Seven Years (12 page)

“Tell you what. I’ll see what I can do about taking the car off your hands, and I promise—it’ll be gone for good.”

That was a relief. Buying or selling a car was stressful, and I didn’t really know how to handle those things. “Thanks, Austin. I’d appreciate it.”

Denver appeared and his voice boomed. “We got company!”

“Who?” Austin’s eyes were bright and alert.

“Jericho’s hunting them down.” Denver hopped on one foot while shoving the other into a sneaker. “We were twenty yards from the house and—”

“Shifters?” Austin peeled off his shirt and his abs tensed.

Denver flicked his eyes to me. “Yeah. One of them said we have an unclaimed bitch and he wanted to meet her.”

My eyes narrowed. “Who’s he calling a bitch?”

“Word’s out then,” Austin muttered. “Doesn’t take long. How the hell do they know about her?”

Denver shrugged as he tied his laces. “Only an alpha would have smelled her if she was close to the change. You been near any alphas?” Denver asked.

“How would I know? I get a ton of customers coming in and out of my store and I couldn’t tell you an alpha from a beta. Are you saying you can smell me?”

Denver quirked a smile and quickly switched over to a serious face. “They didn’t state what pack they belonged to. If Jericho tracks them down, you should have a talk with their Packmaster. I wouldn’t recommend going after them yourself,” he said, eyeing Austin who was squeezing his hands into fists. “You know the consequences if an alpha attacks another pack on the offense without provocation, especially if they’re not on our turf. Rules, bro. Play by ’em.”

In that moment, I saw wisdom in Denver as an older brother, even though he didn’t look it. Austin was in charge, but their experience would serve to provide him with invaluable advice.

Austin pointed at him and replied in a chillingly cool voice. “He’d
better
find them. Stay outside and keep guard. I don’t want anyone sniffing around my territory. Have Jericho mark the perimeter and leave a warning.”

“Let me just go get him some Gatorade,” Denver said with a suppressed smile and a song in his voice, hitching up his jeans in the back as he sauntered out of the room.

Austin looked me over and released a breath he must have been holding in. “You’re staying here tonight.”

I sprang up. “I have to go to work tomorrow, Austin. I feel better and my work clothes are at home.”

“Call in sick and I’ll go pick up your things. They’re not going to fire you for having the flu.”

“Wait a second,” I protested, inching my way toward the hallway. “I’ll agree to stay here the night, but I go home tomorrow. Period. This isn’t a request. You can’t waltz into my life and start making decisions for me. I have a job, a family, and a life to live. Okay, so maybe I’m dealing with a little bit more… like the fact I’m a wolf.”

I paused. This was too much.

“Do you guys really call us bitches?”

Austin made a little grunt that sounded like he found my question inane. “It doesn’t have any negative connotations with Shifters. It just is what it is.”

“I still have a problem with it.” The bottom of my feet were sticky against the wood floor as I paced in a small circle. “Better warn your brothers, Austin. I’m dead serious. I’ve been called a lot of things, but bitch is one name I don’t tolerate very well.”

He leaned forward. Just a little. “Who’s calling you names?” he asked, and I didn’t care for the darkness in his voice.

“No one. Since when did you become so concerned with my life?”

There was an uncomfortable silence between us as he swallowed thickly, like he wanted to say something. “I’m going to check the locks on the doors and windows. If you’re hungry, there’s plenty in the kitchen. The boys will be out all night; that’s usually the deal when it’s Shifter’s night at the bar. Denver will let us know if something’s up. I don’t have any concerns. This is
my
turf. Sounds like they were just checking you out. Someone got them riled up about an unclaimed woman in town—someone knows about you.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know who that could be. I wouldn’t know how to spot a Shifter.”

“I’ll be back.” When Austin stalked out of the room, the stupid teenager in me actually turned my head to stare at his ass.

As alarming as it was to know a bunch of strange men were snooping around to get a look at me, I felt safe with Austin. I was never the kind of woman who sat around dreaming of a man protecting me, but since Wes died and my dad left, I’d missed out on all the luxuries most other girls got. Having someone help change the oil, sell the car, or shop for a new apartment. A man to stop by and figure out what was going on with the leaky faucet or have my back whenever someone gave me shit.

Not that people gave me shit. I wasn’t a troublemaker and didn’t hang out with the rowdy crowd. Those were Beckett’s friends, and usually I dodged their parties and went out with Naya. Maybe the whole “tough guy” thing was why Beckett was so appealing in the beginning. Then I realized that sometimes being a tough guy simply meant you were a jerk.

He never changed my oil, either.

I had a small panic attack in the bathroom and spent a long time digesting the facts. Nothing would ever bring Wes back and over the years, I’d accepted his death. But now that sorrow was replaced by anger that his life was cut short unnecessarily. Maybe I wasn’t related to my family by blood, but I loved them fiercely. Being a Shifter? A whole other ball of wax. I didn’t even begin to know how to process it.

I found a chicken potpie in the freezer and heated it up. After devouring the entire meal in less than five minutes, I curled up on the sofa with a bag of Doritos and fell asleep watching
Die Hard
. I’d found the movie stacked in a large box labeled “Reno.”

The bag crinkled and someone jostled me around.

“Stop,” I mumbled.

“Time for bed,” Austin said, and then I was in his arms.

He set me down on top of a comforter and I nuzzled into the pillow, listening to the sound of a window unit circulating air.

The bed moved in the darkness and my eyes popped open. “Austin?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re
not
sleeping with me.”

He threw the comforter from his side over my legs.

“It’s my bed, so I’m pretty sure I am. Plus, it’s the only room in the house with a window unit,” he murmured sleepily. “I run hot.”

Then I heard a zipper and the bed moved some more. I stayed very quiet, because honestly, I had no idea how to react. I felt a connection with him that time never erases with someone you know, like when you hear a song on the radio and all those old feelings of a special time in your life come flooding back.

That was Austin—he was my song.

I still remembered the sleepovers and how I’d pretend to doze off beside him while we watched a movie on the couch. It was strategic, of course, so I could slide against his shoulder. Wes always had to play bad guy and drag me off to bed, but Austin never seemed to mind. I loved those moments, because when he laughed, I could feel it.

Austin released one of those long sighs with a satisfactory moan once he settled beneath the sheets. Then I started wondering things like what kind of underwear he wore, or if he slept Tarzan style.

I immediately threw the blanket over to his side.

His warm laugh filled the chilly room. “I’m not cold, Ladybug.”

“Why do you call me that? You’ve been calling me that name since I can remember.”

He exhaled through his nose as if he were going to tell me something he didn’t want to.

“Your freckles.”

“Oh. Those.”

“Yeah, those.” He was quiet for a minute and then his voice changed up, softened a little, but had an edge like maybe he was embarrassed to talk so intimately with me. “One summer when you were about five, your mom bought you one of those moving sprinklers. You practically lived outside and ended up with a sunburn.”

I smiled. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s when you first got ’em. It was just a little spray across your nose and high on your cheeks. I was being mean when I gave you the name, but then it kind of stuck. Not in a mean way.”

I still had them, but they were small and faded, and invisible whenever I wore makeup.

“You shouldn’t cover them up,” he said, as if he could read my mind. His voice was soft like melted chocolate, and I turned on my right side, giving him my back.

“Why did you kiss me that night?” I finally asked. That question had plagued me for years, ever since the night Wes was killed.

The cover snapped off the bed and Austin rolled over behind me. “I planned on leaving town that night; I was trying to talk Wes into going. Hell, I thought he
was
going. We had a deal, but Wes wanted to be Breed, wanted immortality so much it blinded him from making the right decision.”

“What decision?”

“He got mixed up with the wrong people, and they asked him to be a hitman. I told him the last thing he ever wanted was to be in debt with one of us. Breed don’t mess around when it comes to paying debts. I guess he didn’t have it in him to do what they wanted, and he paid with his life.”

Tears sprang up and I pressed my face against the pillow. Austin’s hand touched my hip.

“Don’t,” I warned him. He immediately retracted. “Is that all, or are you hiding something else?”

“There’s nothing else.” Then his voice switched over to dark and threatening. “One of these days, I’m going to find out who he was bargaining with, and they’re going to pay with their life.”

“So why did you kiss me?” I asked again.

Austin didn’t answer but rolled over and pounded on his pillow a few times before settling in. I had a feeling I might never know the answer to that question, and maybe there was no answer. Maybe all these years I had built up in my head something that had meant nothing to him.

I sat up, unhooked my bra, and tossed it to the floor.

“Take off your pants,” he said.

God, if those words didn’t heat me up. “I’m fine.”

“Lexi, I can’t see in the dark. Get comfortable,” he insisted, shifting in the other direction.
Indifferently
.

I mentally sighed and tugged off my jeans, sliding between the crisp sheets. The window unit chilled the air with every passing second.

“Promise to take me home tomorrow?” I asked.

Silence, at first.

“Austin?”

“I promise.”

“Shhh.”

I nuzzled my head against something warm.

“Damn, she’s got a
nice
ass,” a man’s voice whispered.

“Not really my type, but I’d tap that.”

“What, Jericho has a type now?”

“Tits and tats, that’s where it’s at, Denver,” he said with a chuckle.

“Well, I like a nice ass. And
that’s
top of the line. Look how it cups just below the panty line.” Then the sound of air hissing through teeth. “
Damn
.”

“First time you been close to one of those?” Jericho asked with a chuckle.

“Shut it.”

Then I blinked my eyes open and realized what I was nuzzling against that was so warm and solid.

Austin
.

He was on his back, arms spread out, and I was covering him like a tablecloth at Thanksgiving. My right leg was hooked around his hip, and my body fit snugly against his right side.

I lifted my head and saw that my red hipsters were a little too close to his black jockeys. Not only that, but we had an audience. Denver and Jericho were standing at the door admiring the view and watching us like a double feature.

“Get out!” I shouted so loud Austin flew up and nearly flung me off the bed. His arm snaked around my waist just in time and pulled me onto his lap.

So there I was, bent over Austin’s legs like a bad girl about to get spanked.

Chuckles from across the room were cut short when Austin spoke. He didn’t yell like I had, but it was contained, controlled, and quiet. “Get the fuck out.”

The door closed.

I scrambled to get away and yanked the comforter over my legs.

Austin got out of bed and slowly hitched up his jeans, yawning hard and ending it with a growl. I could still smell him all over me.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I complained.

He cleared his throat and combed his fingers through his hair a few times. It was messy and nice all at once. I admired the medallion he wore around his neck that dangled when he bent over to pick up his shirt. “Because I was busy sleeping?”

His indifference only made me look desperate, and it felt like we were right back where we started. My old feelings toward him needed to end. I was tired of chasing a shadow of my past. Time had changed both of us, and I didn’t have much of a heart left to give to a man who didn’t want it.

I leapt off the bed and stepped into my jeans, yanking them over my hips angrily. Didn’t even care if he was watching me. I tucked my bra into my back pocket—straps hanging out and all.

Austin circled around the bed and blocked my exit. “Where you going?”

“Home. Remember?”

“Lexi…”

“Don’t do that. You promised you would take me home.”

“Why are you mad?” He still sounded sleepy and the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt wasn’t helping any. Not when I could see his defined abs, and then one of his pecs twitched.

Damn. It wasn’t fair that after all these years, Austin still looked as hot as he ever did, while I just looked like the same old Lexi. I’d filled out a little more as I used to be a beanpole with long legs in high school, but some men just got better with age.

I pulled on the doorknob. “I’m not mad. I just don’t like being controlled.”

His body language altered and I could almost feel the heat licking off him. “Is that what Beckett did?”

“No, no. You’re taking it all out of context. Don’t go beating up any more of my old boyfriends, okay? You’re not my brother. That’s what Wes should have been doing.”

Oh, God, I was going to cry again. When my bottom lip quivered, I quickly looked away.

Without warning, Austin yanked me into his arms. I fought against him but he held on tight. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,” he whispered in a broken voice.

My breath hitched as the apology summoned painful memories of the night they found Wes’s body. Austin was over that night and lost it, slamming his fist into the wall. All I could hear were my mom’s screams as I stood catatonic in the middle of the living room while the trooper delivered the news to my dad. Then Austin had tried to hold me and I broke free and fled.

I couldn’t do this here, so I opened the door and pushed him away.

Denver was lying on the sofa in a pair of sweats with a bowl of cereal on his chest while Jericho sat at the bar on the right, smoking a cigarette.

“Do either of you have a car?” I asked hopefully. “I need a lift.”

Jericho slid off the barstool, patted out the butt of his smoke, and flicked his eyes at Austin. “Come with me, honey. I’ll take you where you need to go.”

“She’s not leaving.” Austin’s voice made the hairs on my neck stand up.

“Do you want to go with me?” Jericho asked, his voice sincere. He walked up and I suddenly felt sandwiched between the Cole brothers.

“Yes.”

He looked up at Austin. “Free will, brother. You know it and I know it. She ain’t your bitch, so you—”

That was it.

Austin swung a hard fist right over my head and it cracked against Jericho’s face. Jericho spun around and hit the floor. Shocked, I stumbled forward and turned around. Austin glared at Jericho so hard he could have torched him with the fire in his eyes.

“Do
not
call Lexi a bitch, are we clear? Let that be the golden rule of this motherfucking pack. Spread the word.”

And just like that, Austin Cole stood up for me. Not because of pride, male territorial instinct, family obligation, or even jealousy. But because it was something that mattered… to
me
.

Austin kept his word and drove me home to my apartment. We had a brief argument in the car because he’d left Jericho bleeding on the floor without so much as an apology. He reassured me a Shifter heals when they shift back and forth from their animal to human form soon after injury, but Jericho was too proud and he would probably wear that shiner. I didn’t get the guy thing, and I especially didn’t understand the dynamic between brothers. My brother had never punched me for calling someone a name.

Naya must have heard me tromping up the stairs and swung open her door. Cotton balls were stuffed between her cherry-red toenails.

“Why is your bra hanging out of your pants?” She snatched it and dangled it in front of my face.

I yanked it away and she widened her gossip-loving grin.

“Your hair isn’t brushed, either!” she said excitedly. “Who were you with? I want all the juicy details.”

“Not now, Naya.” I fumbled with my keys.

“Someone was looking for you.”

My back straightened and I curved around, watching her blow on her fingernails.

“Who?”

“That cop from the other night. Are you in some kind of trouble? This time it wasn’t about the neighbor downstairs.”

“Uh…” My mind went blank. Maybe Beckett was trying to get me in trouble. I bent over the railing to see if my car had been stolen, but it was still there. “I don’t know. That’s weird. Are you sure it wasn’t about the neighbor? I’m not going to the station to file a complaint, if that’s what he wants.”

She hobbled toward her door, walking on her heels so her pedicure wouldn’t be ruined. “He’s either gay, has a thing for you, or you’re in trouble. But the man wanted nothing to do with me.”

“Did you tell him anything?”

Personal stuff is what I meant. I didn’t know who this guy was and the last thing I wanted to worry about was him tracking me down at work. Of course, he
was
a cop, and I’m sure he could have figured it out.

“Nope. You know me better than that. He asked where you might be staying and that was a stop sign for me. Cops don’t chase you all over town unless they have a warrant for your arrest, or want in your panties.”

“Don’t tell him where my mom lives,” I said. “If he comes around again, just tell him I moved to South America or something.”

“Will do, chickypoo.”

I tossed the keys on the bar and slammed the door. The red light on my answering machine blinked with sixteen messages.

The first was from April. “
Alexia, where are you? It’s ten and you’re still not here. Hello?”

The next two were also from April, with the last one saying to give her a call because she was worried. We didn’t hang out together outside of work, but April was a likable girl and I knew she was genuinely concerned and not just bitter about having to run the store by herself.

The next eight were from Beckett. Two of the messages were apologies and on the rest he hung up, although one of them creeped me out because I could hear him breathing on the other end.

Two other messages were hang-up calls, and the number was blocked on my machine.

“
Hi, I’m trying to reach Alexia Knight. This is Officer McNeal; I dropped in the other night for a disturbance. I need to speak with you on an unrelated case. It’s about your father. I’ll be stopping by this evening
.”

He hung up and I hit pause and grabbed a pen, jotting down the number on the machine. When I resumed playback, I heard another familiar voice.

“
Alexia, it’s Lorenzo Church. You tried selling me your car, but I was more intrigued by the driver. Sorry I missed you. I’ll give you my number and leave the ball in your court. I’m interested, and I’d like to take you out. Maybe lunch and conversation, so give me a call.
”

He left his number and I scribbled it on a napkin. I wrote his name above it and doodled, making his
O
’s into smiley faces.

Then it was Maizy, and she sounded scared. “
Lexi? Someone took Mommy
.”

My heart stopped.

I don’t remember anything after that. With my keys in hand, I fled down the stairs, running across the grassy lawn so fast I stumbled and skinned my elbow on the dry grass. Adrenaline filled me up like rocket fuel and I scrambled to get up before racing to my car.

Out of nowhere, I was tackled by a strong pair of arms.

“What’s wrong?” Austin shouted, lifting me off the grass.

“Let me go! Let me go!” It was a feral scream, the kind no one wants to hear.

His grip tightened and I kicked him in the shin with my heel so hard that he shouted and my keys fell in the grass. When my teeth sank into his arm, he let go. I snatched my keys and took off again.

My heart was racing and I couldn’t get the key in the lock. “Dammit!” I screamed, my hand trembling.

Austin came up from behind and pressed his entire body against mine, pinning me against the car. His mouth moved against my ear as his right hand reached around, stroking my neck soothingly. “Tell me what’s wrong.” It was that commanding voice again. The one that meant business. I’m sure he could feel my pulse beneath his fingertips because it was out of control.

“My mom; something’s happened. I have to get home. Maizy—she called—I have to go!” I screamed. Austin lifted me off the ground by the waist and hauled me off.

“I’ll drive,” he insisted, walking swiftly to his car.

I didn’t fight.

He set me in the passenger seat and reached around to buckle me up. I rocked in my seat, covering my mouth with my hands. My God, if anything happened to either of them, I wouldn’t be able to hold myself together. I’d been the strong one when my parents fell apart after Wes’s death. When my dad left, I kept Mom from going into a state of depression and living in her bedroom. No one had ever been there to keep me going; I just had to fight through my own pain and focus on keeping my family together.

The engine roared to life like a mad dog and he turned the corners so sharply that I slammed against the door and threw my hands forward to keep from hitting the dash.

When I told him about the message from Maizy, he pulled out his phone.

“Denver, I want you to get a hold of Reno. Tell him it’s— … No, this can’t wait. Level fucking red, now deliver the message. I better have him on this phone in three minutes.”