Nightfall (18 page)

The sound that came from Susan’s mouth was something between a scream and a hiss of pain. “You will die, witch,” she said.

Izzy shrugged, a mean little movement. “You haven’t been able to pull it off yet. What makes you think you’ll do better next time?”

“Seriously,” Matt said, and waited for Roxanne to nod. “Izzy said that?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

Roxanne took a long sip of her coffee. Her throat was still raw, though her head had finally stopped spinning after a few days of rest. It still felt surreal to explain it all, but with Izzy refusing to answer her phone, she didn’t really know who else to talk to, other than Matt. “She vanished, like she’d never even been there. I think she just moved that fast, but I can’t tell, not for sure. My back door was swinging open, and I wouldn’t swear that I left it locked, but you know I never use it. And then—” She paused. Explaining her relationship with Julian—whatever it was—to Matt had the potential for so much confusion and consternation and nonsense. But at the same time, Matt said all the time that he was her best friend. If that was true, if he really cared about her as much as he said he did, then he needed to be able to grasp that they were not an item, and that she was pretty sure they’d never be an item. That wasn’t because of Julian. That was because of Matt. “Julian showed up again, with Carmen Nunez, Izzy’s mother.”

“Convenient timing,” he said.

She ignored the dig. It wasn’t worth engaging. Matt had expressed his opinion of Julian more than once while she’d been in the hospital, recovering. She’d reminded him as gently as she could manage that she was an adult, and allowed to screw whoever she wanted. She’d managed to avoid telling Matt that his rough manner towards Julian just made her want him more. Made him seem ever more forbidden.

“So. Werewolves. In Sweetwater.”

Roxanne nodded. “Do you think I need my head shrunk?” she asked, in a low Texas drawl.

Matt smirked a little. “Naw, ma’am, but I do worry about what you ladies got yourselves up to on that night back then.” They laughed together, and the chill that had started to crackle around the edges settled down. Just like it always did. Because Matt was Matt, and he was her friend. “Seriously, Roxie, what are we going to do about all this?”

It was her turn to shrug. “I don’t know there’s anything
to
do.”

“Is your boyfriend staying in town?”

“I don’t really know if I’d call him my boyfriend. We had one date.” And the most amazing sex she’d ever had in her life, sex so good that she’d had to resist pulling him down onto her virtually every moment of her hospital stay. And they’d talked, too, which was the part that had really blown her mind. She didn’t remember the last time someone had really sat and talked with her. He’d brought her food she liked, books that sounded interesting. He’d watched crappy movies with her and mocked them with her instead of shushing her, like some people sitting across the table from her. He’d acted like the boyfriend she’d always wanted. But there was a shadow in his eyes, every single time she’d looked at him.

She’d gotten out of the hospital twenty-four hours ago, and she hadn’t called him yet. She didn’t know what she was going to say when she did. If she did. He seemed far too perfect, and that had always, every single moment of her life, meant that she needed to look deeper.

God, why wouldn’t Izzy answer her damn phone? Obviously, she was going through her own shit, but they could at least have gone through it together. Carmen hadn’t even allowed them to take her to the hospital to be checked out. She’d given them a vicious look, and said that the
gringo
world had done enough. Only the word she used might have been ruder. Things had been pretty swimmy at that point. It had made Izzy weakly complain at her mother in Spanish, and made Julian’s face darken, she remembered that much. 

“And he was at your bedside basically every moment that you were in the hospital, getting your head stitched back together after that Susan knocked it around for you. And you two clearly had a more intimate friendship than you’re letting on.”

She blushed lobster red and shook her head fiercely.

He made a scornful sound. “Don’t think I’m not smart, Roxie. I get it. Handsome stranger rolls into town, classic bad boy with a mysterious past, there’s a reason why it’s every trope that ever existed. Women fall down and beg for a backstory like that.”

“I’m not ‘women,’” she said, unable to keep the snark out of her tone. “I’m me, and I don’t fall for people because of stupid stereotypes, I fall for them because they mean something to me.”

“I’m sorry.” His apology seemed sincere, so she managed to back her temper down a few notches. “Who you bang is none of my business. You’ve made that very clear.” He sighed, spinning his coffee cup in his hands. “There’s really no chance for us, is there?”

The right thing to do was to tell him “no.” That would be the strong, good, right thing to do. But somehow, as she looked at him, at the eager and hopeful and sad glimmer in his eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to shut it down completely. She’d always thought that she’d marry someone like him, some day. Someone who was her best friend, who had sat with her through good times and bad, who cooked and cleaned just as much as she did, and rubbed her feet after a long day at work. Who might ask her to get him a beer from the fridge, but only because he was planning to get the next round. So she hedged.

“It wasn’t the right thing when we tried before,” she said. “And it nearly ruined our friendship. And that’s so important to me, Matt. We’ve known each other since forever, and I couldn’t stand losing you. I couldn’t stand losing that connection, that sense that I’m here with my very best friend. If we could find a way to fall in love without losing that— God, Matt, I can’t imagine a greater gift. But for me, it hasn’t happened yet, not at all, and I gotta tell you the truth, don’t you think it would have happened now if it was going to?”

He met her gaze for a long minute before his eyes finally dropped. “I’d do anything for you,” he said. His voice was so quiet that she almost didn’t hear him. “You do know that at least, right? If that means only being your friend, then I’ll do that, too.”

She reached out and circled her hands around his. “Only my friend,” she said. “Is it such a terrible fate?”

The smile on his face didn’t even touch his eyes. “So how’s Izzy?”

Her head still ached a bit, and the change in topic didn’t help, but she went with it, as best as she could. “Doing as well as can be expected. Her mother worked some kind of—I don’t know what, but says that our girl’s not going to get furry when the moon gets big. But there was a lot of Spanish back and forth, and I only caught some of it, and Izzy won’t talk about it. I think there’s still going to be consequences for what happened, even though she says everything’s fine. She hasn’t been to work since. I know she’s been staying with her mother, and she answers my texts sometimes, but even when she does, it’s very distant. She won’t talk about that night at all. I’m really worried about her.” And about how much she needed to her best friend. But that wasn’t a charitable thought, not in the least, and sharing it with Matt would make it worse, not better.

He hesitated for a moment before he put his hand over hers. It was an odd feeling. More reserved than he’d been with her in a long time. It was nice, actually. To have the pressure lift was nice. It gave her a funny kind of hope—both that they would be able to be friends, and that maybe, at the end of the road, they’d finally find that something more than he wanted so very much. And in a funny way, it sent a little spiral of interest through her that hadn’t been there since the party, when they’d kissed.

It had been a really good kiss, after all. It had started as a quick peck and a hug, but something had shifted the energy of it, just slightly. Maybe his hand had pressed in on her back a tiny bit more, or maybe she had shifted against him a little more than she meant to. And he’d sighed against her, but it hadn’t been a
what a good friend
sigh, it had been very clearly a
more would be nice
sigh, and she’d thought, why the hell not give it a try? She’d turned her mouth up to his, and he’d seemed surprised as he kissed her, and then neither of them had been thinking. They’d torn at each other’s clothing, shredding underwear, stumbling up the stairs of his house, almost not making it to his bedroom after she stumbled on the stairs. They’d tumbled into his bed, and he’d been wild, amazing, everything she’d hoped for—until he’d slipped inside of her.

And then everything had changed. His eyes had locked on hers, and she’d seen so much love, so much respect and friendship and a thousand things for her to live up to, all swirling in his eyes. She’d seen him planning their future, their house with its wrap around porch and picket fence and children. She could see him buying the rocking chairs they’d put on the porch, and see her quitting her job to raise the kids, babysit the grandkids. She could see her whole life unfolding in his dreams, and she wanted nothing to do with any of it.

She’d closed her eyes and clawed at his back to try and get him to stop thinking in daydreams, but he’d kept going, soft and gentle and so fucking
loving
that it all collapsed for her. But she’d made all the right noises and after he came, he’d licked her with that same patient
loving
until she’d faked an orgasm just to make him stop. And then she’d ducked out as soon as she could, and she’d gone home, and showered until her skin had turned bright red.

This touch, soft and undemanding, was a hint of that same exquisite interest she’d felt in the first kiss.

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I know you two haven’t been close for all that long, but I know how much it hurts to lose contact with someone you care about.”

Yes. Clearly, it was thinking about Izzy and the lost opportunity for their friendship that had put this look on her face. Obviously. “I think the thing that makes it hardest is that there aren’t very many people I can talk to about all this. I’m surprised as hell that you even believe me. I’d have me tied up in a straight jacked and on my way to Houston by now.” She tried to find a laugh, but it wouldn’t come

“I’m just waiting for the men in the white coats to call me back,” he said, glancing far too obviously at his phone. She wanted to laugh, she really did, but the truth was that she was incredibly grateful that he’d been there when she called and asked him to meet her for lunch. He’d listened carefully as she’d told him everything that had happened, and he’d never shown any signs of doubting her whatsoever. It was almost like he’d already known.

“So what do you think about all of this?”

“All of what, exactly?”

Roxanne shrugged. “Werewolves moving in to Sweetwater. I get the feeling that he plans to stay for a while. He’s got a lot to figure out, and it seems like his enemies have followed him here. Do you think the town will stay safe?”

Something flashed in Matt’s eyes, something she’d never really seen there before. It was heat and determination, but something else entirely. Something very much darker. “I hope so. For his sake.”

“Matthew Robbins.” She was careful with her tone. Matt was as forward thinking a man as she’d ever met in person, but he had a streak of “good ole boy” a mile long when he got something in his head. “I in no way doubt your ability to handle yourself, but you do not want to mess with this guy. He has freaking claws when he wants to, and he’s stronger than anything. If there’s a problem, we’ll go to the cops, or the—dammit, I don’t know, the National Guard. You will not go after him, or try to take him out, or any crazy thing that comes into your head. You understand me?”

“If there’s anything to the stories, it’d be simple,” he said. “Silver’s supposed to do it, right? You’ve got your grandma’s silverware collection, and you don’t even like it. We’d melt it down. Have to coat the tip of a regular bullet, I think, though, silver on its own would be way too soft to go through the muzzle of a gun. Or load a shotgun with silver pellets, that’d probably work too.”

“Matt. Stop it. We are not sitting here and planning the murder of another human being.”

“Is he a human being?” Matt’s eyes drilled into her, and she shifted uncomfortably on her chair. “Are you sure?”

She wanted to say “yes,” but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that night in his house, the yellow eyes staring up at her from the basement. He said he’d never hurt her, but he’d leapt at her that night. Later, he said it was because he smelled the other woman outside, but his eyes when he’d said it… They were almost too steady on hers, as if he were trying to convince her. As if he were trying to convince her of his sincerity. Which seemed to make it even more likely that he was lying.