I laughed. “You did?”
She took a sip of tea. “Afraid so.” A considering expression came into her face. “What’s the baddest thing you ever did?”
An involuntary sound tore out of my throat. The baddest thing? Oh, Jesus! I closed my eyes. My insides were quaking. No, I can’t go there. Not with her. She lives inside a Christmas card.
She frowned anxiously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry or make you remember anything painful. I only meant as a child what was the baddest thing you ever did? You don’t have to answer it.” Her hand shook as she put the teacup back on the table. “I’ll just continue reading.”
I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t see her hurt. Without thinking, my hand reached out and covered hers. Two things happened simultaneously. My dick became hard and she froze with shock. I snatched my hand back. My body started throbbing with sexual tension.
I don’t know where the hell it came from but I wanted her so fucking bad it hurt. Her hand stretched out tentatively towards me. I was dying to grab it, sweep her into my arms, and kiss her senseless, but I balled my hands into fists, and forced myself not to. I would only ruin her. She wanted a friend. I wanted to spread her legs and bury my cock in her sweet pussy.
I wanted to make her mine.
“There is nothing for you to be sorry for, Lara,” I said. My voice was harsh.
She was too naïve to understand the raw need in my voice. She took it as a rejection. Her hand dropped back to the table, and the color drained out of her cheeks. She looked devastated.
Jesus, in my stupid, bumbling way, I caused that! I felt worse than I would have if I’d kicked a puppy. I hated hurting her. Silently, her hands moved towards the page. They fumbled uncertainly, looking for the last sentence she had read.
“When I was six years old,” I began, and her fingers stopped moving on the page. I swallowed and continued. “I did a very terrible thing. Far, far worse than putting cow crap in someone’s shoe.”
I watched her plump lips tremble and part as she exhaled the breath she was holding. A ghost of a smile appeared, and it made me ridiculously happy to see it.
“My father had gone to the mall and he’d taken my brother and sister with him. I was not allowed to go with him because I had broken my brother’s favorite toy. I was furious so I splattered ketchup all over my stomach and chest, fired my father’s shotgun out of the window, and let my mother find me on the ground with the gun on top of me, with my eyes wide open as if I was dead.”
She gasped with shock.
“That was the baddest thing I ever did as a child.”
“What did your Ma do?” she whispered.
“Before or after I blinked and laughed at her?”
“After, I think?”
“She went crazy and then took me to the kitchen and gave me cookies and milk. I got the whopping of my life when my Dad came home, though.”
“I’m not surprised. That’s unbelievably naughty.”
“What else do you want to know about me, Lara?”
She blushed. Oh, but she was beautiful. “I wouldn’t know where to start, Mr. Carson. I have so many questions for you.”
I was caught completely by surprise by that. “You do?”
“Absolutely. You’re quite the mysterious man around town, you know.” She smiled.
“I thought I was just a run of the mill, blood drinking, axe murderer,” I mocked.
She smiled. “Yes, but there are other things they say about you too.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Some of it … is actually quite fun,” she said cheekily.
“Yeah, like what?”
“They say you make your own shine. You have a whole factory in the forest. Barrels and barrels of it.”
I laughed at the nonsense the town folk had been making up about me. “Sorry to disappoint, but no. I don’t make shine. I don’t even know how to.”
“Awww … and I was going to buy a bottle off you.”
“Sorry.”
“I think I know exactly what I want to ask you!” she blurted out suddenly. Her face was intense, and I braced myself for what was coming.
“What is it?” I asked. I figured she would ask about my military service. About why I stayed out here in the middle of nowhere. About what my life had been like before I came here. She could even ask me how I got my scars, but what she wanted to know took me by surprise.
“Tell me about your wolves,” she invited.
Kit
She hit on the one thing I could talk about all day long.
The wolves were my companions, my family, my babies – even though they were wild animals, and I was committed to keeping them that way, but that distance didn’t mean I didn’t understand them as well as I understood myself. I knew instinctively when they were in trouble. Once I was sitting in the kitchen eating a meal, when I felt my stomach become uneasy. It was so strong I couldn’t eat another forkful.
So I went out of the house and stood on the porch. It was summer and the evening was still young. I grabbed my Wolf Pack Howling Horn and began to walk. Every now and again I blew into my horn. It imitated their howls. I walked for an hour until one of my wolves responded to my horn. I found Thomas caught in a thorny hedgerow.
When you help an animal facing down death, it recognizes your deed, and shows its thanks in whatever way it can. Not in the cheesy way we’re taught by watching Hollywood movies about animals, but in a subtle way.
In the case of an Alpha like Thomas, he came onto the porch whenever I was there. Even though he kept a space between us most of the time, every now and again he would come to check me out, and give me the gift of petting him for a while. It was the same with Adam, who roamed wherever he wished, but always came back – not because he needed to be with me, but because he wanted to.
I closed the book in front of her. “Come,” I said.
“Where to?”
“There is nothing I can tell you that my wolves will not tell you themselves.”
I waited for her to get into her coat. I could have taken her to the back door, of course, but the wolves only came there when they would rather beg for food than hunt for themselves, and they could be quite aggressive and feral about their food.
The porch was where I really connected with them, mostly because it was their choice to come up there to meet me. The wide wrap-around porch had plenty of room so they never felt trapped. I never approached them. If they wanted some affection, a little back rub, or two, they came and got it. Except for Chepi, of course. She was so tame she sat beside me and licked my head until it was soaked, and sometimes even curled up in my lap for a nap.
It was still snowing when I opened the door. The air was cold and fresh after the warm kitchen. We stood on the porch for a long moment without speaking. I wanted to let the wolves realize that there was no danger. They could come forward.
There were several wolves down by the fencerow. The usual suspects: Caleb, Eyolf, Felan and Gorg. They normally hung out there until they heard the rare vehicle coming down the road, then they vanished like smoke into thin air. You wouldn’t see them again until the traveler was well away.
To the left there was a pack of four on the hillside. They were slowly making their way over to the house. Leading was Kurt. He was always the risk taker and the asshole. Lobo a beautiful pure white wolf was next. Behind them two females, Susi and Tasha, moved with lithe grace.
I looked over and saw Lara. Her face was turned towards the hillside. She must have been listening to them, but how could she have heard them? The sound of their footfalls in the snow was always a spooky kind of quiet.
“How many are there?” she whispered.
“In that little pack? Four.”
“Should I pet them, or be scared?” she asked with a nervous smile.
I thought about that. “You shouldn’t be scared of them, but they are wild creatures not pets, and they should be treated with a certain respect. Treat them well, and they
will return the favor. That is the way it has always been with me.”
She nodded as the wolves came closer, their noses up in the air, full of adventure and curiosity. I watched her as she stood very still, her sightless eyes hidden behind her glasses. She reached out to touch the snow covered wooden railing. I watched her small white fingers curl around it, dislodging the snow, and how the skin of her knuckles turned bone white as she clenched the wood. She was anxious.
Then she deliberately took a deep breath, unclenched her hand, and relaxed from head to toe. Her ability to control her natural fear tossed me into a quick decision.
“Let me introduce you,” I said.
The wolves were obviously interested, so I knew they would make their way up onto the porch. What surprised me was how quickly they chose to do it. Usually they took their time to decide whether something was a good idea, but they were so nosy about Lara, that Kurt already had his paw on the top step. Faster than I had ever seen. He stared at her with his glowing greenish eyes.
“Slowly turn to your left,” I said, “and hold out your hand. Let him smell you. His name is Kurt.”
Lara did exactly as I instructed. The two girls hung back warily, as I had expected them to, but to my surprise it was not Kurt who took the first step forward. It was Lobo, my beautiful white albino. With his haunches quivering, he stretched out his neck and took a good whiff of her hand. He took another step closer, and I knew Lara had passed his test.
“I wish you could see them … they are so curious,” I said to her.
“I can feel their curiosity,” she whispered.
“Stay right here. They will not hurt you, I promise. I’m going to get some treats for them. I’ll be right back.”
I turned to the door, but right after I stepped through, I turned around to see what the wolves were doing, and Lobo had stepped even closer, and now he had pressed his nose against Lara’s hand. There they stood together, not moving, the beautiful woman and that wild white wolf. My pride in my wolves welled up as Lobo took one more step and pressed his muzzle fully against her hand. Lara slowly turned her fingers over, letting Lobo see exactly what she was doing, and rubbed the side of his nose.
Lobo’s eyes drifted closed. I stood there and stared. I honestly could not believe what I was seeing. Then he opened his eyes, stepped back and looked from Lara to me.
“Lara,” I called.
She didn’t turn her head. “Yes.”
“The wolf that came to you is called Lobo. He has chosen you to be his special human. Once a wolf chooses a human it will never again treat another human with the same love and affection that it does to the special person it chose.”
“Really? He chose me?” Lara asked excitedly.
“Really,” I said softly.
“Oh, I can’t believe it. Is he like my wolf now?”
I smiled. “Yes. He is like your wolf now.”
She laughed with sheer joy.
“Hang on,” I said, and went to get the dried treats from the kitchen.
The wolves recognized the scent well before I got back to the door, and by the time I stepped onto the porch they were all scrambling around in the front yard, the pack of four now joined by another six. I handed the treats to Lara and told her to throw them out as hard as she could.
“They love to chase them down, so put some serious muscle into it.”
That’s how I learned that for a small thing Lara had some serious muscle. She threw those treats so hard she had them babies running for their dinner. They loved it, and judging by the ecstatic smile on her face, so did she.
Me? I loved watching them all, my wolves and my blind reader.
Lara
The day with the wolves opened up a floodgate of sorts. Kit seemed happy to see me, as if he was actually waiting for our sessions together. Our last reading meet turned out to be us talking the entire time, without a single sentence read from the book.
On the surface we had hardly anything in common, but with every sentence we fell deeper and deeper into an oddly intense and close friendship. There was so much about him that drew me, and the more time we spent together, the more I realized just how much I admired and liked him. Tomorrow I would see him again and already I could hardly wait for the sound of his pickup parking outside the library.
With a sigh I placed the apple pie I had made into the hot oven. I closed the door and set the timer. Taking off my oven mitts I hung them in their place. I was about to start cleaning up the mess when the doorbell rang.
Who could it be? It was nearly ten o’clock at night, and most folks around here were fast asleep in their beds by now. Unless it was Elaine on her way back from the bar, I chuckled to myself. I slipped on my dark glasses and walked to the front room with a slight frown. Elaine didn’t say anything about going to the bar.
I stood behind the door and called out. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Sawyer.”
My frown deepened. Sawyer Buchanan! What in God’s name was he doing here at this time of the night? I opened the door and smelled his aftershave: citrus with a hint of rosemary and something else musky. Like an expensive version of Pledge.
“Hello, Lara.” His voice sounded slightly slurred. Was he drunk?
“Hey,” I greeted casually. “What are you doing in this part of town?”
“I was passing and I … er … saw the lights so I thought I’d pay a little visit. Can I … um … come in?”
My eyebrows rose in disbelief at the blatant lie, but I opened the door wider out of sheer curiosity, and he came into my little house. I heard him close the door and rub his hands together.
“It’s bitter out there,” he said in his toe curling drawl. There was a time I thought I was in love with him. It wasn’t completely my fault that I fell for him. He did kinda lead me up the garden path. He would put his hand on the small of my back, or come so close I could feel his warm breath on my neck. When he kissed me on the cheek his lips used to linger so I honestly felt that he liked me too, but I guess I was wrong. He didn’t.
I led the way to the living room. “Can I get you a drink? Milk, orange juice, water?”
“You don’t have anything stronger?”
I had a bottle of French wine that I got for my birthday, but I was saving that for a special occasion, maybe when I finished my mermaid, the biggest project I had ever undertaken. She was almost life-size and had already taken three months of my life. “Not really,” I said softly.
“Nah. Don’t bother, then. I’m not really thirsty.”
“Have a seat,” I invited, waving towards the sofa and walking to the armchair opposite.
I heard the sofa depress under his weight.
“So, what can I do for you, Sawyer?”
“There’s talk around town that you’re mixed up with that oddball hick up at Old Man’s Creek.”
I took a deep breath. “He is not an oddball hick,” I said slowly and clearly.
“Heck, Lara. You don’t know what a risk you’re taking going off with him alone to that godforsaken place. Anything could happen to you.”
I felt my temper rising, but I held myself in check. “As you can see nothing has happened to me. I’m perfectly safe. Mr. Carson has been nothing but a gentleman.”
“I don’t like it.”
Wow. Where did that come from? “I beg your pardon.”
He stood up and started pacing the floor. “Don’t go to his house, Lara,” he burst out suddenly. To my shock he marched up to me, grabbed me by my upper arms, and pulled me upright.
“Sawyer!” I squealed, completely taken aback and confused. What on earth was going on?
He let go of me as suddenly as he had grabbed me. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, and took a step back. He seemed so agitated I couldn’t think straight or understand what was going on. I heard him move away from me as I rubbed my arms where he had grabbed me.
He came back towards me, and though my instinct was to step back, I held my ground.
&n
bsp; “Please, Lara,” he begged. “I simply can’t bear the thought of you going to his house and spending time with him. It makes me sick to my stomach. I worry about you, you know?”
My mouth dropped open with shock. My mind went blank. What the hell was he talking about? I ran my hand through my hair. I took a deep breath.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re engaged to Kayleigh, aren’t you?” I asked. I didn’t know Kayleigh, but her family owned most of the land around here, and most of the wealth too. Elaine went to school with her. When I asked her to describe Kayleigh, she just snorted, and said in a sour voice, “Just imagine a cow wearing a tiara, then imagine it being snooty to boot.” But I knew it wasn’t true. Kayleigh was beautiful. There was even talk of her becoming a model.
He made a tortured sound. “Yes, yes, yes, I know goddamnit, but fucking hell, you know that I’m in love with you.”
I felt cold all over. “What are you talking about?”
“I loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you,” he declared passionately.
“You didn’t want me. I offered myself to you, remember?” I cried.
“Oh, Lara. What a little innocent you are. I love you, I always have, surely you know that, but I can’t marry you.”
It hit me then and I took a step back. “Because I’m blind?”
“No, no, you little fool. I wouldn’t care if you were legless and armless.”
“Why then?” I whispered.
“Fuck.”
“Tell me,” I yelled suddenly.
“It’s money, okay? It’s her fucking money,” he screamed back.
I fell backwards into the chair, breathing hard. “This is crazy.”
“I can’t bear to lose you to that, that murderer.”
“Murderer?” I repeated in a daze.
“Everyone knows he killed his wife.”
“He did not murder his wife,” I said quietly.
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“Yeah, and everybody thought John Gacy was just a clown.”
His Frozen Heart: A Mountain Man Romance Page 21
