Page 7 of Cullen
“You’re the meanest person I know, Emmie.Why are you like that?You have a job and money?Why don’t you share it?”Because she told her, she liked having things that she paid for and did not have to suck the system dry.“Why do you have to bring that up now?I thought that we could just be like a family while you’re here and have some good dinners out.”
“I’m not going to be taking you out to dinner every night.Unless it’s with the kids.I want to get to know them better than I do right now.”She said that she could get to know them at a fancy restaurant, too.“No, there’s too much going on, so it’ll have to be fast food or nothing at all.”
“If you gave me the money to bail out Bash, then he could be getting to know you better, too.”She said that she’d had enough of Bash and wasn’t going to bail him out.“I’m going to wear you down, see that I don’t.”
“You’ll see that I’m a good deal stronger than you are when it comes tomymoney.I’m not bailing him out.And if you don’t want to fight about it every time we talk to each other, then stop bringing it up.”She told her that it was only a thousand dollars.“Who said it was that much?I didn’t even realize that he’d gone to court yet.”
“All right, so he’s not gone to court yet, but I could use the money to keep him in stuff while he’s there.They only give him three meals a day and nothing in between.”She told her that he’d survive.“But he’s so hungry all the time, and he gets mad at me when I tell him that you’ve taken us out to eat.He wants his fair share, too.”
“I told you that I’m not going to feed him.My taxes are going for him to have meals that are good for him.Not anything extra.Besides, the last time I saw him, he could have used to lose a few pounds.”Mary Beth agreed that the doctor said he was getting too heavy.“See?We’re doing him a favor by not feeding him more than he should be getting.”
“You’re being mean again.I hope your date leaves you beside the road and you have to walk home.”She asked her who was being mean now.“I mean it.I hope you have a crappy time, and he takes you someplace that serves burgers and fries all the time.It’s the least he can do to make sure you don’t get too fat either.”
The phone was slammed down, and Emmie found that she didn’t care.She was excited to have a date tonight with Cullen.As soon as he pulled up in front of the B&B, she knew it was going to be a good time, and she wasn’t going to mention her sister at all.Not if she could help it.
He took her to a seafood restaurant for dinner.It wasn’t her favorite type of food, but she really did enjoy it.As soon as he sat down with her, he began telling her about his house.She wanted to see it because it sounded like the perfect house for her, too.He showed her pictures.
“The open concept isn’t anything that I’m into.I’ve been out in the open for most of my adult life, and I’m sick of it.”She said that she designs the outdoors for new homes and didn’t get out much.“I’ve been trying to get out more, but I find that I’m not much into people either.Which is what surprised me about myself asking you out.”
“I’m glad that you did.I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”He told her how his brothers had helped him get the rooms set up with the things they’d been able to get him today, too.“Do the table and chairs fit in your dining room?I’ve been wondering about that since I saw how big they were.And then to have the other three pieces too.”
“Would you like to come by after we’re finished here?I’ve been thinking about your opinionall day and how you would like the house.”She told him that she’d love to see his house.“It’s much bigger than I thought I’d buy, but I got such a good deal on it that I found that I couldn’t resist.You’re my mate, did I tell you that?”
“I’m sorry?”She caught him as off guard as he had her with the mate business.“I don’t understand.I understand what mates are, but now how I’m your mate.We only just met today.”
“You are.I’ve been wanting to tell you all day, but I was afraid that I was wrong.But my brothers reassured me that I was right in figuring it out.Not that I go to them for advice that often, but it seems to me that they would know more than I do about mates, as they all have one now but for me.”She looked around the room, thinking that this had to be a joke.She knew more mated shifters than she did humans, so she knew how it would work for them.Not to say that she wanted it to work, but she didn’t know how this was going to work for them.“If you don’t like the house or can’t see yourself living in it, we can sell it.Also, if you must live where you came from, I can move up there as well.I can do my job from anywhere.”
“So can I, but that’s not the point.I mean, we only just met.Doesn’t it take months of trying to figure things out between us?I heard from one couple that they took nearly a year before they got married, and it stuck with them.I don’t know that I can stay here a month getting to know you.”He said that they had the rest of their lives to get to know one another.“But that’s a long time too.”
“You calm me.”She nodded and told him how he’d taken away her depression from this afternoon in dealing with her sister and her family.“I can help you with that.I know Bash Humphrey well.We went to school together, and I’ve never had a high opinion of him.I’m sorry if you do.”
“I don’t.I don’t like him at all.My sister most of the time either, but there are the two kids they have.Marshall and Beth.They’re eight and six years old, respectively.I came here to get to know them.”He said that she could still do that.“What do you expect of me?I don’t believe that you’d try to order me around or anything like that, but you must expect something of me.”
“I only want you to trust me when I tell you that I won’t lie to you.”He explained that he couldn’t lie to her anyway, something about his DNA.“I don’t know that you can lie to me either, but there is no reason for us to get off on that sort of thing.Lying will only get us into trouble in the long run.”
“I don’t want to lie to you either.”She picked up her fork and poked at her food.“I just don’t know what to think.This is a lot.”
“Then we’ll just get to know one another for tonight.I’ll tell you about myself, and you can tell me things about yourself.”She told him the highlights, and he smiled.“See?We can get to know one another and have a nice meal.“I’m retired from the service.I’ve been in since I was eighteen.I’ve been doing jobs for the president when he asks, and that’s been nice.Sometimes I have nightmares.Well, I have them every night.They wake me up and have me screaming.”She asked him what they were about.
“I mean, if you can tell me.That’s the only kind of dreams that I can remember are the bad ones.I don’t have them every night, but often enough that I’m afraid to stay over at people’s houses for fear of waking them up with my screams.”He said that he had the same problems.“I bet if you’ve been overseas, you’ve seen a lot of things that would cause you to have nightmares.I know that I would.”
They talked about some of his dreams when he told her that he’d been in special forces.He didn’t get into a great deal of detail about his dreams, but enough that she understood that he was having them.When he changed the subject to his house again, she followed along with him like there hadn’t been a change in subject.She liked that about him, too.He seemed to be able to flow with her when she changed the subject like he did.
~*~
Cullen couldn’t believe his luck tonight.He was enjoying himself while talking to Emmie, and they were having fun too.He couldn’t wait for her to see the house that he’d gotten, but it would be all right if she didn’t care for it.His life was going to be centered on her from now on, and he couldn’t believe how much he was looking forward to it.
After dinner, they shared an ice cream.He didn’t much care for desserts, but tonight was something special, and he was going to do things that he’d never done before.Sharing a dessert didn’t seem like all that much to him, but it did make her laugh, and he was all right with that.
They talked about her job and what she did for a living.She told him again that she could work from anywhere to do her job, and she’d explained to him that she didn’t need to see the finished project of her work, as they usually changed things around to the outside before she could get it finished anyway.
“I’ve been doing landscaping for some time now.It’s something that I love, and I don’t have to be around people to do it.Some people think that it’s just a matter of planting a few bushes here and there, and that’s the end of it, but it’s not.It’s a great deal more than that.I have to know how big the bushes and trees are going to get and to see if they’ll block the driveways or signage or not.It’s a big deal to do what I’m doing to a finished housing development.”He asked her why she could do it anywhere.“I have an office that I use, but it’s only a long table with a lot of colored pencils around it.”She laughed.“Not really, but it’s just a large open space where I can work and get it done.I have fun being in my closed-off office, too.No one bothers me unless there’s a change to something.”
“As I said, I work with the president.Jamie and I have become close over the last few months.Since I retired anyway.I’ve been going overseas to see to projects that he has a hand in, and I end up working with the men and women there to make sure that the job is done right.I don’t want to have to go back, so I make sure it’s done the first time.”She asked if he’d killed anyone.“Yes.”
When he didn’t say anything more, she didn’t either.Of course, he’d killed before.He was in the service.While they were walking to the car, she asked him if that was what his nightmares were about.He didn’t seem like he was going to answer for a few minutes, and she might have been all right with his not saying anything.But when he did speak, she paid attention.
“For a long time, I never thought about what I was doing.I just went in, did what I was told, and came out on the other side.Then one night, I had to go in and kill an enemy of the state.I had him going to bed at ten, and I was going to go in by midnight to do the job.I didn’t count on him sitting with his children when I found him.They knew what I was there for and converged on their grandda to save him.It took me a month to get over that one.That was the first time I had to go back and redo a job.After that, I started seeing things that I never allowed myself to see again, and it was difficult for me to do my job after that.”She told him she was sorry.“So am I.Then one night, I was hurt.Badly.And since I couldn’t shift to get better, I had to suffer right along with the other men who had been injured in the same job.That’s when I came home for three weeks.I saw my family for the first time, it seemed, and I enjoyed being around them.It was about the time that Dallas met Amy.”
