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“I can understand that. Come on in. We’ll eat and talk. Are you better now? I don’t know you well enough yet to understand if you’re still dealing with the addiction or not.” She turned to look at him. “Good Christ, you’re beautiful.”
Her face went bright red, and he got out of the truck. It was that, or he was going to—Lance stopped moving to open her door when something else about the beautiful woman hit him. Smiling, he thought for the first time in a while as he opened the door for her and helped her out of the truck. George stared up at him as he waited for her to move out of the opening.
“Something has happened.” It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. “Are you going to tell me, or do I need to wait until you get around to wanting to share? I’m trying to be in a great mood here, it’s been a long time since I’ve had Chinese food, so I don’t want to piss you off and demand you tell me something that is going to make me want you to take me home.”
“How about we wait until later, then?” She stared up at him when he smiled. “It’s not that bad. Not for me. You might not—” She told him to just tell her. “How much do you know about shifters? How they find their other half? And things like that. I know that Sammie is a bear, and I’m assuming that you knew that as well.”
“Yes, I knew that. Sammie, as I said, has been a good friend for a while now.” He asked her if he had a mate. “He does. Tiny little thing that runs their household with an iron fist and a tapping toe. Why?”
“You found me.” She cocked her head sideways at him and looked confused. “I belong to you, Georgie. I’m your mate. And I couldn’t be happier.”
She moved away from him and to the front of the house. He’d left the door open again and had forgotten about it. As he opened the screen door, something that he’d had to order to have on his house, he waited while she passed him in the great hall before he went in after her.
“Are you for sure about this?” He told her that he was as sure about him being her mate as he was with the love of his grandparents. “No parents. I remember Ivy telling me about them. What kind of soup are we sharing? I’m partial to hot and sour, but I love dumpling soup, too.”
He finished taking things out of the bags with her help. Nothing more was said about being mates, but they did a lot of skirting around the subject. As he was getting them silverware, having gotten out the plates, she put her hand over his before speaking again.
“I’m not a prize that you’ve won. You might think just the opposite if you want the truth about it. I’ve had a difficult life, and it’s made me bitter and old before my time. Also, due to an accident that happened when I was a kid, I can’t have children. I had some serious damage done to my womb as well as other parts of my body. My naked body isn’t anything nice to look at and not be ill.” He asked her if anything had been removed, like her womb. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. No one ever asked me that before.”
“If nothing was removed that would prevent you from having a child, then you should be able to have as many children as you wish with me.” She sat down as he was pouring her a glass of water from the fridge. “I used to think this was the greatest thing in the world, to be able to get a glass of fresh water from the fridge. Now I don’t think I could go a single day without making me a glass with this thing. That’s all I drink is water. What else can I get you if not that?”
“Water is great.” They both filled their plates up with food that pretty much took care of his leftover lunch idea for tomorrow. Picking up his cell phone, he gave her the last egg roll while he finished off the soup. He called in another order, just like the one he picked up to be delivered. Christ, she had an appetite like he did. She told him to order more soup, and she’d take what was left over home. Yep, he thought, this was going to be a great romance.
“Whose number would I have been given if not yours?” He had to think for a minute before he got what she was asking him. He told her that it could have been any one of his brothers. “No, it should have been someone that I could depend on to talk to. I really didn’t want to have a drink. I don’t anymore. But there are times when I just need someone to vent to. I think Ivy messed up the numbers.”
“Or perhaps not. She’s been sneaking around with setting up her brothers, who aren’t married yet, with single women so we can all feel the bliss that she has. I usually can ignore her attempts, but this time, you were at the other end.” She asked him what he’d done had it been someone he didn’t want to talk to. “I’d already made plans to talk to you, remember? Or to listen to you, I guess.”
~~~
When the delivery kid showed up with the food, George noticed that Lance tipped them very well. The two of them emptied the bags right on top of the other empties and ate some of what they were pulling out. Lance had ordered a gallon, a flipping gallon of hot sour soup, and she poured herself some into her bowl to have some more of it. It was better than any she’d ever had since moving here. For the next hour, all they did was polish off the other bags of food.
Putting things away, she noticed that he didn’t toss out the white rice that had come with some of the dishes. She asked him about that, hearing how white rice that sat around for a while went bad quickly and could make a person sick. After staring at her for several seconds, he took it out of the fridge and put it on the counter to toss out later.
“My brother, he loves to garden, and before moving here, it sustained us a great deal. But he takes leftovers and puts them into a compost area. All it is, is this big fifty-gallon drum that he had put on a roller to keep the stuff mixed up. We had the richest soil when we lived back home. I’m thinking in a few months, it’ll be the same here. Would you like a glass of wine or—Sorry.” She said that she could drink wine because she hated the taste, but she’d rather have some water.
After pouring her a tall glass of the clear liquid, the two of them made their way outdoors to sit on the deck. Just like the other homes she’d been told, he had a wonderful view of the ocean. They sat in silence for a little while, enjoying the evening quiet.
“When I was about ten, it was really right before my birthday, I was—I used to tell people that I was playing in the back yard when actually I was scavenging for something to eat.” She stretched out and closed her eyes to the sunlight. “Food was tough to come by. Even living in Texas, however, where it’s warm year round, I was able to get a few things from people’s leftover gardens. Mostly tomatoes, which I no longer eat. But as I said, I could get some food daily even though it wasn’t always the best.” She didn’t look at Lance as she thought of the day she’d been nearly killed.
“It was next to Ivy’s parents’ home. Not their yard but the one next to it. The elderly man, he was very particular about his yard, and when I decided that his pretty little flowers might be nice to have in my hair while I looked for food—I remember thinking that if someone thought that I was cute, they’d feed me. Or something along those lines. He came up behind me and hit me with an axe.”
“Christ.” She lay there, feeling her body shaking from the memories of that afternoon. “I have you.”
Lance had gotten up at some point and picked her up off the lounger. Holding her in his arms, he laid out, much like she had, and held her in his arms. After encouraging her to go on with her story, she held tightly to his shirt front while the rest of the summer unfolded for him.
“I think that he was aiming for my head. I remember hearing his screams of get away or something like that. I never, not in all my dreams, expected him to cut me open down my back. He didn’t hit my spine, but he managed to break all my ribs down the right side of my body. He’d been so angry. After flipping me over, I don’t know how much time passed, but he flipped me to my back with a rake. Bits and pieces of him trying to get me out of his yard and into the street will come to me at times. Then there was Ivy.” Lance kissed the top of her head and told her that Ivy was a hellion. “She was that day for sure. I was broken on my right side. I don’t know if I actually remember it or just imagined seeing my intestine spreading out beneath the half of my body that he cut away. Nothing worked either. Not my fingers, arm. I couldn’t get my mouth to work either. But I could see Ivy standing over me with a gun pointed at the man. It was bigger than her entire head, but she held it steady while screaming at him to back the fuck up.”
Lance laughed a little. Just a small burst of laughter at first. Then, as he held her, he laughed harder, holding her tightly to him as he did so. When he looked at her, his face contorting into bouts of laughter and seriousness, she asked him what was so funny.
“It’s not. Not at all. But I keep seeing our little Ivy, all prim and proper, standing over you—thank god you lived, but I can see her telling that man to get the fuck back.” He kissed her on the lips this time. “Go on. Tell me the rest. I’m really thankful that she was there. He might well of…you know, I don’t want to think about what could have been. Tell me what happened.”
“Her sister came running from somewhere. I don’t know where, with about fifty feet of phone attached to her head. Remember, there weren’t any cells back then. She was screaming that she didn’t have anymore—I have no idea what she was talking about, but Sarah told me it was phone cord. That’s as far as she could go while she called the police.” Lying her head on Lance’s chest after he moved around to a more comfortable position, she thought of what happened after that. “They thought that I was dead. I think that I should have been. They had ended up killing the old man because he wasn’t dropping his weapon. I don’t remember that, but I remember it being said in court. Then I woke up in the hospital—only for a few minutes at a time and saw Ivy there every time. She saved my life. There were days when I wished that she hadn’t. The pain was that bad.”
“There must have been a lot of surgeries after that. I mean, I don’t see you using your right side any differently than the other.” She told him that the man who had cut her hadn’t cut all the way through the muscles but at her shoulder. The rest of it was cosmetic. “I still think you were extremely lucky to have had Ivy there for you. I loved her before this, but I will simply worship her from now on. I bet she’s never told my brothers about what she did. The ones that are doctors would love to hear the story.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to make him feel bad because he wanted her to show off to his family. But after a few minutes, no more than ten, he shook his head.
“That was incredibly incentive of me. I made it sound like you should drop your clothing and show them how you’d beat the odds. I’m so very sorry.” She said it was all right, but he lifted her chin up and had to see her tears. “I’m sorry, honey. I truly am. I’m positive that they’d support you, but until you’re ready to bring it up, there will be nothing more said about it. You’re here with me, and I couldn’t be happier than I am right now.”
