I realized I’d stopped walking, and Micah had pulled me into his chest. “Anyway, I decided that if they were going to treat me like I was insane, then I was no longer going to give a damn. It was easier than defending myself at every turn. I mean, what was the worst that could happen? They already thought I was nuts. So, I guess, I kind of set myself free from society. I didn’t go to church on Sundays like I was expected to do. I didn’t wear the clothes I was expected to wear. I didn’t enter parades, didn’t try to get a date to prom, didn’t say please or thank you or watched what I said. At first it was hard, but now it's kind of nice. I like watching people's faces; you can tell a lot about a person by the way they talk to a mentally ill person.”
Micah just nodded and held the driver’s door to the SUV open to me. When I climbed in and was face height with him, he leaned in and kissed me. His kiss said a lot of things that I was probably not ready to hear, and I kissed him back with just as much passion. His hands slid up my socks until they scraped under my shorts. “I appreciate the socks. I appreciate the real Layla. And this fake you, this armor that you wear? I appreciate her too because she kept you protected. I promise one day, you won’t need her anymore.”
He kissed my nose and then strode around the front of the truck as I watched him with my mouth hanging open. He climbed in, and I just stared at him.
He grinned, and the expression was devastating to my ovaries. Hell, it would be devastating to ovaries everywhere. “We better get going or we’ll be late.”
“We don’t have to go to dinner tonight, Micah, I can cancel and they’ll understand.” Then we could go home and I could hump him into next week. That was a way better plan.
Micah just shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Maybe I can help misdirect the police chief away from getting himself killed on his current case. Those bounty hunters believe in collateral damage, and one backwater police chief will hardly be a blip on their radars. Besides, I know you want to show off your new boyfriend.”
The teasing note in his voice made me turn the most pathetic shade of red, and I pretended I had no idea what he was talking about. Boyfriend. Who said anything about a boyfriend?
After running errands and picking up groceries, we headed to the edge of town where Tony and Sue lived. Their sprawling house looked like the front of a cookie tin and the warm glow from inside the house was enticing. Standing in front of their blue door, I looked up at Micah. And I meant up. The guy was like a big ass tree I wanted to climb.
“When you rescued me five years ago, did you know this house belonged to the police chief?”
He’d delivered me onto their back porch. That’s how Tony and Sue had found me. Literally walked through the back door to take the dog out to pee and bam, broken Layla doll on their lawn.
“Yes.”
He was saved from giving me anymore answers by the door swinging open, and the fact I was immediately pulled into the arms of the woman who’d been my surrogate mother for years.
“Oh Layla, darling, how have you been? I haven’t seen you in so long, and with everything happening around here, I was so worried. Tony is working such long hours and unable to check on you…” She managed to sound gentle and disapproving all at once, and that was the real magic of Sue. She finally looked around my head and noticed Micah standing on the porch. “Well, maybe you had a reason to be hiding out there in the hills. Layla, introduce me to your young man.”
Sue put her hands on her ample hips and beamed at Micah. I smiled and introduced him, sticking to the story that I had been spreading all day; Micah was my boyfriend from college, and we’d just reconnected. Sue raised an eyebrow, totally disbelieving, but she didn’t call me out on my lie.
“Oofta, it’s cold out here. Come inside where it's warm. Where are your pants, Layla Lee? You’ll catch your death.”
She ushered us into the hall, taking our scarves and coats, although Micah’s were purely ornamental. Tony met us in the living room and hugged me just as hard as Sue had. He shook hands with Micah, and did that male posturing thing that guys sometimes did, where they maintained macho eye contact. Sue bustled around, getting beers for the boys and wine for us, before returning to the kitchen to finish dinner.
I threw a quick look at Tony and Micah, who had seemed to decide who got to be Alpha, and were talking about who was going to win the Super Bowl this year.
Excusing myself to go help Sue, I wandered along the familiar hallways to the warmth of the kitchen. Being in here always felt like wrapping myself in a blanket of love, even when I was a sullen teenager.
Sue smiled when I came in, fully expecting that I’d follow so we could girl-talk. Apparently, I was predictable.
“Well now, he's handsome, isn’t he? Big, strong muscles and those smoky eyes.” She fanned herself and I laughed. “I only have to take one look at you to tell you’re smitten.”
“He’s only here for a little while and then he’ll go back to the city. His life isn’t in Roseau, and it isn’t with me. What we have is just for the here and now. So don’t go getting excited and planning my wedding just yet, okay?”
Sure, I felt lust through that weird connection we had, and maybe even a little something that felt like way more. But I had no idea what love felt really like really. My mother hadn’t had the capacity to love me. Sue and Tony were the closest I’d ever come. What it came down to, really, was that I didn’t want to hope for too much.
I focused on our connection in that moment, and all I felt was burning hot anger. What the fuck?
I jumped to my feet, mumbling something about drinks to Sue as I all but sprinted to the living room, only slowing when I got near the doorway.
“It’s not right Micah, you should have stayed away. All you’re doing is putting her in danger, both emotionally and physically, especially if what you told me about the hunters is true. I love Layla, and if you think I’ll just stand by and let you hurt her then you’re not as wise as you think you are. You aren’t right for her, and you never can be. You’re not even of the same species, for God’s sake!” The note of familiarity in Tony’s voice didn’t imply that he’d only just been told a centuries old secret. I moved closer so I could lean on the doorway casually, my eyebrow raised. Completely cool like I hadn’t just realized that these two men weren’t strangers at all.
“Well now, this looks cozy. Would someone please like to tell me what the hell is going on here? Because it sounded like you were deciding my future without me.”
Micah was the first to recover, walking over from the fireplace to stand in front of me. He leaned down and kissed my forehead, a blatant act of defiance to Tony’s earlier comments.
“Chief Hammond and I are old acquaintances.”
“No fucking shit.” Okay, so maybe I was a little mad now. I gestured for him to continue, but it was Tony who spoke.
“When I was a lot younger than I am now, I had just returned from the police academy in the city to join the station here at Roseau. Back then, I was fit and young, and I don’t mind saying, one hell of a hunter. I used to go out on the weekends and hunt deer and other game. This was before I had met Sue and she started to occupy all my weekends with courtin’. Then in the summer of 1982, there were rumours flying around of a giant brown bear or Bigfoot roaming the woods. I got it into my head that I wanted to catch this thing myself, like an ode to my machismo. I packed for a week-long hunt, and tracked his prints for days.” He shook his head. “All the tracking skills in the world wouldn’t have helped me find him, but I stumbled on him by accident, morphing back into a man in a small clearing.” Tony’s eyes glazed over and he gently shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe it after nearly forty years.