or worse, to cast him off. He wouldn’t abandon her like that. If she’d known him at all, she’d have known that.
But that was the problem wasn’t it? She understood him as little as he understood her.
The light was still on inside the florist’s shop but the closed sign was up. He stopped outside the door. It was nearly six and most of the shops along Main Street were already closed except for the diner two doors down. For the first time in years, there was a woman he wanted badly to seduce but he couldn’t think where to begin. By rights, she was already his.
He didn’t want to screw this up.
There was no movement in the shop. She might already be gone, out to eat with her sister, Grace or even Fen. He couldn’t make himself knock at the window and when his phone rang, he turned away to answer it with an uneasy sigh of relief mixed with guilt.
When Fen called to see if she and Audrey wanted to come over later to go over the plan for the runes, he mentioned that he was picking up supplies in town and Raquel jumped at the chance to hitch a ride. Fen’s awkward pause told her she’d overstepped.
“I can go with Audrey,” she said, backpedaling. “She just...really likes to shop.”
“And you don’t?”
“Not for shoes.” With Audrey they’d be gone all day, until the energy drain from being so far from the fault forced a retreat. The nearest town with decent shopping was an hour away. Two hours of drive time would mean Audrey could potentially have her trying on every shoe in town, all the while harassing her for not having taken care of it sooner.
When she started to explain this to Fen, he said, “Okay, yeah. That would be cruel. Will you be up by noon?”
By noon? “I told you I’m not a morning person, but I’m not that bad. Noon’s fine.”
Noon was actually great because Audrey had a meeting with the caterer to discuss table linens. When she’d heard Raquel tell the woman to pick whatever she liked, Audrey’s eyeballs had nearly exploded. She’d volunteered to go in her sister’s stead. Raquel didn’t see what the big deal was over napkin color but Audrey, she knew, would make sure everything was perfect. So the least Raquel could do was to take care of the damn shoes.
The wedding dress was long—no one would even be able to see her feet. She could wear sneakers except Audrey would surely notice and Raquel would never hear the end of it. It was the sort of thing that would matter to Christian too. And if it was important to him, then she’d go shoe shopping, much as it pained her to do so.
Fen was a good sport and even though it was shoe shopping, they had fun. She liked hanging out with him.
When they stopped for lunch at a diner on their way, he didn’t blink when she ordered a side of onion rings with her cheeseburger and still made room for pie. Of course, the man did have a truly disturbing fondness for ketchup so maybe that explained why he didn’t criticize her culinary choices. He didn’t complain that time ceased to have meaning for her when she stepped into the bookstore, and he didn’t tease her about the stack of romance novels she picked up.
She caught the wistful expression on his face when he returned a big, kind of pricey book on art to the shelf. She fought the impulse to add the book to her order as a thank you, but she did make note of the title. Friends could buy friends gifts, right? And that’s what he was—her first friend from her new clan. Kind and funny and smart. It was an enormous relief to find someone here that she could just be herself around.
She found shoes and did it in a hurry, as that was the one part of the trip where Fen truly seemed like he’d rather be somewhere...anywhere else. On their way out of town, he ran into the tattoo shop to grab his supplies and she called Christian to let him know they were running late.
“I’ll meet you at the house,” he said, sounding distracted. “Beth, one of the riders, is having a wine tasting at her shop in town. If you’re up to it...”
“We were planning to look at the book of runes Kathy sent me and see if we can work up a sketch for the tattoo. Audrey’s coming. Can we skip the party, or do we really need to go?”
“I need to go. I promised her a few weeks ago. But I’ll make an excuse for you. Maybe I can leave early and come over.”
“That would be great.”
Fen held the door for the woman entering the shop as he was leaving. He also totally checked out her ass while doing it. Raquel must have muttered something out loud.
“What?” Christian said in her ear. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Oh, nothing.”
Fen walked to the truck, lean and fast and sort of dangerous-looking. He moved like a hound even in human form. There was something powerfully attractive about that in a purely animalistic way—probably why the woman was still watching him through the store window.
She said goodbye and clicked off her phone, grinning when Fen opened the door. “That girl is checking you out.”
He gave a put upon sigh. “A heartbreaker, that’s what I am.”
“I can see that.”
He tossed his bag in the backseat and started up the truck. “Some people just want what they can’t have. It’s a normal thing. It fades, especially when all they’re after is the challenge.”
There was a strange note in his voice, as if he was trying to tell her something. Even though Christian had been upfront with her about how many women he’d been involved with, people—women especially—of the clan seemed to feel compelled to warn Raquel about it. She would have been fine with that if they’d come right out and tell her they thought her fiance was a slut to her face, but it was all hints and innuendo. She hadn’t expected it from Fen. She frowned out the window.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He gave her a longer, harder look. “It’s the first time you’re quiet all day and you look like you’re thinking about politics in the Middle East.”
She shook her head and smiled into his eyes. “I’m
“All of it. We have everything we need to permanently defile your sweet, young body.”
She snorted. “Defile? You couldn’t defile freshly fallen snow.”
“You don’t think so? You’ve only known me what? A week now?”
“Yep. Seven days.” Fourteen days until the wedding, not that she was counting them down like a doomsday clock or anything. “It seems longer, doesn’t it?”
A funny look crossed his face, but he nodded in agreement. “It does.”
She took a long sip from the water bottle she’d left in the truck. “Christian is going to Beth’s house tonight.”
“Without you?”
“He said we should stick to our plan, but...Beth won’t be offended, will she? Were you invited?”
“No.” He gave her a quick smile, eyes glinting with humor. He had nice eyes—an unusual shade of green. Right now, they were warm, almost hazel, but when the light hit them just right they turned gold. “Beth doesn’t invite me anymore. She got tired of asking, which is just as well because I got tired of saying no.”
“How very antisocial of you,” she murmured, jealous that he had a built-in excuse to get out of that kind of thing.
“And you on the other hand are dying to go to a cocktail party, I can tell. I’m busy tomorrow, but we can do this Saturday if you want.”
She rocked her head to one side. “Let’s stick with the plan.”
“Christian likes to entertain. You’ll be planning your own parties soon.”
