Page 8 of Knot So Sweet
I scowl at my cards. "What do you mean, what gives, Xaden? I thought you were going to talk to her."
"I did," Xaden protests, reaching for his beer. "Had a lovely conversation, actually."
"Lovely?" Meredith's eyebrows shoot up. Her apricot scent turns tart with disbelief. "That poor girl has been sitting in that freezing car, and you call your conversation 'lovely'?"
Xaden takes a swig, buying time. His coffee scent becomes more bitter with annoyance. "I went to the car. She snapped bathroom. I didn't know what to say, so I pointed at the restaurant and said it is in the back. She told me to watch her car. I laughed. She side-eyed me. She came back after forty-five minutes while a line of increasingly desperate customers formed outside."
I remember that. The complaints. The dirty looks from customers who had to wait.
Liam winces. "Forty-five minutes? Was she sick?"
"Not unless attitude poisoning is a medical condition." Xaden leans back, chair creaking. "When she finally emerged, she grabbed bread rolls from two different tables without asking nor paying, and stormed back out to her car without so much as a thank you."
My hands tighten on my cards. Now, everyone knows what I'm talking about, they call me grumpy but that omega is on a whole different level.
Meredith's expression softens immediately, anger shifting to maternal concern. Her lavender scent grows stronger, more protective. "Oh, the poor thing. She's starving. That's not stealing, that's desperation."
“She's got the social skills of a rabid badger," I say, rearranging my cards with sharp movements. "Makes me look like a diplomat."
"That's quite an accomplishment," Xaden says dryly.
Liam sets his cards down entirely, attention focused on our conversation now. There's something about his posture that suggests he's filing away every detail, the way he does when he'strying to diagnose a difficult case. His chamomile scent grows warmer, more golden with concern.
"Maybe she's been hurt," he says quietly. "Animals act like that sometimes when they've been abused, and refuse help even when they need it."
The comparison should probably offend me on her behalf, but Liam's not being dismissive. There's gentleness in his voice that suggests he understands something about being wounded.
"You think she had an abusive alpha?" Meredith asks, voice dropping to a stage whisper.
"It would explain a lot," Liam says. "The defensiveness, the fact that she's traveling alone with what looks like everything she owns crammed into an old car. Classic signs of someone running from a bad situation."
Something cold settles in my stomach. I push it away.
I think about my brief interaction with Violet. The way she'd held herself when she got out of the car with her arms wrapped around her middle like she was protecting herself, shoulders hunched like she expected to be hit. The sharp, brittle edge to her voice when she'd asked about the bathroom, like she was bracing for rejection.
And those eyes. Dark and wary and holding the kind of exhaustion that comes from being afraid for too long.
My chest tightens.
"Shit," Xaden sighs. "I thought Garrick was grumpy, but if she's worse than him, she must be in really bad shape."
"Hey," I protest, but there's no real heat in it.
Through the front windows, we can see her car under the streetlight. Windows fogged with condensation. Occasionally we catch a glimpse of movement with a shift of shadow that suggests she's still awake, still alert, still maintaining her vigil against whatever she thinks might be coming for her.
"This is ridiculous," Meredith announces, straightening her cardigan with sharp movements. "I'm going out there."
"Meredith, maybe that's not…” Xaden starts, but she's already heading for the door with determined stride.
"That girl needs help whether she wants it or not. Some situations require a firm maternal hand."
We watch through the window as Meredith marches across the empty street, heels clicking against asphalt. Shoulders squared, chin up with unshakeable belief in forceful kindness.
"This should be interesting," Xaden murmurs, leaning forward.
"Train wreck is more like it," I say, but I notice I've abandoned any pretense of looking at my cards and am focused entirely on the drama outside.
My hands keep moving. Straightening already straight card piles.
