Or maybe Deek is aware of it, and that’s also why he’s looking so ashamed.
“I won’t do that again,” Deek promises. “You can finish your food. Why couldn’t the green pepper practice archery?”
His question is delivered to the table’s surface so flatly and so on the heels of a topic in a whole other field that nobody says anything. We do stare at him though.
He mumbles, “Because it didn't habenero. What do mermaids use to wash their tails?”
“I love mermaids!” Maggie chirps.
“Tide,” Deek murmurs uncomfortably, finishing his anxiously delivered joke.
“Okaaay…” Giving him serious side-eye, Ginny eases back down into her seat and picks up her burger. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks him.
“He’s nervous,” Charlotte replies just as Maggie gasps, “There’s nothing wrong with Deek!”
I wipe up the mess I’ve made and finish my cone, staring hard enough at Deek he should be able to feel it. Why did you grab Ginny like that?
Proving he might indeed be sensitive to my pointed attention, he darts one imploring look at me before starting in on Maggie’s ice cream like the faster he inhales it, the quicker we’ll all move on from this moment.
And along his jaw, the stubble is growing, turning tufted. Like the most serious mutton chops ever. Or fur.
“Do you need anything from town?” I ask Ginny in an effort to break the tension and redirect everyone’s attention.
Her cheeks color a little, and she adopts the same posture Deek has over his food. “Um, No. Charlotte’s bathroom should have everything I need.”
I mentally call up the supplies stocked in Charlotte’s bathroom: pads to bandages, she should be covered. “Okay.”
It’s a quiet ride home. When we all file inside with our insulated grocery bags, the girls split up to go to their rooms—and Ginny asks me if it’s okay if Charlotte locks her door tonight.
Deek hunches. “I won’t hurt you,” he announces.
This, to a girl whose eyes say she’s heard the line before, does nothing to thaw her. She doesn’t scoff, but the beat of silence stretches uncomfortably before she turns and marches for Charlotte’s room.
Charlotte throws a disbelieving look at Deek that he doesn’t see because he’s crouched on the floor now.
“If I didn’t believe you, I’d be on the phone with Finn right now,” I sigh, and pull the milk out of the bag and set it on the top shelf in the fridge. “But I do trust you.” To Charlotte, I motion for her to be with Ginny.
She’s nodding, already on her way, following her friend.
I begin pulling items from bags and setting them on the island for sorting. “Oh my goodness—we need to watch the bagger next time. They put canned goods in with avocados.” I grimace, examining the fruit and seeing deep divots in the dark skins, exposing green flesh. “Who does that?”
“Heathens,” Deek says so seriously from the floor that I burst out laughing.
His powerful frame relaxes, and after a moment of me going back and forth between the cupboards, he slinks over to help me without ever gaining his feet.
It’s too weird for me.
“Deek,” I start.
There’s a knock at the door.
Deek stays low and somehow crosses the distance from the grocery bags at my feet all the way to our entryway in the space of a blink—where he promptly stands tall to answer the door.
He drags it open like the house is on fire and there’s salvation on the other side.
“Who is it?” I ask.
He’s slumping with relief as he reveals another man I know very well. “It’s Finn.”
CHAPTER 7
SUSAN
Finn’s eyes are strange. “Sue,” he says, flashing teeth that look a little too sharp to be mistaken for human. He hands me a bouquet of flowers in a glass vase, colorful raffia ribbon artfully arranged around the lower half of it.
“Oh, wow! Thank you.” I accept them, four million thoughts running through my head, starting with these are pretty, invariably leading to my ex-husband he’d always apologize with flowers, like a couple of lilies and sunflowers were a proper trespass offering after he defiled our marriage bond and this was nice of Finn. But why is he REALLY here?
I set the vase on the counter. The spray of color instantly brightens up the kitchen.
Charlotte peeks her head out of the hallway—and visibly relaxes. “It’s just Finn!” she calls.
Ginny pops her head around the corner too. “Who’s Fi—”
She gapes.
Finn’s gaze is pinned on her. So is his smile—which, if possible, turns on even more charm. “Well, who is this lovely crayture?”
His accent is suddenly so thick, you could frost cupcakes with it. Green ones with shamrock-shaped sprinkles.
Ginny’s jaw drops.
It’s so the accent.
“It’s dangerous to females of all ages,” Deek murmurs to me, prompting me to realize I shared my thought out loud.
Finn tosses me a naughty grin but turns a much more wholesome smile back on Ginny. He takes a step forward and holds out his hand, adding a slight bow as his brows go up in inquiry. “So nice to meet you…?”
Straight out of a playbook from a long-ago era, Ginny floats to him and sets her hand in his.
He drops his face over the back of her hand, and when he turns her limb over to expose her palm—and her bruised wrist—I shoot a look at Deek.
He ducks and turns into a wolf.
“HOLY SHIT!” Ginny shrieks, jerking completely out of Finn’s hold.
It’s one thing to be told that your friend’s family’s borrowed nanny is a werewolf. It’s a whole different thing to see him Change.
“I’ve got the basement door,” Maggie announces, stepping around the grocery bags to give Deek an escape route.
“Wait,” I sigh. “Let me get your clothes before you ruin them.”
The wolf is the picture of shame as he hugs the floor, submissively flattens his ears, and manages to be both limp and tense as I begin to maneuver his limbs out of his church coat, tie, and dress shirt. It’s a process.
With her hand over her heart, Ginny turns a horrified expression on me. “I didn’t mean to swear.”
Fighting the jean’s snap that’s pinched at Deek’s wolven waistline, I pretend to grumble. “You get another pass. But, Ginny, I’m starting to think werewolves have a not-so-good effect on your vocabulary.”
Finn winks at her, making her—and Charlotte’s—eyes widen. Ginny blushes to the roots of her hair. Finn bites his lip and whispers, “Ya need to start deliverin’ all your curses in an Irish accent, m’dear. If you say it Irish, you can practically get away with murder.”
“I bet,” Ginny says dazedly.
Charlotte sighs almost dreamily in agreement.
“So, Finn,” I say slowly. “What brings you here?”
He gives me a very innocent look.
The wolf under my hands whines in apology.
“Hmm.” I pat Deek’s dark, furry head. “Can you roll over?”
This gets him to make eye contact. For a wolf prostrating himself on my floor, it’s awful haughty. He rolls over.