CHAPTER SEVEN
A Rainbow In The Dark
To Jolene’s happy surprise, the first place Zebe brought her was back to her cottage. “I figured that you would want to collect some of your things so you don’t have to live out of our wardrobes anymore,” he said.
She smiled sheepishly at him. “I hope I haven’t been a burden.”
He shook his head at her. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that! I just thought you’d be happier with some of your things.”
He was correct about that. As soon as the car was safely parked in the driveway, she carefully got out of the car and he went with her to the cottage. “Thankfully I still have quite a few things in suitcases,” Jolene said. It was something that had been driving her crazy before and making her feel like her time there was only temporary, but now she was hopefully going to be settling in to Burlington and planting roots there. With a gang of werewolves, as luck and bizarreness would have it.
Jolene unlocked her front door and invited him inside. “Make yourself at home.” She blushed a little, remembering the last time Zebe had been in her house. He followed her inside and sat on the couch in the living room, not seeming so comfortable in the space as she might have expected. He didn’t seem like he wanted to run away or anything, but he wasn’t making himself at home so much as patiently waiting for her to find what she needed.
She went into her bedroom and found her still mostly packed suitcase. She threw in any clothes that she could find strewn about her floor and then went to the washing machine and tossed in the dirty clothes as well. There would be plenty of time to do laundry at the Weirs’ house, she imagined. Wasn’t part of a mom’s duty doing the laundry? She assumed that werewolves needed their clothes cleaned as well… Possibly even moreso, due to bloodstains.
The thought of Zebe and Luke going out and getting into fights made her frown. She knew that it was an inevitable part of their lives, but it still did not make her happy. If she could at least keep them from fighting each other she would consider it a victory.
Once her suitcase was satisfactorily stuffed to bursting, she called for Zebe to come and help her close it and carry it out of the house. “I don’t want to break a finger trying to get the zipper to move,” she said with a light laugh. She smoothed her hair back off of her face as she watched the tall, sexy man grunt and swear under his breath while wrestling the suitcase shut. So far, the only time she had seen him angry was now, fighting her suitcase. In their fight, the one who had been the aggressor was Luke. Even now that she was staying in their house, Luke was the growly, more acerbic one.
It was more amusing than threatening to witness Zebe beating up her bag.
“God dammit,” he said softly, as if he was really trying hard to not curse in front of the lady. “Ahh! Got it!” He held up the bag in triumph, so Jolene could see his handiwork.
Jolene beamed and clapped a little, hoping that he wouldn’t think she was patronizing him. She genuinely was impressed and glad he had helped her. “Thank you!” she shouted back for good measure.
“I’ll take this out to the car,” Zebe told her, panting a bit from either his labor or his excitement. Possibly a little of both. “You should keep looking around in case you find something else that you realize you can’t live without.”
She chuckled slightly, nodding. “Okay. I’m on it.”
Jolene went into the kitchen and found herself one of those canvas bags that grocery stores sell in order to cut down on plastic waste. She put as much food as possible into the bag, tossing out anything that was no longer fresh or appealing to her more refined tastes. When she saw the casserole in the fridge, she let out a little laugh and a sob at the same time. She could not leave Zebe’s sweet gift to her in the cottage. Carefully, she rearranged the food in her bag so she could put it snugly inside, kept safe by being packed in amongst softer things.
One of the things that kept the casserole safe, as it turned out, was the box of Pop-Tarts that she had shared with Luke. The contents of her food bag were turning into a metaphor now and she knew it was time to leave before she started attributing feelings to the outlets on the wall.
Carrying the bag of food out to the car, Jolene could not help but feel a bit silly that she was bringing along a bunch of food that she could have bought at the store. She just did not like to see food go to waste. The cottage was too nice for her to just give up, but she had a feeling that she wasn’t going to be back for some time. The last thing she wanted was to return to it and discover that she had a roach and mouse infestation. She doubted an exterminator would be half as sexy as her electrician.
That made her realize something.
“I know what Luke does, but I haven’t asked you yet and I’m sorry… What do you do for a living?” Jolene smiled at Zebe as she carefully situated the grocery bag in the trunk beside her suitcase.
Zebe closed the trunk’s door as soon as she had placed it in and gotten out of the way. He gave her a handsome, pleasant sort of smile. “I’m the manager of a department store on Dorset Street.”
Jolene was impressed, even though she obviously didn’t know what Dorset Street was like. He made it sound important. “That sounds fancy,” she said with a grin. “I’m in marketing, so I’m familiar with sales tactics.” She felt like a dork for bringing that up, but it was cool to find someone with a similar career. “I’m all over-the-phone, freelance sort of stuff now though. Which will make things easy now that…” She gestured to her baby bump.
Chuckling, Zebe helped her get into the car and nicely buckled into her seat. He was protective of her without being rude or condescending. He mostly helped her with things that he had witnessed her struggling to do for herself. And carrying big heavy suitcases was right out no matter what kind of pregnancy it was.
He came around the car and got inside, putting his seatbelt on himself as well before clutching the steering wheel and then turning to her with a big grin on his face. “So,” he said. “Where next?”
Jolene laughed. “I thought you had a plan!”
“My plan was to take you on an adventure,” he said. “It’s not fun if I plan it all. It becomes an itinerary rather than an adventure, don’t you agree?”
Well this was refreshing. After all, she had moved to Burlington on a whim to get away from everything tried and true. She wanted to explore and she really had not done that yet. Getting away from her ex would be that much better if she was having all kinds of wonderful experiences now. It would be a real ‘fuck you’ to her past.
“What are some of your favorite places in Vermont?” she asked him then, realizing that the best place to start was with what he recommended. “And please, no bars.”
Zebe laughed and snapped his fingers. “Darn, I was really hoping to bring you to a bar. Aww…” His pretend disappointment was amusing enough to send her on a laughing fit. “There is this one place. It’s not really a place in town, but it is very Vermonty.”
Jolene smiled at him. “You better not take me to an ice cream parlor either. Although, mmm, okay that can be included if you want.”
Beaming, he shook his head at her. Then he started the car. “Maybe on the way back. If you’re good.”
Oh, he was going to be a good daddy.
Y’know. If he was in fact the father of her babies.
Not that it would really matter to her.
Zebe took her on a long, scenic drive alongside the beautiful blue waters of Lake Champlain. Jolene couldn’t say what she had been expecting from this excursion, but she had been imagining more city sights. It pleased her to know that he was thinking more about nature and pretty views. His twin was clearly the more urban-focused one.
“Wow,” she said as she gazed out of the windows. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty lake… or so many trees in all of my life.” Boston was a wonderful city of its own, but she hadn’t ever seen trees there that were like the trees of Burlington.
So tall and green and begging to be sniffed.
He smiled at her, clearly pleased to see her so awed by the things he liked.
“So how did you get into motorcycle clubs?” she asked him suddenly, her mind going back to the conditions she had met him in. Someone who loved nature as much as he surely did would probably be more at odds with such noxious, noisy automobiles, right?
Jolene didn’t even know if motorcycles counted as automobiles, but she figured since they had engines and required a license to operate they had to count.
Zebe glanced at her as he drove along the winding, waterfront roads. He smirked a little. “Does it surprise you?” he asked in a playful sort of voice. She could tell right away that this was something he was asked with some frequency.
“It doesn’t quite surprise me,” she said, laughing in a way that she hoped would be seen as playful and friendly, not like she was being untruthful because she thought she had struck a nerve. She really didn’t want to offend him. He had been so nice to her that she felt like she was bound to fuck it up. And sooner rather than later.
Jolene just did not get guys like Zebe Weir.
“I just see you being more interested in taking the scenic route,” she added.
That made him laugh, which helped her feel as though she was in the clear. As if Zebe could ever actually be angry with her. She doubted that he had ever truly been angry, period.
Maybe when Luke had gotten possessive of her.
“The scenic route is great on the back of a motorcycle as well,” he said. “I’ll have to show you sometime.” He flashed his pearly whites at her. “But you’re right. Motorcycles are more Luke’s thing. I joined his club because I wanted to be supportive of his endeavors. And, well, also because I didn’t want him to be pissed at me.”
Looking from the window to Zebe, she let her eyes linger over his little scar a moment. “Is he pissed at you a lot of the time?”
He glanced at her again and their eyes met. His hazel ones were lighter than Luke’s. It was the first time she’d noticed that. “Not as much as he used to be,” Zebe said. “Not as much as he was before the club. Now we have a common interest and a common goal.”
The irony in his smile was not lost on Jolene.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked.
“Yeah?”
“Did you name the club?”
Zebe seemed a little embarrassed, but he nodded. “Yeah. I know it seems cheesy, but my reasoning behind it is that we aren’t alone out there. We are united in our uniqueness, if that makes sense.”
Jolene nodded. “The Lone Wolves,” she said, really letting herself feel the name of the motorcycle club on her tongue. “It’s still pretty silly, but I can appreciate it. You’re a group of anomalies.”
“Ah, damn,” he said with another sudden laugh. “The Anomalies. That would have been a better name.”
Once the road moved away from the lakefront and back towards the trees, Zebe brought the car into the parking lot of a park. The sun was starting to get low in the sky. “Are we supposed to be here?” Jolene asked him. “It’s almost sundown.”
Zebe shrugged a little, stopping the car and unbuckling his seat belt. “The rules do not apply to people such as I.”
“Are you a poet now?” she asked, laughing as she carefully unbuckled her seatbelt.
He chuckled and got out of the car, coming around so he could help her out. The park seemed like a nice sort of place, with a long bike path and lots of picnic areas. He took her hand and they began walking along the path together. “My brother would never want to come here,” Zebe said. “He’s bored by places like this. I think his profession has made him cynical about things that aren’t wired and buzzing.”
Smiling, Jolene pointed up at the trees. “Those are buzzing,” she said. Cicadas loudly sang their songs, sounding like a warning siren. The trees belonged to the birds and the bees as soon as dusk arrived.
Zebe let out a short laugh, almost like a snort, at her silly yet apt observation. “The trees sound angry,” he said.
For a while, they walked along together, hand in hand and just enjoying the simple beauty of nature. The cicadas started to sound less like a siren and more like music to Jolene’s ears. She wondered what they sang about, and then realized that it was most likely their mating call.
Looking over at Zebe, Jolene wondered what he was thinking about. Did werewolves have mating calls? If they did, they were probably not too different from the howls of wolves during mating season. There was something about Zebe that was wolf-like—mainly his shaggy hair and his sort of pointy face. Was he as loyal as a wolf? Jolene thought that she’d come out to Burlington in search of a bad boy like she the kind she used to date—someone wild and crazy and different from the ‘boring’ man she had married.
She had found that in Luke. But she was starting to realize that what she really wanted was someone like Zebe. Sure, he was wild but he also seemed so stable. She didn’t feel like she had to worry about him running off to the club and flirting with another woman. She didn’t feel like she would be left alone at night, wondering where he was.
Most importantly, she felt things for Zebe that she didn’t feel for Luke. Even though Luke was sexy as hell and a wonderful lover, the time spent with Zebe made her feel not only pleased but happy.
All of a sudden, the trees parted and they came upon a beautiful meadow. Off in the distance, they could see the edge of Lake Champlain. Evening was settling in and the stars were coming out up above. Zebe took one look at her, smiled slightly and then brought her by the hand into the meadow.
“This would be a great place for a picnic,” she remarked a bit awkwardly, not knowing quite why he was suddenly so interested in strolling there. A few bunnies lifted their heads from the grass and looked at Zebe and Jolene warily. They ran for the shrubberies and thickets at their approach. Jolene wondered if they could sense that Zebe was part animal.
She didn’t imagine that she would be brave enough to stick around if she was a small bunny and a tall man was approaching, werewolf or not.
“Of course, we would need a blanket,” she added when he did not respond. She looked at him and realized it was growing hard to see him as the darkness settled in for the night.
Zebe smirked at her. He sat down in the tall grass and beckoned for her to do the same. Jolene was much more awkward in doing so, but she somehow managed to get herself down on the remarkably soft ground beside him.
For a few blissful moments, they looked up at the stars together. It seemed that every moment brought more stars into view, as if they were all just starting to wake up. The moon was out as well. A crescent moon.
Jolene looked over at him and wished that she could see his face more clearly. “The moon looks like your neck,” she said.
He grinned at her and she could swear that his grin became like the moon as well. Maybe he was less of a werewolf and more a Cheshire cat. She was impatient without knowing what she was waiting for.
Then, all at once, their mouths were on each other. He lay over her, careful not to put all of his weight onto her belly. She moaned against his lips, hoping that this property was not populated at this time of night. She hadn’t seen anyone since they had left the waterfront road.
“This night is mine,” he said to her between kisses, letting his hot breath touch her face and send shivers up her spine. “And I fully intend to own it.”