Shit.What did a male catgivea female cat when trying to make up?Macy’s mind blanked.“A… uh…”
“I could give her a mouse,” Bruce said thoughtfully, then shook his head.“No.That won’t work.Last time I tried that, she just bit its head off and spat it at me.”
Macy grimaced, swallowing hard at the mental image.“Uh, okay....gross.”
Bruce leaned back, whiskers twitching like it had been the most reasonable explanation in the world.“Hey.It was a thoughtful gesture.”
Leaving that go, she snapped her fingers.“How about flowers?All women love flowers.”
“Tried that one too,” Bruce grumbled.“She chased me with them, screaming she was going to shove them up my ass.I spent my poker winnings on those damn roses.”
“How many times have you been in trouble with your woman, Bruce?”Macy frowned as she glanced around to make sure no cars were heading toward them.
“Listen, I’m not made to be a one-woman cat, okay.”Bruce tossed one paw in the air.“I have a wandering eye.”
“Then maybe...just maybe you shouldn’t have gotten her pregnant,” Macy glared at him with a hiss.“Did you ever think of that?”
“Hey, can I help it that women throw themselves at me.I mean, look at the goods,” Bruce puffed his furry chest out.
Macy groaned, rubbing her face.“You’re impossible.”
“So, I’ve been told,” Bruce replied, still looking like an arrogant ass.
“Do you love her?”Macy asked as she sat up straighter, ready to get home and be done with this ridiculous conversation.
“She’s the mother to my rugrats,” Bruce said with a shrug.
“Um, I’ll take that as a yes, I think.”Macy put the car in drive, but glanced at Bruce before taking off.“Make it right, Bruce.Or at least try.”
The short ride to her cabin was silent.One thing she could say was that this very odd and slightly disturbing conversation with Bruce had taken her own mind off the shitshow that was her life.Pulling next to her cabin, she shut off the car, her eyes falling on the unchopped firewood.With a sigh, she grabbed her keys and got out of the vehicle.Bruce followed her up the steps as she opened the door to the cabin.
“Go on in and make yourself at home, except in my bed.”She warned him.“I’ve got some things to do out here.”
She waited for Bruce to pass her before closing the door, but he stopped, looking up at her.“Thanks for the talk, Macy.”
“Anytime, Bruce.”She said, hoping there wouldn’t be many more like the one they had just experienced in the future.
“He likes you, ya know.”Bruce’s gaze stayed fixed on her, piercing and unnervingly serious.
“Huh?”Macy frowned, confusion and suspicion mixing in her chest.
“I saw how hurt you were when Zelda told you to leave, and he didn’t speak up,” Bruce continued, voice calm but sharp.“The Wolfman… he likes you.And he’s protecting you.Just like you protected him.”
Before she could tell him he was full of crap, Bruce disappeared into the house.Macy stood on the porch a second, stubbornly refusing to believe him, then shut the door and went straight for the woodpile.Work was better than thinking, and she didn’t want to think about the handsome stranger who made her feel things she had never felt before.
She shrugged off her jacket, hefted the ax, set a log on the block, and swung.The log split with one clean crack.A Crow’s strength wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t useless either.She grabbed another piece and kept the rhythm—lift, swing, split—while Bruce’s words rattled in her skull.
Her mind still raced with Bruce’s words about how Kaelen liked her.She’d risked everything for him, only to be shown the door when Zelda walked in.What had she done wrong?Macy snorted at herself.What had she expected the man to do?Kneel before her and declare his undying love?Fat chance.
“Kaelen,” she said his name out loud.It rolled easily from her lips.It was an unusual name, a manly name, and it fit him.
Macy rolled her eyes at her stupidity of muttering the man’s name to see how it sounded from her own lips.What was she, twelve?Plus, there was no way a man like him would ever tie himself with someone like her.Her romantic track record was a disaster, and the last man she’d cared about, not in a romantic way, had been a murderer.Perhaps the Wolfman was bad news in disguise.Perhaps it was for the best that he spoke to Zelda and went his way.
That thought made her chest tighten and her stomach churn with a dread she didn’t want to name.
Her hands burned; she dropped the ax and frowned at the small red blisters forming along her palms.She sat on the log she used as a chopping block and stared up through the bare branches.Since Davey died, she’d been lonely.He’d been the one person she could talk to, and now she felt as if she had no one.
She let out a breath that was part laugh, part sob, and for once stopped fighting the urge to vanish.She thought of the shape under her skin, of wind and open sky—and with a single, quiet thought, she shifted and slipped into the clouds.
