by Terry Spear
As soon as she headed to get in line at the buffet, Brock joined her. They filled their plates with all kinds of great food. She glanced at all the starch on his plate: corn, biscuits, rice, and potato salad. Plus a steak, pork ribs, and chicken. She smiled. Typical male wolf.
They took their seats at a long table with glass jars filled with wildflowers and bright-green linen napkins on plates decorated with wallflowers, which Natalie would love for her own wedding if she ever got to that point in her life.
“Don’t tell me I eat too many starches.” Brock cut up his steak.
Natalie glanced at him and laughed. “My mom always tells my dad that when he cooks. ‘You can’t fix corn and rice when you have mashed potatoes,’ she’d say.”
“I know that look. My mom always said that to me when we ate at buffets.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I wasn’t going to say a word.” What Brock ate was his business. Besides, he looked good enough to eat, so whatever he was chowing down on appeared to be good for him.
“Good, because I’ll burn it off anyway. You do realize that gram for gram, starches contain fewer than half the calories of fat of many other foods, and they provide energy, fiber, et cetera.”
“I didn’t realize that. My mom always said all that starchy food would make you fat.”
Brock shook his head. “Not true. Speaking of exercising, you’re ready for some dancing after we finish eating, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t danced since I was a little girl.” Natalie had thought some of the other single males would finally approach her and ask her to dance, though she hadn’t for eons, and she’d probably be kind of awkward.
“No problem. You’ll get the swing of it.”
“Don’t bet on it, but I’ll give it a try.” She would always try things once, or twice. She didn’t want to look as if she wasn’t enjoying the celebration.
After everyone was seated and champagne was served, toasts were made.
Both pack leaders made a speech, saying how fortunate Aaron was to have found a wolf mate who was as crazy about horses as he was and welcoming Angie to the pack. All his cousins ribbed Aaron about being the one they figured would take the longest to find a mate, but he had beat several of them, to their chagrin.
Even Natalie got up to speak, hoping she wouldn’t tear up, but she knew she would. “To my best friend and her mate, I wish you many, many years of good cheer, lots of little wolf pups, and all the love you deserve. I’ll miss you so much, but I’ll be back!”
Everyone clapped. Brock smiled at her, thinking she’d made the nicest speech of all while he, his brother, and his cousins were giving Aaron a rough time.
Natalie was thinking how neat it was to be with a pack like this. Her dad had been so mistrustful of them that she hadn’t known what to expect. He’d warned her she could have trouble if a bunch of males were interested in her when she went to Angie’s wedding, that there could be fights even, but that hadn’t happened. Oh sure, the bachelor males all smiled and were polite, looking highly interested, watching her a lot, but she swore they were staying clear of her because Brock was around her so much. Which she appreciated. Not that Brock was even thinking of being her mate. She thought the other men were being ultra-considerate not to overwhelm her.
She loved how the wolves in the pack could go for wolf runs together, how they had a big party place for everyone in the pack. How wonderful to be able to have other friends who were here to enjoy their company. Even when Angie had her own kids, she could be part of a wolf community, not doing things on her own. With a mate, of course, but he wouldn’t know anything about raising babies either. Not like another she-wolf would who had already given birth. It wasn’t the same as having strictly human friends who didn’t know anything about their wolf half. How could a she-wolf mother talk about the issues of when their babies were running in their wolf coats with their mom, unless she was with a pack? Natalie could see the benefits of knowing others were close by to help out.
Even here, the other wolves were watching the kids of varying ages. Not just mothers caring for their own kids, but older kids assisting the younger kids, and some of the moms with babies were sitting together chatting it up. Some of the men were doing babysitting duty too. Just as wolves would.
“Angie said she had invited your parents, but they said they couldn’t come. She said you all have been like family to her, so I was surprised about that,” Brock said, catching Natalie’s attention.
She cut off another couple pieces of steak. “My parents don’t care for pack politics. At least when they were living with the last three. After the last one, they really swore off them. As to Angie’s wedding, mostly, my parents haven’t had any luck hiring anyone competent enough to run their business so they can leave. They’d do it if I were there. Angie and Aaron are staying with them when they come back from their honeymoon to celebrate their wedding there instead.”
“That will be great. From what Aaron’s said, she is really close to your parents too. I understand all about pack politics though. We had Volan, a beast of a wolf, in charge of our pack after Argos. Everyone wanted to get rid of him. A few died trying. No one was strong enough to best him. Not until Devlyn was old enough. Bella and Devlyn loved each other from the time they were young and growing up in the pack together. Devlyn had saved her from the wildfire where most of her family perished. Anyway, Volan planned to make her his mate, but Devlyn fought him for the right to rule the pack and offered his love to Bella.”
“How romantic.” To find a mate at a young age would really be something special.
“I agree. More recently, we discovered her twin sister had survived. When Serena came home, she mated one of our cousins. Everyone was thrilled to have her join the pack.”
“Oh, how wonderful. I noticed they are both red wolves. It’s amazing how similar, yet dissimilar the two sisters are. I bet Bella and her sister were thrilled to find each other again. I always wished we had a bigger family. It’s just my parents and me. Mom’s sister died young due to a cougar attack when she was little. Dad’s brother was struck by lightning when he was a teen. Just weird tragedies that befell their families when they were growing up. I had a twin, but she didn’t survive the birth. Because of that, it’s just the three of us. I can’t imagine having all the cousins you do.”
“We’ve enjoyed a strong friendship over the years. My brother and I left the pack to join the navy and became SEALs, just to do something patriotic. Shawn and a couple of his brothers were in the army. We had been gone a long time. We only recently came back and started our PI business, and then Vaughn went to work for the USF. It’s a great organization, but I was ready to settle down with the pack permanently and run the PI partnership with him here. Not that my job doesn’t allow me to visit other places, but I like going home after I finish a mission. He’s asked me to join up with them repeatedly, but I like where I’m at.” Brock drank some of his champagne and leaned back to study her.
“I don’t blame you.”
“What happened with the three packs your parents had belonged with?”
Natalie scoffed. “The first pack didn’t want Mom and Dad to mate each other. You know how it is when wolves find their mate. It’s more than a human interest in another human. Dad was a newcomer, and he and Mom just fell in love. Everyone believed Mom should have mated one of the pack members once she joined them. Her own pack had been lost in a flood. With the shortage of females, they weren’t happy about Dad capturing her heart.
“Mom and Dad left the pack and mated. They finally found another pack, believing it was safer to stay with one rather than be on their own. There was so much infighting that it was like a civil war between the wolves, with two alpha males posturing to fight each other for the role of leader. Both factions wanted Mom and Dad to side with them. My parents didn’t know who should be in charge since they were so new to the pack.
They finally left, figuring the pack would have to sort it out for themselves.”
“That would do it for me. What about the last one?” Brock drank the rest of his water.
“My parents finally found a new pack, which was important because my mother was pregnant at the time. We stayed with them until I was seven. Then the pack leader announced I would mate his son when we were both the right age. Can you imagine anyone being so unreasonable?”
Brock smiled. “If I had been the son, I would have wanted the same thing.”
“I doubt it. It’s ludicrous since we mate for life.”
“You must not have been impressed with his son.”
“I wasn’t. He thought, just because his father was the pack leader, he was some kind of prince of the pack. He didn’t have the alpha personality or leadership qualities to lead the pack. Last I heard, someone else had taken over from his father, and the son got mad and left the pack. If I’d mated him to keep peace with the pack, I’d be stuck with him in God knows where. After that, my parents just decided that they didn’t need to be with a pack.”
“No princes here. We have a great pack. I think even your dad would approve.”
Was the wolf who wasn’t interested in a she-wolf changing his mind about her?
Chapter 5
Brock was certain Natalie and her family wouldn’t like joining a pack, which was the reason he wasn’t going to get emotionally entangled with her beyond being her friend. “I don’t blame your parents for not wanting to be with a pack after all they’ve been through.” It was just as Brock had suspected. Her parents probably wouldn’t want to come here to stay with his pack, no matter how reasonable his leaders were. Brock had been gone for so long that he enjoyed being around his cousins and their mates again. Even Bella and Devlyn’s triplets. “Since you’re isolated from packs, how do you find anyone to date?” He wondered if she only dated humans.
She shrugged. “I’ve done some traveling, run into wolves of different wolf packs. I dated a couple of the guys at Silver Town where I did a lecture on gardening for the pack. The guys were nice, but I don’t think they were ready to settle down with anyone any more than I was. They were twin brothers, ski instructors. Funny, nothing serious, and that was it. Every once in a while, I’ve run into a lone wolf where we’re living, but nothing sparks between us. Maybe we’d have a meal out or something, but that is all. Other than dating a wolf who was pretending to be interested in me but only interested in our garden center, long story. What about you?”
“Actually, I’ve dated a lot of humans, no she-wolves in the navy that I ever met. It was hard finding she-wolves to date most places I lived. The last one I was seeing turned out to have a hidden agenda.”
“Oh?” Natalie sounded intrigued.
“Yeah, I was tracking her brother down for a crime he’d committed, and she knew it beforehand. I didn’t know she was his sister. Not until I had a showdown with him. It was either him or me, and I wasn’t about to let him get the best of me. Man, was she furious with me. That’s when she let me have it about how I’d killed her brother. That’s also when I realized she’d been using me, trying to learn what I knew about him and warning him to hide somewhere else every time I got close. I was such a dope that I didn’t put two and two together about how the guy kept figuring out I was onto him and always staying a step ahead of me.”
“I understand how you would feel, but I can also see why she was protecting him.”
“Hell, here I thought she had the hots for me.”
Natalie chuckled. “It would be easy to see why a she-wolf would—and not because she had some hidden agenda.”
Surprised she’d say so, Brock smiled at her.
“What are you going to do about the counterfeiter? I know you’re not going to just drop it,” Natalie said.
“Once the partying is over, I’m going to begin looking into it. Since I’m driving you home instead of you flying, what time did you want to get started?”
“My flight wasn’t leaving until late afternoon. I didn’t want you all to think I was ungrateful and running back home right away. I figured I’d have breakfast, then head to the airport, so no rush. But…if you’re going to look into this guy while I’m here, I could stay a little longer. Maybe a day or two. I don’t have anything scheduled.”
“All right then. We’ll look into this situation with the guy, you tell me when you’re ready to leave, and we’ll figure out some fun things to do while you’re here, if you’d like. You could even ride a horse. I see you have the boots for the job.”
She stuck out her cowboy boot and examined it. “I wear them sometimes for fun, but I’ve never ridden before.”
“We’ll remedy that. Get those boots broken in right proper.”
Everyone’s dishes were being picked up, and they were getting ready to photograph the bride and groom cutting their cake. It was a seven-layer white cake, and the topper had two gray wolves howling, him with a bow tie, her with pearls and a veil. Blue, red, yellow, and pink sugar flowers decorated the cake and looked too pretty to eat, Brock thought.
They were just starting to do the first cut, Aaron’s hand over Angie’s as they sliced into the sweet confection, when a gust of wind out of nowhere blew across the field, catching Angie’s veil and whipping it toward the cake. She grabbed for her veil and teetered, knocking into the cake. Aaron was grabbing her, others rushing to stop the toppling cake.
For a moment, it was chaos, and then with the cake mostly back in place, and the photographer snapping pictures happily, everyone began to get pieces of the cake to stabilize it, and disaster had been averted.
They all were laughing, and Brock thought the best pictures would be of the near disaster.
“Well, it is sure good,” Natalie said after eating a bite of her cake. “Good thing it didn’t all end up in the dirt!”
He laughed. “You know there has to be one thing that goes wrong at a wedding. It looks like Aaron and Angie got as big a kick out of it as everyone else did.”
Aaron was licking off the cake on Angie’s veil, and she was laughing.
“When I have my wedding, I think I’ll keep the cake inside. It’s the best part of the wedding.”
He smiled. “Not the groom?”
She blushed again.
“Been giving it some thought?
“No, not really. Not until I came to Angie’s wedding. I don’t ever think of it. Not when I haven’t been dating anyone lately.” She eyed his nearly empty dessert plate. “I know you had all those starches so you probably don’t want to get any more cake, but…did you want to get me another piece?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but I’m getting some for me too, so if you’re trying to hide the fact you’re eating a second slice, it won’t work. Besides, this is energy food for the dance coming up.”
“I’ll go along with that.”
Brock soon returned with two more slices of cake. “Everyone’s eating second pieces. The cake artist is delighted.”
“Oh, good.”
They both finished off their cake, and then the guys in the band started warming up.
Natalie glanced at the stage. “Are they some of the men in your pack?”
“Yep, they sure are.”
The waltz “Faithfully” played first, and Aaron and Angie began the dance.
“They’re beautiful together,” Natalie said. “I really didn’t think she’d met ‘the one’ when she first told me about Aaron. Until she wouldn’t quit talking about him. That wasn’t like her. When he came home to visit and meet my parents, he wanted their approval, and he charmed both of them. That’s when we figured this was going to be a mating, not just a passing fancy.”
Brock agreed. “We teased the living daylights out of Aaron, saying any she-wolf he’d meet at the airport on her way to ski at the resort wouldn’t come back here to mate hi
m. One of the days, we all went up to the ski resort to harass him about it, good cousins that we are, but we knew when we saw them together it was a sure deal. We were afraid we might have messed things up with her wanting to be part of our pack, but she thought we were really funny and loved that we planned to give our cousin a hard time. Especially when it backfired on us.”
Natalie laughed. “I can imagine that it would have won her over. She has a good sense of humor, and she’s always wanted a big family.”
“Well, she’s got it.” Brock took their cake plates and dumped them in the trash, then came back for Natalie and led her up to the wooden dance stage. “The barn’s also used for dancing in inclement weather, but it’s so nice out, everyone just wanted to be outside.”
“This has been fun. I guess you do other shindigs out here?”
“We sure do. We have a dance for every season. The winter and spring ones tend to be indoors. We often have snow on the ground.” He pulled her into his arms and began to waltz and was impressed by the way she was so light on her feet. “You seem to know how to dance just fine.”
“It seems to be coming back to me, but I’m sure it also has something to do with my dance partner.”
Man, this was nice, breathing in the intoxicating floral and feminine scent of the she-wolf, feeling the heat from her body, and though he was trying not to keep her really close to his body—as in claiming Natalie for his own—they ended up close. Their pheromones were swirling around each other’s in a much-too-interested way. Not that Brock minded, but he was more concerned about how she was viewing this.
She rested her head against his chest.
Okay, so that was really stirring things up further south. At least she was telling him she felt comfortable with the closeness. He wondered if she was just tired from all the activities last night. He couldn’t control his traitorous body, which was rising to the occasion, or his thoughts about how he wished she lived in the vicinity and he could see her further, for a lot more of this.