What's New, Pussycat? (Wolf Mates Book 2) Page 10

  This man she barely knew but found she might have wanted to if circumstances were different.

  As he led her to his bedroom, pulled back the covers, sat her on the bed and lifted her legs, her thoughts drifted to how nice it was to have someone to be there for her.

  Several someone’s, in fact. It was nice to just let go, to have someone worry for her, even if the worry was only surface concern.

  He brought a towel from the bathroom, fluffy and crisply white, and pressed it against her hair, absorbing the water, using gentle hands before he urged her to lie flat on the bed.

  Derrick climbed in beside her, tucking her close to him, rubbing her arms as she buried her face in his chest. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her voice muffled against his pecs, the scent of him and fresh laundry detergent in her nose.

  He cupped her head against him and stroked her hair. “Not now, Martine. Tomorrow. Just sleep.”

  Finally warm, her eyes drifted closed, her mind at peace, and her heart felt safe.

  That was the nicest thing of all.

  * * *

  Derrick slid a beer along the polished surface of the bar to one of his regulars, missing his mark by a couple of feet.

  “Losin’ your touch there, Derrick,” Morris Polanski cackled, slapping the bar with a wide, wrinkled hand.

  He threw a towel over his shoulder and gave one of his favorite patrons a playful scowl. “You don’t drink it anyway, Polanski. I don’t get why the hell you’re always in here darkening my doorstep. Has anyone told you you’re a vampire? You can’t drink beer, buddy, remember? You puke anything that isn’t blood right back up.”

  “Good a place as any to get the hell away from the missus and all those dead people. And I like the smell of beer. So sue me.”

  Derrick chuckled, shaking his head at the vampire who had no sense of smell at all. Morris Polanski and his family ran a funeral home in the town over, but they lived here in Cedar Glen. Upon finding out about Derrick’s grandparents, and what they’d done, they’d left their clan and migrated here.

  Morris was yet another misfit paranormal—one who’d been around almost as long as Derrick could remember. A vampire, in a family of vampires, who had no sense of smell, something considered crucial in the vampire world.

  Morris was a steady patron at the bar, paid like any other customer, and often held family events at his favorite local watering hole.

  Derrick loved this damn bar—aptly named Bar. Every last shabby corner of it. From the mismatched multi-colored tables to the scuffed barn-wood floor, the short-order cook who was as temperamental as a trained chef, and the jukebox he had to slam a fist against to motivate.

  He loved the people who frequented it, and he loved owning his own business.

  But today, he didn’t want to be here. Today he wanted to be back at his place, questioning Martine about what happened to her last night, checking and rechecking to be sure she was okay and still on the same plane as the rest of them.

  All night long, he’d held her close and wondered. Not just about what had happened to her, but about why he was feeling all these feelings. Protective, possessive—emotions he liked much better on someone else.

  He’d also talked to Jerry on his way in, but Jerry stuck to his story from last night. Jerry was a crappy liar. He always tucked his hands in his pockets when he was lying. Derrick knew that much from experience when Jerry’d been caught hunting the rabbits in the woods against Hector’s wishes.

  But why would he lie? It was obvious from his conversation with Jerry this afternoon that he liked Martine, and Derrick was glad he did. Jerry was a good guy. But he’d seen something last night, and Derrick knew it.

  What? What had happened that had Jerry so close-mouthed?

  “So how’s that new lady friend of yours?” Morris queried, his bushy gray eyebrow raising.

  The mention of Martine as his “lady friend” did something weird to his chest. Something he’d been battling as he’d held her all night long, and long after he’d left her this morning to sleep. And it made him uncomfortable—yet, at the same time, it made him something else he couldn’t define. “Her name is Martine.”

  “Fine name. Hear she’s a cat. That true?”

  “Yep. Meow,” he said on a chuckle. A beautiful, sensuous, amazing cat with secrets he wanted to know.

  “You like her?” Morris asked gruffly, his gnarled hand cupping the beer mug.

  “I do.”

  There was that unwelcome shift in his chest again. He did. He liked her a lot. He liked everything about her. Making love to her had been unbelievable. Her scent drove him almost mindless, and it made him smile. But then he wiped the grin off his face. He didn’t smile after spending the night with any woman. Why was Martine different?

  Morris tapped the bar top. “Good thing to have in a mate. Somebody you like. Eternity’s a long time, pal.”

  Derrick laughed again, stacking some clean glasses. “Is that how you feel about Mrs. Polanski?”

  “Nope. Hate her guts.”

  “Oh, c’mon now, Morris. You know that’s not true. I saw the two of you over there in the corner at the fall dance, acting like a coupla teenagers.”

  Morris’s eyes squinted at Derrick, the corners of them crinkling. “A man’s gotta get laid. He does what he must to ensure it.”

  “You’re a scoundrel, Morris Polanski, and the next time I see the missus, I’m telling her you’re only in it for the sex,” Derrick joked, shaking an admonishing finger at him, knowing full well Morris was nuts about his wife and had been for well over two hundred years.

  Morris cackled again, leaning forward to reach for the peanuts Derrick always kept in baskets. Peanuts he couldn’t eat, but would shell and toy with because he liked to remember what it was like to be human.

  The bar door opened, letting in a shaft of light. “Incoming, Morris,” he warned, holding up a car windshield sunshade he kept handy for the vampires in town who managed to tolerate minimal sunlight on daytrips.

  Morris ducked behind the shade until the door closed again and someone Derrick didn’t know sat down at the bar. A rarity for early December.

  Cedar Glen was pretty busy with tourists during the late spring right up until the late fall, when townsfolk gave hayrides on the various farms. But when winter arrived, there wasn’t much that brought in new people.

  Tall and lean, the guy dropped into a barstool and nodded at him. “Whiskey, neat.”

  “You got it.” As he poured the drink, he couldn’t place what bothered him about this newcomer. He was perfectly normal, sandy brown hair, dark eyes, looked like he knew what a gym was used for, dressed like he worked in an office, but there was something…

  Derrick sniffed the air. Jesus. Someone should warn him about his liberal use of cologne. He sniffed again with a subtle twitch of his nose. Was he human? No. He didn’t smell human—but he didn’t smell not human either. He smelled like he’d put on a lot of cologne in order to hide something. Strange.

  Sliding a bowl of peanuts down to the newcomer, he attempted to make pleasantries the way he did with everyone who stepped over the threshold of his bar. “What brings you to Cedar Glen?” Derrick asked amicably, keeping his eyes on the glasses he was stacking.

  He shrugged his shoulders beneath his beige trench coat, pulling out some bills from the pocket of his pressed trousers and throwing them on the bar. “Just passing through. Anywhere to stay the night here?”

  “Not here in Cedar Glen, but the next town over has some nice hotels.”

  The man eyed him over his tumbler, the amber liquid sloshing as he swirled it. “Good enough.” He took a long gulp, finished the whiskey and rose to leave, but stopped at the door before he opened it and said, “Get many strays here?”

  That made Derrick pause. He eyed the man as he grabbed the sunshade for Morris. “Strays?”

  “Yeah, dogs, cats, you know?”

  Alarm bells sounded in Derrick’s head, but he kept his reply cool. “Not
often. You lookin’ for a stray?”

  His gaze connected with Derrick’s, holding it, searching it, his jaw tight, but he relaxed it almost immediately and said, “Nope,” before walking out the door into the late-afternoon sun without looking back.

  Morris poked his head around the shade, his brow furrowed. “Friendly fella, huh?”

  Derrick reached for his cell phone and scrolled for Max’s number, an ominous, unsettling feeling grabbing his guts and twisting them in a knot.

  It was too coincidental for his taste that some stranger had suddenly shown up asking about strays. After last night, something he still hadn’t been able to discuss with Martine. And the fact that she’d all but run out on her old life, and now this guy shows up, left him feeling damn uneasy.

  Fuck.

  It left him feeling more than uneasy.

  He shot Max a text message. He needed an ear to confirm or deny his suspicions.

  And to get back to Martine. It was fine to request “no questions asked” if there was nothing to ask about. But this wasn’t nothing.

  So what was it?

  * * *

  Martine sat at the big table in the middle of Faith Adams’ kitchen and absorbed the endless conversations going on around her as everyone ate dinner together.

  She and Derrick still hadn’t talked about last night, and as the day wore on, her fear Escobar would hunt her down began to fester as she stalled the conversation she knew she had to have with him.

  Yet, being here with the Adamses, observing them as they passed bowls full of steaming mashed potatoes and green beans, laughed, joked, listened to one another, she almost didn’t want anything to come between this warm feeling she was having and her reality.

  This wasn’t something she was accustomed to. Her mother had kept her quiet during meals. Either because her father was passed out and she didn’t want to wake him because he was a belligerent monster when he was drunk, or he had a hangover and too much noise bothered him.

  The Brooks meals from days gone by certainly weren’t the occasion this one was.

  This one was nice. It was easy. It was talking about your day. Poking fun at each other, sharing mealtime chores, listening. It was a big table, scarred and worn from many family dinners in a kitchen that screamed family first.

  And she had to admit, it beat her old kitchen back in her apartment with its shiny appliances and virtually unused, slickly polished countertops.

  She ate on the run, takeout, leftover takeout, and alone. She almost always ate alone.

  As she sipped her wine and simply observed, she found no one seemed to care that she was sitting quietly and absorbing her surroundings.

  Well, except for Faith Adams, who shot occasional unblinking stares from across the table when she thought Martine wasn’t looking.

  Martine didn’t have to ask why she was staring. Derrick was her son, and from the looks of it, a good one. She was supposed to be his life mate. Any good mother would want to know what her good son was getting into with a woman who’d been dumped in his lap.

  As she chewed her last bite of the most delicious rib eye she’d ever had, she wondered if she shouldn’t just ease Faith’s fears, and tell her the truth about she and Derrick’s arrangement. If maybe it would ease her worry if she knew Martine wasn’t going to let him die.

  And then she thought better of it. That was up to Derrick to share. She didn’t want to blow anything for him, and she certainly didn’t want to be the one who told his mother they were just going to have death-sex.

  Clearly, his mother was of the old school way of thinking—life mates stayed together forever. It was tradition. So who was Martine to mess with their beliefs?

  But it wouldn’t be long before Faith took the bull by the horns and wanted a word with her.

  By the looks of things, that would happen in three, two, one…

  Faith’s chair scraped back as she rose, smoothing a hand over her shoulder-length hair. “Martine? Would you help me gather some firewood?”

  Derrick pushed out of his chair, placing his hand on Martine’s shoulder. “I’ll get it, Mom.”

  Faith shook a finger at him. “No. No you won’t. Martine and I are plenty strong enough to manage some firewood, aren’t we?” She shot Martine a smile of encouragement.

  Martine patted Derrick’s hand and grinned at the panicked look in his eyes. “I got this, Farm Boy. Sit. Have some coffee. In fact, make me a cup, too, would you, please?”

  Derrick nodded his head, making his way over to the coffeepot when Max laughed out loud, draping an arm around JC. “Would you look at the unwhippable, totally whipped.”

  Laughter followed her as Martine grabbed her jacket from the coatrack in the hall, put it on then slipped her arm through Faith’s. “Firewood,” she said on a smile and a wink.

  Faith chuckled, leading her out to the large entryway of her house and through the door. “So tell me about yourself, Martine.”

  As they stepped out into the cold, Martine tried out what she’d practiced all day, knowing they were doing a family night dinner and she’d be Faith’s target. “I come from Manhattan, raised in Queens. I’m thirty-three and between jobs right now.”

  Faith stopped on the brick pathway leading to the side of the house, her eyes sharp and clear. “Very well done. But we’re not speed dating here. Now tell me about the real Martine. Like how she ended up in a cat carrier at a convenience store? What she wants from life? What she expects in a mate.”

  Oh boy. Leave it to her to believe Derrick’s family would be as superficial as she was when she was getting to know someone. She went into a relationship thinking it would end—knowing it would. There was no need to poke around and get deep. Derrick’s family thought she was staying forever. Faith’s question never came up when she’d gone over the list of things she might ask her.

  Honesty. She’d promised herself she was going to come clean with Derrick but she’d begin with Faith. It was all she had, and what Faith deserved.

  Martine shook her head, slipping one of her hands inside the pocket of her jacket. “I don’t know how I ended up in that cat carrier, and that’s the truth, Faith. One minute I was asleep, the next thing I know, I woke up in a Dumspter.”

  It was driving her crazy. Who’d kidnapped her from her kidnapper and why? Was the person who’d dropped her at a convenience store part of this fate thing the Adamses were such fans of? How had she slept through a second kidnapping?

  Faith gripped her arm and smiled warm and wide as they walked. Martine had to wonder if Faith knew how gorgeous she was. She didn’t look a day over thirty, and her figure was amazing. “I believe you. Sometimes, the mystery of the mate remains a mystery. So what do you want out of life?”

  What did she want? Had her life really been all that great before Escobar? She’d loved her job as a wedding planner, definitely an odd career for a loner like her. But was her life full of much else but taffeta and seating charts? Rich in love and friendships? No. It was all just work.

  She used to think her job was what filled her up. It took so much of her spare time just getting her business off the ground, she hadn’t considered anything else was missing. She didn’t think it was possible to fit anything else in.

  She’d heard about the things that were missing from everyone else. From her employees who said she worked too much, and her clients who balked when she told them the woman planning their wedding was single.

  But she’d never experienced any sense of loss aside from her mother until just recently, as she witnessed firsthand what healthy family dynamics included.

  Faith squeezed her hand and pulled her along toward the stack of firewood. “So, life?”

  Her throat threatened to close up. She didn’t want anything new or exciting. She wanted what everyone wanted. She just didn’t know how the definition of what she wanted fit her. “Happy. I want to be happy.” And out from beneath Escobar’s curse.

  Faith sighed, resting an arm on the wood. “We all
want that. But what else do you want, Martine? I’ve decided there’s more to the makings of a woman than just her family. Do you want a career? Do you have one now?”

  “I do.” Or she did. “I was a wedding planner. So, yes. I definitely want a career.”

  “That’s a really specific choice in careers, I’d say. So you must believe in happily-ever-afters? A romantic, maybe?”

  How she was going to look this lovely woman in the eye and tell her no? How was she going to tell this woman she’d laid bets on every nuptial she’d planned and the hour of its possible demise? “Nothing lasts forever, does it? I believe in happy for now. I believe happiness, within and otherwise, takes work. I believe everyone’s definition of happy is personal and individualized.”

  God. That sounded so Zen. Like she’d read it in a magazine instead of really feeling it.

  Faith shook a finger at her with a laugh and a raised brow. “I believe you’re snowing me. Listen, Martine. I know this thing happened out of the blue for you. At the very least, while Derrick’s always known his life mate would be a surprise, he did know he was going to end up having one. For you? Total blindside. I don’t expect you to be madly in love with him after just a couple of days, but I really hope you’ll give this relationship a chance. Three weeks doesn’t seem like a long time, but it was all I needed to know when I was up for mating. I’m not just saying this because of what could happen if you don’t mate, but because Derrick, aside from all his blustering, is a good man. A really good man. Just like his father and his brother.”

  “It only took you three weeks?” Martine responded in disbelief.

  “Actually, it was two and a half, but we weren’t under the kind of pressure you kids are. We had more time to get to know one another without a curse hindering us. But I knew what fate had chosen for me was right.”

  Ah. Derrick’s father, Brock. She’d heard just a small bit about his disappearance from Nat, but it rather strengthened her belief that nothing lasted forever. Yet, to look at Faith when she mentioned him, you’d think he walked on water.