Sheryl Nantus - Battle Scars

“And you know him now,” Jess snapped back. “He’s bled for you and almost died for you. What else can he do?” She smacked the steering wheel with the heel of her hand, startling me. “Dammit, Reb. Why don’t you trust him?”

The coffee tasted bitter, despite the double helping of sugar. “I don’t—it’s not that I don’t trust him. I don’t trust her to not pull him into her orbit. She told me she wasn’t interested, that she wouldn’t make a play for him. But that was before she was kidnapped and he saved her like the white knight he wants to be.” I ran my finger around the edge of the cup. “She’s a part of his past he can’t ever give up. I don’t know if he wouldn’t feel more comfortable in her world, her human world.” I hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Her safer world.”

“He already made that choice at your front door. So what if she makes a move on him ’cause she feels obligated? She can’t take what’s not hers.” Jess shook her head. “In my day you’d just challenge her, beat the shit out of her and that’d be that. He’d fall into line like a good little boy and it’d be done.”

I smiled. “You’re assuming I could take her.”

Jess snorted. “I’ve seen her. You could, Changed or not.” She plucked out a dark chocolate Timbit, rolling it between her long slender fingers. “You’re overthinking this and it’s going to hurt your relationship with him.”

“I guess.”

“I know.” She popped the whole donut hole into her mouth and chewed for a few minutes before speaking again. “You think it’s because you’re Felis and he’s not.”

I squirmed in the passenger seat. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Jess sipped her coffee. “Bran is your first serious love, right?”

My cheeks felt hot. “Yes.”

“And, God willing, your last.”

I nodded.

Jess poked around in the box. “They never add enough chocolate ones. I think they do that on purpose.” She looked at me. “Trace offered to marry you.”

“It wasn’t anything serious.” I flashed back to the tall proud Felis from the Penscotta Pride. He’d been assigned as my babysitter by the local Board and ended up helping me find a killer. He’d also ended up facing Bran’s wrath for daring to court me. Trace had backed down but the feelings he’d stirred up as a virile male Felis were hard to forget, despite my commitment to Bran.

“Serious enough.” She came up with a white powdered hole. “I bet you thought for a second, a fraction of a second, about how nice it’d be to be part of a Pride again. Married to a Felis who wouldn’t ask so many questions, wouldn’t be curious about who you were. Accepted by not only him but by his family, by his Pride without question.”

“It was because he felt sorry for me. A warped, mutant Felis who dared to love a human.” I looked out into the darkness. My eyes burned.

“Maybe, maybe not. Ever think what prompted this? He’d known you for a few hours and here he is proposing.”

I shrugged. “I figured it was because his uncle wanted to distract me, toss something down in the road bright and shiny to throw me off the trail.”

“I doubt that. I think Trace wanted you to become part of the family again, part of your clan,” Jess said. “It was a kneejerk reaction but an honest one. He wanted to take you away from Bran not just because he was a human but because he knew you needed to be part of a group again. It failed because you told him no and went to your own family. You went to Bran.” Powdered sugar fell on Jess’s shirt. “Ever think this might be the same thing?”

I blinked away tears. “What?”

“Think about it.” She held up a finger. “I’m going to spend a few moments here drinking some fine coffee. Don’t answer, just drink and think.”

The coffee was strong and hot, urging me to blow on it through the little opening on the lid before taking another sip.

We sat in the parking lot in near-darkness, the neon red sign reflecting off the windshield.

“Trace is to Angie what I am to Bran.” I paused and frowned. “I think.”

“Spell it out.” Jess bit into a glazed Timbit. “Love these. Well worth adding a mile to my daily run.”

I spoke slowly, choosing each word with care. “Angie is like Trace. She wants to offer Bran a chance to get back into their world, back into saving street kids. Back with her ’cause she never stopped loving him.” I rubbed my eyes. “Their group, their family, their clan of street kids broke up when Bran left. If she gets him back she’ll have pulled him away from the nasty outside world that drove him into writing trash articles, the world that hurt him and keeps on hurting him.” I stopped, out of breath and befuddled. “And Bran’s like me. He doesn’t want to go back to her and to the streets because he knows he won’t fit in but he’s tempted because it’s the familiar, the comfortable way to go. A simpler life with a simpler way of doing things.” I couldn’t help smiling. “Bran and I, we’re our own Pride, our own little family. Fucked up, but we match up.”

Jess plucked the last donut hole from the box. “Way to go, grasshopper.” She waved it at me before taking a bite. “And now I can take you home without you screwing up a good thing.”

“Since when did you get to be so wise?” I glanced at the inside of the box, hoping to find some crumbs.

“Since I got old. Now shut up and drink your coffee.”

The rest of the drive back I sat quietly and did so, wondering whether age really brought wisdom or just bitchiness.

We pulled up in front of my Parkdale house an hour later, around dinnertime.

The windows were dark.

I peered down the alley running along the side of the house to my parking spot.

Empty.

“Don’t.” Jess put her hand over mine, squeezing it lightly. “Don’t go there.”

“He should have been home by now.” I tried to keep the quiver out of my voice and failed.

“Maybe they went out for something to eat, same as us. Best place to debrief her would be in public, keep her from making a fuss if she didn’t buy his cover story.” Jess pulled out her cell and checked for messages.

“What’s that for?”

She tapped something on the minute keyboard. “I would have gotten an alert if he’d been in an accident or anything like that.”

I stared at her. “Since when do you keep tabs on that?”

She waggled the phone at me. “Do you think I do nothing all day but eat pie? I have eyes and ears everywhere to make sure my charges stay safe.” Her eyes narrowed. “And that consists of the entire Pride plus you and your mate. When I said I put him under my protection I meant it, including having his name on our list to be flagged if it comes up at an emergency site.” She put the phone into her hip pocket. “I knew you were at the hospital within an hour of you being admitted. I also knew you’d have that cop there because you hadn’t updated your emergency contact and Bran was on his way, courtesy of the cop’s voicemail.”

I opened my mouth to speak and then thought better of it. It might be better for me not to know the extent of her connections into my world, past and present.

“And before you ask—the reason I didn’t rush over there was because your buddy was already there. No use muddying the waters with extra people, not to mention getting that cop’s attention.”

“Then why didn’t you pull the trigger on McCallister there and then?” I was too tired to keep the anger hidden. “You knew all this and did nothing until Bran called and brought me up to the farm?”

“You were handling it well enough.” She checked the phone again. “No use getting involved until I had to. Besides, Bran had it under control.”