by Zoe Chant
"I'd like to give you more room," she said as Gunnar helped her move the boxes that were stacked on the bare mattress. "But I think you probably wouldn't want the bedroom right next to mine and Derek's, and Tessa and Ben have already taken the bigger downstairs bedroom. We moved Sandy up to stay in his sister's room, but Melody can have that one, and both kids can sleep in our room for a few days."
"What about your mother?" Gunnar asked, stacking boxes where she showed him. The room was cramped and dusty, but it still beat the hell out of Cell Block D. "I thought she lived with you."
"She does. She's got her own cottage on the property." Gaby laughed as she snapped a sheet across the mattress. "I love my mother dearly, but living in the same house with her is a disaster. I mean, can you imagine sharing a house with your mother for your entire life?"
"I never had a chance to know."
He instantly wished he hadn't said anything when she turned large, sad eyes on him. "Oh, Gunnar. I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago." He paused, distracted. The bedroom's single small window was open to let in the breeze, and in the blue dusk outside, he saw Melody and Tessa walking across the grass. There was no mistaking Melody. Just as he'd know her laugh, he would also know her step, the way she moved, the way her hair fell over her shoulder ...
His bear strained toward her. He ruthlessly suppressed it. Did her animal also yearn toward him, that silver-scaled serpent he'd so briefly glimpsed inside her?
"Oh, they're going to get the cats," Gaby said, seeing where he was looking. "Do you like cats?"
Gunnar struggled to tear his mind away from Melody. "Uh ... I like 'em okay, I guess? I haven't really been around cats much."
"But you're not allergic or anything."
He shook his head.
"Good," Gaby said. "Tessa and Ben have four, and since they're going to be staying here a few days, they brought the cats along. The problem is, we already have two, so right now their cats are shut up in the barn. We're going to try putting Ben and Tessa's cats in one of the bedrooms and see how that goes. Our cats are indoor-outdoor farm cats, and theirs are mostly inside cats, so if the weather's nice ours can spend most of their time outside, which will help reduce the risk of cat fights."
"How many animals do you have?" Gunnar asked. He hadn't realized when he first got here that it was a real farm, with a barn and everything.
"Two cats, about a dozen chickens, and the pony. You can meet her in the morning. Her name is Princess and she's a sweetheart. We got her for Sandy when a neighbor was looking to rehome her," she rambled on, pulling the sheets tight before laying a quilt across the bed. "I always wanted a pony when I was a little girl, but we lived in a tiny apartment, so it wasn't going to happen even if we could have afforded it."
Gunnar nodded along, but his gaze had drifted to the window again. Melody and Tessa were coming back from the barn, each with a cat carrier.
"There!" Gaby declared, and he looked back quickly to see her looking over the room with her hands on her hips. "Sorry it's still so cluttered, but at least there's room in here to sleep. We can move the rest of this mess out to the barn tomorrow."
"It looks great," Gunnar said honestly. "I mean, last night I had a jail cell to sleep in. This is worlds better."
He wished he could take back the words when an awkward silence descended.
The front door slammed as Tessa and Melody came in. With some effort, Gunnar managed not to run into the living room like a lovesick puppy. Instead he waited while Gaby plumped up the pillows, and then followed her back out to the living room.
Melody was there.
She was sitting on the couch, feet tucked under her and sleek dark head bowed over a book. She looked like a picture in a magazine. He could already imagine what her skin would feel like under his hands, its infinite softness. He ached to go to her, to touch her.
The sound of the baby crying came from upstairs, and Gaby turned with a soft "Oh!" and hurried up the stairs, leaving them both alone.
Now was his chance.
Melody seemed to be lost in her book. Gunnar wet his lips. Stupid ... he felt like he was back in middle school, trying to work up the nerve to say hi to the girl he had a crush on. Someone could walk in on them at any moment. He wasn't sure what Keegan would do if he caught Gunnar talking to his sister.
I could tell them I'm her mate ...
Yeah, and get sent straight back to prison, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
While this inner battle was taking place, he'd been slowly approaching, step by step. All he needed to do was say hello. She was his mate; everything would fall into place from there, wouldn't it?
"Melody—" he began.
"Gyaaahhh!" She jumped and the book went sailing several feet away and landed upside down in a sprawl of pages.
"Sorry!" Gunnar said, stepping back quickly.
"Homigosh. It's just. You. Wow." She pressed one hand to her chest and pushed up her glasses where they'd slipped down her nose. "You're very quiet. I had no idea you were there, and then you were just there—looming—"
"Didn't mean to sneak up on you. I, uh. I'm really sorry."
"It's okay. I get so wrapped up in my reading sometimes that I lose track of time." She smiled at him, and his stomach flipped over. She was so gracious, and so kind.
And now she was leaning down to pick up the book that she'd dropped because of him. "No, let me," he said quickly, and knelt to pick it up and hand it back to her.
"Thanks," she said, taking it back. Their fingers brushed against each other, warmth and softness slipping across his callused fingertips before retreating again.
And now he was kneeling by her knees, an improvement over the earlier situation in that he was closer to her, but he couldn't think how to gracefully get off the floor without looking like an idiot and also looming again. Plus, where did he go from there? Sit on the couch? Try to have a conversation while standing over her?
Why was this so hard?
Also, it didn't help that he was acutely aware he needed only to move a few inches and he could have laid his hand on her leg ... or buried his head in her lap ...
Instead, they stayed that way for a tense moment, with Gunnar kneeling awkwardly by her legs, before Melody cleared her throat and patted the couch next to her. "Would you like to sit?"
"Yes," he said gratefully. He scrambled from floor to couch, trying not to go through an intermediate "looming" stage.
"I know this must be as strange for you as it is for me," she said, and smiled at him. That smile was like sunshine; it warmed and soothed him. "How about we get to know each other a little bit?"
"Okay," he agreed. What he really wanted to do was lean across the space between them, cup her face in his hands, and find out if her cheeks were as soft as they looked, and if her lips tasted as good as the rest of her smelled. But talking was good. Talking was great, actually, if it kept him here on this couch, listening to the melodious sound of her voice. She was aptly named; she sounded like a melody ... except she wasn't saying anything right now. Damn. Was he supposed to start?
"Oh ... kay," Melody said, into the silence. She smiled again, looking a little more nervous this time. "Let's start with a fun question. What's your favorite book?"
"My favorite book?" His mind went completely blank. People had favorite books? "I, uh ... I'm not sure?"
"Oh, I know," she said, warming up. "It's hard to pick, isn't it? I mean, I certainly couldn't pick just one. My desert island book list is more of a suitcase. Or possibly a U-Haul truck. What's the last book you read, then? For me it was, well—" She picked up the book in her lap and turned it over with a smile. "Jane Eyre. I know, I've read it so many times already, but that's the great thing about books, isn't it? They're like old friends you keep coming back to. And look at me, babbling." She took a deep breath and mimed zipping her lips.
"You don't have to stop," he said quickly. "I like hearing you talk ... about books." And it was true. She could be
reading the menu and he would enjoy it. "Is that one your favorite?" he asked, pointing to the book in her lap.
"Jane Eyre? Well, I suppose it's one of my favorites. It's an old comfort read from childhood. Of course, I have a lot of those ... but you must too, right? Tell me about one of yours."
"Um." His mind went blank again. Put on the spot, he couldn't think of a single book. He liked to read, at least he really wanted to like to read; it was just ... books didn't like him. Reading was always such a struggle. All he could think of now were a few books he'd had to read for school, a very long time ago, that had been boring and not his kind of thing at all, but he didn't think she'd like to hear about those. What if she wanted to talk about one of them? He couldn't even remember their names.
"Gunnar ...?" His name even sounded lovely on her tongue, with that melodious lilt to her voice. "Gunnar, you do ... read, don't you?"
"I, uh ... not much? I mean, I can," he said quickly, just in case she thought he was completely illiterate. "It's just, you know. Kind of not my thing?" he finished with a certain amount of desperation, because she was looking at him with actual despair.
"You don't read?"
"I can if I have to!" he hurried to say.
This didn't seem to help. She looked devastated. "You haven't read Jane Eyre, then?" she asked in a small voice, holding it up.
"Never even heard of it."
"Oh." The book dropped into her lap along with her hands. "Do you ... want to?" she offered tremulously.
He'd caught a glimpse of the pages when he picked it up to give it back to her. All that tiny type. It looked like a boring, eyestrain-inducing nightmare. "Maybe?" he said uncertainly.
Melody looked like she wanted to cry.
"So, uh ... what else do you like to do?" he asked as brightly as he could manage, knowing he'd upset his mate and still not quite sure why. "I like working out. And, uh—they showed movies in the prison on Thursdays—" Her despair took on shades of horror. No mentioning prison! Abort! Abort! "What's your favorite movie?" he asked hastily.
"I, um ..." She twisted her hands in her lap. "I don't really ... watch movies, Gunnar. I'd rather have a nice evening with a good book."
"You never do anything except read?" he asked in bafflement.
"What else is there worth doing?"
They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension.
Given how the getting-to-know-you was going, Gunnar was almost glad (almost, though not quite) when they were interrupted by a slamming door and a sudden yell from upstairs. It sounded like Tessa's voice. "No! Don't let them—look out below! Gaby! Help!"
Gunnar and Melody both looked toward the stairs in blank confusion. There was a pattering of ... feet? Then a swarm of cats appeared on the stairs and hurtled off in all directions. Tessa popped into view an instant later at the top of the stairs, her hair sticking up in all directions. She grabbed onto the railing at the top of the stairs to stabilize her very pregnant body and looked down the stairs into the living room, where not a single cat was visible. For a minute, no one said anything.
"I don't suppose," Tessa said at last, huffing for breath, "that either of you two saw where they went."
Melody had her hands over her mouth and was making tiny squeaky sounds as she tried not to laugh. Gunnar hesitantly raised a hand to point at the kitchen. "I think one of them went in there?"
A baby began wailing from upstairs. Gaby's voice could be heard making hushing noises. "Oh no," Tessa sighed. "I'm sorry!" she said over her shoulder, and began to descend the stairs carefully.
Melody took her hand away from her mouth, cleared her throat, and pointed to her feet. "I think there's one under the couch," she said, her voice steady, with only the dancing of her eyes behind the lenses of her glasses to give away her amusement. "Do you want me to see if I can get it out?"
"Yes, please," Tessa said with relief. "Bending and twisting aren't so great for me right now. Or anything that needs me to be light and quick on my feet. We had the cats all nicely shut in one of the upstairs bedrooms and then I tried to leave and ... well, you can see how that went."
Gunnar got off the couch and crouched down. Maybe he could help with this. He'd always liked animals. He could just glimpse the reflection of the cat's eyes under the couch.
"I can't reach," Melody reported, after stretching and trying to get an arm under the couch.
"I could pick up the couch, maybe?" Gunnar suggested.
Tessa had crept over to peek cautiously into the kitchen; now she turned around. "No, don't do that. They're completely freaked out from being shut up in the carriers, and I think all of Gaby's cats are out in the yard right now, so there shouldn't be any fights. I'll put out some food for them and see if I can coax them out that way."
"Oh, there's another one!" Melody whispered, pointing to an orange-colored cat that had just crept out from behind a bookcase near the door and was looking cautiously around the living room with its tail puffed up.
All three of the humans froze. Gunnar even tried to make his bear be quiet, though it wasn't like the cat could hear it.
"Hey there, baby," Tessa crooned, crouching down to bring herself closer to the cat's level. "How about you come to Mama and let's go back to the nice bedroom, huh?"
Just then a key rattled in the door, five feet away from the cat. The door started to open. Gunnar expected the cat to duck back behind the bookcase, but instead, sensing freedom, it made a dive for the widening crack between the door and frame.
As Keegan appeared in the doorway carrying an armload of groceries, there was a chorus of "Stop that cat!" and "Shut the door!" from Tessa and Melody.
Keegan looked down calmly and, swift but casual, moved a foot to intercept the cat's break for freedom. It was obvious that he'd had a lot of practice at this. He leaned down to scoop the cat up with his free hand and closed the door with his hip. Then he stood and looked at Gunnar and Melody crouching next to the couch and Tessa squatting in the kitchen doorway.
"Cats settling in okay?" he asked mildly.
"Oh yes," Tessa said, her voice serene. A spotted cat peeked around her legs and zipped away when she made a move to reach for it. "As you can see."
"I hope they haven't gotten my gun this time."
"No, not yet anyway." Tessa grabbed the doorframe, made a grunting sound, and settled back into a crouch. "By the way, dear, I think I'm stuck."
The corners of Keegan's mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile. He handed the cat to Melody, gave Gunnar a flat look that probably was meant to convey something along the lines of Stay away from my sister, and went to give his pregnant mate a hand up.
"So we get to spend the rest of the evening playing find the cat—ouch—and I woke up Gaby's baby," Tessa said dolefully as Keegan hauled her to her feet.
"It's fine," Gaby said, coming down the stairs with a sleepy-looking Jimena draped over her shoulder. "If she goes down for the night this early, she'll be up at 3 a.m. anyway."
As Gaby joined the group in the living room, Gunnar could see that any possibility of talking to his mate alone had slipped away utterly. In fact, his mate herself slipped away before he could stop her, quietly taking the cat off to put it in a bedroom. He gazed after her and wished he'd managed to find the right words. It didn't matter if they had all the time in the world if he couldn't do anything other than alienate her every time he talked to her.
This was going great so far. At least it couldn't get worse.
"Who's up for Pictionary?" Gaby asked brightly.
Okay. Maybe it could.
Chapter Six: Melody
She couldn't sleep.
It wasn't the bed, although given the crowding, she'd had to make do with a cot on the floor of the baby's room. Her twin bed back in her apartment was almost as small. No, this was a different problem, a problem with blue eyes and short, scruffy blond hair; a problem with cheekbones to die for and pecs that made her ache to run her hands over them.
And he wasn't her
type at all. He wasn't even remotely her type.
He's our mate, her dragon told her, infuriatingly smug in its certainty. He may not be what we thought we wanted, but he's what we need. That's how it works.
But that's not how I work, she thought miserably, rolling over again and tucking her arm under the pillow.
She'd dreamed of meeting someone she could have long conversations with, about history and philosophy and her favorite plot twists in the latest bestseller. Instead she'd gotten someone who barely knew which end of a book to start reading from, someone whose inner life was no more rich and exciting than his bear's.
That's unfair, her dragon told her snippily.
It was unfair ... but being mated to Gunnar meant spending the rest of her life with him. Every day. Every night. And even if the sex was good—who was she kidding; with a body like his, the sex was going to be great—she couldn't imagine what they'd spend all those evenings talking about. Was her life with a mate going to be exactly like her life before—quiet, lonely evenings spent reading by herself?
She sighed and gave up on sleep. Quietly, she dressed and cracked her door open. The hallway was dark and silent, the door to Derek and Gaby's bedroom shut. She stepped out into the hallway, gasped and stifled a curse as something soft and furry nearly tripped her.
A cat shot past her ankles into the room. Melody glanced back to see a tail vanishing into the warm nest of blankets she'd left behind.
"Don't let Tessa see you or you're going back into cat prison," she whispered.
Prison made her think of Gunnar. She grimaced. Everything made her think of Gunnar right now.
Carrying her shoes, she padded down the hallway and tiptoed down the stairs. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go; a half-formed idea had entered her head, a possibility for one way she might be able to get out of this unresolvable mess with Gunnar, but mostly she just wanted to get away for awhile. It was a dark night, with no moon: a good night for flying.
