Chapter Eight
The light from the streetlamps cast shadows over the antiques and knick-knacks inside Renewed Relics.
Dominic stood by the locked door and stared into the assemblage of everything that had been collected in the last century since the shop had opened.
The tiny porcelain faces of the figurines, dolls, and serene gazes from the paintings mocked him, telling him that he didn’t belong there anymore.
Something inside him began to stir, and it wasn’t his wolf.
Ever since earlier that day when he saw Erica at her booth, talking with the people of Tolstone from his hiding place in the square, Dominic hadn’t felt the same.
The obsession to be by her side had somehow evolved, shifted into a need more overwhelming than anything he had ever experienced.
He had no right to feel this way, no logical reason to want to throw all of this away.
The shop, the pack, his town, none of it mattered when those hazel eyes locked on his.
He didn’t know what came over him, but he was too tired and in no mood to fight it anymore.
He shuffled lazily toward the very back of the shop.
Each time he was free from Prime Alpha obligations that day, he told himself he would go back to see her, but something always came up.
With Cole taking the day off, unresponsive to anyone within his pack or Dominic’s, he was stuck pulling double duty.
An employer had a complaint, a repairman had to be called or met, a pack member was in some sort of trouble or fight.
He’d had enough. All he wanted was Erica. No more of this bullshit he couldn’t handle anymore.
Dominic made his way into the back library where he kept only the rarest books written by obscure authors who had been forgotten by time.
Their novels, essays, and poems sat in the wall-to-wall bookcases.
For all their words and prose, this was the quietest place in the store.
Their leather-bound covers and pages muffled the outside noise, leaving this spot as his own sanctuary.
He eased himself into the blue, tufted wingback chair and allowed his tired muscles to rest. Not once had he sat down all day, and as impervious as shifters were to fatigue, Dominic felt the strain of the world wrap around his ankles.
Even his wolf wanted to fall asleep in this chair and forget everything.
If only his mind could grant such a wish.
He closed his eyes, immersed in the silence with only his heartbeat and the distant rumble of traffic outside the store.
With each breath, the ache in his chest steadily grew.
He gripped the arms of the chair, the smooth edges of the decorative nail heads beneath his fingertips.
He wondered what Erica was doing at that moment, and if the faint whiff of her arousal from earlier that day had meant anything at all. Was he looking for something that wasn’t there, or did they really share a connection? He had to know if this was all in his head.
Dominic fished out his phone from his jacket pocket and stared at the black screen, knowing that once he dialed her number, there was no turning back. After the day he had, the world could burn for all he cared.
He dialed the number he had memorized from her business card. With effort, he steadied his shaking breaths, brought the phone to his ear, and listened to the ringing, so loud in the stillness of the small library.
Four rings, and she answered.
“Erica Barrett.”
“Hey, it’s Dominic.” Something crashed on the other end of the line, and she whispered out a curse that made him smile. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she said slowly, “I just dropped my paintbrush.”
“Paintbrush?” Dominic’s eyes wandered along the edges of the books on the far wall.
“Yeah, I … I decided to paint the kitchen. I had some drop cloths down, so it didn’t get on the floor or anything. Even if it did, I was thinking of replacing the floor anyway.”
“Sounds like you’re really getting into this remodeling. The pipes, the walls, and now the floors. Will it even be the same kitchen once you’re done?”
Erica laughed, and he basked in the sound as if it were the warm summer sun and he had been in a snowy tundra all his life. “I think I’ll keep the counters. They’re easy to clean.”
“What else do you plan on doing to the house?” He shifted to get more comfortable in the chair.
She went on, listing the things she thought needed to be replaced, adjusted, or repaired. He had seen the state of the interior the other day and had to keep himself from mentioning all the repairmen he knew who could refinish wood flooring and mend peeling wallpaper.
Dominic understood now that if there was any way to wiggle his way into her heart, it was through letting her do things on her own.
Erica prided herself on her sense of independence, no doubt something she’d learned from her mother.
He promised himself that paying for the booth space and providing the tent was the last thing he would do for her.
Now, she was on her own, and he hated the idea of that.
He wanted to offer whatever connections he had.
He wanted to offer a hand in tearing up that linoleum flooring in the kitchen or replacing the upstairs bathroom sink.
He wanted to give her money to buy more light bulbs for the foyer chandelier.
He strove to keep his mouth shut while she talked, savoring the sound of her voice, even if she rambled a bit.
He could have listened to her all night.
When she paused, Dominic’s heart ran away with him. “Would you like some company while you paint?”
“Ummm …” She seemed to wrestle with the decision before letting out a long, languid sigh that made him hold his own breath. “Sure … Yeah, I guess I could use someone to talk to.”
Dominic grinned at the small triumph before they were interrupted by a beeping sound on his end that could only mean one thing. He pulled the phone away from his ear and the screen lit up with an incoming call from Hank.
He wanted to let out a blasting curse at the beta but pinched his lips together before he had the chance.
No doubt there was another problem somewhere with someone, and only Dominic could handle it.
The news of this new pack coming in had put some shifters on edge all of a sudden.
It was as if the impending arrival of another pack had them scared shitless about their own place in Tolstone, which was a non-issue.
Gage and Wyatt were constantly bickering.
Their packs couldn’t seem to agree on their own spaces anymore.
Fights and quarrels broke out all over town among the more dominant shifters for no other reason than they needed to blow off steam.
The pressure of being Prime Alpha had never been this severe, never this demanding. He needed this break. He needed Erica.
Dominic rejected the phone call.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he told Erica.
He’d be off the map for just a few hours. Maybe that would teach them about conflict resolution, and that they couldn’t use him as a crutch forever. He had a life too, and he was about to start living it.
*
So much for distracting herself. It was a flying whim to decide to paint the kitchen.
There might have been nothing wrong with the mustard yellow kitchen walls, but Erica needed to do something.
She couldn’t just sit and tweak her business social media pages or snap pictures of the moon from her back porch.
Her hands needed a job, her mind another focus besides Dominic.
The moment the festival was over, and her things were packed away, she rushed down to the hardware store before they closed and bought all the supplies she needed.
Just an hour into the project, and she had every edge of the counters and appliances taped off.
Two strokes in, her phone rang, and she kicked herself for answering it.
As a business owner with her cell phone number everywhere, she couldn’t afford to ignore an unlisted number or a number she didn’t recognize.
Never, in her wildest fantasies, would she have guessed it was Dominic calling her.
She hadn’t thought she was ready to see him, wasn’t ready to look into those blue eyes and remember the savage shade of gold they had morphed into earlier that day.
The moment she heard his voice, her resolve weakened.
Her soft, tender heart, now exposed by his recklessly romantic actions at her booth, needed to be in his company at least for a little while.
Maybe then this vague, shadowy image of what she thought she felt for him could be thrust under the spotlight.
Maybe tonight, they could figure it out together.
She had ten minutes to set the stage. She put the lid on the paint can, soaked the brushes, turned off her boy band music, and went to change out of her ratty work clothes and into something she could afford to get paint on, but didn’t have any holes, tears, or stains.
Erica settled for a shirt that hugged her frame with short sleeves and a pair of sweatpants that showed off the curve of her hips nicely.
By the time she had changed her clothes and pulled her hair back into a smooth ponytail, a knock came at her door.
Erica checked the clock. It hadn’t been ten minutes yet.
How could he have gotten there so quickly?
Standing at the top of the stairs, she froze, and the thought of the golden eyes came back to her.
Before she could allow herself to think the absurd, she shook her head and rushed to the door.
Dominic stood beneath the porch light and smiled. “You haven’t gotten too much done, have you?” His eyes raked from her ankles to the crown of her head, as if inspecting for any speckle of stray paint.
To be under his gaze again made her heart thud harder in her chest. “Not really,” she replied with a nervous laugh. “Not even a first coat.”