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If he vented to his dad, he would see Lucia differently, and the protective part of him didn’t want anyone to think negatively about her.
People here already talked about her enough. They talked about how her animal had disappeared when she’d gained the sight, but they didn’t know. They didn’t really know. She’d suffered a loss and her bear had retreated because that’s what her instincts had told her to do.
He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t vent about her. He couldn’t get anyone talking about her.
His phone vibrated with a text, and his dumb, hopeful heart hoped it was from Lucia. He hoped it was an apology.
It wasn’t. It was his dad texting. I hear your truck. You coming up?
Landon read it and let the disappointment cloak him like a blanket. He rocked his head back onto the headrest and let the phone rest on his thigh. He gripped the steering wheel and considered it.
He could just go talk to his parents and leave out the last part that had happened. He could park his truck where he always did when he stayed at their trailer park and fall asleep under the stars—the same stars Lucia had let him touch her under.
He squeezed his eyes closed at the pain in his middle. Dad would sense his anger and his hurt and ask all the questions Landon wouldn’t want to answer.
He picked up the phone and typed out, I’m pretty tired. Gonna head home. Send.
You good?
Landon shook his head slowly. No, nothing was okay. He could lie in a text though. Everything is great. I’ll tell you all about it later.
And then he backed down the road and pulled back onto the main before his father could show up in the woods asking his questions.
Even the thought of sharing Lucia’s depth had his protective instincts up too high. Just the thought of exposing the real about her made him want to start fights.
He rolled down his window and settled his arm outside of it to touch the wind and shed off this overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia.
Maybe he should drive straight to Montana, just like he’d always planned to do.
Chapter Ten
There were no half-eaten breakfast sandwiches on the porch of her trailer this morning.
Lucia hadn’t slept a wink last night, and now she was here on a mission.
She opened the door of her trailer and saw the mice having a party in the middle of the kitchen. How had Landon found the tamest mice in the world?
With a sigh of determination, she set the humane mousetrap inside the door and emptied the small bag of seeds on the sticky-bait portion of it. The trap was a bucket with a ramp, and had bait stuck to the portion of the lid that flipped upside down under a rodent’s weight. She scanned the house, but she didn’t really have much here worth saving. Not like the others.
Lucia picked up the second bucket and turned to head down her stairs, but Lucas, Alpha of the Warlanders, was standing there with his eyes narrowed on her. “You smell like fur.”
“Good observation, Sherlock. Move.”
He backed up and allowed her to pass. She strode right for his trailer and pushed open the door, then made her way into the dimly-lit kitchen, where she set up the bucket trap near the trash can.
“What are you doing?” Lucas asked from the open doorway.
“Trapping Norman Nutsack.”
“Why?”
Lucia busied herself with pressing the seeds onto the sticky part and then stood, crumpling up the seed package. “Do Cadence and Kru have a mouse yet?”
“Not that I know of.” Lucas crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You have your bear back.”
“Yep, lucky me, I’m normal again,” she said, her tone dripping in sarcasm.
