by Kate Rudolph
Derek hadn’t noticed the other door. And he didn’t smell anything big enough to have forced either open. The most likely animal culprit would have been a bear, but his presence kept them from living in the area. Normal animals did not like to live near their shapeshifter brothers. But he couldn’t smell a bear, or a wolf, or a mountain lion.
He took one step closer to her tiny house and stopped. All scents abruptly vanished, leaving him to his normal senses. After that brief flash of super-smell, he felt aromatically blind.
Sandra put a hand on his shoulder, “Are you alright?”
He nodded, “It’s weird that both doors are open.”
She stepped up onto the porch and kicked the door, opening it wide, it had only been standing about half-way. But she didn’t go in. With Sandra in front of him, Derek couldn’t see what stopped her, but when she stooped over he could see that she needed to shove a table that had fallen in front of the entrance.
“Did you lock up before we left?” He asked. She stepped in the house and he tried to follow. He got about one step inside before he had to stop.
And it wasn’t only because Sandra jerked around with her hands on her hips and a spark in her eyes. “Of course.”
The house was smaller than his closet, if it had looked bad from the outside, it was even worse now that he had four walls and a ceiling over him. Yes, the place was a wreck, which made it seem worse that it would normally be, but he couldn’t even see a bed. “Where do you sleep?” he asked.
Sandra pointed directly above them, “There’s a little mattress up there. It’s very...cozy.”
Derek’s head was nearly brushing the ceiling. There was cozy, and then there was this madness. But he knew he shouldn’t say anything else. This was her home, and he was inside of it. You weren’t supposed to say anything bad about another person’s home when you were a visitor. Especially if that house had just been ransacked. And it was obvious that no animal had done this.
He caught a faint human scent, woodsy, masculine. That man had done a thorough job of tossing the place over in Derek’s inexpert opinion. Derek took another step in to try and get a better idea of the situation, but that nearly brought him flush against Sandra’s backside.
It was a position he’d love to be in under other circumstances, but now was neither the time nor the place. He tried to scoot around Sandra to explore the far corner of the house, but when she stood up, she nearly slammed into him and he had to take a step back. That made him slam his head against the low hanging ceiling under her bed.
He did not fit in this tiny house.
“I’ll go check out the main house,” he offered. She could sort through her things in peace and he’d have the opportunity to try and scent out who her attacker had been.
“No,” Sandra turned around, shaking her head. “Give me a minute and we’ll go together. They might still be there and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He liked her concern. Everyone in his life knew that not much short of a charging bison could take him out, which left only his mother to occasionally fret. There was something charming about being seen as a normal man. “I’m pretty tough.” He held up an arm and flexed, letting the bicep ripple under his shirt.
Okay, now he was just showing off.
Despite his nose telling him that the main house was empty, and despite the fact that Derek knew he could take on just about any threat that could be lying in wait, he waited outside of the tiny house for Sandra to finish. But just because he was waiting didn’t mean that the time had to go to waste. Derek took a walk around the outside of the small house. It didn’t take long to make it all the way around, and he had to give it a second pass before he picked up the faint smell of cigarettes.
Sandra didn’t smoke.
It wasn’t just that he’d never seen her with a cigarette. The smell seeped into a person’s skin. It took months for the smell to dissipate after a longtime smoker quit. Sandra didn’t give off the chemical scent.
She smelled a little like lemon and strawberries, but that was neither here nor there.
The scent was fading fast so Derek breathed in deep, trying to take in as much of it as he could. He’d be able to track it down from memory, but a faint scent would be hard to catch. Whoever this man was, he hadn’t taken a smoke break at the house, that smell would have lingered. And it had been at least an hour or two since he’d been in this spot.
He and Sandra hadn’t been gone more than a few hours. He’d bet that someone was watching the house. He peered out into the woods, trying to see if anyone was out there, but it was just a dense green wall, swaying in the breeze. He caught the scent of a deer, but no humans lingered.
Derek circled back around to the front of the house and was waiting when Sandra came out, her face a bit pale.
“I don’t think they took anything important.” Now that she’d searched the house she seemed to lose a bit of her resolve and she was shaky on her feet. To remedy that, she sank down and sat on the stairs.
Derek joined her and slung an arm around her shoulders, hugging her close, offering comfort. “I can call the sheriff so you can make a police report.” If this had been kids messing around, he wanted them to receive a stern talking to and a bit of a scare. It wasn’t right to go into another person’s house uninvited and trash the place. And if it was someone more sinister, he’d pummel the man into dust.
But the suggestion of police caused Sandra to stiffen. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary. My valuables are all accounted for.” She offered a wan smile, her eyes watery and bloodshot. If she’d cried in the house, she’d been quiet enough that he hadn’t heard a peep.
“That doesn’t make this right.” He tried to think of an argument that would work. But he could see in her eyes that she wasn’t willing to report this. He wanted to ask why, but he didn’t know her well enough yet to intrude. “How about you stay at my place for the night?”
She would say no. If she said no to the sheriff, surely she’d insist on staying home. She’d need to prove to herself that this place was safe.
“You live in a cave!” Was her only protest.
Did she really think that? Derek realized that she’d only seen his garage and the cave room, she’d never been into the proper house. “There are regular rooms,” he insisted. “It’s a normal house.”
“On top of a cave? Are you Batman?” The fear was draining out of her and life was popping back into her face.
More like bear-man, he wanted to respond. “I don’t have a butler, if that’s what you’re asking. But I make a mean stew.”
“Oh, so you’re going to feed me, too?” She sounded hopeful.
“Try and stop me.” Nothing was better than sex, but to a shapeshifter, feeding a meal to a woman he liked was about as close as a man could get.
She was all smiles now, despite the horror of her house behind them. “Let me grab a bag.” Before they left, they looked into the main house, but nothing was disturbed except the dust. Derek couldn’t catch a scent and he didn’t have time to explore further without arousing her suspicion.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rather than ride with Derek to his house, Sandra followed him in her own car. Of course, he’d insisted on checking to make sure whoever had invaded her home hadn’t tampered with the vehicle. And then she’d given the car a once over after him to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
But there was nothing damaged. In fact, she thought that whoever had gone in her house hadn’t touched her little sedan.
Canary’s call was fresh in her mind, but she didn’t think that Ruth had done this. When Ruth was on the warpath, she didn’t give a warning. And when she wanted to talk, she didn’t mess around.
If it wasn’t Ruth, though, that left Sandra at a loss. Only the Sector knew where she was—she’d not even told her family about her move. Hell, she hadn’t seen any of them in six years. And she couldn’t ask the Sector for help. Maybe they’d give it, but it would come at a cost. Sure, s
he wasn’t fit for field duty anymore, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t be used as a human lie-detector.
She’d need to rely on her own skills and her wits to figure out what was going on.
If something was going on.
After all, it could have just been vandals. But Sandra had been hearing thoughts in places where she shouldn’t have for days. It went all the way back to when she first saw that bear. Right now, the only person other than herself that she thought she could trust was Derek. And even then, she knew he was keeping something from her. Why couldn’t she read him? And how was he connected to the bear?
Why did she trust him?
She’d known him for only a few days, and in that time he’d made damn sure to stay close to her. Sandra was the suspicious type. It was a finely honed skill that she’d worked on for the better part of a decade. But she didn’t suspect him. Not of trying to hurt her, at least.
And it wasn’t just the attraction. Sure, lust had a bit to do with it, but it had never clouded her judgment before and she wasn’t about to let it now. She felt in her gut that she didn’t need to fear Derek turning on her. And it was a bit terrifying. Under normal circumstances, her suspicion would lead her to root around in his mind until she could determine his motives. In seconds she could know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether he was friend or foe. But now she only had instinct.
They arrived at his place and she pulled into the slot next to him in the garage. She got out and locked her car, determined to keep her guard up and her suspicion intact until Derek did more than just seem like a decent guy. She needed answers, needed to know who he truly was. It probably had nothing to do with the break-in, but he’d been the one to suggest that she leave the house.
There was plenty of circumstantial evidence!
1. He’d practically kidnapped her days after she moved in.
2. He had some sort of relationship with a bear that could walk upright.
3. He’d asked to be shown around her house and offered to fix it up.
4. He’d invited her into town on the day her place was trashed.
That was just off the top of her head. But he smiled and opened the door for her, leading her into the main portion of his house and Sandra only felt comfort.
Why did it feel so right to be with him?
Sandra followed Derek into his house, directly into his kitchen. All thoughts of intrigue evaporated as she drank in the sight. It was huge! It would have looked huge even if she hadn’t been living in a glorified shack for the past week, but compared to the tiny house, this kitchen was gargantuan.
Her arms shot out, stretching, trying to touch both walls at the same time. It would have been impossible even for someone twice as tall as she was.
One wall incorporated the natural mountain stone and it looked like the room had been built around it, a normal wall somehow straightening out of solid rock.
“Do you need a minute?” Derek was already across the room, hanging his keys on a small rack beside a white cordless phone.
Sandra felt her cheeks heat up and she yanked her hands close to her sides. “You’re not going to let me enjoy the moment?”
In this house, Derek didn’t seem so big. Here he just fit. She still had the strangest sense that he could sling her over his shoulder and carry on like it was nothing, but at least in this house she wouldn’t bang into the wall when he did so.
“I’m sorry,” Derek replied. “I’ll give you a second.”
But the moment was passed. “Why a cave?” Even if there was a normal house on top of it, she still didn’t understand why a person would want to live inside a mountain. He clearly wasn’t a dwarf or anything. And even if he was, she didn’t know how he’d escaped Middle Earth.
He shrugged, “Well, it was easier than building a castle.”
His tone was so even that she couldn’t tell if he was joking. There was something about him that suggested royalty. “You built this place?” It shouldn’t have been surprise. After all, he’d been trying to take over the work at her house since the moment he’d seen it. But it was one thing to renovate, it was another thing entirely to carve a home out a mountain.
“It’s the best way to make sure you get what you want.” He smiled and leaned back against the counter in the center of the kitchen. That island was bigger than her cooking area. But if anything could pull her away from ogling his kitchen, it was the man himself. He was watching her and it took every ounce of strength within not to stare brazenly back.
“But you originally wanted a castle?” Her mind summoned the absurd image of him wearing a fur lined cape with a jewel encrusted gold crown. No, that was far too much. Derek would have been one of those medieval kings with a simple crown. He didn’t need jewels to prove his worth—he carried it within him.
He grinned, and Sandra’s hand itch to reach up and trace the edge of his cheekbone, following the natural line of his smile.
“Maybe a fortress instead. I’m not exactly a leader.” His brows drew down and the smile evaporated.
“A protector, then.”
Derek didn’t argue, but he shifted the conversation, leading her away from the kitchen and upstairs to a bedroom that she could use. The stairs were carved out of the same stone as that wall in the kitchen. She could look outside and see the bright Montana sun, but this house didn’t let her forget that she was inside of a mountain.
Derek left her with an awkward goodbye. They stood in the doorway, he in the hall, she in the room, and for a moment she thought that he would kiss her. She would have let him. But he pulled back at the last minute, standing too close for a handshake and too far for a kiss. He finally settled on placing a hand on her shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze, leaving Sandra puzzled.
She’d pulled away in the car for some reason she didn’t quite understand. After the incident in the hardware store, she was terrified of what would happen if she let him kiss her again, especially so close to her home. But now she was in his home, now she had seen his home, and she was feeling a lot less scared. On the entire ride over, she’d been half convinced that he lived in that cave, the bear there only to keep him company.
But he had a normal, albeit amazing and hand-built, house. He helped his friends, he helped near strangers, he was nice, and funny, and the only really weird thing about him was that she couldn’t read his mind. And the closer they danced, the better Sandra found that to be. She loved the onslaught of his emotions every time they touched, but she also loved the mystery of figuring out what he meant when he spoke. It was so boring to know everything about everybody with barely a stretch of her mental capabilities.
Sandra did hope that Derek wouldn’t be the first of many unreadable people. Maybe the trait ran in his family. If she found that her powers were fading, if they were going away, she didn’t know what she would do. When they first developed, she’d thought she’d gone crazy. Wasn’t hearing stranger’s voices in your head one of those warning signs? But now that she was used to it, now that she could control it, she didn’t want to lose it. Maybe that made her terrible. Some would call what she could do a horrible invasion of privacy.
It probably was. But Sandra had made peace with herself a long time ago. She wasn’t ready to give up who she was.
It felt like she’d come to some sort of momentous decision, but she hadn’t. She still didn’t know if it was her ability or Derek that was weird. If it was her ability, she only knew of one place that could help her figure things out. Would she go back to the Sector? As Sandra hang up the change of clothes in the bedroom sized walk-in closet, she weighed the pros and cons. And when she had laid out her toiletries and tucked her bag under the bed, she still didn’t know what she’d do. The cons outweighed the pros, but not by much. And the protection and resources of the Sector would be worth their weight in gold.
She heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and listened for a thought before she remembered that she was with Derek. She hadn’t exactly forgotten, but it was
instinct, habit at this point and she couldn’t just stop. He knocked on her door and she called out that it was open.
He didn’t swing the door open and barge in, even though it was his own house. The door opened a crack and Derek stuck his head through. “I’m making salmon, are you hungry?”
Her stomach growled, though until that moment she hadn’t realized she was famished. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She gave Derek the biggest smile she could muster, given the circumstances, “I’m starving.”
“I’ll make you a plate.”
A few minutes later, Sandra was back in Derek’s monster kitchen, this time sitting at the table in a nook towards the front side of the house. A wall of windows looked out into the wilderness and the trees were so dense that it was almost like a wall of green wallpaper instead of a vista.
She would have stood by Derek and watched him while he finished preparing the meal, but he’d waved her to sit down with a nervous hand. She didn’t need to read his mind to know that he wanted her to like his food.
There was nothing wrong with the meal. Derek had made salmon just like this a million times. Hell, two million times. It was one of the things he could cook in his sleep, with his hands tied behind his back. But instead of enjoying the meal himself, all he could do was try not to stare and see how Sandra reacted. She cut a precise slice of fish and slowly raised the fork to her mouth.
That mouth distracted him for a moment. If he kept thinking about it, he’d stop worrying about whether or not she liked his cooking. Then he’d have bigger problems. Well, unless he wasn't trying to be modest anymore.
She set the fork down without eating and laughter danced in her brown eyes. A hint of blush rose in her cheeks, but she was otherwise unabashed. “Is it poisoned?”
Derek didn’t know what possessed him. Probably the spirit of lust. He reached slowly across the table and gently pulled her arm across the table until the tines and the piece of salmon resting on them met his lips.
