North of Need (Hearts of the Anemoi, #1) (19 page)

Megan never lasted long outside before she got a little too warm and sleepy. Long midday naps became an everyday indulgence. Dinner was a low-key affair, and then she’d watch a DVD or find another book. In the evenings, she found it difficult to resist peeking out the front windows. That first time, Owen had arrived in the evening, after all.

Late at night, she laid in bed, staring up at the low glow of the stars covering her ceiling and talking to John. He didn’t answer back, of course, not without Owen here. But Megan still needed to say good-bye, was ready to do so, finally, and believed somehow he would be aware.

Tuesday and Wednesday brought more of the same routine, with the exception of the return of cold weather on Wednesday morning. But she enjoyed winter’s return. In a weird way, it made her feel closer to Owen. So, before lunch, all bundled up in coat, scarf, and mittens, she took a walk to the end of her driveway and back. Fresh and crisp, the air tasted good and made her feel alive.

With each satisfying thump of her boots against the pavement, Megan stomped back the threatening worry Owen wasn’t returning.

Five days had passed—each day it grew harder to wake up as hopeful and distract herself from the loneliness. Maybe, by not telling him she loved him before he went back to his own realm, she’d blown it. Maybe Boreas had let news of the baby slip and Owen didn’t want it. This fear was the one that caused her stomach to plummet. The next thought lodged a thick ball of tension in her throat. Maybe he wasn’t healing. Maybe Owen was—
No
.

Back in the house, Megan shed all her outer layers, sweat dampening her skin and underclothes. The shower’s call sounded so delicious, she gave in to it, decided to eat after freshening up, no matter how much her stomach protested. Apparently, this baby had inherited Owen’s appetite, because she was ravenous almost all of the time and craved ice cream above everything else. Another trip to the grocery store would be in order soon.

Megan washed herself quickly and then let the lukewarm spray beat down on her body, infusing relaxation into every cell. For a long moment, she just stood there, eyes closed, head down, back to the showerhead, and allowed the jets to knead all the worry and tension from her muscles. It was heaven. The thought was bittersweet. How many times had Owen said that about being with her?
Oh, Owen, where are you?

Her stomach growled. “All right, all right.” This baby was going to turn her into a house. The thought comforted her. “I’m movin’ it.” On a deep sigh, she straightened up and opened her eyes.

And found herself staring into the mismatched gaze of Owen Winters.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Megan screamed in surprise, her heart slamming in her chest. For a moment, the air sucked out of the room. He was here. And then she moaned, a long, low sound of desperate relief. Oh, God, he was really
here
.

Her hands yanked open the stall’s glass door. Her feet were in motion before her brain ordered the movement, and then she had him. She had him in her arms. Her hands fluttered over him—stroking his silky black hair, massaging his big shoulders, feeling the strong, solid realness of him. Tightness closed off her throat and kept her from offering any more than that choked moan.

His arms wrapped around her slowly. Between them, the soft fabric of his shirt dampened from her body. The sensation delighted her, because if he was a figment of her imagination, he’d have been naked. The ridiculous thought opened her throat a bit. “Oh, Owen,” she whispered. She pulled back, prepared to tell him everything.

His expression stole her words and her breath.

Stone faced, eyes distant, lips pressed into a line. His arms dropped away.

The emptiness in Megan’s stomach felt like a rock. Dread snaked down her spine. “Hey.” Her eyes scanned over his face, searching for some hint of the warmth and openness she associated with him. She couldn’t find it. The wrongness of it…Goose bumps broke out across her damp skin and she shivered. “Um, sorry, can I just—” She reached toward her towel, hanging on a hook behind him.

He stepped back, allowing her access. She frowned when she thought of how he’d tried to keep the towel from her another time. A time that seemed so long ago now.

The soft terry made her feel less vulnerable, but did little to quell the growing ball of dread pressing outward from her chest. Finally, when there was nothing else to distract herself from his distance and coldness, she looked at him again. She took a deep breath and asked, “What’s wrong, Owen? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said quietly. His gaze dropped down her body, then flashed back to hers. “Perhaps you should dress.”

Megan frowned. Since when did he ever want her to dress? Fear-induced adrenaline spiked through her veins, made her tremble. “Owen—”

“Please.” The set of his shoulders mirrored the tense tone of his voice.

“Okay.” She strode toward the bedroom door, then looked back over her shoulder. “Um, I’ll be right out?”

He nodded once. “Yes.”

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Megan’s mind whirled through possibilities, but couldn’t make anything stick. Anything except the one thing her brain refused to acknowledge and her heart refused to believe—he didn’t want her anymore. How could that be? After everything?

Her effort to rush through dressing left her all thumbs. It took three tries to get the metal button through the little hole in her jeans. She scrubbed the towel through her hair quickly and combed her fingers through the thick mass of it, but devoted no other effort. She needed to be back in his presence, to touch him, to get answers, to fix whatever was making him act this way.

Before stepping out of her bedroom, she heaved a deep breath that failed to calm, then entered the great room. Owen stood to the side of the front door, stiff-postured, arms across his chest, looking outside through the sidelights. The plastic covering the broken window sucked in and out in response to the wind’s command. In her delight at seeing him again, she hadn’t noticed he was dressed in black from silky hair to jeans and T-shirt to boots. His aloofness did nothing to diminish his sexy masculinity.

Megan stopped some feet from him. Her arms ached to feel his warmth and solidness; her mouth yearned to taste him again. But he seemed so unapproachable. She cleared her throat.

A beat passed, then another, and he turned his head in her direction. His eyes did a quick scan of her attire, jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, then he motioned toward the couch. “Would you like to sit?”

“No, I don’t want to sit. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

He frowned and dropped his gaze to the ground.

Megan forced herself to move, stepped right to him, tilted his chin up with her fingers. His eyes were full of pain and regret and made her heart skip in her chest. “Why are you hiding from me? You’re scaring me.”

For a moment, he seemed uncertain, torn. He opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. Taking a deep breath, he drew his shoulders up and put a little physical distance between them again.

“I’ve come to say good-bye.”

Megan heard the words as if they’d been said from underwater. Her heart plummeted into her stomach. “What? Why? No.”

He nodded once. When they made eye contact, his gaze was icy cold. “It is what’s right.”

“Says who? What does that even mean?”

“I just…needed to see you. One last time.”

One last time?
Panic surged like an electric current through her blood. “Why are you doing this? I’m sorry for what happened, Owen. I—”

“No. Stop. Please. I’m the one who should be sorry. It was not fair to you.”

A headache bloomed behind and above Megan’s eyes. “What are you talking about? What wasn’t fair?”

“None of it matters now.” His expression softened, hinted at the Owen she’d come to know. The one whose eyes sparkled with mirth and warmth. A dangerous wave of hope threatened to swamp her, but then his words continued on so mechanically. “Thank you for sharing your Christmas with me.”

“Owen, stop this. Please. Can we just talk?”

He offered a small, sad smile. “There is nothing to say, Megan. And it’s time for me to go.”

Fear and panic mushroomed into anger. Anger at herself for letting things get this far off track. Why couldn’t she have gotten over herself sooner? Anger on behalf of the child in her belly. No way she was letting the baby lose his father—not without a fight.

“Are you hurt right now? Is it too warm for you here?” Her gaze bore into him as she spoke.

“No.” His tone was almost questioning.

“Good. Then as long as you’re not in any kind of danger, you can give me sixty seconds of your immortal life and listen. Right? Please.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Fine.” He folded his arms across his chest.

She closed the distance between them, gripped his crossed forearms and squeezed, ignored the way he tensed at her touch.
Fix this
! She released a long breath. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. When I came home and saw”—she shook her head, swallowed around the lump that sprang to life in her throat—“I’m so, so very sorry that happened to you.”

“Megan—”

Her eyes flashed up to his, half hidden beneath his hair. “No. You’re just listening right now, remember?”

The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He nodded.

“I’m sorry I left. I should’ve stayed and talked everything out with you. But I was kinda freaking out, Owen. And I needed…I just needed some time alone to think, to process. Finding out you’d hurt yourself for me, that you were vulnerable, too…” She shrugged, not letting go of his arms. “I freaked out. I was back there. On that Christmas night. Listening to two strangers tell me John had never had a chance. That he’d gone out to do something for me and wasn’t coming back. Ever. And I was right back there again.” Megan groaned. She leaned her forehead against her hands on his arms. “Shit. This isn’t what I want to say,” she murmured to herself.

“What do you want to say, then?” he whispered.

Something touched her hair, sent a tingle of want down her neck and spine. She lifted her gaze again. Took a deep breath and said the only thing that mattered, “I love you, Owen. I love you.” She stepped closer, until her breasts pressed against his folded arms, drawn in by the glassiness that bloomed in his eyes. “I already knew I loved you, even before I left, but I couldn’t let everything go. Being apart from you made it all so crystal clear. As soon as it hit me, I came back, so happy to tell you…” She swallowed. Reached both hands up to cup his face. “I love you. I want you. I choose you, if you’ll have me. If you’ll stay. Please stay, Owen. Choose me back.”

He shook his head. “Megan.”

“Please. Love me.” One hot tear spilled down from her right eye.

He swallowed so roughly, she could hear it. “I do,” he whispered.

Joy threatened to burst forth, restrained only by his continued hesitation. “Well, then, what’s—”

“I don’t want to have pressured you into this. For you to have been guilted into this by what happened.”

“No, I’m not. I told you. I was coming back to tell you. Before. I was ready to choose you, Owen. Before.”

“Megan.” His deep voice trembled. “Be sure.”

She couldn’t stop the smile that broke across her face. She would reassure him ’til the end of time if she had to. “I am. So sure. I love you. I’m
in
love with you. And I want you, forever. Just like you said.”

§

Owen heard the words, felt their pull deep within his soul. Almost six days in the healing waters of the River Acheron, one of the five rivers of the Underworld, had healed his body and restored the strength of his godhood. But the trade off—for one was always required where the gods were concerned—was the letting of his secret sorrows into the currents of the river known for providing passage of newly dead souls into the afterlife. The intense reliving of those memories was the token Owen had to pay to be ferried back to the Upper World.

For an endless moment, his psyche was buffeted by the remembered anguish of losing his family; his soul forced to re-endure its endless solitude; his heart broke anew at Chione’s recalled betrayal.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have come directly to Megan. He should’ve waited until the soul-depressing effects of the forced remembering eased, but all he could think of was the warmth and solace Megan’s arms provided. When he’d seen her, though, all pink and wet and alive under the streaming water of the shower, he realized how unfair he’d been to try to cajole her love the way he’d done. Boreas had pushed through a cold front so Owen could return, but the Supreme God wouldn’t be able to hold out long against Zephyros’s greater power. Spring’s life had always been stronger than winter’s death. So Owen wouldn’t have long here. Certainly not long enough to court Megan, to win her love the way he needed to, the way she deserved. The whole project had been a god’s folly from the beginning.

But then, here she was, wanting him, loving him, choosing him.

Her soft, slim fingers stroked his face. “Please, baby, come back to me.”

Owen sucked in a breath, her words pulling him out of his tortured thoughts. He found her eyes, sparkling blue and full of determined life, brimming with promised love.

Then he was on her. All primal instinct, the desire flooding his body aligned with the soul-deep need of his heart.

Arms around her small shoulders, body pressing, pressing hers until they stumbled backward into the front door. His lips rained down on her eyes, cheeks. “Oh angel,” he breathed as his mouth claimed hers. He moaned and pushed his tongue into her, needing every ounce of connection between them. Gods, this was where he belonged. Right here. With this woman. In these arms wound so tight around his neck they almost made it hard to breathe. He didn’t mind; he reveled in every bit of Megan’s touch.

When her right leg wrapped around his thigh, his hands released their knotted hold on her hair and snaked down her body to pick her up. They both groaned as the new stance positioned his hips between her legs. He was already rock hard.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean it,” he rasped around the edges of a kiss. There was so much he wanted to say, but he just couldn’t let her go long enough to say it. Only moments before he’d convinced himself he had to let her go and now she was offering him everything, forever.

“Shhh, we’re okay. Right?” Her voice was high, breathy.

“So much more than okay.”

“I missed you,” she whispered against his lips.

The words grounded him, anchored him to the world. He leaned his forehead against hers. “Let’s never have a reason to miss each other again.”

“Deal.” The joy she unleashed on him was like the sun dawning on a freezing-cold day. The heavy weight of ancient sorrow lifted off his soul.

Their hands tugged at one another’s shirts. Owen set Megan back on her feet and fell to his knees to undo her jeans. Her hands felt so good stroking his hair. The button and zipper undone, he kissed Megan’s stomach as pulled the denim down over her hips.

Lips pressed just below her belly button, Owen froze.