Page 28 of Trust No Alpha

“I—I--” It was all the young man could get out.

Thorne took a step inside the shed, closer to the intruder.

“You don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have a weapon or anything. But you broke intomyshed. So I think I deserve an explanation.”

“My—my name’s Kris.”

Kris’s pack had fallen to his side. He reached for it, his gloved hands gripping it hard.

“I—I’ll just leave if that’s okay w--with you. B--be on my—my way.”

The poor guy was shivering like crazy.

“Kris with a K?” Thorne asked, his mind whirling, trying to put two and two together. He’d just read that name somewhere. Today. Online.

Kris nodded. “Y—yeah.”

It came to Thorne quickly. “You’re a Vandergale boy.”

“H--how do you know? We’ve n--never met.”

“I’ve seen your name on your father’s online bio.” He omitted that he’d just been snooping that very day. “There was no picture of you, just him. But you look like him now that I see you. You don’t have his coloring, but you have his eyes. And it shows in the set of your jaw.”

Kris sat very still, eyes glaring straight ahead, body tensed as if to bolt.

“You live just down the way.” Thorne frowned. Wasn’t this the very same sad face he’d seen several times in the window of the Vandergale mansion while he’d been on his walks?

“Kris, what are you doing out here in the freezing cold?”

No answer. Just that frozen, almost predatory glare.

“Are you running away?”

Kris started to shake his head. His gaze dropped to the pack in his embrace. His arms tightened around it.

Thorne sighed. All fear left him when he realized this was no stranger but only his neighbor’s kid. A sad kid. A boy of eighteen who held the world in his fierce, but scared eyes.

“Well.” Thorne spoke very gently. “I can’t leave you out here. You’ll freeze to death. And that wouldn’t be very neighborly of me. Why don’t you come inside and warm up and we’ll figure all this out.”

Kris didn’t move.

“Come on.”

Kris’s chin lowered and he hunched down into himself.

Thorne held his hand out.

When Kris still didn’t move, Thorne realized his own reputation probably preceded him.

“Ah, I see. Boys hear stories growing up of neighbors they’ve never met. Of men who live alone. You think I’m a monster? That I’ll hurt you? Kill you?” He took a deep breath and flashed his light up at the cobwebbed ceiling of the shed. “Hmm.”

Kris swallowed audibly.

Thorne bent toward him and met the boy’s tight cold eyes. Voice firm, he said, “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

Kris’s eyes widened even more.

“Get up. Or freeze. I suppose I shouldn’t care, but I do. Come along inside where it’s warm.” Thorne turned and flashed his light outside. He stepped out of the shed and onto the crunchy ice, then moved up the path and toward his porch.