Seduction (The Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (4 page)

But I would go unsatisfied because he never gave me any explanation for his abrupt exit from my life. It seemed like one day I was texting him a picture of me wearing the bracelet he’d given me for Christmas and the next day, he was gone.
 

I’d felt enraged at his deception and therefore never responded to his letters. I absolutely refused to write him back, not even when my mother encouraged me to. Not once. I was too hurt and angry.
 

Once in awhile I would get up the courage to write to him and would pour my heart out and cry as I wrote down my feelings with pen and paper.
 

I would rage at him and tell him how much he had hurt me and then I would take the tearstained letter and burn it out behind the house in the backyard fire pit.
 

I’d never sent him one single letter the entire two years he wrote to me, but that didn’t deter him. He kept on writing and I kept stuffing the letters in a box at the back of my closet.

Eventually, once I’d graduated from high school and moved away from Spruce Hollow, the letters finally stopped.

Taking a deep breath, I took out a letter from the box and let the past come and envelope me in her dark embrace….

I awoke with a start, some time later, fully clothed and lying on my bed with Roan’s letters strewn all over the place. The house was in complete darkness.
Oh crap, it must be late. How long had I been asleep?
I sat up and yawned. I felt disoriented from waking up in a bed and a room that I hadn’t slept in years.
 

I had been reading through all of Roan’s old letters from the box in the closet and reliving the memories of my last two years in Spruce Hollow had been an emotionally draining experience. Overwhelmed with grief, I’d lain my head down on the pillow and cried until I fell asleep. My eyes still felt puffy and swollen from the effort.
 

I had to get out of this damn place; the past was eating away at me and threatening to consume me whole. There were just too many reminders here. Everywhere I looked and everywhere I went, there was something that pulled me into a past that I didn’t want to be reminded of. This place was miserable and full of sadness. I truly hated Spruce Hollow.
 

And I missed my mother.
 

However distant and formal our relationship had been, she was all the family that I’d had in this world.

As I got up from the bed, the letters tumbled and slid onto the floor as I rose. I felt miserable and my stomach was rumbling and empty. Food hadn’t really been a priority ever since I’d come back home.
 

It was weird, my mother had spent the past two months in the Oncology wing of a city hospital over an hour away from Spruce Hollow. And yet, I had come home to find the kitchen fully stocked. It was an odd stroke of luck but now with my stomach crying out for food, I felt pretty grateful that I didn’t have to worry about grocery shopping.
 

Who knows? Maybe Caver or Griff had bought some groceries over when I’d called them to say that I was coming home for the funeral?
 

I made a mental note to thank them and decided to heat myself up a can of chicken noodle soup that I had seen in the pantry, as it was probably all I could stomach right now anyway.

Opening my bedroom door, I noticed that the kitchen light was on.
That’s strange, I don’t remember turning any lights on?
 

The house was eerily quiet as I crept down the hall, listening hard for whispers or voices that might indicate an unwanted guest from the pack, or heaven forbid, an intruder.
 

At the end of the hall, I stopped and peered around the corner into the kitchen. My eyes scanned the small country kitchen and I suddenly felt all blood drain from my face as I locked eyes with a dark figure. My heart threatened to leap completely out of my throat as we stared at one another. I couldn’t even strangle out a scream at the horror incarnate.
 

Sitting at my mother’s kitchen table and drinking a beer was none other than
Roan.

 
Anger and fear jockeyed for position in my scrambled brain as I started at him in disbelief.

 
“Wha, wha, what are you doing here?” I stammered, my voice trembling and full of emotion.

Chapter 4

~Aspen~

The kitchen was silent as we stared one another down. Me, peering around the corner and him, casually leaning back in a chair with his booted feet crossed and propped up on another chair, like he owned the damn place!
 

I hadn’t seen him in five freaking years and now, of all times, was when he decided to show his smug, jerk face?
Oh, no, I don’t think so mister.
 

Apparently
anger
had just pulled into the lead of the Emotions Derby.

“What the hell are you doing in my mother’s house, Roan?” I said, fury beginning to seep in and color my cheeks.
 

“Hello to you too, Aspen. I was wondering when you were going to get up,” he said, his voice deep and amused.

I just stood there and gawked at him, my mouth hanging open. As much as I prayed for one, an appropriate comeback wouldn’t form in my brain.
 

The nerve of him! How dare he speak to me like he’d only been gone away for a week, and not five goddamn years! What unmitigated gall to think that he could just waltz in here after all this time, break into my mothers house and put his big assed boots on her furniture!
 

Unfreakingbelivable!
 

“Sit,” he ordered as he uncrossed his legs from the chair and put his booted feet on the floor. My own feet were frozen to the floor as he kicked the chair out from under the table and gestured to it.
 

I swallowed hard.
Courage Aspen! Come on, don’t wuss out! You can do this!
I straightened my back and squared my shoulders as I walked into the kitchen with my hands firmly on my hips.

His eyes were dark and glittering as he followed my movements. There was no way in hell that I was going to sit down, just because he’d told me to. Oh no, he wasn’t the boss of my universe any more.
 

“I checked in on you while you were sleeping and saw that you were reading the letters that I’d sent you while I was deployed. You never wrote back though, did you? I’d always wondered why,” he said as he regarded me coolly.

I didn’t respond, my eyes glaring icy daggers at him.

“It’s been a very long time, hasn’t it, Aspen? Surprisingly, you haven’t changed very much at all, have you? You still look exactly the same. Well, maybe not
exactly
the same,” he said as his gazed strayed to my breasts, perky and round in my tight pink t-shirt.
 

I shot him an angry glance as I raked him over, willing my eyes to find some fault with his appearance after all these years.
 

He
had
changed in those five years, but unfortunately time had only made him more attractive, if that was even possible. His hair was shorter and his body was leaner and more chiseled. It made the planes of his face stand out. It was as if the military had hardened him into tempered steel. His handsome face relaxed into an easy smile, his teeth straight and perfect, as I looked him up and down.
 

He was still Roan, just more feral and hungry looking. If nothing it made him appear even more physically and sexually attractive. Like he needed any more help in that department.
Couldn’t he have gotten fat and lost his hair or something?
 

“Did I pass the visual inspection?” he said as he chuckled softly at my perusal.

“What are you doing here, Roan? This is my house now,” I bit out, finally finding my voice.
 

“Oh, I know it is. Before your mother passed away, she’d made me promise that I’d look after you. And I’d told her that I would.”

“What the hell are you talking about? First of all, I don’t need anyone to look after me. Not anymore. I’m an adult now and I can take care of myself, thank you very much. And second of all, if by some chance that I did need someone to keep an eye out for me, my mother would have never asked
you
of all people!” I was fuming now, my chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.

“You know, if I didn’t know you better, I’d have to say that you’re still hurt,” he said calmly, as he looked at me with an air of guarded curiosity in his beautiful blue eyes.

“What?”

“You. You’re still hurt that I left Spruce Hollow all those years ago. You’ve never gotten over it, have you?” His voice was soft and surprisingly gentle as his eyes waited for my reaction.
I hated it.
 

“Oh no, this is a non issue, my friend. I got over all that garbage a long time ago, so don’t flatter yourself mister. As a matter of fact, you don’t know the first thing about me anymore, Roan.”

“Is that a fact,
little girl
?” he said, enunciating his pet name for me like he was caressing it with his tongue. “I know that you can still be a mouthy little brat when you’re backed into a corner. That certainly hasn’t changed at all, has it?” he said as he took in my trembling lips.
 

I was on the verge of tears.
 

I could feel them pricking at the corners of my eyes.
Lord, please don’t let me cry in front of this egotistical jackass.
He didn’t deserve to be privy to such a moment of utter grief and frailty.

As far as I was concerned, Roan would think nothing of stabbing me right between the shoulder blades, his perfect smile contorted with wickedness as he pulled the knife out.

“Get out of my house, Roan. I don’t want you here. I don’t need you to look out for me. So you can consider your promise to my mother fulfilled.”

“Is that so?” he said, his eyes hard and unwavering.

“Yes! And furthermore, I have no interest in catching up or socializing with you in any way, so there’s really no reason for you to be here,” I said as I stood up and pointed towards the door.

Roan stayed seated and casually took a drink of his beer, the smug bastard.

His eyes never left mine as he leaned back in his chair and stretched his long, muscular legs out. He shifted his ass in the chair, settling in, as he raised his hands and folded them behind his head.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

“Get out!” I yelled, nearly unhinged with the overwhelming rush of emotions from seeing him again.

Roan looked slightly amused as he sat there and watched my little tantrum unfold.

“Well, you’re still as lively as ever, I see. I’m glad you didn’t lose your fire, little girl.”

“Stop it, just stop calling me that! You can’t! You don’t deserve to call me by that name, Roan! You don’t get to have a pet name for me anymore!”
 

Dammit!
This was not how I’d always pictured a reunion with Roan in my head. Over the years, I’d repeatedly pictured my fantasy meeting with him. I would be strong and in control as he got down on his knees and begged for my forgiveness. Then I’d look him in the eyes and tell him to go to hell.
 

But no.

After all these years, here was my chance to finally let him have it and I was completely blowing it.
 

I was overwrought and emotionally distressed as it was. But hearing him call me by the pet name that he’d given me in childhood had wrecked what little composure I had left and me filled with longing for the things he’d broken inside me a long time ago.
 

Seeing Roan again was overwhelming and I felt flooded with so many emotions. Grief. Anger. Yearning. Sadness. Fear.
 

Lord, why couldn’t he just leave?
I didn’t want him in my mother’s house. And what the hell was he even doing back in Spruce Hollow anyway? I’d thought he was still in the military? How come my mother hadn’t told me that he was out?
 

I suppose I shouldn’t have been terribly surprised that my mother hadn’t mentioned it because my mother never spoke of Roan at all over the years. She knew how upset and betrayed I’d felt by him leaving us. So, unless I brought him up first, she never talked about him. And even though he was on my mind constantly, I never brought Roan up as a topic of conversation.

“Aspen, there are a lot of things you don’t understand yet. There were a few really good reasons why I left Spruce Hollow and I am willing to answer any questions you might have.”

”Yeah, like what? What reason could possibly be good enough to make you leave us? “I said as my face flushed with anger.

 
“Look, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. But I just don’t think that this particular moment, where you’re ready to rip my head off with your bare hands is a good time,” he said calmly as he stood up. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I’m tired from traveling all day on pack business and was actually just on my way to bed when you came into the kitchen.”
 

As he got up and left the kitchen, I caught a whiff of his scent as he walked past me. He smelled spicy and clean. There was no doubt about it, Roan was pure male. He didn’t have a genteel or metrosexual bone in his body. I watched him with narrowed eyes as he walked towards the hallway, which led to the bedrooms.