Chapter 10 #3
He tilted his head to the side, raising one of his hands up to slide over the short ends of the hair above his ear. “She moved here before Shiloh was born. I don’t know what her situation was like before, but I’ve met enough satyrs to know most of them are skittish.”
He had a point.
“People are scared of what they don’t understand on the best of terms.” I smiled, half in resignation and half in acceptance of a universal truth. “I went out on an offshore fishing trip once, and we were able to jump into the ocean, a hundred miles from shore, and I was scared the whole time. I didn’t know what else was in the water, under my feet. Imagine sleeping next to someone that all your instincts tell you is a danger.”
“That’s never made sense, why people waste their time being scared of things they can’t control. Isn’t it worse knowing something is coming and you can’t do anything about it?”
I stopped in the middle of peeling the wrapper off my straw.
He took another sip of his water.
“I’ve never thought about it like that.” I balled up the paper and set my straw into the glass. “Scary is scary, I guess, regardless of whether you can see it or you can’t. If it’s logical or not. Maybe the only thing you can do is learn to manage the things that you fear. You know? Break them down. Reason them out if you can.” I thought about it some more. “But there’s some stuff that no amount of reasoning will make more bearable.” I took a sip and raised my eyebrows in surprise. Ooh, it was good.
I looked around the diner one more time. The waitresses, including Phoebe, were behind the counter. Some of them were doing a crappy job at being discreet as they peeked at us. Or attempted to listen in to our conversation.
“Did you say scary is scary?” Henri asked, drawing my attention back to him.
I nodded. “Yeah. It is.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment as he watched me from across the table. “What scares you?”
“Lots of things.”
“Like?” He drew the word out.
It was unnecessary how much pleasure this conversation was bringing me. I wanted to think it was mostly because this version of Henri Blackrock at forty-ish was someone new and unexpected, so different from the serious introvert that hadn’t exactly avoided responsibilities when he’d been a teenager but definitely hadn’t been an overprotective or overly affectionate person. He had always just… kind of been there, when he was around.
So maybe it was his growth that drew me to him the most, wanting to see just how much he’d changed over time. How he was a member of law enforcement who considered other people his responsibility, under his protection, with a visible soft spot for little kids. Who lowered his voice around skittish people. Who would comfort someone upset.
A man who was curious and had a sarcastic and funny streak in him too.
Buttttt I wasn’t going to overanalyze it or make more out of it than I needed to. Not in front of him, at least.
“Taxes,” I answered.
He leaned against the back of the bench.
“Late fees.”
The muscles in his right cheek twitched.
“Ticks.”
Was that really the start of a smile on his face?
I lifted a shoulder. “Mortgage interest rates?”
Yeah, it was.
“My credit score. That thing scares me too.”
It wasn’t just his cheeks giving him away, it was the glimmer in his eye, too. The crinkles at the corners of them. “Your score is good, but you should open another credit card.”
I dropped my voice. “You checked my credit?” I wasn’t mad about it, but… I hadn’t expected it… and how had he gotten my social?
“Had to. We can’t have bill collectors or the government poking around.” He looked so nonchalant. “The elders told you we would do a background check in the meeting—” Henri’s mouth slammed shut in the middle of his sentence. His head whipped to the side, to where there was a wall of windows between us and the parking lot.
I did the same, wondering what could make him react like that.
A man stood beside a truck parked a few spots down from mine, arms crossed over his chest, glaring in the direction of the building.
A slow, deep rush of breath left Henri’s lungs on an exhale right before he slid out of the booth. His expression and tone were icy when he met my eyes. “I’ll be back. Wait here.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he wanted backup, but this man was six foot six, close to three hundred pounds was my guess, and I wasn’t about to insult him.
Plus, I didn’t want to get involved in things unless I had to… or if he asked.
Now, if the man outside did something really stupid, that would change the situation, but in the meantime, I sat there and agreed.
I ceased to exist as he walked out, and I watched him cross the parking lot and come to a stop a few feet away from the stranger. The man was tall, but not on the same level as the one who had comforted me earlier.
Henri had sat there, held me to his shoulder, and cuddled me—his words, not mine.
Henri Blackrock had cuddled me.
And now he was out in the parking lot, in front of a silver truck with wide tires and shiny rims, arms loose at his sides as the blond stranger said something angrily, the muscles of his biceps and forearms bulging as he expressed himself. I couldn’t sense his magic from this far away.
But he was worked up about something. His face was turning red.
I set my hand down on the bench beside me, ready to start scooting out.
A plate stacked high with a three-layer sandwich and fries slid onto the table in front of me before a different meal was placed directly across from it. Phoebe stood there, her big brown eyes focused on the two men outside. Her lips were pursed.
I’d always known I had very little shame. “Do you know who that is?” I asked her.
I thought it said something that she glanced over her shoulder, toward her coworkers, before whispering, “Dominic.”
This was him? The guy that Henri had let punch him? I frowned and squinted out the window, finding them in the exact position they’d been in before. With Dominic prattling on, and Henri resembling a volcano about to erupt. I thought I could see a hint of a black eye….
I glanced back at her and frowned some more. She seemed concerned. “Do I need to go save Henri?” I whispered back.
Her eyes widened. “Save Henri?” She gave me a look that said she didn’t think I could save anyone. It was all pink cheeks and raised eyebrows. “No… I don’t think so.”
“You just seem a little worried,” I told her, though she’d seemed concerned the last time I’d seen her too.
Phoebe glanced over her shoulder one more time before saying, “He’s… difficult.”
I’d gotten that already.
But this was Henri. He’d only gotten hurt before because he’d let it happen, so he’d said, but I believed him. More than anything though, I’d bet on him being able to take care of himself, especially in public. It was more than the inches of height and weight he had on the other man too; it was just that sense of being so capable that radiated from him at all times… the whole two days we’d seen each other before now, but I didn’t doubt my instincts, not where he was concerned at least.
He'd gone head-to-head with a sasquatch a couple days ago and not given a crap.
And since I didn’t know the next time I’d have an opportunity to talk to her in private, I figured I had to take advantage of it. There wasn’t much he and the other man could do other than fistfight. The blond was still ranting.
I dropped my voice again. “Phoebe, I just wanted to tell you really quick that I’m sorry if I’ve alarmed you.” Most people would never want to admit their fears to anyone, especially not a stranger. I sure wouldn’t. “I don’t mean anyone at the ranch any harm. I was only trying to help the kids that day with the river creature. I don’t even kill ants if I can help it.
“I hope that you’re willing to get to know me. I know I smell different to some people, and you have no reason to believe that I’m a good person, but I think I am.” I offered up another smile, a smaller one. “If you don’t feel comfortable with me, I’m more than willing to talk to you about it. This place is your home, and you were here first.” There was no way I was going to go straight into offering to leave, not without trying to win her over, but I wanted her to be aware that I was willing to try, so she would feel obligated too.
At no point did I expect her to sigh or for her body to visibly relax at just words, but that’s what happened. This woman, who was also a satyr, honestly seemed a little relieved. “I’m sorry, Nina.”
It was hard not to smile a little.
“Shiloh has said nothing but the nicest things about you. He’s told me the story about the day with the creature at least ten times,” she said. “I trust his intuition more than I do anyone else’s, even my husband’s, because he’s a sensitive boy.”
“He’s a very nice boy,” I agreed.
She glanced over her shoulder one more time before continuing. “I’m not comfortable around strangers, and that has nothing to do with you.” Her hands fidgeted at her waist. “I should have told you thank you that day, or any day since, but my mind was in full-blown panic. Shiloh has a thank-you card he made, but he’s grounded right now….”
Phoebe blew out a little breath, like she was calming herself down. Her hands came up to her chest, one overlapping the other. “From the bottom of my heart, and my husband’s, we’re going to be grateful to you for the rest of our lives for what you did for him and the children. If there’s ever anything my family can do for you, please let us know. We’re in your debt.”
My face had started going pink from the moment she started with her gratitude, and I couldn’t imagine what color it was then, but I still kept my voice low and said, “You’re welcome. Any time. Except I hope they never do something like that again.” I paused. “But we’re okay then? Or at least we will be?”
Phoebe the satyr gave me a shy smile. “Yes. I appreciate you talking to me about it. I’ve been here for six years, and I still can’t make eye contact with Henri or most of them, really.”
I looked her dead in the eye and said, “If they scare you, bite them.”
She went pale. “B-bite them?”
“Sure. I bit Henri when I first saw him and he scared me,” I admitted, stretching the truth just a little. He had scared me in the way that I had panicked he would hurt Duncan.
Her eyes went round. “I thought Shiloh made that up!”
I shook my head.
Phoebe giggled, and it was a good laugh, very cute and fitting for her.
Might as well egg it on, I figured. “It was like biting Clifford. I found hair in my mouth hours later.” I hadn’t, he’d been in his human form, but she didn’t need to know that.
She smiled before one of the other waitresses called her name. Her narrow face went resolved. “I know you don’t know anyone, and I don’t have a lot of time, but I was wondering… maybe one day, if you have time… we could… like you said, get to know each other. Go grocery shopping? Or run errands….”
I was nodding before she’d even finished her offer. “I’d like that.” That sounded way less pressure-y than getting coffee or something else. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, and I nodded some more.
Then I remembered.
“Actually,” I dropped my voice to the tiniest whisper. “There’s something I need to tell you before we make plans.”
That made her nervous.
“I already told the elders, but—” I scrunched up my nose. “—you should know that women who spend a lot of time around me become pregnant. I told them to tell all of you, but I’m not sure they have.”
The woman, who had to be around my age, dropped into a crouch, one hand on the table, the other on the bench. Her eyes were wider than ever. Her voice so quiet I barely heard her. “It’s true?”
So people had been told. What a relief. I nodded.
Her eyes roamed my face, like she was searching for a lie or trying to confirm some other way that I was pulling her leg. After a moment, when the same waitress who had called her name did it again, a small smile came over her mouth that was somehow the brightest one of all of them. “We heard, but….”
“It’s true. I just need to throw the disclaimer out there. If you talk to anyone else about it, around the ages of when you can get pregnant, please tell them. I don’t want to wear a shirt with a warning sign that says Stay Back 50 Feet or Get Pregnant,” I told her with a small smile.
The concern disappeared. Phoebe looked happy . “I’ll spread the word, but that’s not… I don’t see anyone complaining about that.”
She hadn’t heard my neighbors in the past when they’d found out they were unexpectedly pregnant. Sienna’s excellent hearing, and our thin apartment walls, had kept us in a lot of loops. Some days, we’d sit on our couch and instead of watching TV, she would eavesdrop on the neighbors and repeat what was going on.
Dang it, I missed her again already.
“Thank you, Nina,” my hopefully-friend-in-the-near-future whispered. “Thank you,” she repeated, backing away as her name was called once more.
I hadn’t expected that, but it lifted my spirits to the freaking skies, maybe beyond.
And I’d forgotten all about Henri.
Through the window, I saw the two men were still out there. The other man was still talking, and Henri stood there like he might be listening, but he might also be contemplating murder. I ate a fry and watched him shake his head at whatever the blond was saying.
I ate more fries, taking a bite and then another of my BLT while the man kept going and going, and Henri got more visibly frustrated by the second. I swear his ears were turning red. When I was halfway through my fries, Henri said something that had the other man’s face going redder than his ears before the werewolf turned and came inside without a second glance.
He was definitely pissed when he shot a dirty look toward one of the waitresses—the blonde who had been making faces—before sliding into the booth.
Matti ate fries sometimes….
Pushing my plate across the table, I used my clean fork to scoop three onto Henri’s plate before pulling it back toward my side.
I kept my gaze away from him while I started eating again. He sighed after a minute, ate each of the fries, then picked up his utensils and started in on one of his two steaks. Nothing else. Neither of us said a word while we finished our food, and it wasn’t until he set his knife and fork down that I peeked at him.
I couldn’t help myself. “So that was the infamous Dominic?”
He sipped his water, his throat bobbing with the swallow. His cheek was tight again. “Yeah,” the fountain of information answered, gritting his teeth the whole time, the action saying a hell of a lot about what had happened out there.
Did I want to know? Of course I did, but it wasn’t my business, so I didn’t ask more intrusive questions. I’d already overused my needy card today. So instead, I folded my napkin into a little accordion while Phoebe brought the check. I put cash down, which got me a look from Henri, who hesitated while he alternated between me and the receipt. After a minute, he put his card down along with the cash.
“I’ll text you,” I told Phoebe after I’d typed in her number, which had been on the check, into my contacts.
“Okay,” she agreed with another shy smile. “See you, Henri.”
He nodded at her, then tipped his head at me. We got out of the booth and headed outside and got in my truck. I pulled onto the main street through town. Lobo Springs, my new home.
The population was 3,000, the sign coming into town said. Elevation 7012, though it had to be higher at the ranch. They had an elementary school and a small high school, but I hadn’t seen a middle school. There were even two churches. I wasn’t sure why, but that got me thinking about other things.
“What is it?” Henri’s voice was loud in the cab.
“What’s what?”
“That look on your face.”
That got me to side-eye him. I patted my cheek with my fingertips. I hadn’t made a face. I hadn’t even been thinking negative thoughts or even good ones, not enough for him to pick up on. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him what had been on my mind either, not with the mood he was in after his visitor.
I tried to think of something believable, but nothing came to mind fast enough.
“It’s still there,” he accused. “We’ve got a thirty-minute drive left, you might as well tell me.” He paused. “I can try to guess too.”
This man… he looked so gruff and serious, and beneath that rough exterior, the sarcasm ran deeper than the Styx. Why couldn’t he pretend not to notice my mind was on other things? Not even Matti and Sienna called me out on my crap constantly. They let me get away with things from time to time. It was called privacy.
“Cricket….”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “When did you get to be this chatty, by the way?”
That got him.
“You think I’m talkative?” He sounded surprised.
“Compared to teenage Fluffy? Yes.”
There was a pause. “I can’t get a whole lot across grunting at people all day,” he claimed.
He had a point. “Nothing’s bothering me,” I clarified.
He didn’t say a thing. He sat there, his eyes burning a hole into the side of my face.
I blew out my breath, realizing he wasn’t going to drop this. “If you’re going to insist, everything is all right. I was just thinking about how I don’t know anything about what happened to you after you graduated and lived with Matti and his family for a while. I never even knew why you moved in with them in the first place.”
The snicker he let out wasn’t what I was expecting. Neither was the “Nina” he kind of chuckled in that ridiculous velvet voice, that was warmth and richness. “That’s what your mind was on?”
I waved my right hand at him. “Yeah. You’re so secretive about some things.” I thought about it. “I’d like to be friends, Fluff. I don’t want you to hate having me around for asking a bunch of questions or making you talk about stuff you don’t want to.” I shrugged. “And you have a cute chuckle, if you want to know that too. There? Are you happy now?”
There was a moment of silence so strong I considered opening my car door and tucking and rolling on the way out.
But before I could consider all the reasons why I wouldn’t do it, he asked in a funny voice, “You always this honest?”
I snorted. “No, but you weren’t going to drop it, and I figured I might as well get it off my chest and save us both time. What have you been doing for the last eighteen years?”
He angled his body against the corner of the door and the seat, attention still on me. He crossed his arms over his chest, flexing those arms that belonged on a men’s health magazine. “Matti hasn’t even been gone a couple hours, and you’re already giving me a hard time” was what he replied with.
“I was minding my own business. You’re giving me a hard time.” I glanced at him real quick sitting in my passenger seat.
He gave me the most nonchalant look. “You can ask whatever you want to ask. I don’t hate you being here, and we are… friends.”
There had been a pause there, and a part of me wanted to pry at it, give it a little poke, see what happened, but a bigger part of me, the part that was scared what might come out if I did that, said I better not. It said I should take what I’d been given and be happy with it. If Henri said we were friends, then we were friends. That needed to be enough.
I shifted in my seat. “Does that mean you’re going to tell me what you did in all those years?”
Part of Henri’s mouth formed into a smirk, and that same man I knew, and yet didn’t know, shook his head. “Nope, but it doesn’t mean you can’t ask.”
I snickered, and I didn’t imagine his smirk getting a little wider before he said the one thing I needed to hear more than anything else.
“You’re going to be just fine here, Nina,” he predicted. “I’ve got a good feeling about it.”