Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(111)

Pulling her coat tighter, her mind focused on how she was going to explain Cary’s possessive attitude, she moved to the window facing the backyard. Her breath caught when she saw the new piece of art that Brandon was working on.

It wasn’t finished, only about half of the large piece of wood was carved. But there was no mistaking what it was.

A wolf.





Chapter Eight


“Damn it’s cold in here.”

Fredericka nearly jumped when she heard Brandon. She’d been so shocked at his wolf sculpture that she hadn’t even heard him walk inside.

“You’re carving a wolf?” She turned.

“Yeah,” he said and she noted he was looking right at her, no longer hiding the scars. But the bandana still hid his forehead.

“Why?”

He shrugged and moved to stand beside her. “I’ve had a fascination with them. Got it from my grandmother.”

Inhaling again, she checked to see if there wasn’t a hint of were in his scent.

It was there, wasn’t it? Or was she just hoping?

“Why did she like them?” she asked, feeling his warmth from his shoulder beside her. Warmth like a were? It had to be were, didn’t it?

“She was an odd duck.” He stared out the window. “You going to tell me about this teacher?”

She closed her eyes and all of a sudden she decided to go with the truth. She glanced at Brandon. “I used to like him. We never … I mean…” She glanced back out the window. “Because he’s my teacher we decided to wait until I graduated to let our feelings go anywhere. But … I recently realized that he and I aren’t really a good match.”

“You mean with him being an *?” he asked.

She grinned, and looked up at him again. His eyes were so blue she wanted to just lose herself in there. And it wasn’t until now that she realized how tall Brandon was. He stood a good six inches over her five-eight frame.

Very few guys made her feel feminine. And yet somehow he managed to do it.

“Yeah.” Then she recalled Cary’s threat and her smile faded.

“What are you going to do?” He lifted one of his brows.

“About what?”

“I mean about his trying to blackmail you?”

She shook her head. “How did you…? You were too far away to hear what he was saying.”

“Guess your voices carried,” he said, repeating her earlier words back at her. “I’ve always had extra keen hearing.”

What else did he always have? She was a breath away from asking, or from reaching up and pulling off his bandana.

“How did you get your scars?” he asked.

Her breath caught and thoughts of seeing his pattern flew out the window. She should have known that by showing him her scars that he would ask. And yet exposing her physical scars was nothing compared to exposing her emotional ones.

When she didn’t answer, he started speaking.

“My mom was an alcoholic. She’d sober up for a year or two and then go back to it. Back and forth.”

It only took a second for his tone to completely pull her in. She listened with her heart, because somehow she sensed how hard this was for him to say.

“When she’d get bad, I’d go live with my grandmother—sometimes I’d stay for six months or more, until my mom would sober up. Then my grandmother died when I was eight, and I started going to stay with my dad during her bad times. That’s what she called them, too. Her bad times.”

He paused to look out the window. “I was fifteen, back at home with my mom again. I already had my driver’s permit. She came to pick me up from football practice. She was drunk off her ass again. I told her to let me drive. She wouldn’t. She got all mad and for a reason I’ll never understand I let her talk me into just giving in.”

He closed his eyes for a second. She reached over and laced her fingers through his. Their hands came together like pieces of a puzzle that belonged side by side.

“She missed a turn, and ran into a tree. She wasn’t wearing her seat belt. She was thrown out of the car and died immediately. I was knocked unconscious. The car caught fire. A cop saw the accident and pulled me out.”

The words “I’m sorry” were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say them, because even though she was, they weren’t enough. She just squeezed his hand.

And after swallowing the emotion down her throat, knowing she owed him the same thing, she started talking.

“My mom died giving birth to me. It was just my dad and me. He was … I suppose you could say he lived on the wrong side of the law. But I guess I loved him because … he was all I had. We were always on the run. He’d have his girlfriends watch me. I was five. This girlfriend was … on something. I don’t know what kind of drug, but she’d take it and get mean. She … believed in the adage: ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ Only … her rod was a heated spoon.”

“Oh, hell!” he said and he turned her around and pulled her into him. Her head came to the wonderful spot on a guy’s shoulder. Between his warmth, his scent, and having his arms around her, the pain in her chest lessened.

She stood there just holding him, and letting him hold her. It suddenly dawned on her that the eerie silence she’d found in the house earlier had vanished. The wind chimes, the ones that seemed to play by themselves, were back to making music.