Forecast (8 page)

The sneer in the man’s voice pissed me off too, so I turned and wiggled between them, my entire back plastered to the front of Taran as I looked up at the guy. Then I sniffed as a whiff of something hit me. Surprised any scent lingered in this wind, I leaned forward, smelled his coat and realized why it had. Wincing, I held my hand over my nose. “My M-mom used to date this guy who reminds me a l-lot of you only he had long hair and a long beard.”

“I remind you of what? Girl, I don’t care about your mama. I’m freezing my ass off, the sky is about to open up even more, and we need to exchange numbers so He-Man here can pay for the damages. Drop the chitchat. Tell your freak boyfriend to put me down!” He brought up his fist.

Taran made another growling noise in the back of his throat. Lightning rent the sky again. My mouth dropped open as I realized the sky seemed to be reacting to his mood. Every hair on my body stood. I had to calm him down.
Now.

I reached behind me to touch him, somehow knowing that worked. My hand ended up on his hip. He stiffened up, went completely silent for a moment, then kind of chuckled. I glared back up at the dangling, wiggling man. “Look, this c-cold is killing me. That guy my mom dated smelled just like you. Cheap whiskey. It sticks in your clothes.”

A cop car pulled to a stop a few houses down.

“Just go home,” I told him.

Taran dropped him and the man staggered back. He brushed his hands down over his coat, snarled at me. “Stupid bitch.”

I had to turn and physically wrap my arms around Taran’s waist when he started to step after the man again. “Gods, I’m freezing. Let’s just g-go, okay? It’s okay. You don’t want to get into more trouble, and he r-reeks of booze.”

He stared down at me, blinked as he seemed to get himself under control. Then he snorted. “Were you petting me?”

“N-no.” I frowned as the sky seemed to settle. “Well, sort of.”

The corner of his full lips went up. “I liked it.” He leaned down until his lips were by my ear. His warm breath made me close my eyes. “Wanna try that again later when I don’t have my shirt on?”

Just the thought of fewer clothes in this cold made me grimace, but that grin of his had my heart fluttering about in my chest like a caged bird. My norn shifted and it almost felt like she sighed.

I
get it
, I thought to her.
He’s potent
,
isn’t he?

She shifted again, seeming happy that I’d spoken directly to her. Someone cleared his throat behind me.

“Great,” Taran muttered.

I turned to find Grady Breen standing there with his arms crossed and a glare, much like his son’s, darkening his face. Wind-driven snow blew past, not doing anything to cool his fierce expression.

“It’s all fine, Officer.” The driver who’d hit my car backed up fast toward his own. He slipped on the snow, but managed not to fall.

I finally looked and saw that the back of my car was dented and that the front of his had taken a small hit. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t really care at this point. I could no longer feel my feet. I stepped closer to Taran’s warmth.

Another cop—the one who’d been in the car the first night I’d seen Taran—came to stand beside Grady. He shook his head as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes into the wind. “Taran, you don’t think we have enough to worry about right now? Thought you were housebound.”

Taran said nothing, just glared at his father. Their identical expressions clashed, their fierce temperaments burning a path through the snow between them. I looked back and forth, expecting a fire to break out any second. Fire would so be welcome about now.

The other cop jogged over to the damaged car behind mine and bent to talk to the driver through the window.

“Pretty sure I told you to stay home.” His dad took a menacing step toward him. “Am I going to have to get an ankle bracelet? Put you under house arrest?”

“You can’t do that.”

“Try me. I know people.” He waved his hand around. “With the chaos going on, I have a feeling they’ll be passing the things out.”

“Um, Mr. Breen?” Josh stuck his head out through the door opening. “It’s our fault Taran came out. We asked him to come get us. Car trouble.”

I don’t know how he lied to the man. I couldn’t have. Something about the elder Breen made me think he could smell a falsehood a mile off.

“Is that right, Josh?” Grady cocked one eyebrow before his shoulders straightened. “It’s too cold to stay out here and figure out what’s true and what isn’t. Is anyone hurt?”

We all answered no, all except Taran, who stood silently fuming. I didn’t even think, just stepped closer and slid my arm tight around his waist. I knew I could comfort him, calm him down, though I didn’t know how I knew it. It worked. Again. His gaze locked with mine and his slow smile showed a hint of appreciation. And growing affection. It made me catch my breath.

His dad missed none of that and it showed in his narrowed eyes. “Coral, was it?” He walked to the car. “Why don’t you get out of this wind and give me your number. You can alert your insurance about the accident. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be a pain. I’ve overseen over thirty accidents already this morning.” He looked at his son. “Several with fatalities.”

“It wasn’t Taran’s fault.”

As I spoke, tires screeched—maybe a street over. Grady Breen closed and rubbed his eyes.

Taran’s arm tightened around me. “I’ll be lucky if he ever lets me out of the house again, which is gonna suck because I’d like to see a lot more of you, Coral Lockwood.”

I wanted to respond, but a violent shiver shook me.

“Come on, let’s get you inside and under one of those blankets out of your hoarder stash.” He walked with me.

I slid behind the wheel, realizing we’d never said Taran was driving. I doubted the guy who hit us would say anything—he was probably hoping they wouldn’t figure out he’d been drinking. My hands shook so much, getting my name and number written grew frustrating. The paper I handed his dad looked ridiculous with half-legible scribbling, but I didn’t care.

“Go home, Taran,” his father said, weariness softening his features as he took the paper. He bent to look at me. “Drive slowly and stay off the roads. It’s way too dangerous for anyone to be out right now.”

Taran walked around to climb into the passenger seat. I turned to make sure his dad wasn’t watching and adjusted the seat so I could reach the pedals, then drove the three blocks back to his house.

* * *

By the time we got to his place, his temper had built back up again to massive proportions. I couldn’t figure out why his mood had swung so far south until Josh said something about Taran needing to make up with his dad and Taran nearly took his head off. All three guys were yelling when we got to Taran’s. They fought the way I did with my sisters. The big difference was Josh and Grim stalked off to go home. All my sisters and I could do was pick different rooms or hang out at a coffee shop or something until we cooled down.

It surprised me that Josh and Grim weren’t demanding to know about my
rune tempus
. I walked inside with Taran, and he turned and smashed his fist into a wall by the front door. His hand went right through the drywall.

He didn’t even flinch.

I hurried over and picked up his hand, frowning at the blood on his knuckles. “Your dad is going to be pretty pissed about the wall.”

“Yeah, it’s not the first time I’ve done that.”

“Ever thought about finding a nonviolent way to deal with that temper of yours?”

“What temper?” He snorted.

I shook my head because he’d calmed down and I had no idea why. Grim’s description of him as a walking mood swing was beginning to make sense. I actually felt dizzy. “Let’s clean up your hand. Where is the first aid stuff?”

He pulled away. “It’s just a few scrapes. I’ll wash my hands.” He opened both hands, stared at his palms. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“You shouldn’t have to see me punching stuff. You’re probably right. I need to find a new way to deal. It’s just this anger feels so massive and so hot sometimes—like it’s going to come spilling out of my throat in this massive, roiling wave of lava.”

“That’s an image.” I twisted my lips, looked at the hole in the wall, then moved a picture of a duck over to cover it. It was only a few inches from the original spot, but it hid the hole. “This should work until you can get it fixed. I think your dad is angry enough at you right now.”

“He’s been angry at me since I was nine years old.” He flexed his hand. “I’m so damned sick of it.”

I shook my head. “He’s exasperated, confused and, yeah, pissed. But it doesn’t seem like the kind of anger that’s been around that long.” I bit my lip, looked back at the duck picture. “Are you talking about what happened with your mom?”

“Billy made you curious, didn’t he?”

I nodded. Not just about his mom, but the girl he supposedly hit, too. I couldn’t see that at all. Taran was the most protective boy I’d ever met. Not that I’d met that many, but he seemed to tuck me out of the way of danger instinctively.

“He’s right, you know.” His lips tightened. “It was my fault she died.”

“How can a nine-year-old be responsible for his mother’s death?”

“Let me go wash my hands. You might not want to hang around me after hearing this story.”

“Doubt anything could make that happen.” I stopped him before he could stomp into the kitchen. Touching his arm, I noticed how tight and stiff he was holding himself. “Taran, I can see you, you know.”

“See my temper, you mean? Pretty, isn’t it?”

I shook my head. “There’s more to you than a temper. You may walk around looking at everything through a shroud of anger, but you could take it off. You’re pretty nice to look at under it.”

He stared at me for several long, quiet moments. Something snapped between us, something that made me tighten my hands into fists so he wouldn’t see them trembling. His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed and suddenly that something had heat. A lot of heat.

He stepped closer.

I held my breath, pretty sure I was about to learn what that gorgeous mouth of his felt like. But he suddenly frowned, looked at his hands and stepped back.

I kind of wanted to scream.

“Come on,” he said, chuckling as if he knew what I was thinking. “Let’s get you warm. I’ll tell you the whole bad story. We’ll see if you change your mind.”

A kiss would have warmed me faster than anything else. I couldn’t understand why he’d pulled back. But I followed him into the kitchen, wincing at how bright it was with all the light reflecting off the snow through the windows and onto the white countertops and walls. If I lived here, I’d paint the cabinets.

Taran turned the water on and let it run—probably to get it warm. He stared out of the window over the sink as he washed his hands, only looking down at the end. He grabbed a paper towel and blotted the back of his hand. “I was having a tantrum. I was nine years old and had thrown a fit over something stupid.” He turned to look at me. “What’s crazy is I can’t even remember what I was so mad about.
I
can’t
. All I remember is being in the store and I guess I wanted something or wanted to go somewhere. I didn’t scream or yell or anything—it wasn’t like some toddler’s tantrum, but it was still me acting out in fury. I walked out of the store while my mom was paying for the stuff. Walked right out and she came running after me, not realizing she still had something in her hand. Something she hadn’t paid for. The security guard chased her down and she wasn’t paying attention. She only had eyes for me because I had stomped right into the street.”

I put my hand over my mouth because I could easily get what happened then.

He stared at his knuckles while still blotting them with the paper towel. The blood was bright red against the white paper and I worried one of the wounds was worse than he thought.

“Mom ran right into the street and grabbed me, and she would have gotten all the way across, wouldn’t have been hit. But I yelled and the security guard grabbed her. He saw the truck coming and for some reason just let her go, snatched me and ran.” Bleak brown eyes looked up at me. “He was a big man. I still can’t understand why he didn’t just take us both.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“There were witnesses. They said that the angle was all wrong and that if he’d grabbed her, she would have dropped me and I’d have been hit by the truck.” He balled up the paper towel and tossed it into the trash. “It should have been me.”

I shook my head. “None of that sounds like your fault. You were just a kid.”

“A kid who ran into the street because he didn’t get something he wanted.” He walked to the roll-top desk and opened it. He picked up the small, framed photograph and didn’t even look at it as he carried it to me. I stared at the image of the smiling blonde woman, my heart twisting because she held a much younger Taran, and the way she looked at him was so sweet. He looked back at her with the same expression. “Doesn’t look like you always had the anger. Not here.”

“I loved her so much. I miss her every single day and I would do anything to be able to go back in time and do that over. It’s so weird. You get up one day, and it seems like any other day, and one stupid mistake changes your life forever.”

I thought of my mother that last time at our house. She’d chopped up my snapdragons, which I’d been carting from one campground to another for years, then looked at me as if I were a stranger. “Life can change abruptly.” I looked back at the picture. “I don’t think the woman I see in this picture would like knowing how long you’ve blamed yourself.”

“It’s easy when others think the same thing.”

“I doubt your father blames you, either.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, then he smiled. “Enough with the maudlin. I’ll make us some hot chocolate and we can watch a movie by the woodstove. I don’t know about you, but I could use something that feels normal.”

I had more questions about his dad, but could tell he was done. A lot had happened today—he’d had a lot to take in. So I nodded and put his mother’s picture back in the desk. We went into his living room and I pulled off my coat, draped it over a chair. Again, I was faced with the goddess symbol on his wall. I walked to it and smoothed my palms along the parallel circles, feeling the texture changes against my skin, following the lines that to me represented the connection I have with my sisters.