He looked up as soon as she cleared the hallway and smiled. «Feeling okay, still?»
Her heart skipped, and she had to admit the dashing Regency-hero fantasy might have been safer than actually being near Alec. «Yeah, sure. I feel good.»
«Wanna sit?» He nodded to the oversized chair across the table from him. «Kinda boring out here, I guess. Don’t watch a lot of TV and I don’t have internet.»
She sank into the chair. «So what do you do when you have downtime?»
For a second, he almost looked uncomfortable. «Uh, doesn’t happen that much.»
From some of the things she’d heard, he probably spent more nights in women’s beds than he did at home, alone. «It’s good to stay busy.»
His eyes narrowed. «Uh-huh.»
Nervousness clashed with the urge to flirt, and she laughed, unable to help herself. «I think we should change the subject.»
He snorted and looked away. «I can only imagine the stories they tell about me.»
«Franklin mostly talks about the old days, when you served together.»
«Long time ago.» He tossed the legal pad aside. «Joining the army isn’t the smartest way for a shapeshifter to run away from home, but you’d be surprised how many of us seem to do it.»
«My brother almost did. Julio?»
«Not surprised. He had more reason than most.»
«Maybe.» Instead, he’d dropped out of college and run off to Charleston to become a firefighter. «We all run away from home somehow.»
«Ain’t that the truth.» Alec stretched, straining the fabric of his T-shirt as the strong muscles of his arms and shoulders flexed. «So how’d you run away?»
It took effort, but she managed to quell her shudder of arousal. «Uh, I said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to the nice young shapeshifter they’d picked out for me, and I moved to Nashville. Medical school.»
«Good for you.» He sounded like he meant it. «Maybe if enough of us keep doing that, the old guard will die out in a few generations.»
«I doubt it. There are some who say yes, right? Enough to keep it going.»
He eased his feet from the coffee table and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. «Probably. If there’s a way to change it, though, it’s gonna take a smarter brain than mine.»
«Or mine.» She couldn’t help matching his pose. «So you ran away and joined the army. What did you do after that?»
«This and that. A few of us who met in the military went freelance. Franklin. A wizard named Nelson who’d been a pilot. A couple of shifters — Ollie was in intelligence and Karl was a sniper. Did okay for ourselves.»
«Freelance? As in mercenary?»
He studied her, his face giving no indication of the thread of uneasiness working through him. «Does that bother you?»
«No, not in the least.» If he’d been human, perhaps, but the supernatural world existed mostly outside the law, which meant it had to police itself.
Alec nodded, almost as if he’d sensed the path of her thoughts. «We did that for a few years. Then we lost Ollie and Karl in the same month.»
The timbre of his voice lacked the sadness she would have expected if something terrible had happened to his friends. «They retired?»
«They got domesticated.» His lips curved in a wicked smile. «Ollie fell for a pretty little psychic socialite in Atlanta. Karl got dumb over a cowgirl from South Dakota.»
Carmen laughed. «A classic tale. How did you survive without them?»
«Got dumb myself.» Pain sliced through the room, twisted into guilt and dissipated so fast it could only have been through a conscious effort to guard his emotions. The words that followed were glib, almost practiced. «Then I got a job. Harassing deadbeat dads gives me something to do when I’m not saving pretty ladies.»
Her own pain surprised her. There was no reason for him to be open with her, to share himself, and she had to remember that.
She had to.
She changed the subject to distract herself. «Do you play cards?»
«Not so much.» He leaned down and tugged out a plain wooden box from underneath the coffee table. «Don’t even think I have a deck of cards, but I’ve got these.»
It was an ancient set of dominoes. «I don’t know how to play.»
Alec slid the wooden cover back and spilled out an array of tiles that looked hand-carved, with dots burned into the faces. «Got the concentration to learn some rules?»
«I told you, I feel sharp as ever. And no smart comments about that,» she added with another laugh.
«I don’t make smart comments,» he replied, voice and expression deadpan serious. «Ask anyone. I’m dumb as a post.»
«People don’t really believe that, do they?»
«You’d have to ask them.» He started flipping the dominoes over, until they were all face up. «Mostly they just think I’m a scary asshole.»
«Yeah? I think you’re sneaky.»
One eyebrow popped up. «That’s a new one.»
Carmen shrugged one shoulder. «Then maybe people aren’t paying attention.»
«Maybe they’re not all empaths.» He seemed more amused than upset, and maybe a little resigned. «I do live with one under my nose most days. Never been able to scare her, either.»
«Is that your goal? To scare me?»
«Not you in particular. The world in general? Maybe.»
She watched him shuffle the tiles. «Your secret’s safe with me.»
«Is it?»
He was tense, nervous. Carmen frowned. «I don’t spend a lot of time talking about other people’s innermost feelings, if that’s what you’re worried about.»
The nervousness tightened, then faded, and he shook his head. «It’s not. It’s not you. I’m just a crotchety old bastard.»
Maybe he was less worried about gossip than he was about the possibility she’d report back to her uncle. «Just so you know, I don’t talk to my family much, either. I’m not a spy.»
«I don’t think you are.» His hands moved absently, flipping the tiles around and lining up all of the one ends in a row. «Not saying I never thought that. I considered it pretty hard, at first. But this would be one convoluted way to go about it.»
She had to agree. «So what’s the problem?»
His attention stayed fixed on the tiles. «Hard to remember I’m supposed to be a stone-cold psychotic bastard when you look at me like I’m a person.»
She reached out to him before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to, her fingers grazing the back of his hand. When she realized what she was doing, she pulled back and cleared her throat. «You’re going to have to explain the rules to me.»
She let the statement lie, hoping he’d take it at face value. It was just as well that he seemed to, since he sat back and began to outline the object of the game.
Chapter Seven
After two days of nothing but cooking and waiting, Carmen was jumping out of her skin. «I want to go for a run.»
Alec didn’t seem to find it an odd request. «There are a couple trails through the woods. The run to the lake’s nice too.»
She vaguely remembered it from the day she’d arrived. «Just let me change clothes.»
Several minutes later, she stepped onto the porch and tried in vain to draw in a deep breath. The days were growing hotter quickly, with the sort of humidity she was more apt to associate with midsummer than early spring. «August is going to be miserable if this weather keeps up.»
«This your first summer in New Orleans?» Alec was still wearing jeans, but had tugged on another tight black T-shirt.
«Except for visits,» she confirmed. «But I’ve lived in Atlanta and Nashville for most of my life.»