Chapter Fifteen #2
“I learned a little tidbit from Rhett. He had a tracker on your car, that’s how he knew we were at the outlet mall the day he marked you. He must’ve been outside the cabin, tagged the only car he saw. I had Alex find the app that tracked it.”
“You never removed it?” her voice was shrill. She was so appalled she’d been tracked all this time.
“Nah. He’s dead. So, what do you say we leave this old Montgomery car behind and I get you somewhere warm and safe?”
That was when she realized how cold she’d let her car grow. How she was shivering, even with the wolf, her inner furnace, her teeth were clacking.
“I have my clothes,” she said, motioning to her bag in the back.
“I got it. Anything else you need in here?”
“N-no. But I don’t know where I’m going.”
“I do. Trust me?”
And while she nodded, she was full of questions. She just needed to warm up a little, first.
He’d left his car running. The heat was almost too warm as they sank into the seats, and he turned the fan down. Then he put the car in drive, and left the parking lot.
“You were wrong about one thing in your confrontation with your father.”
She was too numb to speak so she lifted one eyebrow.
“You do belong. You belong with me, and you belong with our pack. I was so busy trying to let you choose me, I didn’t show you that I can’t live without you. I didn’t want to be like my father, manipulating my mother, turning her, causing her death. And yet, here I’m your maker.” He smiled wryly.
“That’s not on you. I asked you to.”
He nodded. “I should have realized that you already chose me. Then and there. So now, Caity Jane, I’d like to show you how much you belong. If you let me?”
She nodded, a little jerkily because she was still numb with cold.
“I love you. I will always love you. No matter what, no matter where you run, I’ll come for you.
And you may not have anything to your name right now, but everything I own is yours.
You may as well face that I will track you down.
I’ll know where you are every minute of the day, and I won’t hesitate to let you know where I am. ”
Her eyes were glossy with tears.
“And, Caity Jane, you are the strongest person I know. You have no idea how badass you are, but I do. You took two alpha wolves inside you, and lived. You stood up to a room full of humans who’d ordered your death sentence and you didn’t attack, despite being a fresh shifter.
That’s not something I could have done.”
He pulled up into a tiny gas station—and it was lit up like a beacon in the grey skies with Christmas lights strung all around the building.
The trademark rocking chair sat in front of the old store.
Gah, this was the first gas station that ever scared her. The one she and Penny had visited back when Penny was just sixteen.
Joaquin sat in the rickety old rocker. He stood, waving at them as Isaac’s SUV pulled up. Isaac unlocked the doors and Joaquin scrambled in.
“Fuck, freezing my balls off. All this drama for a little she-devil wolf who’s bitten me like, sixty-nine times.
” He ruffled her hair, handing her a hot chocolate.
“This is the first gas station in the trail of them we’re about to visit, and no one serial waxed you dead, baby. Hope that proves our pack love.”
“Well, is this the only present you got me? It’s fucking Christmas, Joaquin.”
Isaac snorted. His beautiful mate opened up.
“Hot chocolate from the cockles of my frozen ass, Caity cat! It’s not a designer brand, but it’ll warm your cold little heart.”
And as she giggled, Isaac snaked his hand into hers.
Yes, his wolf muttered. Remind mate she’s ours.
They laughed and joked all the way to the next town, a half hour away, where Alex sat waiting on the cracked concrete in a folding chair that looked two sizes too small for him.
Again, the gas station was strung with twinkling Christmas lights.
He stood, folding up the chair and taking it inside, then waved at the store owner before jumping in next to Joaquin and handing her a pair of gas-station sunglasses.
“Your first pair of sunglasses in this magical shifter life. Merry human Christmas, little wolf. Your she-devil is loved. Oh, yeah, sunglasses along with your first pair of gas station panties.” He creepily rubbed the fabric repeatedly between his thumb and forefinger.
Isaac let out a low growl. “Stop fingering my mate’s panties, asshole.”
“They’re fucking faux silk, dude. I can’t help myself.” Alex tossed the black panties at Caitlin and sure enough, the tag was still on them.
“Hope they fit. Your ass looks bigger when naked so I had to guess at the size.” He winked at her and she burst into laughter.
And now he was sure his little mate no longer dreaded mountain store gas stations, but was looking forward to finding the next brightly lit one.
“Who’s at the next one?” she asked.
“Amos. Bitching because the owner of the store made him hang double the lights. Said he was doing it crooked, too.”
Sure enough, Amos was scowling as he rose from the chair, huffed a white cloud of cold breath into the air, and scrambled into the back.
“Pass this up to our little pack mate.”
“Just my mate,” Isaac growled, making her giggle.
“Whatever.”
And now she had a colorful outfit of balloon shorts and a triple sized t-shirt in tie dye, along with a gas station baseball cap, two Snickers, and a bag of Doritos.
“You sure know how to gift a girl,” she said scrabbling through the bottom of the bag to find a set of cheap, press-on coffin nails.
“I know. Women flock to me, but I’m single because my twin refuses to mate up. I can’t leave him hanging, so instead I break female hearts everywhere.”
“Male too.” Joaquin noogied Amos’s head.
The next town produced Misty, who had the prettiest Christmas lights strung. Red and green, alternated with a twinkling white. She had gas station jewelry for Cait, and a small bag stuffed full of condoms.
“For later.” She winked, and plopped her ass into Joaquin’s lap, then stretched her legs across Alex’s lap.
“You’re gaining weight,” Joaquin joked as she smacked him.
And now they were so close to home.
Noah and Penny sat together at the creepy old gas station near where they lived.
Old Mack sat on another chair with them, right there on the concrete porch, tipping his tequila and not even bothering with a flask.
He looked pleased as punch with his gas station Christmas lights.
They’d even strung them along the windows.
When Noah and Penny got into the car, they pulled two heavy, wrapped-up coolers into the back, and after they’d elbowed everyone to get into the last row of seats with Amos, who complained about having to sit next to the lovebirds, Penny passed up her last gift.
A tiny bottle of tequila to remember Mack by. It was half empty.
As they pulled up to his house, the new lighting lit up the gloomy winter skies.
The crew had done a magnificent job in his absence…
kind of. Lights hung everywhere, and maybe by now they were all tired of hanging lights because his looked like a twelve-year-old might have done it, but they still sparkled and shined and spread fuckin’ holiday cheer.
He and Cait got out first, while the others flopped out one by one. Alex tossed Misty out, right into the snow, where she lay back and slowly spread her arms and legs to make a snow angel.
“Like squishing a bunch of clowns into a tiny Volkswagen, right?” he said, as Noah and Amos both struggled to burst out of the car door together, angrily bumping shoulders.
“You don’t take trips together too often?” she asked him, and there it was. The smile was back in her voice.
“Nope.”
“We take two vehicles from now on,” Joaquin grumbled. “Maybe three.”
“Well, I can’t drive,” Caitlin joked. “I’m car-less.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Whatever. We all know you own our alpha’s balls.”
“Gross,” Misty chided her brother. “Don’t refer to Isaac’s balls.”
“I like your balls,” Caitlin whispered to him. He grinned huge, then picked her up in his arms, pressing her body to his as he carried her inside over the threshold, the way he should have done the first time.
“Grab the food!” he yelled out over his shoulder to all the idiots.
“I know it’s not traditional Christmas fare,” he said to Caitlin in a lower voice. “Or even the actual day, but we can repeat this in a week. We picked up BBQ at Rudy’s, that little gas station near Colorado Springs.”
“We couldn’t use that as one of your little creepfest stations because we probably would have camped out all day inhaling the heavenly smells in that place,” Amos called out from behind them.
Someone’s stomach grumbled.
While they were gone, someone had put up the tree. And while it wasn’t exactly retail-store pretty, it had a certain charm in its lopsided branches and unbalanced ornaments. There was an ungodly amount of plastic wolf figurines tied by red string around the necks, hanging like macabre little pets.
“Um, that’s supposed to be a reminder of your first holiday as a wolf,” Penny said, eyeing the tree. “It sounded better in theory.”
“Or maybe because these idiots hung them by the necks.” Misty smacked the back of the heads of the twins nearest to her, who both yelped.
“It wasn’t us,” Amos grumbled. “It was Joaquin. Your Italian lover.”
“I’m not Italian,” Joaquin said.
“He’s not my lover!” Misty growled at the same time.
But the smell of the rich barbecue as Noah cut through the taped lid had everyone stop squabbling and reach for plates.
“This,” Isaac said, gesturing to all the idiots that made up his pack. “This is where you belong. And don’t ever forget it.”
Sweet mate leaned over to kiss his lips before she agreed. “You’re right. I love you.”