Summoned (The Sundance Series Book 2), page 2
"Guilt is a shitty emotion," Lucas whispered. "You should let it go."
My voice trembled a little. "Tell me what you're doing in my bed."
"Semantics, I already told you. Pay attention. Also, reading. It's not John D. MacDonald, but it'll have to do." He picked up my book, opened it. A smile curled the corners of his sexy, deceptive mouth. "Also, never mind."
"Never mind what?" I dropped onto my pillow and pulled the blanket over my shoulders.
He flipped the pages in my book. "Never mind explaining why the binding is broken here. I get it. This is sexy stuff."
"Go to sleep, Lucas." I flipped over, facing away from him.
I had to admit, there was a small part of me that was glad he was here. I hadn't slept well since the town had turned on me. Kept picturing Dan Winters showing up with a vampire stake while I was sleeping. I knew Lucas would protect me—he'd already proved it—but if he wasn't around, no telling what his shifters might do.
"You first. I'm going to finish this chapter." I heard the page turn. "You sure you don't want to have sex with me after reading this? I'm sweating over here."
No, I wasn't sure, and it didn't have a thing to do with the book, either. It had to do with the way he made me smile when I didn't mean to, the fathomless loneliness inside me that called out to him, and it was that damn penis cleavage.
I rolled over, snatched the romance out of his hands, tossed it on my nightstand.
"Be that way." He hunkered down beside me and ran his fingers over my flannel sleeve. A shiver went through me at his touch.
Why was I so weird? I couldn't find a nice, normal man to be attracted to. It had to be this one. I was a tonta, my uncle would say, a fool, and I had terrible taste in men.
"Neely?"
"Oh my God, what now?"
"You look like someone's virgin great-aunt in that nightgown."
"Shut up and go to sleep."
When I woke up the next morning, Lucas was snoring beside me. He'd slept on top of the covers with his arm around my waist. If he'd made the gesture sexual, I'd have shoved him away, but it had been about comfort more than anything.
Only I wasn't sure which of us was more comforted by it.
As was my custom, I went downstairs to take the chairs off the tables, wipe them down, and start up the ancient coffeemaker. Sometimes I whipped up pastry dough at this time, but the orders were low right now and I'd made up enough yesterday to last through today.
Surprisingly, I still had regulars who came in for iced coffees and pan dulce who did not treat me any differently than they had before they knew I was a spiker. There were also regulars who came in and treated me like I had a communicable disease. I didn't mind. At least they came in.
That done, I dashed upstairs to condition-wash my hair. It took some time to dry, so I rarely washed it on a weekday morning. However, I'd slept like wild beasts were chasing me in my dreams and my hair was a fuzzy mess on one side. It needed conditioner, styling cream, and gel. Stat.
Lucas was sitting at my kitchen table when I walked out of the bathroom in a blue cotton sundress with a microfiber towel on my head.
"Where's the flannel nightie, Grandma Esther?" he asked.
"I will wear what I like in my own home."
"It's a hundred degrees out."
"Not in here, I—wait a sec. Grandma Esther? How do you know about The Waltons? That's a bit before your time." I squeezed the towel on top of my head, trying to absorb water without creating frizz, always a trick with my curls. "I grew up with Tío José, who practically welded our living room television to the classic TV station. How do you know about it?"
"Chandra."
Did not see that coming. "Our Chandra?"
He nodded. "She binges on seventies shows when she's sad. After she and Cynthia broke up, she power-watched the entire series over the course of a month. Anyone who dropped by got an eyeful of John Boy, Jim Bob, and the rest of the gang. I'm just relieved that we didn't have to watch Welcome Back Kotter again."
"Better than binging on ice cream, I guess."
"She did that, too. And corn nuts. I smell coffee. I need it inside me right now." He was still shirtless and shoeless, and now he was scruff-jawed and sleep-rumpled. The jewel-eyed watercolor tiger tattoo climbing up his left arm appeared to be watching me every bit as closely as its owner.
"Get dressed and come downstairs. I'll pour you a cup."
He shook his head. "I'd rather have it here. With you."
"Yeah, well, I have to open up in five minutes." I scrunched my hair with the towel and let the curls hang damply down my back. "As you know, there's nothing in my fridge except leftover frozen pizza. Come down with me and I'll get you a pastry."
"Okay." He stood and started toward the stairs.
"Hang on." I put my palm against his muscled chest. His skin was hot. Most shifters ran a few degrees hotter than regular humans, but Lucas ran hotter than most. Or was that just me? "Get dressed first. Try to look like you arrived this morning instead of last night."
One perfectly shaped brow went up. "Maybe I want people to know we're sleeping together."
"We're not sleeping together."
"We just did."
"Yes, but we're not sleeping together," I said.
Lucas tugged on one of my damp curls. "Why aren't we?"
Because I'm terrified of you. Because it would never work. Because you're you and I'm me and that's that. "We're barely figuring out how to be friends."
"Friends?" He let go of my curl, watched it mix back in with the others.
"What? You don't want to be friends?" I dropped my hand from his chest, took a step back. It was getting a little too intimate between us.
And I was a little too comfortable with that.
"I do. It's just I normally separate people into two camps: friends and lovers. You don't fit neatly in either category."
"Yeah." I backed away, heading toward the stairs. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm just as confused as you are about what this is."
Chapter Three
My regulars came and went in a steady stream for the first twenty minutes after I unlocked the doors. I served cookies and pan dulce, hot and cold coffee. The glass display cases were starting to look bare, which was a good thing, but also a bad thing, because Diego wasn't due to come in until tomorrow and it would be difficult for me to break away with him gone.
A half-hour after opening, Lisa Cesar sauntered in with Margaret Lentz, the busybody of the Blacke Shifter group. I heaved a heavy inward sigh and resolved myself to the inevitability that one or both women would be pissing me off soon. They were two of the few shifters who overtly and aggressively hated me. Most people hid it better.
Margaret was an alpha wolf shifter with the Blacke group. She had steel gray hair curled to within an inch of its life and her right eye blinked more than her left when she was in full sermonize mode. She'd been born middle-aged—I was absolutely convinced of it. I could not imagine her under forty.
"I'll have a small iced coffee." Lisa brushed her straight brown hair over her shoulder. She was as tall as Margaret, around six foot, and in her mid-thirties. She was also a rattlesnake shifter with Lucas's group and the town's elementary school teacher, which made a strange sort of sense when you thought about it.
"I'll have the same." Margaret fanned herself. The ceiling fans were running full blast and the air conditioner was set to sixty-five, but she was sweating like a televangelist in a confessional. "Oh, and a muffin. One of those." She pointed to a mantecada.
I filled two cups with ice and added coffee, cream, and my homemade sugar syrup. I set them on the counter along with two paper straws, and grabbed a small sack for the mantecada. I didn't ask if Margaret was taking it to go—that damn woman was taking it to go.
"I'm surprised you stayed in town after your uncle was murder—" I glared at the busybody and she caught herself. "—since your uncle's passing."
"It was her fault he was killed." Lisa tossed her money on the counter. "Maybe staying here is her penance."
That one stung. Mostly because she wasn't wrong. Not entirely.
"Now, Lisa. That's unkind." Margaret's eyes gleamed with a sort of wicked delight at the scene unfolding in front of her. She took her money out of her wallet and laid the bills in a precise pile on the counter as sweat trickled down the sides of her face, dribbling on my clean countertop. The woman was up to something.
I swept up the cash and shoved the pastry bag at Margaret. "Will that be all?"
"You don't belong here." Lisa's gaze was hooded and dark. "You brought that murderer to our doorstep. How do we know there aren't more? You're a danger to us."
"I would like to add that if you're staying because of our alpha, you should know that he's fickle when it comes to affairs of the heart. He's what the young people call a 'player' or a 'manwhore.'" Margaret's eye twitched at the speed of a hummingbird wing flap, and the curly gray hair that edged around her face was soaked. "I'm not saying this to be unkind, dear. I'm trying to help you."
God save me from Margaret and her help.
"Yeah, well, I have no problem being unkind. No one wants you here, spiker. Even the ones who come in every morning and order their pastries just like they always have." Lisa downed her coffee and set her cup on the counter. If she thought she was getting a free refill, she was wrong. "They've been ordered to be nice to you. They wouldn't come in otherwise. We all know you brought death to this town with your lies and secrets."
"Everyone in this town has a secret." I grabbed a rag and disinfectant spray from behind the display case to my right and mopped up Margaret's sweat. "You wouldn't live in Sundance if you weren't hiding from something. My something just happened to show up this time. Maybe next time, it's yours." I pointed at Lisa with the spray bottle. "Or yours, Margaret."
"Well now, I don't… That is, I—"
"I stayed and fought mine. Would you do the same, Lisa? Or would you turn rattle and run?"
The snake shifter's eyes faded from dark brown to pale gold and her tongue lengthened, forking at the tip. "I wouldn't have to. I don't have enemiesss."
"Oh, so you're here for the amazing weather?" I laughed humorlessly. "It's September and supposed to be a hundred and five degrees this afternoon."
"Maybe I like the heat."
"Or maybe no rattlesnake rhumba would have you." The way she flinched, I knew I'd hit a nerve. Imagine that. I hadn't even read her, and I happened upon a nasty little truth.
Margaret stepped between us. "Please, we're only trying to help…"
I slammed the spray bottle down and tossed the cleaning rag into a bin behind me. "Get out of my bakery and take your help with you."
The older woman drew back as if I'd slapped her. "There's no need to be rude."
"Get out."
Lisa's serpent tongue flicked over her lips. "Or what? You'll sspike uss?"
"No." Damn her for suggesting that when I hadn't even read them. I was following my rules, the rules my uncle had helped me develop when I was a kid. I was doing everything the way I was supposed to, and still no one trusted me.
"Then what can you do to hurt me? You can't physsically forcce me."
"She can tell me, and I'll kick your ass out." Chandra strolled through the bakery front door, sending the bell attached to it jingling against the glass. "I'd consider it a bonus. I only came in for coffee and a concha."
Lisa pointed at me, keeping her eyes on Chandra. "You know what ssshe isss. How can you defend her?"
Chandra moved. Faster than my eye could track, she went from the doorway to directly in front of Lisa. "Because I know what she is. I saw her sacrifice herself for this ungrateful town. I know you all, every shifter in the group, and I don't know many who would do the same."
Lisa's eyes glowed white gold and her mouth cinched up on either side. She was shifting to her hybrid form and it was not a good look on her. "She's not one of usss."
"Exactly. She's not part of the Blacke group, yet she protected us when she could have run." Chandra took a step into Lisa's personal space. She had to be five inches shorter, but in her own way, she managed to tower over the rattlesnake shifter. "She's also a friend to our alpha. Would you challenge him on that? Would you challenge me?"
Lisa backed up, her mouth working but no words coming out. Her tongue thickened and shortened as it retracted into her mouth, and her eyes bled to their normal dark brown.
"Alpha Second, we meant no offense to you or to Alpha Blacke." Margaret's face went sheet white and shiny. She was really working up a sweat now. "We were just—"
"Leaving." Chandra cocked her head to one side, crossed her arms over her chest. "You were just leaving."
"Bakery bitches," Chandra said after Margaret and Lisa hurried out, "they're the worst sort of bitches."
Normally I hated that word—especially when directed toward women—but I had to agree. "Iced coffee? It's on the house for getting rid of those two."
"Sure. I'll take a pastry, too. A pink concha. And that I pay for."
Lucas appeared in the kitchen doorway, fully dressed, the ends of his freshly washed hair dampening the collar of his shirt. "I heard Chandra threatening someone. What did I miss?"
"The Margaret Lentz and Lisa Cesar Welcome Wagon," Chandra muttered.
"Did you tell your shifters they had to come here?" I thrust my hands on my hips. "Because that is not okay with me. I don't want people coming in because you threatened them."
"No, I did not. I hardly ever threaten my shifters." Lucas jerked his thumb at Chandra. "That's her job and she does it better than I do. Why? What happened?"
Chandra gave him a rundown as I scooped ice into a cup and poured coffee and syrup over it. Lucas's jaw tightened as she told him what she'd heard.
"Is there anything else?" This he asked me.
"That pretty much covers it." I set Chandra's iced coffee on the counter. "Oh, Margaret Lentz called you a manwhore."
Chandra snickered.
Lucas's mouth fell open. "What?"
"She warned me away from you. Called you a 'player' and a 'manwhore.'"
"Margaret actually said 'player?'"
"Yep." I poured him a cup of hot coffee and added a little cream to it.
"She's on Twitter now," Chandra said. "It's obviously having a positive effect on her understanding of slang."
"No." Lucas shivered. "It's not."
"What?" Chandra arched her brows in surprise. "You going to tell me she's wrong?"
"Yes, I am. I'm not a manwhore or a player. That makes it sound like I charge for it. I'm just … friendly." He picked up his coffee. "So, did you read Margaret and Lisa? See what they're up to?"
I shook my head. "They were up to threatening me. I didn't need to read them."
Lucas and Chandra exchanged a look that I pretended not to see.
"We need to talk." Lucas took a sip of his coffee, swallowed. "Neely, take a break."
"Uh, I'm working here, Captain Highhanded." I picked up a clean rag and sprayed and wiped the counter again.
"Working?" Lucas surveyed the empty cafe. "Seriously?"
"Fine." I went into the kitchen and washed my hands, poured myself a coffee and tossed three conchas on a plate. Plopped down across from Chandra at a table beside the window Saul Roso had shot out one of the times he'd tried to kill me.
It had since been repaired, along with the cracks in the terracotta Saltillo tile floor, the bullet holes in the sunny saffron walls, and the broken lacquered pine tables and chairs. This poor bakery had gone through a lot two months ago.
Lucas sat beside me and bit into one of the pastries. Chewed, took a sip of coffee, and said, "I'm taking Neely to see Malcolm."
Chandra's expression told me everything I wanted to know about what seeing Xavier Malcolm meant. "No offense, Alpha, but … are you out of your goddamned mind?"
"Chandra." Lucas's voice went low and growly. His alpha tone.
"I said no offense," she grumbled. He stared at her. "Okay, I apologize, but taking Neely to see Malcolm? That's a huge risk. You remember what happened with Suyin."
"Yes, I do." He showed Chandra his teeth. They were human, but no less menacing for being so.
Chandra fell silent. Finally, she said, "This is political. You have no choice."
"There's always a choice. I'm trying not to make a bad one." Lucas growled then, low and long, and I nearly genuflected and crossed myself.
It was at times like this that I remembered Lucas was a top-of-the-food-chain predator. A prehistoric shapeshifter. Most shifters evolved physically and mentally over time. Some did not. In his prehistoric form, Lucas was one of the most powerful beings on the planet—the Smilodon, otherwise known as the saber-toothed tiger. I'd only seen a fraction of what he could do while in that form, and it had been astounding.
The hyena shifter's demeanor did a complete one-eighty after that growl, going from incredulous to serious in seconds. "I go in under the radar?"
Lucas nodded. "Your focus is Neely. I want her kept safe."
"Sorry. Can't do that."
"I order you to."
I spoke up. "Protecting you is Chandra's job as your second. I don't think you can order her not to do her job. Especially if she thinks you're in danger."
"Danger? I can shift into an eight-hundred-pound saber-toothed tiger. There aren't many things scarier than me out there."
"No," Chandra said. "There aren't. But Xavier Malcolm comes damn close."
Chapter Four
The week went by the way the weekend had—uneventful, slow. I had a few customers roll in for coffee and pastries. Not many. Fewer than the week before. Only our restaurant orders in Nopales, the town nearly an hour east of Sundance, were keeping the bakery afloat.
At this rate, I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I wanted to keep my tío's bakery open. The choice would be made for me.
The night before Lucas and I were scheduled to leave for San Diego to meet with Xavier Malcolm, I slept fitfully. I dreamed of my mother, and the dream was accompanied by the usual shame and despair and pain.
