by Leela Ash
9.
Kane sighed to himself as he looked through the album of his wedding. Ava had never looked more beautiful than she had in her ceremonial gown as the council oversaw their union. It had been exactly two years and nine months before the second most important girl in his life had been born, and then three more years until he had lost Ava. It just didn’t seem like enough time.
Kane sat the album gingerly back in the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed he had shared with Ava for the only happy years his life had ever known. This room was a testament to the love they had shared.
Little love notes scrawled in Ava’s impatient hand were on the dresser, and her clothes still crumpled in the drawers after she had packed her things hastily to contribute to the war effort. How he wished there hadn’t been any war at all. To only see his wife six times in the last three years of her life was the cruelest of fates.
And now he was betraying her memory with his engagement to this human girl, this mere child, when it was a human that had put him in this horrible position in the first place. It seemed there was no end to the cruel turns that fate would take Kane’s life through. He would just have to settle with the fact that he was doomed to a life of singular misery. All but for Courtney, he hadn’t found any reason to smile since he’d lost his wife.
But being in this old room never did him any good. He hadn’t even spent the last night in there with his wife. She had been off to war, treating the wounds of people she shouldn’t have been treating. Her compassionate heart had truly been the end for her, and there was nothing he hated more than being right about how her kindness would someday get her into trouble.
He couldn’t think about that right now, though. It was too difficult. Too much pain in one area of his mind and heart. And so, Kane stood from the bed and, with one last lingering look at the remains of the life he had led with the only woman he had ever truly loved–the only woman he would ever truly love–he left the room.
“Dad! There you are!” Courtney exclaimed, her voice clearly annoyed.
“Were you looking for me, sweetheart?” Kane asked, furrowing his brow.
“Yeah! Where were you?” she demanded.
Kane sighed heavily and the irritation on his daughter’s face suddenly melted into compassionate understanding.
“Oh…well, anyway, after this morning–which, thank you, by the way, for letting me know I was going to have to take the bus, I was almost late to my first class–I’d really love it if we got the thing with my engine straightened out.”
“Of course,” Kane said, kicking himself. He had been so consumed with trying to avoid seeing Lia when she woke up that he had left the house as early as he could to spend some time by himself near the river. He’d completely forgotten that Courtney wouldn’t be able to get herself to school. At least, not in her own car.
“Good. Thank you,” Courtney said. “Things have just been way too weird lately for me to be comfortable not being able to get myself around.”
“That makes sense,” Kane said. “I’ll get it done today. Don’t worry.”
“All right,” Courtney said, kissing Kane on the cheek. “I’m going to get some studying done now. If you need anything, just let me know. I could make dinner or something.”
Kane raised his brow as he watched his daughter bound up the stairs. The only time she ever offered to cook was when she thought he was feeling upset about something. Her mother, in particular. He would have to stop being quite so transparent. It was probably pathetic.
“Oh shit!” Lia exclaimed with a soft laugh when Kane pushed through the door and onto the front porch. “You startled me.”
Kane took in the sight of her beautiful face, a smile light and fresh like a beautiful spring flower, and then noticed the book in her hands and couldn’t help but grin.
“Doing some deep reading?” he asked. He knew what it could be like to be consumed in the material you were working on. And he also knew that Lia was a bright girl capable of incredibly deep thought.
“Yeah, pretty much,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve been wanting to get this novel finished forever now, but with the demands of school lately, I haven’t had a chance to get back into it.”
“What is it?” Kane asked.
Lia showed him the cover and he raised a brow, impressed. It was a classic by one of the only world-renowned shifter authors in existence. It had been published the year before Kane was born, and he had loved it all his life.
“I didn’t know you read Vex Andrews,” Kane said, sitting down beside Lia. “Did you know he was born right around here? A few miles down the road from Stonybrooke.”
“Really?” Lia exclaimed. “Near bear territory?”
“Apparently, it was a complicated birth,” Kane said with a grin. The story never ceased to amuse him. “His mother had been furious with his father. He had been trying to do everything he possibly could to make her happy and comfortable. You know, shifter men can be very accommodating toward their mates.”
Lia’s eyes flashed for a moment and Kane felt a rush of forbidden heat surge through him.
“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat. “She was mad that she had caught him talking to a female friend of his. Being a bit hormonal, though, she didn’t realize that all he was doing was trying to ask for advice on how to do the laundry properly so she wouldn’t have to and had jumped to conclusions.”
Lia laughed, a sudden musical sound that made Kane pause for a moment just to listen to it. It was refreshing to be around her. Everything about this girl was rich in some way. He was pretty sure even her temper would be thought-provoking and sexy, somehow. But he had to fight the thoughts away. He couldn’t allow himself to feel that way about anyone. Not only was he still mourning his wife, but she was just a child.
“So she stalked off, real huffy like,” Kane continued, enjoying, as he always did, the re-telling of one of his favorite stories. “Until she found herself out in bear country. She heard a noise, probably just some kind of raven, and it spooked her so bad that her water broke right then and there. Luckily, her husband had been following her, making sure she didn’t get herself into any trouble and they delivered the baby right there, without any of the bear shifters being none the wiser.”
“So Vex’s family was originally from Stonybrooke?” Lia asked, her blue eyes bright. Again, Kane’s heart pounded involuntarily in his chest. She was going to have to stop being so damn beautiful or the wolf inside him was going to talk him into doing something awful.
“No!” Kane exclaimed with a quick laugh. “Actually, that’s the funniest part. They were just here to spend time with the wife’s father, who was just getting over an illness. He should have been born on the west coast. There’s a pack of shifters out there too. Settled in after the first war.”
“Wow,” Lia breathed. “So much drama.”
“Stonybrooke has quite a bit of local history,” Kane said. “I bet you would love it as much as I do.”
“I’m sure I would,” Lia said warmly, her pale blue eyes searching Kane’s shyly.
They stayed like that for a moment before Kane cleared his throat and glanced back at the garage.
“Hey, I promised Courtney I’d get her car fixed for her tonight so I should get on that,” Kane said. He didn’t want to extract himself from the conversation, but the sun was getting lower in the sky and he still had a lot of work to do once the car was finished. “We can pick this up later, okay?”
“Sure,” Lia said, her face alight with another sweet smile. “We might as well spend the time we have together usefully.”
The look in her eyes, though he couldn’t pinpoint just what it was about it, stirred the wolf inside him to a frenzy. This girl was dangerous. She was everything he had never even considered to look for in a woman. Ava had her own hobbies and passions, and literature had never been one of them. It was strange to have such an intellectual connection with someone. Especially somebody so much younger than he was. Ka
ne had to force the wolf to settle down before he let any of his emotions show through. None of them were anything he was particularly proud of.
Kane disappeared into the garage, refusing to allow himself to look back at Lia, who had already averted her attention back to the words on the page of her book. She devoured them just as he once had, back when he’d developed a passion for literature and had only just discovered the incredible journey of Vex’s characters.
Nowadays, his only passion was reading. The only thing that kept him afloat, other than being there for his daughter, was drowning his thoughts away with literary concepts and ideas. Many would probably think it was a sad way to live, but it suited Kane just fine. Nothing, not even a bright-eyed, gorgeous young girl like Lia, would ever ease the pain of losing his wife. And it would be stupid for anybody to try.
10.
“Lia.”
Lia’s heart hammered hard in her chest when Kane walked into his bedroom and said her name firmly. His eyes were serious and, for some reason, she had the fleeting, completely inappropriate hope that this was an indication that he had enjoyed their conversation as much as she had. As if, perhaps, she was going to receive something more from him. Maybe some kind of affection. But that would be too much to ask for, and even in her millisecond of hoping, she had already talked herself out of it.
“Hi,” Lia said, sitting up and putting her book on the end table. “I can turn the lights out if you’re heading to bed now.”
“That’s not it,” Kane said.
He was standing in the doorway, his hands and arms still greasy from working on Courtney’s engine. He looked shockingly sexy, wearing a tight white tank top that showed off the contours of his well-muscled body; something that was normally hidden behind the stylish chic of the suits he wore to class.
“Well, what is it then?” Lia asked, averting her eyes from Kane’s body quickly. Shifters certainly seemed to age much better than most human men. She would never have guessed he was twice her age by looking at him, except for his salt and peppered hair.
“I forgot to talk to you earlier. About Max. Courtney said…”
Lia’s heart constricted and she shuddered involuntarily at the sound of Max’s name. The last thing she wanted to think about was the horrible man and the potential danger she was in. She had resigned herself to helping the shifters, no matter what the cost to her personal life. Whether she liked it or not, that meant dealing with someone like Max.
“It’s really nothing,” Lia said quickly. “He was just looking at me funny. Probably trying to guess at what our relationship must be like.”
Saying the word relationship in terms of Kane brought a light blush to her cheeks and she tried her best to laugh it away.
“I guess we’re going to have to step up the game. Be more convincing about it. And, if you don’t mind, I’d like to try to keep an eye on you. Especially when you’re at school. Just to make sure nothing happens to you. I wouldn’t forgive myself if…”
“I’m sure it’s going to be fine, but sure, if it makes you feel better,” Lia said quickly, avoiding Kane’s dark, brooding gaze. God, he was sexy.
“Have lunch with me tomorrow. In my office. You’re free at one o’clock, right?”
Lia was taken aback by the sudden invitation and nodded dumbly.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “One o’clock.”
“Right. It’s right after my class, so we can walk to my office together. It won’t look like a big deal to most people, but to Max, it could mean everything.”
“Yeah…”
Lia was still startled when Kane abruptly crossed through the room and let himself into the bathroom with a towel, so as to keep the doorknob from getting covered with grease.
“All right,” he said. “See you then.”
Kane disappeared into the little bathroom and Lia listened to him begin to run the water in the shower as the new plan sunk in. She was going to be spending more time with Kane.
Kane, who was clearly looking exhausted right now. It didn’t seem fair for him to give up his bed for her, so as quietly as she could, she picked up her book and got out of bed and climbed into the arm chair across from it where Kane had been sleeping lightly the night before. They were both in this together, whether against their wills or not, so they would just have to share the burden of uncomfortable sleeping.
By the time Kane was finished showering, Lia was already lying as comfortably as she could possibly be in the chair, sound asleep.
***
The next morning, Courtney’s car was running like a dream and they headed to SU together, Courtney telling Lia all about how Eric was planning to take her out for the weekend, and how Lia would have to cover for her.
“But if your dad finds out, won’t he kill us both?” Lia pointed out. She had been doing everything humanly possible not to upset Kane. He was such a dark and powerful man; there was no telling what kind of things he may be capable of.
“That’s why he isn’t going to find out,” Courtney said. “And you’re going to help me.”
“Nghhh…” Lia murmured, but Courtney laughed light-heartedly.
“Oh come on,” she said with a grin. “It’s going to be fine. All you have to do is smile and nod. And who could resist that smile of yours?”
Courtney winked at Lia and she felt immediately uncomfortable. It felt like a mistake to admit to Courtney that she was attracted to Kane, even if she was her best friend. It was still a strange situation for everybody involved.
“Where are you and Eric going?” Lia asked, hoping to change the subject.
As much as she would like it if Courtney was right and Kane liked her smile, she knew it wasn’t possible. Not only was he much older than she was, but he was clearly still in love with his wife, whether she was alive or not.
Just because she had woken up with a blanket draped neatly over her body didn’t mean Kane felt any closer to her. In fact, he probably saw her as just another daughter, if anything. He wasn’t the kind of man who would just throw all of his morals away because he was attracted to someone. He was nothing like Max.
“Eric and I are going to a cabin his parents own just a little bit outside of Stonybrooke. It’s beautiful there! He’s always talking about it, and now I finally get a chance to go, so please, please, please, don’t tell my dad anything!”
“Do you realize how weird it’s going to be for me to be alone in the house with Professor Desmond?” Lia exclaimed. “I barely know him!”
“Well, now’s your chance then!” Courtney said. “You two are such nerds. Just do nerd things together and everything should work out fine!”
“Thanks, Court,” Lia said sarcastically. “We’ll probably just avoid each other like the plague.”
“Well, whatever you do is fine as long as you aren’t blabbing to him about me and Eric being together. He really wouldn’t like me being with a human. I’m surprised he wasn’t weirder about us being friends, honestly.”
“Well, I can’t blame him,” Lia said darkly. “Humans weren’t exactly the biggest allies during the war.”
“Yeah…” Courtney said, trailing off as she pulled into the campus parking lot.
“So, if I’m not allowed to tell him where you are, then what am I supposed to say?”
“That I’m cramming for a test with some friends and that he should be very proud of his extremely studious daughter who never lets him down,” Courtney said with a charming smile.
Lia laughed despite herself.
“That’s a mouthful. And it would probably sound better coming from you.”
“Well, whatever you tell him, just let him I’m safe and will be back when I say I will.”
“All right,” Lia sighed. “Look at me. I’m already lying to my fiancé. I am not going to be good marriage material.”
Courtney snorted.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a problem,” she said, grabbing her backpack out of the trunk of her car and then slamming
the trunk shut. “You two are engaged now. Things have a way of working themselves out when it comes to true love.”
Lia studied Courtney’s face briefly before her friend turned her back and began walking toward her first class. There was something in Courtney’s eyes that made Lia feel as if she was only half-joking. But hell would freeze over before anything happened between Lia and Kane. And even if something could, she knew that once he found out about her past, it would all be over.
With a heavy heart, Lia took a deep breath and resigned herself to spending the next forty-five minutes in her math class with Max giving her the creeps. She would be gladder than she could possibly describe when all of this was over with. Just a few more weeks and she would finally be able to rid herself of this stupid situation once and for all.
11.
“Hello, Professor Desmond,” Lia said quietly, her soft voice startling Kane out of his concentration. He put down the stack of papers he had been reading through as his class reviewed for an upcoming test and stood up, hoping that Lia wouldn’t notice she had taken him by surprise. The last thing a wolf wanted was for someone to notice his weaknesses.
“Good afternoon,” Kane said, clearing his throat. “Are you ready?”
“I brought us both a lunch,” Lia said nervously, offering Kane a paper bag. For some reason, the gesture made his heart melt, and he clutched the bag tightly. His wife, much like Courtney, hadn’t been particularly fond of cooking, so he rarely received such a gift.
“Thank you,” he said, sincerely surprised. “I was thinking we would buy something but this is much better.”
“It’s not a problem. It’s probably healthier,” Lia said with a shy smile. “So much of the food here is full of oil. Once in a while, I like a break.”
Kane nodded and led Lia out the door. He could tell that she was only telling him half of the truth. She was pleased to be able to bring him a lunch. But if she knew that he knew, it would probably just embarrass her. For whatever reason, she was happy to treat him, and he would be lying if he were to say he wasn’t happy to receive it.
