Six Months (18 page)

I dashed inside my trailer and looked around. No sign of Trevor. Disappointed and a little concerned, I took a seat on my sofa and tried calling him again. No answer. He wasn’t even responding to my text messages. It broke my heart because I loved Trevor and didn’t want him to despise me. I couldn’t have imagined Sanchez would hurt one of my friends. I shuddered to think that had I not gone to the party, who knows what would have happened to me.

Reno walked in with two sacks and set them on the table.

“Is it raining?” I asked. Reno didn’t have a cover on the bed of the truck and the rain would ruin some of the items.

He returned with plastic sacks hanging all the way up his arms and set them down on the floor. I got up and reached outside the door with my palm up. No rain, but the clouds were darkening.

Reno went out to the truck and returned with the shelf under his arm and several more of the larger bags.

“We can head out now if you want. You don’t have to bring all this inside; it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain just yet,” I said.

He stepped inside and set everything down. “This is all yours.”

Hand to God, my heart stopped in my chest and I made a soundless gasp. “What are you talking about?”

Reno put the flat of his hands on the ceiling, as if he were trying to make more room for his height. His head just touched the ceiling, so he made it a point to lower his chin when walking around. “I’m talking about the fact that I don’t see any need for you to be living in these conditions. You were dealt a bad hand, but I don’t like waking up in the morning and finding nothing in your cabinets but a bag of cheap rice and cereal. I don’t like seeing a blanket on your bed with stains, or a leak in your roof and windows, or one sorry-ass pillow on your sofa—if you want to call that a sofa. As long as you have to live here, I’m going to make sure you got what you need.”

He went out the door and I sank onto the small couch in complete and utter shock. What I had in my cart alone was in the hundreds! Reno hadn’t just taken me out to dinner on our first date—he’d bought me
groceries
. Just the thought of it brought tears to my eyes and I covered my face. Bags rattled and then he knelt in front of me, spreading his arms across my legs.

“I’m going to look after you. No more walking to work, because I’m lending you the truck. I bought a strong lock for your door and I’m going to fix the leaks in your roof. It’s a tight space, but I’ll make room for the microwave. This isn’t a bad place; I’ve seen a lot of poverty in my time and this doesn’t even come close. But it’s not safe, and it could be a whole lot better with a little work. So I’m going to make it better, and that’s the deal. I’m also going to stay with you until I feel like you’re not in any trouble.”

“But Reno—”

“No buts.”

Without pause, I held his jaw tenderly and kissed him on the mouth. Our kiss tasted like tears, but it was beautiful. His hands found my hips and slid beneath my shirt, stroking the small of my back. I’d never been so forward with my affection, but Reno did something to me, something I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was pheromones, or maybe it was the fact that he’d bought me a houseful of decorations to make my self-made prison into a palace. My body ignited and I gripped his strong shoulders.

His mouth scraped away from mine and down my jaw, kissing my neck. I tipped my head up and moaned quietly, my breaths heavy and my body insatiably hungry. Then he broke contact and leaned back.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He stood up and lowered his eyes guiltily. “I don’t expect payment, April. That’s not why I did this.”

My eyes widened. “Do you think that I’m paying you off with a sexual favor?”

“Then why would you kiss me?”

“Because I’m attracted to you, Reno. No one does stuff like this,” I said, waving my hands around the room. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before and it shows me what a big heart you have. But you’re right. We shouldn’t do this because it’s all wrong. I can’t keep any of this stuff.”

“You’re keeping it,” he decided, unloading more groceries and putting them in the fridge. “I’ll stay outside at night so it won’t be weird for you.”

“Oh sure. There’s nothing weird about you sleeping outside my front door in the mud.”

He shrugged and put a bag of Oreos in the cabinet. “My wolf doesn’t mind and I can always sleep in the truck.”

“Can I have some of those?”

He turned his head and his eyes danced with amusement. “These?” he asked, holding up the blue bag as the plastic rattled.

I nodded and returned an impish smile. I hadn’t had cookies in forever. “Is there any milk?”

“Right here, princess,” he said, opening a jug and pouring me a tall glass. He peeled open the bag and sat down beside me, putting the cookies in my lap. “So where do you want the table I’m going to build for you?”

I twisted the cookie apart and scraped the filling off with my teeth. There seemed little point in resisting his kindness; Reno was dead set on doing things his way and it was hard to stay mad at him. “Right there,” I said, pointing to the left of the door. “I’m going to put Hermie on top and my books on the shelf below.”

Reno set my glass on the table and lifted up a paperback book with a bare-chested man on the front. “This book?”

My face turned six shades of red when he began thumbing through it. “Give me that!”

A laugh pealed out and he leaned to the right, out of my grasp. Then he began reading a passage from the page I had marked. Well, what
Trevor
had bookmarked.

Oh. My. God.

“‘His shaft glided into her velvety canal, exploring deep inside her like a man discovering new depths of passion. She moaned, rocking sweetly against him, their bodies marrying and clashing like waves in a violent storm. He laved her sweet nipples and they hardened against his tongue. His blood heated and his thrusts spiraled out of control…’
Hot damn
, April,” Reno said, looking at me with an astonished expression. “You read this?” He glanced over his shoulder and I stuffed another cookie into my mouth.

“Trevor.”

“And I suppose
you
read Shakespeare,” he said sarcastically, setting the book back down.

“Why are you trying to make me ashamed of what I like? It’s a novel. There are stories in there about love and adventures, and yes, sometimes there’s sex.”

“I’m not judging you, April. I think it’s sexy as hell you read this kind of stuff. I don’t know about these word choices, but it sounds classier than some of those magazines.”

A laugh burst out of my mouth. “Magazines? Exactly what kind of literature are
you
reading?”

“A man has needs,” he said in a low voice.

“You don’t strike me as a man who has trouble getting women. I didn’t picture you as the magazine type. Do you order them off the Internet or buy them at the gas station?”

His brow arched and he grabbed a cookie, shoving it into his mouth without any twisting, licking, or nibbling. “So, are you trying to make me feel ashamed about what
I
read? That’s a little hypocritical.”

“Are we
reading
those magazines, or just admiring the racy photographs?” I gave a spirited laugh and Reno handed me the milk. Then I realized I probably had chocolate teeth and took a long sip, putting the cookies aside.

“What’s it like? Shifting, I mean. Does it hurt?”

“No. It feels like… I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, rubbing his chin. “It’s like sliding into a pool of water or something. I can only remember a few minutes into my shift—after that, my wolf takes over.”

“And you don’t remember anything after that?”

“Zip. Total blackout. It’s like that for most of us. Alphas are more likely to remember the entire shift because they have control of their animal, although I’ve heard stories about others who weren’t alphas having the same talent. I don’t know how they do it. I personally enjoy having a break.”

I pulled up my legs and twisted the frayed edges surrounding the hole in my jeans. “Were you born that way?”

“Yeah. I’m a different species than you.”

“Can you turn other people into one through a bite?”

The room grew silent and I kept playing with the strip of fabric, pretending I didn’t notice he was watching me closely.

“I can’t make you one of us, if that’s what you’re asking. This isn’t a curse that’s transmitted like a disease. You need to erase all those fictional werewolf stories you’ve watched in movies made to vilify what humans don’t understand. We’re
not
werewolves; Shifters are the spirits of man and animal inhabiting one body. Long ago, humans knew what we were. Man kills what he fears or doesn’t understand. Sometimes they kill out of jealousy. It’s why we’ve separated from your kind and live in secret.”

“Just curious.”

“That’s fine. I don’t expect you to wrap your head around it all at once. It’s not every day you learn that the big bad wolf is real,” he said with a dark chuckle.

Reno stood up and unloaded several cans of vegetables into an overhead cabinet. I got the rest of the bags out of the truck and decided to give the trailer a deep clean like it had never known before. I turned on a small radio and we listened to Billy Joel and some blues while we worked. Little did Reno know that I worshipped Billy Joel, although after me singing every word without missing a beat, maybe he figured it out. But he didn’t complain about my taste in music and I liked that. It was romantic listening to John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” while Reno stripped out of his shirt and fixed my trailer in nothing but his black pants and socks.

Once I had my fill of eye candy, I closed the curtain to my bedroom and began to decorate. I was so excited when the comforter was spread across the bed that I leapt on top of it and let out a squeal. I took out the e-reader that Trevor had bought for me and read a few chapters. Then I dozed off for a few minutes. Or maybe it was an hour.

When I opened my eyes, Reno was hanging up a new curtain. He had stripped down the makeshift one I’d made from a sheet. His was made from white lace—so breathtakingly delicate and beautiful. I reached over and flipped on my new orange lamp, softening the glow in the room.

“This’ll look better,” he said, sliding it along the track. “You like it?”

“Love it,” I said sleepily.

Etta James sang “Misty Blue” in the background and the rain created a symphony of sound against the roof overhead.

Reno pointed to the corner by the door. “No more leak,” he said proudly.

“Thanks so much for your help.”

I wanted to freeze-frame that night and make all the bad things disintegrate into ashes and blow away.

Reno scratched his shoulder and crossed his arms, standing in the corner and looking uncomfortable as hell. “What are those?” he asked, pointing to a small shelf on the wall.

I looked at the low shelf on my right and smiled. “Snow globes. My dad used to give them to me when I was little, but I stopped collecting them after he died. The water evaporated in a couple of the smaller ones.”

I had a total of fourteen. My dad had initiated a tradition when I was born where he gave me one every Christmas. He always managed to make it have a personal connection or a special meaning. Like the father-and-daughter one on the left. It was only after his death that my grandma told me that he had made them. She said it was his secret hobby and that he’d search for just the right pieces and put them all together to personalize it.

Reno’s eyes lit with interest as he looked between all of them.

“Will you lie beside me?” I asked. “Keep me company for a little while?”

Without a word, he crossed to the left side of the room and sat on the edge of the bed. I glanced up at his back, tempted to touch it, but kept my hands folded across my stomach. Then he threw his heavy legs on the bed and reclined onto the fluffy pillow. Our arms touched and a grin eased across his face.

“This is nice. The mirrors look good up there,” he said, pointing to the left.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to get them up because of these walls. Makes the room seem bigger.” They were small mirrors and he had bought some strong adhesives to mount them.

I glanced down at his socks and sat up. Wet socks, the closer I looked. “You are not wearing wet socks in my new bed, Reno Cole.”

I peeled one off and he hooked his hands around my waist, trying to pull me back. I giggled and grabbed his foot, tickling the bottom.