by Ellie Pond
“That doesn’t work on me. Puma, remember? You can only avoid it for so long.”
“Right. Well, I have lots of paperwork to finish up. I need to grade those biology exams. I’ll hang in here and get my work done.” Elizabeth moved to the table next to the small sofa where she had left the exams. It was empty, other than a few ship’s schedules. She searched her desk top and opened the filing cabinet where she kept the school papers. They weren’t anywhere. Anna was staring at her. “Do you know what I did with the exams?”
“You left them in the lab. I put them on my desk.”
Anna gave her the look. The look that said she knew she was lying. She didn’t have lots of paperwork to do. Indeed. Something else was keeping her here—besides the exams. Fudge, Anna’s desk. The one that faced the waiting room. “I don’t suppose you would get them for me?”
“I’m off the clock.”
“Really?”
“I am now. I’m taking a break.” She sat down on the small sofa, kicking her feet up on the side of it. She threw her arm over her eyes for good measure.
“You are something. Well, I guess one break in a year is okay,” she laughed.
“Yup, and I’m taking mine now.” The call button for one of the exam rooms rang. “Break’s over.” She jumped up and ran out of the room.
Elizabeth stared at the closed door for two minutes and sighed. She opened the door, like a sorority girl in a horror movie. It crossed her mind that something on the other side had a higher probability of hurting her than a hockey-masked zombie.
She didn’t have good luck with guys. And if he was her mate—she wasn’t sure of the diagnosis yet—she didn’t know why her luck would change. Except she did. Of the hundreds of fated mates cases she’d studied, almost all worked out fine. Better than fine, crossed her mind. And perhaps the reason she had awful luck with guys was that she was waiting for this one extra-special irritating guy.
She peeked around the corner of the hallway. She heard laughter coming out of the other wolf’s room, the one not related to her . . . thing. She couldn’t even think the word mate. She snuck by. Anna’s chair at the end of the hall was empty. She could make another round before she went to find the papers at Anna’s desk.
The brothers of the other wolf had lots of questions. She backed out of the room when it became obvious the questions were to keep her there longer for flirting rather than general concern for their brother’s health. She would have dismissed them earlier, but they ate up another thirty minutes—that was thirty minutes that he might get bored and go back to his cabin. He couldn’t still be in the waiting room, could he?
She checked in on his cousin and made polite conversation with both of the other cousins. And since she was still there, she treated a minor cut of a kitchen employee that Katie, her replacement for the night, could have done on her own.
Nothing kept her in the clinic. The only thing left was to grade the papers on Anna’s desk. She power-walked the rest of the hallway to the desk. But the papers had vanished. Keeping her back to the waiting room, she didn’t peek around the corner. There were no papers anywhere. Odd. Yes, she was messy, but Anna didn’t lose things.
“Hey there, Doc. Are you looking for something? Maybe I can help?”
She did not look over at him. “I highly doubt that.” The scant gravel in his voice set her on edge in a good way.
“What are you looking for?” his voice whispered near her ear.
“I don’t think—”
“Are you looking for these?” He waved the stack of tests over her shoulder.
9
There is no Substitute
“What are you doing with my tests?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He fanned the papers out. Red marks dominated the pages, with a blank spot for percentages printed on the top of each test.
“It looks like you graded my tests.” Her mouth gaped open. Conflict popped in her. She loved teaching. But grades she tolerated. And doing the grading? Procrastination time and her were going steady while she waited to grade. But he had graded them. How could he? He had overstepped. His arrogance infuriated her.
“You graded my tests,” she stated again and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Why in the world would you do that?”
Elizabeth stared into his blue eyes. She plucked the tests from him and paged through them. Insightful comments littered the exams in legible handwriting, something that hers wasn’t. He had caught all the errors even without her legend key—a job well done. Perhaps he was even a little more careful than she would have had time for. “Why would you do this?” she whispered and sank into Anna’s chair, the tests in her lap.
“I didn’t do a final grade. I figured you would want to make some additional comments on the essays. The students are mostly great. Other than one.”
“Joseph. Yeah. There’re things going on with him.”
Larsen nodded. “I’ve seen that.”
Elizabeth thumbed through the tests. Maybe he had been a little tougher on Marissa, but that wasn’t a bad thing. She thrived on attention and came back even better. Elizabeth scrutinized him. “Why?”
“It’s freshman biology. Not exactly tough. And I like grades—they are so decisive.”
Elizabeth nodded once. The anger settled into disdain. With that comment she put him in a box. A box that she didn’t need to open. He was right. It was freshman biology and not complex, but the majority of adults wouldn’t remember the material.
She put the exam down on the desk in front of her. She almost thought he graded them to help her. Nope. Another male having to prove he could do things better than a woman. That what she did was easy. Phillip did that all the time. He assembled the bookcase she’d bought from a box store. Even after she told him she wanted to do it herself. She’d wanted to put it together backwards so that it fit in her office. But he assembled it the way he wanted to because he knew better. It took her twice as long to unbuild and rebuild it again, and Phillip got mad at her for redoing it.
She glared up at Tad. “What do you want from me?”
“It’s Tad. We’ve gotten off to a rocky start.” He held his hand out towards her.
She considered not shaking it. The jolt from the last time they touched still overwhelmed her. Instinct won out and she shook his hand with a firm grasp. Because weak, brief handshakes made her shudder. His handshake made her shudder but in an altogether different way. The jolt reflected in Tad’s eyes.
“You haven’t answered my question.” Elizabeth looked down to where their hands were still joined. She watched them bob as if it wasn’t her own hand.
“No, I haven’t.”
Elizabeth pulled her hand back. She searched his face for a clue to who he really was. “Mr. Larsen.”
“Tad.” He smirked down at her.
Elizabeth stood up. His expression sent flutters through her. Maybe she’d pegged him wrong?
“Why would you grade these?” She pointed to the stack.
She wrapped her arms around herself but dropped the defensive posture, relaxing her hands at her side. But that didn’t feel right either, and she leaned on the desk with her right hand. The pile of exams under her hand shifted, and she wobbled. He reached out and caught her around her waist, steadying her on her feet. Once she had found her footing, he withdrew.
She glared at him.
“You were falling.”
“I’m fine. I can stand on my own.” Elizabeth held his gaze, and her voice softened. She saw genuine concern. “Thank you, though.” She glanced down and back up at him and laughed. “I can stand. Walking, however, is another thing. I’m not graceful by any means but . . .”
“Oh, trust me, I know klutzes when I see one. Aurora is why we invented the bubble-wrap jumper. She once tried to help on the job site—she took out three walls. I’m still not sure how she did it. She just tobogganed down the stairs after tripping over a display almost as big as a dragon.”
“How do yo
u know her?” Did that sound jealous?
“Duncan brought her home from school one day and with her natural aptitude for getting in trouble, it was safer for her to hang around us. With Spencer, really. They’ve been friends for ages.”
Elizabeth found it hard not to pry. The research she was doing on fated mates’ longevity made it impossible for her not to. “They’re mates?”
“No, not fated, if that’s what you’re asking. Friends. Best friends. And possible mates. But he needs to change his mind on that. He’s turning thirty-two on Friday. The statistics for finding a true mate after that are low, he says.”
“Almost unheard of, as a group, but that means nothing for the individual.” Elizabeth leaned on the desk.
“You know about fated mates? And statistics?”
“A thing or two, on both counts.” Elizabeth picked up the exams and rounded the desk to the opposite side. “Why did you grade these, Mr. Larsen?”
“You said you didn’t have time. I found some time for you.”
“Yes, I guess you did.”
He had graded her papers, which would have taken her twice as long as it took him. She found it frustrating. There were some things that had an exact answer. For those questions, grading was easy. Either the names of the organs in the system she wanted listed were right or wrong. But, for essays, she always fretted that she might not have thought of an alternative. And that took forever. If she was teaching all day, not practicing and doing research, it might not be stressful. But she didn’t have that luxury or want it. Teaching was fine, but research was her passion.
“Thank you.” Perhaps she was wrong about his intentions. That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t use up more of her time than he created.
Tad looked at the papers. “Well, you’re welcome. I understand being busy. You can use your new-found time for talking to me.”
“We’re talking now.” Elizabeth crossed her arms again. He wanted to talk about her being his mate. But that was never in her plans. And now he was using up the time he gave her.
“Yes, Doc, I can see we’re talking now.” He glanced down the hallway. Anna appeared out the exam room door. It always fascinated Elizabeth how good shifter hearing was, especially for wolves.
“You heading to dinner, Doc?” Anna smiled at her. Doc? Now Anna was calling her Doc too? Pumas’ hearing wasn’t far behind wolves. Anna stood in the hall, one hand on her hip, the other holding a chart.
“Dinner. Good. We can discuss our situation.” Tad nodded at her
Situation? What was she? An unwanted puppy, a flooded basement? This wasn’t a situation. She wanted to get in his face and muss up his hair. Instead she said, “Oh, I rarely go to dinner. I grab something and bring it back to my desk.” She ran her locket over her chin, mindlessly fumbling with it.
“Okay.”
Now he was being agreeable? Elizabeth glanced back to Anna. She wasn’t going to help. Tad stood there waiting.
“Let me grab something out of my office.” Her Crocs clicked down the hall. Inside her office, she sat on the edge of her desk. This wasn’t what she was looking or planning for, but here it was. If any human could be able to understand what was happening, it should be her. She wanted to run in the other direction. Her chest tightened. A panic attack would follow if she let it. It had been a year since the last one. She hoped they’d vanished. She put her head between her knees and tried to slow her breathing.
Elizabeth didn’t hear the door open.
“Oh, dear. Are you okay?” Anna’s upside-down face appeared next to her.
“Panic attack.”
“Really?” Anna rubbed her back.
“I used to get them in high school. I haven’t had one in eons,” she said between quick breaths. “I’m not sure why it hit.”
“Might be because there’s a lot you don’t have control over right now—Mr. Hunky Larsen, Phillip, and the captain, with your research.”
“Not helping, Anna.” Perceptive but not helpful.
“I’ll be right back.” Anna helped her to the sofa and moved a stool from the other side of the room. She lifted Elizabeth’s feet onto it. Then she disappeared out the door without a sound. Elizabeth focused on her breath. Her heart slowed. She remembered the relaxation techniques her therapist had taught her long ago.
She saw his shoes before she heard him. They were expensive shoes. The same designer shoes the captain wore, only this wasn’t the captain. He smelled divine. Interesting. She tended to not notice scents unless they were overpowering. Her mind leapt for a moment, away from her panic attack. How could a schoolteacher-EMT afford shoes a billionaire dragon shifter captain wore? The thing about panic attacks is there’s no excellent time to get them. When you get them you’re in a stressful situation, which leads to embarrassment that makes things worse. She didn’t want to look up.
“Hey,” he said and sat on the edge of the sofa. Lightly so she didn’t move. He said nothing else. And that was amazing. Her mother had always fed right into her attacks. She would ask her what was wrong over and over again, telling her that everything would be okay. When it wasn’t. The fact that all he said was ‘hey’ made her look up.
“Can I get you anything?” His beautiful blue eyes filled with concern.
Anna walked in with a water bottle in one hand and an icepack and towel in the other. “Here.” She thrust the objects into Tad’s hands. “Helping Katie. We’ve got biologicals in exam three.” She took off running.
Tad opened the bottle and handed it to her. He wrapped the icepack in the towel and placed it on the back of her neck.
“Thanks.” She took a sip of water. Her breathing was back to normal now.
“Do you want me to go?”
“No. No.” She didn’t want him to go. His scent acted like a balm.
“I thought . . .” He stopped.
“It’s not you. It’s a lot of things.” She kicked off her Crocs.
“May I?”
Elizabeth scrutinized him.
He gestured to her foot. “A good foot rub might help.”
She glanced at him. His last touch still zinged on her hand. What the heck? She loved a good foot rub.
Her thundering heart slowed to a gallop. She turned sideways on the sofa, placing her feet near his leg. The tingling returned, shooting up her leg from where they touched.
He grabbed her right foot first, and she sank into the sofa. Her eyes closed, and she sighed. After a few minutes he switched feet, and she inhaled a normal breath. His touch was the perfect amount of pressure. Usually, she couldn’t last long before squirming and being ticklish. Her eyes closed, and her body relaxed. He didn’t stop or speak until she opened her eyes again. He wasn’t looking at her; rather, he was concentrating on the task. Her spider plant thumped against the side of his head. He glared as if his stare could melt the plant the way his touch melted her.
“Thank you.” She blinked at him. “That helped.”
“I’m glad.” His steel eyes held her. She didn’t know what to say. Her feet lay resting on his legs. While he had stopped massaging her feet, his hand ran lightly up and down her ankle, leaving a tingling sensation behind. It was the first time in a long time that her feet didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt; a complete sense of renewal overwhelmed her. Was he healing her? Her thoughts took off. She let her feet fall to the floor with a thud.
Tad laughed.
“What?”
“You’re thinking so hard you’re vibrating.”
“What?”
“I can see you thinking. What’s going on now?”
“I’m calm, and that’s odd, for me at least. I used to get regular attacks. I could explain them—a test, an argument, occasionally one would pop out of the blue. Those scared me the most. I worried I would get one when I was treating a patient. The regular pattern of them is attack and then I’m spent, I have to sleep. Now? Now I’m tired, but not-crawl-into-bed-and-spend-a-day-there tired.”
Pink rose up her neck. What the he
ck was she—twelve? She couldn’t even think of bed around him without having a reaction. This was so unlike her. She got praises from her shifter professor in medical school for being able to handle any case, no matter who or what. That and her research background got her the job on the Dark Wing.
“You’re welcome.”
Elizabeth reluctantly moved from his side. “The pain in my feet is gone. Did you study acupuncture? That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“That’s not what I mean. I meant your foot rub was great, but I’m restored. I should give up heels. Even when I wear sensible shoes, my feet hurt now. Bunions run in my family, but I like heels. So. It’s the one non-rational thing that I do, and my feet pay for it days afterwards.”
“They are pretty. But if they are hurting you, you shouldn't wear them.” An odd expression seized his face. He glanced down at the bright pink Crocs. She slid the shoes on and stood up. “Where did you wear heels last?”
“The captain has formal dinners in his quarters for important passengers a few times a week. All of the senior staff are required to come to two or three a month. I was up. They’re not too bad, as he doesn’t let them drag on. He rings a giant bell after dessert and politely kicks the passengers out. I went to one the final night of the last cruise.”
“Oh.” His jaw clenched.
Tad stood up between her and the sofa. She didn’t step back, their faces dangerously close. Close enough that the warmth from his breath made the hairs on her neck stand up. With her panic attack, her bun had unraveled around her face.
He ran a finger down her neck. “You shouldn’t let anything hurt you.” The skin on her neck peppered in goose bumps. He leaned into her. “Are you ready for that chat now, Doc? I can hear your stomach rumbling.”
Elizabeth put a hand on her belly, far from the flat thing it’d been when she started working on the ship. While food had never been a passion of hers, it was delicious and available on board at all hours, which was good because she tended to skip meals and then eat the wrong things. She needed to get on the treadmill more if she kept eating so late. She wanted to lean into him and rub her body up against his.
