She’s happy.
In the dining room, she sits with them, and it kills me not to join them, but she needs her family, and they need her, so I keep my distance and pretend it doesn’t feel like I’m losing her.
One day soon, she’s going to come to me and tell me she’s going back with her family to Nebraska.
I don’t know what that’s going to do to our mate bond. A mated pair can’t be apart for long, so I have no fucking clue what I’m going to say or do when that conversation happens.
I need her to be happy, but I can’t live without her, and I don’t want to.
“You didn’t have to come,” Finan says, pulling me from my thoughts.
I peer out of the truck window as he drives. “This is the only lead we’ve had in days now. I needed to be here.”
After we found Kat and brought her home, Finan let everyone in town know that we had an attempted break-in. And if anyone saw anyone strange hanging around, could they let us know?
Ian, one of our rancher neighbors who lives a few miles away, called this morning, saying he spotted someone parked up near his farm. By the time he’d gone out to investigate, the person had driven away. Everyone here knows everyone. Since we're neighbors, his evasiveness was notable enough to recall Finan's comment about our break-in and call him.
“Have you asked her to stay?” Finan asks as we approach the farm.
“Not sure that’s a conversation I want to bring up, Fin.”
“You need to talk about it.”
“I’d rather talk about the way you glared at the new prospect when he looked like he was going to sit with Dania at breakfast this morning.” I arch my eyebrow at him.
He pulls up at the entrance to Ian’s ranch. “I didn’t glare at anyone. Dania had her hands full with Leo.”
Snorting, I push my car door open and get out. “You know, you should have told me you had your eye on her when I was trying to offload Tagge’s sister on you.” And that had only been because Tagge was trying to mate his sister to me, and I wanted nothing to do with her.
There’s a long drive to get to the house in the distance, which is why Cristofer—if that was him hanging around—had gone well before Ian could see who it was.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
A scent teases my nose, and I walk over to investigate, Finan trailing me. “You’ve given her time to heal and recover from that mate of hers. She’d be pushing you away if she weren’t ready for a relationship.”
This scent is the same as the one I’d sniffed beside the creek. Cristofer’s scent.
Juniper and sage.
Cristofer was here, but I have no clue what he was doing when Ian’s ranch is miles away from our home.
Feet away, near a stable where horses graze on grass, a man lifts his arm.
Ian.
I lift mine in turn and turn to Finan. “Let’s get out of here. Whatever the fuck Cristofer was doing here will have to remain a mystery. He’s gone.”
Back home, I spend an hour dealing with dreaded emails.
There are nine Wolf Lords. All are Alphas, and all fought for the right to claim the title. We meet every six months or so, with a different Wolf Lord hosting each council in a different city, to discuss issues that affect all shifters.
Outside of those meetings, I have Alphas from across the country emailing me issues they want an opinion on, and then there are the countless requests from shifters looking to move packs, but their Alpha resists or outright refuses. That requires a level of diplomacy that makes me consider throwing my laptop out of the window and living with the squirrels in the forest.
I fuckinghateemails.
I’m staring into space, wondering if I should ask Kat if we can eat together during dinner, when a car starts up outside.
We have a handful of cars we share, and no one said anything about heading into town. Right now, with Cristofer up to fuck knows what he’s up to, I want everyone close to home.
