All We See & Seem (Timber Wolves) by Tammy Blackwell Read Free Book Online

years old and never kissed. Just the thing she needed to remember because she wasn’t feeling nearly pathetic enough already.
    Speaking of pathetic, hiding in the bathroom so you don’t have to face your date qualifies.
    After making a few more make-up adjustments, Talley squared her shoulders, steeled her nerve, and gave her hair one last comb through with her fingers before pushing open the bathroom door. The coffee shop was one of the most popular in town thanks to the homemade designer donuts they sold. It was why she chose it as their meeting place. Not the donuts - although the peanut butter and honey one was to die for - but the crowd. She trusted Walker… mostly. But since she couldn’t get a strong lock on his thoughts, she felt more comfortable meeting him somewhere public. She didn’t like being suspicious of people, but she was learning the world wasn’t always a nice place. Sometimes people tried to cut off your best friend’s head. After events like that, caution and skepticism were unavoidable.
    At first Talley thought she had beaten him there, but then a couple with triplets moved closer to the counter and she saw him sitting at a corner table. He saw her about the same time and stood up, waiting for her to wind her way through the crowd like someone from once upon a time when the world was filled with chivalry and sexism.
    “You came.”
    “I did.” She wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette was. Did she just sit down? Was she supposed to initiate some sort of contact, like a handshake or a hug? Normally she wasn’t opposed to hugs, but it seemed a little presumptuous, not to mention, she really had no desire to hug Walker. “Ummm… I need coffee,” she said, halting a good four feet from the table.
    “Of course!” A tremor was obvious in Walker’s voice. Talley wondered if it was always there. The strangled panic made a bit of sense when she was covered in soda or pointing a gun at him, but this was just coffee. Hundreds of people were probably doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment. There was really no reason for him to be nervous. Then again, there wasn’t really any reason for her to be nervous either, but the constriction around her chest and racing heart told her she most certainly was. “I should have already gotten you some, but I didn’t know what you liked.” He rounded the table and pulled out her chair. “Here. Please, sit and I’ll go grab you something.”
    “No, I can—”
    “Absolutely not,” Walker said, sounding sure of himself for the first time. “I offered to take you out for coffee. That offer included me buying, so just sit down, tell me what you want, and don’t even think about pulling out your money.”
    Talley had technically asked him out for coffee, but since he seemed so intent on doing the gentlemanly thing, she took the offered seat and gave him her order. While he waited in the long line she watched the people around her. It was the normal college crowd. T-shirts abounded, most of them bearing the university’s logo or declaring in various and sometimes insulting ways that their basketball team was the best in the world.
    Not for the first time, Talley marveled how the rest of the world was going along as normal when her entire life felt so off kilter. The room was filled with couples; some were flirting and laughing, others were simply enjoying one another’s company. There was even one couple on the other side of the room who seemed to be involved in some sort of argument based on the lines bracketing their mouths and the narrow slits of their eyes. Normal people having a normal evening out. They didn’t spend hours every day wondering where their best friend was and if she was still alive. They didn’t call the hospital three times every day to check and make sure another friend was still hanging on. They didn’t worry every minute of every day that someone was watching them. For those people, if the person sitting across from