Trina settled the motorcycle on its kickstand and waved to Leah, who wore the biggest grin.
“It’s ten in the morning, and you already have a margarita,” Trina called as she wound through the stone flower boxes of colorful roses.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Leah sang back.
Trina giggled and took a seat in the bright blue plastic lawn chair beside the tanning werewolf.
“I’ve been a little stressed,” Leah admitted. “And it’s my day off from the Hamburger Shack so I figured, while Ethan is working, I would have a party for one out here and watch the humming birds. Look.” She pointed to a trio of feeders on the edge of the woods.
There were two tiny birds flittering this way and that as they drank from the different ones.
“Aww,” Trina said. “They’re so cute, I don’t even want to eat them.”
Leah frowned at her and shook her head. “Cats,” she muttered. “There’s canned margs in the cooler.”
Why the heck not? Trina didn’t have to be into work until six tonight and had no plans.
“Are you here to ask about Kade?” Leah murmured, eyes on the feeders.
“How did you know?” Trina asked.
“He’s part of why I’m stressed,” Leah said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“He has trouble with Changes. This time he was out in the woods for three days, and he came back sick.”
Trina sat up straight in the chair. “Sick how?”
“Head sick. Or maybe heart sick? He looked awful and couldn’t stop snarling, and he didn’t even make it five minutes into a meal last night before he said he had to Change again. When I went into his room this morning, his bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“He lives here?”
“Him and me and Ethan. I was going to sell this place because I couldn’t afford the property taxes, but now the boys help, and it’s a good home for all of us. Or clubhouse, or whatever you call it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Trina said, staring at the house over her shoulder. “Kade isn’t here right now?”
“No. Sometimes I make him hang out with me on my days off. He pretends he hates it, but he smiles when he thinks I’m not looking so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really mind. But today he’s just disappeared and won’t answer his phone or anything. Ethan is really worried. You asked how I knew you were here to ask about Kade.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to show you something.” Leah stood, toting her margarita. Clad in her little bikini, she sauntered off toward the back of the house.
Trina grabbed her canned margarita, popped the top, and followed directly. In the sprawling back yard, there was a shop. It looked like an old barn but had been kept up well. It was all clean lines and wood stained the same color. It even had flowers in the landscaping out front. But when Trina followed Leah inside, it was anything but tidy. Sawdust covered the floor in piles, tables with different projects littered the space, tools were everywhere. A set of four matching chairs were in different stages. Cans of paint were scattered along the back wall, and there was a bench that covered the length of the left side of the massive shop.
“That’s why,” Leah murmured, gesturing to the bench.
Trina approached it slowly in awe. There were carvings of mountain lions. And pictures. Photographs. Sketches nailed to the wall in a collage. In the trashcan right beside his work area, Kade had thrown away piles of pictures and carvings and set them on fire. They were charred, but she bent slightly and pulled out one carving from the ashes that was only burned around the edges. It was of a wolf.
Behind her, Leah said, “He doesn’t like his animal. He doesn’t like what he is.”
Trina swallowed hard.
Enough was enough.
She picked up a carving of a mountain lion and yanked the bottle of wood glue from the counter. And then she glued that wolf and lion together. And while they dried, she wrote on the top page of his sketch book the words we are not separate, and placed the carvings on top of it.
“When he comes home, tell him I have a present for him, but he has to come see me to get it.”
The smile on Leah’s face was slow and steady, and she nodded once. “Are you going to help me fix him?”
Trina shook her head and looked down at the trashcan full of burned wolves. “No. He doesn’t need to be fixed. I like him just fine the way he is.”
And when she looked back at Leah, the girl’s eyes were rimmed with tears and her bottom lip was trembling. But then there was that slow smile again. “You’re a good mate.”
Chapter Nine
Oh, he’d heard Leah going on and on about how he needed to talk to Trina. Her and Ethan both, but they didn’t understand. He would kill Trina. Or at the very least, hurt her, and he couldn’t do that to her. Admittedly, he was an asshole and selfish by nature, but with her…she felt different to him. Bigger. More important than everyone else. He would rather stick his masturbating hand in a bear trap than see Trina hurt.
The psychopath in him couldn’t stop making her presents. It was like a glitch. He’d become addicted to watching her face from the woods when she found his gifts on the rocking chair he’d built for her. Rocking chair. Ha. Did she even realize what he’d really built her? A Christmas tree. A present box. A catch-all for the trinkets he would probably always bring her until his crazy wolf got him killed or locked away.
Trina was sleeping.
He’d been waiting out here for her bedroom light to go off while he fiddled with the carvings she’d glued together. He’d been carrying it in his pocket all day. We are not separate. He would keep that note forever just to be reminded of the girl he could’ve had—if he’d been a normal werewolf.
Why wasn’t she scared of him?
That’s the part he couldn’t figure out. Look at him. He was posted up outside her house every night, waiting for her to drift off to sleep so he could sneak her a present. And when he was Changed, he was running around her woods taking a piss on every tree like he was marking his damned territory. He was clearly hunting her, and she should be scared, so why had she come all the way out to his home, into his shop, and written that letter?
He ran his thumb over the burned wolf. Because we are not separate.
He didn’t understand her. He didn’t understand himself. He didn’t understand anyone.
Tonight’s gift, she wouldn’t like. He already accepted that. It was just a rock he’d found that had a pretty purple sheen to it, and he’d picked it up for her.
Maybe he would leave it right here so that someday when she was walking through the woods, long after he was locked up or killed, she would find it and have a happy moment.
A twig snapped behind him, and the hairs electrified instantly on the back of his neck. Kade spun with a snarl in his throat, only to find Trina standing there with a big, bright smile on her face. She wore cutoff shorts and a red tank top that made her fair skin look even paler in the moonlight. Over one shoulder, she held one of those cheap bag chairs they sold in every grocery store.
“I got tired of waiting for my present,” she chirped as she pulled the chair out of its nylon case. She yanked on the handles until it was chair-shaped and settled it on the dry leaves. And then she squatted by a little blue cooler and pulled out a couple of Bud Lights.
He crouched there wondering how the hell he’d been snuck up on while she popped the top of the first and held it out for him. “Beer?”
“Uuuuuh…yes?”
“I would’ve brought you a chair too, but I figured you’d rather stick to your special squatting spot and would decline it anyway.”
“My what?”
Trina sat in her chair and pointed to where he was kneeling. “I found that spot yesterday. Seems to be your favorite. It smells like you.”
Kade narrowed his eyes and approached, took the beer from her, and took a long swig. Huh. Good little stalker.
She was still holding out her hand, and she wiggled her fingers at him. “Gimme.”