ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (10 page)

Mequssuk peeled out of the truck and took my bag for me, which was surprising because he hadn’t shown a display of manners earlier. I felt bad for laughing at him. He pushed against the glass door and it opened with a jingle, announcing our arrival.

My father was behind the till. He blinked at me like he didn’t recognize me for a second, and the pieces fell in place.

“Nadine! I didn’t recognize you there.” He looked like he’d aged ten years since I’d last seen him. The skin around his eyes was a map of wrinkles now, and his frame had somehow shrunken under the same jacket that used to hug his shoulders when he was a younger man. He came around the counter and pulled me against him in a bear hug that squashed my face against his shoulder. I was going to leave a concealer mark on his jacket.

“Hi daddy,” I said.

“Was the ferry early?” he asked.

“No, you’re late.” He turned around and looked at the clock that hung above a door behind the counter.

“Oh lord, you’re right. Sorry cupcake.”

“It’s fine—“ I started but my mother’s high pitched voice danced around the room, announcing her long before she arrived. She came from the door behind the counter. She looked exactly the same, from the strawberry blond hair that sat in a knot on her head to the light freckles I’d inherited and the stained apron she wore.

“Oh, I thought I heard you voice!” she said and pulled me into her the same my dad did. This time I had time to turn my head. “Look at your hair! So short now, and straight, my don’t you just look like the business woman. And you’re so skinny! Don’t New Yorkers eat? Don’t you worry, we’ll fix that right up.”

I was sure she would. I looked at her body, round with no sign of a waist.

“Oh, did your father forget about you again?” She turned to my dad. “You should really learn to set an alarm for yourself, Bruce. You’ll forget something serious one of these days.”

Sure, because I wasn’t serious enough.

“It’s great to see you, mom,” I said, forcing a smile. “Is there somewhere I can put my bag?” I nodded to the suitcase Mequssuk was still holding.

“Oh, you’ve met Mac!”

I looked at my driver and narrowed my eyes. “You’re Mac?
The
Mac?”

He shrugged and gave me a lopsided smile.

“But he told me his name was Mequssuk,” I said to my mom.

“Oh, that’s much too hard for our tongues. We just call him Mac.”

I looked at him again. He’d put my bag on the floor and leaned against the counter like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“You told me this was out of your way!” What an asshole. “And I paid you fifty bucks for this.”

He grinned and my dad shook his head, chuckling.

“That’s Mac, always up for a joke,” he said.

Well, he’d be up for something else if he did that to me again. I held out my hand. Meqessuk, or Mac, just stared at it.

“I want my money back.”

He rolled his eyes and fished out the bills. When I took them I straightened them out against my thigh and put the money back in my wallet. An awkward silence wrapped around us as we stood in the shop that was suddenly too small.

“Well, come on through to the house. I’ll show you your room,” mom said and walked around the counter to the door behind it.

“Your house has a door to the shop?” I asked.

“Makes it easier for me to get your father in for his medication,” mom said and I followed her through a narrow passage that opened up in a kitchen. Talk about the ultimate mix of work and play. The kitchen was medium sized and homely, but everything about it was average, from the beige flower-printed tiles and the green cabinets to the linoleum floor and the familiar black steel pots on the gas stove.

We walked through the lounge, which had the couches I’d grown up with facing the fireplace and a television in the corner, and down another passage with worn carpets and pictures of me growing up. I had long curly red hair in all of them.

Mac followed us and put my suitcase on the double bed in the guest bedroom. Apparently he was at home enough here to be able to walk into the bedrooms. The bed was one I hadn’t seen before with a pink frilled comforter that used to belong to my aunt Kate and a dresser that had stood in my grandmother’s room when I was a child.

“This is… nice,” said, turning to my mom.

“If you need anything you know just to shout or hunt for it yourself. You haven’t been home in a while but that’s no reason to feel like a stranger.”

I glanced at Mac who still hadn’t left. His dark eyes bore into mine and I wondered for a moment if he knew that I’d always felt like stranger in my own home, that now it was worse than ever.

“Come out with me tonight,” he offered. “I’m going to have a couple of drinks at the pub and shoot some pool. I’ll show you around.”

Around the pool table? There wasn’t a lot to see in this place, but I nodded. I had only been here for five minutes and already I felt like I wanted to run back home. “That would be nice, thanks,” I said politely. I would jump at any escape right now. Mac nodded and left the room.

“Oh, a date and you haven’t even been here an hour,” mom said and clasped her hands together.

“It’s not a date. And I’ve been here for almost two hours because dad didn’t pick me up.”

My mother shrugged it off and left me in the room to unpack. I didn’t. I didn’t want to move into this house. I didn’t want to make a little space that was all my own. I didn’t want to be here at all.

Mac picked me up at seven in his truck. I’d changed into skinny jeans and tan leather boots, with a jacket to match. My hair was straightened and my make-up was bullet proof.

“You don’t have to get all dressed up for this place,” he said when I slid onto the cracked leather seat. I thought I’d dressed down. Mac started the truck and we roared down the road. The pub was walking distance. The only reason the truck was used, I guessed, was because no person in his right mind would walk in this weather. The sun sat low in the sky, a big golden orb that sank slowly towards the horizon, but it would be two hours still before night time.

We stopped in front of a pub that looked like it was still in the garage where it had originated. A wooden door led into it. It had concrete floors and rustic signs hanging against the walls. Music blared from speakers above the bar, and pool tables occupied the one corner where the smoke hung like an artificial sky. There were mostly men in the bar, and the odd woman or two that looked like they could take on any of the men.

Mac walked over to the bar.

“What are you having?” he asked.

“Can I have a cosmopolitan?”

The bar man looked at me with a blank expression. I sighed. Another one that didn’t speak English? Or maybe my taste was just too foreign.

“What is there to choose from?”

“Whiskey, beer, rum,” Mac said and ordered himself a large mug of beer.

“Do you have wine?” I asked the bartender, who nodded. “What vintage?” When I was met with another vacant stare I took a deep breath. “What year was it bottled?”

“Honey, the wine here gets bottled before it gets sent, more likely. The aging process happens on the boat.”

“I’ll have one of those, then.” It was the closest I would get to sophistication. The bottle the bartender produced was dusty. Maybe it would be a good wine after all. It looked old enough to have been dug up in a box. It was a liquid about as dark as blood, and when I took a sip it was thick and ran down my throat. I shivered.

Mac walked to the pool table and greeted the bunch of guys loudly. They all looked roughly the same, dark hair and eyes, tan skin. I wondered if there were more of them that were werewolves. Mac didn’t introduce me. Instead I strutted over there myself and held out my hand. I wasn’t going to stand by the bar looking lost all night.

One of the guys offered to teach me how to play. I agreed. It wasn’t exactly my idea of fun, than again, nothing here was. He stood behind me, showing me how to hold the cue. Mac looked at me darkly from across the table. Good. If he wanted to be rude to me, he could drown in jealousy.

A moment later he elbowed his friend out of the way.

“I was just getting the hang of it,” I said.

“Yeah, and he was getting the hang of you.”

“And what’s it to you?”

He looked over my shoulder so he wouldn’t have to look me in the eye. “You’re just not the kind of women these guys should take home, okay? If you went home with anyone, I’d like it to be me.”

I smiled from the inside, warm and defrosting. He was so sincere when he said it. Of course there was no way I was going to go home with him. But I liked that he wanted me to. When I smiled his gaze traveled down to my lips and lingered there. It made me look at his too. They were thick but not too much, and a smile forever tugged on the corners of his mouth. He swayed towards me, and I held my wineglass out to the side so he could step in and kiss me if he wanted to.

But then he stopped. “I—“ he started but a shrill voice from the bar cut him off.

“Mac, you son of a gun. You haven’t showed your face around these parts for a while!”

A voluptuous woman with dark brown hair and ice blue eyes walked closer to us. She wore a shirt that showed her midriff despite the cold, and her lips were a ruby red. She came to stand next to Mac and snaked an arm around his waist. In her other hand she had a glass of amber liquid. Whiskey, I guessed. 

“You should let a girl know when you’re gonna be paintin’ the town, honey,” she said in a voice that almost purred.

Mac looked at me, his eyes trying to say all kinds of sorry. I wasn’t buying.

“This is Sabrina. We grew up together,” he said.

“Oh, we did much more than that,” she giggled at me. “Didn’t we?”

Mac carried on with his introduction without skipping a beat.

“Sabrina, this is Nadine Campbell up to visit from New York.”

“Did I interrupt something?” Sabrina asked sweetly, like she expected the answer to be no. Her blue eyes were like the ocean. Beautiful but I wouldn’t wade into the dangers below.

“Nadine was just—“ Mac started but I cut him off.

“Leaving. Thanks for the wine.” I put my empty glass on the edge of the pool table and headed for the door. If that was how it was going to be, I wasn’t staying, no matter how bad the weather.

Chapter 3

It was freezing despite the sun that was still above the horizon. It hung like a glowing light bulb just above the horizon now, the last golden rays fingering the landscape and drawing long dark shadows across the planes. I started walking. I wasn’t ready to go home yet, no matter how cold I was getting.

I wandered around the little town, past the church that was made of wood silvered by time. The wind picked up and the church and creaked and groaned like it was alive. The atmosphere changed along with the setting sun. It became eerie, quiet, with only the sound of the wind.

I kept walking. I wanted to get away from here. The sun was starting to set, the horizon slicing it in half and the shadows melting into each other until everything was shaded in grays and blues. The sky still had its orange shine but nothing else had color anymore.

A howl pierced the cold night air and made my blood curdle. I hadn’t expected wolves to be so close to town. I’d have expected them to at least be on the main land, or something.

Another howl sounded, and the moon appeared as if summoned. It was almost full, round save for a slice on the side, but it would fill out before I left. I was outside town now. I’d walked without noticing where I was going. I was surrounded by rocks and trees, some of them with tiny leaves barely dressed the skeleton branches.

A movement to my left caught my eye and I spun around. There was nothing. I strained my ears to hear anything above the whisper of the wind, but all I could pick up was the feeling of foreboding.

Another movement to my right, and this time a wolf jumped out at me. It was dark brown with ice blue eyes, and it looked bigger than it should have. Lips were curled away from sharp teeth, and it held its head low, watching me. I turned so I faced it as it paced around me.

It mock-charged, and when I flinched it snapped its jaws twice. Then it threw back its head and howled again.

Another howl answered it.

Brilliant. It was calling its friends.

A second wolf jumped into the clearing, this one completely black, even its eyes. I thought about the stories I’d heard, where some ethnicities believed animals that looked like that were demons because they couldn’t see their eyes properly among all the black. A shiver crawled across my skin, making the hair in my neck stand up, and I felt like I was made of ice.

The black wolf wasn’t after me, though. It turned on the brown one, and growled, also snapping its jaws. They were having some sort of primal conversation, and the black wolf was clearly more dominant. After a moment the brown wolf dropped its head all the way and tucked its tail between its legs.

The black wolf turned and faced me, pushed up its back like a cat. Then the fur withdrew, almost like a blanket being pulled off, and pink skin took its place. After a moment it curled in a ball. I closed my eyes. It was gruesome to watch, it made my legs feel like jelly and I was unable to run or scream.