Melted By The Lion: A Paranormal Lion Shifter Romance (6 page)

When we exited the hospital and got out to the parking lot, Veronica began chattering to Trevor, something about being
so
sad to be leaving the “new friends” she’d made at the hospital, but being
so
excited to make friends with the staff at her “new home.” With her and Trevor having their own little conversation, though Trevor really wasn’t saying much, I took the opportunity to have my first real look at Beaumont City. The view from my room windows had really only shown me the hospital lawn and the tall hill beyond.

The hospital, which was a small brick building with only thirty or so patient rooms, as Betty had told me, was surrounded by various other brick buildings on either side, appearing to be commercial buildings of some sort. A short paved drive adjacent to the parking lot led to a paved road that I guessed to be the town’s main street, or at least one of them. All around the hospital and the surrounding businesses, bald cypress trees and Southern magnolia trees of varying heights swayed in a stiff breeze. Most of the magnolias were in full bloom, with beautiful large, creamy white flowers announcing spring.

Hot and incredibly muggy, it felt like summer, though. Summertime inside of an industrial oven. I was already perspiring a bit, hoping that Trevor’s mansion would be air-conditioned like the hospital had been.

He brought the three of us to a stop in front of a shiny black pickup truck, opened the passenger side door, and gestured for Veronica and me to get in. Seeming a bit surprised, as if maybe expecting a chauffeured limousine or something, Veronica hesitated, so I got in first. Which was a mistake. The move positioned me right smack in the middle of Trevor and Veronica, two people I didn’t even want to be in a truck with in the first place.

Once Trevor began driving, my discomfort, discomfort based on proximity and scent, began. Even with the truck windows rolled down, I could still catch just a hint of Trevor’s scent, and it was heavenly. A blend of something like leather and forest with notes of earth, musk, and maybe soap, it was positively dizzying. Swoon-inducing. I was honestly feeling a little lightheaded just sitting next to him.

I’d wanted him to smell bad. I’d wanted him to smell like body odor and garbage. Because if he did, then maybe I could finally stop thinking about the seemingly genuine warmth in his voice when he’d said my face and hair were very pretty.

We were sitting too close together for me, legs almost touching, but if I scooted over to my right any further, I’d be just about sitting in Veronica’s lap. She probably would have loved that, since she could then push me off toward the door and take my place. As it was, she was straining against her seat belt, half leaning across me, to talk to Trevor. She was saying something about how much she loved his truck, or something like that. I was a bit too distracted trying to force myself not to look at Trevor’s large, masculine hands on the steering wheel to listen to her very well.

It turned out that the paved road in front of the hospital was indeed the town’s main street. Various businesses and shops sat on either side of it for several blocks, some of them with enormous flower-filled planters out front, and others with red and white flags flying high above their brick facades. The flags bore a crest with a design that I couldn’t quite make out, but it appeared to be a red lion with a sun rising behind it. I assumed this was the flag of the new nation, and presently, a question from Veronica and an answer from Trevor confirmed that. Veronica told him that she just
loved
the flag, leaning across me so far that her voluminous hair was nearly billowing into my face.

Past the downtown area, which only had two stoplights, the residential district began. Sturdy oak, cypress, and magnolia trees in various shades of vibrant spring green added pops of color to blocks and blocks of small ranch-style houses where the town’s thousand-some citizens lived. Behind most of the houses, which were all on fairly large, grassy lots, cranes and backhoes were busy, seeming to be constructing new foundations for the permanent, larger homes that Betty had told me about.

As we drove by, some men working outside their homes dipped their heads in a sort of nod of respect upon seeing Trevor’s truck. A couple of men saluted. Several young children doing cartwheels on a front lawn just waved.

Beaumont City, charming and pleasant, struck me like many small towns from “my time,” in the United States of America, and I wondered if I had lived in a small town. I still wasn’t having any luck remembering what my life had been like before I’d been frozen. I could remember bits and pieces of the nuclear disaster happening, and good bits and pieces from around the time I’d been frozen, but that was it.

Trevor’s mansion was maybe just a quarter-mile or so, if that, and maybe even more like an eighth, beyond the last of the residential neighborhoods. A long, paved, gently winding driveway was most of that length. It almost gave me the feel of approaching a castle for some reason, which really, Trevor’s mansion kind of was, at least in terms of size and grandeur.

At first glance, I guessed that the house had to contain twenty or thirty rooms, and later, I would find out this was correct. There were about thirty rooms just in the house itself, not even counting two wings that angled to the rear of the house and served as staff quarters.

Painted a bright, gleaming white, the main part of the house was two stories, with two massive pillars on each side of the front entrance also serving to support the roof. Red flowers overflowed giant white urns on the wide front porch, their color matching a giant national flag flapping in the breeze at the top of a flagpole near the porch. Among the urns sat two long white benches, which I thought was a nice, kind of homey touch for a house so stately. The benches could be a nice spot for a person to sit and wait for a visitor. Or maybe wait for a ride to get away from the house if a certain other female living in it became just a bit too much.

Behind the house appeared to be forestland, though from a ways down the driveway, approaching the house, I couldn’t tell what kind of trees the forest contained. A few tall trees that I guessed might be short-leaf pines studded the sides of the vast front lawn, and one enormous, towering weeping willow stood to the far left of the side yard, almost bordering some of the forestland.

Veronica, who hadn’t stopped chattering for longer than a few seconds since getting in the truck, now gasped, hands clasped, as if in rapture. “Oh, Trevor, your home is gorgeous! And, oh, look. I’ll rock our babies to sleep right there, right under that beautiful weeping willow in the side yard.”

Trevor glanced over me to her, wearing a small smile that to me, seemed less like a genuine smile and more one of politeness.

I suddenly looked at Veronica not smiling at all. “Won’t you be putting your babies to sleep at nighttime? And won’t that be kind of creepy to rock babies to sleep in the dark beneath a tree fairly far from the house? Not to mention probably cumbersome and a bit of a hassle, too, just to have to carry sleeping infants all the way back to the house, up the porch stairs, back inside the house, and into their rooms, and then put them to bed in their cribs, all without waking them up.”

Trevor made a sudden noise that sounded like an explosive chuckle, but within an instant, the noise turned into a cough, so I couldn’t be sure that he’d actually laughed. And when I looked at him, his expression was just that of a person coughing.

Veronica seemed to have suddenly fallen ill too, because she sniffed loudly. “No amount of creepiness and hassle is too much when one is focused on being the best possible mother ever.”

I just shrugged. “Well, all right, but I hope you’re pumping iron to carry those babies the maybe seventy or eighty steps to the house and up the stairs, because unless you have twins, at least one of them will be somewhere around a year old. That’s twenty-something pounds, plus the younger baby. And remember, this will be in the dark. You’ll have to know every dip and bump in the yard like the back of your hand.”

Another sudden cough from Trevor, who covered his whole mouth with a fist.

Seemingly just as ill, Veronica sniffed loudly again. “
I’ll
be rocking the babies to sleep.
Trevor
or
his staff
will be carrying them inside. Obviously. Right, Trevor?”

Trevor had parked the truck in front of the house, and he now shut it off, as stony-faced as ever. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

Unbuckling her seat belt, Veronica glared at me and spoke in a hiss. “See? Of course.”

I knew I
could
have controlled my mouth and hadn’t said what I’d said to her, but I just hadn’t been able to resist. All her dramatic fawning over Trevor had kind of pushed me.

To avoid Veronica slamming the truck door in my face or something, I got out on Trevor’s side, and because the truck was fairly high off the ground, he wordlessly extended a hand to help me out. After a brief split-second of hesitation, I took it, not really wanting to feel the firm strength of his hand again, like I had earlier that day when we’d shaken hands. But, of course, I did feel the firm strength of his hand again as I stepped down from the truck, and I cringed inwardly. He had the kind of touch that could make a woman want to feel it again, and in different ways. I certainly didn’t need that wanting to add more complication to an already complicated situation. My only comfort from having taken Trevor’s hand was that Veronica had seen it, and she now looked more bent out of shape than she had when she’d hissed at me.

But by the time the three of us had walked up a short, gray flagstone-paved walkway to the porch, she was all chatterbox again.

“It really is a gorgeous mansion, Trevor. It’s like your own personal White House from the United States, only even better. Even classier.”

He gave her a polite smile and thanked her, then returned his gaze forward. “Welcome to Cypress House, ladies.”

CHAPTER THREE

          Trevor had to go lead his pride on an early evening patrol around the outskirts of town, so he soon left, leaving the head maid, a plump, friendly woman named Jeannie, to give Veronica and me a tour of Cypress House. In her starched, navy-and-white uniform dress, Jeannie led us all around the ground floor, which contained both formal and casual living rooms, a formal dining room, an informal kitchen with eating space, a library, a meeting room where Trevor met with his advisors, and several other various rooms. All of them were decorated simply, though elegantly and richly, with gauzy, cream-colored silk fabrics and white linen curtains, carved cypress wood furniture, and gilded mirrors both oval and square. Mercifully, the house was air-conditioned, like I’d hoped it would be.

The second floor was mostly bedrooms, and Jeannie showed Veronica and me to each of ours. I fell in love with mine instantly and strolled around the airy space, admiring the four-poster bed, the white marble-topped dresser, and several watercolor paintings of magnolia blossoms in different configurations and stages of bloom. A packaged cell phone with my name written on the front, several books, and a vase with a single magnolia bloom sat on one of two marble-topped nightstands. Across the room, a vast walk-in closet was packed with clothes in my size, and an equally vast in-room full bathroom was stocked with just about every toiletry and cosmetics item a person could ever need. Which was a good thing, since I’d forgotten my only worldly possessions, my hospital-issued toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, comb, and shampoo, at the hospital.

The only thing I didn’t like about my room was where it was situated. It flanked Trevor’s, as did Veronica’s. And I wasn’t quite sure I’d be wanting to hear sounds that might be made by the two of them while sharing a bed together at night.

Once Veronica and I had each had a chance to freshen up a little in our respective bathrooms, Jeannie began leading us back downstairs, saying dinner would soon be served to Veronica and me in the formal dining room.

Still dressed in the shorts and t-shirts we’d been given at the hospital, I asked if Veronica and I should go back to our rooms and change, but Jeannie said not to worry about that.

“Most times when dinner is served in the formal dining room, yes, I’m sure you’ll want to wear something a bit dressier, but tonight it’ll be just you two ladies. I think Commander Beaumont meant to join you, but while you were freshening up, I got word that he won’t be coming home until probably very late, on account of a gator sighting near the outskirts of town. And I don’t mean a regular gator; those have been swept from the area completely. I mean one of the Renard clan. Nasty creatures, all of them. Just a few days ago, some of them ambushed a supply truck bringing in goods to us from DC. The driver, a fully human man, not a shifter, was lucky to escape with his life, and the Renards made off with all the goods in the truck. Then, just two days ago, the same pack of Renards attacked one of
our
trucks, loaded with exports bound for Chicago and DC. The contents were, I believe, thirty crates of honey and the same number of crates of fruits and vegetables, all from the commander’s private farm, and at least a dozen large boxes containing stoneware and pottery from the artisan shop here in town owned by the Glenn family. The Renard’s didn’t get any of
those
goods, though. Our driver was a shifter, of course, and he took on every member of this particular thieving Renard pack, one lion against five gators. Killed one of them, and chased off the others. And let that be a lesson to them.”

We’d reached the ground floor, and Jeannie seemed inclined to continue on about the Renards, and I wanted to hear more. Veronica, however, seemed bored with the topic and abruptly changed the subject.

“So, what’s out in back of the house? Is there a pool?”

Jeannie just looked at her for a long moment, frowning slightly. “No. No pool. There
is
some lovely, semi-open land with some lovely trees bordering the cypress forest out back, though, and it’s a nice, peaceful place to spend some time. The trees provide just enough shade to keep the area relatively cool. There are a few benches as well, and I think any one of them would make a wonderful reading spot, if you’re ever inclined to spend time that way.”

I smiled at Jeannie, wanting to go out back right then. “That sounds wonderful.”

A reading spot beneath the shade of a beautiful, jewel-green tree sounded heavenly, actually.

But Veronica just looked from me to Jeannie with her nose slightly wrinkled, as if she’d smelled a bad egg. “All right. I’m starving. You may take us to the dining room now, Jeannie. And let’s be quick about it.”

Jeannie, who’d been returning my smile, now lifted her salt-and-pepper eyebrows in what looked like a bit of surprise, or disbelief, at Veronica’s tone. “Yes,
ma’am
.”

Sitting across from each other at one end of a long, polished cypress wood table, Veronica and I ate a delicious chicken-and-shrimp dinner without speaking, the only sounds in the dining room the quiet clinking of our silverware and soft violin music coming from some speaker I couldn’t even see.

But once she’d cleaned her plate, Veronica set down her silverware, looked me dead in the eyes, and spoke in a low voice full of menace. “So, when are you leaving?”

Like Jeannie had done, I just stared at her for a long moment. “Excuse me?”

“When are you going to concede defeat and leave?”

I set my own silverware down, even though I wasn’t quite finished with my meal. “Look. I’m at least staying here for a while, because—”

“Have you
seen
my tits? And they’re real. You think
yours
can compete with them?”

With a trembling hand, I grabbed my linen napkin from my lap and slammed it on the table, if a napkin could really be slammed. “You know, you have a serious problem with immaturity and rudeness, and—”

“When he comes back tonight, I’m going to hop in the sack with him first, and then it’ll be all over for you. See, I may not remember a damn thing about my past, but I’m not stupid. I know how to size up a situation, orient myself to the reality of it, and then make it work to my best advantage. And I know a good business deal when I hear one. I love the idea of being able to live in a mansion, order people around, and have sex with one seriously hot man—one who’s also a powerful man, who’s king of this whole damned place, to boot—and all in exchange for just spitting out a brat or two. The only problem is that I don’t want
you
anywhere in this equation. I don’t want to share anything I get. Not Trevor’s money, his smoking hot body, this mansion, or the servants. Or the worship of the community, too, really, which I know will be lavished on whoever gets knocked up with their leader’s kid. I want it all, just for myself. I want to be the only one to pop out Trevor’s brats.”

I didn’t respond right away, having been rendered literally speechless by her rudeness and entitlement, though at the same time, I was feeling a bizarre little flash of sympathy for her, wondering if she really even had a clue what she was getting into. When I was finally able to find my voice, it came out quietly and with an almost-undetectable tremor in it.

“You know he’ll never love you, right? And I’m not saying that in a way like I don’t think you’re capable of getting a man to fall in love with you or anything like that; I’m saying it in a way of a word of warning from one female to another. Trevor doesn’t seem like the kind of man who will ever
let
himself feel love. He’s all business, Veronica.”

She scoffed, slamming her own napkin on the table. “Do I seem like I care? And do
I
seem like I’m anything other than all business? Well, maybe all business plus some crazy late nights in the bedroom, if you get me.”

Now it was my turn to scoff. “Yeah. I think I get you. On all levels. It’s clear that you’re only about yourself, and what you can get for
you
, and—”

“Good. You get me. So, can I take that as a yes, that you’re ready to concede defeat and leave?”

Balling my trembling hands, I got up from the table, having had just about enough of her. “Defeat? As if I’m actually in some sort of a competition with you? Look. I started rethinking my decision to be impregnated by a stranger almost the second I was thawed. I’m only here because Trevor asked me to stay for a little while, and I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’ve honestly been thinking that I’ll just hang around until you get pregnant, and then I’ll find another place, and by that time, Trevor will be fine with me going.”

Veronica eyed me, big blue eyes narrowed, for a moment or two. “All right. Watch yourself, though. No funny business. Just go about your life, reading dumb books in the backyard or whatever, and stay away from Trevor. Don’t go anywhere near his bedroom.”

“That won’t be a problem. I have no interest in being a part of the ‘business arrangement’ he’s proposed.”

That was truly the case, which is why I couldn’t understand why, when I finally fell asleep that night, after a few hours of reading alone in my room, I dreamed of feeling Trevor’s strong hand holding mine. I saw his beyond-handsome face, and he was starting to smile, how he had in my hospital room, and that simple movement of his full lips made my heart feel light as air.

I awoke with a start around two in the morning, so disoriented that it took me a minute to fully come out of the dream. With my head against a stack of plush, silk-cased pillows, I stared up at the darkened ceiling, which was made just faintly silver by moonlight streaming in through my windows. I heard the very distant sound of something like rushing water coming from the next room, maybe a shower being started. Then the heavy thudding of boots on hardwood, then a thump and another thump, as if the boots had been kicked off. Trevor was home.

I stayed awake, listening, until all sounds from his room stopped. Then, I remained awake even a half-hour or so after that. I just wanted to hear if Veronica would come to his room, or if he’d go to hers. And I didn’t even know why I cared. But ultimately, all I heard was silence, and only then was I finally able to go back to sleep.