River Wolf (13 page)

“I give you my word.” Building even a fragile trust between them might allow him to tell her the truth. Brett paused. He
wanted
to tell her. He wanted honesty between them and he wanted the freedom to pursue her fully. Accepting the knowledge, even with the potential issues Pierce mentioned alleviated more of his dark mood.

“Okay, so I get to the trash can and you kind of have to screw the lid on and off?” Familiar with the type of container, he nodded and she continued. “So, I’m in a hurry, I just want to toss the trash and get back inside. I think there was a movie coming on I wanted to watch and I only had a couple of hours until my parents get home from wherever they were. I’m all of seventeen at the time, and we didn’t have cable or a VCR or anything more than regular television because it was too ‘distracting’ from life and if I wanted to see my movie, I had to have my butt in the chair.” Waving her free hand once before reclaiming her coffee mug, she said, “
Anyway,
sorry you didn’t need the boring details—”

“I like the details and you’re not boring. But yes, continue.” Busying himself with his own coffee kept his need to put her in his lap for the story in check. Not all women wanted to be lifted and carried everywhere nor did they want to be held nonstop, even if it was in his nature to offer her the affection. Few were there left for him to be openly affectionate with—and he put a pin in the thought. Yes, his pack issues still needed to be resolved, but he wanted to hear Colby’s story.

“Thank you,” she said, then shocked him when she leaned over and pressed her lips to his cheek. The contact soothed his wolf further, and he squeezed her hand rather than claim her for a more thorough kiss.
Story first. Kiss next
. Plan decided upon, he raised his eyebrows but stayed silent lest he derail her again. “I dropped the bag on the ground and wrenched the top open and reached for the bag and there’s a bear staring at the bag, then at me. I swear my heart stopped. Everything stopped. It was like I could hear his breathing and feel my blood chugging through my veins…I wanted to scream, but I didn’t.”

The masterful way she punched emotion into her tale and the adrenaline fueling her voice left him and his wolf captivated. Tension flowed through him. Scanning the yard around them automatically, he cataloged and identified everything in the area from the wolves moving closer to Hatcher’s place to the bees hovering over the roses near the trellis. Nothing that large or dangerous was getting near her again.

“Screaming wouldn’t help and it was a huge bear, and yes, it was dark and probably skewed what I could see, but I don’t care. That close, all I could make out were teeth and claws. It’s dark and the porch light is far away, but I swear the world got brighter for a few seconds and I could
really
see the bear.” Licking her lips, she took on a faraway expression as though she were back in the moment. Perhaps she was reliving it, as only a visceral memory could be experienced.

If only he could have been there when the bear appeared…
the day brightened?
Separating his emotional response from the impossibility of a human developing night sight, he studied her eyes. They remained pure amber in color, but the pupil constricted and narrowed.

“I knew it was me or the bear, and I was no match for his claws or his teeth, but if I ran…I didn’t think I would be fast enough to make it inside and even if I did. One swipe of his claws could sever an artery, and I’d be dead before I hit the door.” Blowing out another breath, she said, “So I glared at him. I refused to run. I dug in my heels, and I stopped being afraid. I told him to get out of there. He met my gaze, and I think he understood me, because he backed away a pace, then another and another and finally turned and lumbered off.”

Pride flooded him. She’d faced down a bear.

“I stared him down. After he left, I stood there, shaking and the world got a little darker and suddenly I remembered the trash. By the time I got in the house I was soaked in sweat, and I couldn’t calm down. I paced for hours, but I did it and I survived.”

No shit. Her scent changed and for a split second he caught a note of sunshine and musk, then it was gone again.
Pack. Not pack. Wolf. Not wolf
. Leaning closer to her, he rubbed his nose lightly against hers in part to offer comfort and in part to test what he’d just scented.

“You believe me.” Her breath whispered over his lips.

“Absolutely.” The answer flowed from him without hesitation. He tasted the truth in her words. Nothing in her tale had been manufactured.

Abandoning her coffee cup, she hugged him and he gathered her into his arms, satisfying his earlier urge to pull her into his lap. Nestled close, he breathed in deep the delicious fragrance that was wholly hers.

“No one ever believes.” She chuckled, the sound almost self-deprecating. “They laugh, make jokes and pretend, but they always tell me I’m making it up. Either it wasn’t a big bear or it wasn’t there or…you know, I’m exaggerating.”

“You aren’t. You stared down a bear. You’re very lucky to be alive.” Lucky and strong. She’d met and held his gaze any number of times. Fought to hold it when others would have long since given up the battle. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She drew away enough to let their gazes meet, but not so far that he couldn’t still feel her breath against his skin.

“For surviving. For being you.” God help him. “For taking care of Luc and bringing him here so I could meet you.”

“You may not thank me in a minute.” The soft bubble around them seemed to burst with the declaration.

“Why is that?”

“Because I saw something else almost as unbelievable and yet—I know what I saw and I’ve been wrestling with how to ask you for three days.” So, her reticence had been borne of something else.

Searching her sober expression, he found no clues to what worried her. “Ask.”

“When I brought Luc here,
five
days ago, he had a broken arm and two broken legs among other issues. When I saw him thirty some odd hours later, his casts were off and he was using both arms like nothing ever happened to them.”

Motionless, Brett kept his features schooled.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.

“It’s impossible to mend bone in that short a time period. Almost as impossible as facing down a bear. Well, maybe more.” Colby licked her lips. “So, am I imagining it or did I see the impossible? Or has your secret hippie commune discovered the secret of magical healing?”

A fat envelope of details and facts about the enigmatic yet utterly appealing woman sitting in his lap rested to his right. A few hundred yards away, his pack went about their business, but also gossiped about their relationship and possible rebellion. His best friend had returned and sought to rejoin the pack, another reason why she was in his lap asking questions about the impossible speed of his healing. If she knew he was up and managing to limp today, she would have so many more questions.

Cupping her chin, Brett considered all the things he could say or do to distract her. “I can’t answer the question, not without lying to you. So I am going to ask you to not require an answer right now.”

Though she frowned, she didn’t pull away. “Does that mean you’ll answer it in the future?”

“It means exactly what I said. I can’t give you an answer at the moment that wouldn’t be a lie.”
She’s not ready yet…
Luc had been very right. She wasn’t ready. Yet.

I
can’t answer
the question. Not without lying to you.
The words chased around in circles through her mind like a dog fixated on its tail. She couldn’t
not
hear them over and over. On the one hand, the honesty in his very direct request impressed her. The easiest thing would have been to tell a lie, yet Brett hadn’t told her one. He’d simply said he couldn’t answer the question without lying. Why not the truth?
Maybe because it’s none of my business.

Or maybe because whatever he would tell me I wouldn’t believe?
They hadn’t really been able to finish the conversation. His phone rang, and he’d had exchanged five words with the person on the other end—when, where are you and how many. Whatever the answers were, he’d left immediately after giving her a gentle caress against her cheek. He was gone, leaving her to drink her coffee alone on the porch and mull over the secrets and mysteries immersing them.

She should probably go inside, check what laundry she had so she could ask to borrow his washing machine. Or maybe she should take her car to the local main street—surely they had a Laundromat around.
I haven’t left his house without him in five days…
The scandalous thought skated through her mind. She hadn’t even returned to her vehicle for anything other than her phone charger.

Reminded, she pulled the phone from her back pocket and studied the screen. She’d forgotten to charge it for four days, and she hadn’t missed having it at all. Most people her age were absolutely tethered by technology. Hell, even Brett was. She’d actually ventured into his office once while he’d been on a Skype conference call. He had two phones in his office, a desktop, a laptop, a printer, a fax machine and what looked like some giant black box server device not to mention the cell phone he always had within reach.

Stroking her thumb across the screen, she turned the phone on and unlocked it. A red five stared up at her from the phone app. Most of the people she knew grew up with cell phones, she hadn’t owned one prior to a couple of years before. Her mother disliked most technology so they hadn’t had anything outside of a regular television and old fashioned rotary landline, and that only for emergencies.

She wasn’t Amish, but sometimes she imagined she wasn’t far off. Touching the phone icon, she opened the messages and stared at the numbers. The two calls from Miranda touched her heart. One from a number she didn’t recognize, one from her probation officer, and the last from her mother’s landline number.

The taut emotion squeezing her over Miranda calling abandoned her for a chill at her mother’s number. Her mother didn’t use the phone except for emergencies. Pressing the message to play, she put the phone to her ear.

The words were Korean, but she understood them. It had been her first language and the only one used at home with her mother unless her father was present. He didn’t speak the language and her mother often reprimanded her sharply if she tried to ask a question in private.
It’s rude to not include someone in the conversation when they are here. Do not do it again.

Her mother had a lot of rules. Taking a sip of coffee, she listened to the message, frowned, then hit play again.

“It is my understanding that you have completed your penance for the theft of pharmaceuticals. After a contemplative discussion with your father, we will allow you to visit us on the lunar New Year, provided that you have not committed any other crimes. Be well, daughter. I hope to see you next year.”
The message ended and she hit replay one more time. Her mother hadn’t spoken a single word to her since the police came to arrest her. Dad had, but he’d been quiet, restrained. He’d also come to court during her hearing. Sitting in the back of the room, he’d been a silent pillar of support. They didn’t offer to bail her out and she’d had to contact a bail bondsman herself. She’d made good on the money, but it had taken every dime she possessed. After her sentence had been announced, her father rose and left. The last time she saw him was when he brought her a box of her things at the hospital—

a handful of childhood treasures including some photographs, a ragged paged book and a blanket she’d had forever.

No word from her mother. Not a single one until the message. Even when she’d returned to the house she’d grown up in to retrieve her clothes and a few other personal items, her parents absented themselves and left Mrs. Tang, their neighbor, to let her in and then lock the doors when she left.

Torn between humiliation and pride, she held the phone down and stared at the message again. The disconnect between parent and child was normal on the approach to adulthood. So many psychology books she’d read on the subject all said the same thing, but she and her mother had never been close. Not when Colby proved to be a constant source of disappointment. Never quiet enough. Never proper enough. Her clothing was too loose or too revealing, and her choice of occupations?

You have strong grades and good mind. You could be in big business and make good money.

Not interested. Her father was an accountant and a skilled one. He saved his clients thousands of dollars every year. Did he make excellent money? Yes. Did he always have a constant source of business? Yes. Did he have a regular schedule that allowed him weekends off and at home every evening by five-thirty? Absolutely.

Was the work boring as hell? After scrubbing a hand over her face, she forced herself to listen to the rest of the messages. Her probation officer’s was a perfunctory good luck call, so nothing missed there. She’d completed her community service; her time was now served, and have a nice life.
Yippee.
No enthusiasm filtered through her. Five days since that last day, yet it felt like five years.

Miranda’s messages were a balm after her mother’s chilly announcement.
“Girl, I hope you are enjoying Florida. I’m going to email you the recommendation I promised. I know you aren’t a fan of it, but I still have the email address you used when you came to work here. If I need to send it somewhere else, call me and let me know.”
The second message came in shorter and to the point.
“Recommendation sent. Call me and let me know you’re all right or just send me an email. We miss you. Our new girl had bed pan duty yesterday. I don’t think she’ll ever speak to me again.”
The amusement in the last sentence pulled a weak laugh from Colby.

Miranda liked to haze the newbies and give them the worst jobs those first couple of weeks. As she used to say
, it’s a shit job kind of career. When you can handle the crappiest part with grace, you can handle anything.

“Thank you, Miranda,” she murmured. Colby could handle the shittiest jobs with grace. So the fuck what that Brett couldn’t answer her question, he’d told her he wouldn’t lie to her. That
mattered
. He mattered.