“No, I am not all right! Are you an idiot?” My chest started to hurt, and I began to hyperventilate again. “I. Am. Freaking. Out.” I tried to get my breathing under control.
Now was so not the time to have a panic attack. “I need air.”
“Maybe I should take you back to the doc?”
“No!” I didn’t want to go back to Billy Bob’s. Even with Chavvah still missing, I had the sudden urge to escape. I wanted to go home. And not Peculiar—San Diego home.
“Just let me out. Let me out. Let me out.”
“Okay, okay.” I heard the panic rising in his voice. He reached over and pushed the door open on the passenger side.
I fell out onto the asphalt road and scrambled to my feet. I was never so glad to be wearing my tennis shoes. It was going to be a long walk.
Babel was out and on the other side next to me before I could get my bearings.
“The nearest town is thirty or so miles that way?” I pointed west.
“You’ll never make it.”
“What? You going to hunt me down like a dog?”
His chin jerked back as if I’d hit him. “I just meant, it’s a long, hard walk from here.”
“I’m sorry.” My chest still hurt, but my breathing eased. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.” There was definitely a sorry-for-myself, verging-on-whiney factor going on.
“Sunny.” Babel’s voice was kind and gentle. It made me even more nervous because it reminded me of how people talk when someone has just died. “You don’t know how much I hate that you’re in this position. Chavvie had no right to bring you into this world.”
A sharp bark drew my gaze. I sighed. “Not now, Judah. Go away.”
“What?” Babel asked wearily, then his voice became strained. “Judah?”
“Yeah.” Then. “Oh.” I realized Babel didn’t know his brother was among the deceased. The wind kicked dust up just as I inhaled. I coughed, covering my face with the collar of my T-shirt.
“Is it like one of your…episodes?”
“Uhmm, well, not really, but sort of.”
“Just now, though.” He pulled me up, my face mere inches from his chest. “Did you have one now? About Judah? Do you know where he is?”
“No, no. Nothing like that,” I tried to explain, but how did I tell him that his brother’s ghost was stalking me in coyote form?
“You’re keeping something from me, Sunny.”
No shit. “I…” I didn’t feel right not telling Babel what I knew, even if it hurt him.
“The coyote I’ve been seeing…”
“Yes.” His bright blue eyes lanced my heart with their intensity.
I stroked his cheek then took his hand. His fingers felt so warm against mine. I hadn’t noticed before how much heat his skin gave off. I guess I’d just attributed the temperature to the fact that everything in Missouri was damned hot at the moment. I bit my lower lip and steeled my courage. “It’s Judah’s ghost. I’m sorry, Babel. I really am.”
He shook his head, his face grim. “Do you know what happened to him? Has he said anything?”
Sighing, I put my arms around him and rubbed my face against his chest. I fit perfectly against his body as if he’d been made for me. “I’m sorry. He’s in coyote form, and while he barks and whines, I’ve got no idea what he wants from me.”
His thick fingers laced my hair at the nape. Tilting my head back, he closed his lips on mine. Heat moved thick like a living, breathing entity between us. There was no werecreatures, no ghost, and no Peculiar. Just Babel and I locked into a moment of desire. I wanted to lick him from head to toe right there on the dusty road. Caution and common sense be damned.
A daunting howl sounded from behind me, snapping me back to reality.
Babel had been a one-off. Not lifetime-commitment material. If I allowed myself to fall, I knew I’d fall hard (and probably crack my head and break a few bones in the process). Besides, he wasn’t even human. On top of that, he could be the end of my friendship with Chav. She would not want me banging her brother. It went back to that girl code. Regardless of the physical chemistry between us, these issues seemed an insurmountable problem to overcome.
Reluctantly, I broke the kiss. “We can’t.”
“We already did.” Grief glittered in his eyes, but he forced a thin smile. Wow, he was trying to lighten the mood. Either that or lust was clouding his judgment.
Smacking Babel’s chest, I stepped away from him. I glanced at Judah’s ghost. “We have eyes on us right now, and I’m not into exhibitionism.”
“You really can see him?”
“Yeah. You don’t seem surprised that he’s, you know…”
He finger-combed his mussed mane of hair. “I’ve known for a while my brother was gone. Not just missing. He might not have wanted to live in the human world, but he always kept in contact with our folks and me. Judah wouldn’t have just run off.”
“I get that. But you believe me? I’m not used to that. Most people think I’m a crackpot.”
He lowered his eyes. “If your abilities are real, then there is a real chance we can find Chavvie. I couldn’t help Judah, but I don’t want to let my sister down.”
I didn’t want to let anyone down, but I’d lived with this wretched psychic curse for most my life, and it was nothing if not unreliable. I worried that I would fail Chavvah, especially now that I knew Judah was dead.
“I’m starving. Feed me and then we’ll see if I can justify some of this hope you have where I’m concerned.”
Chavvah’s cabin, where Babel was staying, surprised me. It was tidy and neat.
“Make yourself at home.” His voice was distant as he rummaged the cabinets of his kitchen.
I watched him put fettuccini noodles on the counter. He opened the freezer and pulled out a bundle wrapped in white butcher’s paper. “That’s not meat, is it?”
He held up the parcel. “Only the best. Prime Grade-A beef from the cattle ranch up the road.” Tossing the meat in his hand, he smiled. “Hope you’re real hungry.”
I shuddered. “I’m a vegetarian. So no beef for me.” Then another thought hit me. There were werecoyotes, wereopossums, wereraccoons, deer, squirrels, bears. Oh, holy hell! “Are there werecows?”
Babel’s eyes went wide, his jaw clenched for a moment. Then the corners of his eyes crinkled, and he began laughing, and not just a chuckle. This laugh bordered on a guffaw with several snorts added in for good measure. “There're no such things as werecows, Sunny,” he finally managed when he could once again breathe.
“Well, how in the hell am I supposed to know? Up until recently I would have said there’s no such creature as a were-anything.” I threw my hands up. “You people need to come up with a damn manual or at least a Werebeasts For Dummies book.”
“We’re not beasts.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. Did I hurt your hairy little feelings?” Big, dumb stupid-head. Teach him to laugh at me. Ha ha!
He growled, proving my beast point. “So, no beef?”
“Pretty much.” I grinned. I couldn’t help myself.
Babel, as it turned out, was a whiz in the kitchen. He made up a feast of pasta and veggies rivaling any of the meals I’d had at those fancy-schmancy vegan restaurants in California. Plus, all his kitchen wizardry had the added advantage of allowing me a private showing of his perfect ass. I was getting hungry, but not for food. Yum. When he was finished, and I’d managed to pick my tongue off the floor and put my eyeballs back in my head, he offered me a cold bottle of beer.
“Do you want a glass?” he asked as we walked out to the front porch to eat and take in the beautiful evening.
I sat on the swing, a two-seater, and marveled at the clear sky. I didn’t think I’d ever seen stars look so close and bright before. “Bottle’s fine.”
“My kind of gal.” He took up residence on the other side of the porch swing.
I’d been thinking about Billy Bob’s transformation from human to half-b
east to wolf. I wondered if they all could change so quickly and efficiently. He seemed like such a nice man. Why didn’t Babel like him? I didn’t know a delicate way to bring it up, so I asked point-blank. “What’s your problem with Billy Bob?”
“Other than his name?” Babel snorted. “Aw, Doc Smith is all right. He’s competent at what he does. It’s the whole Shaman-priest thing that bothers me.”
“Really? Why?”
He shrugged and took a swig from his beer. “I’m a Christian.”
Not what I was expecting. I was raised a neo-pagan, but spiritually I was bereft.
“And Billy Bob?”
“He perpetuates the old religious customs that keep shapeshifters and others like us, you know, different from humans, in the dark ages.”
Others like us. What others? And did I really want to know? I shook my head. “What kinds of customs?”
“Worship of animal ancestry. Spirit walks. That sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Well, with everything I’d seen and been through, who was I to question Babel or Billy Bob’s faiths? To each their own and all.
“So, Judah’s ghost has just been hanging around? No rhyme or reason?” Babel changed the topic so abruptly, it startled me. He really didn’t want to talk about the shaman.
“Not that I can tell.” I felt weird talking about his dead brother. Especially, since Judah hadn’t left my side since he’d shown up on the road. It dawned on me though, the one place he’d led me had been to Sheila Murphy. “Do you think Sheila might’ve had something to do with your brother’s disappearance?”
He paused a moment, as if to think about the question carefully. Finally, he shook his head. “Sheila’s a lot of things. Spoiled, wild, a free-spirit, and often a bitch. But she’s no killer.”
A stab of jealousy went through me. He sounded as though he admired her. And, damn, I was a fool. He’d had sex with her two days before he’d had sex with me. Did Sheila think her and Babel had a relationship? I pushed the awful question away, and concentrated on more productive thoughts. Babel had said Sheila was no killer, but I had wounds on my shoulder that begged to differ. Or at least I was pretty certain it had been Sheila. Those eyes were too much like hers. She would have killed me and had me for dinner the night of the full moon if Babel hadn’t pulled her off.
But he seemed so adamant about her character that I didn’t think I could get him to agree. Instead, I changed the subject. “Why do you want to leave Peculiar?”
Babel shrugged before standing up. He paced back and forth, his gaze never wavering from me as he moved. When he finally stopped, he shook his head with a denial that seemed to filter all the way through him. “This isn’t my world.”
I snorted beer through my nose. Not attractive. “Sorry.”
“S’okay.” He took the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped the beer from my face. I leaned forward into his touch so that his palm brushed my skin. The natural heat from his hand spread through me from nose to toes. I’d read books before where the heroine’s “loins were aching.” I always thought the description was a total corn-fest. Not anymore. My loins ached. Oh, jeezus, they totally ached.
If Babel noticed, he didn’t react. He wiped his hands on his jeans and said, “I can see how you’d think it was strange. I grew up with humans. I like humans. Hell, some of the people I care about most in the world are human.” He rested his warm palm on my cheek.
I leaned forward to fully meet his caress.
“That’s not to say that I don’t like therians,” he added. “That would just be too self-loathing. But, I guess, I just don’t want to hide myself from the world.”
The last bit hit a little close to home. Chavvah had known how unhappy I was in California. I’d wanted to escape, just another way to hide, from the world I’d come from, so when she’d proposed the restaurant in Small Town, Midwest, I’d jumped at the chance. And look how that turned out. Here I was, the only human in a town full of shapeshifters. I really couldn’t fathom what Chav had been thinking.
Chav.
Guilt throbbed in my gut. I should be out there looking for her every minute of every day until I found her. I had been more than useless since my arrival in town. The only things I’d managed to do were have sex with her brother and nearly get myself killed. But what could I do?
I really wasn’t Nancy Drew. I didn’t know how to investigate the ingredients on a box of honey buns. How in the hell was I going to find a missing person? Why hadn’t Chav just sent a longer text? Something with a big, fat, get-a-clue moment?
Instead of, “Sunny, I need u,” would it have killed her to add a few more letters, such as, “Sunny, I need u. I’m being kidnapped or followed by John Doe.” Had she been kidnapped? Or was she choosing to stay hidden?
My gut knotted with anxiety, but my head told me that the Chavvah I knew, the one who’d become my best friend, was too smart to get herself trapped.
I didn’t understand how she could love a place so much, or how Judah could have loved the same place, and yet, something so sinister lurked beneath the surface. Heck, the place did have a way about it. Even I’d been drawn to the town immediately. Why was Babel so reluctant to embrace its charm?
“You don’t have to stay here, ya know.” I shrugged. “Hide, I mean. It’s not like anyone in the outside world can know what you really are.”
“And what do you think I am, Sunny?” Babel rolled his neck, cracking bones in the process. “I’m a man first. And while I have to hide the animal side of myself, out there I can follow my dreams in a way that I can’t here. I have ambitions that move beyond this kind of place. I mean, I went to college, got a degree. I couldn’t ever use it here. There’s not a lot of call for a public relations analyst in this type of community. Do you get that?”
Public relations analyst? What the heck? Maybe there was more to Babel Trimmel than I’d first thought. I did understand, though. He liked being among the free and the brave, having the ability to pursue his life, liberty, and happiness. Being in Peculiar was like being in another country. It had its own citizens, politics, and rules.
I risked another sip of beer, letting the cool amber liquid trickle into my mouth. “I get it. I just look out at this peaceful front yard with all its trees and no neighbors, and wonder how anyone could want to live anywhere but here.”
I’d also seen the backyard view from the window in the kitchen, nothing but a sparse lot of trees and a gorgeous lake. I could totally live here, and when I found Chavvah, we’d…My gut ached for my friend. I’d been less than useless since I’d arrived in Peculiar. Finding out no one was human had been a big pill to swallow, but at least it gave me more information to investigate when I got back into town.
Oh. Town. It dawned on me that I had no idea what the good denizens of Peculiar planned on doing with me. They wouldn’t want to take a chance on their second nature getting out. And no matter what a boon Billy Bob thought I was, I figured most of the town wouldn’t be feeling quite as warmly toward me. “What do you people plan to do with me, by the way?”
“Do with you?” His eyes softened around the edges and warm heat from his gaze melted me to my toes. “Well, I don’t know about you people, but there are several things I’d like to do with you.”
His voice had dropped two octaves, the way it did when he was lusty and sexy, and it fondled my horny button like no man’s voice ever had. It made me want to be fondled in so many, many wicked and naughty ways, but truthfully, I wanted to know. I had dawned on me more than once that I knew a major secret, and it was a secret people might be willing to kill for.
“Stop that.” Although his teasing actually made me feel better. I didn’t think Babel was the kind of guy who would try to sleep with a woman who was about to be dead meat. Then again, I would have never thought Babel was the kind of guy to sprout a tail either.
He sat down next me and traced the skin of my arm to the bend of my elbow with his fingertips. Goosebumps raised on my forearm. “Well, it’s not
like we haven’t been…intimate.”
He said “intimate” as if it was some magic word. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of home I got when Babel touched me. In a way, it was just like with Chav, not the sexual attraction part, but the part that drew me to him like a kitten to a box. Why did he make me feel safe? If I knew nothing else, I knew the feeling was probably a result of an adrenaline rush. I barely knew Babel’s mind or the way he thought or felt about anything real. I knew he had a gorgeous body and that he knew how to use the damn thing, but beyond that, our relationship was more about our connection to his sister than about anything between us. I opened my eyes and moved his hand away then walked to the edge of the porch.
He came up behind me, his arms wrapping around me and folding me into him. Leaning my head against his shoulder, I gave into the press of his chest against my back as his thickly muscled arms wrapped me in a cocoon that was a mixture of safety and lust. The avocado in his California roll. Oh, how I wanted to completely give myself to Babel. Especially when the sculpted muscles of his thighs grazed my ass. The pool of moisture between my legs indicated the flesh was definitely willing, even if the spirit wavered.
As he rubbed himself against me, the rigid planes of his hips and groin pressing into me added to my growing need to boink him immediately. I turned in his arms. I would let him take me, possess me. I was weak against his seduction.
The phone rang in the house, trilling loudly, and breaking Babel’s spell on me. I groaned and nestled my face against his chest. “You better answer that. It could be important.”
He nibbled my jawline and kissed me. His mouth was wet and delicious with cold beer. “The answering machine can get it,” he said.
Oh, God, I wanted to run my fingers all over his body and dig the tips into his firm flesh. To have him fill me again, to ride me until I vanished into a delicious orgasm that would make all the bad stuff fade, was beyond tempting.
The answering machine picked up, and while I couldn’t make out the actual, “leave your name and number part,” my skin burned when I recognized the person leaving the message.
“Babe, call me, sweetheart. I am aching for you.”
My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 67
