Furnace: A Fated Mate Romance Page 11

  But the Full-Petal-Bitch had reared her head, biting his off like she were a praying mantis. Her inability to let her guard down had been brought into the light with Lex. All it had taken was one fearful moment that someone might find out, and she’d clamped back down into her old ways.

  Perhaps the most frustrating thing for her was that she could see it. She knew damn well what the problem was. How to solve it was just as easy: Don’t be a bitch. Don’t be afraid to tell him that you like him. That he’s amazing, and you’re not ashamed to be with him.

  But every time she tried to pick up the phone to call him, her body froze, and the unsavory thoughts returned.

  She emerged from the elevator and walked down the hallway. Everyone scurried to get out of her way, not wanting to risk her wrath.

  Lex never ran away from me like that. He would have stood directly in my path, pretending like he didn’t notice that I was forced to walk around him. Then he’d probably say something just to make me realize how I was acting.

  A smile crossed her face at the thought, which sent her subordinates ducking for cover. Petal sighed as the door to her office finally closed behind her. Lex was so different from all the people around her. His love for nature and the desire to be a help to his town. It spoke of an honest person, one who cared for his fellow man. The contrast was hard for her to believe.

  He would talk to her, she realized. As in, hold an actual conversation. He’d talked to her about his life a bit, about who he was, what he liked. She knew who he was as a person.

  Could that be the difference?

  She poked her head out of her door, found the first person to make eye contact and jerked her head, indicating he should come over.

  “Close the door, Jimmy,” she said as he entered.

  The door shook slightly in the doorframe as he closed it, betraying his nerves.

  “Relax, I’m not firing you,” she said, smiling to let him know it was okay.

  “U-Uh. Oh. Okay,” he stammered, looking frantically around the room, anywhere but at her.

  “You can look at me. You won’t turn into stone.” She tried another joke.

  Jimmy made eye contact once, then resumed his staring at the wall above her head.

  “What do you do for fun, Jimmy?”

  He frowned nervously. “Pardon?”

  “Fun. You know. Hobbies, things like that. What do you do?”

  Sweat was starting to bead on his forehead. “Oh. Um. Hobbies. Right. Well, I like to read,” he said hopefully, as if he were trying to come up with the right answer, something that would make her happy.

  “Oh, that’s fun. What do you read?”

  “Um, mostly the classics. You know, Dickens and such.”

  He was just trying to appease her.

  “Do you play any sports?”

  “Me? Sports?” Jimmy burst out into nervous laughter. “No, no sports for me.”

  Petal sighed. “Okay. Thanks, Jimmy, that’s all.”

  “Of course, ma’am. Always glad to help.”

  She gestured for him to leave. It was useless. They were all petrified of her. This was the life she had cultivated with her personality. Not what she had glimpsed while out in Surrey while trapped with Lex. This is what she was forced to deal with if she wanted to ascend the corporate ladder.

  Petal leaned back into her chair, considering that last statement.

  If I want it.

  But is that still what I want?

  The answer eluded her.

  17. Mating Call

  Lex

  “Boy is it nice to be done and still have the energy to go for a drink!”

  Lex smiled and lifted his frost-covered mug in cheers to Ronnie. “Absolutely.”

  The past four days the trio had been working until well into the evening and night. Often by the time they got back to the shop they were beyond exhausted. One night they’d simply rolled out blankets and crashed on the floor there, too tired even to go home.

  Now though, things were finally, almost, sort of, under control. There was still months upon months’ worth of work to be done. Many of the fixes they’d done were temporary, but they would do for the short-term. The first and most important thing was to get power back to the majority of Surrey. Some of the outlying farms still were without, but they had generators to keep them going in the meantime. There were just too many lines down. In another three days they would start to get to some of them he figured, judging by the progress being made.

  With the power back on, and the roads mostly cleared, life had started to resume. A veritable flood of contractors had come into town, so many that an actual honest to goodness tent-town had been set up on some town land to accommodate them all. So many houses had lost all their windows, roofs were gone everywhere, and more. The cleanup and repair would take at least six months he guessed. Possibly even longer.

  But despite all that, now that the power was back on, people could resume their normal routines. He’d noticed truckloads of food coming in, with the two grocery stores likely stocking up big time to replace all the food that had gone bad in the fridges and freezers before the power had come back.

  It never ceased to amaze him how important power was to everyone’s lives. That was one reason he’d chosen to work for Western Hydro. People could get by without water, or heat. They could make do. But power? Absolutely not. Nobody liked to live in the dark. Man still had a primal fear of things it couldn’t see, and far too many people had been forced to live in darkness thanks to the storms.

  “I heard rumors that we’re going to get Sunday off after all,” Ryan said, looking down the table at Lex for confirmation.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said with a smile, holding his arms wide in innocence. “I haven’t heard a thing about that. I think we’re going to be working. There’s so much that needs to be done.”

  Ronnie shook his head. “I doubt it. Maybe volunteers. I can see that. But you know how they get. We’ve already been pushing regulations pretty hard the past week. Electricity is dangerous, man. If we get too tired and lose focus, we might pull a Rick.”

  Rick O’Connell had been a hydro worker ten years before, who had worked too much overtime, ended up forgetting to test his wires, and gotten a major shock on the job. He’d survived, but the fall had broken his back and he’d have to live the rest of his life in constant pain.

  Nobody wanted that.

  “That’s a good point,” Lex conceded. “Which is part of the reason why I don’t think we will.”

  The two brothers started to make little wagers about it, but he tuned them out, his eyes focused on the television while his brain went elsewhere, conjuring up images of a younger blonde woman in a ripped and torn gray business suit.

  He couldn’t get Petal out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. Tonight Lex was contemplating seeing if the bottle would help. He knew turning to alcohol was a bad idea, that it would only ever dull the pain at best; it would never help. But he was out of ideas on what to do. She occupied just about every waking thought he had, when he didn’t need to focus on his job. And even then he’d caught himself daydreaming during more than one critical moment, when the wrong move could hurt someone, or worse.

  You’re better than booze. Enjoy a couple with the boys, but that’s it.

  His eyes wandered up to the little boxy television mounted from the ceiling over the bar. It wasn’t a flatscreen, but an old tube-style that was rarely seen these days, even in a little town like Surrey. The news had come on, with the headline something about two missing persons. Lex frowned and focused his hearing on the box, trying to pick up what the reporter was saying.

  Pete the bartender noticed and flicked the volume up several notches. Lex gave him a thankful nod of the head, but his attention never wavered from the screen.

  “They still haven’t found them?” he asked, speaking more to Pete than his two crewmates, who were still bickering over Sunday.

  “Found whom?” Pete asked, wande
ring over to stand near him.

  He jerked his head toward the screen. “The two people.”

  “These are new, I think. The first two were younger women. This is a middle-aged couple.”

  Lex sat up a little straighter. “Wait, they went missing together? From the same area?” He looked at Pete now.

  “Yeah? What’s so unusual about that? They could have gotten caught in that storm. Maybe a landslide washed them out. Weren’t you caught in one yourself?”

  Lex almost asked how Pete knew about that, but stopped himself. Surrey was a small town. Something like the ordeal he and Petal had gone through would have been the gossip of the town. It was a small surprise that he hadn’t been asked for more details by anyone just yet.

  “Yeah,” he said instead. “But four missing people? That’s a little unusual for Surrey, don’t you think?”

  Pete fell silent while the reporter continued to give more details.

  “Last seen by the Wortley Manor,” Lex muttered. “We haven’t put power back there yet. I wonder what they were doing way out there?”

  “Hiking, probably,” Pete supplied. “There’s a great trail that runs through the forest there and over to the Lora Gorge.”

  “Shit.”

  Pete nodded in understanding. If they were at the gorge when the storm hit, the wall of water would have likely slammed into them and swept them away. The gorge was a low point in the area. Water would have rushed toward it from all over. The hikers wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  “That’s not the only thing that’s been unusual,” Pete said after a minute.

  Lex, sensing something personal in the tone, looked up to meet Pete’s eyes, giving him the respect he’d earned over the years.

  “Pardon?”

  The bartender shrugged slightly. “Word is you’ve been really off your game. Not quite all there.” He licked his lips nervously, perhaps not entirely comfortable to be the one to bring things up. “Some folks are saying something happened to you out in the hills, Lex. Somethin’ bad.”

  He stared at Pete for upward of thirty seconds, letting the mood linger and darken. It wasn’t nice of him, but he couldn’t help himself. Just as the bartender looked like he was about to wave the conversation off, Lex started to laugh.

  “This isn’t the part where you go berserk and kill me, is it?”

  Lex laughed harder.

  “No, you idiot. Not at all. Even when you spout such ridiculous nonsense like that. ‘Something baddddd happened in the hills.’ Oh, that’s rich!”

  “Well, what the hell did happen?” Pete pressed.

  Lex sighed. He had to tell him now. “You know the woman I was out there with?”

  “Yeah, the corporate-level boss. Everyone heard about it. They figured you’d be fired in an instant for getting her stuck out there.”

  He snorted. “Oh, so I guess the fact that she forced her way into coming out there hasn’t made the rounds?”

  Pete had the good graces to look a little sheepish. “Uh, no. I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, she’s the reason I can’t think straight anymore, Pete. Can’t have a dream without her in it. She’s practically haunting me.” Another short explosive laugh. “Maybe something bad did happen, I dunno.”

  “You afraid she’s gonna come after you?” Pete asked slowly.

  “No. I’m afraid she’s not.”

  There was silence. It lingered on and on. Suddenly Pete hissed in surprise. “Holy shit. You fell for her!”

  “Bingo. Got it in one.” Lex considered. “Sort of. More like a Final Jeopardy problem. I should have played the music; it would have been close.”

  Pete gave him the finger. “You fell for a suit-wearing office-working woman who is your boss like, what, three times removed?”

  “Seven, actually, if you want to be specific,” he replied.

  “Damn. That’s what I call hitting out of your league.”

  “Thanks Pete,” he said dryly. “Always a source of inspiration you are.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll be here all week.” They both smiled at that. “So what’s the hangup about her then?”

  Lex shook his head. “I dunno, man. She’s got this reputation for being a total cast-iron bitch. No emotion, everyone is supposed to be scared of her. You know, red carpet, grovel before me, that whole thing. I’d heard of her before she came out here, but that was about it. Someone with a reputation like that, word gets around, you know?”

  Pete nodded but stayed silent, letting Lex do the talking.

  “Anyway, nobody told me she was gorgeous, Pete. Like, real stunner. Five and a half feet of curvy goodness with hips to die for.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled. Just thinking about Petal got him all riled up. “So there we are, stuck out in the hills together, unsure of how long it will be before I can venture out to get us help. While we’re there, Pete, the mask just disappears. Turns out there’s actually a pretty cool person underneath. We talked a lot. Grew closer.” He didn’t admit that they’d had sex, but the implication was impossible to miss.

  “Understood.”

  “Right. Here I think that maybe there could be something between us. Like Pete, things just worked. They felt right. But as soon as our rescue shows up, boom, mask is back, and she’s treating me like I’m just some lowly worker again. Tells me harshly that I can’t tell anyone what happened.”

  Pete frowned. “But you just told me.”

  “You’re a nobody, Pete.”

  “Gee, thanks. Let me just add another surcharge to your bill.”

  Lex grinned and slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t be a Pouty Pete, bud.”

  The bartender’s eyes just rolled.

  “Prissy Peter.”

  “Lame Lex.”

  “Petulant Pete.”

  “Lazy Lex.”

  “Prickly Pete.”

  “Angry Alex.”

  Lex let his eyebrows rise slightly as Pete used a different variation on his name. One he usually avoided. “Careful,” he said with a smile at last.

  Pete laughed, never one to back down, even from using Lex’s full name, which everyone knew he hated.

  “So this girl. She just up and left?”

  “Basically. I don’t know what to do, man. I can’t get her out of my head. But also the way she acted once other people were around. Shit, I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t hurt a bit. She just got so cold. Like, in the blink of an eye.”

  Pete considered his words for a moment. “It’s probably instinctive. I doubt she even really realized she was doing it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look. You said she’s gorgeous, right?”

  “Oh yeah. Blonde hair, blue eyes, thick hips…” he trailed off, not liking how vulgar he was sounding. But it was true, Petal was the whole package in his mind. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman.

  “Even worse,” Pete said.

  “Excuse me?” Lex felt his blood boil.

  “Calm the fuck down,” Pete told him in his bartender voice, the one he used when talking to rowdy drunks who might start a fight.

  Lex almost stood up at the challenge, but he realized at the last moment that Pete didn’t know he was a shifter. He had no idea the danger he was putting himself in. Besides, he was just protecting his bar.

  What is wrong with me?! This is Pete for fuck’s sake! Get a grip on yourself, Lex. You can’t go around threatening friends just because you can’t have what you want.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, shaking his head to try and clear it.

  “Lex. Think about it. She’s a beautiful woman trying to climb the corporate ladder. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

  He eyed his friend up and down. “No, and unless you’re hiding some shapely legs under those pants, I doubt you do either.” He worked his mouth back and forth. “Although if you shaved more than once a month, grew your hair out and got it styled. Maybe a nice little off-the-shoulder dress and some heels…”


  Pete was attempting to incinerate him with his eyes. Lex just laughed.

  “I don’t know, but my sister I’ve been told is quite pretty,” Pete said quietly. “When she was younger and got her first job working for a big corporation, she was fending off ‘offers’ left and right. I had to have four talks with certain guys in the first two months.”

  Lex frowned. “So what you’re saying is that Petal adopted the bitch personality to deal with horny old men who promised her money and promotions for sex?”

  Pete shrugged. “It is what it is, man. I hate it, but I know better than to try and play vigilante unless absolutely necessary. You never know when one of them might be carrying. Also, no final question theme music needed there. You’re quick on the uptake.”

  “Thanks. But I don’t know. Wouldn’t she have made some effort to reach out to me then? Text? Corner me privately?”

  “Maybe. Don’t forget though, you are coworkers. She’s your boss. There are laws against abusing positions of power, aren’t there? Maybe she was just unsure of how to make it work while covering her hide. It sounds like she’s worked hard to get where she is, and if she’s going to do this with you, she’s going to have to do it right.”

  Lex bobbed his head from side to side. “Maybe. It’s been four days now. No word from her at all, and it’s driving me nuts. What the hell do I do?”

  “Well, if you can’t be patient, then do the crazy thing.”

  “Huh? I don’t want to seem like a creeper, Pete. I’m glad that works for you, but that’s not my style.”

  Pete, who was about to refill his mug, stopped and just left it sitting on the bar. “What I meant, you dipshit, is go see her. Make it plain that you’re not giving up. Force her to react.”

  “Me? Go to the city? I can’t do that, Pete.”

  The bartender shrugged and started to fill the mug again. “Then maybe you aren’t as crazy about her as you say.” He put the filled glass down and then went over to see what the brothers needed, leaving Lex in peace.

  Could he really go find Petal? Fly to the city and just show up in person? He grimaced. Things just weren’t that easy, but he couldn’t tell Pete that. There was more going on than anyone else knew, and if he left the town now, who knew what would happen.