Page 21 of Operation Wolf: Eli
CHAPTER 12
Eli
THE NEXT TWO DAYSwere spent mostly in uncomfortable silence with my attempts at small talk stilted and awkward and Olivia’s responses either cold or monosyllabic. I couldn’t really blame her, not after the way I’d spurned her when she reached out to me with that sweet, achingly gentle kiss. One I hadn’t deserved, no matter what she thought. I wished with every fiber of my being that I could have hauled her onto my lap and had my way with her right there. But she was injured, and there was no telling what might happen if my wolf got a little too carried away while making love to her.
Besides, it was probably better that we kept our distance from one another. More than likely, we were going to have to part ways again, and there was no point in forming attachments that would only lead to a broken heart . . . mine.
Forming attachments? Who am I kidding? I am way past being attached to her. I am Mr. Obsessed.
I suppressed a sigh. My behavior toward Olivia would almost be considered possessive if not for the fact that, until this, I’d never once tried to encroach on her personal life. Certainly, at the very least, it was obsessive.
“Why get caught up on one woman?”Hunter’s voice rang in my ears, the remnants of some long-ago conversation—one I hadn’t been the subject of. Nevertheless, the words had stuck.“There are plenty of fish in the sea, and they’re all happy to throw themselves at me. No skin off my back if one of them decides they’d rather stay with the flock.”
“School,” Jordan corrected Hunter dryly. “A group of fish is a school, not a flock.”
“Whatever,” Hunter said dismissively. “They all taste good once I get them in my mouth.”
The corner of my mouth curled up a little, and then the rest of the conversation faded back into the recesses of my mind along with that hint of a smile. Maybe such words were good enough for a playboy like Hunter, but as far as I was concerned, they fell on deaf ears. No matter how many women’s beds I’d lain in, none of them could possibly compare to Olivia. She was a dandelion among carpetweeds, a diamond among lumps of coal, a blazing star in the inky blackness of life.
Well, that’s poetic. But it doesn’t do me any good if I insist on keeping her at arm’s length.
I did let out a sigh this time, a tiny one, but it was enough for Olivia to briefly flick her eyes in my direction before returning them to her paperback. She’d bought several books at the first train stop, and she was already halfway through her third one, some fanciful-looking thing calledThe Princess Bride. Her hair gleamed softly in the sunlight shining through the windowpane, and there was color in her cheeks, a vast improvement from her pinched, pale face on the night of our escape. Now, she looked almost peaceful, nestled in her section of the compartment, content to lose herself in another world.
“Is there any particular reason you’re staring at me?” she asked idly, turning the page.
Because you’re gorgeous, and I can’t stop drinking you in.“I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Well, your ass should have bought a book or two instead of those silly magazines,” she said, indicating the stack next to me with a slight incline of her head.
“They didn’t have any I liked.”
She arched a perfectly manicured brow. “I saw a few mysteries on the racks. I thought you enjoyed those.”
“I’d already read the ones they had,” I said tersely, even though inside, I warmed, secretly pleased that she remembered my literary preferences.
Olivia shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with rereading,” she said, apparently determined to be argumentative.
I opened my mouth to respond, but the train whistle shrilled, and we both looked out the window to see that we were approaching the station. Relief and anticipation swept through me, followed by wariness, as I knew better than not to expect some kind of ambush like the one we’d gotten back in Alabama. Still, I was extremely glad to be getting off the train.
“Is this where we’re staying?” Olivia asked, her slender hands pressed against the windowpane as she looked out at the city.
Burlington, Vermont was a bustling port and a booming manufacturing center with steamboats sailing in from the Erie Canal and great smokestacks rising from industrial buildings.
“It’s much nicer than Chicago,” she admitted, which was true.
If one ignored the factories and steamboats spewing pollution everywhere, Burlington was a picturesque waterfront town that boasted some seriously beautiful Victorian architecture.
“Yes,” I said, standing up and reaching for our luggage, which I’d stored in the wire racks above us. “A friend of mine has a cabin near here.”
Olivia blinked. “A friend of yours is helping you with this . . . escape operation?” she asked, coming to her feet as well.
I arched a brow at her sardonic tone. “He actually financed just about everything,” I admitted, opening up the compartment door so she could exit ahead of me. “One of my former squad members—and he’s quite wealthy, so it’s not exactly any skin off his back.”
Olivia stared at me for a long moment. “That’s extremely generous of him,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, well, I saved his life a few times, and vice versa,” I said, a little uncomfortable under her penetrating stare. “We’d do most anything for each other.”
She nodded and then left, steady on her feet despite the long hours of sitting and her cracked ribs. I followed her out, wondering just what in the hell she was thinking.
