Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (11 page)

Collapsing into the chair, I crossed my arms over my breasts and stared resolutely at the coffee table. I didn't care how long Clover and Garland took, I wasn't going to look up until Braeden left the room or I had every inch of the wooden table's grain memorized.

"Hungry?"

Speculation laced the simple question. I refused to answer. As far as I was concerned, Clover and my prospective suitors were the only people who would hear my voice for the next month.

"I know you don't want to be here."

The softly voiced prodding almost made me forget I wasn't going to look at him.

"No mated shifter is going to allow you into his house," he went on. "That includes Taron now that his mate's pregnant."

My gaze jerked in Braeden's direction for a second. Taron was not only the president of the Woodsmen, he was also Clover's honorary papa bear. He was one of the few among the Woodsmen and their families that I could count on for a smile, an earnest query on my well-being -- anything other than a cold shoulder. Clover knew that. And not only was he now mated without Clover saying anything before my return home, he also was going to have a baby.

Not one word.

Yet Braeden still couldn't understand just how far his sister and I had drifted apart.

I returned to studying the wood's grain.

Braeden huffed once then continued driving home just how unwanted I was in Night Falls.

"There are no single female shifters to house you. And you can understand the issue that would arise if an unmated male offered shelter..."

Trying not to squirm in my seat, I hugged my arms tighter around my chest. I knew from the ride here in the truck, if I drew every muscle tight enough and bit hard enough at the insides of my lips and cheeks, I could turn off my emotions. But only if Braeden shut his damn mouth before I fell apart!

And wasn't he an unmated male?

He had certainly acted like it for part of our time in Clark's barn -- right up until he told me it was a mistake and tried to pull out. Was that because he had already pledged his affection elsewhere? To the woman whose perfume I had smelled the morning before?

But why touch me like he had?

A harsh laugh trembled past my lips. I jumped up from my seat and stalked toward the kitchen, Braeden close on my heels but saying nothing.

He had touched me like that because his damn nose told him I desired him and only then because he wanted to keep Clover happy and safe.

Poor little Paisley with her wet pussy, let me fix it. Oh, wait, I don't want her, don't even like her.

Braeden's long legs carried him to the kitchen door before I was halfway across the room. He turned, rested his back against the door and glared at me.

"I told you I wouldn't run," I bit out, jerking open a cupboard door and pulling out a bowl.

"Paisley..."

I looked up, my cheeks coloring at how gently he had said my name. His angry stare was gone, something unreadable in its place.

He reached out, then his expression shifted once more to a faked disinterest. "Let me make you something more than just cereal. Your body needs protein after yesterday's ordeal."

Shaking my head, I kept the bowl out of his reach and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling pantry cupboard. I poured half a cup of Grape Nuts into the bowl then opened the refrigerator. Pulling out one of Clover's Greek yogurts, I wiggled the container at him.

"See, protein. Don't need you for anything."

I peeled open the lid, grabbed a spoon and scooped the yogurt onto the kernels of barley then headed back to the living room to sit in the side chair.

Ignoring Braeden's return to the couch, I let my gaze wander around the room. Light showed at the edges of the curtains, the sun having made its quick ascent into the morning sky since Garland's arrival half an hour before.

Meticulously, I chewed my way through breakfast, my mouth kept full so I wouldn't have to immediately respond to anything he said, or respond at all. Each spoonful was stretched out three or four minutes between my scooping it up, chewing and swallowing. I hoped by the time I scraped the last bit of cereal out of the bowl, Clover would erupt from her bedroom with news that she had done some kind of computer voodoo and discovered the shooter's identity, or at least the IP location from which the video had first been uploaded.

She did explode from her room as I was rinsing the bowl in the sink, but not for the reason I had hoped.

"No, no, no," she snarled, her dainty feet pounding at the wooden floor as she stomped her way toward the front door. "No cats. Anything other than a cat!"

I realized a second before she flung the door open that a motorcycle had pulled into the drive, its engine quieter than the bikes most of the Woodsmen owned.

Joshua Reeves had the quietest bike among the motorcycle club. And Clover, for some reason that mystified me, had long hated him, even when we were in our early teens.

"Too soon, dude," she said after flinging the front door open. "Too fucking soon!"

Braeden came up behind his little sister, his hand landing on her shoulder and squeezing for a second. His head dipped, his firm lips hovering near her ear.

"Taron said Paisley's choice, not yours," he whispered just loud enough for me to hear.

A chuckle from the porch told me Joshua had heard Braeden's reminder, too. Of course he had -- he was a shifter like all the rest of them and, apparently, feline in nature.

"I merely came to check on everyone's well being," Joshua announced.

I stood in the kitchen, water still running because I was mortified by the thought of my moving and having Joshua hear me. If I thought back, really dwelled on it, it was easy to see that he was one of the few Woodsmen who had warmed to me, especially when Clover was absent from my side.

"We're all peachy," Clover growled, her fingers closing around the edge of the door to slam it at the same time Braeden put a restraining hand right above hers.

"I want him to get the fuck off my porch!"

The man practically purred as he ignored Clover's order to leave. "I'm heading into the city. I thought Paisley might need a few things picked up given that she is staying longer than she may have originally planned."

He was right, I had only packed for a few days. I had a spare pair of jeans, a second sweater, two t-shirts, a second bra and five pairs each of panties and socks.

"I'll provide whatever she needs," Braeden said, his voice bordering on one of the snarls he'd been tossing around regularly the last twenty-four hours.

"Well, that's one question answered," Joshua mused.

Clover looked up at her big brother. "Please, no cats."

Before Braeden could reassure or disappoint his little sister, Joshua interrupted.

"You realize, wolfling, the pride that shredded your parents would have done the same to me?"

Clover froze, all the blood draining from her face. Snarling, Braeden slammed the door on Joshua's face then turned to comfort his sister. She darted away, then fled down the hall to slam the bathroom door shut.

Braeden redirected his attention toward me, fury turning his gaze a pale, fiery green.

I slapped the water off and stalked out of the kitchen.

"Screw you," I whispered as I passed him and headed down the hall.

I had come home to care for my dead grandmother's animals and collect her ashes from the funeral home -- the one located in the very city Joshua was probably headed to. The shooting had nothing to do with me, but now I was deemed the biggest threat to the Woodsmen and their families. And I damn well was not the one who had just made Clover cry, but the big bad wolf glaring down the hall from me as I knocked on the bathroom door didn't give a damn.

As far as Braeden Hughes was concerned, everything wrong in his life was my fault.

********************

Paisley

A few days passed without any other shifter in Night Falls deciding to court me. Clover and I lived in exile in her room, Braeden prowling the rest of the house unless his duties as the vice president of the Woodsmen called him away.

My car and Holly's truck stayed up at the cabin. The animals were sold off to the man from Hadley at a better price than I had hoped for.

I would be lying if I said I thoroughly resented the days spent cloistered in Clover's bedroom. We found what I felt we had lost those months since I had last left for school. Signing until her fingers cramped, she told me about the threat from several packs and prides in Illinois, how the groups had accidentally discovered the makeshift pack in Night Falls while pursuing one of their own runaway members and how she had concocted the idea of a video that masqueraded as an extended movie trailer while threatening to expose all shifters to the human world.

She told me about mating -- not the nitty gritty, but how those in Night Falls had discovered that different kinds of shifters could breed with one another, to include Taron's pregnant mate, the she-wolf who had been running from her pack in Illinois.

The one thing she didn't tell me was whether the same held true with humans and shifters. Given that I had grown up in Night Falls more or less a pariah, I was pretty sure the answer was no.

As far as I could tell, shifters had no reason to mix with humans and every reason not to.

Catching my attention, Clover bent and touched both middle fingers to her chest then drew a line with them down her body as she frowned.

I shrugged. It didn't take a psychologist to diagnose the fleeting bouts of depression I suffered whenever her fingers stopped moving and I stopped learning.

"I miss the sun," I signed then nodded at her window.

Smiling, she thrust her raised index finger toward me, signing that I should wait a minute, then she bounded off the bed.

Leaving the room, she threw a wink over her shoulder, her finger repeating the sign for me to wait. Two minutes later, she returned with the hammer Braeden had used to nail the plywood in place.

Flipping the tool in her hand, she scanned the edge of the window for a spot where she could wedge the claw. With the claw inserted, she stepped around the handle and began to pull it toward her. The plywood complained at the force being exerted, everything groaning and creaking.

When the first nail popped free, Clover cackled.

"I thought you were a wolf, not a hen," I teased, a smile starting to crawl up the sides of my face even though I knew it was likely a matter of minutes before Braeden caught on to what we were doing.

Seconds, I amended as his voice drifted down the hall.

"Clo, what was that sound?"

"Shut the door!" she whispered as she tucked the hammer behind her back and tried to look innocent. "Lock it, too!"

I didn't make it to the foot of the bed before Braeden's large frame filled the doorway. He studied the two of us with a narrowed gaze.

"You were just in the kitchen," he said, squinting at his sister.

"Thirsty," she answered, her cheeks a guilty rose.

He closed his eyes, his head slowly shaking side to side. "You opened a drawer, not a cupboard or the refrigerator. You're a terrible liar, baby girl."

Swinging the hammer from behind her back, she shook it in his direction. "It's horrible in here with the light blocked."

"So come into the front room," he answered, his brows lifting with the same snarky attitude that coated his words.

Pretending she hadn't heard him, Clover turned back to the window and wedged the claw higher up. Braeden ignored her, his attention drifting to me as his eyes went all squinty again.

"Who is Cort?"

My lungs seized at the question.

"Is he here?" I blurted, standing on my tiptoes in an attempt to see around Braeden.

"Do you want him to be?"

I stopped to consider the question, especially Braeden's tone. It was wary, but also predatory, delivered with a low grumble of menace.

Clover stopped trying to remove the plywood and put the hammer down, her gaze as intent on me as her brother's.

"No," I answered truthfully.

Cort was a classmate in the forestry program. Some five years older than me, he had become not only a good friend but a stand in for the pseudo-big brother I'd lost when Braeden had turned into a complete asshole.

I didn't want him in Night Falls because I didn't want him hurt.

"Is he here?" I repeated.

Braeden wiggled my cell phone at me. I wasn't allowed to use it and Clover wasn't allowed to use her phone or the Internet unless Braeden was watching over her shoulder.

The jerk was really taken his duty as prison guard seriously.

"Just here," he answered. "And I'm tired of hitting decline call or pretending to be you in texts."

"What?" I yelled, dashing forward and trying to snag my phone from his oversize mitt.

Braeden lifted the phone toward the ceiling, his long arm and my already dreadfully short height insuring he would always win a game of keep away against me -- unless I started walking around with a ladder or a cherry picker.