2. Two
Two
G reat. The hot guy was a delusional stalker. Just her luck.
Slowly Leslie parted her lips to show her teeth. “I’d definitely remember that .”
His eyebrows shot up, and he held up his hands. “Whoa. You really don’t know who I am.”
“Nope.”
“Okay, so not actual husband. Backup husband.”
“Because that’s totally less creepy.”
“From undergrad. You went to college in Virginia.”
“How do you know—?”
“The matchmaker test. I’m your match.” He pointed at his chest. “Ryker.”
She felt her mouth drop open in slow motion like a cartoon, but she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop staring either. This man…was her match? This drop-dead-gorgeous man was her matchmaker match ?
“No way,” she said.
“We signed a pledge, remember? If neither of us is romantically attached by age thirty, we find each other and—”
“Have you been internet stalking me?”
“No, no, not like that.” If he’d been human, he would have blushed. “I follow your artist socials. You make the coolest stuff.” He nodded to her models. “And you turned thirty last month—remember, our birthdays are part of the test results—and unless you’ve got a never-mentioned-online husband or boyfriend, you’re still single too. So…” He spread his hands in a gesture that accentuated their masculine broadness. “Here I am. Shooting my shot. Asking you out.”
“So you are aware we are not married.”
“That was supposed to be a joke.” But he had the grace to grimace as he said it.
“Okay.” She could offer a little grace in return. “But asking me out is for real? You are actually here to ask me on a date.”
“According to the terms of the project,” Ryker said.
“What are you, a lawyer?”
He laughed. The sound was pleasantly rough, a contrast to the satin texture of his voice. “My mom is. She’ll be thrilled to hear I was accused.”
Leslie sank into the camp chair behind her exhibit table. She ought to stop staring at him, but she didn’t really want to. Then reality booted back up in her brain. She shook her head.
“This is crazy,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because you—you kept track of me and—and came here in person—and took the pledge seriously! I mean, who actually took it seriously? Besides you?”
“I remember there were two human couples who got together that way, same anthropology class and everything.” He tilted his head. “You weren’t part of the class?”
“No. My roommate Hannah was. When they needed more participants, she asked me to help her out.”
“Good thing you said yes.”
“I said no.” She kept the smile off her face as his eyebrows shot up. “So she turned the ask into a dare.”
“Interesting.” His mouth turned up in a little smirk. “I didn’t take the class either. A friend of mine told me about it, and I volunteered.”
Somehow volunteering seemed entirely in character for him, despite the fact Leslie didn’t know him at all. She shook her head again.
“You forgot the whole thing,” he said with a curious tilt of his head. “Did you even look at our results? At my picture?”
“Just because I read the results back then doesn’t mean I held on to it or…or held out hope for it. It was a silly personality survey. It didn’t mean anything.”
He blinked slowly, the rest of his body motionless. He wasn’t breathing either, come to think of it. His chest hadn’t moved since she’d bared her teeth at him.
“If that hurts your feelings, I’m really sorry. I hope you didn’t fly here from Virginia just to meet me.”
“I did,” he said with a shrug.
“Well, I’m sorry about that too, but it was your choice to go to that trouble.”
“It was.”
“And…well…I don’t know what else to say.”
“Can I take you to dinner?”
This guy. “I don’t owe you dinner because you got on a plane and—”
He held up his hands again, and the twinkle left his eyes. Without a hint of humor he said, “You don’t owe me a thing. Not dinner. Not anything.”
“Right. Exactly.”
“I’d still like to take you out.”
“What would that prove?”
Another shrug. “Nothing to prove. I want to take you to dinner.”
He meant every word. Every micro-shift in his facial muscles proved it.
“I’ll consider your offer,” she said, and the silver in his eyes glittered all the more as he smiled. She raised one hand, palm out. “ If you answer one question for me.”
“Sure.”
“Why are you single at thirty?”
“Oh, that. I dated some, but it never worked out. About two years ago I decided to wait for you.”
“Because the test says we’re the most compatible person the other could ever hope for.”
“Leslie, look. If you don’t enjoy the evening, then screw the test; I’ll fly home and you never have to see me again.”
He hadn’t lost his cool confidence for a moment, but she had baffled him. Well, yeah—most single women her age, even vampire women, wouldn’t protest dinner with a hot guy who had flown across multiple states for a first date. Of course he didn’t realize Leslie didn’t need to date. Her twenties had involved pining and self-doubt, but she’d made peace with the wishes of her younger self. She knew plenty of married people, and many of them were far from happy. A few hostile divorces sprinkled into the mix of her coworkers and acquaintances made her even more cautious.
“What’re you thinking?” he said.
“Either the test was totally bogus or…”
“Or?”
“Or maybe it’s worth exploring.”
His smile held real satisfaction. A little too much, actually.
Leslie jabbed a finger at him. “What’s that for?”
“You like routines, but when you work up the energy for an adventure, you’re always glad you did.”
Her mouth fell open. How much of herself had she revealed on that stupid test? “Did you memorize my answers?”
“Nah. This week I went back over them.”
“Because you kept the test.”
“Of course I did.”
As had Leslie, but he didn’t need to know that. “Okay, just to clarify expectations here, I don’t know you like that.”
“Clearly. You didn’t know my name.”
“Because I took the test on a dare, Ryker. I didn’t plan my life around it.”
He shrugged and said no more, just studied her. He’d made his case. Now she had to make the decision. Routine or adventure.
“There’s a diner two blocks up, on Main Street,” she said. “Do you eat?”
“I love to eat. But in case this is our only date, I’d like to take you somewhere nicer than a diner.”
Leslie spread her arms. “You’re in the wrong town.”
“I found this Italian place that’s about twenty minutes from here. Dodie’s Garden.”
“Or we could get burgers at the diner.”
He went very still again, as if worried he might annoy her into calling the whole thing off. “You don’t like Italian?”
“More than burgers and milkshakes? No. My favorite foods are the ones that shorten human lifespans.”
He laughed, and this time the husky sound sent a little shiver through her stomach. Then he sobered again. He might be confident, but he wasn’t taking her yes for granted. She’d give him a point for that.
“If you like diner food, then we’ll eat diner food.”
“Good.”
He looked around her booth for the first time. As the sharpness of his focus left her, she let out a slow breath. What was with this guy? Why did she want to know more about him?
“Why aren’t you under the tent?” He gestured toward the giant red canvas shading about half the exhibits.
“It’s luck of the draw,” she said.
“Everyone else is human. They should prioritize giving you the shade.”
What a weird expectation. Leslie shrugged.
He ambled around her exhibit, examining everything, and eventually halted in front of the waterfall model. “I watched the time-lapse reel you posted on this one, but seeing it in person… Wow.”
“Thanks.”
Wolf.
The gamey odor hit her full in the face. Her nostrils flared. So did Ryker’s. His blue eyes flickered toward a slate gray, and the silver flecks dulled. He shifted his stance toward the scent. Leslie did too on force of instinct, but Ryker looked ready for a fight.
“It’s just Ezra,” she said.
“What?”
Researching restaurants before he arrived was one thing. Ryker would have to dig several layers deeper online to get hints of the wolf pack. They weren’t entirely off grid, but you couldn’t unearth their presence here by accident either.
“Harmony Ridge has a resident wolf pack,” she said. “Just outside town, massive property ownership that goes back a couple generations. Everybody in town—I mean, everybody who’s not a lupine denier—knows about them.”
“They come into town?”
“Of course they do. If Nathan had his booth set up today, you’d have caught a wolf’s scent before now. He’s super talented, a glassblower.”
“Okay….”
“The wolves here have never made a problem with the humans, or with my family either.”
Ryker’s slow blink did not restore the color of his eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched as he resisted the obvious desire to bare his teeth. “And the wolf on his way over here…you know him personally.”
“Ezra Sterling. He’s another fellow artist. He loves my stuff. The human walking with him is Willow, his mate. Wife. Mate and wife.” She still didn’t quite get how that worked.
“Uh, okay.”
“So no teeth when they get here. I’m serious. This is my town, and if you—”
Ryker raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “No teeth. Got it.”
If he didn’t heed her, she’d cancel their date.
A minute later, the wolf and his mate reached Leslie’s booth. Both of them smiled. Neither showed their teeth. Ezra immediately positioned himself between Willow and Ryker.
“Hi, Leslie,” he said.
“Hi, Ezra. Hi, Willow. Meet Ryker.” Leslie nodded toward him. The nod he gave to Ezra was stiff as steel.
“This is just a guess,” Willow said, “but the way my wolf’s bristling at the moment, Ryker’s also a vampire.”
Ryker’s mouth fell open.
Willow gave a low, nervous laugh. “Sorry if that was rude.”
“Not rude, more like a surprise,” Ryker said.
As he spoke, his eyes shifted back to their usual color. Willow’s brown eyes grew wider. “Whoa. Do you know your eyes just changed from sort of blue-gray to sort of…blue-silver?”
Ryker tipped his chin at Ezra. “Threat perceived.”
“Same,” Ezra said. To his credit, his voice held no growling undertone.
“Oh,” Willow said. “But now it’s okay? And that’s why your eyes are brighter?”
“Basically, yeah. It’s nice to meet you, Ezra, Willow.”
“Nice to meet you too, Ryker,” Willow said.
For a long moment, the wolf studied Ryker in return, then nodded. He held his position, and Willow didn’t come closer to Ryker or to Leslie. It was custom when she and Ezra visited Leslie’s booth. Both women knew Ezra’s instincts demanded he stay between his mate and a vampire.
A few months ago, Willow had tried to apologize. “It isn’t personal against you.”
“He’d do this with any vampire,” Leslie had said, and when Ezra growled confirmation and Willow blushed, Leslie had taken pity on the human who was trying to be kind. “I’m fine with it, Willow. I’d do the same thing if I had a human mate.”
At last Ezra turned from his scrutiny of Ryker to face Leslie. “Please tell me the waterfall is here.”
“You know it,” she said. “Pictures always welcome.”
“Great. Thanks.”
A quiet pride filled her as Ezra took out his phone and snapped multiple angles—first of the waterfall model, then of several others. She’d seen pictures of his work—Ezra was far too introverted to book a public booth—so his high opinion of hers was special to her though their media were different. When he’d taken at least a dozen pictures, he came back to her.
“You sold the winter-scape.”
“I did! Finally.”
He chuckled, and to her ears the rumbling growl of his wolf voice was clear; but as always, he’d restrained it below the level of human hearing. Ryker stiffened again, then relaxed after a few seconds. Ezra kindly didn’t point it out, though he must have noticed.
Well. This was interesting.
Ezra and Willow moved on after a few more minutes. When they’d rounded the end of the aisle out of sight, Ryker gave a long sigh.
“Thanks,” Leslie said.
He gave her that funny look again, his mouth a hesitating curve while his brows drew together as though she were a puzzle. “I made that encounter way weirder for you than it would’ve been without me.”
“You tried to keep chill, I could tell. And you succeeded, mostly.”
He huffed a laugh, then wrinkled his nose. “I never knew they smell gamey like that, like actual wolves. I thought they smelled more or less like humans.”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “Do you know how that sounds?”
“Now that I said it out loud, yeah.”
In fairness to him, no vampire could fail to notice the distinct gaminess of a wolf in contrast to the more common scent of humans. But she’d make her point regardless. “Ever wonder how we smell to them?”
“Uh, no, I guess not.”
“We’re sour to their senses. So he wasn’t comfortable either, outnumbered and hit with the odor from both of us.”
Ryker gazed in the direction Willow and Ezra had gone. “I never thought about that. Sorry if I didn’t phrase it well.” He shook his head. “You grew up with wolf neighbors, and I’m clueless about them.”
“I met his little brother in middle school. Funny though, I met Ezra for the first time only about two years ago, one of the town fair events. Took me a few years to get up the courage to bring my stuff here.”
“Sounds like the artists I know. Dedicated, talented, convinced you suck.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “I’m working on it. And I tell Ezra he should too, but I think he’s too reserved to exhibit his work.”
Ryker nodded, but his mind seemed to be occupied now by something else. Sure enough, without segue he said, “Willow didn’t react to us at all.”
“Did you want her to fawn?”
He frowned. “I didn’t say that. It’s the human tendency, that’s all. It doesn’t surprise me; Willow surprised me.”
“To a human who’s capable of bonding to a wolf, a vampire is probably much less impressive.”
“Huh. I’ve never met a wolf’s mate before either.” Ryker’s brows crinkled in thought. Gosh, his face was expressive. Then he flashed his teeth, and his eyes lit up. “A day of firsts. And it’s five minutes to five. Want help packing up?”
They made quick work of it. Ryker collapsed and stacked tables while Leslie secured models in bubble wrap and tucked them in careful self-bracing rows in the back of her parents’ van. Together they wrapped and boxed the pocket-sized models, then nestled the boxes in a row of their own that wouldn’t crush the larger models.
“Is that the last of it?” Ryker said.
“Sure is. Wow, that went so much faster with help. Thanks.”
“My pleasure. So…ready for dinner?” His mouth curved with that annoyingly attractive, slightly mischievous hint of confidence.
“Looking forward to it.” If only to interrogate him and even things up. Right now he had all the advantages.
No. Best to be honest with herself. She was going to dinner because Ryker Maddox intrigued the heck out of her.