Chapter 20 - Rami
“How’s that look?” Rami stepped back to look at the sign. The crisp white paint on the wood made the black text stand out. “Is it straight?”
Vera frowned, hands on her hips. “A little more that way.”
He adjusted the sign by a quarter of an inch for the hundredth time. “How about now?”
Her nose crinkled. He groaned and stretched his back, preparing for another hour of adjustments.
“It’s close, it’s just not perfect.” Vera leaned her head against his shoulder. “Are you regretting that ceremony already?”
“Never,” he replied without hesitating. The memory of it still made him smile and sent a warmth pooling through his chest.
She’d looked ethereal under the light of the full moon. They’d agreed to compromise, performing the ceremony in the Rosewood center beneath the magnificent tree so central to the pack, then a part at Jonah’s lighthouse after. Originally, he’d suggested the beach, but one look at Vera’s face, no doubt thinking of the sand sticking to her dress, he’d pivoted.
The night had been a blur of champagne and revelry. Moira, Evelyn, and Adria had decorated the tree with twinkling fairy lights, and he’d watched their light dance in Vera’s eyes as she’d spoken her vows to him. The buzz hadn’t worn off, and the whole thing had taken on a surreal feeling. Each time he looked at her, he couldn’t believe his luck. She was his, and he was hers.
“Definitely too much to the left now.” She interrupted his daydreaming.
Even when she was being a pain in the ass, he was lucky to have her. He was even fond of the way she obsessively needed everything to be just so, and if that wasn’t a testament to how in love he was, he didn’t know what was.
The sign was the last detail for the new Silversands Veterinary Clinic. Vera had used the money from the sale of her house to build the small white building not far from Rami’s bookshop or Moira’s bakery. It was conveniently located across the street from the coffee shop, and he’d already had a discussion with her, with printed-out papers, on healthy amounts of caffeine consumption, wringing a promise from her that she wouldn’t overdose espresso shots.
“Are you seriously still working on the sign?” Moira came out of the clinic with a tray of muffins. “Give up, Rami. It’s never going to be perfect. She’ll be out here all night straightening it.”
Vera shot her a look. “People aren’t going to trust me to help their animals if I can’t even manage to hang a sign straight.”
Moira gave Rami a commiserating glance. “Right. Most normal, logical people would connect those two things. Very sane.”
“Are those chocolate chips?” Rami cut in before the sisters could really lock horns. Their arguments could go on for hours. “I’m in.”
Pack members from the Rosewoods and the Silversands streamed in and out of the clinic, helping to put the finishing touches on the place. It had been exactly what they’d needed in the wake of the curse. A way to restore some normalcy to their world and reconnect without the fear that had been plaguing them.
Rami swallowed a mouthful of muffin, spotting James coming out of the clinic’s front door. His mistrust of the man still lingered. Even after the curse had been lifted, he hadn’t volunteered any more information about his past, not where he’d come from or why he’d left, but Rami knew an Alpha when he saw one. That man was running from something.
He raised his chin in a short nod of greeting. James had been eager to help Vera once he’d been fully informed of what had happened during his dazed state, wanting to pay back some of the work she’d put in during his worst days.
“The front desk is done,” James declared, plucking a muffin from Moira’s tray.
His buzz-cut hair had grown out some in his time with the Rosewoods, but it didn’t detract from the hard, military cut of him. He looked like the sort of man who had been in many fights, and hadn’t lost any.
“Really, you were able to fix it?” Vera clasped her hands together and squealed. “That means we’re officially finished! You’re a hero, James. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. If I’d had to call the contractors back again, I think they would’ve taken my head off. Somehow, I don’t think they appreciated my close supervision of their work.”
“Because you’re a micromanager. You drive everyone who helps you out insane. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud because you’re kind of scary,” Moira chimed in.
“Thank you,” Vera said in a singsong. “Did I hear Adria say you wouldn’t make it to our grand opening party?”
Rami perked up at that. He hadn’t heard anything about the man’s absence, but James was nodding.
“I’m afraid so. You all have been so kind to me, but this isn’t home, and I ought to be getting back there. I can’t thank you all enough for helping me out when I needed it. Would’ve been stuck in a real bind.” James hooked his thumbs in his pockets and rolled his shoulders back.
Rami tried to place the faint twang in the man’s voice, barely strong enough to call it an accent.
“Oh, such a shame you’ll be leaving us so soon.” Rami ignored Vera’s disapproving head shake—she’d never understood his dislike for the man, insisting it was just because James was the only man in town with muscles close to the same size as his. Like Rami would care about something so superficial. Plus, Rami’s were definitely bigger. Vera had told him so. “Whereabouts is home? Will we be seeing you again?”
James spun to face Rami, a knowing grin on his Hollywood good-looks face that made Rami want to punch him. “East. Probably not, but if I end up in the area, I’ll be sure to swing on by and say hello to my saviors.”
“We’d love that,” Moira said. “Here, take another muffin since you won’t be able to get them where you’re going.”
“Take care.” Vera waved goodbye, and James lifted his hand in response.
Rami watched him go, resisting the urge to kick his heels in the air. The lingering sense of unease left with him. The man was bad news.
Vera elbowed him gently in his side, pulling his attention back from James. “Feel better now that the big scary wolf is gone?”
“Much better.” He reached for her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing the back of it. “And so proud of you. Your very own clinic. How does it feel?”
Vera’s face pulled into a frown as she considered. “Scary, I think. I’ve never had to multitask before, in a life sort of way. I mean, I worked as a vet and had no time or desire for anything else in my life at the time—“
“Except trying to boss me around about my own life,” Moira grumbled, ducking back into the clinic to continue passing muffins around.
“And,” Vera went on, louder, trying to pretend she hadn’t heard Moira’s interjection, “now it’s totally different. I don’t just have my job; I’ve got a mate and a kid who need me. I have to find some way to balance it all without losing my mind.”
He chafed his hands over her bare arms, feeling a swell of pride. The Vera he had first met would never have admitted to her fear. They’d both changed for the better and he felt closer to her than he ever had.
“I’ll be here to help whenever you need me. Just don’t be afraid to tell me that you need help. Sometimes, I still see you trying to take it all on yourself.”
Vera narrowed her eyes at him. “And sometimes you still try to clam up and act like you’ve got one emotion, happy. I already know that’s not true, but you think I’ll just let it slide.”
She wasn’t wrong. Having the intention of sharing everything with her, the good and the bad, and managing to always do so were two different things.
“Maybe sometimes you could let something slide. Just to show how much you’ve loosened up since we first met,” he goaded. Really, she could be completely anal about where things went around the house, insisting it made things impossible to find if he continued to put stuff back in the nearest open location.
Vera stood on her tiptoes and tapped him on his nose. “Not a chance.”
He growled and caught her wrist, using it to pull her forward against him. His other arm curled around her back. Rami gazed down at her ocean-blue eyes. “You’re a stubborn one, you know that?”
She smirked, crinkling her nose at him in that way he found irresistible. “And you wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She’d changed his life, uprooted his world, and shifted his perspective. She’d forced him to face his past and his own fears. And she’d done it all by refusing to lower herself for him, by refusing to take anything less than the sort of love she’d deserved. He would have admired her even if he hadn’t fallen in love with her.
“I really wouldn’t,” he agreed.
Vera looped her arms behind his neck and tugged him down toward her, closing the gap between them to capture his lips with her own. The taste of her was intoxicating. How had he ever let her go?
“Promise?” She broke the kiss to look him in the eye, her nose bumping against his, like she was reluctant to put any more space between them.
He understood the feeling. Now that they were back together, he hated to spend a minute apart from her, hated the empty feeling in his arms when they weren’t around her.
Her question wasn’t one he had to consider; the answer was obvious. Their love wasn’t a straightforward one, but it was the only one he ever wanted.
“Promise.”
*****
THE END