Gray Back Broken Bear(22)

Her lips parted slightly, and she blinked slowly as she slid her palm against his and nodded. He liked that he had such an effect on her. She smelled so fucking good he wanted to bury his face between her legs, but he wouldn’t. He liked Ana. He wanted to keep her, not scare her.

She was wearing a thin, soft, black blouse, and the gooseflesh he’d conjured so easily on her legs bothered him, so he pulled his heavy canvas jacket off the coat rack by the front door. He draped it over her shoulders before he led her out the front door. It was lined with wool and would keep her warm.

He gave a private smile when he heard her sniff the jacket. Little human knew how to use some of her senses at least.

“Easton?” Ana asked. Her voice sounded odd as she tugged his hand. The porch light illuminated her troubled eyes, so he drew up closer. Perhaps she was still cold. Or hungry or thirsty or tired or sick. She didn’t smell sick. He didn’t really know how to take care of humans.

“I want to tell you something.” Ana searched his eyes as she snuggled deeper into his jacket.

“Okay.” This sounded bad. He was always ready for bad, though.

She didn’t answer for a long time. Instead, some of the fear smell came back, and she couldn’t hold his gaze anymore. At last, she smiled faintly and whispered, “Thank you for the jacket.”

That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. It wouldn’t have been so hard for her to thank him. He forgot manners all the time, but Ana wasn’t like him. She was socialized. Or civilized. But there were a million things he wasn’t ready to tell her, too, so he wouldn’t push. That wouldn’t be fair. “It’s okay if you have secrets.”

Her big blue eyes were rimming with tears. She nodded slowly as her chin quivered from where she was trying to keep her emotions bottled up.

“Soft and full of tears,” he murmured as he thumbed away the first drop that fell from her eye to her cheek.

“Do you have secrets, Easton?”

“Infinite secrets.” More secrets than stars in the sky.

“If you ever want to tell me, I’ll help you keep them.”

Easton made a ticking sound behind his teeth and eased away from her. Danger. Scritch scratch. Secrets and memories were the same. They belonged to the dark. He was strong enough to hold them, but Ana was too fragile to shoulder his broken pieces. He would spare her the pain because he liked her. He was the avalanche, and she the hummingbird, and the only real gift he could give her was to not crash down upon her and crush her into oblivion.

“Come,” he murmured, pulling her toward his workshop. This place was as sacred as his den, but he wanted to share everything with Ana. It was as much of himself as he could show her. “Wait here.” He didn’t want her tripping over the workbench in the middle or any of his tools he might have left lying about. When he pulled the string to the single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, it illuminated the entire shop. Easy to do since it wasn’t very big. He could’ve built it much bigger, but this was the size of the workshop Dad had used. In a shop just this size, Easton had learned to be a knife maker.

He watched with a ready smile as her eyes drifted over the tools hung on the wall and the workbench with the trio of wooden handles held together with clamps, ready for staining. She looked at the bowl of discarded blades he kept telling himself he would salvage someday because steel like that deserved a home in a fine leather sheath. He would right his mistakes: bad cuts and notches, weak spots in the steel, and experimental decorative edges gone wrong.

She padded over the sawdust floor and touched the finished hilt of a knife that was ready for a sheath. “Easton,” she whispered. “These are beautiful.”

Sure, he knew they were fine knives, but hearing Ana compliment his work filled him with pride. Slowly, so he wouldn’t startle her, he squared up behind her and reached around her. Gently, he took the knife from her hands and set it on the table. Brushing his lips against her neck just to taste the skin there, he picked up the sharp awl he used for engraving.

E + A, he carved neatly into the hilt. Girls liked things that matched, and now she would have one just like Willa, Gia, and Georgia. “This is yours. My first gift to you.” The first of many if he didn’t scare her away.

Ana sniffled and leaned back against him. She nuzzled her cheek against his once. Affectionate little creature. She liked to do that. Soft skin against his raspy whiskers. He smiled and slid the knife into one of the sheaths that had been hanging up to dry. The snap of the button clasp was loud in the silence of his workshop, but now it was safe for her to handle with the razor-sharp blade tucked away.