“No dogs!” I bark, my voice booming across the room, overly loud in the not-too-crowded Wednesday night showing.
Clementine’s eyes snap to mine, and there’s that eerie light blue that I can never forget. Most people I encounter, I could not tell you the shade of their eyes even if you paid me. But Clementine? It’s like ice, cutting into my brain and lodging deep.
“This place is full of dogs already,” she shouts back. And instead of tugging the animal out the door, Clementine drops the leash she was gripping and strides right up to my bar, the dog plodding along behind her. “What’s one more?” She comes to a stop just across from me, hands braced on the wood surface I polished this morning, smirk on her sassy mouth. “Besides, Grimace, my dog has better manners than your pack.”
“Don’t call me that,” I growl, glaring at her.
The animosity between us feels like toxic sludge in my veins. Only Clementine can get me riled.
“Then stop grimacing at me.”
Now that she’s closer, I pick out a few more details of her appearance. Like how her mouth taunts me, but her forehead has creases, like she’s thinking hard or she has something stressful on her mind. And I notice a pale cast to her skin, which was normally tanned golden by spending so much time in the sun.
Plus, with her this close, there’s the tease of her scent.
She might be named after a fruit, but to me, Clementine has always smelled more like warm vanilla, mixed with hibiscus. A soft, sweet scent with an underlying hint of tartness.
The intoxicating aroma only irritates me further.
There’s a hint of sulfur, like she was near someone who lit a match, and an overlying layer of iron to the scent that I’m used to ignoring.
“Nopetsin the bar,” I clarify, knowing her dog comment was a jab at the fact that half the patrons in Local Brew, including me, are werewolves.
“Well then, it’s a good thing that Shrimp is my life companion. Family. Not a pet.” She rests a hand on the dog’s massive head, and the creature licks her leg.
“Clementine.” My voice is all warning.
Not that she ever listened to me. Or anyone.
“Ah. So, you do remember me.” She leans her elbows on the bar, hitting me with those intense blue eyes again.
“I don’t yell at strangers.”
“Doesn’t normally yell at anyone,” Gregor mutters from his stool, and I can feel him watching our exchange.
He’s right though. Ask anyone around town, and they’ll tell you I’m friendly. Jovial even.
But this girl … this woman? I can’t stand her.
And now she’s back, likely to cause trouble.
Why couldn’t you have kept gone?
“Like I said, Shrimp has more manners than you.”
“You named that mammoth”—I jab a finger at the canine who’s now licking a barstool—“Shrimp?”
“Yep.” She pops theP, and I grind my teeth. “And since you so clearly do not want us here, just tell me where my brother is, and I’ll be on my way.”
Fuck no, I want to growl.Leave Carl alone.
But I know if my best friend found out I’d kept his sister’s visit from him, he would be livid.
Clementine, despite all the trouble she’s caused him, is the person he loves most in the world.
Luckily, I have a valid excuse not to answer her question.
“I don’t know where he is. Don’t keep a tracker on the guy.”
