‘Not great.’ I rubbed at a tender spot on my forehead. ‘I don’t remember anything after leaving the hotel.’
‘That old excuse.’
Ashley sailed through the door without knocking, hair clipped up on the top of her head and wearing a baggy blue T-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants that would’ve killed Catherine on sight. In her arms was a huge wooden tray full of food: freshly baked biscuits, pancakes, bacon and sausage gravy.
‘For crying out loud, Powell, could you put your pants back on already,’ she said, kicking the edge of Jackson’s makeshiftbed. ‘I’m gay and she’s taken, no one here wants to see what you’re packing.’
‘I couldn’t sleep in them, they were wet.’
Jackson grabbed a pile of black fabric that turned out to be his dress pants, protesting his innocence as she carefully unloaded a pot of coffee and pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice onto my desk. ‘From the rain and the sprinklers and, oh yeah,my own blood.’
‘Men.’ Ashley clucked her tongue as she rested the tray on my desk then helped herself to a piece of bacon. ‘Y’all are nasty.’
‘I’ll have you know I shower twice daily,’ he said, standing with his back to the pair of us to quickly pull on his pants and fasten the zipper. ‘Except on nights when I’m being pursued by werewolves or making sure my unconscious friend survives the night.’
‘I was unconscious?’ I asked, poking the sore spot on my forehead again.
‘Yes,’ they both replied.
‘Did I black out?’
‘You fell,’ Jackson said, ‘in the square. Right after you pulled Ms Stovell out of the path of that truck.’
‘And we’ll debate the merits of that decision later,’ Ashley said sternly. ‘You were completely out of it when he brought you home. I asked if y’all were doing drugs but he assures me it was good old-fashioned violence.’
‘Ashley!’
‘Ain’t one answer better than the other.’
Her eyes narrowed, aimed in Jackson’s direction. ‘I said he didn’t have to stay but he would not budge. Bedded down at the side of you like Old Yeller. You sure there ain’t any wolf in you?’
‘Most assuredly not,’ Jackson said.
Standing in front of my fireplace, he carefully stretched his hands up over his head, testing his scars.
‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t an entirely selfless offer, I was pretty freaked out last night.’
My aunt turned her inquisitive gaze on me.
‘He said there was a wolf. Was it a Were?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Then we’ll thank the universe you’re alive and leave it at that.’
‘You might leave it at that,’ Jackson said, absently stroking his new scars, ‘but I don’t know how I’m going to explain any of this to my grandmother.’
I blanched at the thought. His missing shirt and ruined jacket would be enough to send the fragile Virginia Powell to her bed for the rest of the month. The fact he’d stayed out all night might put her in the hospital.
‘No shirt, no shoes, no service,’ Ashley said, slapping his hand away when he reached for a pancake, but he managed to dodge the attack, grabbing two and stuffing one straight into his mouth. ‘Speaking of shoes, any idea where yours might be?’
Kicking away my bedclothes, I ran a hand over the bottoms of my feet. All cut up and filthy like I’d been running in the woods. Just like in my dream.
‘No idea,’ I said weakly, glad to be already lying down.
‘I don’t want Virginia Powell banging on my door, asking questions, any more than you two, so this is what you’re going to tell her,’ Ashley said. Planting one hand on her hip, she pointed at Jackson with the other. ‘First up, the scar. I’m fostering a rescue dog and it gave you a little scratch when you came by to collect Emily – nothing to worry about, hardly broke the skin. You left the car at the hotel because you and your sportsball buddies were drinking underage, like everyone else at those stupid Country Day parties. You lost your shirt during a quick game of shirts versus skins, and you stayed out all night because you two dummies hooked up.’
Suddenly I was very much awake.
