“Good morning, Naomi.” Angus stood behind the front desk, breaking off his conversation with an elderly lady who stood at the counter. His dark eyes scanned her, assessing. A smile touched his lips. “You look much better today.”
“I feel much better,” she assured him.
He gestured to the lady before him. “Flora, this is our newest resident, Naomi. Naomi, Flora is staying with us as well.”
Naomi judged Flora to be perhaps in her seventies, maybe older. She would probably be Naomi’s height if she stood straight, but her shoulders were hunched, knobby fingers grasping the handle of a cane. Long silvery hair flowed down her back. Flora held out her free hand to Naomi, peering at her with gentle, faded blue eyes.
Naomi took the hand with care, an odd warmth infusing her chest as they shook hands. “I’m happy to meet you, Miss Flora.” Somehow, it seemed disrespectful to address her by her given name alone.
“Thank you, child.” Flora’s voice was light, and Naomi had the sudden fancy that it was chiming, with bells as silvery as her hair. She was captured by that kind blue gaze, falling forward, into a sea of stars that spun about her, welcoming her.
“You’re hungry, I’ll be bound.” Angus said, breaking the spell as he waved her toward the doorway to the lounge and the dining room beyond. “Go on in, get yourself a good breakfast to start your day.”
With a start, Naomi came back to herself. That was super weird. She must really need food, to be suddenly hallucinating like that. Or maybe she’d somehow nodded off to sleep for a moment.
“Yes, I will. Have a good day, Angus, Miss Flora.”
Shaking off the strange dream-like wisps that lingered, Naomi hurried through the wide open doorway from the lobby into the lounge. She’d sat there last night, talking with Liam, but she’d been too tired, too overwhelmed, to really look around. She found herself now in a long room stretching from the front of the inn toward the back. Just inside the door, a cluster of sofas, loveseats, and comfortable armchairs were set about beside windows overlooking the porch, while a fire blazed cheerfully opposite the doorway. The dining room stretched to the left, with white-clothed tables and wooden chairs placed about. A long buffet table was against the nearest wall, and opposite that a table with carafes and pitchers of drinks, and glass-covered trays of baked goods.
“Wow!” She blinked at the display. There was no one in the room, so she must have missed the breakfast rush. As she approached the loaded buffet tables along the back wall, a solid-looking black woman, her hair slightly graying at the temples, emerged from a doorway into what must be the kitchen.
“You must be Naomi,” the woman came forward, smiling as she laid aside a pair of oven mitts. “I’m Renee, Angus’s wife. Welcome to our bed and breakfast.” Her dark brown eyes scanned Naomi assessingly. “Girl, you look like you’ve come out of a refugee camp in a war zone.”
Naomi bit her lip, feeling guilty. “I’ve been, ummm.” Oh, gosh. How to explain to humans!
Renee laughed, and patted her hand. “Not to worry, child. We know about shifters, and Maroulla told us a little about you. You won’t go hungry here, that’s for sure.”
Scanning the steaming warmers lined up on the tables, Naomi nodded. “I can see that.”
“Go ahead,” Renee waved her towards the food with a smile. “Bon apetit.”
Taking a plate from the stack, Renee opened the lid on the first pan, and the wonderful aroma of bacon wafted out. Her tummy growled again, and she was suddenly ravenously hungry. She took several strips and, replacing the lid, moved onto the next, which held sausage. By the time she made it to her table, her plate was piled high with light, fluffy scrambled eggs with diced ham and cheese in them, bacon, sausage, a blueberry muffin, and a few ripe strawberries. Where they managed to find strawberries in mid November she had no idea, but also, she was not complaining.
She made a good meal… her first real meal in almost a year, if you didn’t count the soup and bread last night. She polished off every bite, and if Renee hadn’t been in the room, she might have licked the plate, too. Because… well… bacon! She considered getting more, but it wasn’t so much that she was still hungry, in fact, she was pretty comfortably full, but it was the tastes that lingered in her mouth and tempted her to return to the buffet. After a steady diet of raw meat, which she didn’t mind at all in her cat form, but still, for months and months, it was wonderful to have people food again.
“That was delicious,” she told Renee with appreciation. “Thank you so much. I am absolutely stuffed!”
Renee smiled widely. “Well, now, that’s what I like to hear.”
Rising from her chair, Naomi cleared her table, taking the plate and silverware to the cart for dirty dishes. She got a tall glass and filled it with lemonade from the pitcher. Renee gestured to the platter of muffins still on the buffet.
“Feel free to take a couple of those up to your room with you. I made plenty to spare.”
“Oh, great! Thank you!” She hurried to wrap up two muffins in a napkin, and added a couple of the foil-wrapped pats of butter.
“Do you have plans for this morning?” Renee asked as she prepared to wheel the cart into the kitchen.
Naomi grimaced. “Um. Maroulla got me an iPhone, so I thought I’d better spend my morning figuring out how to use it.”
Renee laughed, a cheerful, ringing sound. “Better you than me, girl. I’m low-tech all the way. Calls and texts are enough for me.”
“Just a basic phone is all I’ve ever had,” Naomi admitted. “I won’t know half of what to do with this one.”
“Oh, you’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.” Renee gave her a broad wink, and disappeared into the kitchen, and Naomi made her way back upstairs to her room.
For a brief minute, she entertained the notion of sitting out on her balcony to enjoy the morning. The blast of chilly air on her face when she opened the door was enough to disabuse her of that notion, however, and she retreated to the nice, comfy armchair by the fireplace instead. Swiping open her phone, she sighed, looking at her contacts list. She had no one of her own to add to the list… No one. And every contact listed was a stranger to her, or mostly so. Strangers who, although they had every reason to turn away from her and regard her with suspicion, if not outright hatred, instead, welcomed her, and gathered her into their community. Conflicting emotions tore at her, and her eyes filled with tears. A familiar sense of loneliness tore at her and yet… and yet, there was Liam, and Katerina and Troy, and Jacinth, and even Angus and Renee. All of them so sure, so confident, that she would never turn Rogue, never harm them.
Naomi drew a deep breath. Okay, then. She could do this. If these almost-strangers had such faith in her, she was going to take the high road and have faith in herself, as well.
