Page 11 of Just in Time
Chapter Three
Iwoke up the next morning in an otherwise empty bed. Which was strange to say the least. Usually, we slept in on Wednesday mornings. Brody had the day off and it was one of our only chances to be lazy.
It felt wrong, not waking up tangled with him.
Especially given our activities the night before.
I reached up to run my fingers through my hair and sighed heavily when they stuck fast only a few inches from my scalp. I should have known better than to go to sleep with it wet. But after all the sex and showering, I was too tired to do anything but fall into bed with my man.
My man who wasn’t here now.
Frowning, I brought my legs over to the side of the bed. My hair could wait a few more minutes. I knew I certainly wasn’t looking forward to combing out the tangles. I just wanted to find Brody and make sure everything was fine.
I grabbed my bathrobe, sniffing the air as I pulled it on, picking up the smell of browned butter and toast.
Humming, I padded out of the bedroom, heading for the kitchen. It smelled like Brody was cooking breakfast. And if he was cooking breakfast, I was in for a treat.
My stomach rumbled right on cue as I reached the living room.
And promptly fell as I looked over at the couch.
Brody.
He wasn’t in the kitchen. He was curled up on the sofa wearing that afghan I’d crocheted before I really knew how. It was uneven and the colors didn’t sync.
Which was kind of how I felt about this moment, too.
“Brody?” I asked.
He looked up at me, smiling softly. “Hey there sugar.”
“What’s… what’s wrong? Are you sick?”
I bit down hard on my lip to keep myself grounded. This brought me back to that night. The first night I’d met him. Where I’d helped him upstairs from the bar to lay down on my sofa. When I’d covered him with that very same afghan. When I’d had to call Momma with a tearful request to bring everything in her arsenal of herbs to help keep a man I’d just met from dying.
But somehow, this felt different.
Brody shook his head in response to my question. “I don’t know…” He shrugged his shoulders, allowing the afghan to fall from them and pool around him on the sofa cushions. He looked down at his hands. Or he would have…
I gasped… “What— where…”
My heart raced and I panicked, my brain shifting through all my knowledge like a mental rolodex. Nothing jumped out as useful.
His hands… his handsweren’t there. Well they were… he could still pick things up, but there just wasn’t anything there to see. Like they were fading. His fingers were completely gone. The upper part of his hand was still there, but transparent. Like a ghost.
His beautiful hands…
Fading away.
“What’s happening?” he asked. “Lil… I’m scared.”
I swallowed thickly. “I don’t know…” I whispered. “But I’ll find out.”
The smell in the air had gone from browned butter to smoking butter, so I quickly went out into the kitchen to take the pan off the burner. He’d obviously forgotten about it when he’d realized his hands were gone…
I stood there for a minute holding the tea kettle in my hand and staring at the smoking cast iron skillet on the stove.
I had no idea what was happening to Brody. No more idea than he had. But my wolf-man was scared. And I knew I had to pick up the reins here and drive for a little while.
