“Why not? It’s my fault you lost your other one. It’s only fair that I replace it.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were running away after getting shot.”
“Tell that to the car sittin’ in the junkyard, waitin’ to get melted down.”
She shook her head. “This is beyond generous, Caleb, really. But I can’t take this from you.”
“Yes, you can.” He pressed the keys into her hand. “I could have gotten you killed, Rose, and don’t think that hasn’t fucked with my head every hour of the day since it happened. The least I can do is set your transportation to right. If your insurance ever gets around to payin’ the claim, you can bank the settlement in exchange for the wages I lost you durin’ recovery.”
She stared at the shiny, blue paint. “I don’t know what to say.”
How could she take such a gift? Was it truly just reparations from the accident? Or were there invisible strings attached? Maybe he thought if he gave her a car, she wouldn’t be so eager to leave him behind.
Those thoughts were shunted aside as they left. They made small talk on the drive, which was surprisingly short. However, where they had to park was a distance from their eventual destination, and getting to the picnic spot involved a trek through the woods she hadn’t foreseen.
The first leg of the trip took them through gently sloping woods. When the terrain dropped sharply, however, she stopped with a frown. “Now I am sorry I didn’t wear something more appropriate,” she said, glancing down at her creamy-yellow flat shoes. “I’m not sure I can make it down there.”
“I told you, the dress is perfect,” Caleb said. “Not to worry, darlin’. Just hang on to your sweater and art supplies. I’ve got you.”
Caleb draped the red blanket he’d brought over his shoulder and hooked their picnic basket over his arm. He swept her up off her feet, quite literally, and carried on with the rugged journey like it was no bother at all. She held her items in her lap and hugged his neck, thinking of other times she’d recently been carried like baggage. She’d been unconscious the last time Caleb had done so. But there’d been Stephen on that confusing, delusional night when she’d run off. Just thinking about him sent a pang through her stomach, and she wondered what he was doing. Probably sitting at the nurses’ station, grateful to not be getting ice water dumped all over him. She had a sudden picture of him joining their picnic, smiling as they all sat together to share the meal and view. As mad as she’d been, she sure missed him.
She wondered whether Caleb was thinking of Stephen’s absence too.
He pushed through bushes and past tree branches for a short time, and she heard the sound before she saw anything. The whoosh of rushing water fanned an air of excitement around her, and she was suddenly anxious for him to set her down. The roaring sound grew louder as her impatience swelled, and she strained to see through the trees. She thought she caught glimpses, but she couldn’t nail anything down.
The ground leveled after a while, and although they were still out of view, Caleb lowered her onto her feet. “Wait here,” he said in a reverent whisper as he turned her to face forward. “Just a few more steps.”
“And I’m waiting why?” Her voice came out soft and low, too, just because his was.
“Because I want to be far enough ahead to watch your reaction when you see it.”
She smirked at his boyish expression and waited patiently while he made his way through more leaves and around rocks and trees to where a tall, narrow boulder stood. He stopped beside it and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Come on.”
Rose had almost come up beside him when the falls came into view, and she stopped dead. Her mouth fell open as her eyes traveled up the several-story drop, mesmerized by the white veil of water tumbling gracefully from the ridge overhead. Plumes of spray erupted like clouds where the falls met the water below. Golden sunlight sparkled and played over the river’s surface, like thousands of tiny water sprites dancing in delight on top of the flowing current. The very air was alive here, vibrant and stirring with the motion of the falls. No other living soul was in sight, just the majesty of nature. It was all she could do not to burst out into tears.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “It’s unbelievable.”
“That look on your face says it all,” Caleb said. “You recognize it, I can tell.”
She shook her head slowly. “I can’t say whether or not it’s the waterfall I drew. It doesn’t matter, though. Just being here feels nothing short of miraculous.”
“That it does.” He was watching her carefully.
She gripped her sketchbook tighter. “I’m dying to draw it.”
“Go for it. I’ll find a spot for our picnic.”
They wandered along the open riverbank for a short stretch, and the whole while she couldn’t take her eyes off the falls. Near the top where it crested over, the water seemed to move in slow motion as the frothy sheet slid down. At the base, however, it sped up and churned rapidly. What was it that she found so compelling about waterfalls?
She stopped near one of three flat, low rocks dotting the riverbank on this side. “This is perfect,” she said, and she sat down and began sharpening her pencil. Caleb kept going a ways, finally setting the picnic basket down on the far side of another low boulder about fifteen feet away. While she got ready to draw, he spread out their blanket and dug around inside the basket, neither of which she could see from her vantage point.
“What’s in the blue container?” he called out as she turned an artist’s eye on the horizon.
“Bruschetta with apples, bacon, and gorgonzola,” she replied, starting to block out a light sketch of the waterfall on her pad. “Ever had it?”
“No. Sounds like a lot of trouble to make, though. I feel bad.”
“Don’t,” she said, running a curved line along her paper to represent the river bank. “I really like cooking. It relaxes me.”
He wandered over to her with two long-stemmed glasses full of rich, ruby-red wine. He held one out to her. “And what about drawin’? Does that relax you, too?”
She accepted a glass and inhaled the tangy scent. “No. Sketching excites me.”
To Caleb’s credit, he fell completely silent at that and let her run with the vision of the landscape that filled all her senses. He watched her sketch for a minute, her pencil flying over the paper as the scene took a very rough shape. She paused to sip the wine, letting the full, complex notes roll around her tongue. A cowboy who knew his fine wine. He definitely was a man of surprises.
“This is so good,” she said when she finally swallowed and took another sip. “Thank you.”
He nodded and wandered back to whatever he had laid out behind the other rock, leaving her to her drawing. Shifting her ass slightly to get more comfortable on her stone perch, she fell into her creative zone, and the deeper she sank into it, the faster her pencil flew. She sketched out the woods, the ridge line above the falls, and the stones dotting the riverbank, going back over each to darken and widen her lines and soften the harsh edges by smudging them with a finger. She drank more wine as she considered the woods behind Caleb, smiling when she spotted the Stetson he’d laid at a slightly skewed angle on the rock he was sitting behind. She studied the lines and lighting for a moment, almost deciding to make the rock and hat the focus of another sketch. Instead, she added it to her landscape. She drew Caleb, too, who sat well behind the stone with his hands locked around his bent knees and his bangs swept carelessly across his forehead.
She was so engrossed in artistic process that it wasn’t until she was filling in a line of trees along the left ridge that an odd awareness struck. She stopped shading in pines and flipped through the book to find the drawing she was looking for. She did something she almost never did, which was to tear the page straight out of the book. Then she held it beside her current sketch.
“God,” she whispered.
To say the two were a close resemblance would be an understatement. Though her technique
today was sloppier and rushed, she was looking at the exact same landscape, and drawn from the same viewpoint. The asymmetrical ridge line, the boulders, the height of the falls, everything was spot-on. Even more disturbing was the hat sitting on the rock, in the same place and almost the same position. Had Caleb done that on purpose?
The only real difference between the two drawings was the fact that Caleb was missing from the original. Ironically, he sat well forward from, but right in line with, the mysterious wolf that lurked at the edge of the woods in the first sketch.
She lifted her eyes to find Caleb staring.
“Everythin’ okay?” he called.
Rose carried her wine and sketch tools over to where he sat. He had laid out quite a spread, including grapes, cheese cubes, and fried chicken, but she barely paid attention. “You were right,” she said, setting down her glass so she could hold up the two drawings. “What does it mean? What kind of fantasy world have I fallen into?”
“The best kind,” he said, refilling her glass. She accepted it gratefully and took a big sip. “The kind where you dreamed about cowboys and waterfalls, and I dreamed about burgundy-haired goddesses in buttercup-yellow dresses.”
He smiled and scooted closer to her, taking the sketch pad and laying it aside. He lifted a finger to stroke her cheekbone, a touch that shot fire through her. “Back at your place, when I told you I dreamed about that dress, I wasn’t just feedin’ you a compliment. My kind dream about our mates, Rose. You were meant to be here, wearin’ that dress. You were meant to be with me.”
Those last words echoed inside her. He was going to kiss her. She just knew it. So when he pulled away instead, her heart thudded in disappointment.
“And what’s in this?” he asked, peeling the lid off another container.
Just like that, some of the thick tension dropped away, but it took a moment for her to find her voice. “Pepper-crusted filet strips with balsamic dipping sauce. I hope you like your steak rare.”
He shot her a funny smile. “You have no idea.”
The admiration in his expression as he speared a strip of the meat gave her a happy little twinge. When he slid it between his lips and chewed, he might as well have been in the middle of sex, the moan he let out was so damned sensual—and since she’d heard him in the act, she could make a factual comparison.
“Good God, woman, you can cook like this, too?” He stabbed another piece of steak. “I knew it must be love.”
She flushed at the compliment. “Yeah, you and Mr. Pierce.”
He shot her a look. “Who’s Mr. Pierce?”
“A patient I took care of during my infamous single shift at Shay Falls Community.”
The thought snatched away her smile, and depression threatened to settle in. She lapsed into silence while he reached for some cheese and grapes.
“It’ll be okay, Rose,” he said, putting the food in front of her. “Fate will see to it.”
That brought back a sardonic version of her smile. “Fate’s looking out for my career, is it? Funny how it didn’t see you coming the day you ran out in front of my car.”
“It saw me comin’, all right. That’s exactly the point.” He brushed crumbs from his jeans and reached for a fried chicken leg. “No matter what we think we’re runnin’ from, we tend to run smack into what fate had in store for us all along.”
She jabbed a hunk of cheese with her fork. “You’re saying that our meeting was fate.”
“Wasn’t it? This is the way things work for my kind. I can’t explain it, but it just happens. Fate brings mates together, sometimes under some pretty unlikely circumstances. Either way, one look told me who my mate was, just the same as it did for you.”
Her heart fluttered at that. “One look told me that you were in need of medical attention. Not that I managed to stay conscious long enough to do anything about it.”
“You were as instantly afraid for my safety as I was for yours, even though both of us should have been worried about our own injuries. That was the bond stirrin’ in us. Even in those first few seconds, we cared more for each other than anyone else we’d ever met.”
She swallowed her bite of cheese, but it sank slowly past a nervous lump in her throat. She wished Caleb would let up about their rightness for each other for five minutes. It made her too uncomfortable to dwell on the subject.
Thankfully, he stopped talking while they dug in and feasted on their meal. When he did speak again, it was to praise her cooking and engage in idle small talk. By the time Caleb gave her wineglass a third refill, her stomach was pleasantly warm, and her head was swimming.
“I shouldn’t drink more,” she said. “I have to drive.”
“We’ll be here a while yet,” he said, pouring half a glass this time. “If need be, I can drive.”
“You’ve had just as much. Don’t you feel the buzz?”
“Oh, I’m feelin’ it.” His look seared her, and the way he said it made her wonder whether he meant the wine. “But my body burns alcohol fast.”
Despite his assurances, she knew she should lay off the bottle now. Still, his choice in wine was so perfect she couldn’t help indulging a bit more.
She was about to take another sip when Caleb froze, lifting his chin and scenting the air. After a moment where he looked deep in thought, he whipped his head around to stare at something near the base of the falls. She followed his gaze to the reason for his shift in attention, and her eyes flew wide when she spotted it.
“Oh, God, Caleb,” she whispered, afraid to move.
The wolf stared right back at them, its black fur wet and gleaming from the waterfall it had somehow emerged from the back of. A white diamond on its chest was ruffled and distorted from being soaked. The animal shook off, water flying everywhere, and then it stood dripping on a low rock on the riverbank. Its eyes held Rose captive. They were golden, gleaming, and full of awareness and cunning. Intelligent eyes, sizing the two of them up carefully as if weighing just how convenient a picnic they would make, basket and all.
“What do we do?” she asked quietly.
“It’s okay,” Caleb said, his eyes still locked with the wolf’s. “It’s just Seth.”
That snapped her gaze away from the animal. “It’s just what?”
“I know him. We used to be in the same pack.” He gave a nod of recognition to the wolf. To her shock, the animal tossed its head as if it were nodding back. Then it trotted off through the trees.
She got up and took a step backward, almost tripping over a small stone in the process. Her wine sloshed in the glass and barely missed staining her dress, but she didn’t care. She was staring hard at Caleb, and when he turned to her, his eyes weren’t human.
They were the same golden yellow as the wolf’s.
“Jesus,” she said, heading quickly for the edge of the water. There, she let the breeze fan her heated face and tried to breathe in deep to slow her pounding heart.
“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked, much too close behind her. “You’re safe, Rose. He’s gone. But Seth wouldn’t harm you, anyway.”
The wineglass quivered as she forced herself to take a long sip for courage. She was afraid to turn toward Caleb, lest she see what he’d become. She swallowed hard and did it anyway, relieved when she saw that his eyes were normal again. As normal as they ever were, anyway.
“It’s not true,” she said. “You don’t know wolves by name. And you certainly weren’t in a pack of them.”
His brows furrowed with concern. “You know what I am. You saw for yourself.”
Bile rose in her throat. “But that wasn’t real,” she stammered. “I was hallucinating because of my concussion.”
Understanding dawned on his face. “You think you made it all up in your head.”
“Of course.” A shudder passed over her. “What else?”
“Werewolves exist. Stephen and I are proof.”
She turned away and stared out over the churning water. “You really changed into animals and f
ought in my living room? Stephen healed your bullet wound with his tongue?”
“Yes.”
Her legs rubberized, and she held out her glass. “Take this, please. I’ve had more than enough.”
Caleb did as she asked. “I’m sorry, Rose. I had no idea you didn’t understand.”
Processing this information took time, and he stood quiet while she digested it. She hadn’t been dreaming or suffering delusions. She’d actually watched human beings morph into fur-covered, fang-bearing wolves.
That triggered a memory that made her whirl on him. “Stephen bit you,” she said. “I don’t know if he told you, but I saw you together. On my living room floor.”
“He told me.”
“And he hurt you.” She reached out and pulled aside the unbuttoned neck of his shirt, exposing his shoulder to reveal two fading, but still obvious punctures. “Right there.”
“He didn’t hurt me, Rose. He marked me. It’s how we seal a mate bond. It’s not unpleasant.” Something glimmered deep in his eyes. “Far from it.”
“You had a scar like that before,” she said. “I remember seeing it after the accident. But it was on this side.”
She pulled his shirt over the opposite shoulder, and she frowned. “I could have sworn it was there.”
“You’re right.” He straightened his shirt. “It was the mark of my former pack, the one Seth and I were in. It faded the minute Stephen put his mark on me. I’m his now.”
“This can’t be real,” she said, heading back to the blanket but not sitting down. There were really werewolves on this planet. In her world.
“Do you hurt people?” she asked. “Is that why you got shot?”
“No.” He paused. “And yes.” He came alongside her and set down the glass he’d taken from her.
“No and yes to which?”
“Humans hurt people, too, but not all. That’s how it is with werewolves. The pack I belonged to had major ugliness mixed up in it. Most of us were little better than hostages. The rest hurt plenty of people. I got shot in retaliation for their crimes.”
“Why, if you were a victim, too?”
Disobedient Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 11
