Arryn glanced over and caught her watching him. May bent over her work after that so she wouldn’t see anything. She didn’t want anybody seeing her, either. She didn’t want this to happen. At the same time, her whole being screamed for it. She loved him! She wanted him! She wanted everything that could possibly happen to happen.
She wanted his black skin touching her white skin. She wanted his blackness inside her and her whiteness enveloping him. She wanted all their whiteness and blackness mingled into one steamy brew of love and desire and belonging.
Her mate! Did she really think those words? Did she really just kiss him in the guest room? Burning need stabbed into her deepest tissues. She wished she had lain down on that bed with him. She wished she’d gone all the way with him right then and never doubted. At the same time, fear and thrilling horror held her back.
What would happen to her the first time she did it with him? What would he do to her…down there? Would he really be as exciting in real life as she always imagined her mate would be?
She couldn’t think like that. She had to concentrate on peeling potatoes and dressing the chicken. She had work to do. In a few days or whenever, he would leave here. He would stay at the Dunlaps’. Maybe all this mating business would blow over and become nothing. They would lose interest in each other and move on. He would go back to Renegade Ridge, back to his world without ice cream.
She could never live in a world like that. She could never live without electricity or cars or the internet. She could never cook on an open fire and haul water in buckets. Who would want to live like that? Arryn would be more than happy to stay on Bruins’ Peak. He must see how much better off the Bruins were than the NightShade. He must.
May’s mother called out, “Dinner’s ready.”
Silas stood. “We can talk more about this after dinner.”
He headed for the table. Arryn came more slowly. He eyed May across the kitchen. She waited until he found a chair so she could sit at the opposite end of the table. Why did she bother? If she and Arryn really were mated, her family would find out sooner or later. If they weren’t mated, sitting next to him wouldn’t make any difference. You couldn’t catch a mate like some kind of contagious disease.
May sat next to her mother. Her father Don shuffled in from his bedroom in his tatty old slippers. He peered over his glasses at two chairs at the other end of the table. “Where is everybody?”
“Shaw went down to the bank,” Silas replied. “Maybe he’s not back yet.”
“Don’t tell me,” May snarled. “He wants to verify everything you told him about your profits, and you gave him authorization to audit your accounts. You really can’t let him walk all over you like that.”
“I have nothing to hide from Shaw Cunningham or anybody else,” Silas replied. “If that’s his way of fighting me, I’m more than happy to go along with it. He won’t find anything in my accounts he can use against me. It will only hurt him in the….” He stopped in mid-sentence, and his head whipped around. “I’m so sorry, Dad. We shouldn’t be talking about this at the dinner table.”
Don nodded. “Good lad. Save it for the boardroom.”
“Hey, Dad,” Silas returned. “I have a question for you about the milking averages. Would you come to my office tomorrow afternoon so I can show you the spreadsheets?”
Don whipped off his glasses and tucked them in his shirt pocket. His eyes flashed across the table. In that instant, he ceased to be a withered old wreck. He became Alpha of his tribe once again. He might be old and on the wane, but he wasn’t licked yet. He still carried the fire, and he could still command respect.
Right then and there, May understood the fateful truth. Silas would be Alpha after Don died. Shaw could go piss up a rope. Shaw considered Don already as good as dead while the old Alpha still pulled the strings behind the scenes. Silas knew that. He knew enough to position himself in the right way. He knew enough to respect Don in his twilight years.
May happened to glance down the table and caught Arryn looking back and forth between father and son, too. He realized the same thing at the same moment, and he met May’s gaze.
Boot heels rattled on the front porch, the front door creaked, and Shaw strolled in with Dana. They took the two empty chairs, and Dana sat her little girl on her lap. Dana fed the baby spoonfuls off her plate, but Shaw glared down the table. He jerked his chin in Arryn’s direction. “What is that doing here?”
May gasped. “Is that the way you talk about a guest at our table and a visitor from another shifter group? You should be ashamed of yourself, Shaw.”
“As long as I’m living in this house,” he boomed, “I’ll have something to say about who comes to visit.”
Silas muttered into his tea glass, “You’ve got something to say about everything.”
“What’s that?” Shaw thundered.
Silas set his glass down and faced Shaw. “Arryn is spending the night until the Dunlaps are ready for him. He’s staying in Briar’s old room.”
“Who says so?” Shaw shot back.
Old Don raised his grey head. “I say so.”
Shaw frowned, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t dare.
Don leaned over so he stared straight down at his plate. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
That killed the conversation for the rest of the meal, but Shaw brooded worse than ever. He scowled at anyone who chanced a glance in his direction. He ate his meal and kicked the chair out of the way when he left the table.
A palpable wave of relief went around the room after he and Dana retired to their own wing of the house. Arryn leaned back in his chair and put down his napkin. “That was delicious, Mrs. MacAllister. There’s nothing in the world like home-cooking. I’m delighted I can report to my father that your cooking is every bit as good as ours. I’m sure we’re going to be great allies.”
Iris laughed and her cheeks shone. “You’re a great flatterer, aren’t you, Mr. Stark?”
He blushed to beat the band, and May colored on his behalf. “Please, just call me Arryn. I can’t stand anybody calling me Mr. Stark.”
“And you can call me Iris,” she replied. “No one calls me Mrs. MacAllister. No one ever has.”
Don pushed back his chair. “Thank you, darling.”
Iris jumped up. “Do you want me to bring you a cup of coffee in your room?”
“No, thank you, darling. I’ll just read a little and go to sleep.”
He shut the door behind him, and Iris sank into her chair. “I’m worried about your father.”
“He’s not as young as he used to be,” Silas replied, “but he’s still got some years left in him. Did you see the look in his eye earlier? He’s all there. He’s just tired.”
“He sleeps all the time now,” Iris lamented. “He barely wakes up anymore.”
“Maybe he’ll get lucky and die in his sleep,” Arryn chimed in. “That’s the best any of us can hope for.”
Iris smiled at him. “You’re right. He’s had a good, long run, and now he’s getting old. We all are, I guess. Thanks, Arryn.”
“I worry about my father, too, you know,” Arryn told her. “He’s still going strong, but he won’t last forever. I wish he’d slow down and rest more, but he won’t. He just keeps pushing himself more and more, like he’s racing against the clock.”
“Do you miss your family very much?” Iris asked.
He laughed at her. “I haven’t been gone a day.”
Everybody laughed along with him. Silas rose to his feet, picked up his plate, and kissed his mother on the head. “Thanks, Ma. You’re a prize.”
She swatted him away. “Go on.”
45. Chapter 6
Silas stole a peek up from his laptop when May slipped down the hall to her own room. He murmured to Arryn sitting next to him on the couch. “So…you and May, huh?”
Arryn turned his face away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t disrespect your family like this.”
�
�There’s no disrespect in finding your mate, Champ,” Silas replied. “I’m happy for you. I’m happy for you both.”
Arryn lifted his eyes to Silas’s face. “Really? Thanks, man. Thanks so much.”
“Forget about it. She’s a sweet girl. She’ll make a good mate for you. I’m glad she’s got a good man instead of a clod like Shaw. It sucks seeing your sisters mated to idiots. I’m glad Briar’s got a good mate, too.”
“You’re right. I’m glad June found Ash. I hope I can give May what she needs.”
“I’m sure you will. Our whole family would help you. All of Bruins’ Peak would help you. They always do when someone gets married, and we’d love to have you.”
Arryn didn’t say anything. He couldn’t tell Silas he would take May away from Bruins’ Peak. He couldn’t tell anybody May would have to give up everything to marry him.
Silas went back to his work. Arryn leaned over his shoulder. “So this is one of your computers. Can I have a look? What are you working on?”
Silas swiveled the laptop around on his knees so Arryn could view the screen. “I’m checking my bank records. I’m going over exactly what information Shaw got about me.”
“Could he damage you with that information?”
“He can’t touch me. I just wasn’t expecting this. I can’t stop obsessing about him pulling this on me. I have to find a way to put it out of my mind and focus on what’s really important.”
“Is he always such a bullshooter?”
Silas snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. He wasn’t like this when he married Dana. He couldn’t get away with it. He’s his father’s second son, and his older brother Walker was always in charge. Shaw had to mind his manners or get taken out to the woodshed. He only started puffing himself up since he moved in here. I guess he thought he could make himself a big man by pushing me down.”
“I won’t say I don’t agree with your strategy of defeating him with brains,” Arryn replied, “but I understand why May gets so upset about this. It hurts to see you bend over for him when he’s nothing but a straw man.”
Silas smiled. “I won’t bend over for him forever. I have to choose my time.”
“Let me help you,” Arryn offered. “I’ll help you wipe that silly look off his face once and for all. I can hold my own in a scramble.”
Silas cast his gaze up and down Arryn’s iron frame. “I’m sure you can, but I have to do this on my own. I never let anybody do anything for me in my life, and I’m not about to start now. I’ve got my cousins to back me, too, but I have to fight Shaw one on one. I won’t win the Alpha position any other way.”
“Just don’t let him beat you. That’s rule number one. Do whatever you have to do. Just win.”
Silas bit back a grin. “Don’t worry about that. I can’t let Shaw defeat me. I’ve got too much at stake. That’s why I have to make sure I tackle him in the best possible position. Everything hinges on timing—timing and location.”
Arryn nodded. “I understand that. I’ve had my share of fights in my time.”
Silas clapped his laptop shut. “So tell me all about your place. I guess you have livestock and farms and stuff like that, too. You’d have to, if you raise all your own food.”
“Yes, we have all that stuff, too.”
“Come on and tell me. You’ve seen my stinkin’ bank records, son, so quit pinching your lips together like that and start talking. How do you do it? Does every family have their own fields? Do you have territories like we do, or is it all communal?”
Arryn relaxed back into the couch. He could open up to this man in ways he couldn’t open up to May herself. “No, everything’s communal. All the cattle graze together, all the sheep—you get the idea.”
“Who works what? Who decides who milks, who shears, who farms?”
“The Elders run a labor pool. Everyone over the age of ten signs up for the labor pool. If they don’t know what they want to do, the labor pool assigns them a job until they decide whether they like the job and want to keep it. If they want to change jobs, they just tell the labor pool and change, but everybody has to work. If you want to eat, you have to contribute somehow.”
Silas listened with wide eyes. “That is so amazing. Your society sounds so much more cohesive than ours. It’s more cohesive than anything even the humans have. You must all be very committed to your people’s best interest.”
“Yes, we’re a very cohesive people. Everybody works hard. No one slacks. Maybe that’s why we have…” He swallowed down the words.
Silas cocked his head. “Don’t worry, man. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Arryn lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s not because I don’t want to. I trust you. I trust you a lot more than I probably should.”
Silas waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got something you don’t want to reveal. Nothing wrong with that. Keep it to yourself. I won’t love you any less for that.”
Arryn’s head snapped up. When he saw Silas’s lips twitching, he chuckled. “You rascal.”
Silas slapped Arryn’s arm. “What are you willing to talk to me about? I want to know all about your logistics system. How do you harvest the food communally, and how do you transport it to all the families on the Ridge? How many people are we talking about, anyway? I want to know everything you’re willing to tell me.”
Arryn studied his fingernails. He couldn’t look Silas in the eye while telling him a bald-faced lie. “We have about a fifty families all along the Ridge. That’s not enough to need a logistics system. When it comes to harvest, we just take the stuff to people’s houses.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. That’s how the NightShade did it for the families on the Ridge. Arion was a different story. He couldn’t tell Silas they loaded tons and tons of foodstuffs on trains bound for underground warehouses. He couldn’t tell Silas about the massive computer systems rationing out supplies to every family in the city based on births, deaths, age, and physical activity. Silas might not believe it, even if Arryn could tell him the truth.
Silas looked straight ahead of him. “It must be hard for you to come to a place like this. It must be hard to see a life so different from your own.”
“I like it here,” Arryn replied, “but I could never stay here. The Elders only let me come here to negotiate the alliance. After that, I have to go back to the Ridge. No one ever leaves, and I’m not about to be the first.”
“I understand.”
“You want to hear something weird?” Arryn asked. “It’s something Ash told me. He said the NightShade grow out of the Ridge like trees. He said the Ridge flows up through our feet and into our bodies and out to the rest of the world. He said you couldn’t take a NightShade off the Ridge any more than you could tear a tree out by the roots and expect it to live somewhere else. He said that’s what convinced him to stay on the Ridge with June. He understood she couldn’t survive anywhere else.”
Silas’s head rotated around to face him. “And that’s how it is for you? You couldn’t survive away from Renegade Ridge? That means you’ll take May back there. You won’t stay here. You’ll take her with you, and we’ll never see her again.”
Arryn couldn’t stop staring at Silas. He never felt this way about any man before. He loved Silas like the brother he never had. He loved Silas almost as much as May herself. Silas was an extension of May. “I’m sorry, man. I really am.”
Silas shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. It’s the way of the world. Let’s talk about something else. We don’t know what the future holds. Maybe something will change.”
Arryn whispered low, “Don’t tell May, okay? Don’t scare her.”
Silas’s eyes widened. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”
Arryn nodded down at his lap. “I don’t know how I can convince her, but I guess I have to.”
46. Chapter 7
May came down the hall the next morning and froze in the doorway. Arryn jumped off the couch. “Oh
! Umm…good morning. I mean, hi.” His eyelids fluttered. He looked right and left, then down at the floor. He stole a peek at her face and grinned.
May blushed all over. She couldn’t hide the silly grin on her face. “Hi. Did you sleep all right?”
He nodded. “That’s a really nice bed. Very soft. It sort of reminded me of sleeping on a cloud.”
Her eyes darted to his face, but when their eyes met, she had to look away. “I’m glad. Have you had breakfast?”
He glanced over at the kitchen. It was empty. He was the first one up. All of a sudden, May realized. He didn’t understand anything he saw in that kitchen. He didn’t understand refrigerators and stoves and ovens and microwaves. He never used them in his life.
May darted forward. “That’s okay. You stay there, and I’ll make you something. Do you like waffles? I’ll make you some waffles.”
He frowned again. He didn’t know what waffles were.
May laughed in spite of herself. “Just sit down. I’ll feed you.”
He burst into a relieved grin. “Thanks.”
She dashed into the kitchen and whizzed around. She tossed flour and eggs and baking powder into a bowl and whisked it up. She heated up the waffle iron and got the first waffle going.
“Where’d you learn to do all that?”
She looked up to find him watching her over the counter. He surprised her so much she dropped an egg on the floor. “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She wiped it up and threw it away. “My mother taught me how to cook. I suppose it’s the same for you and your sisters. We just have different ways of doing things.”
He observed her pouring the batter into the iron and closing the lid. He studied all her movements until she flapped her hands. “Will you please sit down at the table over there? You’re making me nervous.”
He took a step toward her. His bright red tongue slipped over his teeth, and he bit his lower lip. “Just come here and kiss me good morning first. You don’t want to know the dreams I had about you last night.”
Bruins Peak Bears Box Set (Volume III) Page 28