “Glad I didn’t waste my damn time keeping in touch with any of them.”

I smiled up at his protectiveness, and he kept right on scowling.

“If anyone is mean to you?—”

I took a step forward and wrapped my arms around the middle of him, pressing my cheek to his shoulder for maybe the fifty-thousandth time in my life. “I’ll write down their names and you can bring some of those hot dogs to share with them.”

His laugh was weaker than normal, but it was still all Matti. He hugged me back. “If you aren’t happy, say the word and we’ll figure out another option, yeah?”

I nodded against him.

Matti pulled back. “I’m being serious.”

For once in his life, he was. “I know you are.”

“We were talking already, and we’re going to check our work schedules and see when we can come back.”

“Just let me know. You know I get that you’re both busy.”

“I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself and Duncan”—he thumped my shoulder—“but someone has to check on you.”

“Yeah, we have to check on our Nina,” Sienna piped in from a few feet away as she approached us from the direction of the clubhouse.

But it was the man following her that surprised me, and I knew I wasn’t the only one when Matti’s head jerked.

“I sent you a text. We’re leaving,” my best friend said to his cousin.

Henri, who I hadn’t seen yesterday at all, stopped to the side of us, a beaten-up stainless steel water bottle hanging from his index finger. In jeans and another long-sleeved T-shirt, he looked like a different man from the one I’d seen running around the forest after a long shift with LOBO COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT stitched onto the breast of his shirt. “I got it.” His gaze caught mine, holding it steady in a way that made me feel he was trying to figure out if I was still the same person I’d been the last time we’d seen each other. “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind, Cricket.”

I forced myself not to peek at Matti because I had to put all my effort into not seeming shocked in Henri’s face. “It’s fine by me…?”

He blinked. “Why are you asking it like it’s a question?”

Play it cool, Nina. “Because I figured you’re busy, and I’m surprised you’re coming?” I tried again. I’d learned from Franklin at dinner that Henri had been working a ton of overtime lately—it wasn’t just an excuse he gave Matti. I had also learned at the same time that the elder had made plans to leave later today. He had something he needed to “look into” had been the only explanation he’d given the night before, still acting sketchy, even though I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or if he was just a suspicious person by nature.

I really wasn’t sure what to think about that bracelet he had on and what it might mean. I wasn’t in a position to ask about Franklin though, and I knew it. It might just always have to be a mystery I lived with, unless he decided to share his backstory with me.

I wasn’t going to hold my breath in that case… unless I could weasel it out of Shiloh once he was done with his prison sentence. He’d already proved to have trouble keeping a secret, and I wasn’t above getting innocent information out that way. We’d see.

Henri raised that left eyebrow a millimeter. “You still answered it like it’s a question.”

I scratched my neck. “Okay?”

It was Matti who laughed, his head ducking down to give me a peck on the temple. “You’re a pain in the fucking ass, Nina, but we should get going. I want to check my bag.”

I said, “I’m not a pain in the ass.”

And Henri agreed, “She’s not a pain in the ass.”

I smiled, pleased at him defending me again, even if it was unexpected.

Then he ruined it. “She’s just a brat.”

I looked at him, and he looked at me.

But there was that sparkle I’d seen in his eyes the other times he’d tapped into his unexpected funny bone.

Why he went back and forth between acting like we were familiar with each other—old friend-ish— and then acting like he could barely tolerate me was beyond my mental capacity. There was also the chance that I might have been overthinking it since I did that with everything else around here. Maybe it had nothing to do with me and it just depended on his mood. But people were complicated, and there was a chance, if I spent enough time pondering when he acted the way he did and who was around when he did it, it might bring those actions to light in a different way. He wasn’t a mean man. I really didn’t think he was trying to hurt my feelings.

And honestly, I wanted one single person here in my corner. Other than the kids I’d met at the nursery, and Maggie the teacher, who I really needed to have an awkward conversation with sooner rather than later, Henri seemed to be my only other “friend” at the moment. If this was how he wanted things to be, then that was fine. We were going to be a mullet, I guess. Business in the front and a party in the back when no one was looking.

All right, maybe it was going to hurt my feelings, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t recover from.

“All right, in that case, let’s go,” I said, discreetly eyeing Henri standing there as I moved around them and headed to the driver’s side.

“Shotgun,” Sienna called out before hip checking her husband out of the way to get into the front seat.

The two cousins were already in the back seat by the time I got behind the wheel, and I handed Sienna my phone so she could put the address for the airport into the navigation app. The community parking lot was mostly empty, with only about ten cars parked.

It was strange how I never saw anyone walking to and from their cars.

I tried to keep the suspicion in my body so my friends wouldn’t sense it and then ask questions about it, and it must have worked because the second we were through the gates—they were motion-sensor activated on the way out, we’d learned yesterday—Si put my music streaming app on, and we sang along under our breaths, the back seat oddly quiet other than the near constant buzzing of what sounded like incoming texts. One glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that Henri was glued to his phone. Beside him, Matti was sprawled sitting up, still looking like the ghost of Christmas past.

The airport wasn’t close, and according to the directions, it was going to take over an hour to get there through the winding mountain roads. We made it about twenty minutes before Sienna snickered for no reason. I lifted my chin at her.

“Remember that time we went on the road trip to see my grandma and we got that flat tire and had to hitchhike because we didn’t have service?” she brought up.

“Oh, that poor dog in the back seat was shaking and wouldn’t stop crying, he was so scared of you, and the lady was worried he was sick,” I remembered.

Matti’s head appeared between the seats. “You hitchhiked? When?”

It took the rest of the drive to tell Matti the story about the trip we took across three states during a summer we spent with Sienna’s grandma. We had done that twice, and each time had a funny story behind it that we cracked up about. How neither one of us had ever told Matti about it was surprising, but laughing with them was better than listening to all the music in the world.

Unfortunately, it also made the time go by too fast, and we were talking about an armadillo we’d almost gotten into a wreck trying to avoid years ago when I pulled up to the drop-off section of the tiny regional airport.

We got out, and Sienna pulled me into a hug the second she shut the passenger door. “We’ll come visit soon,” she promised.

I tucked my cheek against hers. “If, or when, Duncan figures out how to hide his tail or his eyes, we’ll be the ones coming over.” I hoped she wasn’t holding her breath though.

“We’re only a phone call away—shh,” she dropped her voice suddenly. “Matti’s telling Henri something.”

If she could hear them, they could hear her, but I got her point. That was my girl. “What are they saying?” I fought the urge to peek at them too. That would be too obvious.

“He told him… that he’d appreciate it if he kept an eye on you… that you used to take care of him and… huh, that’s true,” she muttered.

“What?”

“That you’ll take care of other people but not yourself… shh, I’m still listening.”

Maybe there was some truth to that, but he didn’t need to tell freaking Henri about it.

“Matti said that if things aren’t working out, to tell him….” Sienna rattled off before suddenly kissing one cheek, then the other, acting like nothing had just happened. Her voice went back to a normal volume too. “Call if you need anything. Got it?” She winked, but her cheeks were pink.

What was that about? I narrowed my eyes at her. I’d text her later and get the scoop. For now, I kissed her cheeks right back. “Yes, ma’am.” I squeezed her muscular biceps. “Love you, Si. Thank you for coming all the way here with us.”

Her eyes started glittering, and I was sure that if I had the ability to smell her emotions, I would’ve gotten confirmation I wasn’t the only one who was sad. “We’d do anything for you and the baby. We love you. I love you.”

We hugged again, holding on just a little tighter, a little longer.

Done with their conversation, Matti came over and held out his arms wide. “Be a good girl, Jaws.”

“Shut up.” I laughed and stepped into his embrace, hugging him tight. He’d definitely lost weight. “Love you. Thank you for everything.”

I could feel him kissing the top of my head. “We’re only a call away,” he reminded me as he pulled back and gave me an intense look. “If anyone tries to hurt you, do what you have to, understand?”

Pressing my lips together, I nodded at him.

“I’m serious.”

“I know ,” I told him. “I promise. I’ll do what I have to.”

He didn’t look like he totally believed me—because he knew me well enough to feel that way—but he nodded after a moment. Then he lifted his finger and said, “Come here, I want to tell you one more thing.”

I narrowed my eyes but stepped closer. “If you burp in my ear….”

“I’m not,” he insisted.

I didn’t believe him but all right. “Yes?”

“Closer.”

Okayyy. I did.

He glanced to both sides—Henri and Si were behind him—and mouthed, Get my cousin to marry you.

“Huh?” I almost barked, pretty sure there was no way I’d read his lips correctly.

From the expression he gave me, I knew I had, in fact, not misunderstood. Then, with his face so grave, he said clearly, “You trust me, don’t you?”

That was a stupid question, and I told him so with my own expression.

Marry Henri , he mouthed that time, not tiptoeing at all around it.

There was no hiding the way my heart started beating faster at what he was telling me to do, and we both knew it from the way he made his eyes wide at me before leaning in and giving me another big hug. I was so tense and distracted—and regretful that I hadn’t talked to him about it even though I’d literally thought about it—I barely managed to sneak in one more hug of my own before he pulled back.

The loaded expression he shot me made a knot form in my throat before he turned and went for the bags in the bed of the truck, while Si scrunched up her face, clearly wondering what was going on. I could see Henri’s attention on us, so I shrugged and hugged her one last time. My friends waved as they pulled their carry-ons behind them to the terminal.

Matti stopped halfway there and turned around. “Someone needs to give Henri a hard time. You got this, Nina?” he hollered.

He’d just suggested I marry him, and now he was telling me to give him a hard time?

I blinked and bowed. “It would be an honor,” I told him with a smile that felt a little shaky on my face. I might kill him after all, I thought, as they kept going.

“Love you!” Sienna shouted right before going through the sliding doors. “Henri, take care of my girl!”

I blew her a kiss before we headed to my truck.

Exactly two seconds later, Henri, who had taken the front passenger seat, shifted to face me. I was staring straight ahead.

I couldn’t look at him.

I couldn’t look at anything.

“Why are you crying?” His voice was gruff. “And what’d Matti say that worried you?”

Pressing the tip of my middle finger to the outside corner of my eye, I sniffled. I opened my mouth to answer, had to swallow, then tried again. “I hate saying goodbye.” I skipped his other question, not that I was expecting him to forget about it. I just needed to deal with one thing at a time, and right now, being sad was the winner.

“You were fine five minutes ago.”

I pressed my finger to my other eye. “I know, but I’m not going to cry in front of them. They worry enough as it is.” I sniffled again and attempted to hold back the tears while ignoring the way he turned even more in his seat, like he wanted a better view to watch me cry. “You never know when the last time you’re going to see someone is,” I tried to explain. “I think about that all the time with my mom and dad.”

There was a pause, then, “They’re both healthy, Nina.”

I dabbed at my eye again. “I don’t have your nose, so I can’t tell that, but that isn’t what I mean. You never know what’s going to happen a week from now, much less two minutes from now. And I love them.” That came out like a croak. I had to swallow to get my voice under control. “I get upset every time. Please don’t tell them. I think they think I’m tougher than I really am.” I stopped. “But they might also know and they let me get away with it.” I could see that happening too.

He didn’t agree not to tattle, so I had to peek at him.

“Please, Henri?” I whispered.

Those light-colored eyes narrowed, but he nodded after a minute. “You didn’t live close to them even before Duncan, did you?” he asked.

“No.” With my eyes blurring from the tears I was struggling to hold back, I was thankful we were still parked. “Because I don’t like living in cities the way they do, and they don’t like smaller towns, like I do. We compromise to see each other. I need to stop tearing up . Duncan hates it when I cry. I don’t want him to worry.” But with that thought, even more tears spilled onto my cheeks.

Silently, Henri kept studying me, and I sighed. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I’ll stop in a minute.”

“You aren’t making me uncomfortable.”

I bit the inside of my cheek as another tear spilled over my bottom eyelash.

I watched his gaze follow it down my jaw, his mouth going dang near flat. “You smell like cinnamon right now,” he stated bluntly.

“I do?” I asked, sniffling. I hadn’t cried a whole lot in front of people, but no one who had witnessed it had ever commented on the way it smelled. They would have said something… wouldn’t they?

He made a positive sound in his throat.

“I’m sorry.”

There was more shifting, another pause, then, “What are you sorry for?”

“The smell.” I could feel his gaze on my skin.

“You’re apologizing for smelling like cinnamon?” he asked slowly.

I used my knuckle to dab at the corner of my eyes some more. “The way you said it…” I tried to hold in the couple more tears threatening my eyeballs, but it didn’t work. “You made it sound like you don’t like it. It’s just been a lot of change in a short amount of time, and it hit me all of a sudden, Fluff.”

There went my voice again.

I could not lose it. I needed to drive, I reminded myself. What was I getting upset about? Missing my friends was one thing. But he didn’t like the way I smelled? Since when was that new? I dried the parts of my face I could reach with my shoulder, then took a deep breath. “It’s fine. I’m just emotional because I’m upset since seeing them from now on will be more complicated, and I’m worried it’ll be a while, but we’ll figure it out. We always do. I’ll stop crying in a minute, I swear.”

He didn’t say a word, and when a minute passed and I still hadn’t stopped, his sigh filled the cabin.

Stop it, Nina .

It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be worried about being on your own surrounded by strangers. It’s okay to lose one more thing from a life you loved.

Maybe that’s what I was really the most worked up about. Losing that one more thing so freaking soon. For all my big talk, accepting change wasn’t one of my strengths in life. Maybe it was some trauma response from the time that Matti’s presence had disappeared from my life without a warning, or maybe I just loved my friends, and everything going on right now was a lot to handle in general. It could be both.

I wiped at my face some more, that time not even trying to be dainty about it. I used my whole palm. Then I wiped it on my pants and did it again, trying so dang hard not to make some real unladylike sound. Get it together .

“Henri?” I asked in a wobbly voice after a second.

His “hmm?” came out like more of a grumble.

I moved my hand enough so I could peer at him through my fingers. “Sorry for biting you.”

“You….”

I didn’t think he believed me from the way he was frowning and glaring. And I must have been too focused on it—his dark pink lips—that I didn’t see his fingers coming for me until his palm cupped the back of my neck.

Before my body could do anything other than process the fact that this man was being affectionate with me—nice to me—his voice came out all rumpled velvet as he murmured, “They’ll be back soon.”

They had both reassured me of the same thing, but coming out of Henri’s mouth, it was soothing for some reason.

He kept going. “Matti said they were going to try for next month for a weekend.”

Matti . That pain in my butt. What he’d mouthed to me was burned into my retinas. Get Henri to marry me?

What was he thinking dropping that on me and then walking away? We needed an hour-long discussion, minimum, to go over something like that. Some conversations couldn’t be had over text, and now I was going to have to wait who knew how long to get him to explain why he would’ve brought that up. Why that would even enter his brain. Sure I’d considered it. Briefly.

But from Matti himself?

Unless….

My friend was a lot of things, but he was a realist. He was one of the most impulsive people I’d ever met, but at the same time, logic was known to steer his thoughts and actions when it mattered.

Hmm.

There had to be a reason he would throw his cousin into the ring.

What did he know that I didn’t? I wiped at my face when a couple more tears beaded along my eyelashes. I hiccupped just as a very low growl and the flexing of fingers at the back of my neck had me flicking my eyes toward the man who was trying to make me feel better. His eyebrows were knitted together, lips pressed tight.

Or maybe Matti had lost his mind suggesting Henri tie his life to mine when he could barely sit beside me.

“I’m sorry!” I reached for the door. “I can’t help it. Let me roll down the window.”

His frown got even worse. “What do you need to roll down the window for?”

I grazed my fingers over the buttons on my door lightly, not pressing them in yet. “You look like you’re mad right now.” I paused. “Because of the cinnamon smell.”

Or that was what I thought before those light-colored eyes bounced around my face. I watched his throat bob, his jawline getting more defined. There was no missing the way he seemed to force his teeth to unclench before gritting out, “That’s not it.”

It wasn’t?

“I….” His thick throat worked, like even saying words was difficult. “You crying… your tears… makes me want to bite you.”

I blinked very, very slowly.

“You smell like a cookie when you do it.”

But werewolves didn’t even eat cookies.

I lifted my face and wiped at it some more. Henri was looking right at me. Glaring, even. I pointed at him. “I swear, if you bite me, I’ll bite you back.”

I didn’t think it was my imagination that some of the tension on Henri’s face disappeared.

“Not as hard as you can bite me, but I’ll try my best,” I warned him. “I used to give Matti bruises when we were kids. You remember that?” Not that I ever got in trouble over it. His mom used to say a nip got a message across better than any word ever could.

“No,” he took his time answering. “You bit him?”

“His mom told me to.” I had loved her almost as much as I’d loved my parents.

He didn’t exactly look like he believed me.

A honk from behind had me blinking and remembering where we were. I put the truck into Drive and pulled onto the road. I waited until I was back on the highway that would take us to the ranch to speak again. “Right after his magic presented and he started turning into a fluffball, Matti started nipping me. Duncan’s gotten me too, and that hurt like hell. I’m glad we got over that phase.” I imagined how much it would hurt to have those full-grown adult teeth do the same. “I don’t like pain.” I gave him a side-eye. “You could nibble instead?”

His lips slightly parted. “You’re telling me to nibble on you?” He sounded like he’d swallowed nails.

“Instead of biting me,” I clarified.

Henri faced forward. His hands fisted and then released over and over again as we pulled up to a stoplight.

Maybe I’d made this weird. That hadn’t been my intention. I’d just been joking. “You know what you remind me of right now? There are these movies about vampires that you probably haven’t watched, but I’m sure you’ve heard about them. The vampire likes the way the girl in the movie smells, and he’s like, ‘ Grr, she’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled ,’ but he looks constipated instead of hungry.”

Both of Henri’s eyebrows rose up a whole millimeter if not more. “I’m not going to bite you or… nibble on you.” He side-eyed me. “Vampires usually do look constipated.”

My mouth dropped. “They’re real ?”

Those thick eyebrows stayed right where they were. “You didn’t know? There aren’t a lot of them, but they’re around.”

I made the closest sound to a squeal that I was capable of. Vampires! They were real!

Why wouldn’t they be?

Like he could sense the million and one questions suddenly going through my mind, Henri raised a hand. “I don’t know much about them other than they drink blood and they’re more sensitive than allergic to light.”

My next semi-squeal was a little quieter, but it still counted, and the corner of his mouth twitched like he wasn’t totally irritated with my shock at vampires existing.

Were they good-looking? Were they immortal? How much blood did they drink? And why was that what I was curious about? “Can I tell Sienna about them?” I whispered, the secret feeling huge in my truck cab.

Henri shrugged, pinching the tip of his nose between his thumb and the middle of his index finger while he turned toward the windshield.

Another wave of guilt went through me. “Want me to turn the vents away from blowing on me so that my smell isn’t circulating so much?”

He was still focused forward. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he insisted, not really sounding that sure.

I reached over and moved the vent anyway, ignoring his sigh.

And here Matti wanted me to convince him to marry me. What was he thinking? What had I been thinking? Henri and I couldn’t even sit in the front together.

That was kind of depressing because I really did want him to like me, at least as a friend.

I was going to have to tell Matti how dumb of an idea it was the second I could do it in privacy, because the last thing I needed was for someone to overhear us talking about that .

Plus, why hadn’t he or Sienna or my parents ever said anything about my scent when I cried? I didn’t get upset that often, but I had definitely done it around them, more than once. If anything, they hugged me tighter than usual when I was sad.

Dang it, just the reminder of my loved ones made me tear up all over again.

Change was good . Good change was great. We had gotten what we needed being allowed to live here.

What was going on with me? First, I was acting like the magic in the forest was catnip. Then I was acting like I’d never seen a man before while I was in Henri’s presence. And now I was weepy?

This was a lot, and anybody would cry over everything that had happened and everything that would continue to happen over the next few months or years, I told myself, trying to feel better about why I was so all over the place emotionally.

I had to be strong and… I couldn’t drive if I couldn’t see through my tears, dang it.

Henri’s sigh filled the cab, but his voice came out almost as gentle as when he was talking to the kids. “Why are you really getting upset, Cricket? Because of Matti and Sienna?”

He was making it worse being so nice. I scratched my throat. “Y-Yes and no.”

Didn’t I know better by now? It wasn’t that I didn’t think there was no one in the world who cared about me, there was, but those people had chosen to be there. Worked to be there. More than anything, they wanted to.

And then there was everyone else.

When you stayed away from people, you didn’t give them the opportunity to push you away.

Being alone-alone was different than feeling alone in a place surrounded by people who didn’t want you there.

Having to pretend to fit in when you knew you didn’t, and so did everyone else, was hard. No wonder I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering. Stop it.

“In two blocks, there’s a diner on the right,” Henri said, still using that same soft voice that was quickly turning into a weakness of mine. His cousin’s way of making me feel better was to make me laugh. Sienna’s methods included tickling. Henri wasn’t the person I expected to actually be nice. “Pull in the parking lot.”

There was no asking; he was telling me to. There was a clear difference between the two. But…. “I’m fine,” I promised, using my shoulder to dab at my face. “I just need a sec. I can still see.”

A big hand came out of my peripheral vision, and for a moment, I thought he was going to put it on the steering wheel and try and take control.

But this man, who I knew and yet didn’t know, set his fingers over mine and gave them a little squeeze. They were warm. “I’m not asking if you’re fine or if it’s safe for you to drive right now. Pull over at the diner,” he ordered in his sneaky, bossy werewolf voice that made me feel like I needed to listen to him.

The annoying part? It worked. Sniffling, I drove the next block, finding the sign for Howling Hill Diner—was that on purpose?—and I turned into it. I hadn’t even realized we were already in Lobo Springs, the small town closest to the ranch. We were on the outskirts of it, but we were in the limits, I was pretty sure.

The second I put the truck into Park, Henri reached for the keys, turned them, and followed that up by undoing his seat belt. Then he reached over, undid mine and sat back.

“When a pup is upset,” he started to say, widening his legs as much as he could once he’d leaned back into place, “a cuddle usually makes them feel better.”

I… I was no puppy, and I almost told him that, but it wasn’t like he didn’t know it already. Butttt I was never going to say no to affection, especially not from someone I knew, much less when that someone looked like Henri, and gave off the kind of comforting, stable vibes he did. The man was built to snuggle.

Which then reminded me about asking Matti why and how he was so big compared to everyone else. Amarok were bigger than every other kind of wolves I’d ever met, but Henri was twice the size that Matti’s dad had been, and he’d been full Amarok.

“I don’t want you to throw up on me,” I told him instead of sliding across the bench right then and there. “It might break my heart if you did.” Then I would have to consider moving away immediately, which I would have to reconsider because I wanted this to work for Duncan, and after that, I’d be forced to avoid Henri at all costs for the rest of my life.

He narrowed his eyes. “Why would I throw up?”

I tapped the tip of my nose, not really wanting to say the words out loud again.

A slow breath slipped from his lips. His head tipped to the side, those amber eyes regarding me carefully. “Nina,” he was back to using his gentle voice, “I like the way cinnamon smells.”

“You do?”

He nodded, splaying his fingers wide on those full thighs that seemed to be straining the seams of his jeans.

Was he sure?

“You’re a human pastry,” Henri told me, meeting my gaze straight on.

I wiped my face one more time, still not sure I believed him. My voice gave it away as much as my words did. “I am?”

“You are.”

“A good pastry?” I asked, half joking, half serious. “Or the kind you get at the gas station?”