The Things We Water

Chapter 6 #3

Yes, he did. He had no idea what one, or both, of my parents had passed along in their DNA. Henri didn’t know who I was. Neither did I, exactly, but I had more information on the matter than he did. So I nodded. “Yes, I would’ve been fine, and he knows that.”

I could see that it was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Matti knew that, but he didn’t.

I kept going with my story before he asked more questions. “I went and talked to the river bully… Jenny Greenteeth. She wasn’t nice. All I did was take off my bracelet, and that settled that.”

His jaw did that flexing thing again. “You took off your bracelet?”

Couldn’t he sense I wasn’t lying? “You can ask the kids. Shiloh paid attention. He saw the whole thing.”

Right there, without the slightest effort in being discreet, he took another whiff of me. A crease formed between those dark, full eyebrows. A muscle at his cheek went stiff as he processed whatever his senses and brain were both telling him.

He had more questions, that was obvious. Ones I wasn’t really ready to answer unless I absolutely had to. But I didn’t want to be put into the position of laying all my cards out this soon, not when he was being like this already, expecting the worst from me, or at least being so wary.

There were other things we needed to talk about.

As much as part of me wanted to let this go and pretend like he wasn’t being all over the place with his behavior toward me, I couldn’t. Henri was important here, and if he wasn’t comfortable with my presence, then we had to figure this out. And it sure didn’t seem like he was going to initiate it.

So I went straight for it. “Do you not want me to be here?” I blurted out.

Those light-colored eyes narrowed so much that they were basically slits on his striking face.

That wasn’t a great nonanswer. “If you aren’t, it’s all right, but I’d like to know why.” I lifted my shoulders. “I know it was a long time ago, but I promise I’m still the same Nina.”

That didn’t get me anything.

I tried again, hoping he wasn’t preparing some speech on why he didn’t want us to move here. “Is it what I turned out to be? Or is it something else?” My eyes slid toward Duncan, who was still going at his low, baby growling, implying with that look exactly what that “something else” was.

My precious, droopy-eared boy.

Henri’s frown found a way to get even deeper. “I haven’t seen you in almost twenty years,” he answered in that husky voice, nothing about his tone giving anything away.

He had a point, but for whatever reason, I would have still trusted him. Trusted whoever he turned out to be. Because I might not remember a ton, but I did have clear memories of Henri making Matti and me snacks after school when he was the only one home, peeling and cutting an apple for me specifically because I hadn’t liked the skin back then. Of him running off older kids who had picked on us. I had one particular memory of him giving me advice for riding my bike while I’d been learning.

I had thought a lot of young, teenage Henri.

Mid-twenty-something Henri, I had wanted to kick in the balls after what he’d done… even though I could look at his actions as an adult now and understood why he’d handled the situation the way he had.

But forty-ish Henri? I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I could believe in him, especially after watching him interact with the kids after they’d done something really stupid and communicating with their parents afterward. There had been genuine respect in those adults’ faces, and those kids hadn’t been scared of him. I didn’t take that lightly.

“I have no problem with you.” His gaze moved toward Duncan for a microsecond before returning to me. “Either of you.”

“You sure about that?” I wanted to make it real clear that I couldn’t sense lies the same way he could, but I wasn’t unobservant. Body language said a whole lot where words wouldn’t.

He frowned even more. “We have to be consistent with the rules in place,” he started to explain, his tone somewhere between cool and polite. “Rules are bent before they’re broken. What we do for you, regardless of your connection to Matti or me, can’t be different than what we would do for anyone else.”

I couldn’t ask for special privileges, he was saying.

“It doesn’t matter how much magic you have or who you’re descended from. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It’s nothing personal.”

He always did have a stick up his butt about rules, I remembered then.

And now he was a cop or something.

I wondered how well his uniform fit. I was pretty sure deputies had different types of clothing than police officers did. Hmm.

Both my eyebrows went up a moment later. “It doesn’t matter what I look like?” I echoed.

There was no coyness on his face when he said, matter-of-factly, “Your face has changed a lot.”

It had, but I still didn’t expect him to make a comment about it. But at the same time, I had to fight the urge to stand up straighter. Was that a backward compliment?

I should leave it alone and not pry at the comment, and I dang well knew it, but when did I ever leave things alone? So I asked, drawing my words out, “In a good way or…?”

His eyebrow moved just a little bit. “What do you think?” he replied in that steady voice that held next to no emotion in it.

I blinked, shocked at his bluntness. “Thank you?” It didn’t exactly sound like a compliment. Or an insult, for that matter. I wasn’t sure what it was, but an invitation wasn’t it either.

His gaze swept over me, and I could tell he gritted his teeth. I guess we were done talking about physical appearances. Fine by me. We could’ve been talking about a boring movie for all the emotion he was putting out talking about appearances.

Of all the things I’d inherited from my DNA parents, I would have given them all back except for my good health.

“Are you sure then? That you’re fine with us being here?” I asked. “Because if you don’t want us to join, all you have to do is say the word and we’ll figure out another option. We won’t stay where we aren’t wanted, and that includes you, Henri. I would understand.” It would hurt my feelings, and I might not want to see him for another two decades, but I would take it into consideration.

I wouldn’t beg if it was him who didn’t want us here.

“Understand what?”

“That you aren’t comfortable.” Around us, I explained silently. Or just me. Or just Duncan. It was honestly nothing short of a miracle that I didn’t have self-esteem issues with those kinds of thoughts.

Those amber irises remained level on me. “There’s nothing about either of you that could make me uncomfortable.”

He said that now.

I pressed my lips together, trying to get a read on his careful expression. “Are you positive? Because I don’t care if you hurt my feelings right now, but if you change your mind in six months, it isn’t going to just be me that will be affected by your decision.” I let the implication of who else could be hurt hang in the air between us.

His nod was slow. “I’m sure.”

It sounded sincere, but… I still wasn’t sure I totally believed it. I was going to have to take him at his word. There wasn’t much else to do. “All right.”

Duncan’s growls suddenly got a little louder. He hadn’t moved from his spot at my side, a mohawk lined his back, and those small, sharp white teeth were still very visible. Was he scared of him after what had happened?

“It’s okay, Duncan.” I reached out and pet his back. This was something else we needed to tackle. “This is Henri. He’s Matti’s cousin. He used to be my friend.” I peeked at my old “friend,” but his attention was on my puppy. “I know he was big and scary earlier, but he’s not going to hurt us.” That time when I turned to him, Henri’s eyes were on me. “Right, Fluffy?”

“Right,” he agreed.

Duncan wasn’t buying it. This man had held him up like a ritual sacrifice earlier. I stroked my donut’s back a little more, but convinced, he was not.

“It’s fine,” I tried again, stretching out with my other hand. I set it on Henri’s arm, and what a forearm it was. My fingers couldn’t wrap around it fully, not that I tried, but it was obvious. There were prominent veins along it. For being a man who could turn into a wolf, he was surprisingly not crazy hairy. “Henri’s a friend.”

Those bright red irises flicked toward me, and I took another turn petting his soft back.

“See?” I skimmed my palm up Henri’s arm toward his shoulder, over bulging biceps, and then swept it back down to his hand, cupping my fingers over them and doing it all over again. He was warm, and the rest of his muscles were just as hard as I would have imagined. He could have been a modern-day Paul Bunyan with a handsome face, if I didn’t know the truth. “It’s okay, Duncan.”

My boy’s growling got a little better, but not much.

“I’m a friend, pup,” Henri tried to assure him too, staying very, very still as I basically felt him up. “I’m not going to hurt you or your mom.”

The knot in my throat at him calling me Duncan’s mom….

Henri kept talking. “Watch,” he told him before reaching very slowly out toward me—my boy’s little growl revving up once more, but Henri ignored it—and setting his hand on top of my head. Taking his time, Henri swept it down the side of my skull, over my ear, and did it again.

Henri Blackrock was petting me.

“It’s all right,” I started talking again, scooting a little closer to Henri’s frame and putting my palm back on that thick, corded forearm. “He’s not hurting me. See? That feels really nice actually.”

Duncan still wasn’t convinced, and I met Henri’s light-colored gaze and raised my eyebrows at him, not sure what else I could do to show Duncan we were safe with him. He’d never been this defensive… other than those two times.

But Henri seemed to know what to do from the way he gestured me closer.

I scooted over until my knee touched his thigh. Henri’s arms opened, and in the span of a breath, he set one around me. He pulled me over to him. Then, in a fluid movement with the palm of his other hand, he drew my face to that notch between his shoulder and neck.

I got it. He was showing Duncan that he trusted me enough to get into such a close and vulnerable position with me. A parent might do it with a child, or possibly family members or close friends. I was honored, but I was even more surprised.

It almost made up for his BS with the trial-period situation earlier.

“Friends,” Henri claimed.

“Friends,” I agreed in the cheeriest voice I could muster. All the while, one of my arms was pinned between our bodies while he hugged me.

I would’ve climbed into his lap if he let me.

Cut it out, Nina.

Was I that hard up that a hug from a near-stranger, who just happened to be good-looking and my favorite body type, could turn me into a perv? My hormones needed to stop this crap immediately.

I needed to remember that everyone here more than likely had exceptional senses. I’d gotten lazy living around normal people for so long. It had been nice, having secrets, not being so vulnerable and honest all the time.

Plus, Sienna had already caught my attraction to him earlier.

If I acted weird now, that was going to send the wrong message to everyone. Plus, I would die of shame if my body did something it shouldn’t be doing around not just someone I barely knew but my best friend’s family member. Someone who might be a neighbor if things worked out in my favor.

I hope he hasn’t opened his senses. Wolves didn’t walk around smelling everything all day, every day, after all. I knew for a fact that Matti only opened his up when he was at home, or in situations where he was uncertain about other people and wanted to feel them out.

Fortunately, it appeared Henri’s nose wasn’t working overtime, and after a moment, he sat back, gaze staying on Duncan as his palm went to my face.

He wasn’t done proving a point, and apparently he wanted to demonstrate that I was just as comfortable around him too.

Henri tipped my chin back—and I let him, like a doll—and the man wasted no time pressing his forehead to my neck. His movements were slow. The angle changed so his nose drew a line up the side to just beneath my ear. Finally smelling me from the soft puffs of breath that touched my collarbone afterward from his nose… some from his mouth….

If his senses hadn’t been open before, they were now.

I couldn’t shiver. I absolutely couldn’t. This was a werewolf thing, through and through. It was what I’d invited him to do hours ago when he’d turned me down. Sort of. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever had their arm around me while they’d done it before. Nor had anyone ever done it so slowly.

“He’s just getting to know me again, Dunky,” I explained, fighting for my life to keep my voice even as Henri’s face switched sides. His breaths were there again. His cheek. His nose. All of it like a brand. I had to keep it together. I had to keep it together, and I did that the only way I knew how. I started blabbering. “We haven’t seen each other in a long time. Back then, I didn’t smell the same way I do now,” I explained just as he finally withdrew, his face only inches away from mine when he did.

Henri’s lids were low. His lips slightly parted. He had a strong jaw. A little cleft in his chin. Deep-set eyes framed by those heavy eyebrows that hugged his striking facial bones.

I winked at him, and before he could say anything else, leaned forward and wedged my face into the same place it’d been in before. Between his shoulder and throat. A spot that wasn’t just warm but smelled like rain and something woodsy like cedar.

Good, so freaking good.

And I didn’t want Henri to know that. Not if I had the choice. “See, Donut? Friends,” I told my puppy, inhaling as discreetly as I could a little more.

When I pulled back, Henri was watching me, his eyelids still lower, but his mouth was pressed tight.

“He stopped,” the man so close to me said.

I hadn’t noticed. I pulled all the way back and smiled again, hoping it didn’t look as tight as it felt. “You’re sure you’re fine with us being here?”

The face I hadn’t seen in over a decade hovered there, and after a moment, he nodded tightly.

A low ring exploded from the direction of Henri’s pants. He stood up and dug into the back pocket of his jeans. He started talking as he read whatever was on the screen. “Breakfast is at nine. Be careful with the branches. Our physician’s assistant isn’t here right now, and the nearest hospital is over an hour away.”

“Okay.”

Henri hesitated for a second. It wasn’t until that moment that I noticed he’d changed out of the dusty white shirt he’d had on earlier. His lip was healed too.

He gave me a long look. “I don’t need to worry about you, do I?”

We both knew what he was referring to.

I was and I wasn’t like them, and I didn’t want to let myself take it personally. I had once asked my dad why we lived across the street from our neighbor if they were scared of him, and he’d said, “For that reason, Nina. His presence keeps the things we love safer than we’d be anywhere else.”

“How?”

He had patted my head. “We’re not the only ones scared of him.”

I understood now what he’d meant. There was fear and there was respect, and there was a gray area in between. And there was a reason why the only little pig who survived had hidden in the brick house.

I shook my head. “No, you don’t need to worry.” I lifted my hand, my fingers formed in a V-shape. “I come in peace.”

For the second time that day, no one laughed at my joke.

His phone rang again, but he ignored it. “Just making sure.” He pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry I knocked you down earlier,” he claimed in that low voice, shooting me another expression I couldn’t recognize, before swiping his thumb across the screen and bringing it up to his ear as he started walking toward the house with a barked, “Blackrock.”

“Sleep well,” I wished him anyway, not sure how exactly I felt about that interaction. About him in general, to be honest.

To Matti and Sienna, I was always Nina. They knew every single good and bad thing I’d ever done, and they loved me anyway. I thought they always would.

There were other people who liked what they did know about me. We could have a good laugh. We could talk. But I kept them at a distance, I filtered what their knowledge of me was because of my concern over how they could or would react to things that didn’t need to be worried about. Wearing my bracelet around other magical beings had always made me feel like I wore a constant filter—like some people only got to see part of me, which was true.

A tipsy mermaid could tell me some of the darkest things she’d ever done, but I’d never been forthcoming enough to do the same.

And to Henri? In the span of just a few hours, I’d been Cricket, the girl he’d known, and Nina, the adult he didn’t understand and was struggling not to judge too hard—at least it seemed that way to me. His fluctuation between those two people had already been evident. There wasn’t much I could do about that other than just show him who I was, and I needed time for that.

On top of that, there was my attraction to him. Not just a little attraction, but more than I would’ve wished, if I had a choice. I didn’t think I’d ever met someone I would describe as a hunk before, but now that I’d seen him, I understood how that word could be used.

In the middle of thinking about all that, Duncan climbed into my lap, his attention on the figure walking away from us. I set my nose into the crown of his head and watched too, the low murmur of Henri’s voice reaching us despite the distance; it was one of the good and the bad things about being out in the middle of nowhere: you could hear everything. The front door opened and closed soon after.

Only then did Duncan’s nose move to the spot where Henri had rubbed his cheek. He sniffed it. He didn’t get a mohawk when he did it, which I thought was a good thing.

Maybe Henri wasn’t going to bend the rules for us, but he wasn’t going to work against us either, it seemed. I needed to take that for the win it was. And maybe he could help me with getting to know some of the men here. Because I was going to need to work on that too: finding a mate.

Unless he was an option? I’d ponder that later. We had to get through the next three months first.

For the time being, we needed to focus on settling in.

Getting people to like us.

Not scare anyone along the way.

And hopefully get Henri firmly on our side at some point.

But for Duncan, I would do anything, and now I had to prove it .