Читать книгу Scratch the Surface - Amy Lee Burgess - Страница 9

Chapter 5

With the door shut and the only sound the forced air from the central heating, I found myself unable to fall asleep.

Instead, I switched on the gas fire, poured myself a mug of coffee and drank it while I ran a hot bath liberally dosed with peppermint-scented bubbles.

I lit the candles, turned off the lights, wrapped my hair in one of the fluffy blue towels and relaxed beneath the bubbling water.

The warm swirling water produced a soporific effect, which washed away the early morning wakeup call, the stress of the trip, Murphy’s defection and the unnerving thought of having to face my old pack.

I dozed off into an amorphous dream, but woke with a start when I heard a noise in the bedroom. I’d shut the door to the bathroom and I wondered if the sound had been in my dream and not really in my room, but then I heard it again. Someone had slid open one of the dresser drawers. Was it Kathy Manning with pajamas?

The bubbles were gone in the tub and I was beginning to prune so I figured I’d been soaking long enough. I pulled the stopper on the drain and climbed out, drying off with the towel I’d used as a makeshift turban.

As I tied the sash of one of the waffle knit robes around my waist I ventured back into the bedroom, hoping I’d given Kathy enough time to vacate.

Murphy was sprawled moodily across the four-poster bed. One arm was curled around his head defensively, the other straight down at his side and he looked morose and frustrated. He’d taken off his boots, but he was fully dressed still and his mouth had a certain tightness that, over the past months, I’d learned to tread around carefully.

Our suitcases were half in, half out of the open closet door. My purse was on the dresser with his wallet and cellphone.

“I suppose that Allerton told you all about Colin Hunter,” he spat at me before I even got the chance to say hello.

He made it sound as though I had eagerly lapped up the story and the unfairness of it took my breath away.

“It’s none of your business, Constance, so I don’t want to hear one word out of your mouth about it.”

When he called me Constance, he was pissed.

“I don’t—” I began to deny any knowledge at all, but he interrupted me.

“Shut the fuck up, I told you. I don’t want to hear it.”

If I had been wearing anything but a goddamn robe, I would have left the room, left the house and him and his fucking attitude with it, but I couldn’t.

So I retreated into the bathroom and slammed the door, locking it for good measure.

I thought about taking another bath, but ended up sitting on the toilet, head in my hands, crying as silently as I could. Not since the night Murphy had nearly died had I felt so acutely displaced and alone. I wished I could go back to Boston. I wanted the Murphy who didn’t snarl at me back. How could I face Grandfather Tobias or my former pack, with Murphy in this foul mood?

For the first time in ages I wanted Grey so badly I could smell his hair and his cologne in my memory. The way he’d looked at me with love written all over his face, the way his hair had been dark and long and I could run my fingers through it while we lay tangled in bed together.

I could never touch Murphy like that—in bed or out.

I’d thought I was okay, I’d thought I was good, actually, but no, I was a frigging mess, fragile and weak and rapidly disintegrating.

The door knob rattled then, encountering the lock, Murphy was forced to knock. “Stanzie, let me in.” All the rage was gone from his voice. Frustration was still present, but there was also remorse.

“Go away,” I tried to disguise that I was crying, but it was no use.

“I want to talk about Colin.” He made his voice gentle and kind but that only served to make me feel worse about crying and terrible about missing Grey.

“I don’t,” I yelled. “I didn’t want to talk about him with Allerton because I wanted you to tell me if you wanted to. But now I don’t want you to. I don’t care.” That was a lie, I did care.

“You don’t know anything? You don’t know who he is to me?” Murphy sounded incredulous and dismayed, which boggled my mind because he’d obviously resented like hell the thought of Allerton telling me.

“No, I don’t. And I don’t care. Leave me alone!” I swiped at my leaking eyes with the sleeve of the robe. It was very soft. I left a trail of mascara and dusky rose eye shadow in my wake.

“Please unlock the door.”

After a moment I got up off the toilet, stalked to the door and twisted the lock. I stomped to one of the sinks where I began to scrub my face free of makeup. My goddamn hair kept getting in the way, so I held it back with one hand and washed my face with the other.

The door opened and Murphy walked in. I saw his remorseful expression reflected in the mirrors above the sinks and counter. He handed me a towel and waited for me to say something.

Silently I dried my face, threw down the towel and walked past him into the bedroom, forcing him to step aside to let me pass.

He dogged my footsteps. I dug my brush out of my purse and began to savagely pull it through my snarled hair.

“That looks painful.” He winced as he watched me.

“It is,” I agreed wrathfully, brushing harder. Guilt swamped me—guilt and anger.

“What time is this goddamn dinner?” He made a disdainful face and retreated to the window, pushing aside the curtain so he could look out. While I’d been bathing, the sun had set. It was pitch dark outside and I doubted he could see much of anything but he still stared out as if fascinated.

“Seven thirty,” I told him. “Cocktails at six in the front room. The one with the Christmas tree. I think we need to dress in something other than jeans.”

He let the curtains fall. “I really shouldn’t be here,” he remarked, almost to himself.

“Nobody asked you to come back,” I snapped, terrified he was going to leave me again.

“Allerton must have a reason for doing this to me.”

“To you,” I whispered sullenly. How did this suddenly get to be about him? I guess I was supposed to drop all my anxiety and terror around facing my former pack, including the one who’d murdered my bond mates, and cater to him and whatever the fuck problem he had with some guy from England I didn’t even know.

How bad it could be? I was pretty sure it couldn’t compare to my situation, but I was supposed to feel bad for Murphy and jolly him along even while I silently went to pieces.

“It’s complicated,” he said. He glanced at me and sighed. He looked so desperately unhappy I felt a little bit like a selfish asshole.

He was always there for me. He’d stuck up for me and protected me at the Great Gathering. He’d bonded with me to keep me out of Councilor Celine Ducharme’s clutches. He guided me and my wolf, he’d brought me on a two-month road trip to allow me to sort myself and various issues and nobody was more sympathetic to those various issues than he.

Now here he was, beside himself, angry and desperate, with nowhere to turn. I had him to turn to, but he didn’t have anyone. He was trying to turn to me and I was being a baby.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said softly. “It’s okay, Murphy. It’ll be all right. And you don’t have to stay tonight if you don’t want. I’ll be fine. I know you only came back because you were worried about me.”

He gave me a small, relieved smile. The skin stretched tight around his eyes and mouth relaxed slightly.

“That and the fact that Allerton must have a reason for this bullshit.”

I snorted laughter despite myself.

“You are always so curious about what that man is thinking and what he’s up to.”

“I have to be because lately what’s he been thinking about and what he’s up to somehow ends up deeply impacting my life. You’re a prime example.” His smile was sardonic, but his voice softened when he got to me.

“He asked me if I liked you,” I confessed in a guilty rush.

His dark eyes searched my face.

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth,” I said.

“That bad.” He mock groaned.

“I do like you. A lot,” I said and he became serious in an instant. “I told him we were having so much fun on our road trip and all the cities we’d seen and then he asked me why I wasn’t in a rush to see Dublin and meet my new pack members and I didn’t know what to say.”

“Because now you’re thinking I’m deliberately keeping you away from Dublin and the rest of the pack. Aren’t you?”

It killed me, but I nodded. Every time I’d brought up Dublin, he’d adroitly changed the subject. I’d thought he’d wanted me to relax and not rush through every experience as though I were eating ice cream in ninety-degree weather, but this afternoon after Allerton asked me, I’d begun to wonder.

His reaction to the fact that this man from the English branch of Mac Tire was going to be here tonight made me wonder if there was some sort of secret being kept that he didn’t want me to know. I didn’t like thinking that way. It made me nervous and guilty, as if I were the one keeping the secret and not him.

“We’ll go to Dublin soon. Especially now that Colin’s in the picture.” The way he spat out the man’s name, as if it burned and disgusted him, made me shiver. I wouldn’t want to be Colin Hunter.

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He turned back to the window and I put down my brush and went to my suitcase.

Forty minutes later we were both ready. My dress was a metallic burgundy sheath with a matching bolero jacket edged in dark red sequins. I wore my new Jimmy Choo black platform pumps—a Christmas present from Murphy.

I stood before the mirror fixing my bond pendant to the short silver chain I wore for evening events while Murphy stood just behind me making last-minute adjustments to his tie.

He had on a pair of black wool trousers and the white button-down shirt with blue pinstripes I’d gotten him at the Armani store in Houston. A black Giorgio tie with a tiny silver triangular pattern completed his look. He had a gray jacket tossed across the bottom of the bed. Thankfully he’d put aside his Timberland boots for a pair of black wing tips.

When I went to fasten the chain around my throat, he was there to do it for me and I gazed at us both in the mirror. He was so attentive and the way his eyelashes brushed his cheeks as he concentrated on his task, produced a strange longing inside me.

I’d rolled my hair into a sleek French knot held in place with a rhinestone clip. I looked far more sophisticated and at ease than I actually was.

“You are so beautiful.” Murphy sounded wistful as he stared at both of us in the mirror. “I look at you sometimes and I can’t even breathe, Stanzie. That’s how beautiful you are. I remember the first time I saw you coming to the table that night at the Great Gathering and I thought, Jaysus God, she’s gorgeous.”

I flushed. Every time he complimented me I had no idea how to take it. None at all.

“I thought you were so handsome,” I said. “And bored,” I added with a laugh. “And I seemed to bore you even more than you already were.”

“I wasn’t bored with you, I was intimidated,” he said with a grin.

“Oh, hell, Murphy, you and your Irish blarney. That’s such bullshit.” I clasped a silver chain link bracelet around my left wrist. Now I doubted the fact he’d thought I was gorgeous that first night. I hadn’t intimidated him the first night. He’d left the table the minute it had been revealed my bond mates were dead because everyone believed I was drunk behind the wheel. I’d made no effort to defend myself and I knew he’d been disgusted. He’d as much as told me later during the Gathering.

His dead bond mate, Sorcha, had been a fiery-haired red head and I’m sure she had been really, truly beautiful and people didn’t just tell her she was beautiful to compliment her, they actually meant it. I wished I could see a picture of her, but then again I didn’t. She was already stiff enough competition without me feeling absolutely hopeless in the face of her beauty.

“There’s not enough Irish blarney in the world to convince you I’m not using any when I compliment you.” He gave me a rueful smile then moved to switch off the gas fireplace.

I slid a few rings on my fingers and waited for him to put on his jacket.

It was five minutes to six and time to run the gauntlet.