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He seemed to detect my reluctance, because he stood there next to me for a moment, his grip tensing. But then he let go and said, “Let’s get home.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The night wind was drilling through the anorak I wore as if it were made of gauze rather than sturdy canvas, and right then the thought of being surrounded in the warmth of our house seemed even more attractive than usual.
So I nodded and unlocked the Cherokee, and we both climbed in. After I’d pulled away from where we were parked and was negotiating the narrow, car-choked streets — a task far more difficult after dark than it was during the day — I felt Jace’s hand cover mine where it rested on the gearshift.
“You okay?” he asked.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the road, but I nodded. “I think so. That was — ” The exact word seemed to elude me. Moving? Sad? Satisfying? All those, and more. “It helped,” I finally said, hoping he would understand what I meant.
It appeared he did, because his fingers tightened around mine. All he said, though, was, “Good.” And then he let go, seeming to realize that I needed to focus on driving. Although I’d gone back and forth along this route several times, it had always been during the day, and of course there were no streetlights to guide me along my way.
I flicked on the high-beams and slowed down. Good thing, too, because when I finally got to it, I almost missed the turn-off to Upper Canyon Road. Muttering a curse, I angled the Cherokee onto the street at almost the last minute. In the passenger seat, Jace shifted, but he remained silent, as if he knew any comments on my driving were the last thing I needed right then.
We bumped along, and then there was gravel under our wheels as we left the paved road and began to head up the winding dirt track that led to the compound. I slowed so I could shift into four-wheel drive, and when I looked up, I let out a little screech. Three pairs of eyes seemed to glow red as they stared straight into the Jeep’s headlights.
“Coyotes,” Jace murmured. “It’s okay — just drive forward slowly. They’ll get out of the way.”
Which they did, as I began to inch toward them. Somehow, though, their movements seemed almost leisurely, as if they weren’t too worried about me running them over. Almost at the last minute they got out of the way, but they only moved to the side of the road, where they stood and stared as we passed them by.
Something about their posture, about the way they were watching the Jeep, made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It wasn’t the cold; I’d turned on the heater as soon as we got inside the SUV. No, their unblinking surveillance just felt…wrong. Unnatural. I’ll admit I wasn’t the world’s foremost authority on coyotes, but in general, wild animals tended to scatter when confronted by something as large and intimidating as a Jeep Grand Cherokee.
I shot a sideways glance at Jace. He wasn’t looking at me, though, and instead was staring out the passenger window. I didn’t know how much he could even see, since the high-beams were illuminating the road ahead of us, not either side.
“That was weird,” I said, once we were past the coyotes and they’d melted away into the darkness.
“A little,” he agreed. Then I saw his shoulders lift. “Maybe they’re getting bold now that they don’t have to worry about getting run over every time they come out of hiding.”
That sounded plausible. But still a note of wrongness seemed to echo inside me, and I couldn’t help thinking there had to be more to it than that. Then again, the world had ended in a way no one could have ever predicted. Things had been wrong for weeks now.
Well, mainly. I risked a sideways glance at Jace and saw that he was looking out the window again, his fine profile faintly illuminated by the glow from the dashboard lights.
Looking at him, I knew there was one thing right in my life.
* * *
Although I cast worried glances from side to side as we approached the compound and I pushed the remote to open the gate, I saw nothing in the darkness, no gleaming red or yellow eyes of various wildlife just waiting to pounce. We came onto the property without incident, although I activated the controls for the gate as soon as our rear bumper had cleared it. The motion-activated lights above the garage door turned on as we approached.
Off in the distance, I did see a shimmer of eyes glowing in the darkness, and I jumped.
“It’s okay,” Jace said softly. “It’s just the goats.”
I didn’t quite relax, but I did let out my breath. “Oh, right.”
Was that a chuckle? When I glanced over at him, his expression was sober enough, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Fine, if he wanted to laugh at me for jumping at shadows — or glowing eyeballs, in this case — I’d let him. I didn’t see anything wrong with staying on my guard.
But the unpacking of the Cherokee passed without incident, although it took longer than I’d expected to unload all that stuff and get it safely stowed. Dutchie kept wandering between us, trying to track all the new and interesting smells we were bringing in the house, until at last I bribed her with a chewy treat so she’d get out from underfoot.
By then it was moving on toward seven o’clock, and far past time for dinner. When I had all afternoon to figure out what to make and plenty of time to prepare it, I really didn’t mind cooking. Right now, though, I thought I might have sold my soul for pizza delivery. Or Chinese takeout.
Jace must have noticed my lack of enthusiasm for the task at hand, because he said, “It’s not that bad. Look what I brought back.” And I saw that he held a package of fettucini in one hand and a jar of vodka cream sauce in the other. “Add some of that rabbit sausage you made a few days ago, and we’re set.”
I could have kissed him. Actually, I realized I would have loved to have an excuse to go over and kiss him, but I wasn’t sure dry pasta and pre-made sauce were a good enough reason. I had to settle for smiling and saying, “That sounds perfect. Can you feed Dutchie while I get this going?”
He nodded, setting the pasta and the jar of sauce down on the countertop. The dog, seeing that he was heading toward the pantry, got up from her rug and went bounding over to him, tail wagging wildly. At least she wasn’t the type to turn up her nose at kibble. She still got as excited about it as though we were feeding her T-bone steak or something.
While they were occupied, I filled a big stock pot with water and set it on the stove, then found a smaller pan and dumped the sauce into it, setting it on low heat on the back burner. The sausages were being stored in an airtight container in the fridge, so I got them out and started them cooking, too. Actually, I was sort of surprised that they’d turned out as well as they had. Let’s just say that making sausages hadn’t exactly been in my cooking repertoire before this, but they really weren’t that difficult, once you figured out how it all worked.
They were just starting to sizzle away when Jace came over to the stove and paused to sniff the air. “Those smell good.”
“You said the same thing two days ago when we had them for the first time.”
One eyebrow went up. “So? Two days shouldn’t make them taste any less good.”
Maybe not. I wasn’t going to argue the point, especially with him standing that close to me, barely a foot away. He’d taken off his jacket, and I could see the way the knit henley shirt he wore molded to the muscles in his arms and chest, the smooth golden-brown skin where he’d left one button undone.
Shit. I shouldn’t be staring. Was I staring?
I had a feeling I was staring.
Blood rose to my cheeks, and I turned back to the skillet, making something of a show of turning the sausages over. I also took a pot holder and lifted the lid on the pot of pasta water to check on it, but it wasn’t boiling yet.
As I was setting the pot holder down on the counter, I felt a hand settle on my waist, turn me around. Jace was even closer now, dark eyes fixed on my face. The touch of his fingers through the long-sleeved T-shirt I wore seemed to burn like fire.
I swallowed, thinking I needed to say something. But words had fled, leaving me alone with him, with the need I now saw in those dark eyes. I recognized it at once, because I’d felt the same thing myself.
And then…oh, God…he was bending toward me, his mouth suddenly on mine, his lips strong, urgent. I tasted him, felt him taste me, and then I was pressed against him, feeling the shocking solidity of his body, the power of the muscles in the arms that were now going around me, bringing me even closer, as if he needed every inch of me to be touching every inch of him.
Why now? some part of me asked, but the rest of my
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