Beast: Learning to Breathe (Devil's Blaze MC #5)

When I go back inside, the woman is standing by the door to the room. She looks pale and there’s a tremble in her body that visibly moves through her when she sees me. I ignore it—and her. At least she’s changed into dry clothing, she must not be a complete idiot. I allow a brief glance. Apparently clothes that are three sizes too big for her are all that she wears. I begin picking up the broken glass and clearing the small room of the debris.

“I can do that,” she whispers. I ignore her, grunting as I continue to work. “You really don’t need to do all that. You’ve done enough,” she says again.

I grunt, mostly ignoring her, as I take the large pieces of glass and set them inside a bucket I found in her mudroom when I first came through the door.

“Broom,” I order.

She jumps, wrapping her arms around herself. “What?” she asks, but I don’t repeat, I only sigh in frustration and wait. She swallows nervously, then runs in the direction of the kitchen. She’s back with a broom and dustpan. She starts to sweep but I take the broom from her. She freezes and looks up into my eyes. I look at her wrist and I can tell there’s a bruise forming. I did that. The sight of it annoys me as much as she does.

“No,” I tell her, taking over.

She stands there watching me, but thankfully doesn’t offer to talk further. When I get the room reasonably cleaned up and the debris cleared out—even the tree limbs, I decide I’ve had enough. I pick up the broken bassinet to toss out to burn later when she speaks again.

“Please. Mr. um…well…Michael. Don’t do that. I want to keep it.”

I freeze and look over at her. It’s been so long since a woman has said my name, it feels weird to hear it. I’m not sure I like it.

“It’s broken,” I mumble, telling her something she should already know, and doing it while hating the sound of my own voice.

“I know, but it can still be used. I’ll take the top off it and just use the bed part itself. It will be fine.”

“It’s broken.

“I know,” she insists, a little more forcefully, her face flushing into a pale red. “I can still use it to keep the baby in my room,” she says, her hand trembling as she moves it across her round stomach. “It will work until I can afford something better,” she states, her voice sounds defensive.

Her feelings aren’t my concern.

I shrug in response, putting down the bassinet. I walk out of the room and can hear her following me as I reach the small mudroom. I have the door open, intent on doing nothing more than getting back to my space, my quiet…to be alone.

“Michael?” her soft voice reaches me, stopping me from leaving the room. Almost against my will, my head raises to look at her. “Thank you,” she adds.

I stare at her a moment and leave without a reply.





10





Hayden





I look up at the clock for the hundredth time. This day seems like it’s never ending. The diner is about dead. We never get a lot of traffic on Mondays, but today is worse than normal. Usually, Charlie sends me home on days like today, but the other girls called in sick so I’m all she has. The end of my shift is only thirty minutes away. Surely, I can make it thirty minutes? We only have one customer right now. I guess I should be thankful. It’s been so slow, I haven’t had to deal with a lot of people. I’m still a mess from the night of the storm, and I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to push me into a panic attack.

After the mental pep talk, I start wiping down the bar. Charlie’s Diner is a small Main Street café in the center of Whitley City, and calling Whitley a city is silly. I’ve seen cities, and this definitely is not one. We have one street, (Main) and one flashing caution light, because the road dead ends without warning. That’s it. You literally have to pull into a parking lot and turn around to leave the small town. The only thing in town is this diner, the courthouse, a local bank, and an old Five and Dime Store, which is really like a Dollar General store, but they never changed the name with the times. If we want to go grocery shopping, to the movies, or even a chain restaurant, then we have to drive at least two hours away. The only other businesses in town are the clinic where unfortunately I am forced to go to the doctor, and Pastor Sturgill’s church.

Maybe that’s why I like the place though. I’m never going to be comfortable around people, and though most of the people here don’t like me, at least I know what to expect from them. The unknown monsters can be scarier than the monsters you know.

Charlie’s looks like a diner on the set of American Graffiti. Chrome barstools, and red leather fabric with the booths and bar matching. This diner is far from fancy, and the only thing that probably doesn’t belong is the country music that Charlie blasts from an old radio and cassette player she keeps behind the bar. It’s obviously a throwback from the eighties when breakdancing and boom boxes were all the rage.

I jerk up out of my thoughts when I hear the bell ring, indicating someone opened the door. I’m hoping it’s the waitress who is taking over my shift this evening. The smile I have ready freezes on my face when I see Michael instead. My mouth goes dry, and I bite my lip. I know it’s horrible, especially considering all that work he did, even in the pouring rain, but I haven’t spoken to him since that night three days ago. I should have gone by and thanked him. I really should have thanked him when he cut the tree up and had it stacked by the house so I could use it as firewood. I didn’t. I just keep remembering how he didn’t exactly receive my thank you so well the first time around. Okay, mostly I just chicken out, afraid to face him again.

I kept repeating my mantra about being stronger. I kept picking up the leftover banana bread to take to him. I never did. I had to throw out the bread this morning. Where Michael is concerned, I’m definitely not growing stronger.

I watch as he scans the room. His eyes flit across me, and I think I see his face tighten in response. He doesn’t want to see me either. That causes a curl of sadness to unfold in my stomach. Which is crazy. I mean, it’s okay that he doesn’t like me. Still, he was nice to me. Other than Charlie and Pastor Sturgill, no one has really been nice to me before—at least not without wanting something.