Hope(less) (Judgment of the Six) Page 7

  This time he turned to watch my approach. Other than a few quick glances at him to ensure he didn’t leave, I focused on placing my feet in the smoother areas where tire treads had cleared the stone, leaving sand behind. My ill-timed stiff steps made a prancing dance. I hoped no one had a video camera.

  As I neared, he took a shop rag from his pocket and set it on the ground near the truck. I paused mid-prance and looked down at the filthy rag. I just showered. What was with getting me dirty? Not a fair thought. My feet were probably already dirty. The insistent bite of the gravel on the bottom of my feet decided it. I stepped onto the rag, wiping my feet on the grease and carbon stained surface to dislodge the piercing shards still stuck to them. The relief made it worthwhile.

  “Thanks,” I said looking up at him.

  Since he’d set the rag in front of the truck, I stood closer than I would have liked. I could see brown eyes staring at me from behind the stringy hair. He studied me intently and I felt that strange pull in my stomach again, reminding me of my problem. We had an obvious connection, one I didn’t want and one he might not want. Instead of trying to figure out why he might doubt our connection, maybe I needed to explain why I didn’t want it in terms he could relate too as a Forlorn werewolf.

  Taking a breath, I plunged into a lie. “Sam just told me that you’re to be confined to a bachelor’s room for the remainder of the day. With me. They want to see how we react to each other so they can determine if you really do have a claim on me.”

  I knew I played with fire. Living with Sam had taught me werewolves could sense a lie through increased heart rate, smell of fear or anxiety. The simple beauty of the situation made the lie hard to detect. If Sam had really just told me they wanted to lock me up with this guy, I’d have freaked out. So smelling anxiety wouldn’t be out of place. And the dash across the gravel had elevated my pulse already.

  A low growl rumbled from him before I finished speaking.

  “What? You don’t want to spend time with me?” I asked feigning confusion.

  He stopped his growling and quietly looked down at my feet on the rag. I looked down at them too and noted what the gravel hadn’t done, the rag had. They were filthy again. If Charlene found me walking though the hallways with feet this dirty, she’d give me an earful.

  I looked back up at him getting back to the topic. “You do want to spend time with me, don’t you?”

  He shrugged, still looking down. Not staring at my feet then, but thinking. I pushed hoping to press my point before he caught on.

  “So, it’s not me… Don’t you like being indoors?” He shrugged again, this time looking up at me. “Ok. If it’s not me, and not being indoors, then what?” I let the question hang briefly before saying what I already knew. Ultimately, Forlorn didn’t join packs because… “You don’t want to be told when or how to spend time with me, told what to do. Is that right?”

  He didn’t look away. Didn’t move at all. After a moment, I said quietly, “Yeah, me either.”

  I watched him closely waiting for some sign that he understood I’d lied to him. His motionlessness felt like a standoff, temporarily shriveling my hope. Maybe there was no reasoning with Clay. No, I just chose the wrong tract.

  Ignoring the pain, I stepped off the rag and bent down to pick it up. I shook it out and handed it back to him. “I’m sorry I lied to you Clay. I thought maybe if you knew how it felt to have your choices taken from you, you’d understand why I want to leave. It’s nothing personal.”

  He took the rag from me and turned back to the truck. Someone had brought him more tools and he was in the process of taking something off what I assumed was the engine. He picked up a ratchet and started to loosen a bolt.

  I had to keep trying. “Your instincts say I’m the one. I don’t have those instincts. Instead, I just keep thinking how I don’t even know you. And the little bit Sam told me, that you spend most of your time in your fur, doesn’t help me understand how there could be an ‘us’. I have no fur. I can’t just run off into the woods with you.” My softly spoken words appeared to make a difference. The clicking of the ratchet began to slow. He listened.

  “I’ve enrolled in college, one I chose despite Sam’s opposition. Do you know why I picked it? Because it was far enough away that I knew it’d be harder for people to tell me what to do. Major decisions up until this point, have been made by others based on what they thought would be best for me. Sure, they ask me what I think and try to consider it, but not always. How do you think Sam got me to Introductions for the past two years? It wasn’t by asking me each time if I felt like going.” The ratcheting stopped, but he remained facing the engine listening.

  I continued speaking softly, rationally. “I don’t mean to sound heartless. I’ve been through enough Introductions to know what it means to your kind. I’m not trying to throw your traditions back in your face, I’m just asking for some compromise. Don’t ask me to forget the one thing I’ve chosen on my own.” My pleading didn’t appear to sway him any further so I switched tactics and offered him a little hope. “If you’re serious about me, then come to the city with me and learn while I learn. We can get to know each other. I need that in order to even consider there being an ‘us’.” Still he didn’t move. Frustration crept into my words. “I know I’m asking a lot. You’d need to start talking, stop growling, and bathe. No offense meant, but you look like a crazy man the way you are.”

  He moved slightly as if I’d poked him in the ribs. So he did understand he looked bad. Inside, I jumped up and down on the balls of my feet, clapping my hands excitedly. Leaning against the truck to take some weight off my bare feet pressing into the gravel, I pressed my case further, “And I know it wouldn’t be easy on you. You’ll be surrounded by people. It’ll probably be uncomfortable after you’ve been on your own for so long. But we’d be able to spend time together to get to know each other the normal human way and see how things go. We’d both be giving a little then. Well… you’d be giving a little more, but will you think about it?” I didn’t wait for his reaction. I turned and walked back to the compound. It had to work.

  I spent about five minutes trying to wipe my feet clean on one of the entry rugs before giving up and walking back to my room, my speech running through my head. Either it would work or not. We both knew I couldn’t live in the woods. He needed to rejoin society. He’d see I wasn’t worth the effort.

  With a mental sigh, I pushed it from my thoughts and focused on the present. I planned on lounging in the apartment and finishing a novel I’d started over a month ago. My stomach rumbled loudly. And eat.

  * * * *

  The next morning I woke early. I’d grown so bored reading the day before that I’d gone to bed by eight. No surprise when I opened my eyes, my phone flashed five a.m. Sam would kill me if I woke him up this early. I only hesitated a moment before I threw back the covers and got out of bed. In the pitch-dark room, I managed to pull on my zipper hoodie and tiptoe to my door, opening it without a sound.

  I’d only managed three steps into the living room when Sam grumbled from the foldout bed, “Doesn’t anyone sleep around here?” The light near the sofa clicked on blinding me for a moment.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. “I should know better than to try not to wake you.” His hearing made him a very light sleeper.

  “What are you doing up already?” He sat up and ran his hands through his hair as if trying to wake himself up more.

  I doubted it would work and didn’t think he’d appreciate an offer to make him coffee given the time. He’d rather just go back to bed. “I was going to check on the truck,” I explained. “He had it mostly taken apart yesterday afternoon. I wanted to see if he started putting it back together.”

  “What did you say to him yesterday?” he asked, tiredly getting out of bed. Sam surprised me when he started to strip the sheets from it. We changed the bedding just before leaving making it ready in case anyone else ever used the rooms. But it was five a.m….

  “What do you mean?” I took a few steps backward to lean against my door and watch his progress. I couldn’t believe he actually got out of bed at this hour. He almost tripped over his bag while pulling off the fitted sheet. “Do you want me to start some coffee?” It wasn’t normal for werewolves to be anything less than agile. Coffee couldn’t be good for him.

  “No, I’m fine,” he answered my last question first. “I mean, he asked for the keys to the truck last night and brought them back earlier this morning. Truck’s fixed. I checked myself. So, I’m wondering what you said to him.”

  My mouth popped open. I couldn’t believe he’d actually listened to me. A silly smile tugged at my mouth. Did this really mean he’d let me go? My barely formed smile faded. Or would I just wake up back in this apartment tomorrow morning if I tried to leave? I watched Sam remake the bed with the clean sheets from the hidden compartment in the matching sofa ottoman.

  There had to be a catch. Sam had told me a tied pair didn’t part until completing the claim. When Clay had scented me, and I recognized him openly, the Elders saw us as a tied pair. They in turn announced it to everyone over their mental link. Every werewolf, whether in a pack or Forlorn recognized our tie. If my words truly changed Clay’s mind, great! But Sam’s question caused me to begin to doubt and I struggled to come up with what I’d overlooked.

  “The truth,” I answered Sam. “I pointed out that I needed to go to school. Let’s say he is my mate. He’s an uneducated man from the backwoods. How are we going to live? I can’t turn on the fur like you guys can and live as a wolf like he’s done for most of his life. Where does that leave us? I need an education to get a good job to support myself because he can’t.” Sam had stopped remaking the bed and looked at me in disbelief. “Well, I said it nicer than that,” I defended myself.

  He gave me a disappointed look and said, “You don’t know anything about him, Gabby. He may have lived most his life in his fur, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t intelligent, or more wolf than man. You may have caused yourself more trouble that you intended.”

  I shifted against the door. I knew I had to be missing something. “Hold on, I didn’t say either of those things to him.” Granted, I did tell him he needed to bathe. “And what do you mean ‘more trouble’?”

  “He said that you suggested he live with you to get to know each other better.”

  I froze in disbelief. That is not what I said. But more importantly, I asked, “Did he actually talk to you?”

  “Well, I had to put on my fur to understand him since he was in his, but yes.”

  Sam’s kind communicated in several ways when in their fur, typically, through body language or howls. Claimed and mated pairs shared a special bond using an intuitive mental link. Once establishing a claim the pair could sense strong emotions and each other’s location. Mated pairs had the same ability to communicate with each other as the Elders had with everyone in the pack.

  I closed my eyes and thought back to what I’d said. “I didn’t say we should live together, but that he should come back with me to get an education.” Fine, I hadn’t worded it well, but how did he get ‘hey, we should live together’ out of that?

  “Like I said, you’ve got trouble.” Sam said with another disappointed look. He folded the bed back into the sofa and then picked up his bag from the floor. He strode to the bathroom, closing the door on any further conversation.

  Crap. I needed to talk to Clay again and find out what he intended. I’d been counting on his feral upbringing and his need for freedom to cause him to doubt my suggestion. A suggestion that hadn’t included him living with me, but finding a place nearby so we could go through the motions of human dating, which was the extent of my willingness to compromise.

  Leaving the apartment, I stole through the deserted hallways, pausing to put on shoes before opening the main door to the pre-dawn darkened sky. Silence embraced the dimly lit parking yard. The yard light cast shadows near the vehicles, disturbing me, creating places for things to hide.

  Walking across the empty expanse alertly, I found the repaired truck, but no Clay. My stomach knotted seeing the truck whole again. Sam’s words about Clay’s intelligence haunted me. A man raised in the wild knew how to dismantle and put back together a truck. I’d underestimated him. No matter which way I looked at it, it all pointed back to the fact I didn’t know enough about Clay to try to guess what he’d do next.

  Back in the apartment, Sam waited ready to go. I didn’t bother with a shower, but remade the bed and grabbed my own bag. Retracing my path, we made it to the truck with no sign of Clay. Sensing my mood, Sam didn’t say anything to me as I climbed in and we started the long drive home. It was several hours into the ride when I finally stopped looking behind us or stretching my second sight looking for werewolves. There’d been no sign of Clay following us, but then there’d been no sign of Clay following me the night before last either.

  Chapter 5

  I was on edge the first week back not knowing if or when Clay would show up. I could have asked Sam if he knew what Clay planned, but he hadn’t mentioned Clay since we’d left. I feared that if I brought it up, Sam would read into it thinking I missed Clay or something. Since I didn’t want Sam interfering or sending out a call to Clay causing him to show up when he otherwise wouldn’t have, I kept quiet letting my worry eat at me until I began jumping at my own shadow by mid-week.

  Desperate for a distraction, I plunged feet first into two part-time jobs during what should have been my free summer between high school and college. Working as much as possible, I barely saw Sam, or had much time to think about Clay or the pack. I woke up early each morning, showered, ate breakfast, and packed a lunch, long before Sam got out of bed. Though I’m sure he heard me moving around. And because I cared, I started his coffee before I walked out the door.

  Sam worked from home, spending his time investing on the pack’s behalf. It meant he didn’t need to get up until he felt like it. Since he occupied his days researching different financial ventures, he’d converted the third bedroom into an office after I’d moved in. His job suited him perfectly because he could leave anytime he needed for pack business.

  A dark house greeted me when I returned home in the evening, worn out from the long day. Usually, Sam had something in the oven or refrigerator set aside for my dinner. I’d eat and then go to bed, only to start the cycle again in the morning. I reserved Sunday as my downtime, which I needed to hunt for an apartment or someone in need of a roommate. My hectic schedule successfully prevented thoughts of Clay from creeping in the entire summer.

  Three weeks before the start of school, I found the perfect roommate, Rachel. Watching the papers near school, I came across her ad for a roommate. We hit it off the first time we spoke on the phone. She attended the same school I’d enrolled in, going into her third year in the nursing program, compared to the massage therapy program I enrolled in. She rented a two-bedroom house. Her roommate from the prior year had moved out after graduation. Rachel tried living on her own over the summer, but the bills grew too expensive and, she admitted, the house too quiet.

  After our first call, I did some research and found the house wasn’t in the best part of town, but I couldn’t find anything closer that I could still afford. Plus, the unoccupied bedroom she offered came furnished with a bed and a dresser. I didn’t own the one I slept on now and didn’t feel right taking it with me when I left. I called Rachel and let her know I wanted the room.

  Sunday, a week before school started, I once again packed my possessions to move. Sam pretended not to care I was leaving, but I knew he did when I saw him slip some money into the emergency cash I kept hidden in a half full tampon box in my dresser. I’d only stepped out of my room for a minute to grab my shampoo and brush from the bathroom. When I walked back into the room, he’d pretended to check the dresser as if ensuring I didn’t forget anything. I went along with it.

  Packing didn’t take long. Everything I owned fit into several messenger bags and an old suitcase I’d gotten at a secondhand store. By lunch, we had everything I needed loaded into the back of Sam’s truck. A passerby wouldn’t even notice the small pile.

  After one last look around the house to make sure I had everything, we climbed into the truck and started the journey. Excitement filled me, but I fought hard to keep it from showing. Sam sat behind the wheel looking slightly depressed. I didn’t think my joy would give him any comfort.

  “You’ll call me if you have any trouble?” Sam asked yet again as we drove to Rachel’s place.

  “Yes, Sam. But I’m over four hours from you. I’ll need to face things on my own.”

  “Not on your own. Elder Joshua has moved nearby. I’ll be able to contact him if you have a need.”

  Sam had mentioned Elder Joshua to me a few days after I found Rachel. I knew Elder Joshua recently moved there just for me, but didn’t make any complaint. As long as he stayed away until I needed something, we’d get along just fine.

  When we arrived, Rachel sat waiting on the front step of a small ranch house for us. She’d described herself on the phone as just over average height with brown hair and eyes. She’d left out everything else. Her deep brown hair hung silky-straight, and the beautifully bronzed tone of her skin had me wondering if she had any African-American heritage. Highlighting her darkly lashed eyes, her perfectly arched brows didn’t appear tweezed or penciled.

  At about five-foot ten inches, she passed average height with long lean legs extending from her cutoffs. Her V-necked top showed sufficient cleavage to know she didn’t need to stuff her bra either. Overall, she was gorgeous enough to make a straight girl wonder if she should switch teams and that worried the hell out of me. Oh, not that I’d switch teams. As annoying as men were, I still preferred them. No, her attitude the first time a man overlooked her and focused on me, worried me. Let’s face it. Pretty girls can be very mean.