style="font-size:15px;"> She stepped into the bathroom, collecting her makeup and toothbrush. When she walked back into the living room, Malcolm was standing by the window, his smile replaced with worry.
“There are three more.”
“Surely not hovering in front of the shop.”
“No. Walking up and down the street. They know I’m here, they just don’t know where.”
“It’s the blood on your clothes. Here, take that shirt off.”
“What will I wear?”
She hurried back into her closet and pulled his T-shirt down off the shelf.
“You kept one of my shirts?” he asked, surprise lifting his voice.
“It was an accident. Don’t read anything into it,” she said drily.
But he wasn’t buying it. A huge smile filled his face as he took the shirt. He stripped out of the dirty one and she couldn’t help staring. She’d always loved his chest, sculptured and bronzed. She knew every plane, every soft spot, intimately.
And dammit if a part of her didn’t still long to reach out and touch him once again. To run her fingers over the hard ridges of his muscles and feel them flex beneath her touch. He might be an ass, but he was a damned good lover. And they had been real good together.
She looked up and his eyes caught and held hers. He knew what she’d been thinking. He knew her that well. Too well. She might be a fool where Malcolm was concerned, but she wasn’t a pushover. “Just because things didn’t work out for you with that woman doesn’t mean you can come running back to me and I’ll take you back.”
“Never thought you would,” he said, then broke into that easy smile. “Though a man can hope.”
“Are you ready?” she asked, losing her patience.
“Baby, I was born ready.”
“Then let’s go.”
With his dirty shirt in her hand, they went back down the stairs and into the shop. Even more men were in the street. Malcolm hovered by the window. “Any chance you have another bracelet?”
“Nope. There weren’t a lot of them to begin with. Besides, honestly, with that many out there, I’m not sure how well the bracelet will work.”
“What are you saying?”
“We’re going to have to make the change. They can’t smell us in our true from. We can run out the back, down the road to the hills beyond.”
“But it’s only dusk and there are people everywhere. We will be seen.”
“What choice do we have? If we wait any longer, as soon as we walk out the door they’ll pounce.”
“Have you changed here before?” he asked.
“No.”
“Have you hiked up into those hills? Are they very secluded?”
“No, and I don’t know.”
“Well, we can’t very well run all the way back to the Colony.”
“I’ll have Jade meet us in the canyon with your truck.”
“What about your car?”
“I’ll leave it here. I’m coming back, Malcolm. This is my life now. This is where I belong, and you and the others are just going to have to accept that.”
He nodded, but she could see in the stubborn glint in his eyes that he wasn’t accepting anything. She picked up the phone and called Jade, telling her what she needed her to do.
“Does she know about us?” Malcolm asked.
“No.”
“Then how are you going to explain this?”
“I have no idea. We’ll need to put our clothes in a bag on the counter next to your keys and my overnight bag. She’ll take them and drive your truck into the canyon and leave it there for us. Her sister, Ruby, will follow her and bring her back.”
“What if they hang around and wait for us? What if they see us?”
“We’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
He glanced once more out the window at the growing number of Abatu walking up and down the street. “You realize there are a million ways this can go wrong.”
“Yep. But we only need one way for it to go right.”
* * *
“Here, give me the shirt,” Malcolm said, and dumped the trash out of the metal trash can onto the floor. Celia threw the shirt inside the can and then he doused it with the oil from her oil lamp on a nearby table and set the shirt ablaze.
“Make sure you don’t burn my shop down,” she said.
“You just get undressed and leave this to me.”
“Fine,” Celia said, but she wasn’t fine. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to leave and she certainly didn’t want to strip in front of him. It was stupid, she knew that. She’d undressed in front of Malcolm a hundred times before, and yet this time it was so much harder.
She tried to be nonchalant, to act as if it were nothing as her fingers fumbled over that first button of her shirt. But it wasn’t. Without looking at him, she pulled her shirt off, folded it and placed it in the bag. Next came her skirt. This was no big deal, she told herself, even though she knew it was a lie.
Malcolm’s eyes were on her. She could feel his gaze boring into her skin as he watched her every movement. “Do you mind?” Her eyes narrowed with annoyance.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Celia. You can’t blame a man for wishing.”
“Turn around,” she snapped.
“Fine.”
He did, and within seconds her clothes were in the paper sack, and her purse and keys were lying on the counter next to her overnight bag. They were lined up and ready for the twins, who should be here within a matter of minutes.
She unlocked the back door, opened it a crack and hoped, not only for herself and Malcolm, but for the whole Pack that her plan would work. She began walking around the room, concentrating on the feel of her steps, the wood beneath her feet, her breath deep and steady, the pattering of her heartbeat, the pulsing of her blood. Each part of her, changing, transforming.
Her vision sharpened in the semidarkness until she could see clearly into each dark corner. She smelled the subtle differences in the hundreds of delicate scents used in the products they sold—the candles, the incense, the lotions and oils.
And the Abatu outside.
She
