by Weil, J. L.
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously.”
“Then trust me, you’re more than interested. The girls in this town might treat him a like pariah, but they secretly dream about doing the nasty with him at night. Fact.”
Flushing to the roots of my hair, I bit down on the edge of my nail. “Whatever.”
She shook her head, sending her perfect blonde ringlets into a bounce. “The two of you are absolutely maddening to be around. I’ve never met more stubborn people. There is nothing Chase wouldn’t do for you. Nothing. And I think you already know that.”
I swallowed the large lump of emotion clogging my windpipe. It was a hard pill to swallow. I knew that without Chase, I wouldn’t be here with Lexi getting ready to shop for my favorite holiday. Without Chase, my mom would be alone in the world. Without Chase, I wouldn’t have the chance to find love.
We might always be at each other’s throats, or drive each other insane, but he would always be there. He would never let me down. In my book, that spoke volumes. I knew that there were things out there in the world that I couldn’t wrap my mind around, but knowing Chase was at my side made it all bearable.
“I know,” I managed softly, risking a glance at her.
Her eyes shone seriously. “Just don’t break his heart.”
My chest felt heavy. What I needed to break was this somber mood that had settled over us. This was supposed to be fun. “I’m not sure I could. I swear he has a heart of stone.”
“It was, until he met you.”
She let me to stew over her words the rest of the trip until we’d reached our first destination, though her words never left me. Being the good friend that I was, I let her have the first pick. Well that was one reason, but secretly I was also hoping for a miracle or an act of God that would allow Lexi to find her costume in the first store. Anything to cut our shopping trip in half.
Every time we go out, I was reminded how different we really were. It was easy to forget when it was just us, but the moment we were out in public, I saw the strange way people reacted to them. It was so weird to me. Especially since there was a knot that formed in my stomach the further we got from home. The further away we got from Chase. I was trying hard to ignore the growing knot, and I did not want admit that I missed him, that he mattered that much.
I was blaming it entirely on the stupid mark on my hip, the one we both shared.
Lexi must have sensed my agitation because she repeatedly asked if I was okay. If I was feeling alright? Was something wrong? The only person I was fooling was me.
Thankfully, someone above answered my desperate prayers, and Lexi found her perfect hoochie ensemble at the second shop. “Do you think Hayden will like it?” she asked, showing a vulnerable side she did so well, yet I knew firsthand how incredibly fierce she could be. It still didn’t stop all the guys in her life from protecting her.
“Are you kidding? He is going to blow a socket when he sees you.” Then there was also the chance that Travis will incinerate him for looking at her so ravenously.
She giggled. “Good. I’m sure you’ll knock Chase’s socks off.”
Lexi didn’t have quite the vocabulary I did, but she usually said the first thing to pop into her perfect head. “What I have in mind doesn’t have the same wow-factor as your costume. Plus, I couldn’t pull off something this skimpy. You have a killer body – it was made to be seen.”
“Angel, you really need to take a look in the mirror,” she said, climbing into my car and tossing her purchase in the back.
“Trust me, I have,” I muttered and hopped into the driver seat.
“I can’t believe you didn’t find anything you liked in either store. There must have been a thousand costumes in there.”
I turned the key into the ignition, and my little Fusion purred to life “True,” I smiled at Lexi. “But nothing screams originality like custom made.” Custom sounded way better than handmade.
She looked unimpressed. “It just seems like too much work,” she sighed.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But it is so rewarding.”
“Yeah well, so are chocolate éclairs, but you don’t see me slaving away in the kitchen. That’s why there are bakeries.”
I rolled my eyes.
By the time we got to the fabric shop, I was ready to do my thing. Lexi however, looked lost, like a tear in the rain. “This will be fun,” I tried to coax. She was definitely out of her element, while I was right at home.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted, overwhelmed.
She trailed after me, her boots clicking on the tile floor as we meandered down the aisles looking for the ideal fabric. In my head I knew precisely what I wanted.
“Do you have a sewing machine?” Lexi asked, as I was pulling down rolls of material from the shelves.
“Umm, yeah. My mom does. When I was little, she used to make all my dolls and Barbie’s clothes,” I said offhandedly, while I was trying to concentrate on fabrics.
“Wow. I can’t believe your mom did that.” There was wistfulness and a young girls yearning in her voice.
“Yeah, no kidding. You should have seen her a few years ago. You wouldn’t have recognized her she was so domesticated.” It was then that I remembered Lexi never had a mom. I glanced at her leaning against a rack of plaid flannel fabric. She never looked more out of place. Or more alone and like a little girl. “Hey, you should stay for dinner tonight. My mom is cooking, and I know she would love it if you came. She adores you.”
The glint of sadness left her eyes and was replaced with one of mischief. “She also adores my dad.”
I groaned. My mom and Devin had officially gone out on two dates. That was two dates too many in my book. “Ugh. Don’t remind me. It is so weird.” I gathered two of the fabric rolls I wanted under my arm.
Lexi beamed. “Maybe for you. I personally think it’s great. Your mom is a-ma-zing, and my dad seems to really like her. I’ve not seen him this happy…” She pondered that statement for a moment. “Ever.”
I didn’t want to burst her bubble, so I just agreed. “I guess. So are you coming over?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding her honey highlighted blonde head.
We waited in line to get the fabric cut, paid for my purchases, and then headed home. As we entered the Spring Valley city limits, I couldn’t help but notice how incredibly rustic and beautiful the woods looked, tangerine, candy apple red, and golden yellow trees were back dropped against the clear blue sky, or how the plowed fields were now dry and dead. Burning leaves scented the air and everything here moved with leisure. It was a nice change, and I hated to admit it, but I might actually be adapting to country life.
But I wouldn’t dare tell a soul that.
Unfortunately my serene peace was cut short. Lexi was chattering a hundred miles an hour and fiddling with the radio stations, while I did everything I could to follow her conversation and stay on the road. It was not easy. Occasionally I would nod my head or give uh-huh remark. The sky was darkening, cutting down on my visibility. My car was cruising along the rocky road.
Lexi’s voice cut through my concentration. Apparently I’d fallen behind on my appropriate responses. “Angel. Are you even–”
She never finished her sentence. There was a loud clunk, clunk, clunk noise vibrating under my car.
Slowing the car, I swore a colorful string of words under my breath and pulled over.
“Oh man, that doesn’t sound good.” Her brows drew together. “You got AAA right?”
“Triple what?” I muttered.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she reassured.
I wasn’t convinced. If my car was clunking – it was bad news. Getting out of the car, I walked around looking for...I didn’t really know what I was looking for, something that screamed, hey right here. I’m broken. Well as luck would have it, it didn’t actually scream the problem, but my car was leaning very awkwardly to one side.
Good riddance. Now what?
I walked to the rear
of the car. “Shit.” One of my back tires was flatter than a pancake, and to make matters worse, there was an arrow sticking out of it. A mother freaking arrow.
That was definitely not normal, not even for the boonies.
Lexi stepped out beside me. She took one look at my poor tire and announced, “I’ll call Chase. And Angel…”
I looked up from the mutilated rubber into her turquoise alarm-filled eyes.
“…get back in the car,” she finished.
Oh mercy.
Chapter 4
All I could think of was, crap here we go again.
I hadn’t even been back to my normal life for like two seconds, when shit decided to go south. Only me.
Huddling back into my car, I hit the lock button the moment Lexi slammed her door shut. The phone was already to her ear as she waited for her cousin to pick up. I knew that I didn’t have any supersonic eyesight, but that didn’t stop me from scanning the area like a crazy person. Someone or something was out there, and they had wanted to hurt us. This I was sure of, or we wouldn’t be calling for backup.
My blood pressure spiked, and I felt a full on panic attack rising. Not knowing what lurked, hiding in the edges of the woods, was torturing me. Not knowing whether it was from hell’s gates or if it was human. The not knowing was killing me. I didn’t know how Chase, Lexi, and Travis handled this. I wasn’t cut out for this kind of life, yet the choice had already been made for me. It was out of my hands, and I better suck it up, put my big girl pants on, and calm down.
“Chase,” she said into her pink rhinestone phone. “We need you.” Lexi glanced at the GPS on my dashboard. “We are a half mile from Burton’s Bridge.” She flipped her phone closed and glanced at me with big turquoise eyes. “He’s on his way.”
My heart started to beat irrationally fast in my chest. Just knowing that Chase was on his way did funny things to my belly. To all of me really. Those feelings of anxiousness I’d felt earlier, grew tenfold. I kept trying to tell myself it was because someone, or something, might be out there. Waiting. Watching. But in the end it really didn’t matter how much I tried to delude myself. The fact still remained that Chase, and only Chase, made me feel this way.
Someday I was going to have to come to terms with that.
Someday was not today.
It took Chase less than three minutes to find us. Seriously – no joke. Under three minutes without a car. He traveled on foot faster than any mode of transportation. This was one of those times I loved that he wasn’t entirely human.
There was a blur of color right before Chase materialized outside my window. My heart accelerated more as I stared at him through the windowpane, mesmerized by his half-silver, half-gold eyes. I completely forgot about my tire, forgot my fear, forgot to think. There was only him. I couldn’t help but eat up the sight of him. In my head, I knew that I had just seen him a few hours ago, but the rest me felt like it had been days, weeks, years. There was no rhyme or reason – it just was.
I could tell by the way his eyes roamed over my face, that he felt exactly the same. The swirly mark at my hip tingled, and I instinctively put a hand to my side. It was always the same, and I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to this.
Lexi cleared her throat, snapping me back to reality. I rolled down my foggy window.
“You got a flat,” he said, stating the obvious. A piece of his midnight hair fell off to one side. It was so dark now, and he blended in with the night, except for his eyes.
The spell was broken, and I was feeling moody now. “Duh, it’s the arrow sticking out of the tire that has us freaked out.”
He inspected the tire and the nasty arrow embedded in the rubber, then he took off lickety-split.
Damn him.
“Where the hell did he go?” I asked Lexi who was completely unfazed by her cousin’s sudden disappearance, leaving us stranded, again, I might add. Getting out of the car, I slammed the door with more force than necessary. This was more than I could take. “Ahhh!” I screamed.
“What? Are you trying to attract their attention? Or worse?” Chase asked, like a smartass, suddenly behind me.
I flinched, spinning around. Then my heart jumped as well, but for totally different reasons. He was close – extremely close. On either side of my arms, his hands steadied me, and I laid mine fingers flat on his chest. A rush of security and ease washed through me. Inhaling, I breathed in his scent – sexy and fresh, as if he’d just stepped out of a shower. His heart beat strong under my palm, and I felt it quicken as I fisted a handful of his shirt, holding him in place. And I wished we were anywhere but here, stranded on the side of the road. I blinked.
He inched forward, and I held my breath.
“Can you guys do the whole sexual tension thing later? I want to get the heck out of dodge before one of them decides to come back and put an arrow in my heart,” Lexi said condescendingly, clearly annoyed. She had gotten out of the car sometime during our burning exchange.
Taking a step back, Chase seared her with a dull look. “It’s clear. Whoever was here is gone and isn’t coming back, unless of course Angel starts yelling again. We might have to restrain her.”
“I bet you’d like that,” I sneered, feeling clear-headed again, instead of thinking with my teenage hormones.
He smirked. “I think I deserve a reward for rescuing you. I can think of a few ways you could repay me.”
I arched a brow. “Me too. My foot up your ass sounds like a good one.”
He snickered.
Lexi looked ready to slam our heads together.
We could do this all night, this sarcastic banter back and forth and not accomplish a darn thing. I crossed my arms. “Now fix my car so we can go home. I’m tired. I’m hungry. And I’m crabby,” I complained.
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a minute. I’m still planning on collecting that reward,” he added as he opened the trunk.
I knew all to well what his idea of a reward was. Not happening. However, that didn’t stop my body from reacting to the insinuation. Traitorous body. The fact that he put the idea into my head was maddening. It would be all I thought about for the rest of the night. That was bound to get uncomfortable.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him he had exactly one minute, but one look in Lexi’s direction told me that probably wasn’t the best idea. She looked frazzled, and I wasn’t really sure I had ever seen her frazzled. It probably wasn’t wish to push my luck.
“Well, I got a reward for you,” Lexi piped in, leaning on the car. “Angel’s mom is making dinner, and I bet she would love it if you stopped by.”
There was a good chance I might have to kick Lexi’s butt. It was true that Mom would probably love it if Chase came over. Hell, lately half the time I thought she had a crush on him. My mom loved Chase, but I guess she wasn’t thinking straight. The new romance seemed to have dulled her common sense.
I shuddered every time I thought about my mom and Devin. Together. Parents of teenagers should not be allowed to date until the teens have gone off to college. I’m thinking about starting a petition.
Chase popped his head out of the trunk, grinning slyly at me. “That is almost as good as what I had in mind.”
I sighed. “Just fix the damn tire, would you?”
He mumbled something snide under his breath and got to work. Pretty sure it involved me being bossy and an ungrateful vixen. I watched as he effortlessly hijacked the back end of my car. His muscles flexed with his movements. I drooled. He might be the world’s biggest ass, but he also had the world’s hottest ass.
“You’re staring,” he said without lifting his head.
“So,” I retorted unapologetically.
He angled his head up, meeting my gaze. “Didn’t anyone teach you it’s not polite to stare?”
“Didn’t anyone teach you to be a gentleman?” I stuffed my hands into the back pocket of my jeans.
“You can tell me all about my flaws on the way home. Let’s go,” he stood up,
dusting off his hands. “We’re all good here.”
No argument there. We piled back into my car, and I gladly let Chase take the driver’s seat. “This wasn’t an accident was it?” I asked, as he drove back home. Lexi was curled up in the backseat.
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, the soft blue light of the interior lights catching the silver hoop on his brow. “No,” he stated simply. “I’ve come to realize that with you, I leave nothing up to chance.”
I had my head rested on the back of my seat as I watched his profile. Everything about him looked dangerous, deadly. The hard set of his jaw, the steel grey eyes, the overly cocky attitude, but when I looked at him, I could see past all the BS he shielded himself with. I figured it was part bond and part my lacking the fear chromosome everyone else had, that I was able to see who he really was. And it was times like these, when I caught glimpses of his good side that my heart softened and melted toward him. It was easier for me to deal with the jerk, than to deal with the sweet side of Chase.
It was also safer for my heart.
Deep down I knew that if I gave him my heart, Chase Winters would have the power to destroy it. He could shatter my heart into a million, gazillion fragments. I was afraid to let myself feel anything for him other than annoyance and maybe friendship, but I also knew that I was deluding myself. The more time we spent together, the more he chipped away the barrier around my heart.
And I found myself powerless to stop it.
I tore my gaze from him and pulled out my phone. Sending a quick text to my mom, I hoped she was making a meal for an army, because dinner just got crowded. If I knew my mom, the whole Winters clan would be at my house for dinner tonight.
My mom was a goddess in the kitchen. Once she found out we were having company, and that Chase had fixed my car, (making him a savior in her eyes) she pulled out all the stops – wine, her famous baked mostaccioli, and homemade garlic bread. Dinner ended up being boisterous, delicious, and surprisingly normal – like we were a family. Everyone talked at the same time, we all laughed at each other, and it was the most I’d ever seen my mom smile.
