Chapter 2 #2
He heard voices from downstairs. As a shifter, he could hear them clearly.
Shifter hearing was sharper than any human’s.
Bree and her father were talking. It had been a long time since Pax had seen Mr. Leeland, but he sounded about the same as always.
A little gruffer, perhaps, but his tone tempered when he spoke to his only daughter.
Pax took a breath. He hadn’t thought about the logistics of this part. He really hadn’t thought much past not passing out and getting himself up the stairs, honestly. He didn’t know how much Bree’s father knew or remembered or suspected about the Rojas brothers.
The man had always been keenly intelligent.
He’d watched his daughter befriend two unusual teenage boys and had eventually concluded, correctly, that they were friends and nothing more.
He’d even given them after-school jobs as stock boys.
But had he noticed the way Pax’s gaze always lingered on Bree without his conscious thought? Pax certainly hoped not.
He got himself off the bed, found his shoes, and made his way to the door.
Bree was at the bottom of the stairs when he descended.
It might’ve taken longer than usual, but Pax was walking under his own power now, and the stair lift could find someone else to mortify.
She looked up at him and then at his leg and said nothing, which was the right move.
“Dad wanted to know if you were awake,” she said. “You don’t have to come out, but he heard you were here and—”
“I’ll come out,” Pax said.
The front of the store was warm in the late afternoon light, dust motes moving through the air above the shelves.
Mr. Leeland was in his chair by the window.
He was thinner than Pax remembered, and his hair was fully white now, but his eyes were the same clear brown, and when they fixed on Pax they moved over him the same way Bree’s had. Taking stock. Missing nothing.
“Paxton Rojas,” the old man said. His voice was still strong. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Yes sir,” Pax said. “That’s a fair assessment.”
“Sit down before you fall down.” Mr. Leeland nodded at the chair across from him. “Bree, the boy needs coffee.”
“The boy is in his thirties,” Bree said, already heading for the coffee machine. She wasn’t arguing about the coffee, just the phrasing. Pax sat, shaking his head in wonder. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same was a true adage, it seemed.
Mr. Leeland regarded him with the patience of an old man who had all the time in the world and knew it. “Where’s your brother?”
“Coming home soon. We got separated on a job.”
“What kind of job?” Those shrewd old eyes narrowed on him and Pax resisted the urge to squirm in his chair.
Pax cleared his throat, then answered. “The kind I can’t go into detail about.”
Mr. Leeland nodded, accepting this, and Pax almost breathed a sigh of relief. Then his next question had Pax on edge again.
“You two still in the military?”
“No, sir. We’ve officially retired, but we do civilian jobs now, using the same skill set.” Mr. Leeland was wise enough to read between the lines and figure that one out, Pax knew. He braced for Mr. Leeland’s disapproval.
“Mm,” was his only comment as he accepted the coffee his daughter brought and wrapped both hands around the mug.
Then he went on. “You boys always were a bit more than you let on. I figured that out early enough.” He glanced at Bree, who had settled herself on the stool behind the counter.
Something passed between them. It was a look that Pax couldn’t quite read.
Then Mr. Leeland looked back at him. “You’re staying local while you heal? ”
“I’m staying with my parents, yes sir.”
“Good.” Mr. Leeland nodded once, and settled back in his chair. “It’s right that you should come home, after. Men need to come home after.” He said it like he believed it and had no interest in arguing about it. Pax had no argument to offer.
Instead, Pax thought briefly about the drainage culvert outside Salt Lake City and his father’s voice on the phone when he’d called from the highway. Remembering that, he thought the old man was even more right than he knew.
They drank their coffee while Mr. Leeland told a story about a customer and a ceiling fan installation gone badly wrong.
Pax laughed in the right places, and Bree worked calmly behind the counter with the occasional contribution that suggested she’d heard this story before but didn’t mind hearing it again.
The light shifted. The afternoon moved along at an unhurried pace, and was possibly the most peaceful time Pax had experienced in recent memory.
His inner jaguar was obnoxiously content just sitting in the afternoon sun surrounded by such good company.
After a while, Mr. Leeland’s friend Robertson came in for something and got drawn into conversation, and Bree appeared at Pax’s elbow.
“Your mother arranged for someone to come pick you up,” she said gently. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“She called?”
“We’ve been texting.” Bree’s expression was entirely neutral. “We’re in the same sewing club, so we have each other’s numbers. Didn’t she mention that?”
He could see Bree was enjoying his confusion.
“No. She did not mention that,” he said, shaking his head.
“Okay. Well. We’ve met for a few hours, twice a month, for about a year.” She tilted her head slightly. “Your mother, for what it’s worth, is an extraordinary woman who doesn’t let very much stop her. I like her a lot.”
He thought about his mother and the way she’d been at Clan gatherings his whole childhood, moving through the crowd like water, talking to everyone, human or shifter, with the same open warmth.
It shouldn’t surprise him that she and Bree got along.
It didn’t, really. He was mostly processing the idea that the two women had found each other independent of him, which felt significant.
But he really didn’t want to think about why just then.
“I should go,” he said. “You’ve done enough.”
“You say that like it was a burden.” Bree looked at him steadily.
“It wasn’t. I’m glad you’re here.” She paused.
“Come back when you’re better. My dad’s been talking about setting up some kind of informal repair session for…
uh…people in the area. Young people who don’t know which end of a screwdriver is which.
He could use someone to help manage the chaos that might entail. ”
He realized that she’d just offered him a reason to come back. She’d wrapped it in practical language, and he wondered whether she’d done it deliberately or whether it was just Bree being Bree.
“I’ll be back as soon as I’m healed a bit more,” he said, unable to help himself. He not only wanted to see Bree again, it was fast becoming a necessary imperative.
“That’s all I ask.” She smiled, handing him the hinge he’d come for, which she’d apparently found at some point while he was sleeping. “For your mother’s screen door.”
He stood there holding it, aware that he was about to go, and that he didn’t particularly want to. Both of those things registered, and made him feel…lonely. That just didn’t make sense. Did it?
“Bree,” he said, not sure what he really wanted to say, but needing to keep her attention on him just a bit longer.
“Yeah?”
He watched her in the warm dusty light of her father’s store.
Fifteen years, and she was standing here in the same place.
She’d made him lunch, and she had his mother’s phone number, and she’d helped him upstairs without making a big thing out of it.
She’d just helped, because help was needed.
She really was the best. Always had been.
“Thank you,” he said. It was adequate. It wasn’t sufficient. But he didn’t have better words at the moment. His mind was spinning with all sorts of new ideas about his long-lost friend.
Something in her expression softened. “Anytime,” she said. “I mean that. Anytime,” she repeated with an emphasis he couldn’t quite interpret just then.
He went home with a member of his Clan who’d come to get him, while another drove his mother’s car behind them. He held the hinge in one hand, and the memory of lunch close to his heart. He kept thinking possessively about Bree, but he really had to tamp that down.
He had more urgent things to think about right now, like his blasted leg, Ari’s imminent return, and whatever the Wraiths were going to say about the absolute fuck up in Salt Lake City.
Still, something at the back of his mind was urging him to take things faster and farther with Bree, no matter how much his conscious mind thought that was a bad move while everything else was still so up in the air.