by Zoe Chant
She changed into a clean shirt, one of the cool, silky ones she liked best. Color didn't matter to her, but fabric textures did; it was almost time for soft knit sweaters again, as the weather turned cooler, but this warm evening was perfect silk-shirt weather. And then she undid her hair from the braid. She brushed and brushed it, until it floated in a soft cloud over her shoulders, as silky smooth as the cool folds of her shirt.
Her small number of jewelry items were kept in a bowl on her dresser, carved from a piece of knotty pine—a gift from her sister, a long time ago—and covered with a handkerchief to keep the dust out. She liked jewelry that felt good to her fingers and had a nice weight against her skin. Running her fingertips over the contents of the bowl, she picked out a squash-blossom necklace and a pair of teardrop-shaped earrings that she clipped to her ears.
Feeling fancy and a bit silly, she toed off her shoes and padded barefoot across the cool floors into the living room. The roast smelled good and she knew from experience that it wouldn't need to be checked on until the timer went off. Verity got her audiobook player from its shelf and went out onto the balcony.
It felt luxurious to take the afternoon off, like playing hooky from school. She sat on a deck chair with her bare feet curled under her and the audio player in her lap, but she didn't put in the earbuds. She was perfectly contented just to sit here and soak up the sounds from around her: children shouting and laughing in neighbors' yards, a radio playing somewhere down the street, and Maddox's intermittent hammering noises from below. The balcony was in shade, the dry autumn heat pleasant after the baking oven of summer.
After awhile, Maddox's footsteps mounted the stairs. She already knew him by his steps, the same way she knew Bailey. The footsteps faltered and slowed as he neared the top of the stairs, and then he said, quietly, "Wow."
"Wow?" she asked, turning her face his way with a smile.
"You look ..." He stopped and took a breath. "I mean, you always look good. But you look ... wow."
No one had ever told her that she looked good before. It was sudden and startling and it took her breath away. She didn't actually know—if she was pretty, if she was plain, or somewhere in between.
She wasn't quite sure what to say in reply. You too? He did, to her, but people always reacted oddly when she said things like that. But Aunt Verity, Bailey had said when she was a little girl and Verity, braiding her hair, had told her what pretty hair she had (it was so smooth and soft, running through her fingers), you can't SEE me!
Maddox broke the silence by clearing his throat. "So this nice T-shirt you gave me ... I kinda got it all sweaty."
Verity laughed. "Go downstairs and get another one from the storeroom. Pick out whatever you like. We have plenty and they don't sell very well. I also wouldn't object if you wanted to use the shower."
She could hear the smile in his voice as he said, "Are you saying I stink?"
He definitely did not stink. She could smell him, but it was a pleasant masculine smell from hard work and exercise. "I just think you might be more comfortable that way. I know how much I appreciate a quick shower to cool off after working in the garden. Oh," she called as his feet went down the stairs, "and make sure to drink some water!"
His voice floated back up the stairs. "Yes, ma—Right, got it, that'll be two quarters in the jar. Right away."
Chapter Seven: Maddox
Maddox took his time in the shower, scrubbing himself with shampoo that smelled like girls—a nice smell, floral and perfumey. He felt a little weird smelling like that, but he wanted to smell nice for Verity.
Fast shifter healing had reduced the scrapes to mostly-healed pink lines on his skin, the bruises to faded yellows and browns. His ribs still hurt sharply when he twisted wrong, and he had to step carefully on his injured ankle and take it a little easy on his wrist. But he was feeling a lot better despite having probably overdone it a bit today. For a human, it would be like the hit-and-run had happened a couple of weeks ago, rather than yesterday.
His body needed to replenish itself from somewhere, though. He was really looking forward to the roast he could smell cooking all over the house.
He put on the clean T-shirt he'd picked up downstairs, another tourist one with a prospector leading a donkey, and climbed back into his stiff, dirty jeans. If the sheriff had gotten rid of his pack (definitely what he would have done, in that situation), he was going to have to buy new pants before too long. And socks. In fact ... thinking of Verity's bare feet (long beautiful feet, peeping out from under her skirt), he decided to leave his shoes off and go barefoot around the house this evening.
Where all this was leading to, he wasn't sure. He knew where he wanted it to lead, but he was also scared to push it. He was a bull, charging into things without thinking them through. But this was too important. He needed to take it slow and careful, not trample or wreck things, just ... let it go where it was going to go.
When he came out of the bathroom, Verity was just taking the pot roast out of the oven, her hands encased to the elbows in the longest oven mitts he'd ever seen. He stopped in the kitchen doorway, not wanting to disturb her in the middle of dealing with hot dishes.
And also because he wasn't sure if he could have said anything if he'd wanted to. When he first saw her, she'd made him think of an angel, and the effect was even stronger now: the gorgeous cloud of gray-laced brown hair, the drifting skirt brushing the ankles of her bare feet ...
Except she wasn't, of course. She was a woman, a very beautiful woman, and part of what made her beautiful was how down-to-earth she was. Her bare feet were smudged with dirt and the hem of her skirt had grass stains, so he guessed she'd been down in the garden for a bit while he was in the shower.
"That's you, right?" she said over her shoulder, and he jumped. "I was thinking we could eat outside if you want to. It's so nice out there. It'll mean dishing up our plates in here, since there's not much room on the balcony and I don't really want to carry this roasting pan all the way down the stairs."
"Eating outside sounds great." Eating inside sounded great too, as long as she was there.
"Could you get some plates out? Top cabinet beside the sink. Just two plates," she added as she set the dish on top of the stove. "Bailey won't be eating with us tonight. She's over at her boyfriend's folks' house."
Just the two of them. He wouldn't have minded seeing her niece again, but his heart leaped at the idea of having an evening alone with her.
"You're probably wondering about the oven mitts," she remarked, stripping them off. "Bailey sewed these for me, because I kept accidentally burning my arms when I was cooking. It's all too easy, when you deal with the world mainly through touch, to brush up against things that you shouldn't have."
"It must be hard," Maddox said without thinking, then backpedaled. "I mean, not that you aren't good at it. And stuff."
"Well, it is hard in some ways, of course." She picked up the roast with a pair of barbecue forks and transferred it briskly to a serving dish for slicing. "Of course I wouldn't say it's not. But it's also just how my life is, you know? I've been blind since birth. I've never known any other way to be."
"That makes sense to me." He thought about being a shifter, which did complicate his life in various ways, but he also couldn't imagine giving up his shifter animal. With his bull only in occasional contact with him and his ability to shift in question, he felt like half a man. He couldn't imagine having it gone completely.
"Bailey wants me to look into getting surgery done. They can do amazing things these days. But I don't even know if surgery could help me, and I've also read that people who regain their eyesight as adults can't always learn how to see properly anyway. Your brain doesn't know how. You have to learn it, and some people never learn. I might trade the world I know for a confusing world of shapes I don't know how to interpret, and who wants that?"
"It doesn't seem to slow you down," Maddox said as she reached for a plate, and Verity laughed.
"I try not to let it. Here, dish yourself up and we'll go down and eat in the garden. Could you do me a favor and bring the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge?"
She navigated the stairs with no visible difficulty, a plate in one hand and her skirt held up with the other. Maddox heaped his plate with roast beef and potatoes, then followed more slowly. He'd been getting around fine without his cane in the apartment and garden (the cane was downstairs, leaning against the wall of the shop) but descending the stairs with both hands full took some concentration. His hip and ankle both ached; his ribs twinged whenever he moved. He really had overdone it today.
But he felt good about it. This had been a day well spent; he was tired, but satisfied. He really was good at fixing things. He'd almost forgotten that.
He found Verity waiting for him in the garden, at a patio table with two plastic chairs.
"I love this time of day the best," Verity said as he sat down. She poured two glasses of lemonade, finding the rim of the glass with her fingertips. "Especially at this time of year, when it's not so hot and it's nice to be outside. It's just so peaceful. Bailey says the shadows in early evening look purple to her, and I think this time of the evening just feels ... purple. That's the best way I can describe it."
Maddox looked around at the garden drowsing in the last rays of the evening sun, a riot of flowers and foliage, seemingly out of control but actually obeying an internal sense of order that became more apparent the more he looked at it. Bees hummed lazily in the sun-drenched air, and there was a hint of coolness taking the edge off the heat of afternoon.
"It's really pretty," he said, and then felt immediately guilty because she couldn't see it; did she mind him saying that?
But she just smiled and said, "Yes."
They ate in silence for a little while, and Maddox could feel the peace of this place seeping into his bones, soothing away tension and stress he hadn't even been aware he was carrying around. The injustice of someone wanting to drive Verity away from here seared him to the bottom of his soul.
"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" Verity asked as the sun slipped below the rim of the world and dusk began to gather in the corners of the garden. "You seemed in such bad shape last night, but you've been working all day."
"It's okay. Helps keep me from getting too stiff." He looked down at the plate, where he'd demolished an enormous heap of pot roast. "Hope you weren't counting on leftovers, though."
Verity laughed.
"So ... you mind if I ask a kinda personal question?" Maddox said after a minute.
"Sure. Go ahead."
"I was just wondering about Bailey. She's your niece, right? How'd she come to live with you?"
"Oh, yes, Bailey. My little butterfly." Verity smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners, but it was a wistful smile. A sad smile. "Her mother, my sister, had ... a troubled life, I guess you'd say. She wasn't a very happy person. She drank a lot, did drugs off and on, and Bailey's father was not a nice man. Thankfully he's in prison now and not a part of Bailey's life at all. Several years ago, my sister was in a drunk-driving accident, and she ... didn't make it." By now the smile had faded completely, leaving her face bereft, her eyes damp.
"Jeez." Words seemed inadequate. "I'm so sorry."
"Me too," Verity said, her voice soft. "She had such a hard life. I always hoped she'd turn it around, but she never seemed to be able to. But she loved Bailey, and we had already drawn up paperwork to make sure that Bailey would come live with me if anything happened to her. Bailey and I were already close, so I made up the second bedroom for her, and I haven't had a single regret ever since. She's a sweet girl and she's growing into a wonderful young woman."
"Her boyfriend seems like a good kid, too."
"He is. I don't have any worries about her when she's with him ... well, unless both of those two let their hearts run away with their heads and get into well-intentioned idiocy like the other night. But at least I know if they get hurt, it'll be trying to do the right thing." She topped off their lemonades from the last of the pitcher's contents. "I'm so glad you were there for them. That could have gone very badly, otherwise."
"You think he's gonna come after them again?" Maddox asked.
"I don't know. I think probably not. He'll be too busy coming after you." She grimaced. "Maddox, please be careful. These people don't like it when someone stands up to them."
"I know." He knew all too well. He'd been on the other side of it, doing dirty work for men like Ducker. "But that's when someone's got to."
***
They took their dishes inside and cleaned up quietly, moving around each other in the small kitchen. It was shockingly easy to fall into sync with Verity, needing no words, scraping plates and handing them to her where she stood at the sink, taking the containers of leftovers she passed him and putting them away in the fridge.
He was very aware of her warmth and curves as she brushed past him. In the kitchen's close confines, they could barely turn around without touching each other. Her skirt whispered past him; her long hair brushed his arm as she turned to put the dishes away; her hip touched his thigh and then moved away.
It was not flirtatious; it was more than that. It was a sense of growing energy between them, the electric awareness that they were building toward something, and they both knew what it was.
She turned around from the sink just as he turned from wiping down the table, bringing them suddenly face-to-face, bumping into each other in a soft collision. Verity laughed quietly and raised clean-washed hands smelling of dish soap, not to push him away but to lay her palms against his chest through the T-shirt. She tilted her head back, her hair tumbling in a smoky cascade down her back.
When he hesitated—overwhelmed by her nearness, by the sweet female scent of her—she said with a hint of impatience, "So am I completely misreading the signs here, or are you planning on kissing me?"
Her lips were honey-sweet. His first kiss was a gentle sip, but she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he placed a hand at the base of her spine and pulled her against him. Their kisses grew heated and frantic, Verity half climbing him with her bare foot pressed against his thigh.
"Bedroom?" she gasped, breaking the kiss, and he laughed out loud against her lips and swept her up, lifting her with hands cupped beneath her sweet round buttocks. She laughed too, wrapping her legs around his waist.
He carried her down the hall, still kissing her frantically, hungrily. The ache in his hip and the lingering discomfort of his healing bruises receded until he barely felt it for the heat coursing through his body. Through her rucked-up skirt he could feel the strength of her muscular thighs flexing against him. As soon as he laid her on the bed she began wriggling out of the skirt, while he stripped off the borrowed T-shirt and followed with his pants, leaving them crumpled on the floor.
Verity was unbuttoning her blouse now. Maddox knelt on the bed and put his hands over hers. "Let me do it."
He undressed her like unwrapping a gift. Her skin was glorious, sweet and smooth; he kissed every inch of her shoulders, her breasts, the curve of her stomach, with pauses to sample her sweet lips in between.
When he came to her at last, pressing into her silken heat, she rose to meet him with a gasping cry. Her body worked against him, sweat glistening on her skin as he thrust into her and she gave small, delighted moans that drove him to greater and more intense heights.
She clenched around him and that pushed him over the edge, and as he came, something seemed to wake inside him—like a connection snapping into place, a circuit closing, a half-finished sentence finding its ending.
He sank down slowly onto her, propping himself on his elbows to avoid putting too much weight on her, and as he gazed down at her blissed-out face and half-closed gray eyes, all he could think was: Mate.
She was their mate. And now he felt it, with overwhelming intensity.
Why didn't we feel this before?
Maybe because she couldn't see us, we couldn
't see her? His bull seemed equally baffled.
Whatever the reason, it was there now—and he now understood why mated shifters spoke of it as an undeniable and unquantifiable thing; he knew why they said things like You'll just know. Because he did just know. This woman was the one for him, always and forever.
He rolled off to curl beside her, taking her gently into his arms. She ran a hand lightly over his chest and collarbone and shoulders, as if she was mapping his skin with her fingers—and that was, he realized, exactly what she was doing.
"Too fast?" he asked into her hair, and she burst into a girlish giggle.
"Just fast enough. You have no idea how long it's been since—well. Since." Her hand moved lower, stroking across his ribs, his hip; her fingers lingered over the ridges of the mostly healed road rash. "I keep forgetting you were in a hit-and-run just a couple of days ago. I don't want to hurt you."
"It was fine. I heal pretty fast. I always have."
"You must." She touched his side again. "It hardly even feels like you were hurt at all."
This conversation was starting to stray too close to things they were going to have to talk about eventually—but not now. Not tonight. Not when he'd only just found his mate, and had her warm, soft nakedness cradled in his arms. "How 'bout you? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
She giggled again. "Trust me, those were definitely not noises of pain." She pressed her lips lightly to his collarbone. "And I'm really not sleepy yet. I suppose you couldn't possibly be ready again, but—"
"You'd be surprised," he said, and rolled her over, to the delightful sound of her startled, happy laughter.
Chapter Eight: Verity
Verity woke to the delicious warmth of Maddox curled around her, his scent and the tickle of his stubble against her cheek.
It was a Saturday, so she didn't have to get up early to open the store; on Saturdays she didn't open until noon. In fact, she didn't have to be anywhere. She drowsed pleasantly until she heard Bailey moving around in the kitchen, the creak of footsteps and the sound of running water.
