by Diane Leyne
In the end, she decided not to place an order. She was just being foolish. Millions of dogs stayed home alone with “Mommy” watching over them with cameras. And it wasn’t as if Otis was on edge. He’d been fine when she got home Monday, and he was fine when she got home from the store Tuesday, other than just picking at his food again.
She looked him over. Other than the lack of appetite, he looked great. She changed his bandage, and he’d healed well. He was putting more and more weight on the paw each day. Lena smiled and rubbed his furry head. He was going to be fine. As for the food thing, she was probably just giving him too many snacks when he begged at breakfast and dinnertime. She was a vet and should know better.
“Sorry, Otis,” she told him when he pawed at her leg while she ate. “You are going to have to stick to your dog food. Although if you are good, I’ll give you a treat after you do your business.”
It was a quiet evening and an uneventful day at work on Wednesday, but when she got home, Otis was again not hungry. He was happy and healthy and well rested, but he didn’t seem interested in food except for trying to beg some of her dinner. It bothered her all evening, and by morning, she decided that she would get at least one of those cameras and set it up on the porch the next day. Something wasn’t quite right with the little guy. Could he have found a way off the porch and be scavenging for food?
* * * *
The clinic was quiet for once, and a scheduling mix-up meant that both of her vet techs were working, so she decided to take the opportunity to pick up that camera and drop by and see how Otis was doing and set up the nanny cam or rather the Otis cam.
She hopped into her SUV at nine thirty and by ten fifteen she was pulling into her own driveway. The camera was installed by ten thirty and transmitting to her smartphone. She was back in the clinic by eleven, just in time to deal with the first emergency of the day.
She was rushed off her feet and didn’t have a chance to stop and check the camera feed until almost three when she finally was able to grab a bite to eat.
At first, she thought she was getting the wrong feed. Maybe she was watching someone else’s video. She saw a large gray wolf-dog curled up on a dog bed napping. She was about to turn off the video when Otis entered the picture. He walked up to the gray dog and curled against his side. He had something in his mouth, some kind of bone, maybe. She watched Otis gnawing at it with obvious enjoyment. If he’d been eating like this every day, no wonder he wasn’t hungry when she came home.
But who brought the bone? The owner of the gray dog? Just then, the gray sat up and limped out of the picture, returning a moment later with a bone of his own. He settled back down beside Otis who snuggled back up beside him.
The longer she watched the feed, the more she felt like the gray dog was familiar, but she had to get back to work. She finally got back to the screen two hours later. She stared at it. The two dogs were napping again, but then the gray got up carefully so as not to disturb Otis. She could see the limp again. It was its rear left leg. She couldn’t tell what was wrong on the small screen.
She waited for him to return to the frame, but a few minutes later she almost fell off her screen. It was a man who leaned down to pat Otis and remove the remains of the two bones. The picture on the screen was small and the angle bad, but she’d know that profile anywhere. It was Alex.
Chapter Four
Son of a bitch. Son of a fucking bitch.
She wasn’t losing her mind. That shiver she’d been feeling up her spine. That feeling of being watched. It was him! On some cellular level, she knew he was back, and now he was hanging out at her house and feeding her dog on the sly. What the hell was he up to? Seriously. Did he come home brain damaged or something? Avoiding her, maybe she could understand that. But sneaking around with her dog? That made zero sense.
She checked the clock. It was too late to catch him in the act today, and it would probably do no good to head over to Will and Joe’s where he was undoubtedly staying. Which would also explain why Joe and Will hadn’t been around. She had figured they were upset that she’d come to their bar on a full moon night and then run out on them.
But it was actually because they had a secret they needed to keep from her. Damn. Alex was back. The man she’d loved so much she’d have given up everything for him at twenty-one and who she’d tried to hate for the last decade. She thought she’d succeeded, but now she wasn’t so sure. Seeing him had brought the old memories rushing back.
She thought for a moment. Since it was clear that he had no intention of revealing himself to her, she’d have to surprise him. She planned, and she plotted. She checked her schedule. She was supposed to work all day, but there was nothing planned that her techs couldn’t handle. She knew Moe would be happy to work some extra hours. He was saving up to go back to veterinary school and would take every hour she could give him.
Clearly Alex hadn’t seen her nanny cam. She’d set up a couple of more cameras around the house tonight and use them to surprise him. He may be ex-military, but she’d show him some stealth tactics.
* * * *
It was eleven a.m., and she was sitting in her car, waiting. She’d left the house at the usual time and driven all the way to town and parked in her usual place. Then she’d borrowed Moe’s wheels. She’d put on a baseball cap and had purposely worn a plain dark T-shirt so the color wouldn’t stand out. She didn’t drive all the way home. She parked about a mile down the road by Penelope’s house, and then she carefully made her way home on foot.
She wasn’t sure exactly what route Alex was taking to get to her place, but her best guess was that he was coming through the woods in wolf-dog form. He could move more quickly that way, even with the limp. She paused for a moment, wondering if the limp was something he had in human form, a war wound perhaps.
Her musing was interrupted when she saw Alex on the screen. He was coming out of the woods just about exactly where she predicted. He moved carefully around the house, verifying that there was no one home. It was actually quite amusing watching a wolf doing recon.
When he satisfied himself that she was gone, he went around to the veranda where Otis was going crazy jumping up and down to greet his buddy. For a second, he turned human and reached down to unfasten the dog gate and to deposit the package that was fastened around his neck onto the veranda.
Then in a flash he was a dog again and running on the lawn playing with Otis. The two limping dogs ran and wrestled for about twenty minutes until the smaller dog was tired, and then Alex urged him up onto the veranda and nudged the gate shut behind them. She could see that they were curled up together in a sunny spot on the veranda, taking a nap. Now was her opportunity.
Moving swiftly, she covered the mile on foot, approaching from the downwind side. She checked to make sure they were still sleeping and then went around to the back of the house and opened the back door. She moved quietly to the front of the house.
Checking the feed to her smart phone again, she saw that they hadn’t moved. She would have thought it was kind of sweet, if it had been anyone but Alex. The two of them curled up together, Otis snuggling against his bigger buddy.
She deliberately hardened her heart. Alex was supposed to have loved her, and he couldn’t even be bothered to tell her he was back in Harmony. Instead he went sneaking around behind her back making friends with her dog. No wonder Otis didn’t mind being left alone when she went to work. He wasn’t alone.
She studied the screen of the phone, her anger bubbling back up to a boil. She was tempted to get a bucket of water and douse the rat, but she had Otis to think of. She didn’t want to punish the little guy because his best buddy was a no-good lying asshole.
She walked quietly to the front door, opening it carefully, followed by the screen door. Moving quietly, she stepped out onto the porch and then slammed the screen door, hard. Or she tried to. She forgot about the damned spring as the door refused to cooperate. Damn! She stomped her booted foot hard instead, and was gr
atified to see Alex jump. Otis jumped, too, and pressed himself against Alex’s side in fear. She felt bad about that and squatted low.
“Here, Otis baby. I’m sorry, did Mommy scare you.”
Tentatively, Otis wagged his tail, moving slowly over to her, pausing once to look back at Alex before finally moving quickly to her and throwing himself against her. She took a minute to give him a good pat and back scratch. Then she picked him up, pausing to point at Alex, who had started to carefully back away from her.
“Stay!” She paused to see if he was obeying. When he hesitated, she decided to reinforce her command. “Sit and stay. I’ll deal with you in a moment.” She watched with satisfaction as his rump dropped to the floor and he eyed her warily.
Keeping one eye on the now-sitting Alex, she carefully opened the screen door and placed Otis inside. She gave him a quick rub and then she grabbed a couple of items she’d left on the hall table by the door, tucking one in her pocket and the other under her arm before she closed the door and walked back to Alex. She could hear Otis whining, but he’d just had to wait. She had another dog to deal with right now. She put the large towel she’d grabbed down on the lounger and then walked over to her uninvited visitor.
She stopped about five feet from Alex. She sighed. He looked nervous, which he should be, but he also looked unwell. His fur wasn’t thick and lush like she remembered it. It was kind of patchy in parts. The vet in her wanted to kneel down and examine him, but the scorned woman in her wanted to kick his mangy ass.
“So what do you have to say for yourself?” She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “What, cat got your tongue?”
She watched him look around desperately as if trying to determine if he could make a run for it. She was nothing if not prepared.
“Oh no you don’t.” Moving quickly, she pulled the collar and leash from her pocket and had the collar fastened before Alex could react. She tied the end to the railing and then walked over to the lounger and sat down. “We need to talk. It’d be easier to talk if you’d shift, but if you don’t want to, I can wait. I’ve got help covering the clinic. I can wait here as long as you can.”
She watched the fight just seem to die out of him. Even as a wolf-dog, it was like he’d given up. His shoulders slumped, and his eyes dulled. What the fuck? If she hadn’t seen with her own eyes that this was Alex, if she didn’t recognize him even in shifted form, she’d never believe it was the same man she’d spent a lifetime loving. Her Alex was bold and decisive and an Alpha male. This dog was beaten down and acted like a dog who’d been abused. She walked up to him and put out a hand. He flinched back as if expecting to be hit. She moved slowly, sitting down with her legs crossed. Crooning softly, she encouraged him to come closer to her. She stroked his majestic head, giving him a light scratch before encouraging him to place his head in her lap as she stroked him softly.
It took a while, but eventually she felt the tension relax from his body, and he gave a tentative wag of his tail. Eventually, under her gentle hands, his breathing fell into a regular pattern and he fell asleep. With his head in her lap, she couldn’t move much without waking him up, but she ran her hands carefully through his fur, shocked by what she found. His body was covered with scars, including a big one on his left hip. She followed it down to his thigh. No wonder he was limping. She moved her fingers lightly, trying to avoid waking him. Coming from a family of shape-shifters, even though the women of the bloodline didn’t shift themselves, she’d grown up with shifters.
Even though she’d become a vet, she’d studied human anatomy as well. Shifters were generally stronger and healthier than the human population, but even they got ill, including broken bones. If the bones weren’t set correctly in either human or animal form, when the shifter changed, there could be problems. One of the biggest problems occurred when doctors used screws and plates to set a bone. It was fine when in human form, but when the person shifted, unless the screws or plate were set just right, they could actually do damage. She wondered if it was just muscle damage or if there was something more below the skin.
She ran her hand lightly over Alex’s flank. She could feel the corded scar tissue before he pulled away from her, almost cowering.
“Alex, I saw you on the camera.” She pointed to where she’d installed the camera above the door. “I know you can still shift. You shifted to unlock the dog door so Otis could join you for a romp in the field.” She paused. “I’m waiting. We have to talk, and you are not going anywhere until we do.”
She leaned back against the railing and smiled. “You’ve known me forever. Do you really think I’ll just give up?”
Alex looked up at her and seemed to sigh. In a flash, the wolf was gone and it was Alex lying on his side, panting lightly. She could see his scars more clearly now that the fur was gone. She reached out, but he turned away, his knees tucked up under his chin, his arms wrapped around his bent legs and his rounded back presented to her, his posture hunched as if he expected to be beaten. She touched his shoulder gently and was shocked as he flinched.
She kept her hand light as she ran it across his back, gentling him until she could finally feel the tension seeping out. She ran both her hands lightly over his shoulders and down his arms before pressing against his back and wrapping her arms around him. She tucked her face into the place where his neck and shoulders met and kissed him lightly and then pressed her face against his warm skin. She felt his body shift slightly so he could turn his head and press a soft kiss against her forehead. She looked up and into those intense gray eyes of his. She could still see his pain, but they were lit by something else, desire.
Lena felt an answering stirring inside. He had been the first man she’d ever made love with back when she thought they were destined to be together forever. She’d known deep in her bones from the time she reached puberty and really began to notice boys that the James boys were her destined mates and Alex, the Alpha of the family, would lead them all in a mating ceremony.
But then he didn’t. She understood why he waited until she and his brothers were eighteen and he was twenty-two to make love to her for the first time, but when she graduated university, she had expected that they would formalize their love and their relationship. Instead of the full ceremony, he’s just giving her the single mating bite that had driven her crazy with lust for her wolves but had worn off with the dawn.
She felt his lips touch hers and part of her melted. She’d dreamed of his lips more times than she could remember and now he was here, naked and kissing her so softly and tenderly, and she felt her body respond as it recognized the touch of its mate.
The spell was broken by the sound of Otis whining at the door.
Lena pulled back and stood up after removing the collar and leash. Alex stood as well, and then clutched the railing as his left leg couldn’t handle the abrupt move. Automatically, she moved forward to help him brace himself. It was only then that saw how aroused he was. His large, thick cock was hard and pointing up toward his stomach. She wanted so badly to touch it, to suck it, to feel it inside her body.
To disguise her weakness, she called on the anger she’d felt for so long. She pulled away, almost relenting when she saw the look of hurt and shame in his eyes before he turned away from her to hide his tumescence. With him standing, she could finally get a good look at his left side and the angry scar that started on his hip and worked its way down his thigh.
Hardening her heart, she turned and picked up the towel she’d brought out and put on the lounger and tossed it to him.
“Cover yourself and then come in. We have to talk.”
He clumsily reached out for it with one hand while still gripping the railing with the other. She watched him carefully unfold it with one hand and then balance awkwardly to try to wrap it around his hips while balancing against the railing. She wanted to badly to help him, but she tamped down on that urge ruthlessly. She couldn’t show him weakness. The last time she had, he had stomped all over her heart. Never
again.
“I should go.” He turned.
“Don’t even think about it.” Her voice was harsh, and she saw his shoulders tense. “We are going to talk. Now. Inside.”
She opened the screen door and grabbed Otis as he rushed out. She was worried that he might cause Alex to fall, and while part of her wanted to punish him for leaving her, she didn’t want to humiliate him, at least not until they had a chance to talk. Then she’d decide just how much punishment he deserved.
She cuddled Otis and waited. Alex looked at her, his eyes almost bruised-looking. This wasn’t her Alpha. This was a hollow copy. He looked like Alex, but the fire was gone. Shoulders slumping, he moved carefully to obey her command and slowly limped toward the door while holding the blanket in place. She followed him inside, shutting the door behind her.
Chapter Five
Alex stood in the foyer, hesitating. In the old days, he’d have strode in like he owned the place and grabbed the most comfortable chair in the place, unless of course her parents were home, in which case he’d have taken the couch.
He turned toward the living room and then paused. Maybe she wanted to talk in the kitchen. He turned again.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Just go into the kitchen and take a seat. I want to examine your hip and leg, and the light is best in there.” Alex could hear the impatience in her voice and hurried to comply, but when he got there, he realized he couldn’t decide where she’d want him to sit. Would sitting at the head of the table be appropriate? It gave her the most space to work with, but it also might send a signal that he thought he was in charge. But if he took a seat at the side, there wouldn’t be much space and she’d have to move a chair and that might make her mad.
