Changing Hearts (6 page)

“Just some foolish boys tryin’ to steal my bag. He took care of them.” As Kay spoke, she jerked her head toward the man standing there. “Get him inside, child. He’s bleedin’.”

Joie gasped as she noticed the shallow cut on his arm. Moving across the front yard, she reached out to touch his hand, letting go of him in a hurry as he removed his glasses. Looking into his eyes gave her a jolt, kind of like being shocked by a live wire.

The look in his light brown eyes told her he’d felt something too.
Lord above, the man has beautiful eyes.
They reminded her of something but she had no idea what.

“Please come inside. I’m Joie, Joie Sue Landry.”

“Malcolm Slade.”

Goose bumps broke out on her skin in response to his sexy rumble. Joie ran her hands up and down her arms as she led the way into the kitchen. He followed, just close enough to make her tremble. He was very tall. She’d always felt somewhat vertically challenged, but she imagined the crick in her neck she would get from trying to look up at him for long.

“Please sit down. I’ll get something to take care of your arm. Thank you for saving
Tante
Kay.”

“No problem.” He sat down at the kitchen table, his long legs sprawling under it.

“
Tante
, are you sure you’re okay? I’m going to put a pot on for some tea. Do you need a sandwich?” Joie fussed over her godmother for a moment, then looked at their guest again.

He hadn’t moved since sitting down. Slouching in the chair with his injured arm propped on the table, he smiled at her. Her heart exchanged spots with her stomach, then skipped back in place.
He has such a sexy curve to his lips.

“I can stitch it up or just put a butterfly bandage on it.”
Focus, Joie, focus on what you need to do. And for heaven’s sake, remember that drooling on the patient only spreads germs.

“The bandage will work.”

She wondered if a spell could be cast just with a voice. At the sound of his voice, her limbs felt like she’d been floating out on the bayou soaking up the sun. And his lap looked just right for curling up in, but a nap didn’t seem to be the first thing on her mind. Then her godmother’s voice cut through the sensual haze his voice seemed to have trapped her in. “You’ll stay here for a day or two, boy.”

Joie stared at
Tante
Kay.
Stay here? Had Tante lost her mind?
She wanted this testosterone factory to be a guest in their tiny cabin? There wasn’t room! But before Joie could speak, she heard him.

“No, it’s not necessary.” Malcolm’s voice rumbled across her again, sexy as all get out. He didn’t have a discernable accent, but he couldn’t be Cajun. Traces of a Southern drawl fell out every now and again, but there were other tones she couldn’t place.

She managed to bandage his arm without touching him too much. She remained completely aware of the heat coming off him as well as his very masculine scent. Joie remembered he had saved
Tante
Kay. It would be unkind and uncharitable to send him out without some rest and food.

“Please,” Joie added her own plea to her godmother’s. “We’d feel better if you stayed at least until we know you don’t have an infection. Besides, you saved
Tante
, and deserve some reward.”

Malcolm’s eyes hadn’t left her face since they’d been introduced and now he smiled. She knew he’d seen her reaction when the suggestion for him to stay had been made. Now he had the audacity to look at her like that? The grin crossing his face had to be meant for her and her alone. It let her know in no uncertain terms just what he’d like for his reward.

Joie had seen men look at other women that way. She’d had a few of those looks directed at her as well, but she’d set those high school swamp rats in their place. Now her brain malfunctioned. He rattled her with just that sexy smile. She dropped the bandages as she cleared the table. With a sigh, she knelt down to pick things up.

Turning away from him, she felt his gaze go down her back, almost like a physical caress. She didn’t know how, but she knew that if she’d turned around at the right moment, she would have seen it for herself. The man apparently thought he was a gift to women.
Hmmph.

Joie busied herself setting the table as Tante Kay and Malcolm talked.

“Ms. Fuqua—” Malcolm started, only to be interrupted.

“Don’t call me Ms., son. I stayed married for nearly thirty-five years before the cancer took my Pierre. I don’t cotton to these newfangled words.” She emphasized her statement with a thump of her foot on the floor.

Malcolm nodded. “Mrs. Fuqua, then. You need to carry pepper spray on your key chain in case you’re attacked again. There won’t always be someone near enough to help you. You could’ve been hurt.”

“True, but the good Lord watches over His child, Malcolm. He put you there for me.”

Joie noticed Malcolm didn’t have an answer for her godmother. His eyes narrowed, but the look running across his face seemed more one of dismay than puzzlement. She guessed he might not be as religious as her godmother, so she broke in.

“
Tante
, you should listen to Malcolm. I love you, but he’s right, you could have been hurt. Carrying pepper spray won’t betray your faith in God. You even sent some to me when I lived in Atlanta.”

“True, that’s true,
cher
. But Atlanta’s a big city and you were hurt there. Not that pepper spray wouldn’t have been a good thing to use on the no-good—”

“
Tante
!” Joie stopped her before she could talk about what had been a heartbreaking moment in Atlanta. The less she had to think about Bill and the loss of their baby, the better.

If she’d only known how he’d react, maybe she could have saved herself the hurt. Old pain washed over her, but she dealt with it as she always did. She put it aside as she turned to the man watching them.

“Thank heavens you were there, Malcolm. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to
Tante
.” Joie reached out to take Malcolm’s hand. She squeezed it gently, then met his eyes. The heat there brought a flush to her face. His eyes seemed to glow.

They ate a hastily prepared lunch as they talked more about Kay carrying some form of protection. Joie found herself listening to the sound of Malcolm’s voice without really hearing what he said.

There was an underlying cadence to his words that sounded a bit strange. Almost as though he weighed what he said, tempering his thoughts. Every time she looked at him, he returned the look, his own gaze an unblinking one, reminding her of the wolf last night.

She noticed that he ate a lot and he ate quickly, almost as though he couldn’t be sure where his next meal would come from. More and more questions ran through her mind about this stranger. She’d never doubted
Tante
’s judgment in the past, but wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake, inviting this compelling man into their home. When they finished eating, Joie cleared the table.

“Come with me, boy, I’ll get you settled.” Kay got slowly to her feet and led the way into the living room. Joie stayed behind to clean the kitchen, but she could hear every word being spoken in the living room.

“My Joie, she’s a good girl. You keep looking at her the way you are and you’ll find yourself out in the swamp with the gators.”

“I’m not going to hurt Joie.”

“I know you not. We done had this conversation.” Kay laughed. “You think you so clever. You just wait, boy. Wait ‘til Joie finds out about you. You think she’ll turn her back, don’t you? You think she’ll run? You just wait!”

Joie heard the front screen door slam, then quiet reigned over the cabin. As she turned to leave the kitchen, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Malcolm stood there. He simply slouched in the doorway, watching her.

“You startled me.”

“Sorry. Thanks for lunch and for fixing up my arm.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you for saving
Tante
. It was very brave.”

“Some people might say it was stupid.” He seemed to be studying her face very closely. It impressed her to see his gaze hadn’t strayed to her breasts. She knew her breasts were too large for her frame. She’d heard all the Dolly Parton jokes she could stand for one lifetime, but Malcolm’s eyes had never left hers.

“Well, I think it was very brave and I thank you.” She moved across the kitchen and, before she could change her mind, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Because she was so short or he was so tall, if he’d turned his head at all, she’d have kissed his mouth.

As it turned out, he froze, then stared down at her. The heat in his eyes now totally unmistakable. Joie moved away before he could reach for her. She was sure his eyes were glowing now.

“I, um, I have some work to do. Excuse me.” She whirled around, leaving the kitchen almost at a dead run.

It took every ounce of willpower he had not to follow her. Slade stood in the small kitchen and touched his fingertips to the side of his face where Joie had kissed him. Tenderness? From a human? He’d never experienced anything like that before.

Besides, he’d rather focus on the way it had felt to have her luscious breasts pressing against him as she’d kissed him. Slade closed his eyes briefly, then smiled. He left the kitchen, following Joie’s scent.

It turned out to be easy to find her. She’d gone into a small building beside the main cabin. He could smell herbs drying inside, along with alcohol and some herbal scents he couldn’t place. The animals inside the small building knew he stood outside. He sensed them going still. Fox, raccoon and—he paused, wrinkling his nose—cat.

Slade pushed the door to the small building open to see Joie stroking the side of the cat. She moved slightly and he saw the kittens. The mother cat hissed at his approach. Slade stood perfectly still until the cat calmed herself. Joie finished checking the cat and her kittens, then closed the door to the cage. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

“I don’t think Queenie likes you.”

“Most cats don’t. Are you a vet?” Slade stepped farther into the small room.

“No, I’m training to be a
traiteuse
like
Tante
Kay, but I seem to have more affinity for animals than humans.” Joie busied herself feeding the raccoon that had bandages around both front feet, then the fox who stared warily from the back of his cage.

“That’s odd. Renaud generally comes to the front for everyone. He is a social little guy. Not an animal person, I take it?” Joie smiled at him.

Slade answered her question with one of his own. “What’s a
traiteuse
? French, right?”

He’d been curious as a boy, one trait no one had ever been able to beat out of him. It still showed up now and again. He bit back a curse. He hadn’t meant to spend more time with her. But she was candy for his sweet tooth and, human or not, he had to have more. Besides, one or two more questions couldn’t hurt, could they?

“
Traiteuse
is what the Cajun call their healers. We use herbs, prayer and other things to help the body work its own magic. Nowadays there are precious few of us because the young people keep moving away. They don’t want to be trapped in the swamps. Me, I think I like being in the bayou away from people.” As she spoke, her speech pattern changed to mimic her
Tante
’s.

It amused Slade to hear her talking about “young people” when she couldn’t be much past her early twenties.

“You like animals better than people?” He trailed a hand along the low roof. The smells here were intense but welcoming.

“I love them and they seem to respond better to me than to other people.” Joie faced him now, a slight smile on her face. “What about you? Do you like animals even if they don’t seem to like you?”

“Yes. Animals get used to me. I don’t hurt them. I’m…” Slade shrugged as he stopped himself from saying he was an animal. He’d never hidden what he was because it went against his basic life philosophy. For some reason though, he wanted Joie to keep talking to him, and telling her he was a shapeshifter might cause her to reach for the nearest phone. Or gun. He still wasn’t sure where the old woman had hidden her pistol. Slade glanced at Joie out of the corner of his eye as he moved closer to the cages.

The animals stirred restlessly, catching his scent. He moved again so he stood downwind of them, then focused his attention on Joie.

A plain blue t-shirt and a denim jumper, the most shapeless thing he’d ever seen, covered her. He wondered if she did that to hide her shape or just for comfort. From the way she slumped just a bit, he guessed it was to hide her magnificent breasts.
If she were mine, she’d display them proudly, especially to me.

Just the thought of Joie in a tank top or naked from the waist up turned out to be enough to make his mouth water. He gave himself a mental shake.
Humans and shifters. Oil and water. Don’t go down that road, Slade.

“Malcolm, I heard you and
Tante
talking. What did she mean when she said I’d run if I found out what you were? Are you a criminal?”

“I haven’t broken any human laws.” He wanted to bite the words back as soon as they were spoken. He had, in fact, broken a few. Especially if Maggie was really dead, though the cops would be hard-pressed to pin that on him. She’d noticed his odd wording as well. He glanced away from her, waiting for her next question.

“What does that mean? You don’t consider yourself human? What, are you an alien?” Joie laughed softly but stopped as he turned to meet her eyes.

“No, I’m no alien.”

“Then what did she mean?”

“You’re very curious, aren’t you?” Slade moved slowly across the room. He noted the increase in her breathing as he approached. She stepped back slightly, but he leaned forward, caging her in by placing his hands on the workbench on either side of her hips. Leaning even closer, he caught her scent again.
Damn lilacs.
“Are you sure you want to know what I am?”

Slade let his eyes glow slightly, keeping his gaze locked on her face. She parted her lips to take a breath, but never took her eyes away from his.

“Are you trying to frighten me?” Though soft, her voice came out laced with steel.