“I’m fine. Where did you find jeans? You were wearing a rain jacket last night.”
“I went to return your cousin’s rain jacket and met a very nice lady named Tempest. And yes, she’s the pregnant one. She,” he lifted his hand, still holding the spatula in his grip and twirled it in the air to indicate the magic Tempest was perfectly capable of, “whipped me up some clothes. She said I shouldn’t be walking around naked. She didn’t say so, but I’m thinking she’s afraid her boyo will be a little unsettled at all this manliness walking around his land,” he said, snickering.
“Boyo? His name is Brandt, and he’s our Alpha. Not to mention, he’s family. We all are, for the most part. And she is his mate.”
“I don’t know, she was enjoying getting a little peek at what is now safely tucked away beneath my jeans. If you know what I’m saying,” he teased.
“Know what you’re saying? Yeah, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying that you’re going to get your ass whipped and left for dead and if nobody’s as stupid as I was when I found you, you’ll really end up dead. Because I’m not doing it again.”
“Oh, cher, you don’t want to save me? I’d save you,” he said, deep blue eye focusing on her with such intensity that it made parts she’d not stopped thinking of since he’d sauntered into her bathroom the previous night remind her yet again that they’d really like some attention.
“You messed around with the wrong male’s female, didn’t you? That’s why they messed you up so badly? Can’t believe I felt sorry for you.”
He grew somber suddenly, turning his back to her to flip the potatoes, onions, and peppers he was sauteing. “That’s what you think of me?” he asked, all traces of mirth gone from his voice.
“I don’t know what to think of you, Lucien. All I know is I did all I could to save you. All you did was hiss and growl at me the entire time. Even hissed at me when I told you I’d be back, and to wait for me. When I got back you were gone, and you’ve been in the wind for two months — trust me, I know, I checked for signs of you often. Then you show up here acting like we’re long lost friends. You’re wickedly sexy and you know it, and you’re using it to underscore every flirtatious thing you say. The things in my life that mean a lot to me, my family, my Alpha, my home, you totally disregard and make light of. So, I’m not sure what to think of you. Or if I even should be thinking of you at all. I’m leaning more and more toward it’s probably for the best if you just go away.”
Lucien reached for the bowl of half a dozen eggs he’d already cracked and scrambled, and poured them over the onions, peppers and potatoes. He scrambled the entire skillet of food until it was fully cooked, then plated it along with a full pound of Andouille sausage that had been split and seared. He tossed a dozen flour tortillas into the skillet one after the other and quickly warmed them before putting them on their own plate and moved it all to the table. He moved slowly, the soreness in his muscles evident, though he pretended he was fine. He returned to the kitchen and took a large bowl filled with sliced bananas, sliced strawberries, sectioned grapefruit wedges and put it on the table with the food he’d already put out, then returned for the orange juice and coffee. Once all was on the table he stood behind her chair and pulled it out for her, watching her, patiently waiting for her to accept his invitation to sit at her own table.
Hellen noticed the quivering of the muscles over his ribs and realized he was fighting the urge to stretch his body, and give in to the desire to do whatever his body told him to do to alleviate the pain. She pursed her lips together as she started toward him, shaking her head. She sat down and allowed him to scoot her chair closer to the table, watching as he took his own seat.
He picked up his fork, took an uneasy breath, and sat there for a second before he raised his gaze to look her in the eye. “I suppose I should apologize for my demeanor when you were the only one that even considered coming to my aid. I am indebted to you. But I find it hard to do. Simple truth is that I’m as dumbfounded at what to do with you as you are at what to do with me. You’re something else, Hell. Something I never imagined existed, much less would come across in my lifetime.” He continued looking into her eyes, his gaze so intense she actually wanted to look away, but as a matter of pride, she didn’t. “I never wanted a mate. Never looked for one after I turned a certain age, and most certainly never expected one to drag my mostly dead body out of the swamp and try to bury me alive,” he smiled at her as he threw in a slight tease. “I don’t know what to do with you. My intentions were to come here, find you, see for myself that you’re not what I thought you’d be, and get you out of my system once and for all. But now that I’m here, I find I can’t quite make myself leave. So now I don’t know what to do with me either.” He shook his head as he reached for the bowl of fruit and used the large serving spoon balanced in it to fill the small bowl near her plate he’d put out while she was still sleeping. “For now I’m just going by my instincts to feed you, protect you, make sure you have what you need, while at the same time ignoring my other instincts that tell me to get my ass to the swamp and get as far away from you as I possibly can.”
“Why don’t you?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know, cher. Seems I’m at odds with myself, and for the first time in a long, long time, my conscience is telling me that I should care about somebody other than myself.”
“And that’s a problem,” she said.
He huffed a laugh. “It is when you didn’t know you even had a conscience.”
Hellen picked up an Andouille link and held it delicately between her thumb and forefinger as she took one small bite at a time, chewing thoughtfully as she ate and watched him do his best not to watch her.
“Maybe it’s best if you just go, then.”
“If you make me go, I’ll just camp out in your yard.”
“If that happens, my clan will just make you leave.”
“And if they try that, there will be trouble.”
She raised her eyebrows in question.
“Look, I don’t want no trouble with your people. I don’t, for real. What I want is,” he stopped and shook his head, “no, that’s wrong. What I need, is to be near you. I don’t mean your people any harm. I don’t mean you any harm, quite the contrary actually, I’ll kill somebody over you. But I don’t know what I think I see coming from all this either. I just know I need to be here.” He shrugged. “I can’t go.”
He sat there, watching her, waiting for her to make a decision about what would happen with them because he certainly wasn’t capable of it at this particular point in time.
Hellen sat there, munching on her sausage link, maintaining eye contact with him as she kept her thoughts to herself. Finally, she popped the last bite into her mouth and brushed her hands off on the paper towel he’d placed her silverware on. She took a deep breath letting it out slowly before she looked up at him again. “Well, what I do know is that I don’t like my family in my business. They are over-protective, though, so if I kick you out that’s just an unspoken invitation for them tobe all up in my business. That I don’t need.” She sighed deeply, exaggeratedly. “And since you’ve made it clear you’re not going away soon, I guess it’s in everybody’s best interests if you just hang around inside for a while.”
He nodded slowly. “Makes sense to me.”
“I’ll give you a week to get your head together and figure out where you’re going next. That’s how long I’ll be around. After that, you’ll be on your own.”
He’d started digging into his breakfast, but his attention gravitated back toward her quickly. “And you’re planning on going where?” he asked, as though he had a right to know.
“Has it escaped your notice that I’m a Wildlife and Fisheries Agent?”
“Thought I remembered a uniform,” he teased.
