Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Clay
There’s something about having Hollie Bright riding beside me in my truck that’s sending all of my Alpha instincts into somersaults, or maybe that’s just her scent, thick and rich and sweet as hell this afternoon.
She also looks incredibly cute, all wrapped up in her thick winter coat.
Cheeks rosy from the cold. Eyes wide as she watches the heavy snow falling all around us.
“How can you see?” she asks me for possibly the tenth time.
I want to remind her that Alphas have good eyesight, that our senses are heightened when there’s an Omega in our presence, especially an Omega we have a desire to protect, but my little sister’s sitting in the back of the cab, eyes boring into the back of my neck.
So I just tell her, “Well practiced, done this hundreds and hundreds of times. Trust me.”
“Oh, I trust you,” she blurts out. I turn my head to glance at her “I just wouldn’t want to do it myself.”
I force my gaze back to the windshield, which is becoming increasingly more difficult because all I want to do is sit and watch this girl. She’s mesmerizing, entrancing. So darn beautiful.
I have a desire to tell her all that. I think I must be high on the sugar from the wild berry pie. Or maybe that’s just her scent. Yet again.
Shit, I need to get my head together. Stop acting like a damn fool. I grip the steering wheel more tightly as if to steady myself.
“Can’t we have some music or something?” my sister says from the back of the cab. “I know you hate music, and fun in general, but it is Christmas.”
“He needs to concentrate,” Hollie says, sticking up for me and taking my side for once, sending a strange sensation fluttering in my chest.
“Would you like some music, Hollie?” I ask her, making my sister huff and flop back on her seat, arms crossed grumpily across her chest.
“Shall I see what I can find?” She turns the knob on my radio. It crackles and murmurs, the snow impacting the reception. But finally she finds a station, and it’s playing the usual Christmas jingles.
“I love this one,” Hollie says, smiling brightly now and sending more of those crazy sensations tumbling in my body.
She hums along to the tune and it takes all the willpower I have not to skid us off the road, to cut the engine and to pull the woman into my lap.
The drive takes forever, and that is nothing to do with the conditions of the road.
It’s torturous. How the hell am I meant to get through the next few days?
I knew it would be tough. I figured that much out after we picked her up at the airport.
But it’s definitely getting tougher. I’m going to have to find excuses to avoid the house.
I’m going to have to find work that needs doing on the far side of our land.
I need to stay out of this woman’s path.
A few moments later, we see the beams of another truck coming toward us in the opposite direction and then my little sister is jumping forward in her seat again and tapping me on the shoulder.
“That’s Travis’ truck,” she says, “Blink your lights.”
I mutter under my breath as she punches my arm.
“I’m not sure I like Travis.”
“He’s a million times nicer than any other dude I’ve dated. Don’t you agree, Hollie?”
Hollie has spoken barely a handful of words to the bartender from the Dirty Boot, but she always has her best friend’s back and nods. “He seems really nice.”
“Fine,” I say, flicking the lights on and off, on and off, then slowing the truck down as Travis does the same until we’re parking up alongside each other. I wind my window down and Travis does the same with his.
“Hey there, folks,” he says, eyes flicking around the cab and sparking with excitement when he spots my little sister.
“Hey, man,” I say.
“I was just swinging by your ranch,” he says. “Dropping by to say hello. I got a Christmas present for you too, Annie.”
I resist the urge to snort a second time.
The ranch is a good 20 minutes outside of town and in the opposite direction from where Travis lives.
But he’s certainly got a thing for my sister, and she’s right, he’s not so bad.
For starters, he has a job, a house, and a truck.
It’s a lot more than that of the other idiots my little sister has dated.
“I’ve got a present for you too,” Annie says, leaning over my shoulder to talk to Travis through the open window. “Back at the ranch, you’ve got time to come back there with us now?”
“Sure,” Travis says, smile broadening across his face.
“Great,” Annie responds.
And before I know it, she’s jumping out of my truck, running around Travis’s in the snow and jumping in his passenger door. She waves at us through the window. “We’ll see you back at the ranch,” she says. I go to argue, but Travis’s window is zipping up and his truck is rumbling away.
“I thought girl code stipulates that you aren’t meant to ditch your best friend for a dude,” I mutter to Hollie, outraged on her behalf and starting the engine a little too aggressively, nearly sliding on the snow as I jerk the machine forward.
Hollie simply shrugs. “She’s completely loved up. You can’t blame her. And people do crazy things when they’re in love.”
I swing my gaze back to the windshield. Blood hums in my ears. It suddenly feels crazy warm in the cab.
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask her, because I’m an idiot and I can’t help myself.
She’s quiet for a moment and then she says, “No, I don’t think I have been. I mean, once or twice I thought I was, but now, looking back, it wasn’t the real thing. But I’m hopeful, you know, that it’s out there for me too.”
She’s quiet for another moment and then she says, “How about you, Clay Jackson? Have you ever been in love before?”
I shake my head. “No, same as you really. There were one or two girls, but it wasn’t real. I wouldn’t have moved mountains for them.”
“That’s the test?” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “You have to want to move mountains for someone to be in love?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “I think they have to be someone you want to spend all your time with, that you never want to be apart from, that you’d do anything for.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I think you’re right. I think that’s what love is.”
I glance her way. She’s not looking at me anymore.
She’s looking out through the windshield, gaze glazed over.
She’s thinking. I hope I haven’t made her sad again.
Because I want her to be happy. And I wonder, is that another sign that you’re in love with someone and if so does that mean I’m in love with Hollie Bright?
The realization nearly has me skidding off the road. In love with Hollie Bright?! That can’t be right. That can’t be happening.
“How did you meet your packmates?” Hollie asks me, pulling me out of the mini crisis happening inside my head.
I scratch at the back of my neck. “Tucker and I go way back–”
“All the way to kindergarten,” Hollie interjects.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Nash isn’t from round here though, is he?” Hollie says.
“No. But he had a job on another of the ranches in the area. Wasn’t really working out, so I offered him a job on our ranch.”
“And how did you decide to become a pack? How did you know you wanted to be together for the rest of your lives?”
“I guess we just bonded.”
“You did?”
“You may have noticed,” I shuffle on my seat, “that sometimes I can be a little ill-tempered. Tucker, he’s not like that – he’s always in a good mood. And I’m not always as sensitive as I could be. And Nash. Well he is. It brings a sort of balance to the pack.”
“Not sunshiny and not sensitive,” Hollie says. And I swear I hear that smile in her voice again. “Are you saying, Clay Jackson, that you’re a grump?”
“Tucker says I’m a Grinch.”
Hollie laughs. “And do you agree?”
“Probably,” I say sulkily, “it’s just the way I am.”
“Hmm,” Hollie says, and this time I can’t help flicking my gaze once again toward her. She’s sitting back in the seat of my truck, looking mighty comfortable, and I wouldn’t mind it if she spent the rest of my days riding alongside me like this.
“There are certain things,” I tell her, “that make me less grumpy, less grouchy, though.” You, for starters, I think in my head.
“Like what?”
“The ranch, the cattle, the horses, my family, my pack.”
“Yeah. I can see how that would be. I feel a whole weight lifting off my shoulders just being in this place. It’s been a little lonely back in Rockview lately.”
We turn off the main road onto the track. It’s stupid, but I don’t want this ride to end. I want to have this moment with her, just the two of us, and I want it to stretch on for as long as it can.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” I tell her. More words blurting out of my mouth without my consent.
“No, I guess no one should,” she says. “In some ways, I think you Alphas are lucky, having packs and everything.”
“An Omega can have a pack,” I say. And there’s a little bit of a growl in my voice which I try to disguise with a cough.
I don’t know if she notices but she says next, “I never thought that’s what I wanted.”
There’s a pause. A tension in the air, words unsaid.
“Do you think?” I ask. “Do you think you might be changing your mind?”
I pull up outside the house, cut the engine, turn in the seat to look at her. Her cheeks are bright red. She’s staring out the window.
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
“Hollie,” I say. And her eyes snatch my way. As soon as our gazes collide, it’s like fireworks explode in my blood. I want this woman. I want her so badly. Not just in this moment, but probably forever more.
So I do the only thing I can do. I unbuckle my belt. I unbuckle her belt. I lean across the space between us and I kiss Hollie Bright.
I don’t know if I half expect her to pull away, to push me away, to jump out of my truck and run as fast as she can away from me.
But she does none of those things. Instead, she kisses me right back, her soft lips moving against mine.
She tastes of sweet wild berry pie and her mouth is soft and warm.
It’s been a while since I kissed a girl.
It’s been even longer since I’ve wanted to kiss a girl this badly, but I don’t think a kiss has ever been quite like this one, has had all these sensations somersaulting in my stomach, has had my skin skating with electricity, has had my scent spiraling in the air.
I reach across the space, sliding my hand into her hair and pressing her mouth more firmly against mine, parting her lips with my tongue and sinking inside her warm mouth.
She makes a little moaning sound that has me stiffening in my pants.
And I’m about to do what I’ve wanted to do this whole entire ride home – pull her right into my lap – but then I hear the sound of tires crunching on snow and I snap away from her.