My eyes fluttered closed. Our lips met in a kiss that tasted of hot chocolate and woodsmoke, of snowflakes, Christmas trees and hope. And for the first time, I pictured what it would be like to come to a park like this on a cold winter night years from now, to hold hands as we sipped hot chocolate and twirled beneath a tree strung with lights.
In a future I’d never allowed myself to wish for, a tow-headed boy and an impish girl chased each other around an island crowded with mixing bowls in a warm, sunny kitchen. I captured them before they could get away, trading hugs for sticky frosting covered spoons. There were humid summer nights with the four of us in cutoffs and flip flops spent making homemade ice cream on a wide back porch while a midnight black cat stalked fireflies through the dewy grass. Dallas, barefoot and grinning, blew raspberries into our daughter’s cheek while she shrieked, the two of them spinning in dizzying circles. The boy clutched a football, grasping at the tail of his father’s shirt. All of us laughing, happy.
And as the kiss deepened and the band began to play Skating from A Charlie Brown Christmas, I silently wished we could stay like this forever, just the two of us. Because for the first time, I could see a future I wanted. A future I never wanted to let go of. I wanted all of it, including the memories Dallas Caldwell and I had yet to make.
“Lacey?”
Dallas instantly released me. I leaped away from him, stumbling in the hay. But it was too late. Heart pounding, I whirled towards the bandstand. My mother looked between me and Dallas, face slack with disbelief. But that wasn’t the worst part. Not the part that stilled the breath in my lungs. It was the slender man with wire-rimmed glasses standing beside her.
She was here with a werewolf.
9
Dallas
“DALLAS CALDWELL?”
Had to give the Blair girls credit. They didn’t half-ass anything. One second, Juliet was glaring daggers at me and the next, Lacey had rushed in to drag her mom bodily behind her, eyes flaring amber as she faced down the unfamiliar male werewolf.
For what it was worth, the guy looked about as threatening as your local college professor. Slim build. Deep brown skin. Afro cropped close in a grown-out buzz. Pretty sure that swanky cashmere sweater and slacks combo retailed for more than my monthly car payment.
Lacey bared her teeth. “Lay a finger on her and I will so throat punch you.”
So much for introductions.
Everyone under that big blinking tree from the band conductor to the antler-bedecked basset hound munching contentedly on funnel cake whipped their heads around to stare. Time to get out of there. And fast.
“Sidebar.”
Grabbing Lacey by the elbow before she could shift and eat two or three of the carolers, I dragged her off towards a line of cut Christmas trees hiding the parking lot from view. By some miracle, Juliet and he-who-was-about-to-be-lunchmeat followed.
We stopped just behind a row of food trucks, the smell of hot chocolate and kettle corn thick in the air. Which was apparently cue for everyone to start yelling at once.
“Dallas Caldwell? Are you kidding me?”
“Me?” Lacey growled, shooting a dark look in the direction of werewolf guy. I mentally catalogued the location of all her knives and came up two short. Not good. “You didn’t even tell me you were seeing anyone.”
“No way.” Juliet held up a finger. “This is so not about me. You’re with him?” If I’d previously thought it was impossible for anyone to stare at me with more revulsion than my dad had standing over me in the barn the night I was sent away, I was wrong. “Please tell me this is some sort of sick joke.”
“I never meant to hurt Lacey.”
Juliet glared daggers. “I’d suggest not talking. You’ve done enough damage.”
I held up both hands. “You can believe me or not, but it’s the truth.”
Lacey rubbed her forehead. “Okay. Not helping.”
“Yes, and of course privileged little rich boy Dallas Caldwell always deserves one more chance.”
“If we’re going to Dr. Phil this, do we really have to do it here?” Lacey bared her teeth at her mom’s date. “And in front of him?”
Lunchmeat waved his coffee, which I could smell without even needing to read the label was one of those super-hipster Austin drinks. Soy non-fat sugar-free decaf with an infusion of healing energy. “I’m Simon—"
I shook my head. “Dude. Not helping.”
He cringed. “Right. Sorry.”
Mother and daughter faced off. “Those first months after you came back, you were like a ghost. I’d go to bed and you’d pace the house for hours, wandering from room to room, unable to sleep, barely wanting to eat. You lost so much weight I barely recognized you—”
Lacey covered her face. “Mom, please.”
“You wouldn’t see a counselor. Wouldn’t talk to any of your old friends. Some nights you sat on the couch for hours staring straight ahead as if I wasn’t even in the room. You—”
Rubbing her temples, she swayed in place.
“Mom.” Lacey lunged for her, steadying her before she could fall. “Which way is your car?”
I hit the locator app on my phone. “C’mon.”
“Wait.” Simon stepped in front of us, earning a growl from Lacey. He held up his hands, palms out. “I can help. I’m a physician with the North Austin pack. If she needs medical attention—"
“Back off,” she said, fury lacing every word. “You’ve done enough.”
We reached my SUV. Lacey dug the keys from my coat pocket and clicked it open. By then, Juliet was staring vacantly past all of us, mumbling incoherently to herself. Lacey swiped tears from her eyes as she checked her seatbelt, making sure her breathing and pulse were stable—all while I looked on from a safe distance, utterly helpless to do anything. Except disappear. And I knew then what I had to do. Her mom couldn’t see me. We both knew it. Her memories reset in the wake of bad attacks, erasing the events that had triggered them. She wouldn’t even remember seeing me here. Unless, of course, I was there when she woke up, in which case we’d just be right back to square one. Ten years ago, I’d made the selfish choice. Now it was time to start making the right ones.
“Call me when you get back to town.”
Lacey’s eyes shot to mine. “Dallas—"
“S’okay. Just… go.”
Suddenly she was crushing me to her in a kiss that had never felt more like a goodbye. Her hands threaded desperately through my hair, her tears wetting my lashes, her sobs warm against my mouth in the cold December air. Time stilled as I broke the kiss, pressing my forehead to hers. She smelled of vanilla and coconut, butter and confectioner’s sugar. Lacey Blair always smelled of comfort, of warmth, of a soft place to land when I got home after work and a future of weekends spent cooking together where she would snort-laugh and inform me I was using way too much cumin (guilty) before kissing me senseless over a kitchen counter littered with her multicolored whisks and my high-end knife set. A life where a midnight-black cat twined figure eights around our ankles and the worst problem we had was who got to make the pancakes after spending the night wrapped up in each other’s arms. A life that was ours. And god, I wanted to fight for that future. For her.