ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (227 page)

But the food tasted like sand in her mouth and she swallowed hard, putting the sandwich down without taking another bite.

“Wrong how? Like sick?”

Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve just been feeling off lately.”

Carla nodded. “It’s those pills the doctor gave you for your ankle. I always feel horrible when I take medication. It’s like it causes more damage than whatever what was wrong in the first place.”

“It must be that,” Jenna said and sighed. It wasn’t that at all, but she couldn’t explain it without sounding like she was losing her mind.

The afternoon dragged on. By the time the sun sank toward the horizon, Jenna started getting anxious. She wanted to get home before it set. She didn’t want to be the last and lock up after everyone else. She wanted to get somewhere safe before the shadows got long enough to touch her.

“Will you lock up?” she asked Carla.

“I don’t know… I’m going to Rhodestown tonight to see a film at the cinema. Ronnie’s taking me and if we don’t leave early enough—“

“Please?” Jenna asked, cutting Carla off. Carla pulled a face. Before she could say something the bell above the door jingled and they both looked up. Bruce stood inside the door, making the salon seem small with his size and his presence.

“I was wondering if you needed someone to walk you home,” he said to Jenna. Relief flooded through her. He would keep her safe if she had to lock up. That was good enough. She turned to Carla who gave her a funny look and looked back at Bruce. Of course, none of them knew what had been going on. It was weird for Bruce to appear and offer that way, but they’d been friends for a long time.

It wasn’t weird for them. It shouldn’t be.

“Don’t worry about it, Carla,” Jenna said. “Bruce will help me.”

Carla nodded, blew a bubble with her gum and bit it so that it popped. She opened up the magazine she’d been reading.

“You’re timing is great,” Jenna said to Bruce in a low voice when he came closer to her. “I was just needing saving.”

“Well, that’s my job,” he said and smiled.

Jenna’s last client walked in through the door and she moved to the chair. It was just a wash and trim, but in that time Carla left and Bruce and Jenna were left alone with the customer.

Finally they were alone. Jenna collected her tools and made her way to the sink to rinse them in the solution.

“How was your day?” she asked Bruce. He didn’t answer. When she turned to look at him he was staring at a mirror that reflected the front of the shop.

“Bruce?” she asked. He snapped out of his daze and turned his face to her.

“I asked how your day was,” Jenna tried again.

“Oh, it was fine.”

“What did you do?” It was Bruce’s day off, and he often disappeared into the mountains. Jenna would have liked to know what he always did when he left the village.

“I just walked some of the trails,” he said.

“Alone?”

He hesitated only a moment before he nodded, but it was for just long enough that Jenna thought maybe he wasn’t telling the truth. She didn’t say anything about it, though. If he was lying, there had to be some reason. After racking her brain for a moment she couldn’t find a good one. Unless it was about Tara.

“Have you spoken to Tara?” she asked, blurting the words out before she really thought about them.

“Spoken to her about what?” he asked and he looked like he genuinely didn’t know what she was talking about.

“About when the three of us are going to go out on our date,” Jenna said sarcastically. Bruce’s face darkened at her tone and he turned his eyes away. Jenna regretted her words immediately, but he’d asked her so innocently about what there was to speak to Tara about. Like their situation was normal.”

“About being with her,” Jenna said and she made sure to check her tone this time.

Bruce shrugged and then nodded like it was no big deal. “Oh, that,” he said. “Sure.”

“Oh, that?” Jenna asked.

Bruce looked at her, and there was so much going on in his eyes, so much Jenna felt like she suddenly didn’t know.

“What else was there to talk about with her?”

“Nothing,” Bruce said quickly. Jenna turned her back to him and carried on cleaning her equipment, but her mind was spinning. She knew nothing about Tara, about Bruce’s relationship or friendship with her. Even though she thought she knew Bruce very well.

“Where did you meet Tara?” Jenna asked, trying to sound like she was making casual conversation.

Bruce was quiet for a moment. “We ran into each other in Rhodestown when I was there,” he finally said.

“I didn’t realize you go to Rhodestown so often. Did she come here when you spoke to her?”

“Why are you asking so many questions all of a sudden?” Bruce asked, and even though his voice wasn’t raised, it was still defensive. Jenna shrugged, her back still to him.

“I just realized there’s some things about you I know very little about. And if we’re going to be…” she let her sentence taper off because the truth was she’d almost said ‘together’, but she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure if that was what was going on.

“Well, there are parts of our lives we don’t have to share, isn’t there?” Bruce asked. He sounded upset, and when she turned his eyes were almost black and he looked rough and unkempt. She tried to remember if he looked like that when he’d walked into the shop a bit earlier, but she’d just been so relieved to see him she hadn’t really paid attention.

“I didn’t think we really had to make a point of being allowed to keep secrets,” she said in a low voice. Bruce sighed and walked to her. She could feel him coming, a warm energy that washed over her like water. He stopped next to her as she was drying her hands. She shifted on her good foot so that she was facing him.

“I just had a rough couple of days,” Bruce said. “Sorry.”

He put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to him so that she lost her balance and the only place she could fall to was against him. She didn’t mind so much, but his body was stiff and tense, like he was going through the motions but his mind was on something else.

“Shall we get going?” he asked a moment later, pushing her gently back up until she found her own balance again. She nodded and collected her crutches.

They walked slowly toward the cabin so that Jenna could make her way with the crutches. Her arms were rubbed raw against the wood and she was getting stiff muscles, but it would only be another day or two and then she could stop using them for periods throughout the day.

She was grateful Bruce was next to her. The night was thick, as if the blackness suffocated everything else, even if it was night. Nights like tonight were so dark that it felt like the light didn’t even make a dent in it the way it should have. Jenna looked up at the moon. It had just been full moon. It shouldn’t have been as dark as it was.

There was a sound in the trees to their left, and Jenna gasped before she could catch herself. She was scared. Her heart beat faster and she swallowed hard.

Bruce looked into the trees as well, but a moment later her said, “its nothing.”

“How do you know?” Jenna asked. “Murray shot a wolf the other night. They’re coming down to the village now.”

“Oh, was it Murray,” Bruce said, and it sounded like it was a revelation to him. But of course he’d already known about the wolf. He was probably one of the men that had run out with their rifles when the howl had sounded right in front of her door.

“I don’t like this, Bruce,” she said, sounding small and scared.

“Don’t you worry, nothing will happen. I’ll make sure of it.”

They were at her cabin and she opened the door. She stared into the dark of the small little house, feeling like something might jump out at her. Bruce leaned past her and got the light switch.

The yellow light flooded the room with warmth and managed to chase away the darkness, which was more than she could say for outside. But it was enough.

“Thank you,” Jenna breathed.

“I mean it when I say I won’t let anything happen to you,” Bruce said. And then he lowered his head and before Jenna could do anything, or think anything, his lips touched hers. It was hot and electric, surging through her with a jolt. When he broke the kiss his eyes were black and they seemed larger than usual. Jenna was breathless.

“Goodnight,” he said and pulled the door closed behind him, leaving her gasping in her own house.

It was a long night, with darkness pushing against the walls of the house like it wanted to come in. But finally the sun returned and chased the worst away. Jenna was yanked out of a light sleep by someone knocking on her door.

It stopped for a moment, and then started up again.

“Coming,” Jenna called her voice thick. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and found her crutches, stumbling to the front door. When she unlocked and opened it, Murray was on her doorstep.

“What a surprise,” she said. “Come in.”

He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes, and stepped into the house.

“I’m sorry I’m not dressed,” she said. He shook his head. “Coffee?”

“I’m not going to stay that long,” he answered. “I just wanted to check on you.”

“Check on me? Was there another one in town?” Jenna’s body went cold with the thought that there was more danger, but Murray sighed heavily and sat down on the couch.

“No, there wasn’t another animal in town. But I wanted to talk to you about that, about you.”

“About me?” Jenna lowered herself on the couch and dropped the crutches on the floor next to her. She curled into a ball, feet on the couch, and looked at Murray.

“I’m not supposed to talk about this, but do you feel something?”

Jenna frowned and turned her head to the side a little, looking sideways at Murray.

“Feel something?”

Murray shook his head. It looked like he couldn’t explain it, and that was what made Jenna feel like maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the only one.

“You mean like the darkness,” she said.

Murray looked at her, not as surprised as he should have been, and then nodded.

“I knew you were your daddy’s girl,” he said. “You always did know more than you should. When you were little your father had to reprimand you for talking about what you felt and what you thought was out there.”

Jenna couldn’t remember it. “Why are you asking me?” she asked.

“Because there’s trouble coming, and I don’t think it’s just animals,” Murray said. “The wolf, it came from behind your cabin when I saw it. I felt it too and when I stepped out there was an awful ruckus and then it came round your cabin.”

“You mean my cabin’s direction,” Jenna said, trying to change his story, trying to make it sound less ominous. But Murray shook his head.

“No, Jenna. Your cabin. I’m not trying to scare you, and I’m not going to tell you to say anything about what you’re feeling. But just be aware of it, and know that when it happens, you’re not wrong. Your father wasn’t either and, well, I’d hate to find your body in the woods.”

An icy finger drew a line down Jenna’s back and she got goose bumps. Murray got up and walked toward the door.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?” Jenna asked. Murray stopped at the door and turned to her. He shrugged.

“Because someone should say something,” he said. “There are too many things no one talks about. Silence can really be a curse. But I have to get back, I need to open the shop. You keep safe, you hear?” he said, and then he disappeared through the door and Jenna was left behind alone, feeling like what had happened before might just have been a taste of what was to come.

Chapter 5

Bruce had a heavy feeling. It crept in slowly, growing day by day. He spent his days with Jenna as much as he could – not just to keep her safe, but to be with her. He’d loved her for a long time, and now everything was in such a way that he could be with her, really be with her, without feeling guilty about it.

He was a bear, and he couldn’t tell her that. It bothered him that he had to keep secrets from her, but he couldn’t tell her. For her safety, and for his own. And being with her, even with the secrets, was better than not being with her at all.

The more time he spent with her, the more he fell in love with her. He saw sides of her he’d never known, and she just became more and more beautiful to him. She had a logic that would save her life in difficult situations and she was smart, but not in a way that made everyone else around her feel dumb. She wasn’t the type to rub it in.

And she was funny. They laughed a lot, and Bruce couldn’t remember when last he’d laughed so much.

But at the same time, the tension didn’t go away. The feeling that something was going to go wrong got stronger. The darkness at night became heavier and more solid as time passed, and the Family was restless. But that wasn’t what bothered Bruce the most.

What bothered him more than the fact that everything felt off, was the fact that the Family had stopped trying to get to the village. Bruce had been walking the trees at night, trading most of his hunting time to protect Jenna and the other villagers. And for nights on end there hadn’t been anyone down there.