Chapter Nine
Jillian
The man was relentless. My face hurt from smiling so much and trying to make faces to give him hints about things. Anything not to write things down. Dean was patient and never once laughed at my writing even though I knew it was scribble. I bet lizards could write better than me.
I chopped up some wild onions while he tried to shift right there in my cabin and failed over and over.
“I’m done. I can’t try anymore. I’m going to pull something or burst a blood vessel. What are you making? Can I help?”
I forced my eyes back to the chopping board which was nothing more than a sanded piece of flat wood that I found in the forest near the edge of the canyons.
I had no clue how to spell stew. I thought it had a double O like moo, but then again, I wasn’t going to take a chance. Instead, I opened my basket and pulled out the two squirrels and one rabbit I’d found earlier. My wolf loved to track down little animals. I swore she liked the chase more than the kill.
Dean screwed up his face as I pushed the already skinned carcasses toward him. “Um...we’re making rabbit...wait, is that rabbit? And...rat? Jillian, I have no clue what to do here.”
Seeing that my pot full of water was already boiling over the fire, I pointed toward it, hoping he would get the drift. If I couldn’t spell stew, I sure as hell couldn’t spell squirrel. S...k...w...nope, not even trying.
“Just throw them in there? They still have their heads on.” Again, I smiled at him and put my hand on his elbow, leading the way to the fire. I slowly placed one squirrel down into the water and motioned for him to do the same. At least, that’s what I hoped I did.
Dean put each one in, cringing all the while. It was like he’d never cooked meat before.
“Maybe I should just watch you chop. How about some yes or no questions, since your hands are busy?”
I shrugged one shoulder. I was fine with silence but clearly Dean was not. When I returned to cutting up my wild onions and mushrooms, he followed and sat right across from me. Okay, I guessed this was happening.
Gods, he was gorgeous. He had abs for days and since he was wearing only jogging pants, I had an eyeful of them. I wasn’t complaining. Not at all. As he sat down and braced his arms on the counter, his biceps flexed, and my knees threatened to buckle.
I had to get hold of myself.
Focus on the vegetables. Onions and mushrooms and carrots to cut. Like his precisely cut abs.
Shit.
And my wolf, that female beast inside me was relentless. She was preening and swishing her tail, like he could actually see her flirting with him.
What a weirdo.
“So how old are you?” he asked, and I felt my eyebrows draw downward in confusion. I was sure we had agreed on yes and no questions.
Putting down my knife, I reached for the pencil and scribbled yes and no on the paper. My Y looked like a V so I added a little line at the bottom, but it only seemed to make it worse.
“Okay. Yes and no. I was trying to get away with more.”
He could get away with a lot more as far as I was concerned. A lot more.
“Are you between twenty and twenty-five?” he asked.
The thing was, I didn’t really know. They estimated I was about three when I was found much in the same way I found Dean in the woods. They gave me a birthday of January first since we didn’t know.
So I shrugged. Again.
“Are you older?”
Another shake of the head. I put down the knife and wrote a twenty-one and a question mark beside it.
“Jillian, you don’t know how old you are?”
Poking out my bottom lip, I shrugged one shoulder. It didn’t really matter. My life wouldn’t be suddenly different if I found out I was twenty-three instead of twenty-one. For the record, if the alpha’s guess was right, I was about twenty-two. About.