Chapter 4
Alyssa kept her breathing calm. She inhaled and released in slow control and then realized that she wasn’t fooling anyone. Her hands gripped the steering wheel like it was her lifeline on theTitanic. And though her breath was steady, her pace on the accelerator was anything but. She’d already roared past three trucks only to slow down to grandma speed a moment later. She was losing it and all because of the crazy man sitting much too close in her suddenly tiny car.
She stole a glance to the right. He was watching her with the unceasing stare of a predatory cat. She knew he was a bear, but damn it, he was a predator and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to pounce. Or break. Or do something just plain scary while she was driving them to Detroit. But first she had to feed him.
She’d gotten the directions off the flyer and now turned into the large parking lot of a small pizzeria. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw they had a drive-through and immediately headed for that. A moment later, a stunning redheaded woman with large white teeth grinned at her through the window. The name on the apron read Amanda and she winked at Simon. “You up to talking yet?” she asked.
Simon stared hard at her and said one word, “No.”
The woman chuckled and smiled at Alyssa. “He’s all grumbly for a few days, but then it’ll get better.” Then she disappeared.
A moment later, she passed over two thick cheeseburgers and a large pizza loaded down with a half inch of meat. This was Simon’s usual order? He ought to weigh five thousand pounds. Though how would she know how many calories it took to shift into a grizzly? Maybe all shifters ate like bears before hibernation.
Alyssa was about to pull away when Amanda held out her hand. “Hold on, sweetie. Let me bring out the case.”
Sweetie? Case?There was too much in that sentence to unpack, so she threw the car into park and waited. A moment later, Amanda came out with a case of high-end water bottles. She didn’t even know that water could come in glass bottles that looked more like wine than water, but she didn’t stop to ask. Just pointed to her backseat.
“Thanks,” she said when the water was settled and the car door shut.
“I’ll just put it on the tab,” Amanda said. Then after another lascivious wink, she waved them on. “Have fun!”
Not likely. Not since she was kidnapping a crazy grizzly man. But what other choice did she have? Vic said he was the only one who could help. But even knowing that, she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“So are you and…um…the redhead dating?”
Simon shook his head. He took his time answering, forming the words slowly as if he had to dredge them up from deep in his memory.
“We dated. Twice. I have gone on two dates with most of the women up here.” He looked at her and lifted a shoulder. “We did not suit.”
He sounded like he was reading the words—badly—off a cue card. And then she understood.
“It’s another system, right? A dating protocol. Two evenings with a woman makes her think you gave her a chance. If you treat her nicely and talk awkwardly, then she doesn’t push it when you say you two don’t suit. End of story and they stop bothering you.” She snorted. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.” Then she tilted her head. “You could just tell them you’re gay?” She lifted her voice at the end hoping he would answer the implied question.
It worked—sort of. “Lying is too complicated. I don’t do it.”
Well, that answered that. The man didn’t lie. Big point in his favor.
Meanwhile, Simon continued to sit staring at her though the food lay on his lap in neat cardboard boxes. The smell must be driving him crazy. She could hear his stomach rumbling over the road noise. But he just sat there staring at her.
“What?” she finally asked.
“I cannot help Vic. I can barely help myself.”
She looked at him. Not just the hard cut to his jaw or the muscles that wrapped his frame. He was a powerful man to be sure, but it was the darkness in his eyes that cut her now. Blue like deep water but shadowed even though he sat in the full sunshine.
Wait.Hadn’t his eyes been green? She shoved that thought aside and focused on getting him on board with Vic’s plan.
“Vic says you can help him.”
“Vic is full of shit.”
Often. But she couldn’t admit that. If she did, then that meant there was no hope for her only brother. “He was right about you turning into a bear.”
Simon’s expression didn’t change. It was flat. It was emotionless. And it still held shadows of what? Grief? Fear? She didn’t know. And worse, she couldn’t afford to find out. She only had emotional space in her heart for Vic.
“It’s the only Hail Mary pass I’ve got,” she confessed.
His silence told her clearer than anything else that her brother was doomed. She didn’t care. She’d been trying for hours to get a hold of Vic and he hadn’t answered. Which meant it might already be too late. But she was going to do what she promised. She was going to bring Simon to Detroit. If he couldn’t help, if they arrived too late, if any of a thousand terrible things happened, it wasn’t her fault. She was doing her part now.
