Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Grayson
The cold night air hits me the moment we push through the side exit, but it does nothing for the heat sitting behind my eyes.
Ethan scrambles ahead, already talking. I have no idea what he’s saying. The blood is still loud in my ears. His excitement is palpable, and he fidgets endlessly as I put him in the car and buckle his seatbelt. He’s still talking to a silent Miranda as I close the door on him.
Then I press my palm flat against the roof and breathe.
The wrist. That man’s hand around her wrist.
The image is burned into my eyelids. The fact that she let him talk to her like that.
I already knew what he was when I caught his scent in the hospital the other day.
And when I saw her in the restaurant, sitting across from him, the idea that she was going to go to his bed and be another woman he screwed pissed me off endlessly.
I turn around.
Miranda is standing a foot behind me, her lips pressed into a thin line, arms folded across her chest in a move that could be defensive or aggressive depending on her mood. But I don’t care tonight.
“What was that?” I scowl at her.
“A bad date.” She looks away briefly. “But I had it handled.”
“What is with you and men trying to force you to sleep with them?” The words are forced out of me, and her eyes tighten around the corners.
“Excuse me?” The dangerous edge to her voice normally amuses me, but today I’m just too angry.
“You let him be rude to you. You let that waitress walk all over you. What is it?” I gesture widely with my arms. “I’m the only one you can push around?”
“I’ve never pushed you around ever!” she hisses. I take a step toward her, and she doesn’t flinch.
“You are rude, bossy, a pain in my ass whenever you’re around me. God forbid I say something; you never let me hear the end of it.” I don’t care that her cheeks are turning red. “But when it came to those two assholes, you just took it.”
“What did you want me to do, Grayson?” Miranda covers the distance between us, glaring up at me. “Did you want me to throw the next table’s soup at them? Cause a scene?”
“Yes!” I growl, irritated at the memory of her passiveness. “Anything rather than act like a meek little mouse!”
“I wasn’t being meek, I was being mindful!” Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are glittering with anger. “I have to work with Axel. The last thing I needed was to pick a fight that would come back to bite me in the ass.”
“Axel?” I stare down at her. “You’re on a first-name basis with that fucker?”
The thought bothers me more than it should.
“Language,” Miranda hisses, glancing down at the shut car window. “You have a child in the car!”
That has me wincing. The last thing I need is for Ethan to start going around calling people assholes and fuckers.
I rub my hands over my face, leaning back against the car.
It’s my turn to cross my arms over my chest. “So what was it about Doctor Charming exactly?”
She blinks. “What?”
“What was so appealing about him that you went out with him?”
She stares at me for a moment. Then deflates. “Nothing anymore.” She glances toward the restaurant window. “I thought he was sweet once. A few weeks ago.”
“You thought he was sweet.”
“He brought me coffee once,” she mutters.
“And what do you think of him now?” I press, still irked.
She sighs. “I think I want to go home and not have this conversation. Bye.”
She begins walking away, but I wrap my hand around her wrist and whirl her around. I close the distance, and she steps back, her shoulders meeting the side of the car. I keep going until there’s barely any space between us. I watch her chin tip up to hold my eye, her jaw setting.
“I helped you in there.”
She scoffs, turning her head to the side. “You didn’t need to do that. I had it handled.”
“He wasn’t letting go of your arm,” I remind her.
“I know how to make a man let go, Grayson.”
Her hands press flat against my chest. She shoves.
I don’t move.
She shoves again, harder this time, and I watch her face as she registers the fact that she’s put all her strength into it and it hasn’t worked. Her eyes widen, and I smirk.
The look she gives me in return could strip paint. “Oh, don’t you dare—”
Then in an unexpected move, her hand shoots to my side, fingers finding the soft pocket of skin just below my arm, and she pinches.
I yelp, jumping back, and it’s her turn to smirk.
“Move, Wolfe.”
I step out of her way because there’s no recovering from this with any dignity.
She smooths the front of her stained dress as if nothing happened. “I know how to handle myself.” She meets my eyes. “I did not need saving.”
“You have a weird way of saying thanks,” I grumble, rubbing the throbbing patch of skin.
When she doesn’t respond with a quip, I look toward her. Her shoulders are stiff, and there’s a faint color across her cheeks. She looks away, down at the ground, then off toward the streetlight.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
I watch her face for a moment, and I know it cost her pride to thank me. My prickly nurse clings to her pride like anything.
“Get in the car,” I say.
“I would rather wal—”
I open the passenger side door, my voice firm. “Get in the damn car, Miranda, before I throw you in.”
She scowls at me and slides in, muttering as she does, “And you say I push you around? Have you seen yourself?”
I reach out to buckle her seatbelt as Ethan bounces in the backseat, excited. She quickly grabs her seatbelt. “I can do it myself.”
I grin. “If you say so.”
Ethan talks for the entire drive. He has a great deal to say about the dessert he didn’t get to eat and the exact nature of the injustice done to him this evening.
Miranda sits in the passenger seat with her hands in her lap and her head turned slightly toward the back, making small sounds of sympathy at every escalation of his complaint. I keep my eyes on the road.
“Dad.” Ethan leans toward the gap between our seats, gripping both headrests. “I’m hungry.”
“I know. I heard you tell Miranda three times now.”
“Miranda is also hungry.” He swings his gaze to her with the focus of a child who has just found a powerful ally. “Aren’t you, Miranda?”
She glances at the stain on her dress. “I guess.”
“You guess?” I shoot her a look. “You didn’t eat anything. How do you feel about burgers? There’s a small joint a twenty-minute drive from here.”
“I would much rather go home,” she begins, but my son looks horrified at the idea.
“No! You have to come with us!”
“She is coming with us, Ethan,” I assure him before watching Miranda glance distractedly at the dress again. “That stain will come out. Just get the dress dry cleaned.”
She looks at me, a rueful expression on her face. “No it won’t. The material is very delicate. My friend loaned me this dress. It’s a very good copy of a designer one. She’s going to be devastated.” She sighs.
“What brand?”
“Meson Luxe.” Miranda touches the dress. I file the name away.
I pull off the main street and head toward the burger place near the arena. Small, tucked away, no patio facing the street. The kind of place I can get through a meal without anyone deciding they recognize me.
But when I ease the car up alongside it, the line is visible from twenty feet away. Packed out the door, people spilling onto the curb, a group of teenagers taking photos by the entrance. On a Friday night, it won’t shift for an hour.
I pull back into the road and try the Thai place two streets over. Same story. The patio chairs are full, and there’s a line at the hostess stand I can see through the glass. Too many people. Too much attention.
Ethan lets out a sound of pure grief.
“We could just go home,” he says. Then, after a beat, with the tone of a man arriving at a sensible solution, he adds, “And get the food delivered.”
I look at Miranda.
“That would work,” she says slowly. “But you could drop me home first…”
“Yeah, no.” I turn the car in the direction of my house and keep driving. A twenty-minute drive turns into an hour by the time we get there. Miranda is quiet when we pull into the driveway. She steps out of the car and looks up at the front of the house.
“This is where you live?” She’s gaping at the mansion and then turns around to see the lawn that goes to the tree line.
“I bought the land. It’s a few acres, but it’s all fenced. I like the open.”
She’s smiling, and I don’t think she knows it. “This is amazing. You’ve got so much space here. You could set up a vegetable garden somewhere.”
“Ideally I could.” I tuck my hands in my pockets, feeling ridiculously pleased at that awed look in her eyes.
She approves.
I don’t understand why that matters to my wolf or why it is rumbling so happily.
“Come on, Miranda!” Ethan is already at the door, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I’ll show you my room. I did a painting.”
“What did you paint?” Miranda catches up to him, and his hand reaches out to grab hers. They walk in together, and I just watch, the image feeling far too comfortable within me.
“A bear.” He pushes the door open. “It’s brown. Come and see.”
She follows him inside.
“Give her a tour of the house first, Ethan,” I call out as I head to the kitchen to grab some menus. As I place the order, I hear him say, “That’s the back yard. There’s a pool there. But I can’t swim in it by myself.”
He gives her the tour at full speed. His room, the hallway, my room for some reason, and each and every guest room.
Miranda follows along patiently as he opens every door and tells her to look.
I hear her tell him to wash his hands at some point, and she wanders into the kitchen as I am setting the table.
She takes in the space slowly, runs one hand along the countertop, and looks out the back window.
“You’ve got a nice place. It’s open and airy.”
I study her. “You weren’t expecting this?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I had envisioned some black and white bachelor pad.”
My lips curve. “You know what that says about you?”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to hear it.”