She got out and reached for her bags, but Robertson beat her to them.
“I’ll get them.” He picked them up, and she realized he was heading for the same room as Matthias.
Taz balked. “Oh, no. I’m not sharing a room with him.”
Matthias turned from the stoop, where he was unlocking the door. “Why not?”
Speech briefly escaped her. “Why not? You have the nerve to ask that?” He did, it seemed.
“You need to be protected.”
“I’m not sleeping with you!” She realized she’d nearly screamed that, and a couple of kids playing outside a few cabins over looked up. She took a deep breath, stepped closer to him, and hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m not sleeping with you!”
“I’m not asking you to. There are two beds.” Matthias took his bags inside the cabin. Taz fought the urge to scream in frustration.
She tried to grab her bags from Robertson. “Taz,” he said quietly, “please. Don’t do this. He wants to protect you.”
“I can protect myself.” He gave her the knowing-father look and she deflated. “He can hear my thoughts,” she whispered. “Why can’t I share a room with you?”
God, I sound like a whiny teenager.
“Because, I’m not as fast as he is with a sword.”
“We’ve got half a SEAL team with us. Why can’t I share a room with one of them?”
He looked down his nose at her. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“What?”
He glanced around before stepping closer. “Haven’t you noticed none of them will look at you or meet your gaze? They’re under strict orders not to. He’ll fire them on the spot. He needs them clear-headed. If one of them shares a room with you, Matthias will have to peel him off you. Think about the guard at the house. Your powers are awakening, and it’s like dogs after a bitch in heat until you learn how to control them.”
“Oh nice, great. Thank you. Now I’m a bitch—hey, wait!” He was already mounting the concrete steps with her bags.
The room was small. Not small as in small, but small as in the master bathroom at her LA condo was larger than the entire room. The bathroom sink was affixed to the wall outside the bathroom. The bathroom was smaller than most closets, with barely room to turn around between the toilet and shower.
There were two beds, one double, one single. Matthias placed his bag on the single bed. He opened his bag and rooted through it, looking for something.
Robertson put her bags on the double bed and looked at her.
Behave, he mouthed, chucking her on the chin like he did when she was a kid.
Terrific.
Taz refused to speak to Matthias and positioned herself between Robertson and Albert when they walked as a group down the boardwalk, past the geysers, toward the Old Faithful Inn for dinner. At the table, she sat at the far end on the other side of the guards, hoping it was far enough away to protect her thoughts. She refused to look at Matthias throughout dinner. She sensed Matthias stole glances at her.
Tough. Let him look.
She still didn’t know what they were doing there. He needed to meet with scientists at the USGS, something about a computer system. Fine, great. Why bring her? Why not leave her at the house with an army of guards?
She tried to ignore his smirk. Oh hell, he can still hear my thoughts.
Taz was betrayed on the walk back to the cabins. Matthias came up from behind, and Robertson deftly stepped out of his way. Matthias cupped her elbow in his hand and gently propelled her a few steps ahead of the others.
“Hey, let go of me.”
“Not until you promise to quit acting like a brat.”
She mentally shot him a few choice curse words. “Did you get that?”
“Yes, I did.” He kept his voice low. The hired guns hovered a discreet distance behind the group. “I’m sorry, Taz. Really, truly sorry for all this. Would you please stop being mad at me long enough to talk?”
“No.” She shook his grip and tried to walk faster. He matched her stride, catching her elbow again.
“Taz, please.”
“Is this some sort of game to you? Do you really think you’re going to woo me into bed, and everything’s going to be hunky-dory between us?”
“No. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted anything to do with me again.”
She stopped in her tracks, and Robertson nearly ran into her. “What?”
“I said—”
“I heard you.”
Everyone stepped back, and Matthias guided her to the edge of the boardwalk, out of the main line of traffic. He kept his voice low. “Taz, I’m sorry. Truly, deeply sorry. Contrary to what you might think I don’t have a lot of experience with this. I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve had a lot of women,” she shot back. “You said so yourself.”
His eyes narrowed, and his face hardened. “That’s not what I meant. There is a vast gulf between having and loving. And, if you remember, I’m a lot older than you. For your information I haven’t ‘had’ a woman in over ten years.”
Matthias walked away before she could conjure a response. Something in the set of his shoulders told her she’d crossed a line, maybe hurt his feelings. She knew she was being a bitch, and she couldn’t help herself. This wasn’t like her at all.
Albert walked up behind her. “He’s only loved one other, dear. He is as lost as you are.” He followed Matthias.
“Give him a chance, Taz,” Robertson said. “He’s trying.”
She walked back to the cabin, trailed by the three guards and feeling guilty.
Chapter Eighteen
“Why are we here?” Taz thought to Matthias.
Matthias lay on his bed, reading. He was still dressed, but shoeless, and making a concerted effort to ignore her.
Finally, she spoke out loud. “Are you ignoring me?”
He didn’t look at her. “I was under the impression you didn’t want me to speak to you. I was trying to give you some privacy.”
“Why are we here?”
He still didn’t look up from his book.
Frankly, she couldn’t blame him.
“I have some meetings,” he said, “and I need to keep you close. I’d rather have you here, where I can protect you. I have a lot of contacts in this area, and if someone tries to get into the park who doesn’t belong, I’ll know about it.”
She tried to wrap her mind around that. “Uh, so they wouldn’t possibly sneak in through thousands of miles of unwatched park borders? They’d come through one of the main gates?”
Snarky much?
He looked at her over the top of his book. “When I give you information, you get mad at me. When I withhold information, you get mad at me. So what would you have me do? Nothing I say to you is right.”
“What happened to bringing me into the loop?”
He put the book down and sat up. “I mean it. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m screwing this up, and for once in my life, I can’t fix it.”
She sat on her bed and didn’t reply. He watched her, saying nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin. And then to hear you talk about your harem—”
Matthias threw his book across the room, and she flinched as it bounced off the wall by the door.
“Goddamn it, Taz! Would you quit thinking like that? Stop it. I can’t help that I had partners before I met you. I had sex, yes, I did. I’m not a virgin. So did you. If anyone has a right to be pissed, it’s me. It’s been ten years since I’ve had a relationship. You were still in college the last time I got laid.”