“What would you call someone who could do something like that?”
“I’d probably call them people,” Nash said in a hard tone. “Then again, I call werewolves people too. Seriously, Susan, humans can cut people up. Happens all the time. How does Sheriff Coe know it wasn’t a drug deal gone bad?” Susan gasped in shock, but Nash didn’t seem to notice. “Drug dealers can be pretty vicious, and I know y’all have a meth problem up here.”
Oh, dear Lord.
Why did he have to bring up
drugs
?
Susan looked ready to spit. “If it was a drug deal, then it
had
to be werewolves. We’re good Christian people round here. We don’t take drugs, and we don’t suffer evil to go upon the earth unchallenged!”
Susan paused as Sara broke out into a strangled, half-hysterical giggle. She couldn’t hold it in. The way Susan said
“We don’t take drugs!”—
like she really, truly believed it—was bizarre.
Sara’s English professor had talked about cognitive dissonance, but she’d never really understood what it meant. Now she did. Though she had to admit—in a town as small as Luxor, cognitive dissonance was probably a survival mechanism.
“Sara Mae, I don’t know what’s got into you,” Susan said, her mouth still pulled into that thin, tight, bitter line. “I really don’t. If your grandmother saw the kind of company you’re keeping, I just know she’d be worried sick.”
The giggles vanished as hot anger rushed in. Sara jerked her head up to stare at the woman she’d known all her life and never really liked. A minute ago, she’d been too afraid to speak. Now she was too furious.
How dare the self-righteous old cow
threaten
her?
Her hands were shaking again, and so was her voice, as she said, “Nash, I’m not really hungry anymore. Can we go now?”
He looked from Susan to Sara, and then he seemed to finally realize that people were staring at them.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s okay. Let’s go.”
“All right. Susan, I guess we need the check.”
“No we don’t. Susan, put it on my account.”
She felt the eyes on her back all the way out the door.
Fifteen minutes later they were rolling back into the parking lot of her tiny apartment complex. Nash was uncharacteristically quiet walking her to her door. He didn’t take her hand or slip an arm around her. She fished out her keys and unlocked the door with a small sigh as she remembered what high hopes she’d had for this night.
But it was still early, and she wasn’t ready to see him go. She didn’t feel like being alone. Figuring she had nothing to lose, she opened the door and turned to look up at him.
“You want to come in?”
He seemed taken aback. “You’re not mad at me?”
“What? Of course I’m not mad at you.”
“I mean, back at the Café—if you’re gonna catch a lot of shit because of what I said, I wouldn’t blame you for—”
“No, I won’t. Or maybe I will, but I don’t care. Come on, I don’t wanna stand out here. There’s Shiner in the fridge.”
He settled in the living room while she went to the kitchen. As she popped the caps and carried the beers to the couch, she remembered how, not two hours ago, she’d been planning to jump his bones. This wasn’t really the mood she’d been going for, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
She kicked off her shoes and sat down next to him. He fiddled with the label on his bottle before asking, “So…you’re really not mad at me? Because you sure look like you’re mad. I mean, I can
feel
it.”
She took a big swig of the cold beer and sighed. “I’m mad. But not at you—at myself.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t do anything!” She collapsed back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling as she relived her mortification, not only at Susan’s awful behavior but at her own cowardice as well. “I didn’t
do
anything, I didn’t
say
anything, I…I just sat there while she went on and on about werewolves and evil.”
“What was all that stuff about suffering evil on the earth?”
Sara snorted in disgust. “That’s standard Apocalyptic preacher talk. The Bible says thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, and Apocalyptics figure the same must be true of sentients.” Did she hesitate as she said the word? She’d often read it on web sites and chat rooms, but to actually use it in conversation was weird. She hoped she sounded natural, not like some hick trying to act sophisticated. “I don’t know why they added the part about going upon the earth unchallenged—maybe because if they said you had to actually hunt the sentients down and kill ’em, it would mean going out in the big, bad world, and they don’t have the guts to do that. Plus, you know, there’s sentients out in the big bad world, and they fight back. So instead, everyone hunkers down in their nasty little Apocalyptic towns, and if some poor fae or shifter happens to show up once in a while, by God they don’t go unchallenged. ’Cause there’s nothing braver than a crowd of pissed off bigots after the sun goes down.”
He’d been laughing softly as she explained one of the finer points of Apocalyptic theology, but at the oblique reference to mob violence, he sighed and shook his head.
“That shit’s so wrong,” she added, “but I—”
“It is?”
“Huh?” She turned her head to look at him. “It is what?”
“It’s wrong? I mean, you think Susan’s attitude towards sentients is wrong?”
He
sounded perfectly natural using the word. But then, he was from Houston—he hadn’t grown up being taught that all non-humans were evil.
She took a deep breath. “Yes. I know it’s wrong. I know the Devil didn’t make them, and God doesn’t hate them, and they’re not out to destroy humanity.”
“Wow,” he said softly, with a crooked grin. The way he was staring at her made her feel hot on the outside and gooey on the inside. “You’re really not like everybody else around here, are you?”
She never could seem to look him in the eye. There was something about him that intimidated her, but in a very
“God, I hope he backs me up against a wall”
way, not a
“God, I hope he doesn’t kill me”
way. So she stared at his mouth instead, and the gooey feeling got worse. “No, I’m not.” It gave her a huge, dangerous thrill to sit here and admit something like that. “You’d be surprised how different I really am.”
His eyes searched her face for a long moment. They were sitting there, next to each other but not touching, and just before she became unbearably itchy (and gooey) beneath his scrutiny, he said gently, “I think I have a pretty good idea. And I’m glad you didn’t say anything, angel.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I’m not from around here, and I’m not going to be here for much longer. I don’t have to care what people think. This is your home. You’re gonna have to see these folks for the rest of your life, so—”
“The hell I am.” Her throat constricted at his casual mention of leaving town soon. Well, she would be leaving town soon too. If she hadn’t already been so good at hiding her feelings, the urge to cry, or maybe throw up, would’ve been hard to resist. But a long-term relationship with Nash had never been in her future.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself about that?
He looked surprised. “You’re not going to come home for holidays or anything?”
“Hell, no. When I’m gone, I’m gone. There’s no one here for me but Wendy, and she can visit me in Marshall, or wherever I end up.”
In fact, she planned on dragging Wendy out of Luxor at some point. But she had to rescue herself first.
“Staying away might be harder than you think, Sara. No matter how much you don’t like this place, it’s your home.”
“It won’t be, not once I’m out of here. I hate this town! I swear to God, I do. I hate every person in it except for Wendy and maybe three other people.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
“Especially the rest of my family.”
The force of it overwhelmed her, leaving her shaking all over. “I hate this backwards-ass, narrow-minded, locked-in-a-fucking-time-warp piece-of-crap dump.”
“Hey. Hey, come here. It’s all right.” Nash took the beer from her hand, setting both hers and his on the coffee table. Then he wrapped one strong, warm arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight against him. She inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of him, shivering as he gathered her hair at the back of her neck and laid a kiss atop her head. “You’re getting out.”
“December isn’t soon enough,” she said against his chest. “Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.”
He laughed into her hair. “Well, I’m glad it’s not tomorrow. I need more time.”
“What for?”
“To get to know you better. Every time I turn around, you’re surprising me. I keep thinking I’ve got you figured out and then it’s like, hey, here’s something new.”
She shrugged, even as his words set her heart to pounding inside her rib cage. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know about you too.”
Her face was still pressed against his chest, and she liked it there, but he’d stopped stroking her hair. Something in his body, some subtle tensing, made her look up.
He wasn’t smiling. His brows knit together as he stared at her with an unreadable gaze. She got a sudden, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach—a feeling nothing like the excitement and arousal of two hours earlier, or the warm comfort of one second ago.
“What? Please don’t tell me you’ve got a wife stashed away somewhere. Or a girlfriend or a murder conviction or something like that.”
He mouth quirked in an embarrassed kind of smile. “No. No wife, no girlfriend, no felony convictions. Come here.”
“What? I—whoa!”
He put his free hand under her knees and scooped her into his lap. Now both his arms, with those chiseled, bronzed biceps, were wrapped around her. One hand rested on her thigh—between her legs, scorching her right through her blue jeans—while the other one warmed her back through her cotton shirt. Lord, he smelled good. Whatever cologne he was wearing, she wished she could spray it on her sheets and roll around naked.
“What’d you do that for?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Trying to get comfortable, so we could talk.” His smile said he knew he was turning her on. Somehow the hand on her back had slipped inside her shirt, where it now traced tiny patterns of fire across her skin.
She twisted a little, trying to get comfortable on his legs.
“Hmm. That’s good,” he said. “I like that.”
“Like what?”
“The way you’re wriggling in my lap.” He ran his hand up to her stomach. She gasped as heat flared through her body, her legs going limp and tingly. Instinctively she covered his hand with hers, pressing it harder against her. If he moved it the teeniest bit downward, she’d start ripping her clothes off. It had been so long since—
“I didn’t know you didn’t like your family.”
“Huh?” Hadn’t he been about to kiss her?
“Your family. I didn’t know you didn’t like them.”
“Oh. Um, yeah. We’re not close.”
“Your grandmother raised you, right?”
Why were they talking about this? Why didn’t he kiss her?
“Yes. But I moved out when I seventeen.”
“Why? Why didn’t you stay there ’til you graduated and then go to college?”
“Because…it’s a long story. It just— It wasn’t a good place for me. I needed to get out.”
“Okay.” He reached up to pull a strand of hair out of her face. “What about your uncles? Are you close to them?”
“I don’t—no. No, not at all.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story too. Why are you—wait.” She froze as she realized where this was heading. “Wait. Did someone tell you about my family? Is that why you’re asking?”
“Huh? No, I— Wait a minute, where you going?” She was wiggling again, only this time it was to get off his lap. He tightened his arms around her. “Wait. Wait a minute, stop. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— Okay, yeah, I was prying. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Figure me out
how?
What’s there to figure out? I don’t like my family. I didn’t have a happy childhood, and now I avoid them, even though it’s kind of hard to do in a town this size.”
“So that’s why you’re moving to Marshall?”
“It’s one reason, okay? If you want to know about my family, ask the guys at JP’s, but it’s not really something people talk about around here.” He’d either understand what she meant or he wouldn’t.
“No, that’s okay. I’m interested in you, not them. What about the werewolves?”
“What?”
“The werewolves. You knew something about them. I don’t think most people around here know about werewolf culture, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t talk about it.”
“I wasn’t really thinking. It slipped out.”
“But it means you’ve read about werewolves, right? You’re interested in them?”
He still wouldn’t let her off his lap, but she put her hands on his chest to push him back. “Nash, why are you asking me these questions? Why do you—?”
“Look, I’m sorry, I—damn. I sound like a freak, don’t I?”
“No. Well, yeah, kind of.”
“Okay. Let’s start over.” He finally loosened his hold and she scooted back, her legs still in his lap. She tried to smother her moan when he started rubbing her foot, but she couldn’t help it. So, smiling, he went to work with both hands while he talked.
“It’s just that you’re nothing like I thought you’d be, you know?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, as if having trouble finding the words. She didn’t mind waiting, because what he was doing to her feet was almost—almost—as good as sex.
“All those times I sat in your section and talked to you, I had no idea, and even after I first asked you out, I assumed you were like everyone else around here.”
“Oh. And I’m not?”
That made him laugh out loud. “No! And don’t act like you don’t know that! I figured you were some sweet, backwards Apocalyptic babe who was working in the diner ’til you found someone to marry and have babies with. And then you’d spend the rest of your life in Luxor, hiding from the big bad world.”
That was exactly how she thought of everyone else in this town, even Wendy, and exactly what she didn’t want to be. But for a second, she was tempted to defend Luxor. Even if she hated it, even if she wanted out more than anything, it stung to hear an outsider talk that way about the people she’d grown up with.