Chapter 18 - Lara
I sleep better than I expect to.
I don't know what I was expecting, really. Probably to lie awake all night staring at the unfamiliar ceiling and questioning how I ended up here, on shifter territory. Something I said I would never ever submit to. But instead, I slept remarkably well in Wilf’s spare room; the clean sheets, blankets, and fluffy towels felt luxurious compared to the mountain cabin, and that had been a welcome reprieve after the rogues took me.
I tried to fight it, but I drifted off quickly despite my fight-or-flight senses being on high alert.
I ended up in the spare room without much of a conversation.
By the time we got back from the alpha house yesterday, I was so wrung out from everyone meeting me and what happened in the garden with Fiona's boys that I didn’t have the capacity to do anything but fall into a bed, and I think Wilf knew that.
He gave me the blankets and space, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I got into bed and let sleep take me.
I get up, shower, and put on yesterday's clothes because I haven’t got anything else. I head down the hall but linger in the doorway of the kitchen, because I still don’t quite know where to put myself, and this cabin continues to surprise me.
I hadn't really had a chance to look properly last night.
But in the morning light through the back window, it's hard to ignore that this is the kind of kitchen people put photos of on the internet. Dark stone counters and a stove that looks like it cost more than my father’s old truck.
A row of jars on a shelf with handwritten labels, and high-end pans hang from the ceiling rack.
There's a deep window over the sink that looks out over the trees, and the light pours in, making the whole space look inviting and more homely than I was expecting. The way he talked about the cabin made it sound like it would be run down or unloved, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I'm standing in the doorway looking at it when he comes through from the back door and kicks off his boots.
"Morning," he says.
"Morning," I reply.
"Slept alright?" he asks.
"Like the dead, actually," I tell him. "I didn't expect to."
"Good," he says. The corner of his mouth twitches slightly. "Coffee?"
"Yes, please," I reply.
He puts the coffee on, and I sit down at the island, which dominates the room and has the same dark stone top as the counters, and watch him move around his own kitchen.
He's in jeans and a grey sweater, and his hair is still damp.
There's something about a big man being domestic in a nice kitchen that does things to my head I'd rather not let myself linger on, so I look at the jars on the shelf instead.
"This is a really nice kitchen," I tell him.
"Thanks," he says.
"I wasn't expecting it," I admit. “I don’t mean…I just thought…”
"Don’t worry," he says, "I know what you mean."
"Did you do it yourself?" I ask.
"Most of it," he replies. "The bones of the place were always here. It's where I grew up. I've changed it a fair bit over the years. Added bits."
"You grew up here?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. He puts the coffee in front of me. "Just me and my dad mostly. Then just me after he left."
He says it as though that were the most normal thing in the world, and while I grew up with just my dad, I get the feeling his childhood was less filled with love than mine. But I’m in no state to pick that scab.
"Toast?" he asks, and I think he’s trying to move on quickly, too.
I nod and watch as he moves around his kitchen with the ease of a man in his own space, only stopping when his phone beeps with a message. He reads it and seems to hesitate, so I know it’s about me.
"Just say it," I tell him.
"Luna wants to come up later this morning," he says.
"With Skylar and Fern. And maybe Dina, who says she didn’t get to meet you properly yesterday.
They want to bring you some things. Clothes and that.
I told Luna last night you'd come down with nothing.
They want to know if you're up for visitors.
I can tell them another day if you're not. "
I sit with that for a second.
"What things?" I ask.
"Clothes, I think," he tells me. "Just stuff you might need, I guess."
"All four of them?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says, "Dina will have the baby. If it’s too much, just say."
"It's fine," I tell him, before I've really decided.
He looks at me.
"Sure?" he asks.
"I think so," I tell him. "I can’t deny I need to change out of these clothes, and they seem fine."
"Alright,” he says. “I'm going to be in and out anyway. Connor's coming up to look at the wards on this side of the ridge, and I said I'd give him a hand. I won't be far."
"Okay," I say.
He doesn't push it. He texts Luna back, finishes making the toast, and we don’t bring it up again.
He heads back outside to finish doing whatever he was doing after breakfast, and I sit at the island in his enormous kitchen, drinking the rest of my coffee and trying to work out what I feel about all this.
I don't actually know.
Yesterday was a lot. The truck, the alpha house, and Luna being kind, and the women all in the kitchen with their tea, and Fiona's children running around the garden, and then I nearly blew it all up by using my voice on them all—I wouldn’t have blamed them for throwing me out of the town after that.
Or perhaps they want to use it just like the rogues do, but they’re not giving off the same threatening vibes.
In fact, they don’t feel threatening at all, and that is wreaking havoc with a lifetime of fear.
I should have wanted them to throw me out of the town, then I could have actually left and gone home.
But in the moment, I didn’t want them to turn me away.
And they didn’t. Fiona thanked me. Fiona actually thanked me, and her three-year-old had ended up in my lap with his fingers tangled in my hair. The rest of the afternoon is a blur, but I didn’t feel threatened.
And now, this morning, the women are coming back and bringing me clothes.
I should be escaping; I shouldn’t want to be here.
I shouldn’t be drinking coffee with Wilf like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
And yet, I’ve slept well in a comfortable bed, he’s made me breakfast, and I don’t know what to do with how all that makes me feel.
Because what I feel feels like a betrayal of my father and everything he stood for. He spent a lifetime trying to protect me from shifters, and here I am playing house with one.
Sleeping with the enemy, quite literally.
I don't know what to do with that, so I do what I always do: keep busy.
I clear the breakfast things and find the dishwasher.
The cabin is quiet, and the wood stove in the front room is putting out a steady warmth, and the light coming through the windows looks warmer than it has in a long time, meaning we might have seen the last of the snow this year.
The trucks come up the track just before midday.
I hear them before I see them, and I cross to the front window in time to watch them come round the bend.
Luna is driving the first one and gets out first, followed by Fern.
The second truck is Skylar at the wheel with Dina in the passenger seat and the baby in a car seat in the back.
They pile out laughing about something, hands full, and my stomach does a small twist, but I try to ignore it.
I open the front door before I can overthink it and run away.
Wilf is already coming round the side from whatever he’s been doing in the yard, and he sees me on the step and stops.
"Alright?" he asks.
"Yeah," I tell him.
"You need me to come in with you?" he asks.
"No, I'm fine," I tell him. "Honestly."
He nods once and goes back around to where he'd been, and I'm watching the women come up the path.
Luna gets to me first. She's got a canvas bag in each hand.
"Lara," she says. "Sorry for the invasion. I tried to keep it small, but everyone wanted to come, you know how it is."
I want to tell her that, no, I don’t know how it is, because I don’t have any women friends, but I don’t even know where to start with that.
"That was me," Dina calls from behind Skylar, who is coming up with a cake tin balanced on top of another bag. "I'm Dina, hi, sorry. I was so distracted with the baby yesterday, we didn’t get a chance to talk properly.”
"Hi," I tell her.
"You remember Skylar and Fern," Luna says breezily.
"Hi, Lara," Skylar says.
"Lara," Fern says. "Hope you don't mind me coming. I thought it might be nice to chat with another human for a bit, and Luna said you were up for visitors, so..."
"I'm glad you came," I tell her, and find I mean it because the truth is, I can’t quite get my head around humans being so welcome here, and yet, I’m struggling to find evidence that they’re not too.
I let them in, and we’re all set up in the kitchen within two minutes.
I watch them take over the space in an easy way; only a group of women who already know each other can take over a room.
Fern finds the coffee pot without being told.
Skylar puts a huge cake tin on the counter and gets plates from one of the shelves.
Dina sits down at the island and adjusts her sling so the baby is settled against her chest, and lets herself look around with the open admiration of the admittedly beautiful kitchen.
"Lara," Dina says. "You realize hardly anyone has ever been invited up here."
"Wilf said," I tell her.
"I haven’t been in Silvercreek all that long," Dina says. "But Caleb has been up here once and obviously completely undersold it. Look at this kitchen. Look at this stove."
"You're not stealing his stove, Dina," Luna says, dropping the bags on the island.
"I'm not stealing the stove," Dina replies dryly. "I'm just appreciating it. And making notes."