Shameful by May Dawson
29
Legacy
That night,I walked into my room to find West already there. I held the candelabra up higher, trying to get a good look at his face in the candlelight. This apparently was not a good week for electricity in Castle Island, and I was discovering candles were not as romantic as I might have once thought.
West twisted to look at me, and even in the flickering light, he looked grouchy and impatient. “What?”
“What are you doing in my room?” I demanded. My gaze fell to the basket beside him, full of wood. He was kneeling in front of the big stone fireplace.
“You should take a bath. It’s miserable if your room iscold.”
I did indeed want a bath—well, I wanted a hot shower in a normal house, but I’d take a sponge bath in front of the fire if that was the closest I couldget.
“Why do you care?” I asked. The words were supposed to be light, but they came out sharply. He’d been ignoring me allday.
He shrugged one big shoulder. “Feel free to stink if you’d prefer.”
He returned to nestling kindling between the logs. I crouched beside him, close enough that my elbow brushed his, and he pulled away. He glanced at me, his expression as unreadable as always.
“Why do you dislike me so much?” I asked quietly.
He regarded me skeptically. “I don’t.”
“Where’ve you been allday?”
He shrugged.
I poked his chest, surprising myself—and him, from the look on his face. “You’ve been avoidingme.”
He stood abruptly, getting away. Once he towered above me, he stopped and stroked the match over the matchbox. I straightened too. The glow of the match washed his handsome face in eerie shadows.
He leaned down and touched the match to the kindling. For a second, I stared at his broad shoulders, the lean taper of his waist, then I dragged my eyesaway.
Quietly, he said, “I can’t hear myself think when you’re around.”
“I don’t talk all thetime.”
“I don’t mean it like that.” His voice was soft, surprising me. I wanted to know what the hell he meant but before I could ask, he added, “Anyway, I’m only doing this tonight. You can start your own fires and fetch your own water.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice clipped. “Ican.”
“I’m not going to take care of you.” He said, then he strodeout.
I didn’t expect him to return.
And then he did, a moment later, lugging a big metal wash-basin.
“It looks like you are, actually,” Isaid.
He frowned at me. “Arewhat?”
“Taking care of me.” I tucked my hair behind my ears, feeling a strange, fluttery sensation that unnervedme.
West stared at me as if he didn’t know what to say now that snorting was off the table. Then he came back to life. Grumpily, he prepared a bath for me. “I’m going to tell Killian to bring us back some fuel for the generator. Maybe he can sweet talkGibs.”
“Thanks,” Isaid.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. He dropped a towel on the velvet-and-mahogany chair in the corner. “I just don’t want you to stink.”
He was infuriating. “Get out of my room, West.”
“Rhett’s welcome in here, isn’t he?” He raked his hand through his hair, implacable, unmoving.
“Rhett’s not an asshole.”
His lips turned up at the corners. “If you think that, you really don’t know my brotheryet.”
“Fine. He’s not actively being an asshole at the moment, though, and you are.” I pushed West’s chest, pushing him toward the door, but when my hands hit the hard planes of his chest, I could’ve sworn there was a crackle of electricity betweenus.
He stared down at me, his eyes locked with mine as if he felt it too. For a second, I thought West was going to lean down and kiss me. His lips parted, softening above that hard jaw, and my breath stuttered in my chest.
Then he pulled away so fast that I almost stumbled. His big, powerful body receded from mine, and he turned and headed out of thedoor.
If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought the big, scary man—the one the other guys had been afraid to fight in our pack—was runningaway.
I was just finishingmy bath when someone knocked on mydoor.
“Hang on,” I called, stepping out of the water. I threw my towel around my body and anchored it firmly above my breasts. “You’re alive, aren’t you? Not a ghost?”
“I’m not dead yet.” It was Killian’s low, sexy voice, which always curled through my body like smoke. I bit my lip, feeling my toes curl faintly against the damp carpet. I didn’t know why Killian left me feeling so undone, but he alwayshad.
“Be right there,” I said, my voice coming out a little too high, and I winced. I lost all my cool around Killian.
I used to make excuses to talk to him when I was a young teenager. He’d always been polite but brief, his gaze always moving on to someone else. He called me kiddo. The one and only time he touched me, he’d tousled my hair after a match as he told me good job. I’d stood there dumbstruck, my lips parted, my scalp and spine tingling with electricity from his touch as he’d moved on—then gone to kiss his girlfriend.
I could not deal with Killian.
“Legacy? Are you dead?” There was a genuine note of concern in his voice.
Fuck mylife.
“Be right there,” I said, for the second time, which made me consider throwing myself through the big arched windows into the sea below. But instead I double checked that the towel was in place, attempted to regain my sanity, and padded across the rug to swing the dooropen.
“Hi,” I said. “Is there a ghost problem?”
Killian’s eyes widened, taking in my damp hair and naked shoulders, his face lit by the lantern he carried. I’d worn less in a bathing suit, but I still felt embarrassingly exposed.
“No,” he managed to say. “But I was gone all day, and I just wanted to check in. See how you were doing.”
“I’m good. The guys have been taking care ofme.”
The skin around his eyes tightened, as if he didn’t like hearing that. “Great.”
Wait. Was Killian jealous?
Did the crush that I felt like an idiot around have a crush onme?
“Legacy?” he asked again.
My brain appeared to short circuit whenever Killian was in close proximity.
I fixed him with a bright smile. “Mmhmm?”
“You’re down to train tomorrow, right? I told Gibs I needed some time off… to focus here. On ourpack.”
Our pack.Our pack of four, apparently. Because I wasn’t sure I’d ever be welcome back in the Northwoods, as much as I wanted to believe this nightmare would end when I dragged home a dead vampire.
“Yeah,” I said. “That would be great. A little bit of normalcy in this place that is… very not normal.”
“Good,” he said, nodding. “That’ll befun.”
“So you say,” I said, feeling the same punchy sensation I always had when I talked to him before, which always made me feel like I was talking way too much. “Until I kick yourass!”
Yep. There it was. That was talking toomuch.
Killian just smiled. “Good. West and Rhett aren’t enough of a challenge. I’ll look forward toit.”
He dropped the sexiest wink I’d ever seen, then turned and headedoff.
“Good night,” I said, then closed the door and leaned againstit.
Fuck me. I was so awkward.
Where were those murderous ghosts when I neededthem?