Chasing Callie (Southern Werewolf Sisters Book 1)

by Heather MacKinnon

  She opened the back door and stepped inside. “That sounds like a personal problem, Carter.”

  I chuckled as I walked into the house after her. “You’re not gonna make this easy for me, are you?”

  She turned around and met my eyes as she walked backward through the kitchen. “Nope.”

  I laughed again and it felt good. After weeks of warring with my emotions and giving her the runaround and avoiding the lodge in case I ran into her, I was finally free. I could enjoy her company without feeling guilty. I could spend time with her and not feel like I was doing the wrong thing.

  Now, I just had to make sure I kept my hands to myself.

  “Come on, Callie. If we’re friends–”

  “Oh, Callie! I’m glad you’re still here,” Mom said as she walked out of the back hall. “I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor.”

  Callie gave her a sweet smile that really wasn’t helping me keep her in the friend category.

  “Sure, Nora. What is it?”

  “Well, you know how I’m trying to get my garden going out back? I was wondering if you’d come with me to pick out some plants for it. I figured you’d know better than me what’ll grow in this area, right?”

  Callie turned wide eyes to me before looking at my mom again. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said cautiously, sneaking another look at me in the process.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mom.”

  She turned to me, fire in her eyes and feistiness written all over her face. It was like I was ten again and I’d just broken her favorite lamp playing ball in the house.

  “Wyatt Carter, I am sick of being a prisoner in this house. I want to go pick out some plants for my new garden and I don’t trust you boneheads to get what I want. Now, if you’d like to accompany us to alleviate some of your worries, I’d be okay with that. But you aren’t stopping me from going anywhere.”

  Well, shit.

  I sighed heavily and let my tense shoulders fall.

  Maybe she was right.

  Maybe they were all right.

  I couldn’t keep her under house arrest for the rest of her life. She needed to have a life and these four walls weren’t good enough. She deserved so much more, and I needed to let go a little if I was going to give her that.

  “All right. We’ll go to a nursery.”

  “Tomorrow,” she added.

  I turned to Callie. “Tomorrow?”

  She glanced at my mom before turning back to me. “I can make that work.”

  I sighed again. “All right. I guess we’re going to the nursery tomorrow.”

  Mom clapped her hands, a smile wide across her face.

  It was in that moment, seeing her so happy, that I realized how unhappy she’d been. Sure, she was safe, and her health had been improving, but what did that matter if she wasn’t happy?

  I promised myself in that moment that I’d work toward giving her a better life. A fuller life. One not clouded by fear or lived in darkness.

  I also knew that meant we’d have to tell the pack about her sooner rather than later.

  My stomach hollowed out at the thought of putting her at risk like that, but I was quickly losing control of the situation.

  I turned to Callie, who was listing different plants that would grow well this time of year and wondered if she’d meant what she said. If she and her family would really stand against their pack to protect my mom. I’d never had anyone promise something like that to me before, which made it difficult to believe.

  But this was Callie, and everything in me screamed that I could trust her. I just hoped my insides were right because I was betting my mom’s life on them.

  “Okay, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Let me know when you figure out a time,” Callie said as she hugged Mom goodbye.

  “Callie, why don’t you give Wyatt your number so he can call you when we figure it out?”

  Callie spun around slowly and gave me a narrow-eyed glare before turning to my mom with a smile. “Sure,” she said through gritted teeth. “Give me your phone, Wyatt.”

  I gave her my cell gladly and watched as she typed in her number and hit dial. When she handed it back, our fingers brushed, and a chill raced down my spine. I met her eyes again, and it was clear she’d felt what I’d felt.

  Which meant if I was going to keep up this friends stuff, all physical contact was officially off the table.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow, Callie. Have a good day,” Mom said as she walked her to the door.

  Callie slipped through and Mom locked the deadbolt behind her. She turned to me with a sly smile on her face. “You’re welcome.”

  I frowned. “For what?”

  She sauntered past me, the smile still on her face. “For Callie’s number. Now, put it to good use.”

  My mouth fell open as I watched her sashay down the hall and into her room, entirely too pleased with herself.

  “Well, shit,” I muttered, my phone clutched in my hand. “I guess I owe her one.”

  Chapter 18

  Wyatt

  “Call Callie.”

  “I just texted her.”

  Mom scoffed. “I said to call her, not send her a text. I swear, you kids are going to forget what real communication is like. All you want to do these days is text and DM and BM and whatever else there is. When I was your age–”

  “First of all, BM stands for bowel movement. And second of all, I’ll call her right now if it’ll make you settle down.” I needed to cut off her kids these days rant before I had to sit through it for the hundredth time.

  She tipped her chin up and sat on the couch with a huff. “Okay. Fine. Call her.”

  I sighed and pulled out my cell, my stomach knotting in anticipation of talking to her. Which was stupid. She was just my friend. I had no reason to be nervous about calling her.

  Now, if only my stomach would agree.

  The phone only rang twice before she picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Callie. It’s me. Wyatt.” I winced at how stupid that sounded.

  Callie laughed. “I know. I saved your number in my phone.”

  “Oh,” was my brilliant answer. I glanced at my mom, giving myself the much-needed reminder about why I’d called. “Mom wanted to go to the nursery around two. Does that work for you?”

  “Um,” she hummed. “Yeah, I can be back by then. Should I meet you at your house?”

  “Yeah, that’ll be fine.” The line went quiet as I wracked my brain for something intelligent to say. When that failed, I settled on, “Okay, I guess we’ll see you then.”

  “Okay! Bye.”

  I waited until her end of the line went dead and checked the screen for good measure before stuffing it in my pocket. With a shake of my head, I gave myself a silent but scathing pep talk.

  It had been my idea to be friends with Callie, and now I was being a bumbling idiot. I needed to pull it together and start acting normal or this wasn’t going to work. And if it didn’t work, I guess that meant I’d have to let go of her completely. Since I wasn’t ready or willing to do that, it left me with one option.

  To pull my head out of my ass.

  “What did she say?” Mom asked, breaking me out of my twisted thoughts.

  “She’ll be here by two.”

  Mom’s face broke into a huge smile, reminding me I needed to keep Callie around for her sake too. I didn’t know how, but in the course of only one night, Callie McCoy had wormed her way into my mother’s heart. She hadn’t stopped talking about her since she woke up, and believe me, I wasn’t complaining. I could talk about Callie all day.

  The afternoon dragged even though I spent most of it patrolling the pack lands perimeter. Every mile I ran seemed like an eternity, and I was probably a little too excited when my relief showed up, but I was past caring. I got to see Callie without feeling guilty about it and nothing was going to bring me down from that high.

  I made it home with enough time to shower and change, but ju
st barely. The knock came on our door just as I was sliding my arms into my flannel. I tried to get it before Mom could in case it wasn’t Callie, but that woman could really move when she wanted to.

  “Callie! Thanks so much for coming!” Mom crowed as soon as she opened the door.

  I sighed in relief that it was her and not someone else in the pack. “Ma, you should have waited for me to get the door. What if it hadn’t been her?”

  She waved a hand in my direction as she ushered Callie inside. “Of course it was her. Who else were you expecting?”

  I sighed again. “No one, but that’s not the point.”

  “Next time I’ll announce myself,” Callie piped up.

  I turned to her and our eyes met, effectively erasing everything else in the room. As we stood there, our gazes locked, my chest bloomed with a warmth that was so unexpected, it knocked me back a step. Nothing like that had ever happened before and I didn’t know what to do with it.

  Thankfully, she broke eye contact first, giving me an opportunity to look elsewhere. Unfortunately for me, my gaze was still trained on her and that made other parts of my body start to heat up.

  I shook my head and said the first thing that came to me. “We match.”

  Callie looked down at her own flannel and jeans before raking her pale gaze up and down my body. I did my best to hold still, but that was almost impossible when it felt like it was her hands caressing me from head to toe and not her eyes.

  “I think you fill it out a little better than I do,” she said softly.

  I couldn’t help the stupid smirk that spread across my face. “Are you talking about my muscles again, Callie? You seem to do that a lot.”

  She rolled her eyes, but I could still hear her heart pounding, and her breathing was more shallow than it was a minute ago. “Get over yourself, Carter.”

  “You first,” I shot back.

  She pinned me with a narrow-eyed glare, but I just smiled. Getting under her skin was as fun as ever.

  Mom came bustling over, already talking a mile a minute, fortunately breaking the spell between us. I shook my head as she grabbed Callie’s elbow and led her to the door, chatting her ear off the whole way.

  I needed to get it under control.

  I had no business flirting with Callie, no matter how much fun it was. We were friends now, and that meant I needed to keep things platonic.

  But was it my fault her tight jeans hugged her ass like a dream?

  I rushed to catch up with them before they left the house. “Ma, let me make sure no one’s out there first.”

  She sighed, but I ignored her. I’d kept her safe this long by being cautious, and I wasn’t throwing that away today. Taking her out of the house and off pack lands was already hard enough on me. I wasn’t going to make matters worse by letting her be seen by someone here.

  I confirmed the coast was clear and ushered the women out ahead of me before locking the door behind us. When I made it to my Jeep, Mom and Callie were standing outside arguing.

  “Nora, I’m not taking your seat up front.”

  “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “I’m not making you sit in the back!”

  “That’s where I want to sit!”

  “Ladies! Can y’all just get in? I don’t care who sits where.”

  Callie tried to wedge herself closer to the back door, but Mom wasn’t having any of it. She grabbed her elbow and spun her around before giving her a little nudge toward the passenger seat.

  “I’ll get car sick if I don’t sit in the back,” Mom said.

  Callie shook her head, but her shoulders slumped with defeat as she climbed in the front.

  “Since when do you get car sick?” I asked as soon as everyone was in the Jeep.

  “Since always. Keep up.”

  Shocked at her tone, I glanced at her in the rearview mirror, but all she did was wink at me.

  “Women,” I muttered as I shook my head and brought the engine to life. “Ma,” I said louder this time, “Can you please slouch down until we’re off pack lands?”

  I heard overprotective and hardheaded grumbled from the backseat, but I ignored it. Compromising on her safety was out of the question.

  When I turned to Callie, I found her slumped down too and frowned her way. “What are you doing?”

  She shrugged. “It’s called solidarity.”

  “My mom doesn’t need you to hide too.”

  A nervous giggle slipped from her lips. “It’s okay. It’s just until we’re off pack lands.”

  I was still frowning as I drove away from the pack houses and toward the lodge. What was going on here? It wasn’t the first time she’d done this. Who was she hiding from? What was she hiding? Did she not want to be seen with me?

  Those questions and more spun through my brain as I traveled down the steep gravel drive and onto the road. When we were out of eyeshot, Callie sat up with a small glance my way. I did my best to ignore her gaze and act unaffected, but underneath the façade, I was anything but.

  “You can sit up now, Ma.”

  The leather seats creaked as she rearranged herself before speaking up. “So, Callie, I did some research on local nurseries, but I thought I’d see if you had somewhere you liked.”

  “Actually, there’s this one place my mom used to go all the time. It’s a bit of a drive from here, though.”

  “Wyatt doesn’t mind,” Mom said for me.

  “Are you sure?” Callie directed her question at me.

  “Whatever you guys want,” I said, my voice gruff. I caught Callie frowning at me out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored it. I was too busy dissecting her odd behavior back on pack lands.

  “Okay, then you’ll want to get on the highway going south.”

  I followed her directions as Mom took over the conversation in the car. She fired question after question at Callie as I drove and stewed. By the time we made it to the nursery, I’d come to the conclusion that the only reason Callie would hide like that was because she was embarrassed to be seen with me.

  That shit was like a salty knife right to my chest.

  “Ooh, I see hibiscus from here! This place looks great, Callie,” Mom gushed as I pulled into a parking spot.

  Mom and Callie jumped out of the Jeep, but I took my time, not really in the mood to be social. The two women linked their arms together as they walked through the gates into the nursery.

  When they were out of sight, I folded my hands on top of my head and let out a deep breath.

  I needed to let this shit with Callie go. So what if she was embarrassed by me? That was nothing new in my life. I’d been someone’s dirty little secret more times than I could count. What was one more?

  I grit my teeth and turned my back on the nursery.

  The problem was, Callie was nothing like any other woman I’d ever been with. Or that was what I’d thought. Maybe I was wrong though. Maybe she was just like all the others. That would make getting over this… thing with her a lot easier.

  I blew out a breath and let my arms drop to my sides.

  There was really nothing I could do about it either way. She was just my friend and that didn’t give me the right to pry into her actions. I’d just have to accept the way things were and move on.

  Or at least try to.

  Done with my pity party, I strolled into the nursery to look for Mom and Callie and was immediately assaulted by all the different scents. It took me a minute to push that aside before I could focus on looking around the place.

  It didn’t take me long to spot Callie’s wild curly brown hair with my mom beside her in the far corner of the place. Problem was, they weren’t alone.

  I started off slowly in their direction, but the closer I got, the faster my feet moved.

  The guy they were talking to was tall, but not as tall as me. He had dark hair and dark eyes and a wide smile directed right at Callie. I grit my teeth as I got close enough to smell that he was a wolf too, which didn’t make m
e feel better at all.

  I was about halfway to them when the unknown wolf reached out and put his arm around Callie’s shoulders. My vision went red for a moment as I watched his hand dangle way too close to her chest. She looked up at him and smiled and I picked up the pace, almost running by then.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I approached them. My voice was deep and rough with an edge to it, but there was nothing I could do about that. I was having trouble just keeping my shaking hands at my sides and not wrapping them around this guy’s neck instead.

  My eyes zeroed in on the arm still resting on Callie’s shoulders as my insides rioted.

  “Hey, Wyatt. This is Ricky. We just ran into him,” Callie said. Her wide smile slowly faded as she looked into my eyes. I didn’t know what she saw there, but I knew what was going on behind the scenes and it wasn’t pretty.

  I clenched my hand into a fist for a moment before unfurling my fingers and extending them toward Ricky. “Wyatt Carter,” I said, purposely leaving off any pleasantries because they would be a fat lie.

  “Ricky Rouse. Nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah,” was all I could muster up.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my mother’s disapproving look, but I was past caring about my manners. This guy had his hands on Callie, and that was unacceptable.

  I folded my arms across my chest and stood as straight as I could. Make sure this clown knew I had the size advantage here. “How do you know Ricky?”

  Callie frowned at me before giving Ricky a little smile which only made my blood boil. “We used to be in the same pack back in Charlotte. We were friends growing up.”

  “Well, you might have been trying to be friends, but I was always trying to be your boyfriend. Wasn’t I your first kiss?”

  My blood pressure spiked as I blacked out for a second. My hands were so tightly fisted I was losing feeling in them, and I was seconds away from removing the arm he still had wrapped around Callie. Worse, my whole body was vibrating with the need to shift.

  “Well, I’m in her new pack and I was her last kiss, so…”

  “Wyatt!” my mother whisper-yelled.

  “Wyatt!” Callie actually yelled at the same time.