Authors: Stephanie Julian
Now Tim watched Carrie as she just stared at him.
“I should be able to get you home now, if you want to go.” The snow had stopped as abruptly as it had started and he’d be able to get her home safely in his Range Rover.
Not that he wanted her to go. He wanted her to stay.
53
Stephanie Julian
He wanted her to
want
to stay.
“Can we just…talk a few minutes?” She looked at the sofa. “Just sit?” Because he was an idiot, he waved her to the couch then sat on the chair opposite.
He wanted to be on the cushion next to her but if he sat that close, he’d want to do more than just sit there.
Hell, he wanted more than one night with her.
And he knew that was out of the question.
He should take her memories of her time with him. Should but…
He was an idiot. He wanted her to remember him, to think about him.
Damn it to hell.
He’d have to think about moving. At least temporarily. His parents would be happy to see him. He could stay with them in Nevada for a while.
But… Damn it, he didn’t want to leave. He liked it here. He’d never been much of an artist, unlike most of his family, and he made a decent living with his outdoor business during the other three seasons to live comfortably in winter. He liked the area and he liked the fact his family wasn’t breathing down his neck at all times.
He wanted Carrie to say, “Don’t worry, Tim. I’ll keep your secret. I’ll never tell a soul.”
He wasn’t even sure why he’d told her the truth. They could have lied, could have told her Fry’s wings were fake and never let her see his and Andy’s transformations.
But he hadn’t wanted to lie to her.
She started to blink, as if holding back tears but she didn’t cry. Instead, her chin went up and her mouth flattened into a straight line.
“Aren’t you going to ask me not to do it?”
He continued to stare at her.
Her eyes narrowed as her hands clenched into fists on her lap. “So, you’ve already tried and convicted me? You’re convinced I’m going to rat you out, aren’t you?” 54
Size Matters
No, he wasn’t. But… She was what she was. She was a journalist. Yes, she worked for a newspaper most people thought of as entertainment but even if she wrote half of what she’d seen today, there were enough people like the SPAz group out there to make his and his family’s and friends’ lives more precarious.
Tim shook his head. “Not at all. I like you, Carrie.” Probably more than he should, considering. “And I don’t want to guilt you into this decision. I think it’d probably be better if we had a little space to work this out. You’re a journalist. I just dropped the story of your life into your lap. You need to make your own decision. I don’t want to influence you.”
But he hoped like hell that she wasn’t going to break his heart.
Carrie couldn’t decide whether she was pissed off, shocked or hurt.
Probably a combination of all three.
As she stood there and continued to glare up at the seemingly most perfect man in the world, she thought,
Of course he’s a magical Bigfoot.
Maybe she should consider herself lucky that she hadn’t crashed into the forest of the Big Bad Wolf.
She’d never gotten the whole werewolf thing. She’d never read the obscenely popular series of books but if she’d have to choose between Team Edward and Team Jacob, she’d probably have to go with bloodsucker over canine. Dogs shed and she hated to sweep. Vampires didn’t leave sparkles on your couch.
At least, she didn’t think they did.
“So you’re just going to drive me home and hope I don’t tell the world, oh, by the way, Bigfoot and Yeti are real and I can introduce you to them?” She wanted a response from Tim, any indication of his feelings but he continued to stand there looking at her.
And she couldn’t read him. She had no idea what he was thinking.
55
Stephanie Julian
Maybe he just wanted to be rid of her. Maybe she’d been completely wrong about him and now that he’d had sex with her, he didn’t want her around anymore and this was a convenient way of making her be the bad guy and storm out in a rage.
“No, I’m going to drive you home and let you think about what you’ve seen.”
“So I can do what with it?”
There, finally a crack in his outward composure. She swore she saw frustration flash through his eyes.
“I don’t know, Carrie. Why don’t you tell me what you think you can do with the information? Do you honestly think if you write our little…encounter up as a story for your rag that anyone will believe you?”
Her gaze narrowed as she bristled outwardly, although she sometimes called the
Weekly News Journal
the same thing. “Did you just call my newspaper a rag?” His short, indrawn breath made her cover a quick satisfied smile. He thought he’d hurt her feelings. And if he just wanted to get rid of her, he wouldn’t care.
“No… Well, yeah, I did but I didn’t…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration, making the muscles of his arms bunch and flex as her mouth watered.
“Damn it, Carrie. Just get your stuff. I’m taking you home.” She stuck her nose in the air. “And what if I don’t want to go yet?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Don’t you have some story about some ‘hairy ape’,” he threw her own words back at her, “to write about?”
“Maybe I’d rather soothe your ruffled fur first?” The look on his face was priceless, she decided. And he probably hadn’t even caught her little pun about fur, which she thought was pretty damn inspired, if she did say so herself.
“What… Why would you want to do that?”
He looked genuinely confused and she wanted to cup that gorgeous chin in her hands and plant her lips over his.
56
Size Matters
She’d admit to being somewhat—okay maybe more than somewhat—shocked at the fact that this man was a shapeshifter. That he could become something else. It should have made any normal person scream like a little girl and run for the hills.
So maybe she wasn’t all that normal.
Maybe she was just a little bit off.
But Tim was something special. Not just because of
what
he could do but
who
he was.
A great guy.
One she wanted more with each passing second.
So she wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled his head down until she could reach his lips to kiss him.
At first, he froze, gave her no response at all. His lips remained closed against hers and he didn’t reach for her like he had before. He didn’t wrap his arms around her and draw her closer against that gorgeous, hard body.
But she wasn’t giving up. She let her tongue slide against the seam of his lips, licking, begging for entrance.
He shuddered at the touch and she felt his hands brush against her sides before grabbing her by the shoulders…
And holding her away from him.
“So now I’m a novelty fuck, right, Carrie?”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “A novelty fuck? What the freaking hell is a novelty fuck?”
“I’m different. Some women get off on that.”
Her lips parted to tell him he was freaking clueless about women if he thought she wanted him just because of what he could do. If anything, she should be hauling ass out of here.
Then she took a good look at him, at the expression in his eyes.
57
Stephanie Julian
“Wait. You knew someone like that, didn’t you?”
His head tilted back and his mouth flattened even more. He didn’t need to answer.
She could read it in his eyes.
“What a
bitch
.”
He watched her for a second before nodding. “Yeah, she was.”
“How did she find out about you?”
“I stupidly told her.”
“You’re not stupid.”
Her immediate defense of him made the hard line of his mouth soften just a little bit. “No, maybe naïve would be a better word to describe my relationship with Jenny. I met her at a Fringe bar. She knew the scene, knew a few mutual acquaintances. What I didn’t know was that she needed a shapeshifter for her belt.”
“You mean… Geez, what a slut!” Then she realized what he wasn’t saying. “Wait…
You think I want you now because I know
what
you are? That that’s the only reason I want you?”
He dropped his gaze for a brief second and when his returned to hers, she swore she felt the burn of it inside. “I don’t honestly know what you want, Carrie. And I don’t think you do either.”
58
Size Matters
“What the hell are you still doing here, Care? Go the fuck home already.” Bill Dailey dropped into the chair at the opposite cubicle in the offices of the
Weekly
News Journal
, gnawing, as always on a toothpick. At forty-five, his dark good looks had weathered, making the man even more handsome than he’d been in his younger days.
Not that Carrie had ever considered dating him.
The guy was married to the paper. And to his toothpicks. Bill had quit smoking nearly five years ago but he couldn’t seem to quit chewing the picks down to splinters.
One of these days, he was going to choke on the damn things.
Carrie sighed as she minimized the story on her desktop. Glancing at the clock on the far wall of the newsroom, she realized it was close to eight p.m. and no one else remained on the floor.
“I’m working,” she said. “What’s your excuse?”
“When I signed my soul to this paper, they chained me to my desk. I didn’t see that clause in your employment contract.”
Damn, the man had a devastating smile. Too bad he barely ever used it when he held court at his u-shaped desk at the rear of the room. One side held a thirty-inch screen where he oversaw layout. Paper covered the opposite side—page proofs, article drafts, photo proofs. The last side, the one facing the newsroom, would have put a candy store to shame.
The joke was that the candy drew in unsuspecting prey then Bill ensnared them in his web and devoured them.
59
Stephanie Julian
It was true the
Journal
had a high turnover rate among staff, though honestly, that wasn’t all due to Bill’s usually gruff nature. Some writers just didn’t have the talent for making the impossible seem probable. Or at least amusing.
Bill was a damn good editor. He had awards filling his desk drawers from stints at the
Philadelphia Inquirer
,
Star Tribune
and
St. Petersburg Times
. As a former investigative reporter, he’d broken major political scandals and exposed police corruption while being able to bring a reader to tears with a column about a little girl selling cookies to raise money for her wheelchair-bound big brother.
Sometimes, though, even he couldn’t save a story from the writer’s inability to grasp the finer points of aliens in the White House. Little green aliens.
When she didn’t respond to his last joke—which she really hoped was a joke—his gaze narrowed. “You sure nothing happened while you were at that guy’s house over the weekend? You’ve been awfully quiet the past two days.” Because she’d been waging a battle she couldn’t win, no matter how she looked at it. If she wrote the story that’d fallen in her lap and published it—whether in the
Journal
or in the
New York
freaking
Times
—she knew she’d never have a chance in hell with Tim again.
But every journalistic instinct in her clawed at the chance to write an article that could change the world.
She shook her head. “No, nothing happened. The guy was a complete gentleman. I slept on his couch Friday night and was home in my own bed Saturday. End of story.” Only, she didn’t want it to be.
Tim had driven her home late Saturday afternoon, right after their little talk. He’d retrieved her cameras from her car, had even stopped for her to get a few shots of the snow-covered forest.
Neither of them had said much on the car ride, the awkward silence filled with unspoken desire and unanswered questions.
60
Size Matters
And when he’d pulled up in front of her modest townhome in Shillington, she hadn’t known what to say so she’d kissed him and run. Like the coward she was.
She’d spent Sunday morning writing an article to go along with her gorgeous photos. An article that had just made it into this week’s edition, published today.
She’s spent the rest of Sunday researching, amazed at how much actual fact about the Fringe was out there for anyone to find. None of it, of course, from respected sources.
Geez, the story she could write…
“Bill, have you ever
not
written a story because of how it would affect the people involved?”
Bill’s blue eyes narrowed on her as he leaned back in his chair. “I take it you’re not talking about a story for the
Journal
. ’Cause you know what we write about isn’t real, right? It’s for entertainment purposes only.”
The
Journal
had that disclaimer buried in the masthead, right under who to contact about sales.
And on any given day, Carrie believed that wholeheartedly.
But today…
“Have you?” she pushed.
Something passed through Bill’s eyes, something sad. “No, I haven’t. But that was a long time ago and I’ve learned my lesson. Some stories aren’t meant to be printed. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write them.”
* * * * *
“Damn, man, if you’re going to mope, move the hell to another table. You’re bringing us all down and scaring away the ladies.” Andy just laughed when Tim gave him the finger. He, Andy and Fry had been holding up the bar at the Mystyk club, just outside of Wellsboro in Tioga County, since 61
Stephanie Julian
Tim had arrived Wednesday afternoon. He’d been sick of prowling his own home and had needed a change of scenery.
He’d thought spending time with other Fringe dwellers, people he knew and who knew him, would make him feel better.
So far, only the alcohol had made him feel better.
He was feeling no pain at the moment. Tequila was his new best friend.