Northwoods Magic (Northwoods Fairy Tales Book 1) Page 6
To make things even more difficult, Corbin was having trouble hanging on to the anger that he had nurtured for the last ten years. He wanted to blame Quinn for leaving him and making him lonely. He wanted to hate her for making him live the half-life he had been living, raven born but existing in a human body. After seeing her fall apart at the slightest provocation, after hearing about her confusion and anxiety from the green man, Corbin didn’t know what to think anymore. It seemed like a chunk of her memories were gone, and she was wasting away from something, fighting whatever was going on with her body, and it all seemed like a direct result of what had happened ten years ago. The woman that had wandered into the lodge parking lot last night, practically shaking from her own shadow, bore little more than a passing physical resemblance to the girl he had bonded to in the forest. His feelings of anger were still there, but more like a flickering flame instead of a raging inferno in his gut. No, instead of just one emotion, he had to add several more into the mix. Anger and hurt were still there, sure, but now he also had sadness and fear.
Corbin sat in the driver seat waiting for William to come out of the supply shed and join him. They were doing rounds together this morning, and Corbin had already been sitting outside waiting for him for ten minutes. He didn’t want to lay on the horn because it was obnoxious, but he was about sixty seconds away from beating on the front of the shed door to get the big man to come outside. Waiting around was aggravating as fuck, and Corbin was in no mood to put up with any bullshit.
At just about one second before the last of Corbin’s patience was used up, the passenger door opened and the blonde giant got in. The Blazer creaked a bit under the weight, William was a huge guy, but then the door shut and Corbin put his foot on the gas lightly. One did not go speeding down the dirt road that ran through the property. The land around the lodge was a vacation area; during tourist season, there were people everywhere. Out of the twelve cabins that were available for rent, only one was in use right now. Corbin knew quite well who resided in that cabin because he had carried her down the same trail he was currently driving on and put her in there himself.
He must have had a face like a thundercloud because William tapped his fingers on Corbin’s arm, and when he looked at him, the other man had his eyebrows raised in question.
“I’m all right man. Just a rough night.”
The look on William’s face showed just how much he didn’t believe Corbin, but he didn’t persist, and for once, he was glad for the other man's lack of vocabulary so he wouldn’t be forced to explain the situation. William had not been around ten years ago. William didn’t know the backstory as Benny and Rose did. Corbin liked the quiet giant well enough, but he wasn’t about to spill heart secrets like they were brochachos. This wasn’t therapy hour.
He pulled the Blazer in front of cabin six. Centrally located to a handful of other cabins in the circle, he could get supplies in and out of his truck without having to drive to each of them and park there. By the time he got out of the driver's seat and walked behind the vehicle, William already had the hatch open and was grabbing a basket of linens. For such a big guy, he sure could move quickly. Corbin tapped William on the shoulder, held up six fingers and pointed at himself, then he flashed the six sign again and pointed at William, who nodded in agreement. He would take care of the first six cabins, and William could handle the last six, well technically five since cabin twelve was occupied and no one had to stop there. Occupied cabins only got serviced once a week or at checkout, and Quinn had just gotten there the night before.
He would take cabins one through six and William would take cabins seven through eleven. Corbin would not have to stop near where Quinn was because, no matter how much he was struggling to process this new information and these new feelings, he was just not ready. He grabbed a wide laundry basket full of bedsheets and towels with one hand, and balancing the basket on his knee, reached up and closed the tailgate on the back of the truck with the other. Turning around he almost smashed his nose into William’s broad back, which was entirely too close, and he moved to get around the man.
William shifted so that he was once again blocking Corbin’s view, and this time, it was clearly on purpose. In a fit of irritation, he snapped, “William, what the fuck are you doing?” He was tired and irritable and did not have time for whatever bullshit was going on in William’s head. He whacked the bigger man in the side with the laundry basket and stepped around him, but no sooner had he gotten an eyeful of what William had been blocking him from than he dropped his basket on the ground. It landed with a thump on the hard packed dirt of the clearing, contents unmoving, but Corbin never noticed it because he was staring right into the face of the occupant of cabin number twelve.
She looked just as surprised to see him. She must have been walking back to the lodge because she had her car keys in her hand, but her car was still parked in the employee parking where she had left it the night before. She wore a bright green t-shirt with a ridiculous kitten on the front, and he caught a glimpse of the creamy white skin of her neck peeking out under a cascade of brown hair. Glittery pink painted toenails peeked out of the most worthless - in the dirt - looking sparkle flip flops he had ever seen. He raised his head and locked onto her with his gaze, her little pink mouth open in a silent “oh” shape like she couldn’t quite figure out what to say to him. Her gray eyes were wide as if she couldn’t believe she was seeing him, and part of him hoped he would see a spark of recognition there, but another part of him hoped he wouldn’t. As she stepped toward him as if in a trance, her arm slightly raised as if she was going to touch him, he felt William tense beside him. In a shaky voice, almost too low to hear he heard her whisper “Who are you? Do you know me?”
That shit shook him straight to his toes. The uncertainty in her voice, the indecision in her eyes. This woman in front of him, shaking and afraid, was not what he had been expecting upon their first meeting. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to answer, and he was going to freak out.
Reaching deep into the bravest part of his soul, he searched for the proper greeting for the vision in front of him. She was skittish and wild, and he would need to think carefully as his next words were sure to be important. He had dreamed about this moment, fantasized for years about what he would say to Quinn if he ever had the chance to meet her again. Corbin took a fortifying breath and spoke the first words he had ever spoken to the woman who had him tied up in emotional knots for the last ten years.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
She started a bit, clearly taken aback by his rudely spoken words. He winced inwardly at the completely and utterly assholish words that had just come out of his mouth, but in for a penny, in for a pound. He shot his powder, and now he had to follow through.
“Only tourists wear flip flops in the woods, little girl. You better go get some real shoes on, unless you want to break a toe or bloody your knees before you get out of view of your cabin.” He didn’t even turn to look at William, knowing how confused the man would be by the outburst. Corbin didn’t talk like this to guests. Corbin didn’t talk like this to anyone. It was like some other asshole was dictating the words that he would say.
“Hey, rude!” The look on Quinn’s face went from confusion to outrage as she looked down at her sparkly footwear. “I happen to like these shoes, and even if you don’t, it isn’t polite to say stuff like that. You can keep that mean talk to yourself!” For such a willowy little thing, she managed to look both fierce and indignant as she looked directly at his chin, angry, but still a bit too timid to stare him in his eyes. He wished she would look into his eyes.
Crap, had their bodies gotten closer? He hadn’t seen her feet move, had his? Had he moved closer to her without knowing? His mind raced to find something else to say, but apparently, she wasn’t done dressing him down.
“I will have you know; I am a tourist. It’s been a long, long time since I have been here. You looked familiar to me, and I was going
to ask, but not now. You aren’t him.” She was staring at her toes now, having used up all her bravery with her initial outburst. “Why are you so mean?” Her breath hitched on a small sob, and he could see just how much it cost her to even stand up for herself at that moment.
It was too much for Corbin to handle too soon. As agonizing as the last ten years had been, he desperately wished for a little more time to sort shit out before being dragged into this monsoon of emotion. He could not think of one thing to say, and as he looked over at William for support, help, hell anything, he was completely shocked at the look of seething rage etched on the man's face. His blue eyes were ablaze with hatred, and his mouth was pressed so tightly closed it was almost completely obscured by his beard. He looked positively violent at the moment, and Corbin felt himself go on guard immediately.
“Why are you looking at her like that, man?” Corbin positioned himself between Quinn and William on instinct. The other man didn’t blink; he didn’t so much as move a muscle. With his shoulder length golden mane pulled back to hang low on his neck, William looked like a Viking preparing to slaughter his enemies.
“I said, why the fuck are you looking at her like that?” Corbin repeated, more slowly this time, enunciating each word to make sure William understood. The bigger man shook his head as if to clear it and glanced from Quinn to Corbin. He threw his hands in the air as if to dismiss the whole mess and just like that, the hostile air around him gone as it had never been. It was enough to make Corbin question if he had even seen anything at all.
William picked his basket up off the ground and, stacking it on top of the basket that Corbin had dropped, carted them both off in the direction of cabin one, leaving Corbin to deal with the quivering woman in front of him. Something inside of his chest twisted at her unshed tears. The previously dormant bond that had buried itself inside of him ten years ago pulled taut, and he rubbed his chest to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling.
Quinn eyed his hand moving over his chest suspiciously as she asked “Do you feel it too? Do you feel it right here?” She rubbed her thumb in a circular motion over the spot on her own heart. “It’s such a strange feeling, isn’t it? Sometimes it wakes me up from a dream, hurting so bad I could die from it. Then other times, like now, it hurts in an entirely different way.” Her eyes had gone soft and seemed to stare past Corbin, at something far away. Something he couldn’t see.
“I’m gonna ask you again because the mean faced man isn’t here and maybe you could be a little nicer now that it’s just you and me. My name is Quinn, and I was here long ago. Do you know me? I feel like I know you.”
“I feel like I know you.” She repeated the last part as a whisper, almost as if she were talking to herself instead of to a shell-shocked Corbin standing somehow even closer to her than he had before. Now he knew she hadn’t moved, but they were mere inches apart at this point. She didn’t reach up to touch him again, but she did have her chin raised expectantly, eyes still focused somewhere above his chin.
Having her stare at his mouth like that did amazing things to his libido. She was so close right now that he could feel the energy of the space her body occupied mingling with the energy of his. He could move his face down several inches and capture her slightly open mouth in a kiss, if she would let him. He could bury his right hand in her long brown hair and pull her to him with the other, closing the distance and pressing their bodies together. He could do that, but he wouldn’t because Oh my God, he was getting a boner. A spontaneous erection was too much to deal with in the middle of a circle of cabins after minimal sleep, conspiracy theories about evil soul sucking clouds, and a possible magical bad guy stalking the two of them over the span of ten years. He needed some space, he needed to breathe, and he needed to adjust his dick. Opening his mouth, Corbin was helpless to stop the idiotic statement that escaped his lips,
“I don’t know you.”
Fuck him, that wasn’t right. He wanted to slap himself in his traitor mouth, but the words had come out and damn if he wasn’t too proud to take them back. He needed to get some space, and by the way Quinn’s beautiful pixie face had crumpled, he had scored a direct hit. Goddamn it.
Quinn moved away from him, and as much as he had been begging for her to back up, his body fairly cried at the loss of her. Her spine straightened as if pulled by a puppeteer's hand and she shook her head, letting a wave of dark hair fall over her face and obscure her soft gray eyes. Head down, she mumbled, “I am so sorry. I don’t know why I am so weird. I just say the strangest things sometimes. I was going to find Miss Benny. I was going to go find Rose.” She looked up at him with eyes too bright, lips trembling in a watery smile, “Don’t mind me; I’m probably crazy. Everybody thinks so.” She turned and walked away down the narrow dirt drive towards the lodge. Towards Miss Benny and Rose, who were probably going to ream his ass after they talked to Quinn and found out what a total dickhead he had just been. Man, he was not doing this right at all. Instead of getting payback for all of the years of abandonment, he was just inflicting more damage on an already fragile woman. A woman for whom he had a straight hard on as soon as he saw her again. Carrying her to her cabin last night had been torture, and having her less than six inches from him during their whole conversation was like sending love letters straight to his dick. Goddamn it, he was a fucking mess.
He watched her walk away until she was out of sight; she never turned around, even if she felt his gaze burning into her back.
I’m probably crazy. Everybody thinks so.
Just hearing her say that set his guts on fire. What had she gone through in the last ten years that made her so broken and unsure of herself? What had happened to her? He wanted to fix it, but he didn’t know how. The only way to start was to tell her who he was, how he came to be, and if she could remember just a little bit of that time, then he could try to fill in the blanks. The old man had said she should be much stronger than she was, but something was making her sick. What was making her sick? Was it the not knowing?
Corbin mulled it over as he reached into the back of the Blazer to find only one basket left. It was labeled cabin twelve. Groaning, Corbin realized that all of his plans to avoid the place were for naught. Of course, Miss Benny was going to send him there today. She wasn’t going to let him get away with not going, and he quickly rejected the notion that William might do it for him. It looked like William had emptied the vehicle of all the other baskets and was walking his way back to whatever the next job he had to do was. Corbin yelled his name and, when he looked back, gave him a little wave of thanks. William flipped him the bird with a cheeky grin and turned back around, headed somewhere, probably to the sauna and hot tub house to do the daily maintenance required out there. William had looked unperturbed, so maybe Corbin had imagined the ugliness on his face earlier. Maybe he had just been confused. God knows he was confused about everything else going on. He picked up the basket of towels and extra sheets and headed over the short distance to the edge of the circle where cabin twelve stood.
When he got to the front door of the small wooden building, he set the basket down and reached for his keys, but then thought better of it and gave the door a little nudge. Yep, it was open. Nobody locked their doors in the Northwoods, not even the tourists.
Corbin remembered this cabin; this was the place that he had run to when Quinn had first gotten injured and then taken away. He had made a habit in the early days of coming back to cabin twelve when the bond was so fresh and new and painful. It was always the place that Miss Benny came to look for him or sometimes sent Rose to come pull him out and back to the lodge. He had been like a newborn and technically, he was, newly born into the body of a young man that had no idea how to even act like one. Quinn had been life flighted to the nearest trauma unit two hours away, and her parents had taken to staying in a hotel close to the hospital, so while they were gone, Corbin would sneak into the cabin to be near Quinn’s things. He would flip open her purple sketchbook with the black unicorn
on the cover and look at the pictures of himself she had been drawing over the last few weeks. He used to trace his fingers over the charcoal lines of his wings, beak, and tail feathers, but he had to stop when his tears fell on the heavy paper and started leaving smudges. He would sit on the bed she had slept in and lay his head on her pillow just to smell the lingering scent of her shampoo and get any kind of close that he could. He was lost. He was so lost.
When Quinn’s parents had come to clean out the cabin for the last time, Corbin had lost his shit and had to be taken away by the old man because he was still wild and lashing out in his grief. He needed to learn how to be human, and Miss Benny and the old man did the best they could by him, but it was a long hard road over ten years, and Corbin still felt the hole in his heart where his bird used to be. He missed the wind in his feathers and the rough bark of a tree under his toes. He probably could have handled anything if Quinn would have been there; after all, he had become his current self to help her. If it wasn’t for Quinn, what was the purpose of living as a human?
Swallowing the familiar hurt, Corbin set the basket of linens on the small wooden table next to a plate covered with plastic wrap and a note. He started to read the note, but the open suitcase on the couch in the living room caught his attention. It was just a flash of purple in the corner of his eye, but it was enough to have him crossing the room in seconds and peeking into the open luggage. He didn’t even feel bad about it; the case was open and the contents were laying there for anyone to see. He knew that notebook. He recognized the black foil pattern on the outside and the spiral binding.
He picked up the purple book and ran his hands over the outside. It seemed bigger than he remembered but much more worn. There were creases in the cardboard cover, probably from being opened and closed and shoved into bags to be carried many places. His hand trembled as he hesitated to open the book, eager to see his own former likeness on the pages inside. He really shouldn’t be doing this. It was a violation of her privacy, but maybe the pages would give him a clue to what had happened to her, and dammit, she owed him every explanation he wanted.