Chapter 5 #2
His mouth twitched. Barely. “You hear what you want a lot?”
“Usually.”
“That explain the cat?”
Bandit hissed from inside the cab like he understood tone.
I pointed toward him. “He is also fixable.”
Mason looked through the window at the gray demon currently trying to murder the crate latch. “He’s feral.”
“He’s traumatized.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“So are you, and people still feed you.”
That earned me a real look. Not a smile. Not quite. But something moved over his face, something almost warm before he locked it down and wiped his hands on a rag tucked into his back pocket.
He looked past me toward the house. “Regan’s up.”
My stomach dropped.
I turned.
Sure enough, Regan stood on the front porch in leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, messy hair piled on top of her head, and the expression of a woman who had woken up and chosen violence. One hand on her hip. One eyebrow raised. The entire weight of her disapproval aimed directly at me.
I lifted a hand weakly. “Morning.”
She stared at my packed truck. Then at Bandit. Then at me. Then at Mason.
“You tried to sneak out.”
“I was going to leave a note.”
“No, you weren’t.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
Fair.
Regan came down the steps barefoot like the cold ground personally feared her. “You were going to leave before sunrise in a broken truck with a serial killer cat and a hangover.”
“I’m not hungover.”
My head pulsed once behind my eyes.
Regan pointed at my face. “Liar.”
Mason leaned back against the front of my truck, arms crossed, looking like a man enjoying justice in real time.
I shot him a look. “You can stop looking so entertained.”
“I’m not entertained.”
“You’re visibly entertained.”
Regan stopped in front of me. “Inside.”
“I need to get to Santa Fe.”
“You need eggs.”
“I need my apartment keys.”
“You need coffee first.”
“I don’t have time for a whole intervention.”
Regan smiled. Sweet. Terrifying. “Oh, honey. This is not the whole intervention.”
Behind her, Amber opened the front door wrapped in a blanket, hair wild, mascara slightly smudged under one eye. “What’s happening?”
Regan didn’t look away from me. “She tried to run.”
Amber gasped like I had betrayed a blood oath.
“I did not run.”
Savannah appeared behind Amber, holding a mug, looking entirely too awake and amused. “Truck packed?”
I sighed. “Technically.”
Evie’s voice floated from somewhere inside. “Cat packed?”
Bandit screamed.
Regan folded her arms.
The women stared at me.
Mason stared at me.
The desert stared at me.
I threw both hands up. “Fine. I was leaving.”
Regan nodded once. “Thank you.”
“I’m still leaving.”
“After breakfast.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No,” Regan said, “you’re a stray with student loans and trust issues.”
Mason made a sound. Small. Almost a laugh.
I turned on him. “Something funny?”
He looked away.
Coward.
Regan grabbed my wrist, saw the scratches again, and frowned. “And we’re cleaning this properly.”
“I rinsed it.”
“With what?”
“Water.”
Her face flattened.
“Inside,” she said.
I looked at Mason. “Tell her I have places to be.”
He shrugged. “Truck won’t make it.”
Betrayal.
Absolute betrayal.
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re enjoying this.”
His gaze moved over me slowly, from my tangled hair to my bare arms to my boots still unlaced. “Little bit.”
My heart did something stupid. A hard, quick kick.
I hated my heart.
Regan tugged me toward the house. “Breakfast. Bandit can come too.”
Mason looked at the cab. Bandit slammed a paw against the crate bars and hissed.
Mason’s mouth curved. “Good luck with that.”
Regan cleaned my wrist like I’d been mauled by a rabid wolf instead of scratched by a twelve-pound cat with abandonment issues.
She used soap first, then peroxide, then some kind of ointment from an overstuffed first aid kit that looked better stocked than an urgent care clinic.
I sat at the kitchen island, hissing through my teeth while Amber poured coffee and Savannah made toast like this was all completely normal.
Evie stood at the stove flipping bacon. Skye sat across from me, calm and perfect, braiding her hair like mornings didn’t personally offend her. Regan moved around the kitchen barefoot and bossy. This was apparently what chaos looked like when it had money, good skin, and access to fresh eggs.
Mason leaned against the counter near the back door, drinking coffee like he had no intention of helping anyone emotionally.
Which suited him.
Emotionally unavailable looked like his natural habitat.
Regan taped gauze over my wrist with brisk efficiency. “There.”
I flexed my hand. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Don’t get sepsis.”
“I’ll put it on my list.”
Amber slid a mug in front of me. “Drink.”
I took it because arguing with them had proven useless. The coffee was strong enough to restart my truck. I took one sip and nearly saw God.
“Oh.”
Regan grinned. “Good?”
“I may propose.”
“Get in line,” Amber said.
Mason grunted into his mug.
I ignored him.
Mostly.
Evie set a plate in front of me. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Sliced avocado. Something with peppers and potatoes that smelled like butter, salt, and a reason to keep living. My stomach made a deeply personal noise before I could stop it.
Savannah’s brows rose. “You always sound like that?”
“I’ve been on a gas station diet for three days.”
Amber leaned her elbows on the island. “That explains the feral energy.”
“I thought the cat covered that.”
“The cat is a symptom,” Regan said, pouring herself coffee. “You are the diagnosis.”
I took a bite of eggs, and my entire nervous system briefly shut down to process gratitude. “This is offensive.”
Evie looked over her shoulder. “The eggs?”
“How good they are. I resent it.”
“Regan’s chickens,” Skye said, tying off the end of her braid. “They live better than most people.”
Regan pointed her mug at Skye. “As they should.”
Mason made another low sound from the back door.
I glanced at him without meaning to. He was watching me over the rim of his coffee, expression unreadable, the morning light turning his eyes darker.
Something in my chest tightened—not soft, not sweet, not anything I had room for.
More like awareness sharpening itself against my ribs.
I looked back at my plate.
Bad idea.
Attraction, in my experience, was mostly poor pattern recognition dressed up as destiny.
A nervous system misfiring in the presence of cheekbones, competence, and unresolved childhood material.
I was too tired, underfed, financially unstable, and recently humiliated by an emotionally fraudulent professor to be trusted with biological impulses.
Especially ones wearing tattoos and making accurate comments about my coolant leak.
Regan slid onto the stool beside me. “So. Here’s what’s going to happen.”
I froze with toast halfway to my mouth. “That sentence never leads anywhere good.”
“You’re going to eat. Then Mason is going to look at your truck properly.”
Mason’s eyes cut to her. “Am I?”
Regan didn’t turn around. “Yes.”
I pointed my toast at Mason. “He doesn’t have to.”
“He does,” Regan said.
“I don’t want to owe him.”
Mason set his mug down. “You don’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
“You owe Regan. I’m just labor.”
Regan smiled. “See? Everybody wins.”
“That is not how debts work,” I said. “I understand accounting poorly, but emotionally, I’m fluent.”
Amber laughed.
Mason pushed off the counter and walked toward the island, slow and unhurried, like he knew exactly how much space his body took up and had no intention of apologizing for it.
He stopped across from me, bracing one hand on the counter.
His knuckles were still smeared with grease from my engine.
The scratches from Bandit stood red across his skin.
I stared at them longer than I should have.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
“Cat’s got a temper,” he said.
“He’s misunderstood.”
“He tried to murder me.”
“He’s discerning.”
“He’s a menace.”
“You started it.”
His eyebrow lifted. “I picked up his crate.”
“Without consent.”
“Didn’t know I needed permission from a hostage situation with fur.”
I fought a smile and lost by half an inch.
Mason saw that too. Something shifted in his face, quick and quiet, there and gone before I could decide what it meant. It made him look younger for a second. Less like a wall. More like a man standing behind one.
I hated curiosity almost as much as I hated needing help.
Regan tapped the counter. “After breakfast, we’ll call the shop in Santa Fe and figure out whether the truck can be patched enough to get you there.”
“I can call a tow.”
“With what money?” Amber asked.
My mouth opened.
Closed.
Rude. Accurate. Still rude.
Savannah slid toast onto a plate and pushed it toward me. “Eat more before you try to argue. You’re underpowered.”
“I’m not underpowered.”
“You tried to flee before sunrise in a dying truck.”
“That was a strategic relocation.”
Mason’s mouth curved. “Running.”
I pointed at him. “Repairman commentary is not needed.”
“Mechanic,” he corrected.
“Temporary mechanic.”
His gaze held mine. “We’ll see.”
The words hit wrong. Or maybe right. Either way, heat moved through me again, annoying and specific, and I took a large bite of toast to keep from answering.
Regan watched the two of us with open interest.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought loudly.”
Amber almost spit coffee.
Regan smiled into her mug. “Eat your eggs, Sienna.”
I did, because the eggs were excellent and because food gave me something to do with my hands besides reach for my keys or throw something at Mason’s head.
Outside, the desert kept brightening through the kitchen windows.
Gold spread across the scrub and low rocks, softening the hard edges of the morning.
My truck sat under the mesquite like a corpse awaiting official identification.
Bandit had been relocated to the mudroom in his crate, where he was making intermittent threats against the household.
Every few minutes, someone paused and listened to him scream, then kept eating like this was normal breakfast music.
Maybe for them, it was.
I looked around the kitchen at the women moving easily around one another, at Mason by the counter, at the coffee in my hand and gauze on my wrist, and felt that dangerous little warmth from last night try to creep back in.
Belonging was a trap if you mistook temporary kindness for a place to stay.
I knew that.
Still, when Regan nudged the plate closer and Mason looked at my truck through the window like he had already accepted the problem as his, I didn’t get up.
Not yet.