by R. E. Butler
Eventually he moved, joining her in the truck and turning on the engine.
“Adam,” she said.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel as he stared out the windshield. “I never wanted you to meet him.”
She opened her mouth to say something reassuring, but no words came. Closing it again, she leaned against his shoulder. His muscles were tight, and she could see that his knuckles were pale.
“He can’t seem to stop ruining things in my life.”
“What’s ruined?”
“Come on, Dani. You heard what he said.”
“I’m trying to pretend I didn’t,” she said, smiling hopefully.
He chuckled mirthlessly. “Thanks for trying.”
“We can skip dinner if you’re not feeling up to being social.”
He shook his head adamantly. “No. If we stay home, then I’m not going to get a chance to do what I’d planned, plus I’ll just be wallowing in anger at him.”
“Okay. No more wallowing, then.”
He kissed her temple. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dani. All I can think about is how many things in my childhood he ruined because of his gambling addiction, and I didn’t want him anywhere near you. He’s like a plague. Everything he touches turns to shit.”
He sighed deeply and shifted the truck into gear. As he turned toward Honey and Jeremiah’s home, he continued, “He promised me a birthday party when I was eleven. I had invitations and everything. When I got up that morning, he was gone. He’d never come home the night before and the money he’d set aside to pay for my cake was gone. I went next door to stay with the neighbors until he came back, which wasn’t for two days. When came home, he apologized and said that my birthday made him miss my mom and he couldn’t deal with it.”
“Oh, Adam,” she said.
“He showed up at my high school graduation with a broken hand, doped up on pain pills. He’d failed to make a payment to a bookie and gotten beaten up for it. I found out he gave my car to the bookie as a down payment on the debt.”
“I’m sorry you had such a crappy childhood.”
He shook his head. “I feel like an asshole. Your family was killed. You could have died out in the woods when you were little. I have a dad, I have actual family, and I stopped trying to help him years ago, and that makes me feel guilty.”
“I don’t think your dad really wants help, Adam. I think he wants a way to stave off the wolves so he can keep gambling. Giving him money wouldn’t do anything but make the problem worse.”
“I sure as hell don’t want my father anywhere near us.”
“Me either.”
“Good.” He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, the tension melting from his body. “Let’s put this behind us and concentrate on tonight.”
“You got it.”
* * * * *
Richard Cruz swallowed hard as three vehicles swooped in on him just outside of Wilde Creek and forced him to the side of the road. The car in front of him stopped short, and thankfully the shitty brakes on his beater stopped him before he nailed the back of the expensive sedan.
His door opened before he could even turn the engine off, and a large male who smelled like a mixture of grizzly and wolf grabbed Richard by the collar and pulled him from the car. Richard crashed to the cold pavement, his hands scraping on the gravel as he tried to get to his feet. A boot connected with his stomach, and he flew a few feet before landing in a pile of snow. Coughing and groaning, he rolled to his knees and gripped his side. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and his jeans and shirt were threadbare.
A pair of shiny black shoes came into his field of vision. He knew who they belonged to: Bradik, a grizzly shifter and the enforcer of the loan shark Richard was currently in the shit with. Richard looked up to see Bradik tugging on the cuffs of his dress shirt. “Boss wants to know why you think you can just skip town whenever the fuck you feel like it.”
Hands gripped Richard’s shirt and hauled him onto his knees. He shook his head as his vision swam for a moment. “I was trying to get the money from my son.”
“A piece of shit like you actually bred? I’m surprised you could get a female to touch you,” Bradik said, chortling. The two males with him – one wolf and one grizzly – laughed loudly.
Richard scowled. His mate had been a good female. Her memory was the only thing that kept him from putting a gun in his mouth some days. But he knew better than to say anything to piss off Bradik. The guy had a hair trigger.
“You owe fifteen grand. You’ve got twenty-four hours to come up with the cash or we’re going to start breaking bones.”
Richard shuddered. He’d had bones broken before. They did it slow, letting the pressure grow until the bone shattered. It was excruciating. He didn’t want to go through that again. His mind spun as he struggled to come up with a way to get the cash he needed to pay the debt.
Suddenly he knew.
The female.
“Make sure he remembers what will come if he misses the deadline,” Bradik said. He turned away, and Richard shouted.
“Wait!”
Bradik faced him slowly. “Yeah?”
“I know a girl the boss can have.”
He snorted. “He has zero problems getting girls.”
“No! I mean, she’s a unique shifter. I heard that unique shifters are worth money on the black market.”
Bradik’s brows rose. “That depends on how unique she is.”
“Reindeer.”
The wolf at Richard’s side gave him a hard shake. “Reindeer rarely stray from their herds, and they stay under the radar. No one’s actually seen a reindeer herd before. Tight-knit doesn’t begin to describe their people.”
“She’s mated to my son. I scented what she is – reindeer smell like peppermint.”
Bradik lifted a cell to his ear and took a few steps away from the small group. He spoke in low tones, and Richard held his breath, hope filling him. It was gonna work. It had to work.
Bradik turned and said, “Give us the address and a description of the female. If it turns out she is a reindeer shifter and we’re able to take her, the boss said he’ll forgive your debt.”
Richard blew out a relieved breath and rattled off the description of the blonde female who was mated to his son, and Adam’s home address. He had no regrets. If Adam had helped him like a good son, he wouldn’t have to trade the girl for his own safety.
The wolf pulled Richard’s arm up and wrenched it out of the socket. Richard shrieked in agony as he fell to the ground, pain shooting through his body.
“You’re a shitty father,” the wolf said.
Richard gasped. “I never wanted a kid anyway.”
* * * * *
Dani loved Honey. She was the nicest woman she’d ever met; gracious and kind, with a sweet laugh and a silly sense of humor.
“I think being a steward is kind of like being a doctor,” Honey said, spearing several glazed carrots on her plate.
“How so?” Dani asked. The meal was delicious. Jeremiah had smoked ribs all afternoon and shredded the meat, which Honey soaked in their homemade barbecue sauce and served along with three-cheese pasta, glazed carrots, and buttered rolls. Dani didn’t think she’d eaten so well in a long time.
“Well, we have to be on-call all the time, and the hours can be strange. Last night, Jer and I were salting sidewalks until one a.m.”
Jeremiah cleared his throat. “I offered to let you stay in bed, love.”
She rolled her eyes at him with a sweet smile. “It was more fun to be out with you, and then warm each other up when we were done.”
Adam squeezed Dani’s shoulder as Honey and Jeremiah stared at each other intensely. She looked at Adam and cupped his face. With a whisper she said, “Lucky.”
“I am,” he said gruffly.
“I meant me,” she said.
“We’re all lucky,” Jeremiah said. “Dade told me that fewer and fewer wolves ar
e finding their truemates, but it seems that recently, at least in Wilde Creek, it’s happening a lot.”
“I wonder if there’s something in the water?” Honey asked, her eyes dancing.
“Or the timing is right,” Adam said. “No one had found a truemate for quite a while in the pack, and then Eveny and Luke got together, which led to Brynn and Acksel, then Malachi and Nila, and then you two,” he said, gesturing to Honey and Jeremiah.
“I think it’s supposed to be this way. My grandma used to say that wolves found their mates in groups and had babies close together because it was the way that nature ensured the next generation was close in age. Brynn, Nila, and Eveny are pregnant. I can’t wait for the fall heat,” Honey said.
Jeremiah growled lustfully and Dani smiled as Honey blushed. “What’s the fall heat?”
“It happens in September. All females who are twenty-five or older and aren’t nursing a pup go through a heat. It lasts about a week. A female can go through the heat with a male and not get pregnant if he uses condoms, but that makes it last longer.”
“Condoms make the heat last longer?”
“Because they prevent pregnancy. It’s like the body gets angry because it’s not being allowed to conceive, so it takes it out on the female,” Honey said.
“Sounds painful,” Dani said.
Honey shrugged. “We are what we were made to be. Do reindeer have anything like that?”
“Nope.” Dani was thankful that she didn’t go through a heat the way that Honey described. It sounded painful and unpleasant. She couldn’t imagine expecting that sort of thing every year. She wanted to ask Honey what she-wolves did when they didn’t have a mate to tend to their needs, but she had a feeling that Jeremiah wouldn’t like the answer, so she tabled the question for later when she and Adam were alone.
After the meal was over, Adam and Jeremiah shooed her and Honey into the family room while they got dessert ready. Honey excused herself to the bathroom, leaving Dani in the family room alone. She walked to the large window and pulled back the curtain. The world was dark, the partial moon obscured by clouds. She felt Adam before he joined her in the room, and turned to face him, expecting Jeremiah to be with him, but he was alone.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said gruffly, stopping in front of the couch.
She went to him, clasping his outstretched hands. They were trembling, and she had just opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong when he dropped to one knee. Her eyes widened as he let go of her left hand and reached into the front pocket of his jeans.
“I wanted to do something amazing so we’d have a sweet story to tell our kids, but I realized, after what happened at the house earlier with my…with him, that a flashy story doesn’t make it mean more.” He pulled a ring from his pocket and held it in front of her left hand. His eyes never left hers as he very slowly pushed it onto the tip of her finger. She could feel the weight of the ring on her hand, and her heart began to pound as she waited what felt like an eternity before he continued to speak. “I never thought I’d have a mate, let alone find my truemate naked in the snow. You don’t look at me like I’m broken. I feel like I can do anything when you’re by my side. You’re already wearing my marks, but I want you to be mine in every way. Marry me, Dani. Be my mate and my bride.” He swallowed audibly and said, “I love you.”
Her eyes stung with tears at his heartfelt words. “Yes, I’ll marry you!” He pushed the ring the rest of the way onto her finger and stood, catching her in his arms and lifting her off the ground. “I love you, too. I think I’ve loved you since you crawled to me on your belly in the snow so I wouldn’t be afraid.”
He kissed her, and tears slipped down her cheeks as her eyes closed. “You’ve made me the happiest wolf,” he murmured against her lips. “Thank you for trusting me with our future. I swear to be the best mate and husband to you.”
“You’re already off to an excellent start,” she said, giggling. He put her down but didn’t let go, nuzzling the side of her throat and kissing her. She stretched her hand out and admired the ring. A garnet sat in the center of a white-and-yellow-gold band, flanked by tiny diamonds.
“I picked a garnet because the color is such a deep red that it reminded me of how intensely I feel about you.” He clasped her hand gently.
“I love it.” She pressed against his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you.”
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and smiled as Honey and Jeremiah came into the room. “Congratulations,” Honey said, hugging her.
“Thank you,” Dani said as Jeremiah and Adam hugged briefly, patting each other on the back the way that men did. Then both males grabbed their mates.
“How about that dessert?” Jeremiah asked.
He and Adam disappeared into the kitchen and Honey said, “I know he just asked you, but I wanted to give you something to think about.”
“Okay.” Dani turned to face her.
“Jer and Adam are best friends. They’re like brothers, really. Neither of them had good family lives; Jer was ostracized by his parents because he wasn’t able to fully shift. I’d like to think of you as my sister, if that’s okay. I know you have Kammie as a real sister-in-law, but she’s not living here anymore. I don’t have any family except Jer, and I think we could all use people on our side, don’t you?”
“I’d really like that,” Dani said. “Is that what you wanted me to think about? Because I don’t have to think about it – I’d love it.”
Honey smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “No. I wanted you to consider us having a joint wedding.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know if you’d like to do that, but Jer and I were talking earlier about it, and I think it would be sweet. Think about it and let me know. It’s okay if you don’t want to, but I hope you do. When I was little, there were twin sisters in our pack who had a joint ceremony and I thought that was the neatest thing. I always wished I had a sister.”
“Me too.”
Jeremiah and Adam returned to the family room with a tray of walnut-studded brownies and coffee, and they all talked late into the evening. After saying goodbye, she and Adam headed home.
She leaned against his shoulder and rubbed her palm along the inside of his leg.
“Honey suggested we have a joint wedding.”
“Jeremiah told me as much. What do you think?”
“I think it would be really neat.”
“Eveny and Luke are getting married in March, and Malachi and Nila are getting married in April. Maybe May would be nice?”
“Sounds perfect. What do wolves do for bachelor parties?”
He wiggled his brows at her. “Hunting.”
“I wonder if reindeer have any special mating customs. I wish there was a way I could just do an internet search and find out anything I wanted to know.”
“Maybe someday that will happen, but as long as your people insist on staying off the radar then I’m afraid you only know what you know.”
“Bears go into a cave on their mating night, and then they mark each other on the bicep with their claws in the shape of a crescent. They do a lot of celebrations during the crescent moon.”
He hummed. “Wolves are all about the full moon.” He slipped an arm over her shoulders and hugged her a little closer. “We can make our own traditions. We’re already mated, but we can do something special that’s just for us when we’re married.”
“I’d like that.”
He turned off the truck and tipped her chin up. “You know I’d do anything for you. Whatever you want or need, it’s yours.”
“I feel like I’m dreaming sometimes. Like you’re too good to be true.”
“I feel that way sometimes, too. Fortunately we’re real.”
“I’m very glad about that.”
Chapter 9
Adam rolled his shoulders after dropping a load of firewood for Alfonse, one of the retirees, into the firebox on Alfonse’s back porch. T
he older wolf grinned as he observed Adam. “Antsy, huh?”
“What?” Adam asked.
“You’re acting twitchy. I would have said it was because it’s the night of the full moon, but I have a feeling it’s because of your beautiful mate,” he said.
Adam chuckled. He’d been feeling like he could twitch out of his skin ever since he and Dani parted ways that morning. He and Jeremiah met with Dade and then began to deliver firewood, while Honey and Dani went to a craft store to buy yarn and run other errands for the retirees. He wished she was by his side, but he could admit that if he saw her right now, he’d probably throw her over his shoulder and carry her home so they could be alone.
“I’d say it’s a little of both,” he said.
“I remember what that felt like. It’s a potent combination: a full moon and a truemate.”
Adam agreed. Brushing the debris from his gloves, he said, “I’ll take a look at the filter on the furnace before I go. Did you see the cookies Dani had me bring? They’re on the counter.”
Alfonse smiled. “I already ate two. She’s a sweet kid, and you’re a lucky guy.”
“I never forget that.”
It felt like an eternity, but eventually Adam finished the wood hauling and met up with Jeremiah before heading home. Dani opened the front door. “It’s the full moon!” she said, doing a little dance and shaking her cute butt at him.
He ran up the sidewalk and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the house and kicking the door shut. “It sure is, sweetheart.”
“I can’t wait to be outside tonight.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed at his coat until he was able to slide it off, one arm at a time, so he didn’t drop her. Her fingernails scraped lightly against the stubble on his cheeks. “I like this. Very sexy. My thighs are still tingling from when you woke me up this morning with your talented tongue.”