CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

Elizabeth drummed her fingers on her kitchen table as she eyed her visitor suspiciously. He sat at the far end of the table hunched over a bowl of soup. His posture was horrific, but his manners weren’t. He had a napkin on his lap and he’d thanked her when she’d slid the bowl in front of him. Though that might have been due to the pellet gun that, even now, sat between them on the table, Elizabeth’s free hand resting on the butt of the gun.

He’d been on her property for twenty-four hours. And she still couldn’t believe what her eyes were showing her. She hadn’t let him sleep indoors; he was a strange man and she wasn’t a lunatic. But she’d rolled out a cot for him in the garage, tossing some old camping blankets onto it and locking him firmly out of her house.              

She hadn’t known whether or not he’d be there in the morning. But sure enough, the second she’d started frying bacon that morning, he’d knocked on the door separating them. She’d opened it, gun in hand, to see him looking less haggard than the night before, but still terrible.

His face was lined with age and exhausted, carved out from months, maybe even years of hunger. His stringy, gray hair hung in his eyes and he swam in the old clothes of Jackson’s she’d given him. He had a self-sufficient look in his eye, but he jumped at any small sound in a way that made Elizabeth think of the hunted.

An entire day had passed, with him disappearing out the back door for most of it, and then returning at nightfall. Somehow, she’d known he would return.

She sighed and drummed her fingers some more. When she couldn’t take the silence a second longer, she walked over to the television and put on the news, sitting back in her seat at the dining room table.

An attractive young newscaster was pinching her brow at the camera. “Which will make him the third shifter this year to be sentenced to the death penalty. Earlier this year, Williams was convicted of first-degree murder when, in his shifter form of an alligator, he mauled a sixty-five-year-old woman to death. It has been a topic of great debate whether or not shifters should be tried in the same court of law as humans, or even if they should have the same legal rights as humans. The most complicating factor being that shifters cannot control their actions when they are in their shifter form.”

The man across the table made a low, growling sound of dissent that had Elizabeth glancing up at him. His attention was on the television with a sort of focus that made the hairs raise on Elizabeth’s arm.

“Following the sentencing, the White House released a statement once again urging all unregistered shifters to come forward and turn themselves in. The president reminded all citizens that the designated shifter camps were set up for a reason, to keep the public safe from shifters and to keep shifters safe from themselves.”

The man growled again, this time loud enough to have Elizabeth’s brow drawing down. She muted the television and turned to him, a cross look on her face. “Do you have something to say, visitor? I don’t let my sons grunt at my dinner table and I sure as hell am not going to let some stranger do so.”

He looked up at her and something skittered down Elizabeth’s spine when she saw how light his eyes were. They were iceberg blue, and as tired as the rest of him looked, his eyes, peeking through his gray hair, were shockingly alert.

“Those wolves I saw leaving your house are your sons?” His voice was low and rusty with disuse.

Elizabeth’s heart flipped. She’d gone damn near 35 years without cluing in a soul to her sons’ secret and now she’d gone and let this stranger into her house. She was thrown off by what she’d seen him do.

Instead of answering him, she sat back in her chair, a steely expression on her face, and volleyed a question of her own at him. “How did you retain your shifter form on a crescent moon?”

His eyes narrowed. He leaned back in his chair, mirroring her posture. “How have you kept them secret all these years?”

She pursed her lips. “Can you shift at will?”

He grunted, either amused at her evasive tactics or annoyed. “Are you a shifter as well? Or is it their daddy?”

She didn’t answer at all, merely crossing her arms tightly over her chest and refusing to drop his eye contact. He was the one who blinked first, letting his eyes take her in, from the top of her head down to her gun on the table.

“Nah,” he said, apparently answering his own question. “You’re a human. I can tell. I can smell it on you.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him. “Speaking of smelling one another from across the room, when is the last time you bathed?”

He pulled back, a bit shocked at her candor, before a sound even rustier than his voice came rumbling out of him. He was laughing. He lifted one weathered hand up to the back of his neck. “I reckon it’s been a while, ma’am.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Ma’am?”

“You give me a place to stay, you feed me dinner, I can show a little respect.”

Elizabeth rose from the table. “It’s not an open invitation. I let you stay last night because I didn’t know what the hell to do with you. But you shower up tonight, you can stay in the garage again, and in the morning you’re gone. If you put up any resistance, don’t think I won’t call the cops on you. I’ll have you shipped off to a shifter camp so fast—”

“You don’t think they wouldn’t see the signs your boys are leaving behind?” he asked quietly, something flinty and pained in his eyes. “Your sons might be doing a good job of not drawing attention to themselves, but you can’t possibly think they could fool federal agents who have been trained to hunt down shifters.” He swiped a hand over his face, that hunted expression coming back to him, chilling Elizabeth. “No. Don’t use those camps as a threat. Don’t even think about bringing them agents around here. Not because of me, at least.  I’m not trying to bring hell down on your family. I’m only here because I thought this was a safehouse. You don’t have to call anybody to get me gone. Just ask and I’ll go.”

He rose from the table and some joint of his cracked audibly. Even after a full meal of hearty Italian soup, bread and salad, he still looked as faded as an autumn leaf half-decomposed.

Elizabeth had the sudden thought that if she sent this man away tonight, she was sentencing him to death. She didn’t know how she knew, but she just did.

But even that wouldn’t have been enough for her to let him stay if she’d thought it might get her boys in trouble. No one’s life meant more to her than her sons.

But it was the understanding in his eyes when he spoke of the camps, of the federal agents, that gave her pause. He spoke of them with as much fear and distaste that Elizabeth felt every time she thought of them. And he was right. It struck cold fear in her heart to think of her inviting the feds to her house. Where they would surely deduce the truth about her sons. No, he was right, it was bad karma to use that as a threat.

“Is anyone after you?” she asked, and he stilled, two steps away from the table, his back to her.

The man turned to face her. “No. I was registered about ten years ago, but they think I’m dead now. No one is looking for me. You can check my number if you want.” He pulled back the collar of the roomy shirt he wore and showed Elizabeth a nine-digit number in black ink that she hadn’t seen before.

She paused. She’d heard of this, seen it on television, but never in real life. The sight of the tracking number, even from across the room, sent a chill down her back. She took her phone out from her pocket and pulled up the government-run shifter database. Shifters were considered to be so dangerous that any information the government had on any registered shifter was made part of the public record.

His eyes flared when she stepped toward him with the phone in one hand and the gun in the other. She wondered if he’d thought the gesture of showing her his number would have been enough to win her trust. Hell no. She had her boys to think of.

She got close enough to read the tattoo with her own two eyes. Then she tossed him the phone. “Put your number in and then throw it back.”

As he did so, she aimed the pellet gun at his heart. It couldn’t kill him. But if he tried anything suspicious, it would definitely slow him down.

He typed in his number, his brow furrowing and his fingers fumbling. “I’ve never used one of these. Sorry. How do you get to the numbers? I only see letters. Oh. Damn. Delete. Delete. Jesus. You must have the fingers of a pixie. How can you only press one of these things at a time? Damn. There. Finally.”

She tried not to be charmed in the least by his gruff fumbling with a piece of technology that she’d gotten used to a decade ago. Apparently, he hadn’t had much time to interface with technology since iPhones had become a thing.

He tossed the phone back to her and she studied it to make sure he’d input the same numbers that were tattooed on his chest. He had. She backed across the room, gun still pointed at him, and sat in her chair. He stood against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

His file came up and there was a picture of him. Younger, his hair browner, his face less lined. But angry, spitting angry. He looked strong and wild and unrestrainable, except for the shackle around his neck that held him in place for the mugshot.

“Bauer Clark,” she read his name, murmuring it out loud. She drew her eyes upward in time to see him flinch slightly, as if no one had said his name to him in years. She dropped her eyes back to the screen. Under his name was another word in red. “Deceased,” she whispered. “As of four years ago.”

He cleared his throat. “There was a fire at one of the camps. They didn’t think any of us escaped with our lives. Like I said, they’re not looking for me.”

She closed her phone and eyed him for a good long while.

“If I let you stay, you’ll be in the garage. Locked out every night. And you’re not to be in the house, ever, if I’m not here. And if I let you stay, it’ll only be for a few days. Tops.”

His eyebrows raised. “That’d be much appreciated, ma’am.”

“And enough with this ‘ma’am’ bullshit. I’m the same age as you are.” She shook the phone at him, where she’d just seen his birthdate in black and white. “No need to make me feel like a dinosaur.”

His eyebrows raised further. “What should I call you, then?”

She sighed. “Elizabeth.”

He looked confused. And thrown off. And tired. She wondered how long it had been since he’d been shown a simple kindness. “And I’m Bauer,” he said eventually.

“Yes, I know. But there is one more rule, Bauer.”

“Okay.”

“My sons do not find out you’re here. They’ll do anything to protect me. Even tear apart an old, grizzled coyote.”

He nodded, though there was a flash in his eye that told Elizabeth that as grizzled as he was, he wasn’t going to go quietly. “That’s easy enough. I’ll stay a few days and go. If your sons are here before that, I’ll leave immediately.”

She nodded as well, feeling that the agreement was set in stone. He started to move out toward the garage.

“Hold on a minute.” She stepped into the hallway and back immediately, tossing a set of towels to him that he caught against his chest. “Everything you need is in the bathroom just through there.”

He blinked down at the towels, his tangled beard brushing against his chest as he looked down. When he looked back up at her, she saw a complicated mosaic of emotions cross his face. “I’m sorry I stink.”

She shrugged. “I’m not a particularly sensitive woman. But clean up fast. Because I’m locking you out at gunpoint in twenty minutes.”

He nodded again, a slight smile on his lips, and disappeared into the bathroom.

 

 

***

 

 

Sarah spent Monday and Tuesday at an orientation over at Eldora. At first, she was stoked when they told her that they wanted her to be a ski instructor. She’d been nervous that the job Lynn had scored for her was as a waitress or a bartender, or something she was equally unqualified for. Ski instructor she could actually swing. It wasn’t her primary sport, but she’d been skiing her whole life, and besides, she was naturally athletic.

But then her manager, this chick named Mandy, had let it slip that they were going to promote the hell out of the fact that they had a former Olympian teaching ski lessons.

Which promptly deflated Sarah’s balloon and made her instantly feel like some sort of sideshow.

But work was work. And she’d made her choices. The endorsement deals had dried up, she’d just bought her way into a mortgage, and she’d be dead and damned if she ever asked her father for money. So, she grinned and bore it through the ski instructor orientation, hoping her clients wouldn’t be as grating as Mandy was.

After work, on both Monday and Tuesday, Seth came over to paint. On Monday, Raph and Lynn joined and they got first coats finished in the kitchen, living room and dining room. On Tuesday, it was just Seth and Sarah and the work was going much slower, but Sarah had to admit, he might have been right about the paint colors.

She would have said originally that the colors were way too bland, but once they were on the walls, they were actually quite lovely. Colorful and bold. Her kitchen had one wall that was now what Seth referred to as ‘mango lite’ and similarly, her dining room had a ‘peacock’-colored wall. The rest was some sort of neutral color that Sarah couldn’t have described to save her life, but it all just kind of worked. She didn’t understand how the same can of neutral paint could make her dining room look distinguished and her living room look relaxed and bright.

“I think you’re a witch,” she told him, hands on her hips, as they finished the second coat in the living room.

“Why?” he laughed, carefully wiping his hands on a rag and surveying the room alongside of her.

“Well, one, because you’re turning my house into something from a magazine and it only took you, like, ten minutes in the store to pick out all the colors. And two, because we’ve been painting for three days and your paint clothes literally don’t have a speck of paint on them.”

He grinned at her. “Flattering, but untrue. Look.”

He picked up the hem of his shirt and held it up so that she could see the teeny, tiny fleck of mango-colored paint from the kitchen.

But she wasn’t looking there. In fact, she was looking at the delicious strip of stomach that he was once again giving her a private viewing of. Her mouth went dry.

Sarah stared down at his smooth skin, catching the warm scent of him. She suddenly felt terribly adult, standing in a house she owned with a good-smelling man.

But the real truth was that this part of her life was actually quite stunted. She’d had one real boyfriend in her life and that had been a mess. She’d hooked up with a few other guys here or there, but they’d been drunken exploits, blurry and easily forgotten. This, though? Sober and heart hammering and so close she could have tasted his neck if she just leaned forward? She’d never done anything like this before.

It was true that she really wanted friends. But she also wanted sex. And Seth was right there. Like, right there. Did she have the gumption to ask for what she wanted?

She could either pretend like seeing that strip of his abs didn’t make her lady parts do the hula, and continue on down the path of friendship. Or she could make her feelings known and maybe continue on down a path of sex and friendship. In her eyes, she was kind of in a win/win situation.

It was with that thought in her head, thoughts of victory, that she reached out with the backs of her fingers and traced his skin from rib to hip.

It was the raw heat of him that she first noticed, like he’d spent all day warming by a fire. He jolted at her touch, he hadn’t been expecting it, but he didn’t move away from her either. It was almost painful to tear her eyes away from the sight of his exposed stomach, but she knew she had to. She’d just crossed a line and she had to check and make sure that it was okay. It was the decent thing to do.

So, Sarah tore her eyes upwards and was rocked at the sight that greeted her. Normally, Seth’s eyes were bright and friendly, creased at the corners with a smile. But not now. Now they were wide and intense, focused completely on her face. He looked… like a wild animal. Sarah couldn’t help but shiver involuntarily, and it was as if he’d called forth that shiver from her. His eyes devoured her face, every minute expression, and Sarah was reminded of a husky she’d once met that had had almost human, ice blue eyes. Seth’s eyes were green, but they were so light they were spooky—she could see every spoke of darker green that ran through the iris. He had striped, feral eyes.

Her hand was still against his skin and she wondered what she’d just awoken in him. Was this what lust looked like? Real lust? Had every other lustful instance in her life been a pathetic imitation of what it was really supposed to be?

She couldn’t help but make the journey with her hand again. Hot, carved hipbone, up his side all the way to his ribs. His breath broke through his lips and washed over her face, his eyes dilating.

Move, her heart cried out him. Don’t just stand there! Move!

And move he did, but it wasn’t to do what she’d expected of him. She expected him to slam his mouth to hers. To start feeling on her chest. Maybe grind their bodies together. But he didn’t. Instead, he lifted his hand and placed the backs of his fingers just below her jaw.

She stroked her hand down his side again and he followed suit, stroking her from jaw all the way down to collarbone. She paused at his hip, he paused at her collarbone, his eyes never leaving hers.

Sarah, feeling confused and brave and turned on as hell, dragged her knuckles against his hip, feeling the hot skin there. He did the exact same thing with her collarbone. When she encountered the line of his underwear and moved it down just a minuscule measurement, he did the same with the collar of her shirt.

She traced his hip with the pad of her thumb, he did the same to her collarbone. She gasped at the heat of his hand and he leaned toward her. Finally, finally, he broke their eye contact to look at her mouth. No. To stare at her mouth. Her lips felt pouty and desperate under the intense focus of his icy gaze.

She licked her lips and he grumbled, deep in his chest. As if he couldn’t stop it, his free hand came up to her hair and then, that’s where all of that insane attention went. His eyes were on her hair, specifically, on a loose tendril that had fallen down over her ear. He laced his fingers down her hair, tugging it gently.

Seth lowered his head and buried his nose in her hair, taking a deep pull of her scent. Sarah took a strange, gulping breath that was her body’s way of telling her that she wasn’t breathing and that it was necessary for her to do so in order for her to keep on living, to keep on experiencing this moment.

“Sarah,” he said in her ear, his breath as hot as his hand on her collarbone. Her hand convulsively closed at his hip, tugging him closer to her.

Holy god, her knees were buckling. As an athlete of the highest order, Sarah had always prided herself on her mind/body connection. As hard as it had been to both train and study at the same time, she’d even gotten a kinesiology undergrad degree. The workings of her body were of utmost interest to her. It was one of the many reasons that she so resented her father. His withholding of food she desperately needed was utterly unforgivable to her, the same as a slap across her face. She knew how her body worked, what it needed. What it wanted. What she should let it have, how she should treat it. And she generally knew how her body was going to treat her.

But this? This reaction was startlingly new. She’d never experienced this racing in her chest, this liquid heat pooling between her legs. And she’d definitely never gone weak in the knees before. It was almost ludicrous!

Her reaction was too much, too new, alarming. She needed a second. Just one second to get her bearings. “Um,” she said. “Um. I—”

As if her grappling for words was a bucket of ice water, Seth stiffened. One second he was nuzzling into the hair behind her ear, breathing her name straight into her, and the next second he was standing straight up, a respectable distance away and clinically steadying her at the elbow.

Sarah blinked down at where he gripped her elbow. She could have sworn that hand had just been burning its name into her collarbone. But there it was, all long-fingered and wide and clean, square nails, looking innocent as hell, as if all it had come over here to do was paint.

If his shirt hadn’t still been rucked up over one hip, Sarah might have wondered if that moment had happened at all.

Because when she finally looked back up at his face, he was back to looking like friendly, nothing-to-see-here Seth. Sarah blinked at him. He smiled at her.

“Um…” she said again. “Hold on. What just—”

“Sarah,” he said in that deep, gravelly voice that sounded like midnight. “I just broke up with someone. And the break up was for really good reasons. Reasons that have everything to do with me. And nothing to do with her.”

“Okay?” she said, feeling her temper blink sleepy eyes and look around in confusion. Why were they talking about his ex right now? Why was he telling her that his ex was great and that it was his fault they weren’t together?

“Yeah,” he said, at least having the grace to look a tiny bit flustered as he finally unhanded her and stepped a good two feet away. “I’m… definitely not what you’re looking for.”

“Looking for?” she asked, shaking her head like there was water in her ears. “What is it, exactly, that you think I’m looking for, Seth?”

“Shit.” He went a little pale underneath his tan skin. “I’m insulting you and I totally don’t mean to. At all. Sarah, you’re amazing—”

“Lemme stop you right there,” she said, throwing up a hand. “If I’d known that touching your stomach was gonna get me firmly broken up with a minute later, I definitely wouldn’t have done it. Cuz, Seth? Literally nothing just happened. We didn’t even kiss!”

His brow furrowed, like he begged to differ on the ‘nothing happened’ front, but she barreled on, refusing to let him let her down easy.

“You’re kinda hot, in a pretty kind of way,” she continued, telling the truth but also reveling, just a tiny bit, in the fact that her assessment was definitely gonna piss him off. “And I touched you. Which it sounds like that’s not what you wanted. So, my bad. I’m sorry about that. Story over. Let’s go back to being friends who paint each other’s houses.”

He blinked at her, and she knew she probably looked a little crazy right now, with her hands on her hips and her stare as intense as his. But no, hell no, she was not getting dumped in her own living room by a guy she hadn’t even kissed yet.

“Okay?” he eventually said. And then he turned and started cleaning up the painting supplies they’d used that day. After a second, he turned to her, a small smile on his face. “Does this mean you’re agreeing to helping me re-paint my kitchen?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Honestly? How could I say no?”