by Amelia Jade
Garrett and Emma had gotten very good at ignoring them.
Not this time though, as Garrett opened the door moments later wearing nothing but his boxers.
“Is Emma here?” he asked, ignoring the suspicious look. Clearly Evan, or more likely Corey, had told him about the night before.
“Why?” the Alpha asked. His tone was polite, but Cole knew immediately that he wasn’t in the mood to let him speak to Emma.
“Oh let him in. He’s not going to hurt me,” Emma said, walking into view.
Garrett frowned, but then nodded and went back into the room.
“What is it Cole?” she asked, confused at why he would be calling on her this early in the morning.
“This is for you,” he muttered, shoving the gift at her.
“For me?”
“Happy birthday,” he told her.
A genuine smile of appreciation crossed her face. “You shouldn’t have!” she exclaimed, though she laughed at the wrapping paper and tore it off with gusto.
“Oh wow, Cole. This is perfect! I’ve needed a new one of these. I just haven’t had time.”
“I know, Trestin told me,” he said without thinking.
Shit.
“Trestin told you?” she said, eyebrows raising as suspicion entered her voice.
“And just how did Trestin come to tell you that?” she asked, a sly smile playing across her lips.
“Does it matter?” he replied, a little more gruffly than intended, given that it was her birthday and she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Didn’t go so well?” she said with sympathy, reaching out to pat Cole on the shoulder, ignoring his rudeness.
That was why he liked Emma and why he had gotten her a present, despite her insisting that nobody do a damn thing because she hated birthdays, etcetera. Emma could see past what Cole did, and understand what he was trying to do. So few others did that.
“I should get going,” he said after a moment as Garrett reappeared behind Emma in the doorway.
With the way things were going for Cole at the moment, avoiding his Alpha as much as possible was probably high on his list of “Things I Should be Doing.” The more out of sight he was, hopefully the more he would be out of mind. Which, if things followed the same process they had before, would be a very good thing indeed.
“I’ll see you up at the mines,” he told Garrett, before quickly making his exit.
Now if he could just go the entire day without getting into a fight.
***
“That’s enough!”
Cole lay on his back gasping for air, ignoring the pain of a dozen wounds. Towering above him, Corey shifted back to his human form.
He really had to stop ending up on his back in front of Corey. This was getting to be a bad habit.
“Outside. Now,” the third ordered, pointing up the shaft toward the surface.
Sullenly, Cole shifted back and trudged up the rocky path.
“What’s going on?” Garrett said, appearing from the side tunnel he was working.
Cole felt an icy hand grasp his spine. Now that the Alpha was here, he was sure Corey would hand him over to Garrett, and that would be the end of things for him.
“Nothing. I’ve got it handled,” Corey said, much to Cole’s surprise.
And Garrett’s.
“Make sure it gets handled then,” Garrett rumbled, turning back toward his working area. Still, the surprise in his voice had been evident.
“What was that for?” Cole asked, turning to face the third.
“Because, you idiot, even though you seem to have forgotten it recently, we’re family down here. Ridgebacks, Jade Crew, whatever name you want to call us, we’re one entity. If we don’t fucking act like it, then bad things happen. Trust me, I know all about what happens when you don’t act like a family.” The words had heavy meaning to them, as if Corey was speaking from personal experience.
Cole wasn’t sure what had landed Corey in the Ridgebacks, but he certainly hadn’t come from either of the two crews that had merged together to form the basis of the new group. Now he wondered if Corey had been kicked from another group for his behavior, and transferred to the Ridgebacks.
“Well thank you,” he said appreciatively, turning to go.
“Just a minute,” Corey hissed, putting some strength into the hand that landed on Cole’s shoulder and spun him around. “You owe me a fucking explanation. I put my neck on the line for you, you do not just fucking walk away from me like that with a half-assed thanks.” His eyes blazed as he looked at Cole, daring him to defy his command.
Cole stared him down for a moment before spinning and burying his fist in the rock wall, not caring about the way it split his skin. He just needed to hit something.
“What’s going on with you Cole?” Corey asked in a much more personal tone. “This isn’t you. At least, not the you that we’ve seen for the past few weeks. What can I do to help?”
Cole hesitated. He’d never had someone outright offer to help him without knowing what was going on. It was a huge sign of trust, one that was rarely seen among the miners, especially those who barely knew each other. He was tempted, sorely tempted, to take advantage of it. To tell Corey everything.
But he couldn’t.
“Listen, Cole. Things have been getting better around here. I’m sure you’ve felt it, right? After we found that second stone, the past two weeks have been fairly stress free, haven’t they?”
He nodded in agreement, unable to refute the truth in that statement. Things had gotten a lot better since they had found that second Jade stone. Since then, they had found three more stones, a much more reasonable pace, and well in line with what was expected of them by the Kedyn brothers. The last thing the Ridgebacks needed was to experience a sudden setback like the one he was threatening to cause.
“I’ll get it under control,” he told Corey. What shocked him was that he truly meant it. He actually would try to get it under control. It would take extra effort on his part, to tame his bear and rein it in, but he could do it. He would do it.
Corey was still looking at him suspiciously.
“I promise. I’ll get a handle on it,” he said quietly, meeting Corey’s gaze without flinching.
“All right,” the third said after a moment. “After you,” he said with a gesture back down the shaft.
“Just know that if you don’t, I’m going to have to tell Garrett,” Corey added after they’d taken a step.
Spectacular.
Chapter Four
Trestin
Spread.
Place.
Place.
Fold.
Roll.
Repeat.
“This has got to be the worst part of this job,” Trestin complained as her boss, Johnny, walked by.
He smiled and laughed, a sharp, barking sound. “If that’s the worst part of the job, then I must be paying you too much!” he said, elbowing her gently as he guffawed some more, moving on down the length of the bar.
It was a common enough exchange between them that she didn’t take what he said seriously, and instead just smiled at the running joke. As a matter of fact, Johnny paid quite well, even when it came down to the mind-numbingly boring aspect of rolling cutlery for the next shift.
Spread.
Place.
Place.
Fold.
Roll.
“Done!” she said triumphantly several minutes later, just as one of the busboys dropped another bin in front of her. “Oh you have got to be kidding! I am done, so sorry!” she said, throwing her hands up in the air and removing her apron as she made a beeline for the employee area, punching her time card swiftly and expertly, to show that she was no longer on the clock.
“See you all tomorrow!” she shouted, making good her escape before Johnny asked her to stay longer. He was a good boss, but he was still a boss, and if work needed to be done, he wanted it done.
Not today, she thought, pushing open t
he back door.
“HEY!”
Trestin jumped.
“What in the hell woman!” she cried out as arms embraced her. “Also, happy birthday! You scared the shit out of me,” she finished, hugging her friend tight as Emma’s arms gave her a hard squeeze.
“Good. You could stand to loosen up a little.”
“How does scaring me make me loosen up a little?” Trestin asked, confused.
“It doesn’t, it just proves to you that you need to,” Emma said, far too cheerfully.
“What’s with the overly chipper mood?” she wondered, stopping her walk toward her car.
“Well, it is my birthday, as you so lovingly remembered.”
“And?” Trestin said, not buying it for an instant.
“Well, I got this perfect paintbrush this morning,” Emma began.
Trestin knew immediately where she was going. Damn, she should have given him another idea. Now everyone would know that the two of them had gone on a date. Not that she was all that ashamed of the fact. It would just create expectation, and expectation created pressure on her. Pressure to see him again. To fall for him, to love him, to make love to him, to get engaged, to get married, to—
Take a deep breath. Easy.
She followed her own sliver of sanity and took what seemed to be a deep, calming breath.
“What? Was that supposed to be a secret?” Emma asked, a concerned look on her face.
“No, but I also wasn’t broadcasting the fact,” she reassured her friend, trying to focus on the here and now. “Not after the way it ended,” she said ruefully.
“Either you fucked him, or it blew up in your face,” Emma said, her eyes glazed over as she thought it through.
“Oh shut up! I did not fuck him, as you so eloquently put it. Holy hell Emma, you’ve become such a vulgar little slut since you started seeing Garrett!”
“Ah, so it blew up. And fantastically so,” her friend determined, completely ignoring the reference to how she’d changed.
“It did,” Trestin confirmed sourly.
“Cole’s a nice guy. Truly,” Emma said. “You just have to give him a chance. He’s not so great at communicating, but I know there’s a good person in there. It’s just that he so often fucks up what he means to say or do that it doesn’t always seem like it.”
Trestin laughed. “Actually Em, it was me.”
“You?” her friend asked incredulously. Then her eyes narrowed. “You freaked out over nothing, didn’t you?”
“God, does it ever annoy you to be that quick off the draw?” Trestin pouted. “Is it that obvious?” she asked in a much more serious tone.
“Nope, it doesn’t. And it is to me Tres, but that could be because I know you and how you get.”
Trestin sighed, and then told Emma all about her date with Cole, and how it had ended.
“I just can’t do that sort of quick movement. Do you know, I’ve never had a one-night stand? Like, ever?”
“Really?”
“Really,” she said. “It’s why I left the city. Why I fled the city,” she amended honestly. “I never really told you the details, did I?”
“No,” Emma said softly, her earlier sarcasm gone as she recognized a friend in need of vocalizing something.
“I was born and raised in a sleepy suburb. It was a lot of pressure, but I could handle most of it. It wasn’t too bad when I was younger. I guess I didn’t really understand the stress of the adult world yet.”
Emma nodded her understanding but kept quiet. Trestin smiled and walked over to the picnic table that was chained to a fence so that nobody would steal it. Sitting down on the top of it, she splayed her hands behind her and leaned back, enjoying the warmth of the sun now that she was out of the building’s shadow. Emma had followed her and now sat next to her, waiting patiently.
Taking a deep breath of the warm, fresh mountain air, Trestin continued. “Anyway, I went to school at a college in the downtown core. I told myself I could handle the lifestyle change.”
She snorted. “Completely untrue. By the end of my first year, I was a nervous wreck. But I was determined to finish, so I went back. Each year it got worse. In my fourth year, I was hospitalized for three days before finals. But I graduated.”
“Then you had to find a job,” Emma supplied.
“Then I had to find a job,” she confirmed. “Never happened. I applied to hundreds of places. Had dozens of interviews. And dozens of rejections. I was hospitalized again. This time, they put me in a mental ward. I was there for six months, on the brink of losing my sanity, or so they tell me. I was on so many drugs I barely recall the entire thing.”
Emma made a soft sound of anguish and wrapped her arms around Trestin. It was reassuring to know that her friend cared, she thought.
“So, once I was finally able to realize what I had become, and where I was, I weaned myself off the drugs. It was another two months before they accepted that I had gotten control of myself, and released me. I promptly fled the city. Kept in contact with my parents, but I can’t go see them. Even the idea of going anywhere near a place bigger than Origin freaks me out.”
Trestin flicked idly at some unseen speak of dirt on her arm, sitting forward. “It’s the same with men. I can’t do anything too rushed. It has to be slow and steady, at my pace, or I lose all control.”
“So when he kissed you, you freaked out and told him to go away.”
“Exactly. I feel something for him. I’m not blind nor stupid. Despite only having met him yesterday, there is a connection. But shifters, they’re just so used to taking what they want, when they want! Why would they listen to me if I told him to take it slow? He’d probably just do the same thing again. I can’t reprogram one all on my own.”
“Says who? That’s exactly what you do!” Emma said with a smile. “I mean hell, it’s what I’m doing with Garrett. It takes a while, but I’m slowly bringing him around to seeing my viewpoint on a few things. I mean, look!” she said happily, pushing her left hand forward for Trestin to see.
“Holy hell! You guys are engaged?” she shouted, grabbing the hand to examine the ring. “It’s been what, two weeks?”
“I know. It’s so weird, but it feels like so much longer. Trust me, it’s like that with them,” she said, referring to shifters. “When they find their mate, that’s it, game over. And somehow, a part of me just knows that. If you’re already feeling something with Cole, don’t ignore it. It could be the best thing that ever happens to you,” Emma said with a small smile. “I fought against it with Garrett so hard, and it caused more trouble than it was worth. Don’t be stupid like me, okay?”
“You know I can’t make any promises on that front,” Trestin said, laughing at her own fallibility. “I have my own issues that I have to work through before anything can happen with Cole. If anything is meant to happen at all,” she added forcefully.
Emma’s phone rang in the silence. “It’s Garrett,” she said, “I have to take this. He never calls in the middle of the day. But listen to me,” she said, answering the phone but holding it away from her mouth. “If you try to sort out your own life before doing something, you’ll never do anything.”
She squeezed her friend’s hand, then turned over to the phone.
***
If you try to sort out your own life before doing something, you’ll never do anything.”
Emma’s words rang out in her head on repeat the entire drive home.
She understood the meaning behind them, but did it actually apply to her own situation? Could she put her anxiety aside and simply let life sweep her away, letting whatever was going to happen with Cole, happen?
Even as she thought about it, muscles locked up, her breathing became shallower, and her heart began to beat uncontrollably against her ribcage, hammering to be set free. It wasn’t until the big sign for Genesis Valley Trailer Park came into sight that she managed to pull herself free of the spell and make her turn.
Barely.
Tires screeched a little as she hauled on the wheel of her tiny little hatchback, brakes pumping to slow her down in time for the turn. She made it, though her back right wheel spun through some grass as she went through an overly tight left, missing the road for a moment before her tires caught on the gravel.
Well, so much for that, she thought to herself. Maybe she needed to get Cole off her brain. He had been on her mind all day. It was getting so bad that as she pulled up to her trailer, she could see him standing there, leaning up against his truck. Almost exactly the way he had been the night before. Except this time there was daylight, and he wasn’t actually there. It was just her imagination.
He looks so realistic, she thought, getting out of her car. Shaking her head, she cleared the vision from her brain.
“Hi,” Cole said, heaving himself upright from his exaggerated lean. The silver pickup behind him rocked as his weight was lifted from it.
“Holy shit you’re real,” she said, dumbfounded that it wasn’t her imagination.
The bear shifter paused, unsure of what to make of her comment.
“Uh, I think so?” he said after a moment with a wry grin. “At least, I think so. I suppose I could just be a ghost that only you can see, but that sounds too much like the plot to a cheesy movie, don’t you think?”
Trestin couldn’t help herself, she laughed. “I don’t know if I would think it’s that cheesy, but point taken. So, Cole Lovac, what are you doing here?”
She tried to keep her voice calm and steady, and for the most part, she actually succeeded. There was only a hint of a tremor of uncertainty as she crossed the distance to stand near him. Not close enough that he was in her personal space, but enough that she wasn’t being standoffish.
“Well, I thought I should properly apologize for being an ass,” he said bluntly, reaching through the open window into his truck. “These are for you.”
He held out a bouquet of flowers, all wrapped up in clear plastic.
“You bought me flowers?” she said softly, stunned. “I have to admit, I would not have expected that.”
“So it was a surprise?” He seemed excited by that prospect. “Good.”