by J. K Harper
Watching them together, the three of them, the little family unit of father and two children, did a strange thing to her chest again. It squeezed it together in something she intimately recognized as pain. Something she intimately recognized as the bruising knowledge that never in her life had she had that herself. Familiar. Sad. Ugly. Old, old news.
But more importantly, more excitingly, her chest also expanded at the sight. Her heart beat hard as she watched them. It felt so big and happy she caught her breath again.
It made her happy just to watch Riley with his cubs.
What did that even mean?
Riley looked up and just as unerringly, his gaze found hers. He squeezed his children once more and released them to go pelting back to their table with their friends and that darned adorable little Grant bear baby. Then, making her heart beat harder and louder, Riley's eyes locked on hers as he strode directly toward her.
9
Riley barely heard his brothers hollering out that damned country song Slade always like to play every time he was in town and they hung out here at Whatchu Want. The sounds of his children giggling with their friends faded behind him, along with the light bustle of the few other patrons in the restaurant which he knew would soon expand as they neared the dinner hour.
His only focus was the pretty lion girl sitting in the booth with his clan, her eyes locked on his as he strode right up to her.
Ignoring Abby’s and Quentin’s glances, even as they still belted out the song, he bent down and asked Marisa, “Mind if I sit here? My kids told me you were saving seats for them, but Laney courageously said they would give them up so I could sit here with you instead.”
A small sound escaped Marisa’s pretty mouth before her eyes widened and she clamped her lips shut again, looking startled. Behind her, Abby broke away from the song and leaned forward to say over the sounds of the boisterous singing clan, “That’s a record. First you’ve been smiling, now nearly laughter? I knew there was some happy in you somewhere.”
Abby’s grin was big as she said it, and her tone was deeply affectionate. She threw the quickest glance at Riley before turning back to start singing again with the rest of his ridiculous family. Her little look said, She’s doing well. If you make it worse, I will kill you with my bare hands.
Got it.
Marisa’s eyes were still wide. She looked at Riley, but her lips were twitching. She nodded at him to sit down, scooting over a tiny bit so he could slide in next to her. He did, squishing into the booth close enough that his thigh was pressed along hers, their hips touching, and their arms would mash into each other when they ate if he didn’t put an arm on the back of the booth behind her head.
He badly wanted to do that. But he’d learned just like his children had that for whatever reason, Marisa didn’t tolerate uninvited touch. He didn’t like thinking about what that might mean. What might have happened to her in the past. Instead, he twisted in the booth seat so he could look at her. She looked back at him, the corners of her mouth just turning up.
Damn. Lion girl was more than pretty. She verged on beautiful. Not just because she was smiling. Hell, he hated that kind of shit. Telling a woman to smile just to make her pretty. No, Marisa was beautiful because of something else.
Because she looked genuinely happy in this moment.
The shock tingled through him as he realized it was the first time he’d seen anything other than either sorrow or blank nothingness on her face since she’d been here.
Well, except for yesterday when she’d rightfully lost it and yelled at him. Still looking at her, he spoke quietly enough so the crazy singing clan couldn’t hear him, because this was for Marisa’s ears alone.
“Sorry about yesterday. I was a dick to you. The kind of things I said to you, only an absolute ass would say. I could tell you why I said them, but it’s not an excuse because there is no excuse. So, I’m sorry, Marisa.” He leaned the slightest bit toward her to enunciate his words, though not enough to seem intimidating. “I won’t do it again. Ever.”
The way he emphasized that last word, ever, took the smile off her face again. But not in an unhappy way. She stared at him intently, her eyes moving back and forth between his. She was trying to read him. Trying to see into him. He sat there and just let her look.
His bear was so quiet right now, so calm. His bear was always calm when he was around his family, when he knew exactly where his children were and they were safe, but this was different.
His bear was calm and quiet and focused right now because of Marisa. Because she sat right here, next to him. Also safe.
“Okay.” The word was so quiet, so quick, he would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking right at her.
“Okay?”
She huffed out the tiniest breath of air, her lips starting to twitch up again. “Okay, thank you. I mean… I accept your apology? I just mean… Okay.” She floundered, slipping a lip between her teeth and very lightly nibbling on it.
Hoo, damn. That made his dick pay sudden attention. He swallowed, shifting in his seat.
Then, more quietly, she pulled up one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t have much experience with apologies, Riley. In fact, I have no experience with them. I don’t really know what you do when someone says they’re sorry to you.”
Riley felt something dark and hot flash through him. Anger. “Has no one ever apologized to you for anything before? Ever?”
She shook her head, seeming suddenly tense at his tension. He forced himself to take in a breath, blow it out. He wasn’t angry at her, but the sudden flash of it made her afraid. The thought of that suddenly enraged him. He forced it down so he didn’t make the situation even worse.
“You deserve I’m sorrys from people who do you wrong, Marisa. Everyone does. I can tell you’ve had a lot of wrong done to you. Haven’t you.” He didn’t bother making his last statement a question.
Before she could answer, a plastic container of thick, crispy fries was suddenly slid across the booth table, spinning to a stop right in front of the two of them. The waitress jerked her chin at Riley and said, “You, ya big lug. You’re having the rest of your usual, aren’t ya?” The chirpy voice of the server, Casey, spoke just as the country song ended and the rest of the table whooped and howled. She rolled her eyes and shook her head at them, but grinned. Then she gave Marisa a curious glance. “What can I get for you, darlin’?”
Marisa seemed nonplussed at the energetic ball of woman. “I haven’t really looked at the menu yet, I’m sorry. Oh.” She gave Riley a quick glance before looking more firmly back at the waitress. “I mean, I'm not sorry. I mean…oh, just bring me whatever his usual is. I’m starving.”
The waitress, who actually was co-owner of the place, raised her eyebrows but just nodded, sizing up Marisa. Scenting her. Then she leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Gotcha. I’m always starving after a big shift too.” Smiling broadly, she added in normal tones, “Welcome to town, darlin’. I’ll get you guys hooked up with more food in a jif.” She turned to the rest of the table to take their order.
Marisa stared after the woman. “Do the locals know about shifters?” she asked Riley, her voice so low it was almost just a breath. Her voice would have been drowned out anyway. Another honky-tonk song had started up on the jukebox, probably thanks to Slade doing his usual jamming in of quarters into the machine.
Riley kept looking at her as he talked. He decided he really liked looking at her. “We’ve mostly got shifters in town, but we do have a lot of humans who live here. The ones who grew up here know about us. Tourists, though,” he added, giving a quick glance around the still sparsely filled room, though the door kept opening as more people began to come in, “they don’t know. The human ones, that is. Casey’s a shifter too. She knows all of us, and I’m sure she could smell your cat. You know how it is after a shift.”
He gave a quick glance at his kids, as was his habit when he was around them, to just constantly check and make sure they were
still there, were still okay. When Marisa didn’t answer, he glanced back at her. She was looking at him, a slight crease marring her forehead.
“I’m not sure what you mean?” Genuine puzzlement filled her voice.
He regarded her for a long second before answering. Her dark rust-colored hair, a few golden strands lashing through it here and there, framed her face, stopping just short of her shoulders. Pretty eyes, oh, that pretty green he had to damn well admit slayed him every time he looked at her, fixed on his. Her cat still moved deep inside them, a reminder she had a wild, virtually uncontrolled animal in her. Just like he did. Being this close to her, her scent filling him, was going to his head.
But her words didn’t make sense. How could she not understand him? Was being an outcast that lacking in knowledge of how shifters worked?
“After a big shift,” he prompted, watching closely to study her reaction. “How it still clings to us, the scent. Kind of like the memory of being in our wild forms is still hanging onto us, and other shifters can tell.” He tried to keep the puzzlement out of his voice as he spoke, but he knew he couldn’t keep it out of his face.
She flushed slightly, finally moving her eyes down to stare at something fascinating on the tabletop. “Oh. Right. That. Sure, I knew what you meant. I just wasn’t paying attention.”
Shit. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. But he also didn’t want to shy away from things. He glanced briefly at the rest of the booth. Shane had joined them, settling in beside Jessie. They were all laughing like the lunatics they were at some videos on Slade’s phone. None of them paid any attention to Riley and Marisa.
Good. He loved his clan, even when they drove him insane, but he wanted this moment with her to stay as private as it could be. That she was sitting here at all, talking this openly with him in the midst of all the chaotic noise and laughter around them, was some sort of miracle.
“Sorry.” He grabbed her attention with that word. Said it again to be sure she understood he meant it. “Sorry. I know being an outcast isn’t like being in a regular shifter community, and maybe I made an assumption.”
For some reason, she flinched at that. But she kept listening.
“By regular shifter community, I mean in a clan, like bears, or in a pack, like wolves.” His eyes probed hers at that, searching for comprehension. Nothing. Well, again, that wasn’t too weird. Outcasts were almost never made up of single-species groups. They tended to be a mishmash of shifter types. And mountain lions didn’t even have groups, like a bear clan or a wolf pack. They usually had their family unit and that was it. Not to mention her family’s outcast status could have prevented her from understanding some of the shifter world basics. He really needed to remember that.
Carefully, he kept trying. “Or even a whole shifter community like Deep Hollow.” The buzz of the room around them filled the air with all of that. Community, connection, easy space. He was used to it. Grew up with it. The more he spent time with Marisa, the more he realized it was completely foreign to her.
What the fuck had growing up outcast done to her?
Frowning, he tapped his fingers on the squeaky vinyl of the booth. “Marisa, I admit I don’t know much about outcasts. I just mean maybe you didn’t get to experience a lot of the same things I did. But what I don’t mean to do is to imply the way you grew up wasn’t normal.”
Her eyes snapped up to his, fast. This time, something like fear washed over her face. She spoke quickly. “No, that’s true. Things were very different for me growing up. Nothing at all like the way you grew up. Or anyone else here.” She gestured slightly at the rest of the table. “That’s part of why I popped off at you yesterday, Riley. I don’t really know how to…be in a group of regular shifters. I’m sorry.”
His frown deepened. She kept apologizing for things that weren’t her fault. “You didn’t pop off on me, lion girl. You were speaking your truth. And that’s always okay.” The words left his lips almost as a whisper. It was like no one else was even here at the table with them, like they were suddenly in a little bubble of just the two of them talking.
“I was never allowed to speak my truth.” Her gaze seemed far away. “Not growing up, and not with the Nefarious Desperados.”
Riley peeled his lip back in distaste. “Nefarious Desperados? What is that, some sort of wack biker gang?”
She snorted a tiny noise that might almost have been a laugh, except that it was edged by anger. “Just the dumb name of the outcast group. The leader of the group called himself Nefarious. He liked to say he was one nefarious motherfucker in charge of a bunch of desperados.” Her look darkened. “But he was just a huge jerk. A dangerous one who was cruel to all of us.” Another look flitted over her face. One that seemed like she was having an unhappy memory. She looked up at Riley, her gaze searching his. Suddenly serious. “I'm glad I'm not with them anymore. I'd rather be here.”
The last sentence fell out like an unexpected admission. Her eyes widened and she inhaled once, sharp. But she didn't take it back.
Very carefully, not wanting to startle her off, Riley said, “I'm glad you're here too.”
He meant it.
They stayed quiet for a few moments. The laughter of their booth-mates and the growing number of diners in the restaurant provided a cheerful if loud backdrop to the moment.
Finally, Riley took a breath. He wanted to steer the conversation back to what they'd been talking about. “So about you popping off on me. Look. I was an ass to you, I said things I shouldn’t have, and when I thought you were following me, I was even more of an ass. But,” he said, watching her really carefully, talking even more carefully so he didn’t make her shy away, “I think since you’ve been here, you’ve been holding things in. Not really talking about where you came from or anything that happened to you when you were with the outcasts. I think you just needed to let it out, and I gave you that opportunity. And that’s why you popped off on me.”
He ran out of words. Breathing kind of fast, almost nervous, his stomach filled with a weird little tension, he waited for her to respond. He wasn’t usually this open with anyone except the cubs. And they were still kids, so he still shielded most of his pain and insecurities from them.
She searched his face for a long time, seeming as caught up in the quiet moment between them as he was. Finally, she offered a tentative smile that didn’t quite lift her lips. “You know people really well, don’t you? You understand things in a way I don’t think anyone I’ve ever met really does. Why is that?”
Riley grabbed some fries, doused them in ketchup, and shoved them in his mouth to chew and swallow before he answered. “I started getting into meditation and a type of martial arts practice called aikido many years ago. Needed to do it to help me with bunch of stuff in my life. On the way, I learned an awful lot about why people sometimes do what they do and what’s really going on. I’m not perfect at it, hell no. Witness: being a jackass to you yesterday.”
He waved it off as she opened her mouth again, the words I’m sorry beginning to slip out of her pretty pink lips before he stopped her with a savage shake of his head. “Stop saying that. You don’t have to apologize for everything. Like I said, I think others need to start apologizing to you more often. And you need to accept that, Marisa. Because you’re worth it.”
There was a lull at the table. Without thinking, he reached out his big hand to cover hers where it lay cradled in her lap. Just slipped his hand over hers, wanting to comfort her. Natural. She startled under it, fingers tensing.
Shit. She didn’t like being crowded. Or touched without being asked. That she was sitting here, scrunched in this close to others, to him, was more than he’d seen her do yet. He started to pull his hand back, twitching his body away from hers as much as he could in the tiny space he had on the edge of the squeaky booth seat.
Then she shocked the hell out of him.
“Don’t. Come back.” She turned her palm up under his, catching at his hand, and twined her f
ingers over the back of it, stroking his knuckles, tracing the outlines of old scars. “What are these from?”
Her voice was light, almost breathy, but not in a silly, vapid girl way. In a way that said this moment was like the both of them held a tiny little hummingbird egg together, so small and fragile they could crush it without meaning to. She kept her gaze on her fingers, on his scars, but held onto his hand.
She didn’t let go. Or ask him to.
Riley thought the air trapped in his lungs was making him lightheaded. He pushed it out, breathed in again, then turned it into words. “Those are from old fights. From a way of trying to forget what happened a long time ago. A way to make it better.” He shrugged, studying the old scars as well. “Didn’t work. Just left me those reminders. Every time I look at them, I remember.”
Green eyes, shadowed, looked up at him though her fingers still traced the scars. “Remember what?” Her voice was slightly hoarse. Like it was hard for her to ask.
That, Riley understood. Some things were fucking brutal to remember, and he strongly suspected she knew that from a hard place of memories herself.
Before he could answer, her eyes flicked past him in the direction of where he could hear Laney and Finn playing a massive game of tickle with Grant and the Bain girls. Her hand pressed his for a long moment. Firm, like she was trying to etch the feel of his hand in hers.
Looking back at him, she guessed. “Their mom. Right? Something happened to her.”
His bear rumbled. Knowing his eyes were probably just starting to glow, Riley kept his gaze locked on Marisa’s, away from anywhere else in the room. “What do you know about it?”
Marisa shook her head. “Nothing. No one’s ever said anything about her, and your kids haven’t mentioned anything to me, either. But…she’s not here. And you—you’re so angry, Riley. I can sense it, deep down.”
Her voice whispered so low he could barely catch it.
