As she finished, the pack members were starting to sit up, groaning and rubbing their heads.
“What the hell did you do to us?” Roman demanded, staggering to his feet.
“Fast-acting sedative in your coffee. But don’t worry, there was just one bad batch. Can I brew you some fresh?” she asked, smiling sweetly.
“No thanks, I’ll brew my own,” he growled at her. “Psychopath.”
“Criminal.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’ll have some coffee,” Benjamin said to her. “Thanks for cleaning up, by the way. I try to keep up, but it’s hard to keep ahead of them.” He shot a glance at his packmates.
“Oh, my pleasure. I don’t suppose you have an oven? I could make muffins. I love to bake. Since I assume I’m going to be stuck here for the next 24 hours…”
“Muffins!” one of the pack members said happily. Paul, she was pretty sure his name was. Joyce had totally been checking him out the night before, and doing a terrible job of hiding it. “We never get muffins here. It’s all wild game and powdered eggs.”
“Screw you. Wanna be chef?” one of the pack members growled at him. Edward, she recalled from the bar.
“Is that what you’re calling yourself?” another pack member scoffed. Edward let out a growl and his face went all furry.
“Boys!” Chelsea clapped her hands to get their attention, and hopefully ward off a fight. “Muffins! Do we have an oven, and ingredients?”
“We’ve got an outdoor pizza oven,” Benjamin said, pointing at it. It was made of brick and actually very well constructed. Everything in the camp area looked sturdy and well made; they were certainly good at what they did.
* * * * *
The pack all went to take a swim in the nearby creek, which was icy-cold, to help them wake up faster. Marcus stayed behind to guard Chelsea.
Roman was the last one back. When he arrived, to his surprise, Chelsea was standing there giving directions to the whole pack, and they were scurrying around doing her bidding.
“No, put that garbage lid on tighter—if it’s not sealed you’re going to keep getting rats. Good job on the muffins—they’ll be done in another five minutes.” Apparently she’d figured out how to make the pizza oven work for her.
He sat down to watch her, with grudging admiration. For some reason her presence had his entire pack scurrying around cleaning the place up spick and span—and looking happy while they did it. They also cleaned up for him, but they bitched and whined under their breath.
Finally, he strode over. She was working with Edward, the pack’s cook, ladling out scrambled eggs to his happy pack. And there was some green stuff on the side. What was that? Asparagus. Why was Edward standing so close to her, with that stupid grin on his face? Roman stifled a growl. After all, he was the one who’d set the condition that Chelsea would now be stuck here for the next twenty-four hours.
“Thanks, Chelsea!” Benjamin said. Even though they were all going to be late for work thanks to her. That should have made them all royally hacked off at her, especially Benjamin, but Benjamin looked happier than Roman had seen him in ages. They all did, actually.
“You’re welcome. Eat your damn vegetables.” Even when she swore she sounded as sweet as sugar. “You can’t live off meat and carbs alone,” she said chidingly.
He wanted her to pay attention to him, to come over and give him a hard time, but apparently, she was more interested in baking. He must be losing his touch. She made sure that every pack member got a muffin, in between scrubbing dishes in the outdoor sink they’d rigged up.
He poured himself some of the coffee brewed by Edward, who was standing by their outdoor kitchen area serving up breakfast to the pack.
“You planning on moving in here?” he asked Chelsea. “A pirate’s life for you?”
“No, I’m planning to arrest your sorry ass, and then I can relax in my office and have a nice, quiet life writing the occasional ticket for littering.” She said it with a charming smile as she walked over to an empty chair and sat down. He had no doubt she meant to try, at least.
He sat down next to her.
“Good for you,” he said approvingly. “We’ve all gotta have an impossible dream to chase.”
She crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him, which made him laugh.
“It’s really hard to take you seriously when you do that,” he informed her, shoveling delicious scrambled eggs into his mouth. He did miss fresh-cooked food, he realized. If only we had a real cook… He glanced over at Chelsea and then shook his head. Nope, it wouldn’t do to think like that.
The whole pack headed off to work late, having phoned in their apologies to Mr. Purcell. He wasn’t too upset, since they always arrived early, finished late and did excellent work.
Roman left Marcus to guard Chelsea.
The pack went straight out to the honky-tonk after work, and Roman went back to relieve Marcus of his watch. He wasn’t in the mood for the bar tonight. Also, some of his men had been checking her out appreciatively and had volunteered to stay behind and guard her, and he really wanted to kill them now. It would be safer for everyone if he stayed behind.
“So,” she said, sitting by the crackling fire. She looked around the campsite. “This is your life.”
“Yep. Feel free to mock.”
“No, it’s not bad. It’s beautiful out here. You’ve got the best view in the world.” She gestured at the majestic outline of the mountains, with their silver-capped peaks set against a darkening sky. “You’ve got all this room to shift and run. It’s close to town. The only thing I would personally miss is a nice baking oven.”
“Oh, we could build you that, easy,” Roman said without thinking, which earned him an odd look from Chelsea.
“Anyway,” he said, struggling to regroup, “other than the fact that you can’t arrest me, how are you liking Silver Peak so far?”
“Other than that, I’m loving it. The pack members are really nice, although that’s probably partly because they feel guilty about tricking me into taking the job. They keep bringing me ‘welcome to the pack’ gifts and stuff. Which is exceptionally generous given how much the town is struggling financially.”
“It’s not just guilt,” Roman said. “They are a pretty nice bunch, as far as I can tell.”
“What was your pack like?” Chelsea asked.
Ugly memories welled up and sweat beaded on his forehead. The funerals on a grey, rainy day… The angry pack members arguing about who was going to have to take him in… The accusing eyes that followed him everywhere he went… He felt a dark flash of anger shoot through him. “What part of ‘no talking about the past’ do you not understand?” he snapped.
There was dead silence for a moment, and he felt the temperature around them drop to sub-zero.
Chelsea stood abruptly. “Quite right. Totally forgot that having a normal conversation with you is off-limits. I’m going to go hang out in the party tent.” That was where they all hung out on nights when the weather was bad.
She got up and walked away.
It took about five minutes of Roman feeling like a horrible asshole and desperately craving Chelsea’s cheerful warmth before he got up and hurried over to the tent. He was about to do something he’d never done before—apologize.
She was inside with her back to him, sweeping the clean floor. He cleared his throat, but she ignored him and kept sweeping.
“The guys already did that earlier,” he said. “To impress you, I think. They like you.”
“I like them too,” she said, her tone wooden and unwelcoming.
But not me. Not anymore.
“Listen,” he said. “There’s a reason we don’t talk about our pasts. For anyone to want to join a pack like mine, they have to have come from a situation that was pretty bad.”
“I figured.” Was her tone softening a little?
“My father drank himself to death when I was twelve,” he blurted out
suddenly, then braced himself for a smothering bout of self-pity. It never came.
“That must have sucked,” she said, continuing to sweep the clean floor.
He shrugged. “Not exactly a Norman Rockwell childhood, no.”
“Well, Norman Rockwell didn’t paint shifters, that I know of anyway.” Her tone was lighter now.
“I’m really sorry I snapped at you. My past was an ugly, dark place, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
His father hadn’t just drunk himself to death after the death of Roman’s mother, he’d taken others with him, and the pack had taken it out on Roman. For years and years, until he was fifteen and ran away from the pack. He’d spent years hiding from the law, traveling from one gypsy pack to another, until he turned eighteen and started to form his own pack. Long years of hunger and loneliness and anger. But he wasn’t going to burden her with that.
“Come outside with me again?”
“Why?” She glanced up at him.
“When you’re not drugging me, tazing me or handcuffing me, I actually kinda enjoy your company.”
She leaned her broom against the wall. “Maybe,” she conceded. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You find me the ingredients for some s’mores.”
“Some…what?”
“You know—s’mores? It’s a classic camping thing. Well, more for humans, but we lived near some humans who taught us how to make them. You’ve never heard of them?”
He shook his head.
“They’re awesome. You put marshmallows on a stick and set them on fire, then you make a sandwich out of chocolate and graham crackers— Stop looking at me like that! They’re the best thing since sliced bread!”
The way her eyes lit up when she was talking about s’mores…he wanted her to look at him like that.
“Well, if I can’t find any of those ingredients, will you come sit outside with me anyway?”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I dunno. I just set my terms and you failed to meet them.”
“But I’ll be lonely. And I had a terrible cubhood. You should pity me.”
“Oh, now you want to talk about your past?”
He flashed her a big, white-toothed grin. “If it gets me the pleasure of your company, I do.”
“Nice. You’ve got a PhD in flirting, I’ll give you that.” She laughed but made no move to head outside.
“I’m being one hundred percent sincere. It’s a beautiful night. Come out and shift and go for a run with me?”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll outrun you and take off?”
He threw his head back and roared with laughter. Then he laughed even harder at her indignant expression.
“Oh, you were serious! Oh, that’s good. That’s really, really good.”
“I can run plenty fast,” she said irritably. “Are you saying that just because I’m a larger girl you think I’m slow?”
“No, sweetheart, I’m saying I’m the fastest thing on two legs or four. Except in certain areas. There are certain things I like to take my time with.”
He moved close to her and saw her eyes spark with arousal, and he felt heat flare through his body. He began stripping his clothes off.
“Let’s go for a run. If you get away from me, then you get to go home early.”
“Deal!” She began stripping too, and he felt all the blood leave his brain and rush south.
Chapter Twelve
They tore through the woods and he chased her, letting her get just ahead of him, again and again, then catching up and nipping at her heels.
The cool night breeze ruffled their fur as they ran. Chelsea leaped over fallen logs, tore through scrubby underbrush, and wove between the tall pine trees. All to no avail. He was always right on her tail, barking happily. If he were in human form he’d be laughing at her.
Chelsea didn’t mind. The rush of air delighted her senses. She drew the air in through her nostrils, the scent of moss and pine and loamy earth. In wolf form, she could hear the creak of every cricket and the rustle of every leaf.
Up ahead, she saw the campground. He was steering her back towards the camp.
Distracted for a moment, she tripped over a fallen branch and went sprawling.
Instantly, he was on top of her, straddling her and panting. His long pink tongue hung out and he had a huge, happy grin stretching his black lips.
Then he shifted to human form and he was kneeling over her on all forms.
She shifted to human form too, her fur melting back into her skin, her ears shrinking, her tail vanishing. Her bones shifted and rearranged themselves. And there they were, panting, naked, tangled up on the soft, mossy forest floor.
Chelsea looked up into his golden eyes and knew she was lost. She’d never wanted a man so much in her life. He was terrible for her—he was terrible in general—and he was leaving. And she wanted him.
Roman stared into her eyes for a long moment and then cradled her face in his hands, surprisingly gentle, and leaned down to kiss her. And the world fell away. There was nothing but Roman, his hard body against her, his thick erection pressing into her stomach. It was for her. He wanted her.
He kissed her deeply, his tongue sweeping through her mouth, probing. She let out a low moan of pleasure and kissed back, hungrily. She imagined him plunging inside her, his thick cock thrusting in…
And suddenly he jerked away.
“What?” she said, dazed. “Did I do something wrong?”
She was suddenly terribly self-conscious about her nudity. She moved her arms to hide herself, rolling to the side and bringing up her knee to cover her soft stomach.
“Of course not. You do everything right. Well, except trying to arrest me.” He scrambled up off her and she realized they were right near his tent. “And don’t hide your body—it’s incredibly beautiful.”
“Then what is it?”
“You can’t scent them? Some of the pack are back from the bar already.”
“No, I didn’t smell them.” She climbed to her feet and followed him into his tent, where she accepted a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants as he quickly dressed.
“Really? We’re downwind.”
She shrugged. “I’m a wolf who can’t smell. It’s a genetic anomaly.”
“Ahh, gotcha.” He didn’t seem too put off by it…but he was getting dressed, covering his magnificent body.
He looked at her with great regret. “Well, I guess that’s that.”
She bit her lip and nodded. He wasn’t going to try to seduce her anymore? Well, it was for the best. She tried to tell herself that, anyway.
He let out a sigh. “You’re too good for me, and I’m no good for you. I’m no good for anybody,” he said in a tone of deep regret, and walked away.
* * * * *
Was that Erika’s voice that Chelsea heard? Chelsea had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in Roman’s bed, with him sitting outside the tent guarding it. Or so he said. Apparently he didn’t want to be anywhere near her anymore. Maybe he didn’t want his pack to think he liked her in that way.
That was fine, she thought, ignoring the tight ball of pain that had settled deep inside her. She was there to do a job, not get seduced.
She got up and walked out of the tent. She’d fallen asleep only two hours before, and she was exhausted.
Erika was lying on the ground underneath Leland’s car, Leland squatting next to her, handing her tools.
“Almost got it!” Erika called.
Chelsea walked over and waited for Erika to finish. She finally slid out and handed a wrench to Leland. “Oh, hey, good morning!” she said to Chelsea as she climbed to her feet. She had smudges of grease on her face.
“What are you doing with that car?” Chelsea asked.
Erika responded with something that sounded like, “The thinginator was making a vermilacious exponater noise,” and Chelsea remembered that she couldn’t speak car.
“Anyway, she fixed
it,” Leland said happily. “Very nice! Sure you don’t want to join our pack of outlaws?”
“Oh, I can’t go travelling.” Erika laughed. “I have to work at my dad’s garage, or at least hang out there in case a customer ever shows up. But thanks anyway.”
Erika turned to Chelsea. “I came to give you a ride home. The pack already towed your pickup truck back to town.”
Chelsea looked around. Roman was nowhere in sight. She felt a sharp twist of disappointment.
“Let’s go,” she said abruptly, and she saw Erika suddenly look very uncomfortable. Leland frowned and walked away.
She’d been taking her medication, so if she was letting her mood affect them, she must be feeling it really strongly.
She paused for a second and made a strong, conscious effort to banish the dark cloud that was wrapping around her emotions.
My new pack bringing me home-made soap that smells like roses. The scent of fresh bread in the oven. Pepper curled up in my lap while I watch a rom-com and eat ice cream.
Her mood lightened, and Leland gave them a jaunty wave as they walked to Erika’s car.
“You know, I was fixing his car and thinking about how everyone there would know I’m not ladylike, and then I remembered I don’t care anymore because I’m going to die single anyway,” Erika said, sounding cheerful. “It’s great to be able to relax. I even burped, and nobody gave me a dirty look.”
“You do realize Leland has the hots for you, right?” Chelsea said, looking out the window and trying not to think about what it had felt like to have Roman’s mouth on hers.
“Me?” Erika let out a loud, braying laugh. “Ha! As if. I’m embarrassing and I sit like a trucker. Remember?”
“OK, Erika. You’re my pal, but seriously, for a smart girl you’re kind of a stupid-head,” Chelsea said, and leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
It was mid-morning by the time Chelsea made it in to her office. Lorena and Susan were waiting for her as she walked up the steps. Lorena had an apple pie and Susan had a jar of preserves. “You’ve got a visitor,” Lorena rushed to tell her.
Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak Page 7
