Chapter 15 Zinnia
Zinnia
The next week was simultaneously one of the most and least satisfying ones of my entire life.
I was within arm’s reach of Julian every evening for dinner, but the boys were there as well.
I tried to come up with excuses to be alone with Julian again—to heal him, I assured myself.
It couldn’t be because I wanted to fuck him into the ground again.
It absolutely had nothing to do with the way he’d woken up every part of me below the neckline, like he’d knocked down a wasps’ nest of want that I was in no way prepared to face.
Julian’s face, whenever I caught him looking, seemed to mirror my desire. But he never touched me. After the third evening, I knew for certain he was avoiding me.
After the sixth, I wondered if this was some sort of sexual torture. I’d read some deliciously smutty novels with something called edging in them. It had sounded like a nightmare. Living it was worse.
Although maybe this wasn’t that? That edging had featured a lot more physical contact.
“I should have said yes when Ida offered me a vibrator twelve years ago,” I grumbled to Urchin.
“Ssssss.” She slid across the floor, ignoring me as I shook my hands out. Well, my right hand. I’d fallen so out of practice with pleasuring myself, I could only just make it happen with my right one, and that wrist kept getting sore after only one unsatisfying climax.
“Miss Zinnia? You ready?” Leroy’s voice pulled me out the cabin door and into the weak, early morning sunlight. He stood in his cut-off shorts and ragged t-shirt. I’d had to patch it two days before, after he tore an enormous hole in the front, but the thing was almost too small to bother with.
Maybe I’d make him a new one. Julian hadn’t made any noises about leaving yet. Maybe I’d have time to make both boys some new clothes.
I had a quick thought about also making some new ones for myself. When it had just been me alone, it hadn’t mattered how I looked. But maybe a new dress, or prettier clothing of some kind, would get Julian’s attention.
“You’re up with the birds,” I complained, as Leroy darted past me.
“Nah, I’m up with the snakes.” He grabbed Urchin off the ground where she’d slithered out behind me.
The snake had curled around his feet on our second day out in the garden, and the two had bonded.
He had an affinity for all my animal friends, and had helped me dropper feed some orphaned rabbits we’d found outside the garden.
He’d even asked about Marta, but I’d explained she was probably scared to come back for now.
“Hey, pretty baby!” He wrapped Urchin around his arm and dropped a kiss on the tip of her tail, then grinned at me. “What? Early morning’s the best time to pick vegetables, you said so.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I sighed as he bounced on his toes. “Let’s get to it, then.”
Leroy was obsessed with the garden, and he’d asked to come out with me every morning. He peppered me with questions from when to plant every kind of crop imaginable, to how to keep pests away. I wondered if he could tell how much I loved having someone to share my knowledge with.
A half hour later, we were in the back part of the garden. Urchin was wrapped loosely around his neck, and we were side by side, pulling the last of the winter onion crop. Leroy was almost breathless from asking questions about root vegetables.
“You can’t love gardening this much, Leroy,” I laughed when he finally took a breath. “You could take a day off, go train with Bo.”
My eyes went to the pine forest, where I could just make out Julian’s voice.
Leroy had confided that until this week, he’d trained with Bo as well.
But it seemed that even if Julian didn’t want to be in my presence, he also didn’t want me left alone.
I was certain Leroy had been assigned my guard, but I worried that he was missing out on his training.
“Ah, thanks, but I’d rather pick a million onions than feel Sergeant’s teeth on my a—pardon, my butt, because I fucked up again.” Angry shouts in the distance had us both frowning now. “Pretty sure Bo’d say the same.”
I hadn’t had a moment alone with Julian to tell him what I thought about the way he spoke to the boys, especially Bo. I didn’t know if it was even my place to remark on it, but the pain in their eyes when he disapproved of them, or spoke harshly, had me grinding my teeth.
I turned back to Leroy, who was still working. His hair fell over his face as he pulled another onion free of the dirt and added it to the top of his already-full basket. “Miss Zinnia, what kinda onions grow best up in the Northwest?”
I tried to picture my family’s garden, but couldn’t. Those memories of my small pack were all indistinct now. “I… don’t know, to be honest.”
“Can we look it up somehow?” I had an old stack of books and almanacs he’d been leafing through after dinner.
I nodded. “You know you don’t have to learn everything all at once.”
“Beg to differ, ma’am. I won’t have the magic you got, so I need to know everything I can if I want to earn my place.”
I frowned and straightened. “Earn your place? Who’s made you think you have to earn your place?”
Leroy scratched his nose, smearing it with dirt, then patted Urchin’s head with one gentle finger.
“Well, no one has to say it. But you can’t be a good mate if you don’t have something to offer, right?
Like, being able to hunt or fight, or build furniture even.
I tried the furniture back at Alpha Brand’s, but he says me’n Bo aren’t ready to be around tools.
We, ah, had a ‘unfortunate incident’ in his workshop. ”
Oh, I would definitely be asking Ida for that story.
We finished with the onions and carried them to the fence line.
The sun was higher now, and the shade of the orchard called.
“So you think you have to have something to offer to… your future mate? Or pack?” I leaned against the oldest apple tree, the roughness of the bark on my shoulders reminding me of Julian’s beard a little.
I missed him, and the thought made me angry. I knew he was avoiding me, but not why.
Did he not think I’d earned the right to his company? Magic crackled in my fingertips, and I tried to breathe easily. My magical well had refilled, and I was more than ready to repeat our garden moment, if the asshole would come back around.
Leroy had been sucking at his lower lip, staring up at the circling hawk.
“Well, both, I reckon. If Bo’s Alpha, he’ll be important all on his own.
Powerful. I ain’t got that goin’ for me, and I know I’m not the sharpest nail in the box.
” He laughed self-consciously. “And you can see I ain’t much to look at.
I need skills, Miss Zinnia. Gardenin’ and anythin’ else I can learn.
And I need ‘em before we get to Western.”
I didn’t know where to start. “Leroy, you’re not stupid,” I began, but he held up a hand.
“I wasn’t fishin’ for compliments, ma’am.
I know my own self. I was the dumbest kid in my grade, failed every test, pretty much.
The letters dance around on the page when I try to work out words, right?
Sure, I can do math sums in my head, but once they’re written on a paper, they may as well be …
what did Sergeant call ‘em? Egypt writin’. ”
“Hieroglyphs.”
“Yeah. See, you know stuff. You’re smart, and pretty, too.” His eyes twinkled, and the glint in them promised that he would be a charmer someday.
“You said you’re unattractive. Why would you think that?”
“I got eyes is why?” His grin was weaker this time, and when he stroked Urchin now, it seemed like he was seeking comfort. “I seen enough mirrors to know what’s what. But even my name is stupid.”
“Leroy?” I had to admit, it had sounded a little odd the first time I heard it. Very Southern.
He grunted once, then wandered over to the pear tree where we’d found a nest with robins’ eggs inside.
He went up on tiptoe to check on them, tapping Urchin with a quiet, “Don’t get any ideas.
They’re Miss Zinnia’s friends, too,” before he walked over into a patch of sunlight, pulling his long hair away from his neck so Urchin could feel the warmth on her scales.
“Your name’s not stupid, Leroy. It means king, you know. The king.”
His smile was forced. “Guess my mom had big ideas for her only son. I wonder what she’d think of me now.”
I stood, marched over to him, and took him by his shoulders, staring up into his sweet, angular face. “She would love every single thing about you. You’re kind and gentle and more fun to talk to than anyone I’ve met in my life, Leroy… What’s your last name?”
“I hate it even worse.” He shrugged. “Bates. The other boys used to tease me somethin’ awful about it. Callin’ me Master Ba— Well, you can guess.”
I could indeed. “Why not change your name?”
“I plan to. Someday, I’m gonna take my mate’s name if she’ll have me. I hope she’s named something pretty like you. Zinnia Star. It’s the prettiest name I ever heard.”
I smiled at his blush. Cupping his cheek in my hand, I wished, not for the first time, that he was my own. “That’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever had. Thank you, Leroy.”
“It’s just pure truth, ma’am. You’re pretty, too.”
Julian’s voice cut through the hum of the bees and the soft shush of the wind. “Stop flirting, boy. You’re wanted down at the stream.” He was at the garden gate, but his voice had more than a hint of anger in it when he barked, “Now.”
“Oh, shi—sugar,” Leroy said, putting Urchin down and backing away like I’d sprouted horns and a tail. “Uh, sorry, Miss Zinnia. Alpha’s orders.”
I waited until Leroy was far enough away not to hear, then rounded on Julian. “What do you think—”
Somehow, he’d closed the distance between us silently and lifted me to his face, his lips centimeters from mine. “Are you healed?” he demanded.