| |
ELIZABETH
––––––––
I DIDN’T LET ENNIS spoil my precious time with Brian.
Not that she didn’t try.
The first morning she’d showed up on the edge of the forest, in her wolf form, and tagged along with Brian and me.
Besides Brian, she was the only werewolf I’d seen shifted so far. I couldn’t help but notice her beauty: her shiny russet-colored fur, brownish-green eyes with ridiculously long and lovely lashes, a fluffy tail. She was much smaller than Brian but very graceful and feminine, darn her. I was at a verbal disadvantage since the two of them could communicate in a direct manner and I couldn’t.
Later she apologized for joining us uninvited. She sometimes joined Brian during his wolf-hours, she said, and she didn’t know I would be with him. Nothing to apologize for, Brian said gallantly. She took his words at face value and accompanied us every morning during my stay.
Our third wheel notwithstanding, the morning strolls through the woods had become a cheery and noisy routine. I would take Luna with us and ride one of Brian’s new Arabians to teach them to get used to Brian’s blaidd. Like Breeze and Blizzard, Shamal and Khamsin (named after the winds that blow over their ancestral homeland), were magnificent creatures, good tempered, strong and fast.
One afternoon Ennis and I went through her files on the tinselhouse renovation. She was talented and passionate about her job; I’d give her that. Reluctantly, I had to admit that I liked her approach, particularly her bold and creative ideas of combining antique and modern furniture.
Color schemes had turned out to be the biggest problem. She preferred neutral colors, I liked those that evoked warmth and coziness.
We found a compromise in a combination of warm, spicy colors and more sedate earthy shades.
––––––––
“I’M GLAD YOU CAME,” Harriet said one morning as we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee.
I looked at her over the rim of my cup. “Because of Ennis? She’s in love with Brian, I know,” I said.
“She thinks she is in love. It’s her way to distract herself. She’s been through a lot lately. Loss of a job, a bad breakup, moving here.”
As much as I sympathized with her, I wished she had found another way to distract herself. “I’m not concerned about my relationship with Brian, Harriet. But she may get hurt even more.”
“Take her with you, then. I bet you’ll need an interior designer sooner or later. Ennis is good at her job.”
I liked the idea. “I know she’s good. I’ll talk to her.”
The “keep your friends close but your enemies even closer” tactic didn’t work, however. Ennis turned down my offer. All she wanted was to see me return to Rosenthal.
Yet she wasn’t my biggest headache. Eve Mohegan was still refusing to give Brian a divorce, insisting her current marriage was valid.
––––––––
LANI BLACKWELL WAS the only person I could talk to about Eve and my frustration with her stubbornness.
“Poor James,” Lani said as we sat in her small but tasteful living room. “He’s losing patience. He’s convinced Eve isn’t doing it out of principle but rather because she still has feelings for Brian. To make it worse, she doesn’t deny it.”
“I don’t understand. She’s James’s bond mate, but she still doesn’t want to see Brian with anyone else.”
“Werewolves can be funny with their over-possessiveness. Don’t worry; everything will eventually fall into its place.”
“To be honest, I think it suits Brian as well. He’s not ready to marry again.”
Lani disagreed. “His wolf is still running the show. Brian wants to have him under control before he makes any big decision.”
“But I don’t mind. His transformations are not a threat to our relationship.”
“I’ve just told you werewolves are a bit odd. Brian may think he wouldn’t be able to give you his complete self.”
“He is complete to me. I accepted him for what he is.”
“Put yourself into his shoes,” Lani said. “You come and go. He can’t leave Copper Ridge. He still can’t control his transformations. Give him some time.”
I sighed. Time. My time and their time were different. As well as our biological clocks.
That same afternoon Lani and I had found the explanation for the strange closeness between us: Dennis Simmons, the man who had beaten me and now was serving a six-year sentence in a Canadian jail, was Derick Segal, the man to whom she had been married and who had beaten her a hair’s breadth from death.
For the longest moment, neither of us had been able to say a word. Once recovered from the shock, Lani told me the full story of her marriage: several years of the worst emotional, mental and physical abuse, the fear she’d lived in, blackmailing, threatening and the absolute control her husband had had over her. She’d managed to run away, and for a while, it seemed she’d escaped, only to almost die when he’d found her and took his revenge.
“That’s why Liv turned me. To save my life,” she said, her voice shaky. “Even Ingmar Mortensen, a great wizard-doctor, couldn’t do much. Jack himself thought it was too late to heal me with his blood. Anyway, Liv and Ingmar stayed with me while Jack went after Derick. Unfortunately, he lost Derick at the Canadian border. Since then, I’ve been checking every major newspaper, including Canadian, for articles on beaten women, trying to locate the bastard. I apparently missed the one about you.”
“You didn’t. It never made it to the newspapers,” I said. “I wanted to avoid publicity by any cost. Rick and Alain pulled quite a few of their connections to keep it from the media.”
“Six years, you said. This is bullshit. He’s a psychopath. He should be locked up for the rest of his miserable life.”
“He can be out next year if he gets paroled.”
Lani laughed, with a deep, satisfied laugh. Dark and dangerous. “God, this is going to be one of the happiest days of my life. I’ve been dreaming about that moment. Oh, how I long to see him again, you can’t imagine. The day he’s out, I’m going to stop by to say hello.”
“Brian keeps tabs on him. He also plans to pay him a visit. And my partners have something to tell him.”
She smiled. “Well, let’s see who’s gonna get him first.”
“What are you going to do to him?” I asked. Regardless of my personal experience, I didn’t believe in taking justice into one’s own hands.
“Oh, I’m not going to kill him, don’t worry. He is not worth it. But you know he’s going to beat someone else if he gets a chance, don’t you?”
“I do. It’s in him. He’s incapable of empathy and has little control over his behavior.”
“Well, I’ll see he doesn’t get an opportunity. His next victim might not be as lucky as you and me.”
Lani and I agreed to keep our grim discovery between us. I felt I could finally relax knowing that either Brian or Lani would make sure he didn’t touch me again. And honestly, I didn’t care if they were going to cut off his arms or mess with his mind or send him into orbit as long as no other woman suffered from his fists.