Scratch the Surface. Amy Lee Burgess

He dumped a teaspoon of sugar into his coffee and stirred. The spoon hitting the sides of the mug was pure frustration expressed in sound. “You persist in thinking there’s such a separation between you and her and there’s not.”

      “I don’t see it. I am not me when I’m her.” This was a well-worn, frequent discussion between us. He could tell me a hundred million times that I was my wolf and she was me, but I thought of us as distinct entities. While I was inside her and she was inside of me, when I was in human form, she did not influence me and I damn sure didn’t have any influence over her when she was wolf.

      Murphy drummed his fingers on the table top and drank his coffee. He kept his gaze fixed to the cupboards to the side of the table and not on me.

      I took a bite of eggs but I wasn’t hungry anymore. I managed to swallow what I had in my mouth but I knew I was done. I hated to disappoint him, but I couldn’t see it his way and I couldn’t lie to him.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. The drumming ceased. I got up and brought the coffee pot to the table and refilled his mug. Mine was still full, but I put a little bit in anyway to warm it up and then crossed the room to put the pot back on the burner.

      “I push you harder than anybody, don’t I?”

      I couldn’t agree with him, but if I did he’d argue and I didn’t want to. My wolf frustrated me, but I didn’t want him to know how much because he’d blame himself since it had been his idea to work with her.

      I sat back down without answering and picked up my mug.

      “When do we leave for Connecticut? You’re coming with me, aren’t you?” The idea that he wouldn’t be with me made the bacon in my stomach roll over queasily. I needed him.

      “Of course I’m coming. You don’t have to face that bastard alone.” Outraged shock spread across his face. “Besides, I’m dying for a chance to punch that asshole, Jonathan Archer, in the nose. You think I’d miss that opportunity?”

      I gave him a suspicious look because I couldn’t tell if he was serious. He probably was. Jonathan was the Alpha male of the Riverglow pack. He’d never liked me and he’d led the crusade against me after Grey’s and Elena’s deaths. I’d told Murphy a few stories about him and, as a result, Murphy hated the man like poison.

      “Don’t punch Jonathan in the nose,” I said. Then I grinned. “Kick him in the ’nads. It’ll hurt more.”

      Murphy burst into laughter as I’d intended and I joined in too. This was one of the shittier mornings of my life, but I least I could still laugh about it.

       Chapter 3

      It had been Murphy’s idea to take the road trip from Houston to Boston. Instead of renting a car, he’d bought a used charcoal-gray Honda Prelude from a Houston CarMax. He’d surprised me with it at the hotel where I’d been packing our things. I had been in one hellish hurry to leave Houston after Murphy’s near-fatal overdose.

      After he’d been released from the hospital, we’d rested in the hotel for three days. Well, he’d rested. I’d paced around until that drove him crazy and he sent me out shopping where I bought seven pairs of shoes only to return five of them the next day. Murphy hadn’t said one word, but his expression had spoken for him. He thought my shoe fetish was bordering on clinically insane. This from the man who would wear the same pair of shoes for an entire week in a row. That was just plain weird, if you ask me.

      On our trip east, at the beginning of each new week, I’d sneak a new pair of shoes for him into our hotel room and substitute them for the pair that was driving me nuts. The man never even noticed the difference until I pointed it out to him in exasperation twenty miles down the road.

      “It was dark in the room when I got dressed,” was his most used excuse, closely followed by, “As long as they fit on my feet, what do I care?” That pronouncement usually threw me into a sputtering fit of incredulity which he laughed at as he continued to serenely drive down the interstate.

      Today we drove down the Mass Pike, each wrapped in a cocoon of our own thoughts and, for myself, fears of the unknown and yet to come.

      It was a gray, overcast day. Dirty, salt-encrusted snow crouched on the sides of the interstate interspersed with bald patches of muddy, winter-brown grass. I had the Prelude’s heat cranked up because I was perpetually cold. I think it had something to do with how often I was shifting. I got so damned chilled when I shifted back naked in near freezing temperatures. It took me hours and a long hot shower to shake the cold and the next day it seemed as if I could never get comfortably warm.

      Murphy didn’t seem to suffer the way I did. As the interior temperature of the car crept higher, he unbuttoned his black pea coat and loosened the gray scarf around his throat. After we merged onto I-84, he peeled off his gloves and stuffed them into the compartment between the seats.

      He’d shaved, and brushed his hair, and his expression was introspective as he drove, his mouth almost as tight as his fingers clenched around the steering wheel.

      He drove well, but I was always jumpy in the car, even after two months on the road.

      Another reason for the road trip was to get me comfortable riding in a car again.

      After the accident I had avoided cars, taxis and buses—anything on four wheels with an engine. I’d made sure to find a job within walking distance of my condo and, if I really had to, I took the bus as it was the least like a car, but I sat there in rigid fear until my stop, where I couldn’t get off fast enough.

      I still wouldn’t drive, although Murphy asked me if I wanted to at least three times a week. I always refused. It was the one thing I wouldn’t do to please him. I did everything else I could think of that I knew or suspected would make him happy. I wasn’t ready to drive. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.

      It was a two-hour trip and I wished I could read in the car, but I couldn’t relax enough to do that. I constantly scanned the road ahead for obstacles and accidents.

      Murphy and I sometimes got lost in conversation and that’s the only time I really even slightly relaxed. Today we didn’t talk. Instead, we sat side by side as the miles melted behind us like dirty snow.

      I played with a strand of my hair, winding it around one finger and letting it spring free, before repeating the process.

      Things started to look familiar just past the state border.

      “Want to stop for a minute?” Murphy asked. He was always quick to find a rest stop for me to stretch my legs when he thought the road was getting to me.

      A large sign welcomed us to Connecticut, and off the exit, a small brick building had been erected that contained rest rooms, vending machines and brochures about attractions. This was typical across the country. We’d stopped at many of these just past the border rest stops from state to state.

      I nodded and Murphy merged onto the exit, guiding the Prelude off the interstate into the parking lot.

      Snow stacked up in a grubby pile at the end of the lot where the plows had pushed it. Some of the parking spaces were covered with patches of black water that would ice over at night but now, at just past one in the afternoon, were melted, cold puddles.

      Murphy parked the car over one of them, but left the space where we’d exit the car clear.

      The cold air invaded my nostrils and throat the second I opened the door. Murphy waited for me on the sidewalk. It was dotted with bits of sand and salt put down so people wouldn’t slip on ice on their way to the rest room.

      Our car was one of three in the lot. The other two were filthy and old. Ours was a prince among paupers. Murphy took good care of that car. He washed it every week, vacuumed it out and patiently picked up all the fast food bags and wrappers I carelessly let fall to the floor mats.

      I’d heard once that Irish men treated their cars the way their forebears had treated their horses and