Bite Me (Woodland Creek) (6 page)

And what would make a better story than the undercover cop turned private detective, who had tracked down the woman who had saved his life in order to save hers? It sounded kind of romantic, actually, the very sort of thing that would spread like wildfire among the housewives and barmaids.

Alice looked around, suddenly feeling like every eye in the place was locked onto the back of her head.

One woman turned away quickly when Alice looked at her, but that was it. It could have been just an innocent glance, curiosity about the two new people who had spent the night at the police station.

This was definitely going to get out. People might already think she and Jake were a thing, just because they were new in town.

With the way Alice’s mind had conjured up the potential romantic story that would be floating around the town in a couple of days, at the very latest, she wasn’t so sure they weren’t a thing.

It actually was kind of romantic. She and Jake, their history together, and everything they’d gone through…and then he just shows up to her rescue after all these years, having tracked her down for so long…

He either had Superman-quality honor, or maybe he did feel something for her. Why else would he come for her?

Alice’s face warmed up. A lot. She could feel it climbing her neck and turning her cheeks molten hot. She glanced up at Jake. He was in a conversation with the chief and other officers, making them laugh over the stupid cases he’d taken on and some of the things he’d had to do in order to get evidence for his clients. There was a lot of laughter. Apparently, Jake was a popular guy.

A popular, well-liked guy with a lot of honor, a good education and career, and movie star gorgeous on top of it all.

Alice had…well, she still had her looks, so she wasn’t doing too badly there. But she also had nothing going for her. No traditional education, no skills aside from cat burglary, and a history most people would turn the other way and run from.

Oh, yeah, and a couple of really bad people wanted her dead.

She wasn’t even close to being on the same level as he was, and yet there she was, contemplating the chances he might actually be interested in her. That he might even love her.

If this was a movie, his feelings would be easier to read. She’d have the guts to just flat out ask him what was going on, and now that Bobby was out of the picture, the credits could roll.

But it wasn’t a movie, and Alice was nobody’s idea of a heroine. She wasn’t heroic, she wasn’t brave, and she definitely wasn’t bold enough to ask Jake if he liked her, let alone loved her. She still had enough pride to keep from doing that. At least, for now.

It wasn’t important.

Something was different about her. Maybe it was the way her shoulders seemed to slouch as she scraped her fork across the last of her hash browns, but she seemed almost…depressed.

Maybe that was too strong a word, but this wasn’t the lively, flirty, fun girl he knew from all those years ago.

How much of her he even knew was debatable. How much of that attitude and bravery had been her real personality? And how much of it had just been a front she’d put on to defend herself against all the dangerous people she’d been surrounded by was anyone’s guess.

Even if it had been her actual personality, that was almost ten years ago. She’d been a girl back then, still nineteen. Her personality could have changed. People changed all the time just from the passing of time. Alice had bigger reasons to change. The sense of invincibility young people had when they were doing dangerous shit could have left her. Hell, he wasn’t kidding himself; it
had
left her, and that was a good thing.

Okay, so if it wasn’t that, then the years of being on the run could’ve gotten to her. Her life had been on hold ever since she’d been forced into taking on her father’s debts.

Putting Bobby away, along with the men he’d been trying to impress, was supposed to end that. When Jake let her go instead of arresting her, when he’d vouched for her during his hours and hours of questioning and interviewing, it was also supposed to end that.

And yet, there they were.

He didn’t like seeing her so sad.

Jake barely realized he’d stopped talking, that the laughter that had started up when he’d been telling his stories had died down. When he blinked out of it, turned away from Alice, and looked back at his new friends, with the exception of Rickman, everyone smiled some knowing smile at him.

Fuck.

Rickman cleared his throat and reached for his wallet. “I think we’re done with breakfast,” he said, tossing some bills onto the table. His other officers did the same as they got up from their chairs.

Jake reached for his own wallet as he got to his feet, but Rickman shook his head. “You’re both on me. You’re still my guests in this town.”

“Thanks. Anything fun to do around here?”

Rickman smiled. “Lots, but most of it’s seasonal. You should stick around for Halloween. That’s gonna be something.”

Halloween? Maybe they had something geared toward the shifters.

“We’ve got some things for the ladies, though,” said Officer…Jake couldn’t remember his name. “There’s Mora’s Massage. My wife likes it there, and then Carter’s Books and Gifts. We’ve got fishing, too.”

“Sounds great,” Jake said, and he looked to Alice, knowing she wasn’t much of a fisher. “What do you say?”

Good girl that she was, she forced a smile, not wanting to insult their hosts. “All those sound nice.”

*****

Jake wanted to take her to the bookstore first. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to buy her something. Bobby and his goons had destroyed a lot of what she’d left in her room back at the inn, and for some reason, walking with her like this, even knowing there was a cop car slowly following twenty feet behind them, it made him feel like he was on the first date he’d had in years.

“Pick out whatever you want. Within reason,” he added, smiling. “On me.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” Jake said, but he didn’t want to ruin it by making it all uncomfortable. “Seriously, I need to pick up some stuff here anyway, maps of the area, and I don’t think I ever gave you a proper thank you for, you know, saving my life and everything.”

He couldn’t believe how much of a hard time he had just getting those words out. His entire body felt warmer. He was still wearing his leather jacket, but it wasn’t like it was hot out. Fall was coming, the leaves were yellowing, and it was a cool morning, even for being late summer.

He expected some push back for that, for Alice to fight him on it. She didn’t.

“Okay,” she said.

The last time she’d sounded so shy to him was back when he first realized she was starting to like him, back when he was still undercover, and back when he knew how much of a problem it would be if he acted on the feelings he had growing inside of him, too.

He pushed that thought out of his mind. He probably imagined it.

The bookstore was a nice, cozy sort of place. Just the kind of place he imagined a small town to have.

They had enough maps to make him happy, along with books on the local wildlife he and Alice would need to watch out for if they shifted again.

He especially wanted to find out what the predators were for squirrels around the area. In the city, the most she had to watch out for were dogs and cats. Out here, there were snakes, hawks, dogs…all sorts of animals he didn’t want to think about that wanted to get their claws and teeth into her.

He had himself a nice little stack by the time he walked up to the counter, and when he looked back and spotted Alice down an aisle, he saw she had something in her arms as well.

Good. He’d worried that she’d make him remind her to buy something.

When she looked up and saw that he was ready, those perfect, blue-grey eyes widened, and she hurried to the front.

At first, he thought she had a couple of books, but then he realized that the black spiral book was actually a sketchbook. Alice had picked up something called
Drawing Secrets
and a book on anatomy that had been in the discount bin, and a small case of pencils.

“Is this okay?” she asked, clearly seeing that he was staring at her selection. She pulled back, as though getting ready to put something away.

Jake blinked and shook his head. “No, I mean, yeah, yeah, it’s definitely fine.” He couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t know you liked to draw.”

Now that he thought about it, she did have a couple of little doodles in her notebooks before. She’d also done the teenager thing from time to time and put some small temporary tattoos on her hands and wrists with blue pens.

And she was blushing and looking away from him again. “I’m not very good. I still want to learn. Figured I should get some skills if I’m ever going to get a job doing, you know, anything else.”

Alice glanced over at the cashier waiting patiently for them to make their decisions, clearly not wanting to say too much about her old life.

Jake just smiled at her. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said, and already he was thinking about all the schools she could attend, all the places that would be able to teach her everything she wanted to know about art, if that’s what she wanted.

Except for the big fat reminder that she couldn’t go to any of those places, not so long as she was on the run and had no money.

He’d need to help her with that, too.

Jake rang their purchases up, using his debit card, since Bobby knew they were here anyway. At least until they tried to fake that they were leaving. He still needed to make a proper decision on what they were going to do on that front.

Pretend to leave, or just stay and bank on the fact that Bobby wouldn’t risk getting thrown back in prison for screwing around on his parole officer too much?

And that was assuming the man wasn’t already in Bobby’s pocket.

So he knew something else about Alice now. He knew that she liked to draw and doodle, and that she had dreams of being a well-trained artist one day. He also knew that her smile when she was insanely happy about something was just as beautiful as it had always been. That was something he knew about her now.

They left the store with their purchases in hand, making their way to Mora’s Massage. Jake wasn’t too sure about this place. He’d never gotten a massage before, and his mind was instantly in the gutter about the possible services that could be offered from such a place.

It seemed professional enough when they walked in, and the woman in charge seemed more than happy to list her services, as well as show off her collection of scented oils.

It was only a little awkward when she mistook them for a couple. Thankfully, Alice wasn’t the type of woman who was overly interested in a massage. They browsed the oils a little while longer just to be polite, but then quickly left.

“I don’t think I want to lie down on my front with my back exposed and not be able to see who’s coming through the door,” she said.

Jake could understand that perfectly. “I once dated a woman who convinced me to get a facial with her.”

“What?” Alice had that sparkly look in her eyes as she smiled.

“Don’t laugh. She said a lot of men do it,” Jake said.

“So that’s why you have such baby-soft skin beneath that scruffy beard.”

She hadn’t touched his face in years, so how could she know? Unless she was just basing that on what his skin looked like.

Mentioning that seemed like it would be giving away way too much, so he didn’t mention it at all.

“Anyway, I never got it done,” he said.

“What? Why not?”

Jake smirked. “Wanted the ammo to make fun of me with, did you?”

“Of course,” she replied, but her smile had melted away. “Was it because you would’ve had to shut your eyes?”

“Yeah,” Jake admitted, clenching his jaw.

“I watched them do her, and having hands touching my face and throat, and then having to close my eyes for fifteen or twenty minutes while they put that goop on and let it dry…” He shook his head, barely suppressing a shiver. “No way. There was no way I was letting anyone do that.”

He’d had a paranoid fear that any one of the women working there could’ve been hired and planted by any number of the drug dealers he’d helped put away, and that they were just waiting for him to lower his guard for a second so they could slit his throat.

It was ridiculous, and even back then, he knew it was a stupid thing to be thinking about. After all, how could they have known that his then girlfriend would spontaneously want him to have a facial with her?

But he couldn’t exactly help himself. He’d seen people die in weird enough ways to be suspicious of pretty much everyone.

“Are you still…with her now?”

“Who? Oh, no, that was a long time ago,” Jake said. “It wasn’t a bad breakup, but it was hard. I just couldn’t do anything with her. She was too spontaneous and adventurous, and I was closed off for the longest time.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not a sad ending, though. We’re still friends on social media, and last I heard, she was getting married to some guy who was going to travel around the world and see all the sights for free or something. Don’t know how he was going to do that, but he seemed to make her happy enough.”

At least, that was the impression Jake got when he looked at the pictures she’d sent.

What he wasn’t about to tell Alice was that part of the reason for the breakup was because his ex had known Jake was hung up on someone else. She’d been patient enough with his downer moods. He’d told her what he used to do for a living, and to be fair, she was more than tolerant with him. Probably more than he deserved, and they’d hung onto that relationship for longer than what was probably healthy.

She’d been able to see through his depression, his inability to see the good in most people, and in the world in general, but she hadn’t been able to overlook the fact that Jake had still been looking for Alice.

He glanced to the side, noting the tiny frown that was pulling down Alice’s brows.

“Does it bug you? That I still talk with my ex?”

“What?” She looked up at him quickly. “God, no, of course not. There’s nothing between us anyway, so it would be weird if I was jealous.”

She laughed at that, but it sounded forced.

And all of a sudden, Jake was having a hard time breathing. He felt like he needed to defend himself, like he’d just cheated on her or something.

“I mean, she really saw me through some dark times. I guess I needed a free spirit around to remind me that everyone on the planet wasn’t a rotten asshole out to get ahead.”

He’d needed someone who had reminded him of Alice, though now that he’d found her, it was just to see that her light had become a little darker, too. He hoped she hadn’t fallen as low as he had.