Chapter 22

Slowly, his body adjusted and his mind started to function again. When he opened his eyes, Helen was staring at him, gripping the soggy towel to her chest. Her arm was outstretched like she'd been reaching for him, but her hand was clenched into a tight fist. Her hazel eyes were wide with chips of golden green highlighting her worry for him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I never meant for you to hurt like that. If I knew another way . . ."

"I know." And somehow, knowing that she cared made it hurt less.

Helen splashed some cold water on her face in the hopes that it would clear her head. What had she been thinking letting Drake kiss her like that? And more importantly, what had she been thinking when she kissed him back? And oh, man, had she kissed him back. Open mouth, mating tongues, naked skin on naked skin. Just thinking about it made her toes curl.

She wasn't going to survive another attack of lust like that one. Not a chance. Her only option was to keep her distance and hope that she'd never see him again until the day she died.

Helen pulled the oversized T-shirt Thomas had shoved into the bathroom over her head and slipped the running shorts on. The sloppy look wasn't exactly run-way chic, but it was definitely better than bloody clothes or a too-thin towel. Definitely not better than feeling Drake's naked, oh so manly chest rubbing against her nipples.

She was not going to go there. Not if she wanted to keep her distance from Drake.

Now that she was decent, Helen slipped out of the bathroom to see about getting them to take her and Miss Mabel to a hotel tonight so that tomorrow she could start to clean up the remains of her life. She was going to need to find someone who could bring meals to the people she fed until she could figure out what had happened to her car. And then she was going to have to face the fire inspector and the insurance company. Again. That was going to be all kinds of fun.

With a weary sigh, Helen left the bathroom and went down the narrow hall. She stopped at the doorway to a bedroom where Miss Mabel was sleeping. The room was dark, but light from the hallway spilled across the bed and the small hump that Miss Mabel's body made under the faded quilt. She looked pale and fragile and Helen wanted to kick herself for dragging the poor old woman into this mess. So much for being a caretaker. Now Miss Mabel couldn't even get herself around, which was going to grate on her sense of independence and remind her just how frail she really was. Helen hated it that she'd caused that to happen.

She was going to have to get Miss Mabel back on her own two feet as quickly as possible to prevent any further insults to her pride.

Helen heard voices down the hall and went to join them. She entered a kitchen that hadn't been redecorated since 1965. The faded orange and yellow wallpaper had been here almost long enough to be back in style, but nothing would have brought the garish green tile back into fashion. A worn harvest table ran the length of one wall and although it was scratched and dented, it looked sturdy enough to stick around for another forty years of hard use.

Drake lounged against one wall near the table, talking to Thomas, and as soon as she walked into the room, he fell silent and his eyes locked onto her. She saw his relaxed expression change—his eyes darkened to a rich brown and his jaw bunched. She wasn't sure whether his look was due to anger or desire or a little of both, but whatever it was, it was making her want to stay on this side of the room, far enough away to be out of his reach.

Thomas stood from the table and the map that he had spread out in front of him. He regarded her with an even stare, but something about the way he looked at her was different. There was something sad in his blue eyes—some kind of grief she didn't understand. He nodded his head in greeting and held his hand out toward an empty seat. "Want some coffee?"

"She probably wants dinner," said Drake. "Hers got interrupted."

Interrupted. That was one way to put it.

"I'm on it," said one of the two young men who looked almost identical. He had a heavy brow and flattish nose, but his smile was kind enough that it made him appealing. He opened a cabinet and peered in. "Want to pick something?" he asked her.

Helen stared blindly at the rows of canned goods and grabbed something at random.

"Pickled beets?" he asked her, curling a lip in disgust.

Eeew. No. "Sorry." She read the labels this time and picked a can of ready-made pasta.

"Better," said the man. "I'm Slade, by the way. My brother's Vance and that's Carmen." He nodded his head toward a teenage girl who was sitting on the counter, swinging her thin legs while she watched Thomas. Helen recognized the look on the young woman's face—the one that proclaimed her teenage hormones to be rampaging through her.

Thomas was completely oblivious of Carmen's gaze. Unsuspecting prey.

"I'm Helen," she responded.

"So, pretty weird, huh?" asked Slade in a friendly manner that had her relaxing just a bit. "All this magic and monsters stuff?"

"Uh, yeah. Weird." Understatement of the century.

"I know. I mean, I've known about this stuff since I was a kid—our whole family has worked for the Sentinels for generations—but the first time you see it, it's like whoa, you know?"

Boy, did she ever. "Sentinels?"

Slade nodded toward Drake and Thomas. "You know. Those guys."

"And what do you do for them? Besides donating blood."

Slade shrugged. "Lots of stuff. We take care of their property, keep watch out for the Synestryn. Report anything odd. That kind of thing."

"What's a Synestryn?"

He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. "Monsters. Demons. Beasties. The things that creep around in the dark and eat—"

"Helen," said Drake from across the room, interrupting Slade's increasingly disturbing list. "You should come sit down. You've got a decision to make."

Uh-oh, that didn't sound good. "What decision?" She slid onto the bench beside Thomas, and Drake's mouth tightened. Her chosen seat probably wasn't making Carmen any happier, either.

"You can either come with Thomas and me or we'll have the Gerai take you to our home."

Helen had been thinking more along the lines of getting a hotel room, so this threw her for a bit of a loop. "I'll take what's behind door number three."

"There is no door number three," said Drake, his expression hard, unyielding.

"Sure there is. It's the one where you take me and Miss Mabel back to Olathe and we live happily ever after."

"Miss Mabel can go back as soon as we've ensured her safety. You, on the other hand, can't."

"Yeah, see, here's the thing. I'm what they call a grown-up." She made air quotes with her fingers just to piss him off. "Which means I get to make my own decisions. If you're not willing to drive me back into town, then I'll happily call a cab."

Drake took a step forward, then stopped, curling his hands into fists at his sides. "I would have thought you'd seen enough tonight to drive all the stupid right out of you, but apparently, I was wrong."

"It's not stupid for me to want to go home."

"You have no home. All you have is a pile of ash and blackened rubble."

Helen flinched at the words, feeling a sick twisting in the pit of her stomach. He was right, and she knew it, but that didn't make dealing with it any easier. She'd come to love her new home and now it was gone.

"Don't be such an insensitive ass, Drake," scolded Thomas. "I realize what you've got at stake here, but this is not the way to go about getting Helen's agreement."

"What agreement?" she asked. "I don't know anything about any agreement."

The microwave pinged and Slade set a bowl of steaming ravioli in front of her. Helen ate some because she needed the food more than she wanted it.

Drake shoved a wide hand through his hair in frustration. He'd found dry jeans and a clean shirt somewhere, which Helen had to admit was a damn shame. He looked good shirtless, even when she was mad at him. "You're going to need some help putting your life back together," he said as if it was the beginning of a speech he'd practiced in front of the mirror. "And I want to help you do that."

"I appreciate the offer, but I'll be fine. I have obligations. I need to get back to town so I can make arrangements for tomorrow's meals and visits."

"You can't go back to town," said Slade from behind her. "You're wanted as a 'person of interest' in connection to the fires tonight."

"I'm what?" She hadn't meant to bellow it, but that was just too damn bad.

Slade's friendly smile fell off his face, leaving a blunt cliff of flat features. "I heard it on the news. They found your car at the diner. Then when your house burned down ... I guess the police thought they should find you. The reporter said that it wasn't the first fire connected with your name. I mean, they didn't say it or anything, but they made it sound like you're wanted for arson."

Well, wasn't that just the whipped cream on the pile of shit her day had been. There was no way she'd be able to explain to the police what had happened without getting charged with arson or thrown in a loony bin. Or both. Definitely both if the way her life was going was any indication.

Helen suddenly felt too tired to move. She slumped over and propped her head on her palms, staring into the steaming bowl of kid food. A warm, strong hand settled on her back and she knew instantly it wasn't Drake's.

"Get your hands off her, Thomas," growled Drake. She could almost hear the sound of grating teeth in his words.

"Screw you. The woman needs comfort."