Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(29)
In my own world of engines and CV joints, I'd grown used to being competent. If Adam had been a car, I'd have known what to do. But in Aspen Creek, I'd always been not quite good enough-some things, it seemed, hadn't changed.
"Mercy, look, I'm sorry. If you didn't know first aid, and you couldn't trust his pack, there's nothing else you could have done."
His voice was soft and sweet as molasses; but my mother once told me that you had to trust that the first thing out of a person's mouth was truth. After they have a chance to think about it, they'll change what they say to be more socially acceptable, something they think you'll be happier with, something that will get the results they want. I knew what he wanted, what he had always wanted from me, even if-while he had been working on Adam's injuries-Samuel, himself, had forgotten.
"Adam tore a strip off me for being so hard on you," he said, his voice coaxing. "He was right. I was mad because I don't like hurting someone unnecessarily, and I took it out on you. Can I come in and talk to you instead of the door?"
I rubbed my face tiredly. I wasn't sixteen anymore, to run away from difficult things, no matter how attractive that option was. There were, I thought reluctantly, things I needed to say to him as well.
"All right," he said. "All right, Mercy. I'll see you in the morning."
He had turned around and was already walking away when I opened the door.
"Come in," I said and shivered when the wind blew through my shirt. "But you'd better hurry. It's colder than a witch's britches out there."
He came back and stomped his feet hard on the mat, leaving behind clumps of snow before stepping inside my room. He took off his coat and set it on the table near the door, and I saw he'd found a shirt somewhere. They kept stashes of clothes around town, in case someone needed to dress quickly; unisex things mostly, like jeans, T-shirts, and sweats. The T-shirt he wore was a little small and clung to him like a second skin. If he'd had an extra ounce of fat or a little less muscle, it would have looked stupid, but he was built like a Chippendales' dancer.
His body was lovely, but I don't know if anyone else would have called him handsome. He certainly didn't have Adam's strikingly beautiful features. Sam's eyes were deeply set, his nose was too long, his mouth too wide. His coloring in human form was much less striking than his wolf: light blue-gray eyes and brown hair, streaked just a bit from the sun.
Looking at his face, I wasn't objective enough to decide how attractive he was: he was just Sam who had been my friend, my defender, and my sweetheart.
I glanced away from his face, dropping my own so that he couldn't read my anger-and whatever other emotion was hammering at me-until I'd gotten it under control. If he read the wrong thing into it, that wasn't my fault. I hadn't let him in to argue with him.
"I didn't think you were going to talk to me," he said, with a shadow of his usual warm smile in his voice.
"Me either," I agreed grimly to my shoes-I wasn't going to get through this if I had to look at him. "But I owe you an apology, too."
"No." His tone was wary. Apparently he was too smart to believe my submissive gaze. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I shouldn't have snapped your nose off earlier."
"It's all right," I told him. "You were probably right. I found Mac dead and Adam almost in the same shape-and I panicked." I walked to the bed and sat on it, because it was as far away from him as I could get in the motel room. Only then did I dare to look at him again. " My apology is years overdue. I should have talked to you before I left. I should have told you I'd decided to go to Portland." But I was afraid I might do something stupid like shoot you or, worse, cry - but he didn't need to know that part.
The humor that usually touched his face leaked away, leaving behind neutral wariness, as if he were watching for a trap. "My father told me he'd spoken to you and persuaded you to go to your mother's house instead of running off with me," he said.
"How long did you wait for me?" After Bran had caught us necking in the woods and told me he was sending me to Portland, Samuel had decided that he'd take me away with him instead. I was supposed to sneak out and meet him in the woods a mile or so from my house. But the Marrok knew, he was like that. He told me why Samuel wanted to take me as his mate-and it hadn't been for any reason I could accept.
So while Samuel waited for me, Charles was driving me down to Libby to catch the train to Portland that morning instead.
Samuel looked away from me without answering.
In his own way, Samuel was the most honorable person I'd ever known-something that made his betrayal hurt worse because I knew that he'd never meant me to believe he loved me. He'd told me he would wait for me, and I knew he'd waited long after he'd realized I wasn't going to come.
"That's what I thought," I said in a small voice. Damn it, he shouldn't still affect me this way. I found that I was taking deeper breaths than I normally did, just to breathe in his scent.
"I should have told you I'd changed my mind," I told him, clinging by my fingernails to the threads of what I needed to tell him. "I'm sorry for abandoning you without a word. It was neither right nor kind."
"Father told you to go without talking to me again," Samuel said. He sounded detached, but he'd turned his back on me and was staring at a damp spot on the rug near his boots.