CHAPTER NINE || REED #2
Harris seemed equal parts charmed and amused. “Sure. Ale sounds great.”
Sally turned to me and I immediately said, “Make that two.”
With that, she made her way to the bar. When she returned with the beers, we both ordered cheeseburgers. “Reed tells me they’re the best in town,” Harris told her solemnly.
“Well, the competition isn’t stiff, but I’ll pass the compliment on to the cook,” Sally said with a chuckle.
“She’s quite a character,” Harris said, when she’d left.
“She moved here from the United Kingdom about a decade ago and opened the bar. She’s been a fixture ever since,” I replied. “She helps with all the events and she’s part of the town council. Everyone here pretty much loves Sally.”
“And she’s not supernatural?”
“Not as far as anyone knows,” I said with a shrug.
“And she doesn’t know about you guys?”
“No. But most people in town don’t. We try to keep to ourselves, for the most part. We’re here, but not really part of things, exactly.”
He frowned, studying me. “That sounds pretty lonely. You have to be here, protecting everyone in this town, and nobody can know who you guys really are or the risks you take for them?”
“It’s not all the time. We don’t usually have to deal with—” I broke off, seeing Sally approach with our plates.
“Wow,” Harris commented, his brows rising. “That was fast. Really fast.”
“Oh, we’ve got faeries in the back, you know. They whip up the food for us in exchange for a bowl of cream.” Then she winked. “But don’t worry, it isn’t enchanted.”
I chuckled good-naturedly. I was used to Sally joking about the faeries by now—a quirk she’d had for as long as I had known her. But Harris studied her with a speculative gleam in his eye.
“It’s a joke, love. Just a bit of humor from across the pond,” Sally assured him. “It’s really only one faerie. And I pay him a fair wage.”
With a chuckle, she walked off.
“Wouldn’t it be something if that turned out to not be a joke?” Harris said, watching after her.
I frowned at him. “She has an odd sense of humor. But she’s harmless, I promise.”
“Sorry,” Harris said, not seeming entirely convinced. “I guess it’s cop instincts. I’m naturally suspicious.”
“That’s not always a bad thing,” I said, taking a sip of beer. “We are too, most of the time.”
“And no one here knows?”
“Well,” I said carefully, glancing around to make sure no one else was in earshot. “There’s Dr. Langley—everyone calls her Hattie. She’s the medical examiner and town doctor. She knows.”
Harris nodded, then waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, dismay transformed his features. “Wait—that’s it? One person you guys can be honest with?”
I shrugged, feeling suddenly uncomfortable at the way he was looking at me. “It’s better if people don’t know the truth. They’d panic.” I paused. “There might be a couple of folks who suspect there’s something odd about us.” I forced a smile, trying for humor. “We do live in a commune.”
“That sounds…” He seemed as if he couldn’t find the right words. “I mean, aren’t you lonely?”
I thought of Jeremy, who I hadn’t seen in months.
And becoming alpha against my will meant that I suddenly didn’t really have friends anymore.
Instead, I had wolves depending on me to make the right choices.
And hell, half the pack was gone now, which meant my social circle was even smaller than it had been before.
“Reed,” Harris breathed. “You can talk to me. You can trust me.”
My gaze snapped to his immediately. “I don’t know what you want me to say. What if I said yes? What would that solve?”
“You’d be telling me the truth!” Harris exclaimed, shaking his head at me. “Come on, Reed. Don’t you ever get tired of hiding who you are? Because it seems like you’re actually a pretty decent guy.”
“That’s the way it’s always been. If we ever let anyone in on our secret…” I shook my head. “We’d be endangering them. We’d be endangering the pack, too. We can only ever really trust ourselves.”
Harris let it go without argument. I could tell he wanted to press the point and had consciously held back. But he was wrong about us. We could never tell anyone who and what we were. Keeping our secret was the right thing to do. No matter how alone it made us feel.
* * *
After we finished eating, I showed Harris the rest of the town.
We poked into the bookstore, and I was pleased to find that Harris liked to read.
It was something I enjoyed too, though I never seemed to have any time for it.
I bought him a book he’d been looking at—a cozy mystery-fantasy mashup—not at all the sort of genre I would’ve guessed, but it fit with everything I knew about him.
And, after considering it, I bought a second copy for myself.
Harris gave me a strange look and I said, “What? It looked good. And now you’ll have your very own copy.”
He took in my too-innocent expression. “We can read it together.” Then he paused, cocking his head to the side as his gaze swept my face. “And there’s nothing wrong with being sweet, Reed. It suits you.”
I felt heat creeping into my cheeks, but it was accompanied by a strange rush of warmth at his words.
Then I took him to the building that doubled as the clinic, post office, town hall, and the sheriff’s deputy’s office. The townsfolk sometimes called it “the everything building.”
“No actual sheriff?” Harris asked, his gaze lingering on the door to the deputy’s office.
“There’s a county sheriff, but Crescent Springs isn’t big enough to warrant her office being here. The deputy, Jensen, is a nice enough guy, though.”
“You’d think he ought to know.”
I shrugged by way of reply.
After that, we ducked into a few of the boutique shops—most of them sold handmade crafts, expensive wines, specialty soaps, and other items aimed mainly at the tourists who came in the winter to enjoy the ski lodge.
Winter was months away, but it would still be here too soon. Then the town would be crawling with people. And if the monster problem persisted…
I tried not to think about it. One crisis at a time.
Last, we stopped in at the Crescent Moon bar. “And you’re already familiar with this place. The pack owns it.”
“I didn’t exactly get a chance to absorb the ambiance,” Harris said, looking around. “Huh. It’s… rustic.”
I followed his gaze, trying to see it the way he did.
Wooden floors, wooden tables and chairs, two pool tables on one end, a long wooden bar with liquor bottles behind it.
A taxidermy moose head mounted on one wall, facing a deer head mounted on the other.
Fishing poles, nets, and tackle mounted on the walls around the bar as well.
A glowing neon sign over the door advertised a popular beer brand.
Another neon sign over the bar was in the shape of a crescent moon.
The place wasn’t crowded—just Robert on the back porch with his beer as always, Jess and Charles playing pool with Hughie, a middle-aged man who used to work for the forestry service but had retired early.
He always tipped well, though he never said where his money came from.
And then there was Becca, an older woman with a mane of blue-gray hair, nursing her drink and watching the game of pool unfold.
“Rustic? Is that a bad thing?”
“I’m guessing you didn’t decorate it?”
“Hank, Jeremy’s father, did. He was the one who opened the bar originally.”
“And he was the former…” Harris hesitated, glancing around at the patrons, who were paying us no mind. “Leader. For you guys.”
“Yeah. And Jeremy’s grandpa was the leader before that.”
“You guys just going to stand in the doorway?” Lee asked, coming out of the back room. “Or did you come to tap me out?” Then he paused, giving Harris a once-over, and smirked at me. “Or maybe you’ve got better plans for the evening.”
“Well, now I feel objectified,” Harris said.
Lee snorted by way of reply, then turned his attention to me. “Did you stop in to check on me, or do you want some beer?”
I hesitated, remembering that Harris had only finished half his beer at lunch. “No. I’m showing Harris around town. He’s staying with us for a little while.”
Lee’s eyes went wide—he hadn’t heard that yet. No doubt he was startled by the prospect of having a human stay with us. “Right. Okay.”
Harris stood there awkwardly and I realized, belatedly, that I hadn’t introduced him. “Oh, right. Harris, this is Lee. He also stays at the commune.”
Lee shot me a dark look. “That’s one way to put it.” He stuck out his hand and Harris shook it. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Same,” Harris said.
“So, I guess you won’t be joining us tonight,” Lee said, eyeing Harris. “It seems like you might be ocupado.”
“Actually, we’re all going to be in town tonight,” I told him, dropping my voice to a whisper.
“We’re staying out of the forest—keep to the perimeter only.
Right now, our goal is to stand guard and protect the town, until we can figure out what we’re up against. Harris and I were attacked last night. ”
“Emma told me,” he said. “Sounds like you guys are lucky to be alive. She kind of glossed over him, though.” He nodded at Harris. “Odd detail to leave out, that you weren’t alone.”
I shot Harris a meaningful look. Not only had Emma followed Harris’s command, she had also followed the spirit of it—not giving anyone any information that might let them put together that he was my mate.
I probably needed to smooth things over with her sooner rather than later.
Maybe I could ask her to research what had happened.
It would be nice to know what the hell that was all about.
From what I knew, alpha powers couldn’t be channeled by anyone but the alpha.
But no one in the pack had met their fated mate in generations.
Our lives weren’t really structured for romance.
But that could all be a problem for tomorrow.
“I can tell the others your marching orders,” Lee said, glancing at Harris. “If he’s who and what I think he is, you should be focused on him right now.”
I didn’t like the idea of giving up control, of letting Lee think I was anything other than capable. But on the other hand, I also didn’t like the idea of leaving Harris alone right now.
“Tell Lacey and your brother,” I decided. “Have one of them call Oliver. And Lindsey, too. She ought to know what went down.”
Harris glanced at me, a small smile on his lips. He’d probably caught the shape of my thoughts through the thread of magic connecting us.
“It’s sometimes a good thing to share the load,” I told him.
“Exactly,” Lee said with another smirk. I suspected he was thinking less-than-innocent things and definitely not about pack business. Then he nodded at me and added, “Will do.”
Then Lee’s expression turned mischievous, his gaze sliding over to Harris. “Take your man home.”
Harris’s cheeks darkened as he scowled.
It was adorable.
Yup, I was already in deep shit.
* * *
We got takeout for dinner from the Crescent Springs Bar & Grill.
The restaurant was busier in the evening than it had been at lunch, but Sally was still there running the place on her own, still her usual unflappable self.
Though she was busy, I caught her glancing at Harris and me several times, a tiny smile on her lips.
After we got home, we ate dinner together.
Then Harris whipped out his new book and read a chapter on the couch. I joined him, sprawled out with my feet in his lap, which he didn’t seem to mind in the least.
The book turned out to be far more whimsical than I had imagined Harris capable of enjoying.
It was a cozy mystery about a witch named Harriet who lived in a small town and owned a black cat—naturally.
She was a librarian by day and solved mundane crimes by night using a mix of magic and detective skills she’d picked up from goodness knows where, all while navigating her overbearing parents, keeping her magic a secret from her small circle of mundane friends, and managing an epic trainwreck of a dating life.
“So…” Harris said, once I’d set the book down after reaching the end of chapter one. “What did you think?”
“Well, I think I like the main character,” I said. “And the writing style is snappy. So that’s good.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’?”
“It’s a little…” I paused, trying to choose my words carefully so I wouldn’t offend him. “It’s lighter than what I usually read. It’s a world where happy endings seem like they’re around every corner.”
“Except for the shopkeeper who got poisoned on page ten.”
“Except for him,” I agreed. “But you get what I’m saying, right? The supernatural isn’t cute or playful. It’s dangerous and real.”
“I know. That’s the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“Look, even before I knew that vampires, werewolves, and witches were a thing, I was still a homicide detective. There were days where I saw way more shitty stuff in a single afternoon than most people will ever see in a lifetime. Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that not everyone’s life is the same. ”
I was reminded, forcibly, that Harris had led a complete life before meeting me. He’d already been through plenty of dark situations, maybe even more than I had.
“Books like this let me be in a world where magic is cute and quirky, cats talk, and situations can be crazy, but they’re never really all that bad. Where there are easy explanations and a resolution at the end.”
“Happy endings,” I said, feeling both tender and raw at the same time.
He chuckled, shaking his head as he eyed my expression. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I didn’t want to tell Harris what I was really thinking—what I knew to be true, deep down. Happy endings were just for books and movies. They didn’t really exist.