Chapter Five: Gunnar

 

 

As a younger man, Gunnar had dreamed about the day he'd meet his mate. He didn't know what she would look like, what color her hair or skin would be, what her voice would sound like, what kinds of things would delight her. He knew only that she would be perfect, and in her eyes he would see all the best parts of himself reflected.

Never had he imagined that she would stare at him in appalled horror. And who could blame her? What did he have to offer this lovely, curvy librarian-goddess with her soft voice and soft hands? He'd just spent the last three years with the roughest dregs of society. Hell, even before that, he had a rough past and the criminal record to prove it. Even if she could somehow, by some miracle, look past all of that, his brother—and Gunnar's own moral failing in refusing to condemn Nils while there was still time—was the entire reason why all of them were in danger. Of all the times when he could have met his mate as a younger man, it had to be now, when he was too broken and ugly to have anything to offer her anymore.

The more she learned of him, the more she'd loathe him. What could he even say in his own defense? The best thing he could do for her was stay as far away from her as possible.

His misery was so deep that he barely cared that the standoff had broken and Derek now seemed willing to let him into the house, though with visible (and understandable) reluctance. Right now he wished he could be anywhere other than here.

Three years in prison had, at least, given him skill at hiding his real feelings. He was able to muster a veneer of friendliness as he was introduced to Derek's mate Gaby (small and pretty, with a round face framed in dark waves of hair), Gaby's mother Luisa, and Gaby and Derek's children Sandy and Jimena. Gaby was a consummate hostess, greeting him with such friendliness that no one would have guessed she'd just witnessed her husband threatening to throw him out by bodily force. Gaby's mother even came up, stretched on tiptoe to pinch his cheek, and declared that he was too pale and needed to eat more.

At the family table, he found himself sandwiched between Derek and Keegan—not by accident, he knew, and he had no illusions that it was a place of honor. His mate, whose name by now he'd managed to figure out was Melody, was down at the other end of the table next to Tessa, physically as far away from him as she could get. That was probably no coincidence either, he thought, and tried to force himself not to consider it a hopeful sign that she kept darting glances at him down the table from behind the lenses of her glasses. Instead he made an effort to muster up some appetite for the delicious-looking bowl of chili and fresh-cut homemade bread that had been passed down the table to him.

The family were talking about regular family things with almost aggressive levels of normalcy, chatting with 7-year-old Sandy about the swimming class he was taking over the summer, asking Tessa about an online class she was apparently taking. Gaby and her mother took turns feeding little Jimena in her high chair.

He heard someone say "... bookstore?" to Melody, and his bear perked its ears up.

"Oh, it's doing as well as can be expected," Melody said. She had a soft voice, and throughout the family conversation she'd been doing little more than mumbling into her chili; he had to strain to hear her. "It's early days yet, of course. I'm having to pick up a clientele. I want to do more book sales online, because there's a big market for that. Autumn Pages didn't even have a Facebook page, let alone a website, and I think if I'm able to do something like that, it'll help my business a lot."

Her voice picked up as she warmed to the topic, becoming more engaged and excited. Her excitement was infectious, lifting both Gunnar and his bear out of their misery. And, he thought, of course she owned a bookstore. Because she was perfect for the man he yearned to be, and wasn't.

"You have a bookstore?" he asked before he could stop himself. "Is it that one downtown? I saw it when we drove in."

His words were followed by an awkward silence. Melody made a faint sound as if she'd started to say something, then looked down at her bowl of chili.

"Dessert," Gaby said briskly. She got up from the table. "Who wants dessert? I had to clear out the baked goods from the shop, so there's an entire smorgasbord to choose from. How about I just bring a big tray to the table?"

"I'll help," Melody said, jumping up.

After they'd left, Keegan turned to Gunnar and said quietly, "Hey, just for the sake of family harmony, I think it'd be better if you kept your distance from my sister and our mates. You don't need to know where Melody works, because you aren't going to be showing up where she works. Understand?"

Gunnar nodded wordlessly.

He'd finally found his mate and he couldn't even talk to her. And they were right. He was nothing but a danger to her.

Anyway, it was clear that she didn't want to talk to him, either.

After a round of amazing pastries (Gunnar managed to find his appetite here; tempting baked goods weren't exactly in large supply in prison) the family swung into helping with cleanup, with everyone pitching in. "I'll wash dishes," Gunnar told Gaby, finally seeing a chance to be helpful and pouncing on it.

"That would be wonderful, thank you. You can wash and I'll dry."

"I'll dry," Derek declared, looming abruptly. "You've been on your feet cooking all afternoon. Go put your feet up and enjoy the company in the living room."

"I would do that in an instant if I thought you weren't trying to separate me from our guest." Gaby stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "Why don't you go put your feet up, and I'll dry dishes and make our guest feel at home."

Derek made a low sound in his throat, one step removed from a growl. He gave Gunnar a long, threatening look before skulking off into the living room.

And suddenly, surprisingly, they were alone in the kitchen. It was the first time Gunnar hadn't had a crowd of people around him since he'd gotten to the farm. Voices and laughter came in from the living room, and he could occasionally glimpse Derek or Ben finding a reason to wander past the kitchen door and look in with an ominous expression, but after three years of prison it was almost like having privacy.

Gaby turned on the tap, held a finger under it, nodded at the temperature and moved on to put the dishes into the sink as it filled with suds. Gunnar hovered, not quite sure whether he ought to say something, or move in and help. She stepped aside after the sink was full, picking up a dish towel, and nodded to him.

He took her place at the sink with relief. Give him something to do with his hands, any day. He tried to force himself not to think about his mate and imagine what she was doing in the living room. No matter how hard he told himself he had to stay away from her, he was still drawn to her, the way true north tugged at a magnet.

"Ben said you never did anything violent," Gaby said quietly. "He said you ran with a bad crowd when you were young, but you never hurt anyone, and you only went to prison because you wanted to help your brother. Is that true?"

"I haven't exactly lived a good life. I won't lie about that." He hesitated. "But ... I guess it's true."

"Good." Her pretty face relaxed into a smile, and he found himself smiling back. Her friendliness was infectious. She took a bowl from him and began to dry it. "You do look ... very like your brother, you know. It's hard for Derek, especially."

"I know." He glanced sideways at her. "What did my brother do to you and Derek?"

"Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"I'd rather know." He was glad Melody wasn't here, listening in, though in all likelihood she already knew the story; the whole family probably did.

"It was two years ago." Gaby gave a small sigh as she neatly and efficiently stacked the clean, dry bowls. "I was working at a coffee shop in the city, before I had the café. I witnessed an armed robbery involving your brother and he came after me. I ... er ... I saw him shift. That's how I found out about shifters."

Gunnar swallowed and focused on washing every tine of a fork. He could picture it easily. Nils was absolutely terrifying as a bear. He was huge, the biggest bear shifter Gunnar had ever seen. If that had been her first introduction to shifters, it was amazing she was willing to be around them at all.

"Did he hurt you at all?" Asking the question felt like pressing on a bruise. He didn't want to hear the answers, but he was driven to know.

"No. Derek protected me."

There was warmth in her voice, and when Gunnar sneaked a peek at her, he was amazed to see her looking at him with warmth in her eyes, too. She laid a small, gentle hand on his arm.

"You're not your brother, Gunnar. Derek looks at you and only sees Nils. Sometimes I do, too. But even though Nils almost killed us, I can't hate him, not really. Not like Derek does. It was because of him that I met Derek, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Sometimes the darkest clouds have the brightest, most silver linings."

Silver linings. He thought of Melody, imagining it was her hand on his arm instead of Gaby's. If just being in the same room with her made him feel the way it did, what might touching her feel like?

He heard a sudden cascade of laughter from the living room, and knew instantly that it was hers. He'd never heard her laugh before, but he knew its quiet music like he knew the sound of his own breath.

"Come on," Gaby said briskly, taking the fork from his hand and not seeming to notice his distraction. "Let's finish this up and I'll make up a bedroom for you and give you a quick tour."

 

***

 

The house had seemed large to Gunnar even from the outside, but compared to the parade of low-rent apartments he'd spent his life in (let alone a jail cell), it was an absolute palace. There were four bedrooms: a master bedroom and the baby's room upstairs, Sandy's room downstairs, and another, very small bedroom behind the kitchen that was normally used for storage, that Gaby told Derek she was going to make up for him.

"I'd like to give you more room," she said as Gunnar helped her move the boxes that were stacked on the bare mattress. "But I think you probably wouldn't want the bedroom right next to mine and Derek's, and Tessa and Ben have already taken the bigger downstairs bedroom. We moved Sandy up to stay in his sister's room, but Melody can have that one, and both kids can sleep in our room for a few days."

"What about your mother?" Gunnar asked, stacking boxes where she showed him. The room was cramped and dusty, but it still beat the hell out of Cell Block D. "I thought she lived with you."

"She does. She's got her own cottage on the property." Gaby laughed as she snapped a sheet across the mattress. "I love my mother dearly, but living in the same house with her is a disaster. I mean, can you imagine sharing a house with your mother for your entire life?"

"I never had a chance to know."

He instantly wished he hadn't said anything when she turned large, sad eyes on him. "Oh, Gunnar. I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago." He paused, distracted. The bedroom's single small window was open to let in the breeze, and in the blue dusk outside, he saw Melody and Tessa walking across the grass. There was no mistaking Melody. Just as he'd know her laugh, he would also know her step, the way she moved, the way her hair fell over her shoulder ...

His bear strained toward her. He ruthlessly suppressed it. Did her animal also yearn toward him, that silver-scaled serpent he'd so briefly glimpsed inside her?

"Oh, they're going to get the cats," Gaby said, seeing where he was looking. "Do you like cats?"

Gunnar struggled to tear his mind away from Melody. "Uh ... I like 'em okay, I guess? I haven't really been around cats much."

"But you're not allergic or anything."

He shook his head.

"Good," Gaby said. "Tessa and Ben have four, and since they're going to be staying here a few days, they brought the cats along. The problem is, we already have two, so right now their cats are shut up in the barn. We're going to try putting Ben and Tessa's cats in one of the bedrooms and see how that goes. Our cats are indoor-outdoor farm cats, and theirs are mostly inside cats, so if the weather's nice ours can spend most of their time outside, which will help reduce the risk of cat fights."

"How many animals do you have?" Gunnar asked. He hadn't realized when he first got here that it was a real farm, with a barn and everything.

"Two cats, about a dozen chickens, and the pony. You can meet her in the morning. Her name is Princess and she's a sweetheart. We got her for Sandy when a neighbor was looking to rehome her," she rambled on, pulling the sheets tight before laying a quilt across the bed. "I always wanted a pony when I was a little girl, but we lived in a tiny apartment, so it wasn't going to happen even if we could have afforded it."

Gunnar nodded along, but his gaze had drifted to the window again. Melody and Tessa were coming back from the barn, each with a cat carrier.

"There!" Gaby declared, and he looked back quickly to see her looking over the room with her hands on her hips. "Sorry it's still so cluttered, but at least there's room in here to sleep. We can move the rest of this mess out to the barn tomorrow."

"It looks great," Gunnar said honestly. "I mean, last night I had a jail cell to sleep in. This is worlds better."

He wished he could take back the words when an awkward silence descended.

The front door slammed as Tessa and Melody came in. With some effort, Gunnar managed not to run into the living room like a lovesick puppy. Instead he waited while Gaby plumped up the pillows, and then followed her back out to the living room.

Melody was there.

She was sitting on the couch, feet tucked under her and sleek dark head bowed over a book. She looked like a picture in a magazine. He could already imagine what her skin would feel like under his hands, its infinite softness. He ached to go to her, to touch her.

The sound of the baby crying came from upstairs, and Gaby turned with a soft "Oh!" and hurried up the stairs, leaving them both alone.

Now was his chance.

Melody seemed to be lost in her book. Gunnar wet his lips. Stupid ... he felt like he was back in middle school, trying to work up the nerve to say hi to the girl he had a crush on. Someone could walk in on them at any moment. He wasn't sure what Keegan would do if he caught Gunnar talking to his sister.

I could tell them I'm her mate ...

Yeah, and get sent straight back to prison, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

While this inner battle was taking place, he'd been slowly approaching, step by step. All he needed to do was say hello. She was his mate; everything would fall into place from there, wouldn't it?

"Melody—" he began.

"Gyaaahhh!" She jumped and the book went sailing several feet away and landed upside down in a sprawl of pages.

"Sorry!" Gunnar said, stepping back quickly.

"Homigosh. It's just. You. Wow." She pressed one hand to her chest and pushed up her glasses where they'd slipped down her nose. "You're very quiet. I had no idea you were there, and then you were just there—looming—"

"Didn't mean to sneak up on you. I, uh. I'm really sorry."

"It's okay. I get so wrapped up in my reading sometimes that I lose track of time." She smiled at him, and his stomach flipped over. She was so gracious, and so kind.

And now she was leaning down to pick up the book that she'd dropped because of him. "No, let me," he said quickly, and knelt to pick it up and hand it back to her.

"Thanks," she said, taking it back. Their fingers brushed against each other, warmth and softness slipping across his callused fingertips before retreating again.

And now he was kneeling by her knees, an improvement over the earlier situation in that he was closer to her, but he couldn't think how to gracefully get off the floor without looking like an idiot and also looming again. Plus, where did he go from there? Sit on the couch? Try to have a conversation while standing over her?

Why was this so hard?

Also, it didn't help that he was acutely aware he needed only to move a few inches and he could have laid his hand on her leg ... or buried his head in her lap ...

Instead, they stayed that way for a tense moment, with Gunnar kneeling awkwardly by her legs, before Melody cleared her throat and patted the couch next to her. "Would you like to sit?"

"Yes," he said gratefully. He scrambled from floor to couch, trying not to go through an intermediate "looming" stage.

"I know this must be as strange for you as it is for me," she said, and smiled at him. That smile was like sunshine; it warmed and soothed him. "How about we get to know each other a little bit?"

"Okay," he agreed. What he really wanted to do was lean across the space between them, cup her face in his hands, and find out if her cheeks were as soft as they looked, and if her lips tasted as good as the rest of her smelled. But talking was good. Talking was great, actually, if it kept him here on this couch, listening to the melodious sound of her voice. She was aptly named; she sounded like a melody ... except she wasn't saying anything right now. Damn. Was he supposed to start?

"Oh ... kay," Melody said, into the silence. She smiled again, looking a little more nervous this time. "Let's start with a fun question. What's your favorite book?"

"My favorite book?" His mind went completely blank. People had favorite books? "I, uh ... I'm not sure?"

"Oh, I know," she said, warming up. "It's hard to pick, isn't it? I mean, I certainly couldn't pick just one. My desert island book list is more of a suitcase. Or possibly a U-Haul truck. What's the last book you read, then? For me it was, well—" She picked up the book in her lap and turned it over with a smile. "Jane Eyre. I know, I've read it so many times already, but that's the great thing about books, isn't it? They're like old friends you keep coming back to. And look at me, babbling." She took a deep breath and mimed zipping her lips.

"You don't have to stop," he said quickly. "I like hearing you talk ... about books." And it was true. She could be reading the menu and he would enjoy it. "Is that one your favorite?" he asked, pointing to the book in her lap.

"Jane Eyre? Well, I suppose it's one of my favorites. It's an old comfort read from childhood. Of course, I have a lot of those ... but you must too, right? Tell me about one of yours."

"Um." His mind went blank again. Put on the spot, he couldn't think of a single book. He liked to read, at least he really wanted to like to read; it was just ... books didn't like him. Reading was always such a struggle. All he could think of now were a few books he'd had to read for school, a very long time ago, that had been boring and not his kind of thing at all, but he didn't think she'd like to hear about those. What if she wanted to talk about one of them? He couldn't even remember their names.

"Gunnar ...?" His name even sounded lovely on her tongue, with that melodious lilt to her voice. "Gunnar, you do ... read, don't you?"

"I, uh ... not much? I mean, I can," he said quickly, just in case she thought he was completely illiterate. "It's just, you know. Kind of not my thing?" he finished with a certain amount of desperation, because she was looking at him with actual despair.

"You don't read?"

"I can if I have to!" he hurried to say.

This didn't seem to help. She looked devastated. "You haven't read Jane Eyre, then?" she asked in a small voice, holding it up.

"Never even heard of it."

"Oh." The book dropped into her lap along with her hands. "Do you ... want to?" she offered tremulously.

He'd caught a glimpse of the pages when he picked it up to give it back to her. All that tiny type. It looked like a boring, eyestrain-inducing nightmare. "Maybe?" he said uncertainly.

Melody looked like she wanted to cry.

"So, uh ... what else do you like to do?" he asked as brightly as he could manage, knowing he'd upset his mate and still not quite sure why. "I like working out. And, uh—they showed movies in the prison on Thursdays—" Her despair took on shades of horror. No mentioning prison! Abort! Abort! "What's your favorite movie?" he asked hastily.

"I, um ..." She twisted her hands in her lap. "I don't really ... watch movies, Gunnar. I'd rather have a nice evening with a good book."

"You never do anything except read?" he asked in bafflement.

"What else is there worth doing?"

They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension.

Given how the getting-to-know-you was going, Gunnar was almost glad (almost, though not quite) when they were interrupted by a slamming door and a sudden yell from upstairs. It sounded like Tessa's voice. "No! Don't let them—look out below! Gaby! Help!"

Gunnar and Melody both looked toward the stairs in blank confusion. There was a pattering of ... feet? Then a swarm of cats appeared on the stairs and hurtled off in all directions. Tessa popped into view an instant later at the top of the stairs, her hair sticking up in all directions. She grabbed onto the railing at the top of the stairs to stabilize her very pregnant body and looked down the stairs into the living room, where not a single cat was visible. For a minute, no one said anything.

"I don't suppose," Tessa said at last, huffing for breath, "that either of you two saw where they went."

Melody had her hands over her mouth and was making tiny squeaky sounds as she tried not to laugh. Gunnar hesitantly raised a hand to point at the kitchen. "I think one of them went in there?"

A baby began wailing from upstairs. Gaby's voice could be heard making hushing noises. "Oh no," Tessa sighed. "I'm sorry!" she said over her shoulder, and began to descend the stairs carefully.

Melody took her hand away from her mouth, cleared her throat, and pointed to her feet. "I think there's one under the couch," she said, her voice steady, with only the dancing of her eyes behind the lenses of her glasses to give away her amusement. "Do you want me to see if I can get it out?"

"Yes, please," Tessa said with relief. "Bending and twisting aren't so great for me right now. Or anything that needs me to be light and quick on my feet. We had the cats all nicely shut in one of the upstairs bedrooms and then I tried to leave and ... well, you can see how that went."

Gunnar got off the couch and crouched down. Maybe he could help with this. He'd always liked animals. He could just glimpse the reflection of the cat's eyes under the couch.

"I can't reach," Melody reported, after stretching and trying to get an arm under the couch.

"I could pick up the couch, maybe?" Gunnar suggested.

Tessa had crept over to peek cautiously into the kitchen; now she turned around. "No, don't do that. They're completely freaked out from being shut up in the carriers, and I think all of Gaby's cats are out in the yard right now, so there shouldn't be any fights. I'll put out some food for them and see if I can coax them out that way."

"Oh, there's another one!" Melody whispered, pointing to an orange-colored cat that had just crept out from behind a bookcase near the door and was looking cautiously around the living room with its tail puffed up.

All three of the humans froze. Gunnar even tried to make his bear be quiet, though it wasn't like the cat could hear it.

"Hey there, baby," Tessa crooned, crouching down to bring herself closer to the cat's level. "How about you come to Mama and let's go back to the nice bedroom, huh?"

Just then a key rattled in the door, five feet away from the cat. The door started to open. Gunnar expected the cat to duck back behind the bookcase, but instead, sensing freedom, it made a dive for the widening crack between the door and frame.

As Keegan appeared in the doorway carrying an armload of groceries, there was a chorus of "Stop that cat!" and "Shut the door!" from Tessa and Melody.

Keegan looked down calmly and, swift but casual, moved a foot to intercept the cat's break for freedom. It was obvious that he'd had a lot of practice at this. He leaned down to scoop the cat up with his free hand and closed the door with his hip. Then he stood and looked at Gunnar and Melody crouching next to the couch and Tessa squatting in the kitchen doorway.

"Cats settling in okay?" he asked mildly.

"Oh yes," Tessa said, her voice serene. A spotted cat peeked around her legs and zipped away when she made a move to reach for it. "As you can see."

"I hope they haven't gotten my gun this time."

"No, not yet anyway." Tessa grabbed the doorframe, made a grunting sound, and settled back into a crouch. "By the way, dear, I think I'm stuck."

The corners of Keegan's mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile. He handed the cat to Melody, gave Gunnar a flat look that probably was meant to convey something along the lines of Stay away from my sister, and went to give his pregnant mate a hand up.

"So we get to spend the rest of the evening playing find the cat—ouch—and I woke up Gaby's baby," Tessa said dolefully as Keegan hauled her to her feet.

"It's fine," Gaby said, coming down the stairs with a sleepy-looking Jimena draped over her shoulder. "If she goes down for the night this early, she'll be up at 3 a.m. anyway."

As Gaby joined the group in the living room, Gunnar could see that any possibility of talking to his mate alone had slipped away utterly. In fact, his mate herself slipped away before he could stop her, quietly taking the cat off to put it in a bedroom. He gazed after her and wished he'd managed to find the right words. It didn't matter if they had all the time in the world if he couldn't do anything other than alienate her every time he talked to her.

This was going great so far. At least it couldn't get worse.

"Who's up for Pictionary?" Gaby asked brightly.

Okay. Maybe it could.