Charming (Exiled Book 3) (13 page)

Charming laughed. “That so?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Maybe I should be employing you as my park mole. Somebody who’s a designated bench sitter to keep me informed.” He winked.

“Mock me all you want, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea if your goal was to know what everyday people are saying and thinking.”

He grew serious. “And everyday people are talking about the Racial Purity League?”

She shrugged. “Not everybody, of course. But it comes up. RPL and all their offshoots. Are they so radical that they would kill humans to bring about a ‘racial cleansing’? Yes. They are.”

Nodding, he said, “Okay. Got any idea why all of the victims are human males in their late teens?”

Ana looked away. “No. I have to admit that’s a real puzzle. If the strategy was just to blame hybrids for killing humans, then any human would do. As a matter of fact, it might even cause more emotional reaction if victims were among the more helpless. Women. Or children. So it’s a mystery why just boys that age.

“Could you isolate them? All the human boys who are that age. Maybe keep them under wraps for a while?”

“Under wraps?”

“It means out of the way. Someplace where the killer couldn’t get to them.”

Charming shook his head. “It’s a possibility, but it also spotlights the fact that all the victims are human.”

“They already know that, Charming,” Ana said softly.

“Come on.” He stood suddenly and held his hand out to help her up. “You’ve got an early day.”

Cultures clashed and so did their bodies when they both tried to go through the door at the same time. In Ana’s world, a man who wanted to show respect offered to let the woman go through the door first. In Charming’s world, in unspoken recognition of superior size and strength, males go through doors before females and young to be certain it’s safe.

When they ran into each other at the threshold, both turned toward each other and said, “I’m sorry,” at the same time. Before they could separate, Charming took hold of Ana’s hips just below her waist. Her hands flew to his shoulders of their own accord. She saw his gaze drop to her lips and, for an instant, she was certain he was going to kiss her. She tracked his eyes as they focused on her tongue peeking out to wet her lower lip.

She leaned in slightly, not enough to press herself against him, but enough to be hyper aware of the heat radiating from his body and the rock hardness of the muscle under her fingers.

Charming turned his head to the side and said something she didn’t understand just before withdrawing abruptly, leaving her standing there alone in the darkness wondering what had just happened.

She made her way back to bed, pausing outside his closed bedroom door to wonder how she could possibly be misreading signals that badly.

Charming stripped down and lay on top of the covers remembering the look of Ana’s face by starlight. His eyes were good enough to make out the faint freckles that were scattered across her nose. He loved the fact that she didn’t wear stuff on her face like most of the human women. She also didn’t wear smelly stuff. That was nice. Because hybrids didn’t like cosmetics or lotions or soaps or shampoos with scents. Sometimes, when dealing with humans, it was all he could do not to wrinkle his nose and turn away.

Her own wholesome smell was more than good enough. As he’d told her one night when he wasn’t thinking, she kind of smelled like cookies. When they’d collided at the kitchen door, he’d wanted to pull her in for a kiss, and more, much more. He’d never had such a driving impulse to be with a female. He felt his heart rate pulse in his cock. Time for a drain party or he’d end up ravaging the houseguest.

When her alarm went off in the other room, he sat straight up thinking the world was coming to an end. It was
that
loud to hybrid ears. When he heard her get up and start water in the bathroom, he wiped a hand down his face and stumbled toward his own connected bath. He was thinking that he needed to go easy on that clear moonshine stuff in the future. It apparently packed an after-wallop.

Though he was normally militaristic in his approach to housekeeping, he decided the bed could go a day without being made. He pulled the door closed instead.

The conversation on the balcony was followed by another hour of tossing and turning, Ana had slept. When the alarm went off, she felt sure that she’d just drifted off. She groaned, cursed the alarm that didn’t have a snooze feature, and dragged herself out of bed. She wouldn’t really call the result a standing position, more like a Quasimodo hunch, but she managed to get to the bathroom without falling over.

After repeatedly burying her face in cold water, she was beginning to feel conscious. She pulled her hair into a severe ponytail because nobody likes hair in food, rubbed some long lasting salve on her lips that would keep them moist and plump for most of the day and headed for the bakery.

Charming’s door was closed, which didn’t surprise her because he was up as late as she was. Not wanting to disturb him, she tried not to make any noise and didn’t turn on any lights on her way out. When she reached for the front door knob, her hand ended up on something much warmer and slightly softer.

She jumped back with a squeak as Charming laughed.

“You can’t see in the dark at
all
, can you? It’s like you’re completely blind.”

“No,” she hissed. “I can’t see in the dark.”

“That would be awful.” He was still laughing. “And, forgive me for saying it, but you can’t hear worth a damn either.”

She wished she could see his face, but it was too dark. “Well, not all of us can be X-Men, Charming.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Super beings.”

He cocked his head, though she couldn’t see well enough to know that. “You think I’m a super being?”

She ignored the question. “What are you doing up? Your door was closed.”

“I’m walking you to the bakery. I told you I would.”

“Yes, but you were up late.”

“You think I’m the kind of male who breaks promises because I’m up late?” He sounded offended.

“Honestly? I don’t know you well enough to be an authority on all things Charming. I mean you have supper with me sometimes and we talk about the weather, the food, the skateboards in the park… you know. But you don’t say much that’s personal.”

“Huh,” he said like that was a revelation. “Well, I’m not the kind of male who breaks promises for
any
reason, much less missing a little sleep.”

“Good to know. And got to go. I told cookie man I’d be there at four.”

Charming opened the door and the running lights in the hall illuminated the exit. “He doesn’t really go by ‘cookie man’,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she whispered in return. “You should call him that when we get there.”

Charming knew she was being sarcastic. He also knew it was a challenge.

Ana knocked on the bakery door when they arrived. It was locked, but the lights were on inside.

“Nervous?” Charming asked.

“No. Should I be?”

Charlie emerged from the back with keys in his hand. He hesitated when he saw that Ana had brought a celebrity.

Ana smiled. “Hey, Charlie.” She breezed by him like she owned the place.

“Hey,” he answered before looking at Charming.

“Hey, Cookie Man,” said Charming.

Ana grinned at Charming from Charlie’s other side.

Charlie was clearly trying to decide how to react. “Um, hey? So you really did send her.”

Charming’s smile faded. “You thought she’d lie about using my name?”

Ana almost laughed out loud.

“Well, no, I just… didn’t know you concerned yourself with things such as, ah, baked goods.”

“Baked goods make the world go round. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, they make my world go round.” He smiled, getting more comfortable in Charming’s presence. “Certainly.”

“Then there you have it.”

Charming turned to Ana. “See you at supper.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Oatmeal raisin,” he added.

“Will do my best.”

Charlie relocked the door when Charming left. “You promised him oatmeal raisin?”

“Promise is too heavy a word. I told him I’d try.”

“Well,” said Charlie, “I guess we’re making oatmeal raisin this morning.”

“What had you planned to make?”

“Peanut butter. Sugar. Groanoke nut. Vanilladine.”

“Yum. Those all sound great.”

“They are. They are. We’ll substitute oatmeal raisin for sugar. No problem.”

“That would be wonderful. Do you have any tea?”

“Not made. I have what you need to make some.”

“Thank you.”

“Hurry up. We have cookies to bake.” She followed him back to the kitchen in the back of the store where he introduced her to his two helpers. “This is my wife, Camilla and her niece, Sher.”

Ana nodded, smiled, and said hello. Sher seemed to be about her age and she was thinking she wouldn’t mind a few contemporary acquaintances, other than Charming, who wasn’t really friend material. Mostly because he was far too hot to be a friend.

Over the next eight hours Ana learned Charlie’s cookie secrets including the fact that the only time butter isn’t the single most important ingredient in a recipe is when you’re preparing salad. When the shop opened for business at ten o’clock, Ana looked at her cookies in the glass front display case with a pride she’d rarely, if ever, felt before.

“Come on,” said Sher as she removed her apron and pulled away the red checkered kerchief that had been tied over her head like a bandana. She revealed a lot of dark hair that was glossy as well as thick. Her charcoal gray eyes glittered with an inner light that was compelling. “We get a lunch break.”

She linked arms with Ana and guided her out on the street.

“Where are going to find lunch at ten o’clock?” Ana asked.

“Don’t be literal,” she scoffed. “There’s a place on the corner that serves breakfast sandwiches. What makes them ‘breakfast sandwiches’ is that they come on croissants.”

“Oh. Sounds good. I didn’t have breakfast.”

“You didn’t eat? You let my uncle work you to the bone and you haven’t eaten? There should be a law.”

“Well, he didn’t force me. Actually I had a good time.”

“You had a good time?”

She felt Ana’s forehead, pretending to check for fever.

“Stop.” Ana laughed and ducked away.

After they’d walked several blocks talking about what Ana had learned, Sher said, “Here we are.”

Sher pulled the door open and held it for Ana to go in. Her first impression was that the place that looked like a hole in the wall turned chic. The main point of the shop was tea vending and the blends brewing inside smelled like heaven. Most of the customers were around the same age as Ana.

“Are we close to schools?” Ana asked.

“Yeah. Right on top of the cluster of colleges and academies.” She pointed to a blackboard with the day’s offerings. “
We
bake the bread for their sandwiches. So you know it’s good.”

“I don’t have any money.”

Sher laughed. “I’ve got to remember that one. Looks like I’m buying.
This
time.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, what will it be?”

Ana picked out a sandwich that she recognized from the pub and asked Sher to order tea for her. She didn’t know most of the names and wouldn’t know what she was getting.

When their number was called, they picked up their covered mugs and grabbed a table just as three girls were leaving.