by Ruby Raine
It rubbed him as wrong, with William still out there somewhere. However, if he were here, Charlie was certain the vampire would agree with his actions. He imagined his friend’s reaction to finding out they did not take all necessary precautions, because it might be him they were warding off. William would scold them all, severely.
A throat cleared behind him.
Charlie froze, lips pursed, certain of the female that haughty sound belonged to; he swore he could see Lizzy’s arms folded and her toe tapping in annoyance. He turned, surprised, she was not, and he was wrong; but she wasn’t smiling happily at him either.
“Hi,” he greeted gently.
“Hi?” Her tone sizzled, her gaze burned, her arms folding.
Charlie forced back a grin when her toe started up. She was so damn cute when she was angry. And a little scary. And he hated upsetting her, it was definitely not on his top favorite things to do list.
“That’s seriously all you have to say, Charlie? Hi?”
“I’ve been... busy,” he croaked out.
“I understand things have been rough, but it’s been two weeks, Charlie.”
“Yes. Yes it has.” He sucked in, tensely.
Lizzy’s foot stopped tapping but her arms remained folded.
“So I take it, since you haven’t asked me out on a date yet, or even really spoken to me, that you’ve been overthinking things?”
“Oh, I’ve most definitely been doing that.”
She shook her head, both amused and annoyed. “I’m going to have to fix that.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” he stated, a somber chuckle on his lips. “I am sorry, Lizzy. I did try not to overthink things.”
“Somehow I do not believe you. So what are you doing?” she inquired, changing the subject.
“Checking the protections I put up around the grounds. Don’t need more unwanted intruders sneaking onto the property or into the house. I put some protections up around the old tree in White Pines, too. To secure the power source, at least temporarily.” He went on, explaining the deaths by vampire bite and William’s sudden, unexplained departure from the island. Planning Emily’s father’s funeral. He expected Lizzy to understand his lack of asking her on a date once he’d finished, but instead, she refolded her arms, her toe strumming atop the ground.
“And you haven’t asked for my help, why?”
“Um...” his brain was at a loss. Anything he said was going to sink him in hot water. Deeper than he was already boiling in.
“You Howard men never change. Even hundreds of years ago, you were all stubborn, pig-headed, pains in the ass. Too headstrong to ask for help if it might hurt your precious egos.”
“I thought the complete demoralization of myself in front of Eva Jordan was what made you fall for me.” His tone was a blend of far too smug and casual, and he figured this out a few seconds too late.
Her burning gaze fixed on him so hard he thought flames might burst out of his skin.
“Sorry.”
“You’re not even close to sorry, Charlie Howard.”
“I’m really, really, really sorry,” he tried again, as meekly as he could muster.
“You don’t show up at a girl’s house out of the blue, claim you’ve fallen madly in love and then disappear and try to pretend it didn’t happen. And pretend you don’t need her help when obviously, you do. Taking out the us equation, isn’t that detrimental to your job?”
She had him there. And it did seem silly, now, to think he could do such a thing. Well, did such a thing. Especially since he’d thought about asking her for help numerous times but chickened out, because he’d have to face the truth of what he’d told her. And he should always put security of the island first. It was his job. She’d hit the nail on the head when she’d said his ego had gotten in the way.
She frowned, the fire in her gaze dissolving into an ember of what Charlie could only call, hurt. He’d done that by not respecting her enough to confide in her. Yeah, he’d been a gigantic idiot.
“Charlie, if you want to back out, now’s your chance. I won’t hold it against you. I won’t try to change your mind. I will even still help you because I care about this island as much as you do. I would be lying though, if I didn’t admit I’d be disappointed.”
“Lizzy, no. That’s not...” he approached her, words, refusing to come out right. “I mean. It’s just that... I still... you are,” he groaned, tongue befuddled, unable to keep up with his thoughts.
“Do you regret what you told me?”
“No. No, I don’t.” This was the truth, without hesitation. He looked her straight in the eye. “I don’t regret what I said. I meant every word. It’s just so complicated.”
“Only because you’re making it that way.”
“Yes. You’re right. I am. But even right now, fully admitting I’m making it complicated, and overthinking things, my mind goes to all these bad places and I can’t stop it. There are important things I have no answers to. Things I don’t have time to figure out right now. Things that will be dangerous and life-threatening to you, if I can’t find those answers.”
“Do you think I’m naïve, Charlie?”
He gave his head a definitive shake.
“I’m not a silly girl with stars in her eyes. There will be some challenges. And I do not expect you down on one knee, proposing, starting a family tomorrow. But how about, getting to know each other. Letting me help you. And just, ask me out on a date already! A girl does like to be romanced, Charlie.”
“Romance,” he stammered. “I can do that.”
Lizzy smiled, wanting to believe him.
“Just as soon as we catch this vampire,” he added without thinking, instantly wincing as it was too late to take it back.
She rolled her eyes and expelled a vexed groan.
Melinda called out to them. “Mack phoned.”
Charlie, grateful for the distraction, headed toward the mansion. He stopped a few steps in and motioned for Lizzy to go first.
“See, romantic.”
“Wow. I’m tingly all over.” She shook her head. The werewolf was hot, and hot headed, but had obviously never romanced a girl, ever.
Charlie sighed, stepping in behind her.
“Lizzy, wait.”
She stopped just inside the front door and gave him her full attention.
“Look, I... I’m one endless apology lately. But I am sorry. I don’t understand how to do the whole relationship and job thing at the same time. The truth is, I’ve never actually asked someone out on a date before.” Humiliation grated his admittance. “I have been overthinking things, and I’ve been an ass, but more than that I plain old chickened out.”
“Yeah, that was hard to guess,” she returned, sarcasm thick in the grin she was holding in.
“I’ve always had to be so careful. I’ve never dated like normal people do. Ever.”
“Charlie...” she stepped close enough to place her palm against his chest. Such a simple act and yet his heart thrummed at the gentleness of her small hand splayed against him. “If I wasn’t interested don’t you think I would have made that obvious?”
“Yes. But I still got scared, because of all the reasons we’ve already discussed and more. Being a werewolf makes it dangerous for me to get too close to people. Well, humans anyway.”
“You mean to be intimate.”
“Yes. So I’ve never dated before. My wolf is hard to tame. His instincts are to bite and I can’t trust in the heat of the moment to keep him under control.” He saw a flash of heat in her eyes. Not the blaze of anger she had earlier. A heat he and his wolf wanted to explore the depths of... even while standing here explaining how dangerous it would be, his wolf was licking his lips and slathering his teeth, tantalized at the thought of sinking his teeth into her shoulder. Branding her with his bite to claim her as his.
She likes the idea.
No. Too many questions. I won’t hurt her, or condemn her to live like me.
&n
bsp; You’ll have to if you want her belly swollen with your children.
Charlie groaned, begging the wolf to shut up, at the same time enticed by the soft hand sliding up the outside of his tank top in a teasing motion. The very idea of Lizzy pregnant with his child, was suddenly and overwhelmingly, hot, and he wanted to start right then. Which was such an odd thing as even though he’d always felt it his duty, he’d never truly desired children until now.
“I’d wager Charlie Howard had girls throwing themselves at him from all sides,” teased Lizzy. “So he wouldn’t have had to ask anyone out, would he?”
He could not contain a knowing grin. He’d never had a problem attracting human females. Or supernatural ones. “Regardless,” he captured Lizzy’s hand before it reached the bare skin of his neck. “I could never act on anything, no matter how badly I wanted to.” He kissed her palm.
“Well, you’re all grown up now, Charlie. And you have this.” She unwound her hand from his and traced the Guardian ring on his finger.
Her eyes drew him to her, in a manner that set his skin aflame and had the wolf pounding for escape. He gritted his teeth at the lewd mental images tossing around his brain.
None of those things would be happening until he had answers, to questions he didn’t have a clue how to locate the answers to. There wasn’t enough time in the day to get it all done. Even if Michael wasn’t spending as much time as possible with Emily, and William wasn’t gone. There still wouldn’t be enough time.
But he could start with romance.
“So, um, Lizzy. Would you like to go out on a date with me?”
“That didn’t sound too hard at all,” she quipped lightly, running her fingers up his arm.
“With you right here, looking at me like that, the hard part is not acting on every other impulse I have.”
She dropped her hand, a seductive grin stretching her lips.
“Well then, Charlie. To answer your question, I’ll have to think about it.” She pulled away and moved to go into the kitchen.
Charlie’s face pinched inward and he reached out, spinning her around.
“Think about it?” he growled.
She smiled. Said nothing. Shrugged. And turned away.
Without her saying it aloud, he knew exactly what she was thinking. That’s for being a total douchebag the last two weeks. Payback for his miserable behavior.
“She’s going to be the death of me,” he muttered, following her, hands fisted, his temper ready to throw the woman over his knee and spank her.
He deserved the spurn though. Didn’t like it, but deserved it.
And like it or not, they needed her help as they were spread thin right now. And Lizzy was right to remind him that protecting the island was more important than his potentially injured ego.
They met Michael and Melinda in the kitchen, both poorly holding back grins meaning they’d heard far more than he’d have liked. He sent them each a silent warning, telling them to butt out of his love life. He had enough problems already without his love life becoming sibling business.
“Hi, Lizzy,” greeted Melinda. “Glutton for punishment, aren’t you? I’m talking about helping us, and dealing with my brother.”
Lizzy lifted an eyebrow at Charlie, and shrugged, agreeing. “I’m hoping it’s one of those pleasurable kinds of pain.”
Okay. Change of subject time. Enough with the innuendo and sibling love life discussion. “So what did Mack have to say?” Charlie got them back on track; frown lines gutting into canyons as the real topic came back into play.
“Right, nothing too exciting really,” explained Michael. “Just that Courtney Jessup quit her job, was supposed to stop in a day later to pick up her belongings and her paycheck, and has not. The station owner, Nethaniel Dante, or people call him Ned I guess, went to the apartment he rented for her concerned she hadn’t shown up, and the door was unlocked, all her belongings still there, but no sign anyone had actually been there recently. Mack’s sending her deputy over to take a look at things now.” He discharged a clipped laugh, though the subject wasn’t funny. “Mack was a bit flustered.”
Melinda laughed loudly. “You can say that again.”
“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.
“She took so long getting back to us because apparently, this Nethaniel Dante, Ned, guy, is a bit smitten with her,” Melinda explained. “They kept getting off subject,” she added, in a terrible attempt at an accent matching Ned’s. “He’s not from the States.”
“Gathered that. Smitten over Mack, huh? That is hard to imagine,” remarked Charlie. Although the thought of anyone hitting on Mack and getting her all flustered brought a laugh to his lips. A genuine laugh that felt nice to let out and hear. “It’s not so much that it’s funny,” he claimed, unable to stop grinning at the picture in his mind.
“And yet it totally is,” Melinda chimed in. “I mean, C’mon. It’s Mack! You should have seen the guy ogling her. Oh my God! You would’ve died.”
“I can’t even imagine it,” said Michael. “I flirt with Mack all the time and she’s never once been remotely serious.”
“Guess your baby face didn’t do it for her,” Melinda ribbed. That got them all laughing. For a moment, in their kitchen, doing something utterly silly and normal.
“Well I say about time,” Charlie said breathlessly a minute later, laughter still riding his words. “If there’s a guy out there that’s got the hots for Mack, we should tie her up and hand her over.”
“Might be the only way she’d get to know him enough to give him a chance,” added Michael.
“Yeah, she deserves a chance at love, as much as any of us.” Melinda got quiet. The whole room did. All their love lives were a mess right now, and the moment of amusement only masked the misery hovering over them like their own personal storm cloud.
Melinda was still in love with two men who were not around, and possibly never going to be around again. Emily was hanging onto sanity by a thread, Michael being that thread, and it was getting thinner each day. And Charlie and Lizzy...
She stepped up to him and kept her gaze fixed on his. “If tying you up and forcing you to go on a date will work, I can find some rope.” She jested, and yet the glint in her eye dared him to test her claim. His gaze didn’t back down warning her he had a much different idea in mind for using rope.
Michael cleared his throat. “And we’re back to normal.” Flung into his sibling’s love life whether he wanted to be, or not. Both he and Melinda guessed there would be a lot more fighting than dating going on, as Charlie and Lizzy were equally stubborn. Always right. And quick minded to boot. Except when Lizzy befuddled Charlie’s tongue.
“Just how much is known about this reporter lady anyway?” Lizzy slipped right back into witch mode.
“Not much,” answered Charlie doing the same. “What most anyone knows. She was close to finding the Feyk though. She’s tenacious, if not careful.”
“Doesn’t it seem a bit odd that she’s gone missing around the time this vampire showed up?” Lizzy put out there.
“But she was here for weeks before this happened,” argued Michael.
“Yeah. True. But the timing is definitely something to consider,” Lizzy said.
“I think if anything, she’s gotten herself into some kind of trouble she can’t get out of,” said Charlie, gently disagreeing.
“Possibly that too,” agreed Lizzy.
“But you’re right that the timing is odd,” Charlie conceded.
“And remember, she up and quit a job it appeared she was quite into,” Melinda pointed out. “I think that’s another stroke for the odd column.”
“We’ve already confirmed she’s not a supernatural,” said Charlie. “Because William used his persuasion on her to find out what she knew about the Feyk. It only works on humans,” he reminded.
“And I don’t think she’s a victim of this new vampire,” said Lizzy. “Not if she quit her job and then disappeared. It’s more like...”
“Something scared her off,” finished Charlie.
“And she ran,” Lizzy added.
“Must have gotten a reality check and found out things on the Isle are not as they first appear.” Charlie wondered what the reporter had seen.
“Not to say that after this, she didn’t still have a run in with the vampire.”
“She left all her stuff. I wonder if that includes her most personal belongings,” Charlie mused.
“You mean like her purse, wallet, that kind of stuff?” Lizzy asked.
“Yeah.” He looked to Michael and Melinda.
“All left behind. She took nothing,” Michael told them.
“So even if she saw something that scared her, you’d think she’d have snagged her wallet,” noted Charlie.
“Can’t get far without money,” said Lizzy. “That hasn’t changed, even since my time.”
Charlie chuckled. “No, that’s always been around. Which begs the question, is Courtney Jessup still on the Isle? If something scared her, but she stuck around, in hiding...” he stared inquisitively at Lizzy, almost like Melinda and Michael were not even in the room. They in turn sat back and watched Charlie and Lizzy work it through, casting a fleeting glance at each other, silently thinking how like their parents the exchange was. Stubbornness set aside, they complimented each other well.
“It could also mean she got scared, meant to leave, but never had the chance.” Lizzy hated to think of that end. If the reporter got herself into a situation she didn’t know how to get herself out of.
“We’re really getting nowhere, here. I wonder if there’s a way to have Mack find out exactly what she was up to before she went missing.” Charlie was about to call her when Lizzy’s face lit up.
“We can retrace her steps. There’s a potion.” She put up her hand. “I should say try to trace her, it’s iffy. Finicky. Doesn’t always work. If the reporter’s been gone more than a day, the trail will be too weak to follow.” She looked at Melinda. “Tried to use it to find Riley but he was too far ahead of us and there were just too many places to try.”
Melinda tossed her a sympathetic smile. It was killing her slowly, not knowing where her motorcycle man was. And not knowing where William was and when he’d come home. And if she was true to her feelings, she cared about Riley’s well-being immensely. It had just taken her some time to get there.
