Page 37 of My UnTrue Love
She cut him off. “No, it’s okay. Really. I’ll see you at home.” Green eyes returned to his unbuttoned shirt for another intriguing fraction of time. Then, she turned on her designer-sandal-ed heel and went scampering back down the mountain, nervously tucking a lock of her extraordinary hair behind her ear.
Bill wasn’t as dumb as he looked. His stolen-mate had sought him out, wearing a much tighter outfit than she usually wore, and blushing when she looked at his half-naked chest.
She wasn’t goinganyplacewithout him.
“Hang on.” Bill chased after her, because he’d always chase after her. She was his future. The gravel path crunched under his feet, as he left the railroad for the last time. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.” She winced and looked down at her feet, like she’d just stubbed her toe.
She really shouldnothave worn sandals. Did she not own boots? “I can carry you if…”
“No!” She interrupted in something like horror. “The only thing that could make this more humiliating is if you realized how much I weigh.”
Maybe Billwasas dumb as he looked, because he was confounded. “What?”
She shot him a wary glance. “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends.”
Yeah, he’d screwed this all up somehow. He could tell. “Friends?”
She pointed towards his former coworkers. “That bearded man and those two grasshoppers and those other guys you were talking to.”
Bill’s brows soared. “We’re not friends, darlin’.” He pulled her arm down, before one of those dipshits decided she was waving at them and headed over. “That’s Wolly Doodle and his thinking-impaired brother, Malcolm. The bearded jackass is Stew Slewfoot. They all hate me.”
“No one could ever hate you.”
“A lot of folks somehow find a way.”
Nowshelooked confounded. “Ihavenoticed that people react strangely to you sometimes. Why is that?”
Fuck. He didn’t like reminding her he was a coyote, because it somehow never occurred to her that she should be bigoted against his kind. Bringing it up might remind her.
“I’m just a mite different than the other fellas.” Why were they even talking about this? …And why did she have to come up here, when it was so dangerous? “Did you put sunblock on? You should always wear sunblock.” He lifted a palm to shield her skin a bit, helplessly trying to protect her from the unrelenting rays. “The heat in this place is…”
Clementine cut him off. “I should talk to those men. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding. I’m your manager. I can fix it.”
“No, you shouldn’t talk to those men. Ever.”
“But if I could meet them and explain how great you are…”
“I’d prefernotto introduce you to the guys who want me dead. Wolly just fired me.”
Her lips parted in outrage. “You werefired?”
“Yep. Circles back to the hating me thing.”
He wasn’t holding a grudge about getting fired or his general unpopularity. ‘Corse not. Bill was a forgiving soul. …But he sure was holding a grudge that they’d crawled their eyes all over his stolen-mate. Bill didn’t appreciate that.
“Firing you isn’t fair. You’ll have to complaint to someone.”
“I’ll be sending an email, just as soon as I get home. Don’t you worry.” Nobody on that crew would have a job, come morning.
Clementine glanced over her shoulder, her brow furrowing. For the first time, she seemed to process the men’s hostile faces and aggressive body language. “This is because they’re jealous of you.” She deduced with a sage nod.
He guided her around some jagged stones. He was buying her bootstoday. “Of course, they’re all jealous of me. You’re on my arm and look how gorgeous you are.”
She rolled her eyes, like she thought he was teasing. “I’ve only been here ninety seconds, smart guy. I can’t be the reason you were fired.”
Bill suppressed a snort of amusement. Itwasimpressive work for a minute and a half, but there he was: Unemployed. “I can get another job.” And he’d have to do it quick, since he’d prepaid three months of rent to make sure Clem wouldn’t go broke. “Here.” He had a bottle of water on him and he handed it to her, not wanting her to dehydrate.
