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Chapter Thirty-Six

C lover glanced at her watch yet again. Whit was late, and she was starting to get worried. She’d long since finished her arctic purple. She was down to drinking the ice as it melted.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a ride somewhere?” Orion asked. “It’s not a problem—not that I mind hanging out with you here.”

Clover shook her head. “You don’t have to wait with me. I’m sure you have some place to be. It’s getting late.”

Orion chuckled. “It’s not even nine yet.”

Clover shrugged. “If the sun is down, it’s late.”

“Even so, I can’t in good conscience leave you stranded here. Let me take you home.”

“I’m not stranded.” Clover frowned. “But I am getting worried,” she admitted. “Maybe I should just call him.”

But as she dug her phone out of her coat pocket—pushing her thick mitten aside—it chimed with a text from Whit telling her he was in the parking lot.

She sighed in relief.

“That him?” Orion asked.

She nodded, standing from her chair to put on her coat. “Yeah, he’s in the parking lot.”

Orion frowned. “He didn’t even come in to get you?”

Clover ignored the implied criticism in Orion’s tone, smiling tightly. “Thanks for waiting with me. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” Orion zipped up his coat to head out with her. “And I’ll let you know about any jobs at the brewery. Text me your email address, and I’ll forward them to you.”

Clover nodded as she dropped her cup into the recycle bin on her way out.

The wind blew colder on her face than it had just the hour before. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot, so she spotted Whit’s truck right away.

She turned to Orion. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait,” he stopped her as she moved to leave. Bending down, he picked something up off the ground. And when he straightened, he stood much closer than she expected.

He smiled a smile that she was certain worked on many a woman’s heart. “You dropped this,” he said, his voice softened at this distance.

She took the mitten he offered, nodded, and stepped away from him. “Thanks.”

“Goodnight!” he called after her as she bustled to the truck.

The cabin was warm and cozy when she climbed in. Whit faced away from her.

“How was your workout? I was starting to get worried.” She reached for her seatbelt.

“Who’s that?” Whit asked, his voice sort of stuffed and nasally like he was catching a cold.

Clover followed the direction of his gaze to see Orion shuffling down the block toward Pets and Scritches.

“Oh, that’s Orion—one of the other volunteers. He’s the one who told me about the rescue. Did you meet him outside city hall when we were picking up our marriage license? He was asking for signatures for his petition.”

“I didn’t, no,” Whit answered.

“Well, the orientation got finished early, so he offered to wait with me at the café. If I’d have known your workout would take so long, I would’ve asked him for a ride.”

Whit glanced over at her. “I’m sorry. I?—”

Clover gasped as she met his eyes—well, one eye since the other was swollen shut. Even in the dim light of the dashboard, she could see something awful had happened to him. Rolled up tissue hung from his nose, and a bruise was blooming down the side of his face.

“Jesus Christ! What happened to you? Are you all right?” She leaned toward him but was stopped by her seatbelt.

He held up a hand. “I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not fine.” She frowned severely while worry churned her stomach. “The car isn’t damaged, so you didn’t get into a wreck. What happened at your gym? Do you box or something? Did you get mugged?”

“I got into a fight,” Whit said simply.

“With whom ? Did someone attack you? Did you file a police report?”

Whit shook his head. “With a friend.”

Clover was silent for a heavy minute as thoughts raced around her head. Does he fight a lot? He didn’t seem like the type. But then, I hardly know him. Did he fight with another winter sorcerer? Would they have used fists? Was it because his friend found out he married me? Is he hurt because of me?

“Does this happen often?” she asked.

“No.”

Clover sighed heavily. “Do you have a first-aid kit at home?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Get out. I’ll drive. You shouldn’t be behind the wheel with your eye like that.”

Clover didn’t speak again until they were home. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t approve of violence, and she didn’t think Whit’s friend was one worth having if he would bust up his face like this. But she also had the strong feeling this had something to do with her, and that made her sick with worry.

“This will sting,” she warned before she pressed a peroxide-soaked cotton ball to the cuts on his knuckles.

He winced, hissing through his teeth as she pressed a little harder than she needed to.

“Well, you should’ve thought about that before you tried to solve your differences with violence.”

He didn’t argue.

Silently, she cleaned his wounds, showing him no mercy.

But when she was finished, she sighed. “All right. I don’t know if this will work, but it’s worth a try. We can’t have you scaring away customers with your face looking like that.”

“What?” Whit asked—his first word since she’d sat him down at the dining room table.

“I don’t have the amount of magic I need to heal you right now, but if you lend me some of yours, it might work. Then again, it might not. Do you want to try it or not?”

Whit frowned. “But if you were going to try to heal me, why did we go through the pain of cleaning my wounds?”

“To teach you a lesson,” she answered sternly. “Fighting is not the answer.”

Stepping closer, she leaned over him, analyzing his face. “We’ll start with that eye. That’s got to hurt. Give me your hands.”