Eddie’s Prize (36 page)

“Not so much anymore.” Eddie’s eyes closed, and Lisa wondered if he was searching inside himself. “I think, now that you know the truth, he’ll be happier.” His eyes opened—glazed turquoise bright with tears. “Lisa, I love you. Please come back to me.”

She drew a deep shuddering breath. “I love you too, but you’ve hurt me badly. I need a little time to think about this.”

Hurt shadowed his face. “Is it because of the cat? Do you hate me because of it?”

“No! No, Eddie, that’s not it. Since the day the plane crashed, I haven’t been able to choose for myself what I want. I had no choice about the Bride Fight, or who I would marry. When I make this decision, it will be
my
decision. Can you understand?”

“Yes. I really am sorry I’ve been so rotten to you. I know words can’t change anything, but I want you to know that.”

She gathered up the afghan, put it into the bag, and then folded up the blankets. “Are you warm enough? Shall I leave these blankets for you?”

His smile was pure sweetness. “Taye gave me plenty of blankets, and if I do get cold, I can always change.”

“Okay.” She stood looking at him, reluctant to leave him, but knowing she had to. “I suppose I’ll send Snake back out to get the chair.”

“Or you could leave it here,” Eddie suggested. “Come back again, Lisa. I like talking to you.”

She nodded. “There are still things we need to talk about.”

She wished she could kiss him. She lifted a hand in farewell and left the stable to go to her room and think everything through before supper.

She didn’t make it to her room right away. A dozen of the Pack, including Taye, Snake, and Jelly, stood in a line between the stable and the den, obviously waiting for her. Lisa slowed as she approached them.

“Are you going back to him?” Jelly asked, his light brown eyes wide and anxious.

Taye said sternly, “Jelly, that’s Lisa’s decision to make.” His dimple peeked out. “But are you?”

Lisa glanced at the stable behind her. Dusk was falling, and the cold air cooled her tear-burned eyes. She wiped her hands over her wet cheeks and lowered her voice. “I think so.”

Snake growled, and Jelly flared into adolescent fury. “You can’t go back to him! I saw how he treated you at the Gala! And I heard the mean things he said to you there too!”

Lisa nodded. The story of Darlene’s heartbreaking childhood had given her understanding about why Eddie had refused to tell her his secret, but it didn’t erase all of his actions. “If I go back to him, it won’t be right away. Eddie still has a lot to answer for. I need him to acknowledge his crimes and beg for my forgiveness before I’ll give in.”

Snake’s scowl dissolved into an admiring grin. “I didn’t know you were so mean.”

Lisa hitched the afghan project bag higher on her arm. “It’s not mean. I want him to know I won’t overlook his bad behavior anymore.” A surge of satisfaction swept over her. “I deserve to be treated better,” she declared.

Taye’s straight black brows were pulled low over his eyes. “What exactly did he do and say to you at the Gala?”

Before she could brush it off, Jelly answered. “He pushed her down, and then he called her a bad name. And he grabbed her arm so hard he left an awful bruise. And he said he wished he didn’t have to endure her for the rest of his life.”

The old pain flashed back to life in Lisa. “That will be hard to forgive,” she whispered.

Taye’s face hardened. “Be very sure before you return to him. If he hurts you again, we’ll kill him. If you love him, you’ll take that into account before you decide.”

He wasn’t joking. All the men here were so kind to her that she sometimes forgot how ruthless they could be. She nodded. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

Taye grunted, eyes fixed now on the stable with a promise of violence. To prevent him from racing into the stable, Lisa gave an exaggerated shiver. “It’s really getting cold out here.” When that didn’t distract him, she spoke plainly. “I want him to answer to
me
. You could beat the snot out of him, but that doesn’t settle the matter for me.”

Taye turned toward the den. “It’s about suppertime. Let’s all go in.”

Lisa didn’t feel like crying anymore. The horrific story of Darlene’s heartbreaking childhood still touched her with melancholy, but another part of her felt energized. She was taking control of her life. She was making decisions based on what
she
wanted. Her agent wasn’t here to tell her what would be best for her career, her personal assistant wasn’t here to tell her which engagements she absolutely couldn’t miss this week, and there were no photographers here to tell her which direction to look, or which expression to wear, or how to angle her head for the next shot. For the first time in her life she would choose what she would do for herself!

The next morning she took her time waking up. It wasn’t as cold in her room as it could be since she had a little stove there, but the bed was still cold. She had dreamt in pleasurable detail of Eddie last night, and she admitted to herself she missed his strong body moving over her and inside her. Soon, when the quarantine was done, she would make love with him again.

But for now, she brushed her teeth and washed her face before getting dressed and going to the dining hall for breakfast. Snake was on the kitchen crew this morning. He chose the best slice of ham and put it on her plate.

“Are you going to talk to Madison today?”

“Yes. After breakfast.” There were things she needed to tell him too. “Why?”

Snake shrugged burly, bare shoulders. He was wearing a cook’s white canvas apron over low slung jeans and nothing else. Lisa shook her head at the ridiculous sight of a werewolf wearing an apron. “Last night someone from Kearney came looking for him. Snow was on guard last night. He told the guy from Kearney Eddie climbed the fence and had to stay because of the quarantine. The Chief said not to mention Madison is a cat. Let Madison know about that, okay?”

“Okay.”

At the head table, Taye was speaking earnestly with Tracker, while Tami nodded from time to time at what the Alpha was saying. Lisa didn’t catch it all, but something about Tracker needing some room and privacy to make the change.

“How about the sweat lodge?” Carla suggested.

Tracker shook his head. His long hand reached to cover Tami’s. “Need Tami there,” he said in his light, terse voice. “Only men go into the sweat lodge.”

“In back, behind the stable?” Taye proposed.

Tracker shook his head again. “I want privacy for this. With the quarantine, there’s too many bored wolves looking for any excitement.”

Tami smiled encouragingly. “We can wait until the quarantine is over.”

“Naw. I want to try it today.”

Lisa cut her ham into dainty portions. “If you could wait for afternoon, you could use the stable, right? Eddie would probably like to get out for some exercise.”

Tracker nodded. “That’d work.”

“Why wait for this afternoon?” asked Tami.

Lisa could feel a flush creep up her cheeks. “I need to talk to Eddie alone first.”

Taye nodded. “Sounds good. You could take him breakfast.”

* * * *

The rich scent of ham and eggs brought Eddie to the door of what he was coming to think of as “his stall”. Lisa was carrying a heaping plate covered by a napkin. He backed away as she balanced the plate on the lip of the door and set a fork and knife down beside it. Only after she had gone to the chair and taken out some bright mishmash of a blanket did he come and get the plate. As he ate they spoke only of superficial things like how they had slept. Eddie wanted desperately to kiss her.

He had spent the long cold hours of the night remembering the times they made love in the past three months. After that he made himself relive each time he had lost control of his cat. He strained to remember exactly what he had said and done at those times. Those memories were lost in the haze of feline emotion, but he remembered the first time he’d lost control after Lisa came into his life. The visit to the library started everything. Even alone in the dark some of those memories made him cringe. Had he really slammed her into the wall while he struggled to control the cat? He lifted his gaze from his food to stare at her. How many times in the past three months had she winced or said “Ouch!”

He set the empty plate down and noticed she had a stack of folded, white clothes perched on her knee. Handkerchiefs? With unease, he remembered her sniffing yesterday while she cried. Was she planning to cry again today? He hated it when she cried.

“Lisa?” he asked cautiously. “Are you okay?”

“That will depend on you, Eddie.” Her voice was composed, but Eddie knew her well enough to recognize the tension in her slender frame. “You see, you have a few more things to explain to me.” Her eyes stayed firmly on the wooden hook flashing in and out of the yarn around her fingers. “At the Gala you said a horrible thing to me. It hurt me very badly. If that’s what you really think of me, then our marriage cannot work.”

Eddie searched his memory for what he’d said to her. That night was a confused blur. “When? What did I say?”

Her eyes flicked up at him for a second before going back to her work. “You don’t even remember,” she murmured, so low only his excellent hearing allowed him to catch it.

Damn cat, Eddie snarled inwardly. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember that night very well. In fact, there’s a lot I don’t remember well.”

Lisa put her afghan down and looked directly at him. Eddie thought,
She is so beautiful
. “I was dancing with Dane. You jerked me away, and you called me a slut.”

The top edge of the stall door cut into his palms when he clenched his hands on it. “No … what? I couldn’t have said that!”

“That’s pretty much what you said. And plenty of people heard you.”

Breakfast sat in his stomach like lead. For the first time, the cat spoke to him outside of a dream. “I said it,” the cat confessed in a quiet, shamed voice inside Eddie’s head. He didn’t sound nearly so prissy now. “Her hair was different, and her face had colors on it. She didn’t look like my Lisa. I was angry she was pretty for that other man.”

Eddie groaned out loud. No wonder she left him if he said something like that.

“Show her your belly,” the cat urged him. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Lisa.” Eddie paused. How could he apologize for something like that? “There isn’t anything I can say that will make that better. The cat … he said he’s sorry. Really, really sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to blame all of this on the cat? You need to take some responsibility too, you know.” She went back to her work. “Words aren’t enough. It really hurt me, Eddie. You also said…” Her lips pressed together again for a long moment while she appeared to be struggling with something internally. “You said you didn’t know how you could stand to endure me for the rest of your life.”

Dizzy horror stole his voice. “I was talking about the cat!” he choked. “Not you, Lisa. The cat.”

She focused on her afghan, but Eddie could see the gleam of tears in her eyes. “And when you grabbed me so hard you left bruises, was that meant for the cat too?”

“What bruises?”

With slow deliberate hands Lisa put down the afghan, unbuttoned her coat, and opened her shirt to slide it down one arm. “This one, Eddie. It doesn’t look as bad now as it did. Take a look at what your stupid jealousy did to me.”

Horror clawed at Eddie’s belly. On the pale skin of her arm the dark marks in the shape of a large hand were stark. He stared at his hands, clutching the top of the door as if they were evil objects belonging to someone else.

Lisa calmly pulled her shirt back up and buttoned her coat. “You want me to come back to you.”

“Yes!”

“But why should I come back if that’s how you—or your cat—are going to treat me?” She looked at him with steady eyes, her mouth tight. “I won’t put up with it. I’m sick of being abused. One minute I believe you truly love me. The next you’re snarling at me for something totally innocent. You’ve given me bruises more than once.”

Eddie’s mind scrambled for a way to reassure her. Fear of her rejection raked spurs of desperation through his guts. He searched inside himself for the cat and found him easily. “You see what you’ve done?” he spat at the cat. Lisa’s wide eyes told him he was speaking aloud, but he ignored that.

“I won’t ever do that again,” the cat promised. “If you accept me, I won’t have to fight you to take control. I’ll be happier, and happy people don’t do stupid things like that. Tell Lisa that for me.”

Eddie lifted his head to look at Lisa. “The cat says…”

“I heard him,” she cut him off, her eyes wide. “It was your voice, but different, and it was inside my head.” She poked her crochet hook sharply into her thigh. “Not dreaming,” she muttered before looking at him. Her gaze roved from his forehead to his chest and back, as if looking for something. “Hey, uh, cat. What is your name?”

“Eddie,” said the cat. “I’m Eddie too.”

Lisa jumped a little. Her eyes met Eddie’s for a split second before roaming again, as if looking for a way to see the cat. Eddie’s head felt light with the surreal fact that his wife was communicating with the creature he had hated for most of his life.

Lisa’s voice was tentative. “Okay. Um. You won’t be jealous? You won’t throw a fit when I smile at a man?” Her voice hardened as she stabbed her crochet hook toward Eddie. “Because I’m not putting up with it anymore. If you and Eddie can’t treat me the way I deserve to be treated, I won’t come back.”

Eddie hoped Lisa could feel the cat’s anguish as clearly as he could. “I’ll try to not be jealous,” the cat said honestly. “I promise. I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. Now that you know me, we can be friends.”

Lisa’s throat worked as she swallowed. “Sure.” Her smile was a little wobbly, but it strengthened. “This afternoon we can play outside, like Carla and Taye do. I mean, you could come out … like, in cat form. We could play fetch.”

The cat was offended. “I’m not a dog,” he said with feline contempt.

“Oh. Well, I could scratch your ears,” Lisa offered. “Or rub your tummy?”