by Tami Lund
Reid shifted his gaze to the nearby window. She too looked out at the overcast day. The lack of sunlight would adversely affect her. She would be exhausted by the time it was time to go into work, yet she would go anyway, still give it everything she had, because that was what the restaurant owner expected of her.
The customers loved her food, and her coworkers expected her to be there, to guide them, to manage the kitchen, to tell them what to do. Although she was no longer cooking for royalty—or even magical beings—the situation was not dissimilar. While technically she was the hired help, really, she knew she was integral to the operation. Which gave her a strong sense of pride. She didn’t need the coterie. She simply needed to manage a kitchen. Any kitchen would do, even one owned by humans.
“I took some time off when I left my pack,” Reid commented, sounding distracted. “I never really did anything outside of work before, so I have a decent sum saved.”
“Why did you leave? Tanner always indicated that shifters did not like to be without their pack. That he was something of an anomaly for having left.”
She watched as his demeanor closed off, almost as if he was shutting down right before her eyes.
“He was. I probably wouldn’t have, had my pack master not died. Despite the fact that I should have, long before then.”
Carley canted her head and studied him. “Is that a normal reaction to discovering your pack master is dead?”
“No,” he said shortly, so firmly that she knew there was more to it. Yet he was not inclined to expound, other than to add, “My pack was not…typical.”
“So not all shifters believe that to kill us is to inherit our magic?” She avoided looking directly at him as she said it, keeping herself busy making him a second sandwich instead.
He waited until she’d slid the second plate toward him before responding. “No. But my pack master was a very powerful shifter. We were the largest pack in this country. Maybe even in the world. He carried a lot of clout. And he was a ruthless bastard, who never let anyone cross him. Ever.”
Something in his tone told her he knew this from personal experience, but again, he was not inclined to give her any details. And then something occurred to her. “Are you and Tanner from the same pack?”
He nodded. Her heart rate accelerated, but it wasn’t from fear. She knew too many shifters from that pack who did not believe the same way the pack master had. Her issue was far different. It was a fear that Reid would suddenly develop an urge to visit the coterie, where a handful of his former pack mates had taken up residence.
She tried to move the conversation away from the coterie. “What was your all-consuming job, before you left the pack?”
He waited until he’d swallowed a massive bite of sandwich before responding. “I was a house guard. That means I basically hung out at the pack master’s house all day, ensured no one did anything to displease him when he was there, and protected the house from potential intruders when he wasn’t. In the human world, I would have been referred to as a guard dog.” His smile was brittle. He snagged the home-canned pickle next to the sandwich on his plate and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Security guard, actually,” Carley corrected. “A guard dog would literally have fur and walk around on all fours. All the time.” She said it deliberately, because he seemed to believe his job had not been important, hadn’t mattered. But it had. She was sure of it.
“I’m pretty sure this is the best chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten,” he said, breaking through her worrisome train of thought. “Do you offer this at the restaurant?”
“Only at lunch. It’s the avocado. A highly underutilized vegetable, in my opinion.” She paused, then asked, “Do you plan to go back into security, at some point?”
Reid strode over to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of beer. In a short time, he’d become extremely comfortable in her home. Likely because he was there almost as frequently as she was.
She watched as he lifted the bottle to his lips and drained half of it in one drink. He then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I don’t intend to go back to my pack. Beyond that, I haven’t really given it much thought.”
* * * *
It had been a month since he entered her life, and he had barely touched her, aside from helping her out of her coat each night, when they arrived at her house after work. He was simply always…there. It was startling and unnerving to discover that she wanted him to touch her. She hadn’t actually desired the touch of a man in…ever.
“Give the guy a break, Carley.”
It was early Sunday evening, and Carley and Vivian were both off work, which was a rarity, at least for Carley. Normally, she preferred to work as much as the restaurant manager would let her. Throwing herself into her job kept her mind away from thoughts that she would just as soon avoid. Forever.
They were making dinner for the handful of roommates who were also off work that evening.
“What are you talking about, Vivian?”
“Go out with him already. He’s more than paid his dues, don’t you think?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Yes, you do,” Vivian insisted as she sliced mushrooms for a salad. “I know you refuse to talk about it, but I also know that something happened to you in a previous life. It doesn’t take a psychology degree to figure out it had something to do with a guy. And I’m assuming it’s not this particular guy. But you’re making him pay for someone else’s mistakes. And all I’m saying is, I think he’s paid for it by now. So cut him a break and take him out somewhere.”
Carley’s gaze strayed to the door. Reid was on the other side, down the hall, in the living room, playing a video game with Roman and Sean.
“I’m so afraid, Viv,” she admitted. Curiously, admitting made her feel…less afraid. She hadn’t told anyone about her relationship with Miguel. She’d always preferred to keep it hidden, keep the past buried, hoping if she pretended it wasn’t there, it really wouldn’t be.
“He won’t hurt you,” Vivian insisted. “Trust me. I’ve gone out with some serious losers. I know the signs. This guy is not one of them. I think he’s one of the good ones. Maybe a little too intense for my taste, but that’s just me. He’s crazy about you, Carley. And it’s high time you let him show you just how crazy he is.”
“Crazy about me?” Carley squeaked. Her? “You don’t know that, Viv.”
Vivian gave a sharp nod. “I do too. The way the man looks at you, I can’t believe you don’t combust under the heat of it.”
“I think you missed your calling,” Carley said, decidedly tongue-in-cheek. “You should have been a writer.”
Vivian chuckled and waved her knife at the door. “Go. I got this. Go take him somewhere so that you can have a little more privacy.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for more privacy,” Carley said as she gnawed on her lower lip.
“Then just go for a walk or something. Jeez, Carley. Haven’t you ever asked a guy out on a date before?”
No. She never had. She had never even dated before. Her parents had all but controlled her life, until they forced her to mate to Miguel, and then he had maintained control. Dating had not been on the agenda.
She washed her hands and slipped off the apron she’d been wearing over her sweater and leggings. Then she smoothed her hair away from her face, nervously flipping the braid over her shoulder. She took a deep breath, walked through the dining room, and paused in the arched doorway.
While the other two men continued to be entranced by the video game playing out on the television screen before them, Reid’s head twisted the moment she stepped into the room. His gaze was hungry as he watched her, steadily, as if waiting to see what she planned to do. As if his next move was determined by hers.
“Would you—would you like to go for a walk?” She licked her lips and twisted her hands together.
Without taking his eyes off her, Reid thrust the video game controller at Sean and s
trode across the room until he was standing directly in front of her. Roman snorted.
“Whipped,” he called out. Reid and Carley ignored him.
“Yes,” Reid said, and he held out his hand in invitation.
A few short moments later, they walked side by side, Carley bundled in a heavy woolen coat, scarf, hat, and mittens, Reid in a black leather jacket that he didn’t even bother to zip.
“You shifters are lucky to have such an elevated body temperature,” she commented after a few minutes. She stuffed her hands deeper into her coat pocket.
“Are you cold?” Reid inquired, and without waiting for an answer, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She stiffened. He sighed and dropped his arm.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“No,” she said. And then more gently, “I never have. Not with anyone. It—it isn’t easy.”
“I imagine not,” he replied, and he did not push.
They stopped at a coffee shop, and Reid bought them each a coffee. He offered to stay inside where it was warm, but Carley said she wanted to walk, so they walked.
“You were right, the other day,” she said as she sipped at the hot liquid. “When you said I needed to spend more time outdoors, to regenerate. I can’t wait for spring to finally arrive.”
“Why do you live so far north? I would think the lightbearers would have settled somewhere that sees more sunshine than we do in this area.”
Carley smiled. “Which is exactly why we didn’t, when we went into hiding five hundred years ago. The king at the time was wise enough to know that he should stay away from the obvious hiding places. He settled on a remote location on the shores of Lake Michigan, and over time, we all adapted. You should see the taverns in our coterie. All glass. And they close by ten o’clock at night, since few lightbearers stay up much later than that.” She chuckled as she sipped her coffee.
“Do you miss it?”
“Every day,” she admitted as they wandered through a park that stretched along the southern shore of Lake Michigan.
“Why did you leave? Was it because of him?”
Carley’s muscles tightened. She knew he had come to his own conclusion that someone had hurt her, and she had not been able to disavow him of that notion. He had no idea what happened, beyond that. She sucked in a lungful of cold air and then exhaled slowly. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “Partially. There were a number of reasons, although he was the predominant one.”
“Did you not have family? Anyone who could help?”
Her smile was bitter this time. “I never told anyone. And some things happened…It was a dangerous time, and I knew the safest thing was for me to leave when I did.”
They fell silent for a short while. Reid seemed to sense when she did not want to say more, and he did not press. After a while, she circled around to his former pack, and asked why he was in Chicago, seemingly alone.
“Aren’t shifters naturally inclined to want to be part of a pack?” she asked.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “We are. That’s probably why I’m here, in a highly populated area, as opposed to holing up on a secluded mountain somewhere.”
“Do you miss being part of a pack?”
He sipped his drink and stared out over the open water of Lake Michigan. The wind was stronger when standing on the edge of the lake like this, and it whipped at his hair, his coat, her heart. He looked so…lonely, she decided. She was surprised at her own desire to want to chase away whatever demons were hidden in his memories. She knew precious little about him, but she knew enough about his kind from the shifters living in the coterie to understand he likely had a very good reason for escaping into the human world. Just like her.
“I miss my family.”
“What happened to them?”
“I think my brother is dead. My sister moved to Tennessee years ago, and as far as I know, she’s still there, still safe. My parents…I don’t know. I hope they managed to make their way to my sister. Hopefully they have been absorbed by that pack. I’ve barely spoken to my sister in eight years, but she was deliriously happy when she left with her new mate.”
“What happened that you all were separated?”
“My sister fell in love and mated with a guy from a pack in Tennessee. Our pack master let her go, but then refused to let any of us ever visit her.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged.
“Were you close with your family?”
He nodded. “Yes. Very. Leaving my pack was only hard because of the unknown, of the idea of surviving on my own. Leaving my family was hard on a whole different level.”
“I’m not close with my family. My parents, I mean.”
“No?”
Carley hunched her shoulders against the wind whipping off the lake. “They considered me a failure, because I refused to kowtow to their beliefs.”
“Which were?”
“That lightbearers should associate—and mate with—lightbearers, and no other beings.”
They fell silent for a short while after that statement. Eventually, they turned away from the lake and headed back toward the house where Carley lived. She finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been plaguing her almost since she met Reid.
“Why me? Why are you still here, almost a full month later?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I know why I’m still here. That’s because I’m a shifter, and we’re obsessive by nature. I can’t give up until I reach my goal. As to why I chose you, I have no idea.” He sounded as mystified as she felt.
“What is your goal?”
“To be with you.”
“Oh.” She did not know what else to say. Other than, “I’m not sure I can, Reid. I’ve never…that is…Sex—relationships—they’ve never been particularly…appealing.”
Reid gently grasped her elbow and pulled her to a stop. They stood in the middle of a bike path in a park, during the late afternoon. Despite the chilly weather, there were plenty of humans out and about, walking dogs and jogging, going to work or heading home or walking toward nearby Miracle Mile, to spend their hard-earned money.
She lifted her face to look at him, and he gently cupped her cheek. “I’d like to change that opinion,” he said.
She nuzzled his hand. It felt good. “What if I’m a lost cause?”
“You aren’t,” he said with absolute conviction.
She smiled at his tone. “Such confidence,” she teased.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
She stiffened. Her eyes widened, and she abruptly stopped nuzzling his hand.
“Now that you are expecting it, why don’t you try to relax?” he suggested, without making a move toward her.
She tried, she really did. But she couldn’t. The fear left over from the experience with Miguel, coupled with a strange sensation of anticipation had her so on edge, she felt like a rubber band stretched to capacity, and yet someone was trying to stretch some more. She was so distracted by the feeling that she did not even resist when Reid bent his head and brushed his lips across hers.
Her lips puckered automatically, but he was already gone, leaning away, watching her closely. She lifted two fingers and touched her lips, bemused.
“That’s it?” she managed to ask after a moment’s hesitation.
Reid smiled a lazy, confident smile. “Not remotely,” he promised. “That was just a taste. A very small taste.”
“It…it was nice.”
“It was. The problem is, I don’t particularly want nice.”
“Oh.” What did he mean by that?
“Which is why we are going to continue walking now, before that look on your face encourages me to overstep my bounds.” He snagged her hand and gave it a tug, and she stumbled into step with him, as they continued walking down the bike path.
A short time later, when they returned to her home, Reid dropped her on the doorstep and did not go inside, as had become common practice. He apparently
couldn’t resist one more kiss, though, however simple, however much it made her ache for more. Then he abruptly straightened and gave her a little push toward the door. He stepped away, and turned and strode down the sidewalk toward his own home.
* * * *
“He wants a private cooking lesson?” Carley was dumbfounded. No one had ever asked for private cooking lessons before.
“Well, I suggested it, actually.” Sam, the restaurant manager, nodded enthusiastically.
“What do you mean?”
Sam shrugged. “The guy’s in here every single night. Literally. Last night, I asked him why he dined here all the time. He said yours was the best cooking he’d ever tasted in his life. So I suggested a private lesson. If this goes over, it could be a whole new form of income for the restaurant,” he said, eagerness etched into his features. “The price I gave him was outrageous, too, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash.”
Of course he didn’t. Sam had played into his hands, however inadvertent it might have been.
“Sam, I can’t—”
“Weirdly enough, he seemed to believe you would refuse. I told him not to worry, that I’d talk you into it.”
“Sam—”
“Come on, Carley. This is perfect. You whip up a steak, show him the basics, and you’re done. I’ll pay you for an entire shift’s work, when you’re only going to be there for a couple hours tops.”
“It’s not that simple, Sam. It’s—”
The man would not let her finish a sentence. Nor would he give up on his grand idea of hiring her out as a personal chef. Starting with Reid as their first client.
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?” she yelped. “I can’t plan something like this by tonight.”
Sam shook his head. “You don’t have to plan anything. I have the menu right here.” He waved a piece of paper, on which someone had written in sharp block letters:
STEAK
POTATO
VEGETABLE
KEY LIME PIE
The manager frowned. “He wasn’t particular about the vegetable. Said he didn’t even care if it was included, but that you would.”
Carley’s lips twitched. Already, he knew her well. But then she shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
