"You big fibber. You let me think we were sneaking in."
"And you loved it. Still my good little girl," he snickered.
She had loved it, but she wasn't going to admit it. "How long have you been living with Edna and Edith?"
"A few years. After Boss and my mother left, I slept at the garage. I showered at Stan's or your folk's place. The Mate figured I could use a real bed and my own shower, and the twin's needed help around the place."
"No wonder you know so much about their sleeping habits. So tell me, has Bradley Dearest replaced Dear Earnest?" she teased.
"A night with me would kill them," he laughed, "but they'd die happy."
"Oh don't be so sure, cowboy. It seems to me you're slowing down in your old age. They'd probably wear you out."
"We'll see who's slowing down and who wears who out," he growled, and to her giggling delight, he dragged her over to straddle him.
"Hey! This means I'll be doing all the work."
"About time," he said. "You play cowgirl for a while. I'll just lay here and watch." But, of course, he couldn't. Giving up control wasn't Brad's idea of a good time.
His stamina and recovery amazed her. At last and exhausted, they lay together side by side in a tangle of blankets and sheets.
And for the first time in a long, long time, Livvy Dawson heard her wolf sing.
Tears filled her eyes. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, needed to say to him. He needed to know how sorry she was to have left him, to have hurt him for no reason good enough to be forgiven. She needed to ask for that forgiveness anyway. She had to admit that it was her selfishness and greed that caused all his pain. She wanted to tell him she would spend the rest of her life soothing it away if only he'd let her. She turned her head to him.
"Brad, there are things I need to tell you, things you probably won't understand, but..."
He pressed his finger to her lips. "Don't, Livvy, not now. Just give me the magic of this night. Please."
He had given her everything. She could give him that. She nodded silently.
Energy spent, Brad closed his eyes. Livvy closed hers, too, with thoughts of reliving the night before she slept, but sweet exhaustion claimed her, too.
Chapter 16
"Heaven."
Livvy awakened with the word. She wasn't sure if she dreamed it or Brad had spoken it aloud.
They were facing in opposite directions, backs snug against each other. The faint grey light coming through the window told her it was not quite dawn. The snow had stopped and the wind had ceased.
"God's in his heaven, all's right with the world."
She remembered her mother saying those words when Livvy was just a pup. She was in college before she learned they were from a Robert Browning poem. She loved that poem and thought the line perfect for what she felt at that moment. The magic was back, along with the pure joy of running as a wolf in a world filled with the sights, and sounds, and smells that were Gilead. But better than Gilead or magic, Brad was back.
She loved him. She always had. She'd told herself it was a teenaged infatuation, the bad boy hero trope, a girl's fantasy come true. The drama, excitement, and near tragedy of his sacrifice for what she thought of as a noble cause, had fit that fantasy and made the dream seem real. She'd told herself that she'd outgrown him, thought she'd found better, but all she'd found was more. More things, not more of what she knew she was missing. That had always been here in Gilead, and in the wolver lying beside her in heavenly exhaustion.
She'd forgotten that he always mumbled in his sleep. Sometimes his face would turn angry and he'd swear. A few times he laughed, and once, he'd cried. He said they were only dreams and she took his word for it. Knowing it embarrassed him, she never asked him what he dreamed about.
She hoped his current dream was of her and the night they'd just spent together. She hadn't dreamed at all. The reality was better than any possible fantasy her sleeping mind could concoct. She couldn't imagine anything better than this.
Her body stirred at her thoughts and she wondered what Brad's response would be if she awakened him with roving hands that asked for more.
"More maybe, but not better." Her mother was right about that, too.
What a fool she'd been. It frightened Livvy to think that she had almost thrown it all away. She would have let it slip through her fingers again had it not been for her wolf.
"Thank the Good Lord for wise wolves and Mama's elixir," she thought with a smile.
Her wolf purred happily inside her, at last content.
So focused was she on her own feelings, she missed his next comment which was little more than a sleepy rumble. Brad moved, breaking their skin-to-skin connection, but she made no move to follow. Instead, relaxed and happy, she spoke.
"I love you," she whispered and waited, smiling, to see if he would reply.
"Don't get your hopes up. A friendly fuck. That's all it was. Don't make it into something more."
The smile died. Her throat closed. She couldn't speak. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. Was that all this was to him? A friendly reunion of old lovers? A friendly fuck to burn off the sexual high of the shift? Or was it more?
"What goes around, comes around." Didn't her mother always say that, too?
Was this Brad's revenge for what she done to him? To feel the heart crushing pain that she'd caused him? If so, he deserved congratulations for a job well done.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she eased from the bed, found Brad's tee shirt on the floor by the door, and slipped it over her head. Lastly, she grabbed a woolen afghan of loosely crocheted pink and green squares that had been folded at the foot of the bed when she'd entered the room the night before, but was now heaped in the corner.
She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could with shaking hands, and drew the afghan around her like a cloak. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard him call her name in question. His voice was groggy with sleep. She tiptoed the rest of the way down. The smell of frying bacon emanated from the kitchen. The twins were already up and chattering away.
Livvy stopped on the step above the landing, hidden by the wall, and unable to think what to do next. All her mind understood was that she needed to get away, from this house and from the wolver upstairs, or she would scream. She couldn't take the twins' bubbly cheerfulness or their polite, but probing, questions. Not now. Not today. Not ever. They mustn't know she was ever here. She risked a peek around the doorframe.
In pink and green fluffy robes belted over identical white flannel nightgowns, the twins were at the kitchen stove. Their hair was tightly rolled in pink plastic curlers. Edna, laying bacon in a cast iron skillet, stood aside to give Edith access to the oven.
"Blueberry muffins and a sour cream coffee cake with streusel topping," Edna chirped. "I couldn't decide which to make, so I made them both."
"It is a celebration, after all," Edith added and then covered her bow shaped mouth with her chubby little fingers. "Do you think scrambled will do or would coddled be more festive?" She clapped her hands and answered her own question before her sister could. "I know, omelets!"
"Perfect! And very wise," Edna agreed. "Then you can use the beaten eggs. Waste not, want not. Dear Ernest would be so pleased by this celebration of connubial bliss."
Livvy bit her knuckle to keep from crying out. The twins were probably the only wolvers in town who could use those words with a straight face and get away with it. At any other time, the old fashioned term would have made her smile, but at that moment, the words cut through her like a knife. There was nothing blissful about being made a fool of or having Gilead's biggest gossips witnessing the humiliation.
"I do miss him," Edna added wistfully. "Especially at times like this."
"As do I," her sister agreed in the same dreamy voice. "Dear Ernest was such a romantic, and how he would have loved to celebrate something so wonderful. He would be so happy to think it happened in our very own house, too."
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"Do you think we should call the Mate?"
"Not yet. Remember? She made us promise not to call until after eight. I think the Alpha may be very demanding of her time," Edith tittered.
"A lady must do her duty," her giggling sister agreed. "And speaking of time, look at the clock. It's already a quarter to six. We must hurry, sister. It wouldn't do to greet our guests in our night clothes."
"We must find something for poor Livvy, too."
"Oh my, yes. It reminds me of the Alpha and the Mate, before they were Alpha and Mate, of course." Edna pursed her lips in disapproval and shook her head. The pink hair rollers bobbled with the movement. "I don't know why they always bring them home naked. Dear Ernest would be shocked."
"Do you think?" Edith asked and her sister giggled.
"No, not for a minute, but at our age, a semblance of propriety must be maintained."
Tittering their high pitched giggles, the two left the room.
"They sleep like the dead," Livvy muttered as she hurried to the back door. "Guess he lied about that, too."
They couldn't call the Mate, but that didn't mean they couldn't call others. By eight o'clock, half the village would know of her humiliation. By noon, the rest would know.
The wind and snow had stopped, but in their wake, the temperature had plummeted. A thin layer of ice now covered the six inches of snow that had fallen the night before. With each step she took, the crust gave way. The ragged edges of the holes she made scraped at the bare legs that sank to mid-calf. Cracking through that icy layer with her bootless feet made the going slow.
Halfway home, Livvy knew she'd made a mistake. She was taking too much time and it was too cold, even for a wolver, but it was too late to turn back. The two houses she had to pass would be of no use, either. Because the road curved outward along this stretch, their backdoors were no closer than her own. She pulled the edge of the afghan over her head, clutched it tightly under her chin, and trudged on.
Her legs were numb and her knuckles white by the time she reached her own back door. The sensation of pins and needles in her fingers made turning the knob difficult. Frozen shut, the door wouldn't open until she used her shoulder to give it a shove. Her parents were in the kitchen and she could hear her mother arguing with her brothers, a normal Saturday morning except that her brothers should still be in bed. No one noticed her. Livvy stood in the tiny mudroom by the washer that was already chugging away and listened through the glass paned door her father had installed to keep the cold out of the kitchen. She relished the normalcy of the scene before her and wondered vaguely if normal would ever come her way again.
"But Mama, I'm not a little pup anymore. If we don't get the snow cleared from the ice, they'll cancel the party."
"Then they'll have to cancel. You are not going up there until wiser heads than yours are there to supervise. And no wise head is going up there today."
"I could go with him, Mama."
"That brings me no comfort, Justice. It won't kill either one of you to wait for Uncle Harvey to decide. He's in charge, and he can take you up there in the truck. Walking in this weather, you'd be froze stiff before you got there. Tell them, Tom."
"Your Uncle Harvey's no fool. He won't be going up there today. I'll put my money on it. Clearing that ice ain't worth getting frostbit. Weather should warm up some by tomorrow, though. If you're so eager to shovel, you can do the front walk and the driveway. Dress warm, keep your ears and faces covered, and you'll be fine. You've got all day tomorrow and the next to clear the pond, but I'm warnin' ya, and hear me well. When you go, you stay away from the north end where the spring bubbles up. Ice can't be trusted up at that end and if I hear a whisper of you takin' a dare to go near, your skatin' days are over. And that goes for you, too, Justice. That truck o' yours is in my name. You keep that in mind. More'n one has drowned up there on a dare. No need for one of you to be the next."
"Tom!" Mama screeched, pointing toward the door where Livvy stood.
"They're not pups anymore, Ellie. They need to know."
"Oh my Lord, it's Livvy," she cried.
Livvy tried to smile, but couldn't manage one. With her mother's recognition, she started to cry. The salt tears stung her cheeks.
Her father pulled her inside while her mother shouted at him to grab the warm towels from the dryer.
The clock on the stove said six-ten. It had taken her twenty-five minutes to walk a quarter mile. It should have taken five.
A cup of coffee was shoved into her hands. She would have dropped it had her father not grabbed it in time. Her frozen fingers screamed with the heat of the mug.
"Warm water, El. Get her hands in a bowl of it. Not hot. Barely warm. She got herself frostnipped. Damn lucky she didn't get bitten." He ran to the mudroom and came back with two buckets. "Feet inside," he ordered, but he had to help. Her feet would no longer do what they were told. She winced with pain when he poured warm water over them.
They asked no questions while they worked to warm her frozen feet and hands. Her thighs, exposed each time she took a step, were red as cherries. Her mother kept the dryer going, trading warm towels for cold. In between, Ellie held the mug for her daughter to drink while her father traded cool water for warm.
Lucy and her two brothers crowded together in the doorway. It was Justice who broke the silence.
"What happened to Brad?"
Her parents, who had seemed to be in perpetual motion, suddenly froze. They looked at each other with horrified eyes.
"Livvy," Her mother asked cautiously, "Where's Brad?"
It hurt to speak. Her lips, already cracked from the cold, split. "Still sleeping, as far as I know."
"He let you walk home in this weather wearing that?" Her normally easy going father sounded like he wanted to kill.
"No, Daddy. He didn't know." She looked up at him with soft, sad eyes. Her chin quivered, but she managed not to cry. "I couldn't stay."
"What did he do to you?" Tom growled the question.
"Nothing that hasn't been done to him and nothing I didn't deserve." She took her feet from the buckets and scraped them against the towels her mother had laid on the floor. "If it's all right with you, I think I'll go to bed now. I'm out of shape and the run was more than I could handle."
Her siblings silently stood aside to let her pass.
"Livvy," her father called, but her mother shushed him.
"Not now, Tom. Let her go. She'll talk when she's ready."
Livvy commandeered Lucy's bunk. The upper was too far to climb. Her body and mind were numb, but not with cold. She closed her eyes, but couldn't sleep, so spent the day curled in a ball and staring at the wall.
The life of the household went on. The world around them went on. Only Livvy Dawson's world had stopped.
At regular intervals, the door opened and closed behind her as her mother peeked in. Livvy didn't turn or acknowledge Ellie's presence and Ellie didn't speak. The phone rang more than normal, people seeking out gossip, she supposed. She heard the murmur of her mother's quiet and reassuring voice answer each call. The only time she raised her voice was when Aunt Donna called.
"No. Leave it alone, Donna. Yes. No. Donna Mae Morrissey, you may be my sister, but I swear, you step foot in this house today and I won't just bite your tail, I'll rip you a new one so wide folks'll come from miles around to go explorin'." Whatever Donna replied made Mama huff and then laugh. "And make a few more dollars off the campground," she said.
Livvy knew she should laugh, too. Mama's threats were always so over the top it was hard not to, but her laughter was gone along with every other feeling. She was blank, empty.
Brad came twice and both times, at Livvy's insistence, he was turned away. She refused the next day, too. She couldn't look at him, couldn't bear to see his face or hear his voice, couldn't think of the magic of the night before, or how empty she felt when it was taken away.
The twins showed up with the celebratory coffee cake and a dozen blueberry muff
ins. They stayed for a cup of tea and questions. Livvy stayed in bed. Her mother brought her a square of the cake and a glass of milk. Livvy drank the milk, but left the cake. She had no reason to celebrate.
This was nothing like leaving Terrence. She'd been hurt, yes, but that was her ego and not her heart. It was nothing like the first time she left Brad, either. Then, her tears were more for Brad than for herself. She realized now that her wolf's snarls at the time weren't about pain, but anger at the stupidity of what she'd done. She'd left Brad, but had never really broken the bond shared between them.
That bond had frayed, become thin with distance and neglect, but was never fully severed until Brad spoke the words. Their night together meant no more to him than it would have to a wolver like Tony Carmichael or for that matter, a wolver like Terrence. Tony, at least, would have been honest and given her a choice. Brad couldn't even give her that. Livvy was no more than a friendly fuck. No strings attached.
How many times had she made love with Terrence and wondered what was wrong? He was a competent lover, skilled if you listened to Ladies Room chatter. The fault was hers, but she'd failed to recognize the source of her discontent. How many nights had she longed for a leisurely stroll in the quiet darkness under the stars only to settle for a nightclub filled with loud music and endless meaningless chatter? Never once had she equated that with a longing for Brad.
Livvy sobbed another of her mother's sayings through a new spate of tears. "What's done is done, and can't be undone."
She closed her eyes, but couldn't sleep, not without dreams of Brad repeating over and over, "Don't get your hopes up. A friendly fuck. That's all it was. Don't make it into something more."
Jazz waited until midafternoon of the second day to stop by. Being the Mate, Livvy couldn't refuse to see her or refuse to answer questions asked. That didn't mean she had to talk. The Mate already knew how she felt. There was no reason to elaborate.
Shifter's Magic (The Wolvers Book 8) Page 17
