The Shifter's Choice Page 5

  “Two strikes.”

  Their eyes met and this time she nodded.

  “Okay, but how is this going to work? You just ask me any damned personal, prying question you like and I have to answer it?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I don’t like that plan.”

  He shrugged and stepped inside his threshold. The door began to close. She hurried after him.

  “Wait!”

  He did, but he kept one hand on the door, ready to slam it in her face. Behind him the television blared. Football, she realized.

  “Okay, okay. Goddamn it okay!”

  Lam made his fingers and thumb form a circle in a quick mimic of her sign of okay. There was nothing wrong with his brain. But those claws! Damn, they looked like tiny bayonets. Her shoulders sagged as she accepted yet another defeat. She was not going to be able to keep Lam at a distance. She was certain this werewolf was going to try to unlock every embarrassing secret and forbidden memory. Like Scheherazade, she was here only as long as she interested him. But unlike her, the stories would all be true. Sonia glared up at him with all the hatred in her soul. He’d trapped her the same way the U.S. Marines had trapped her. The same way the captain had trapped her. She was getting tired of being trapped.

  Four years. That was what stood between her and a new life. Record expunged. Fresh start. Useful training. She wondered where she would be able to fit “tutored a werewolf” on her resume. She snorted.

  “All right, Sergeant Lam. What do you want to know?”

  Chapter 4

  Sonia waited as Johnny returned to the porch, scooping up a red marker and a board. Then he walked past her and into his house, turning to motion her in. She crossed the threshold and her breath caught. His place was spotless and lovely as any magazine spread. The rattan couch looked as if it were never used. The low chairs and ottomans were way too small for Johnny and she couldn’t picture him eating on a glass dinette with royal-purple place mats, cloth napkins and a green glass vase filled with several sprigs of orchids. Beyond the breakfast counter a spotless kitchen sparkled with natural wood cabinets and slate tiled counter tops. How did he keep it so clean and where did he eat? Better still, what did he eat?

  “Do you even use this kitchen?” she asked.

  In answer he opened the freezer to reveal it stuffed with frozen meat.

  “Fruits and vegetables?” she asked.

  He gave a shake, no.

  So he ate meat, possibly raw, alone in this empty kitchen.

  Suddenly the spotless house seemed as sterile as an anonymous, impersonal hotel room. From the outside it looked like a home. But from in here it seemed a different kind of prison.

  She heard a football game and realized the living room had no television. She glanced toward the hallway that must lead to the bedrooms. Was that where he lived? Because he certainly didn’t spend time here. He motioned to the couch and chose to sit on a leather ottoman that she thought might collapse under the strain.

  She turned her attention back to Lam to find him watching her.

  “Okay, Johnny. What do you want to know?”

  He wrote “jail” on his slate.

  She sagged into the hard, new cushions. “Oh, damn. Really?”

  He continued to stare and she knew she wasn’t weaseling out of this one but she tried. “I broke into a house. I got caught.” She shrugged. “Arrested, fingerprinted, court date, a deal to serve four years with the U.S. Marines. That’s it.”

  She waited for some reaction. He blinked and shook his head and reached for the board and wrote. He turned the board around and she read, “Why B and E?”

  Sonia blew out a breath from her nose, a blast like one from a fire breathing dragon.

  “Because I just was a bad kid. I got into a lot of trouble.” She stopped talking and set her jaw as the burning started in her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that now, but he was making her. She glared.

  He motioned for her to continue.

  “What do you want me to say? I’m not the good little soldier, John. Not even close.”

  He sat forward and nodded his encouragement and touched the word “why” on his board.

  She showed him the sign and he copied it. Why? Why? Why?

  Her head bowed and she looked at her hands laced and locked up tighter than her heart. She wasn’t answering. She’d keep her fingers still and her mouth shut. Johnny stood, heading for the kitchen. When he reached the back door she realized he was leaving again and shot to her feet.

  “Stop!” she ordered.

  He did.

  “Come back.” Sonia admitted defeat.

  Johnny resumed his place, staring at her with his eyes big and yellow and his expression placid. He still looked fearsome as hell but Johnny was nothing if not a good listener, she realized. He lifted his chin as if encouraging her.

  Sonia signed slowly now as the words were coming from somewhere so deep she hardly recognized her own voice. Her fingers danced along with each sign as naturally as breathing. “Okay. My mother, she drinks—a lot. Been in rehab. Been in jail. For drinking mostly and for the crap she did when she was drunk. Driving, fighting, stealing, causing accidents, bringing home men, pissing in public places, passing out in public places, getting fired, getting pregnant and forgetting about the two kids she already had. Me and my sister, we don’t look much alike, if you know what I mean.” She couldn’t look at Johnny now, not with the shame rushing up to burn her face, so she focused instead on the magazines fanned across the coffee table, all Martha Stewart and all five years old. “A mean drunk, that’s what the landlord called my mama to her face, before he called protective services.” She stared up at Johnny, feeling the burning in her eyes but she would be damned if she’d let him see her cry. She widened her eyes and willed the tears back.

  Sonia kept signing. “So I wasn’t a good kid. I got into fights. Kids made fun of Marianna, that’s my kid sister, so I kicked the shit out of them. Then some parent advocate got ahold of my mother and said that the school district wasn’t meeting my sister’s needs. That Marianna had rights and Marianna needed a special program.” She met his steady gaze. “My sister is deaf, Johnny. Born that way. They said it was because of my mom’s drinking, but mom was in jail when she was carrying Marianna, so that wasn’t it. Anyway. She was either born deaf or maybe she got sick and that made her deaf. Nobody ever bothered to tell me. So my kid sister is smart, but she can’t really talk. Sounds funny, you know? When she was little we had our own signs. Then I found a book and taught her some real signs. Later, when she got in that special program, she taught me. Marianna got into a residential school, but it was up in Elmsford and that’s like twenty miles from where we lived. They said I couldn’t go there because I wasn’t deaf. I didn’t think she could get along by herself, so I cut school and took four buses and I found her. You know what? It was the best damned thing that could have happened to her. She lived in a big dorm. She got regular meals and had friends like her. She was wearing clothes I’d never seen before, clean clothes. The school officials called my mother and she came to get me. But she came drunk, of course, so the school called the cops and, long story short, Marianna graduated with honors and I went to a group home, for good that time. I dropped out of high school and ran away. I was a regular rebel without a clue. When you turn eighteen you age-out. That means no more foster care.”

  Johnny sat next to her on the couch, turning to face her. She shifted so he could see her sign, even though the words she formed didn’t mean anything to him yet. It gave her comfort, like she was talking to her sister.

  “I was on the streets for a while until I got assistance with housing. I even got my GED. Then I applied to community college and got in under probation. I didn’t make it through the first semester. So, if you’re not in school, you lose the subsidy. I got a job but it didn’t pay enough to cover the bills so I...” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I robbed that house. Took a bus to a nice white neighborhood, picke
d a house with a nice private yard and threw a nice little cement rabbit through that nice shiny glass window. And you know what? I wasn’t sorry. Why did this family have a house like this when I couldn’t make rent? And the food they had in their kitchen. It could have fed me for six months. But they also had a silent alarm. Cops got me still in the house because instead of taking their cash and getting the hell out of there I stopped to eat a bowl of cereal with milk. I made a shitty burglar. But I wasn’t a minor anymore and this was a felony.”

  Johnny lifted the board and wrote “You wanted to get caught.”

  “No, I sure didn’t.” She pressed her fingers into her eyes for a minute then went back to signing as she spoke. “Well, maybe I did, but I sure the hell didn’t want to go to prison. What I did was stupid. I’m not a thief, I’m just...angry. Or I was. So my lawyer worked out a deal. Go to federal prison or join the U.S. Marines. Seemed like a no-brainer.” She lifted her hands and then dropped them. “So I’m a marine. Wouldn’t be if I didn’t have to be. Wouldn’t be here now but the captain said he’d lock me up again if I didn’t teach you sign. I can’t go back to prison, Johnny. I just can’t.”

  The silence stretched.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not like you. I’m not a good soldier. I didn’t sign up to serve my country or protect people. I signed up to avoid a prison cell. So what do you say? Will you learn a few words to keep the captain off my back?”

  He signed, Yes.

  She blew out a breath, feeling somehow lighter than when she walked in. All that armor was heavy and he’d made her set some of it aside. She smiled at him and he lifted his brows. “Okay, then. Hey, Johnny, why didn’t you want to learn? I mean it will make things so much easier...”

  He stood up so abruptly that the ottoman slid back several inches. Whoa, what was that about? she wondered. Seemed Johnny had a few sore spots of his own. She recalled him breaking the first board and throwing the second and leaping off the porch and walking out on her. Johnny really didn’t want to learn to sign. Her curiosity prickled and she watched him stare out the front window. Her not wanting to teach him made a lot of sense. Her not wanting to talk about her rotten childhood, she understood. But this confused and intrigued her. She walked over to stand beside him. He didn’t look at her, but his ears moved and he turned toward the road.

  A Jeep horn blared. Sonia jumped. He’d heard that way before she had, she realized.

  She signed, Time to go.

  He nodded and walked her to the door. For some stupid reason she didn’t want to go, which made no sense at all. So she lingered inside the open door. The horn sounded again. Sonia stepped out onto the porch and realized it had rained again. The mist rose from the earth in tiny wisps. She was about to descend the steep steps, but Johnny took hold of her arm and walked her down. At the bottom she turned to the Jeep and found the driver was a dimple-faced man she’d never seen before. Her relief at not seeing the captain was palpable and she blew out a breath.

  She used the wide stones to cross the stream and realized Johnny didn’t follow her. She signed, Goodbye and he signed back, See you tomorrow.

  She paused, impressed. Had she taught him that? She glanced at the bag she had left on his porch yesterday, recalling the book on sign language. Sonia considered the possibilities. Had he been studying?

  The driver met her halfway and waved at Johnny. “See you tomorrow morning, buddy.” His grin lasted only until he turned around and then his expression turned somber.

  “I’m Carl Zeno,” he told her offering his hand. “One of the Den Mothers. That’s what we call ourselves. Beats Wounded Warriors, don’t you think?”

  Sonia murmured a greeting as she released his hand and climbed into the passenger side. The corporal set them in motion. She glanced back to see Johnny lifting a hand in farewell. She waved back.

  “Say,” said Zeno, “were you inside Johnny’s place?”

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t let anyone in there. How’d you do it?”

  “He invited me.”

  “Just like that?”

  She shrugged.

  “What’s it like?”

  Somehow talking to Zeno about Johnny seemed wrong, so she opted for telling him it was nice.

  “Maybe it’s because you’re a woman. He’s never had a woman teacher. I was talking to the guys about it. They think it’s a really bad idea. He’s moody, you know? You might want to be careful in there. So, you got off-base permission yet? I could show you around.”

  She put on her seat belt realizing that she felt safer with Johnny than with his den mother. “Not yet.”

  Zeno nodded as he kept his attention on the road. “Did he attack you yesterday? Because a guy at the medical center said you were pretty banged up. The guys were saying that maybe we ought to be there when you’re with him.”

  “Johnny didn’t do it. I fell.”

  He gave her a look that told her that he didn’t believe her. “Listen he’s taken a swing at all of us. Threw a full can of beer at Dom once. But he never actually hit us. If he did that to you—” Zeno pointed at her bruised cheek and the scratch that she knew crossed her forehead “—then you should tell the captain. They’ve got ties but I think he’d listen.”

  “He didn’t do anything.”

  “I think they should lock him up instead of locking us all up in this half-assed zoo. Lam’s just a mess. Won’t talk to us, ditches us nearly every day. The guy’s not human anymore. I don’t know why the captain doesn’t see it.”

  * * *

  That third lesson set up the pattern. Not the falling down the mountain and nearly dying part or the sitting on his pristine couch part, but the prying into her past part. Sonia had to endure a series of personal questions on whatever popped into the sergeant’s brain and then he’d endure her lesson and learn a few more signs. He threw in a few she hadn’t taught him so she was certain he was reading that book when she wasn’t around. By the end of each lesson she was exhausted, wrung out emotionally, but at least she was not in the brig and the captain was off her ass.

  But what would happen when she no longer interested Johnny?

  He was such a good student. She still didn’t know what the big fuss about not learning sign had been. A power play maybe or a pissing match. Men were funny about their pride and dignity and Johnny was a man, despite what those Den Mothers thought.

  Over the first week he’d learned where she grew up and that her sister was at Gallaudet University outside of Washington, D.C. And she’d taught him colors, numbers, the alphabet and a series of action words, like walk, run, come, go, listen, do. Lam was now using both the board and sign language to communicate.

  Lessons took place outside in nice weather and inside in the rain. It rained a lot here, but not for very long. Today they were on the porch and he had a pitcher of lemonade for her and it really tasted like he’d made it from fresh lemons.

  She signed to him a question without speaking, Did you make this?

  He asked her what the sign for make meant.

  When she finger spelled M-A-K-E he flopped his arms, unwilling to answer.

  She kept signing as she spoke. “Because this is really tasty. Just the right amount of tart with the sweet. You made it, didn’t you?”

  He rolled his eyes and nodded, admitting that he’d made it. She grinned, pleased at his efforts. Somehow she suspected that he didn’t make this routinely for himself.

  “Fruits.” She smiled. “You having some?”

  He shook his head and finger spelled O-N-L-Y M-E-A-T.

  “That get boring?”

  Does fruit? he signed.

  She laughed and lifted the glass, now beading with condensation. “It’s great. Thanks.” She took another sip and set the glass aside.

  The early lessons had been very difficult for her. His questions were like having dental work done. But like dental work, she found if she just relaxed, it wasn’t quite as painful. Still, Sergeant Beast, as she’d come to think
of him, was a whiz at finding her soft underbelly. He would have made a great interrogator.

  “So what is it today? My sister. My mom?”

  He signed, Day off.

  “Great. So how about you give me a question.”

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you want to learn sign?”

  Lam shook his head.

  “Oh, come on!” she said. “I told you about my mom.”

  Don’t like, he paused to finger spell the last word, S-C-H-O-O-L.

  She sensed the lie in the quick reply.

  “That’s bull. I answer your questions and you don’t tell me anything about yourself. If you want us to be friends it has to be a two way street. Otherwise I’m just your...your...” She struggled with the right word, coming up with “lab rat.”

  Lam straightened and she knew instantly that she’d said something wrong. She just didn’t know what. He rose and walked swiftly away

  “Sergeant?” She followed him. He allowed her to keep up but kept rubbing his neck and then his long wolfish jaw in turns. “Did I say something wrong?”

  He turned and signed, Lab rat, then lifted his brows to make the words a question.

  “Well, yes. I don’t know how else to describe it. Or maybe like a criminal investigation with me playing the crook. Or a psychiatric appointment. You know, ‘tell me about your problems,’ but shrinks never share their own.” She was babbling and her hands could barely keep up. At last she sighed and dropped her hands to her sides.

  Lam’s stare was mournful. He began signing. She tried to understand but his gestures were wild and fierce as his emotions spilled into his words.

  No. Lab rat. No.

  “One way street?” she tried.

  Ask something else, he signed.

  “Okay.” She thought for a minute. “Everyone on this base is here for you, aren’t they? They all know about you. And with all the security and the fences and stuff. Are you a prisoner, John?”