Linda Jones - Last of the Ravens

“I really don’t need—”

Again he interrupted her. “I’ll be back in an hour. I can either take you shopping or I can sit in the driveway and wait right here in case you change your mind and decide to take off on foot again.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.”

Miranda sighed as she opened the passenger door and took the long step down to the driveway. She was still a bit shaky, but when she looked back into the truck and once again Bren’s powerful eyes caught hers, she allowed herself to listen to the instincts that had so seldom disappointed her. Brennus Korbinian was a grumpy, annoying, nudist in a place where to be in a state of undress was not at all wise. He didn’t watch where he was going when he drove. He was definitely bossy.

But deep down he was a good person, and yes, whether she wanted to admit it or not, he was attractive, as Dee insisted he was. It had been a long time since Miranda had allowed a man to take her anywhere on anything that might resemble a date, and like it or not, she thought that he considered his offer to run her to the grocery store a date of sorts.

She’d only be here a few more days, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let a good-looking man take her to the grocery store. It wasn’t as if a week was time enough for what might be a casual interaction to turn into anything more serious. “Fine,” she said. “One hour.” And then she slammed the passenger door and walked toward the front porch, digging the keys to the cabin out of her jeans pocket.

Korbinian stayed in the driveway until she had the door closed behind her. She didn’t look out the front window, tempted as she was to do so, but she did listen as he drove away. Miranda glanced around the main room of the cabin as she brushed a spot of dirt from her jeans. “Dee, show yourself.” The specter had some explaining to do.

In spite of Miranda’s command, the main room remained quiet and ghost-free. As she headed for the bathroom to make repairs to her appearance, she decided if getting pushed off the side of a mountain was the price for peace and quiet, she’d take it.

Fifty-eight minutes after he’d dropped Miranda at the Talbot cabin, Bren was back in her driveway. At home he’d called the plumber who’d been cut off when Bren had tossed his cell aside, put away his groceries and unsuccessfully tried to wipe away or even explain away the visions that had come to his mind so strongly when he’d taken Miranda’s hand.

He sat in the driveway and waited, wondering if he should go to the door and ring the bell like a proper gentleman caller. Was Miranda sitting in the cabin waiting for him to collect her? Would she expect him to open the passenger door for her and carry her grocery bags and make nice? His fingers tapped nervously against the steering wheel; his eyes remained fixed on the front door. He wasn’t known for making nice. Being a loner had its costs, and a lack of social skills was one of them.

Surprised as he was, the woman’s appearance should not be entirely unexpected. Bren’s father had long considered himself the last of the Korbinians, but he’d been wrong. The old man had been nearly sixty when he’d met Denise Brown, a childless divorced woman more than twenty years his junior. They’d married three weeks after meeting, and Bren had been born less than two years later. Maybe if they’d met earlier Bren would’ve had brothers, but they hadn’t, and he’d been an only child, just as his father had been.

According to Joseph Korbinian, as the population of their kind diminished, so did that of the women they were meant to be mated to. In ancient times when the Korbinians had flourished, so had the Kademair, those women with whom they could bond and mate, those women who had the genetic ability to nurture and give birth to Korbinian children. The decline was simply nature, Joseph had explained to his only son. There was no longer a place in the world for those who could walk as men and also take flight, no place for a rare species that had once served as revered messengers and warriors. In ancient times the Korbinians had been honored, but a thousand years or so ago those they served had turned against them in jealousy and mistrust. After a bloody war the species that walked as man and flew as ravens had lost, and those who’d survived had gone into hiding.

And now all that was left of what had once been a fine and special race was one man. Bren was the end of it, unless he followed his instincts and took Miranda as his mate; unless he made this woman the mother of his children—the mother of the Korbinians. The savior of an entire race. But if there was no longer a place for them in the modern world, should the race be saved? Or should it be allowed to die, as nature so obviously intended?

He couldn’t deny the doubts that warred with these new thoughts. Maybe Miranda wasn’t Kademair, after all. Maybe his father had been right. Bren wondered if he craved what he could not have so much that he’d created this scenario with a convenient and attractive woman.

She didn’t make him wait long. Miranda stepped onto the front porch, displaying no sign of her earlier accident or of annoyance that he had remained in the truck, instead of going to her door. She’d changed clothes and now wore black jeans, short black boots, a deep-teal sweater and a simple but strange little black hat that was slightly quirky and somehow suited her. The narrow brim framed her face, along with that blonde hair, which he now knew was not one shade but a hundred or so, golden and ash and pale brown all woven together. A red purse on a long chain dangled from one shoulder. She’d put on makeup, he noted as she walked toward the truck. Not a lot, but her lips were soft and pale pink, and her eyelashes were darker than they’d been an hour ago. There were no longer any leaves or twigs in her long hair, which had been brushed into a golden sheen.

Bren leaned across and opened the door for her from the inside, and she stepped onto the running board and then climbed in, hair swinging, pink lips seductive, jeans hugging her legs and fine ass just so. The way he felt right now, she could’ve come out in baggy flannel and he’d be turned on.

No, what he was experiencing went well beyond turned on. He’d never felt an attraction like this one—and he still didn’t know if it was a pull he’d follow. Destiny or not, he would not be led by biology or mythology or whatever the hell this was. His life—and hers—was in his hands, and the decisions to be made could not be made lightly.

“Do you need anything besides groceries?” he asked as Miranda closed the passenger door and he backed onto the road.

She sighed. It was a very nice sigh, indeed. “Is there a decent antique or furniture store nearby?”

“There are a couple of them along the highway.”

“I’d like to thank the Talbots for letting me stay here by buying them something for the cabin.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Maybe a couple of lamps,” she responded. “Something decorative, or maybe a small end table. The cabin is very nice, but it’s pretty, uh, sparsely furnished.”

She almost choked on the words sparsely furnished, which gave him an idea of what she was up against. Bren smiled. “Are there ducks and bears?”

Her head snapped around. “Yes! How did you know?”

“The cute-animal theme is a common decorating mistake in these parts.”

She relaxed. He could feel, as well as see, her response. “You sound as if you don’t approve. What, you don’t have dancing black bears and cavorting ducks at your place?”

“No,” he answered decisively. “There are also no deer heads or stuffed bass, no geese in frilly white hats and, while we’re on the subject, no wax fruit in the kitchen.”