Page 9 of Deep Love

Chapter Four

Mason

This. This right here.It was everything.

Wrapping my arms around Delphi was all I’d wanted to do throughout our entire shift together at the diner. The need to feel her body pressed against mine again was instinctual. I’d spent the years she’d been gone wishing she hadn’t gotten into that car accident. Wishing I’d been around to drive her wherever she’d been going that night. Wishing I hadn’t spent so much time away from her while I was in the Army.

Wishing I’d married her when I’d had the chance.

And now, by some stroke of crazy luck, Delphi Adamo was here. In my arms. Right now.

“I missed you so much,” I whispered into her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her that now had a touch of Moose’s Diner added to it.

Her hold on me tightened and she burrowed her face into the curve of my neck, seeming to breathe me in as well. “I missed you too, Mason. More than I have the words to express.”

As much as I didn’t want to, I released her so I could look into those brown eyes where I’d spent many an hour getting lost.

She blinked back at me, her palms resting on my chest as if maintaining contact was essential. “You want to know where the hell I’ve been all this time, don’t you?”

“It is a burning question. One I have been thinking about since you walked out of Jessica’s office.” I tucked some strands of her long, brown hair behind her left ear. “I attended your wake, your funeral, Delphi. I saw you in a coffin. A coffin that was lowered into a grave and it gutted me.” I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to remember saying goodbye to the woman I’d loved with my whole heart. “I’ve visited your gravestone, talked to you, wished I could go back in time and change the series of events that led to your death. But . . .”

“But I’m not dead.” Delphi stepped back so we were no longer touching. She walked around me, found a lamp on an end table, and switched it on to cast a soft, golden glow in the room.

I’d been in this apartment before to repair some things for Jessica. I’d also readied it for her rental customers on occasion when she didn’t have time to do it herself. It was a one-bedroom apartment in a small complex that contained identical apartments. Jessica had explained that when she’d first moved to Vermont from Michigan and taken over Moose’s Diner after her uncle had passed away, this had been where she’d lived. As she told the story, she’d hired me, which had led to increased business at the diner, and she’d then been able to afford a little house five miles from the diner. I wasn’t sure I had anything to do with the success of the diner, but it was nice she thought so.

Delphi and I were standing in the apartment’s small living room now, which had a leather couch, two wooden end tables with lamps, a pair of chairs upholstered in a moose-bear-deer-patterned fabric, and an entertainment center housing a TV and some Vermont-themed knickknacks. Beyond the living room was the kitchen with all the usual necessities plus an island with two stools. A hallway led to the single bedroom and a bathroom. The apartment wasn’t anything grand, but it was a good place to temporarily call home.

Of course I wanted nothing more than to squirrel Delphi away to my cabin on Rodgers Lake, but I could be patient and step our way back into whatever this was.

Delphi walked to the kitchen and opened a few cupboards until she found glasses. She pulled two down and filled them with water from the tap. She brought them to the living room where I was still standing.

She handed me one of the glasses. “I don’t have any other drinks to offer you at the moment.” She gestured to the couch. “Let’s sit.”

We sat, and I set my water glass on the end table while Delphi took a long swig of hers, nearly draining it before putting it down. She scratched at her forehead, fiddled with her hands, ran her palms along the thighs of her jeans, fidgeted on the couch cushion.

“Delphi.” I put my hands atop hers in her lap to still her. “Tell me what happened.”

“Right.” She met my gaze. “It’s going to sound totally bonkers though. Like, you’re going to want to lock me up after hearing what I’m about to say. It’s unbelievable.”

Wait a minute.

Was she . . . was she a werewolf like me? Was that why she hadn’t died in that car crash? Had she survived what injuries she’d sustained? Had she known there would be questions why she hadn’t died from such injuries and she’d figured letting everyone think she was dead was a better alternative?

I leaned closer and sniffed her, but she didn’t smell like a wolf. She never had.

“Did you sniff me?” Her brows crinkled.

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Also an unbelievable story,” I said. “You go first with your story though.”

“Okay.” She stood and paced in the small living room. “I did die in that car crash. My body is in that grave you saw it go into. We could go dig it up if you want to confirm.”

“No. I believe you died.” My heart certainly had known she was gone.

She gave me a quick nod then scrunched up her face as if bracing herself for whatever reaction I was about to have to what she was going to say.