Chapter 7
Nina
His hand tangled in my hair as he deepened the kiss. His other hand slid under my shirt; his warm touch sent shivers up my spine and to my core.
Beep-beep-beep.
The jarring sound ripped me from my not-suitable-for-work dream about a certain silver fox with eyes that were more gray than blue.
Austin.
Steel.
The dream was definitely a fantasy; he was older, distinguished, and obviously settled in his life. He probably had a wife or a girlfriend.
I didn’t see a wedding ring.
It didn’t matter; a guy like Austin would never settle for a girl like me.
Younger, curvy, and with a cancer-ridden grandmother in tow.
A girl can dream.
As I shampooed and conditioned my hair to tame my curls, I tried to guess Steel’s story. He’d dressed in a suit, all steel grays and dull blues, but no tie. He never took off his jacket, despite everyone else relaxing around him.
Business man? Maybe he owned his own business, and not wearing a tie was his idea of dressing down.
That tracked with his grumpy demeanor and hard eyes.
I decided that steely eyed Austin was the stuffy sort who wouldn’t know how to have fun if you tossed a bag full of laughs in his face.
I towel-dried my unruly hair and pulled it off my face with a headband.
In the kitchen, I prepped for breakfast and greeted my grandmother.
“Morning, Nana.” I kissed her cheek. “Scrambled eggs with spinach sound good this morning?”
“Sounds perfect. Do you think you’ll see that man, what did you call him, again?”
I laughed. “I called him Steel because that’s what he felt like when I bumped into him. And no. Like I said, Mary told me he doesn’t visit very often.”
I opened the refrigerator door and leaned in; it not only hid my red face, the cool air calmed my hormones. Only a blind person wouldn’t have noticed that Austin was seriously fucking hot.
“That’s too bad.”
I’d made the mistake of blushing while talking about him, and now my grandmother thought I had a crush on him.
I didn’t. I was just curious about Mary’s mysterious silver fox nephew.
Good thing she doesn’t know about the sex dream I had.
I couldn’t help it. The tingling sensation from his powerful hands, holding my shoulders when he asked if I was okay, was hard to ignore.
He’d sounded annoyed but didn’t yell, and he’d ignored the scalding coffee on his clothes to check on me first. Even though I was the one who ran into him, ruining his clothes and burning his skin.
Protective, even when he was upset and hurt.
Must be in the Sheppard blood.
Is he a Sheppard? Was he from Mary’s side of the family?
I replayed the conversations I’d had with John and Mary, and couldn’t remember either of them mentioning which side of the family he was on.
I thought back to my conversations with Eva and remembered her specifying that she was Mary’s niece. Eva was a Winchester, which meant Mary and Austin must be too.
Not that I’d ask to verify. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was interested beyond mere, well, interest. I wasn’t looking to date him or anything; I was simply curious about John and Mary’s nephew, who looked closer in age to them than their children.
I plated the scrambled eggs and removed the tea bag from my grandmother’s herbal tea.
“I’ll be home early to take you to your appointment,” I said as I washed the prep dishes and pan.
“No rush, they always make us wait forever.”
“That doesn’t mean we can be late.” I couldn’t risk the chance that the doctor might run on time. For once. If that happened, Nana Sue wouldn’t get her treatment, and they’d charge me for the missed appointment. Given her health and our budget, neither option was acceptable.
Nana Sue was all I had left. She was the only person who hadn’t left me.
Bobby and Jodie didn’t want to die young and leave me alone, but that didn’t change the outcome. And I’d never met my birth parents, who’d left me with nothing more than a baby blanket with my first name embroidered on it.