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Hale sighed and ran his hand through his hair. It was still damp from the rain. He leaned back in his seat and sighed again. “I don’t know what to do about this. I’m so damn angry with him, and it doesn’t help that he’s actively trying to avoid me. We slept in the same bed last night and I couldn’t get him to talk about this at all.”
“I can’t read Harrison, so I’m no help here.” Grey slowed down and leaned forward to look up at the sky. “Damn, it’s really railing us.” He straightened. “I’d say give him time, but that’s not something we have a lot of right now.”
“Tell me about it,” Hale muttered.
Baer turned toward him in his seat. “Maybe you just gotta take the bull by the horns, so to speak. Tonight, when we’re at a new hotel, tell him exactly how you feel. Tell him you don’t care about the soul mate, though I have to say it’s still possible you’ll meet someone. Doubt you’ll even be open to something, though, not with the way you’re feeling about Harrison.”
Hale sighed softly. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “I just want him.”
“Why? He seems like a bit of a fuddy-duddy.” Baer grinned. “All buttoned up and proper and all. Your usual type?”
“No, not really. I’ve never had a true type. I’ve always just got together with people I clicked with. I had a serious boyfriend in high school, but that fizzled out. Sort of got serious with a woman once, but I was too restless to settle down and she didn’t want to wait for me. Harrison is just…Harrison, you know?”
Baer’s grin was big, wide, and so very welcoming. “I don’t. Explain it to me.”
Hale thought for a moment as he tried to put into words how he felt. “He’s spent his whole life preparing for this one thing, and I can’t imagine what that was like. He trained for nothing else. He’s dedicated. He’s also warm and he can be funny with his need for everything to be in its place. I find him sexy as hell.” Hale shrugged. “He even listened to me go on and on about the stars without making fun. He’s a good guy.”
“How will that even work if he’s straight?”
Hale gave Baer a sly grin. “Oh, it works. Trust me.”
The Animal Weaver laughed, and it was echoed by the two in the front seat.
Cort turned toward him again, his expression tight. “I can understand where Harrison is coming from. You spent half this trip asking about soul mates, so he wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. He seems like the cautious sort, so maybe he’s trying to protect his heart.”
“Yeah, I do get that. But I’ve told him how I feel now, and I stopped looking. I’m just going to have to be even more direct, I guess. Like Baer said.”
Cort cleared his throat. “He could also be focusing on his job as the Keeper. You say he trained his whole life for this—maybe that has his attention.”
Baer chuckled. “Not with the way he yanked Hale away from that ranger. Also, he wasn’t too happy when you were flirting with those women yesterday. Was ready to pop.”
Grey threw him a glance over his shoulder. “That’s a lot of mixed signals. No wonder you’re so upset. Your thoughts are blaring. They’re giving me a headache.”
“Sorry,” Hale mumbled. “I’ll try to tone back the anger.” He meant it, too. Staying mad did little good. All he was doing was making his carmates uncomfortable.
Well, Baer seemed fine, more amused than anything else. Hale found nothing amusing about his situation. There was just frustration and burning anger, which was not his norm. He’d always been pretty easygoing, taking life as it came. That was how he knew what he felt for Harrison was damn strong.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself, but his emotions were tangled in so many knots, he couldn’t unravel them. He thought of lying in that bed the night before, next to Harrison, who refused to talk to him, and a spark of fresh anger spiked through him. It was followed by a rumble of thunder so loud, Grey swerved the car.
“Sorry about that,” Grey muttered. “This is ridiculous. At this rate, we’re not going to make our next destination. It’s just too bad out.”
Hale looked through the windshield and wondered how Grey was able to see at all. But the man was right. They couldn’t keep going if it was going to thunderstorm this hard all day. Maybe they could stop for some coffee and see if it would let up. Wait it out a bit. He knew that would be a hard no from the others, though. They were all anxious to reach Sedona and the quicker the better.
