Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“W hat in the name of all that is holy…”
Ruby really wished she had an answer to her sister’s whispered question, but she was as shocked as Lena. Maybe even more so. Last night she had dragged an injured wolf into their garage and now, in its place, lay a human man.
A completely naked human man.
A very familiar naked human man.
“Shhh…” Ruby hissed.
“Ruby! What the hell?!” Her sister was nearly shrieking now.
“What are you even doing out here?” Ruby asked, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She’d gotten a grand total of three hours’ sleep before she heard Lena’s startled screech from the backyard.
She’d stumbled outside barefoot and in the same clothes she’d fallen asleep in, her hair a tangled mess around her head, to find her sister standing in her bathrobe gesturing wildly toward the garage and demanding to know what was going on.
It was nice to see Lena up and around, but Ruby could have done without the early morning hysterics.
Lena’s pale eyes were wide in disbelief when Ruby turned to face her. “I was looking for the old waffle iron. I thought maybe it was out here.”
“Oh!” Ruby’s face lit up. “Were you going to make waffles?”
“Ruby! That is not the point! What is going on? Who is that? What should we do?” Her sister’s voice rose with every question and Ruby shushed her again. She needed to think before he woke up.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, pacing from the garage to the deck and back. Her sister twisted the belt of her bathrobe between her fingers.
“Should we call the police? Or an ambulance? He’s bleeding.” Lena glanced down at the bloodstains that trailed through the grass, a fresh layer of horror crossing her face.
After Callie left last night, Ruby had gotten as far as the living room and collapsed on the couch, figuring she’d call the vet or Animal Control in the morning. Except now, instead of an injured wolf, she had an injured man. A perfectly normal Saturday morning.
“No police. I know him.”
Lena’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “You know him?”
Ruby nodded, striving for casualness, as though having a naked man lying in their garage was a typical occurrence in the Bellerose household. “I mean, not biblically . But yes, he’s a?… friend.”
“Oh my God, wait! Is it the guy from the bar? The lumberjack?”
“He’s not a lumberjack.”
“I don’t care what he is! Why is he naked in our garage?!” Lena waited, her gaze boring into Ruby. Even before her strange episodes, Lena had always been able to see straight to the heart of her.
Ruby didn’t have time to think up a lie, that Lena definitely wouldn’t have believed anyway, before a groan from the garage abruptly ended the conversation.
They both peered through the window to find Rafe still sprawled out in all his glory in front of the lawn mower like some kind of erotic potting bench.
The thought of using Rafe’s impressive abs to re-pot her aunt’s begonias sent Ruby into a fit of hysterical giggles.
He groaned again and ran a hand down his face.
The muscles of his arm rippled and flexed, his stomach going taut with another groan, and while one part of Ruby’s brain was still frantically trying to figure out what the hell was going on, the other half paused to take a moment and appreciate the creature in front of her.
She already knew he was big, but in the confines of her tiny garage, he looked massive. Dark hair covered his broad chest and trailed down his abs to his?… dear God. Ruby snapped her gaze away. He was asleep, for goodness’ sake. She wasn’t that much of a pervert.
Although there weren’t many places she could look that didn’t make her cheeks heat.
Every other time she’d seen him had been in the dim light of the bar, but now sun streamed in through the windows and streaked across Rafe’s golden skin.
His hair that had looked black before was actually chocolate brown and brushed the tops of his shoulders.
Ruby’s fingers curled at the memory of sinking into the thick fur at the wolf’s neck.
His eyes were still closed, but she remembered their silver stare.
Dark stubble covered his face, and his mouth was set in a pained grimace.
Pained. Right. He was hurt and here she was gawking.
His shoulder was still bloody but somehow didn’t look nearly as bad as it had last night.
The flesh seemed to have knit itself back together, and other than some ugly teeth marks and a few bruises, it looked significantly better. How?—
Rafe stirred again, fluttering his eyes open with another low groan. Next to her, Lena tensed, still worrying the ends of her robe. Ruby watched the realization of where he was slowly dawning across his face. Rafe caught them looking from his position on the floor.
“Shit.” He let out a long sigh, still not bothering to sit up or cover any part of his very distracting anatomy. His gaze stayed locked on Ruby’s, and she gripped the windowsill for dear life, glad it stood as a barrier between them. She needed as many shields as she could get right now.
Lena, however, had no such qualms. She opened the side door and tossed him one of the old picnic blankets they kept stacked by the door. He caught it with his good arm and pulled it over his lap, slowly working his way to a seat.
“Sorry. Uh?… I’ll get out of your hair.”
Ruby let out a strangled laugh and Lena looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. She probably had. “You’re not going anywhere.” She joined her sister in the doorway.
Rafe raised an eyebrow.
“I have questions.”
“Right, me too,” Lena said, her gaze flicking between Ruby and Rafe like she had questions for both of them.
“But I will go grab you some clothes first.” Lena hurried into the house, glancing behind her to give Ruby a look .
And it was so reminiscent of the way Aunt Millie used to look at her when she’d get into trouble as a kid that she almost laughed.
She was definitely in trouble.
She inched her way into the small space and Rafe’s mouth tipped into a smile. He wrapped the blanket more firmly around his waist and maneuvered gingerly into an old patio chair.
“What the hell is going on?” she hissed as soon as Lena was out of earshot. “Last night I dragged a wolf in here, a wolf with your exact injury, and now…” She waved a hand in the general direction of all his muscle-y nakedness.
Rafe studied her, his silver gaze lingering on her bare feet. She?tucked one under the other, like she could hide them. He raised his eyes back to hers and sighed.
“That was me.”
“That was you? That wolf?”
“Yes.”
Ruby pinched herself hard under the arm. “Ow, damn it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Just making sure.” She rubbed her arm, ignoring the small smile dancing around Rafe’s lips. “So, the wolf was you and this is you, so that makes you…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. It was too absurd.
“That makes me a werewolf.” He winced a little at the word as though the admission hurt him, but he still held her gaze.
“Jesus Christ.”
His laugh sounded so similar to the wolf sound he’d made last night she nearly tipped over.
She ran her hands through her hair, combing it with her fingers and then twisting it into a knot.
Rafe watched every movement like she was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.
Goosebumps broke out across her skin and heat pooled in her belly.
“Here you go.” Lena’s voice broke through the sudden tension in the room.
She tossed Rafe a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, apparently not wanting to get close enough to him to hand them over.
They must have been left over from Lena’s last boyfriend.
Unfortunately, she’d already gotten to them with her latest crafting hobby, and the T-shirt was now covered in a very bold tie-dye pattern and a hole in the knee of the sweats had been patched with some vibrantly colored embroidery floss.
Even in all the chaos Ruby couldn’t wait to see Rafe in this ensemble.
Lena’s gaze flicked between them. “I’m going to make some coffee. Anyone want some?”
“Yes. A lot.” Ruby said with a nod.
Rafe opened his mouth, but Ruby didn’t give him a chance to answer.
“He’ll take a cup too. We still have things to discuss.”
Rafe gave Lena a sheepish smile. “I’m Rafe, by the way. Thanks for the clothes.”
“Lena. Nice to meet you.” That was her sister, polite in even the most bizarre circumstances. She gave Ruby another questioning look before wandering back into the kitchen, but Ruby had no answers for her at the moment. At least none that didn’t make her sound like a lunatic.
She swung her gaze back to Rafe and struggled with what to say next.
Where should she even begin?