Chapter 2
She’d known he was trouble the moment she recognized him in the shop. Not trouble in an objectionable way. Paxton Rojas had never been anything but decent to her. On the contrary, his kind of trouble upended her carefully maintained equilibrium just by his being in the same room with her.
She’d had years to get over her teenage crush.
She’d done a thorough job of it, or so she’d believed, and then he’d turned around in the aisle of her dad’s store, holding on to a shelf to stay upright, and all bets were off.
She’d looked up at his handsome face. The same strong jaw she remembered, the scar along it she didn’t, and those eyes that were the light blue of the desert sky in January.
She’d felt the years apart evaporate in about four seconds.
And it hadn’t felt the way the old crush used to feel.
She knew that ache well and had made her peace with it half a lifetime ago.
This was heavier and more certain, a bolt sliding home in a lock she’d stopped checking years ago.
The solid click of it frightened her far more than any teenage flutter ever had.
Then she’d done what she always did when something knocked her sideways. She’d gotten practical.
Now she stood at the kitchen counter and stirred the soup she was making for him while having a quick word with herself about the facts of the situation.
“He’s injured and needed help. You helped. That’s what decent people do. Besides, he’ll be healed within another week or so, because shifters heal super-fast, and then he’ll go back to whatever he and Ari do next. Same as always.”
Her internal monologue wasn’t overly convincing, but she forged ahead anyway.
“And the way he said your name when he saw you does not constitute a situation. He was just surprised. He was in pain. You should read nothing into it.”
The canned soup, fortified with an extra can of chicken and some extra seasoning from the shelf, because she knew from experience that Pax ran on protein, was coming along.
She put bread in the toaster and found the good cheese in the back of the refrigerator.
Her father wouldn’t come upstairs for a while yet. She had time.
She tried not to think about the moment she’d put Pax’s arm over her shoulders and felt the weight of him.
He was enormous. That was obvious. But it hadn’t quite registered until she’d touched him.
All that muscle against her side, the heat of him, the slight hitch in his breathing that told her how much it was costing him to stay on his feet.
She’d had the absurd impulse to pull him closer, to take more of his weight, to—
“Stop it, Bree. You’re a grown woman, not a teenager, and you know better.
He left once and he’s going to leave again.
Don’t get too caught up in him because he isn’t staying, and you aren’t leaving.
Plus, he wouldn’t ask you to go with him, even if he could.
He’s a soldier. He doesn’t have room in his life for the likes of you. ”
She put a sandwich together, added a sliced apple to the plate because Pax had always liked apples with everything, and loaded a tray.
He was awake when she went back to the spare room. He’d made an attempt to prop himself up, his big frame taking up most of the narrow daybed. He looked at the tray, and surprise moved through his expression. Like he hadn’t expected she’d go to so much trouble.
“I can’t let an injured person go hungry,” she said, setting the tray on a small table she dragged over from the side of the bed. “Even if that person snuck out of his mother’s house specifically to avoid being taken care of.”
“I had a repair to make,” he argued rather lamely.
“Sure you did. That’s what they all say.”
She sat in the chair a few feet away and watched him eat.
He worked through the soup first. She’d made it hot and substantial and he clearly needed it.
Three-quarters of the way through the bowl he seemed to remember himself and slowed down slightly.
She appreciated that he’d stopped managing his appetite around her.
He and Ari had both done that in high school, she’d noticed, eating carefully and moderately in public.
She’d felt it a sign of their closeness that they’d stopped doing that in front of her, even if they still needed to hide why they put away twice the food anyone else did.
She’d brought him sandwiches in the stockroom after closing time back then, and watched him eat properly. He’d never thanked her for the discretion. He hadn’t needed to. It was just something understood between them.
“Your dad put in the stair lift himself?” he asked between the soup and the sandwich.
“Tomás helped. He’s one of—” she paused.
She’d been about to say your family, which she knew was loosely true in the way of a Clan, but she wasn’t sure which parts of that she was supposed to know or say.
“He’s a young man from your family’s side of things.
He comes around sometimes. Dad’s thinking about hiring him part-time if he’s willing. ”
Pax gazed at her steadily. “You know who’s Clan and who isn’t, don’t you?”
“I grew up with the two of you. I learned the tells.” She folded her hands in her lap. “But you know I’ve never said a word to anyone.”
“I know.” He set down the sandwich. “I do know that, Bree. I never doubted it for a second.” Something in his voice had gone more direct. “You’re the most trustworthy person I’ve ever known, outside of Ari.”
She held onto his words for a moment, because that was more than she’d expected him to say. “High praise,” she managed to choke out, nodding.
“Honest praise.” He picked the sandwich up again, the moment ending as naturally as it had started. “This is good. The apple is weird.”
“You always liked apples with everything. Don’t revise history.”
He regarded the slice in his hand like he’d forgotten and then took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Huh.”
“I’m right. Admit it,” she chided, grinning at him.
“You’re always right. It’s deeply annoying.” But he was nearly smiling, and she looked away unable to handle how delectable he looked close up. It had been years since she’d been this near to him and time hadn’t lessened his effect on her senses.
The afternoon light shifted through the small window. Downstairs she could hear, faintly, her father’s voice and the cadence of his storytelling. He was telling a good one, she surmised. Something that was going to last another twenty minutes at least.
“Tell me about Ari,” she said. “Where the heck is he? You two have never split up that I remember.”
Pax was silent long enough that she thought he might not answer. “He’s finishing the job we were on when I got hurt,” he said at last. “Up in the Pacific Northwest. He’ll be done soon and then he’ll come home to regroup.” A pause. “He’s fine. I’m just not used to not knowing his exact location.”
She understood that, or as much as anyone could understand it without being one half of a pair the way they’d always been. “You two still work as a team then?” she asked. “You never used to work separately.”
“We have a few times, but not like this.” He looked at the window.
“He doesn’t know how bad my injury was. I told him it was manageable and that I was just going to stay here and visit with the folks until he could join me.
It was what we’d planned anyway. It’s been too long since we’ve spent any time at home. ”
She thought about that. About Ari on the other end of a phone call getting the edited version of his twin’s condition, unable to do anything about it, hundreds of miles away.
“That was kind of you to spare him worry,” she said carefully. “And it’s also probably driving him insane.”
Pax made a sound that was almost a laugh. “Definitely. It’s definitely making him even crazier than he already is. Me too, for that matter. I hate taking it easy while I recover. I’m a terrible patient. Just ask my mother.” He sighed heavily as he finished his meal.
“Is that why you snuck out of the house? Because sitting still was worse than moving around?”
The afternoon light caught the scar along his jaw and she had a brief, fierce curiosity about how he’d gotten it, but she didn’t ask.
“Partly,” he said, answering her question. “And partly I just needed a hinge to fix the back door.”
“Well.” She stood, collecting the tray. “You can have the hinge, at least. I’ll find it for you.
” She looked down at him, at the long, exhausted line of him taking up too much of the narrow bed.
She felt something pull at her heart that she’d been mostly managing to ignore.
“You just rest here for a while, and I’ll check on you in a bit. ”
“Bree.” His voice caught her at the door. She turned. “I’m glad it was you who found me in the store.”
She gazed at him and he gazed back, steady and a little raw around the edges, which was new. The Pax she remembered had always kept everything behind a mask of impenetrable strength.
“Me too,” she said, and went to find the hinge for him.
Pax slept, which he hadn’t expected. He woke to late afternoon light coming in the window and the smell of fresh coffee. For one disoriented moment, he didn’t know where he was. Then his leg reminded him, less sharply than it had this morning, and the rest of his memory returned.
He was in Bree’s guest room. Right.
He got himself upright, ran a hand over his face, and took stock.
He was definitely feeling better than he had this morning.
His jaguar had been working while he slept, which it always did more efficiently when he was unconscious and not interfering.
He could put weight on the leg now without the world tilting. He was making progress.