Instead, he said, “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
But he wasn’t wrong. He was perfect. I must have been the one who messed up.
After all, I was the one who ruined everything I touched.
Feeling numb, I ate the yogurt and some of the fruit. I paused by Molly’s door on the way to my room, but I was so shattered I couldn’t make myself knock.
Grimly, painfully, I positioned myself as best I could on the bed and waited for the pain pill to take effect. Sleep closed in on me while I was still grieving over my conversation with Stone.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Molly greeted me with a breakfast tray and the news that Stone planned to spend most of the day with the hybrids in his care. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” I muttered. If I could have, I’d have rolled over and pulled the covers over my head.
“Just okay?” She went to the windows and drew back the drapes.
“I’m glad for a little down time.”
“Is that your way of saying you could use some time on your own?”
“Maybe.”
She stared as if she could peer inside me. “I have work to do anyway. Lots of calls to make. Shout if you need me.”
“I will. Thanks.” With my rainbow slanket wrapped around me, I sat outside to snack and read a book from Stone’s collection of spy thrillers.
It turned out Stone’s private deck overlooked a cobbled together agility course where Stone put the hybrids through their paces. In the fragile morning light, Stone ran the course beside them, two at a time, using voice commands and hand signals to send them over bridges and through tunnels and up nets of thick rope.
Some of the animals were definitely wolfy. Some I would have sworn were domestic dogs. All probably had social and emotional issues that made them unsuitable household pets, but at the sanctuary, Stone gave them a safe place to challenge their bodies and explore their environment.
While I read, clouds drifted across an impossibly blue sky. A breeze caused the aspens to quiver. Their clacking leaves made a unique, reassuring rustle—like the flutter of ten thousand paper cranes magically coming to life.
The tall grass teemed with mysteries while, here and there, bright patches of columbine, Indian paintbrush, and subalpine larkspur brought color and fragrance to the air.
I could see why Stone loved this place.
I understood why he and Ariel and Taggart fought for its survival.
I could not take my eyes off the man in the center of it all.
“Want some company?” Molly asked through the slider at lunchtime.
“Sure.” I couldn’t stretch the way I wanted to. I had to content myself with arching my feet and pointing my toes.
She saw where I was looking. “Hey, you can watch Stone work with the hybrids from here.”
“Can you?” I didn’t have a hope of escaping her fond, knowing smile.
“The view is lovely today.” Molly had a glass of wine and some juice for me. “What are you reading?”
“A Jack Reacher novel.” I shrugged. “There are more where this came from if you’re looking for a book.”
“Why am I not surprised Stone has a bookcase full of lone-wolf heroes.”
“What is it they say? When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
“You seem kind of subdued today. Anything happen that I should know about?”
My face burned. Should I tell her everything that had happened the night before? That Stone had wrung my cock dry in the shower, but when I laid my heart on the line, he’d rebuffed me? The wound was too raw. The pain too fresh.
Molly would want to get to the bottom of things, and if she thought we needed it, give us a giant push to smooth things over.
She’d want to know how intimacy had built walls between us instead of bridges overnight.
I couldn’t tell her. It was too humiliating.
Instead, I said, “I didn’t sleep very well.”
“Oh no. You should talk to your new doctor tomorrow. She might switch out the pain killers with a prescription for a few days’ worth of Ambien. Sleep is so important for healing.”
“I’m sure it’s just the strange new living situation.”
“Don’t you find it relaxing here? I keep gulping in the fresh mountain air as if someone will take it away.” She sipped her wine. “If I lived here, I’d never want to leave.”
“Until Nordstrom’s half-yearly sale.”
She laid her head back to look at the sky. “You know me so well.”
“Boulder is close.”
“Speaking of which, you have two doctor’s appointments tomorrow. Bone guy and therapist. The driver will pick us up at eight a.m., and we’re likely to be gone most of the day. You want me to Yelp someplace good for lunch?”
“No.” Sudden tension gave me whiplash. “Nowhere public.”
She stilled. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I just thought a nice lunch might make you feel better.”
“It’s too soon.” I’d seen the headlines before we left California. Rumors of alcoholism, suicide, secret sex tapes, and God knew what else circulated over me like buzzards.
“What would make you happy?”
“Binoculars.”
“You’re such a perve.”
“Not for that.” I had always wanted to put names to the birds I heard in St. Nacho’s. There seemed to be a hundred different types of songbirds here, and they’d be leaving for the winter, some of them. “I want binoculars to study the birds.”
“Sure, honey,” she teased. “You keep telling yourself that.”
I stuck my tongue out at her before closing my eyes and resting my head on the cushioned back of the chair.
I could get used to this place. I could love these people. I could help them build onto the dreams they’d begun here. Stone and I could watch it grow.
I wish…
“Whatcha thinking?” Molly asked lazily.
“I’m going to take up looking for owls while I’m here.”
Below, the wolfdogs Stone was working gave hearty howls. He turned, caught sight of us, and froze. I leaned forward. A meteor could have smashed into the house and I wouldn’t have noticed. The only thing I saw was Stone. He waved. I couldn’t wave back, but Molly waved enough for both of us.
“Woohoo!” she shouted, and then whistled loudly. He laughed and turned away with a sheepish grin.
“Why doesn’t Stone understand how perfect he is?” she asked.
That broke the spell. “I wish I knew.”
“Are you ever going to make your move?”
“No, and if you could, would you take over bathing and feeding me until we can hire a CNA.”
Her head whipped around. “Oh, honey. No. What happened?”
My throat hurt. “It’s not a thing. Don’t make it a thing.”
“Was having him help you bathe too awkward? He seemed pretty matter-of-fact about it when we talked this morning.”
“You talked about it?” My humiliation was complete.
“Sure. I thanked him for helping. I offered to take over shower duty if he wanted me to, but he said he was fine with it.”
“He said that this morning?”