Chapter 28 Gage
Gage
“Get over there now!” Zeke is practically yelling at me through the headset in my helmet.
I race down the tree-lined dirt road, taking curves sharper than I should.
It's been a couple days since Winnie stayed over at our hotel room.
Things got busy with the tattoos and work at Winnie's shop picked up.
Zeke, Eli, and Rafe are in Traverse City scouting a spot for our next pop-up.
I agreed to stay back and work on a client at the hotel.
Corbin is doing his sheriff thing and is unreachable right now.
So when Zeke started feeling panic pulling at the edge of his bond with Winnie, he called me.
I dropped everything and hopped on my bike. We tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. So that’s why I’m tearing through the forest around her cottage at breakneck speed while Zeke chatters in my ear.
If I said I wasn’t worried—that the alpha at my center wasn’t snapping at his tether; that every horrible scenario my corrupt brain could come up with wasn’t flashing through my very vivid imagination—I’d be a fucking liar.
“I’ll call you when I know more,” I say, ending the call over his objections. If it is something bad, I don’t need his voice distracting me from keeping Winnie safe.
I barely cut the engine before I’m racing into the house. It took ten minutes from the time he called to get here. The door is unlocked. I file that away as something to yell at her about later, if she’s okay.
I burst inside barking and bounding greet me as her dog protects her home with slobbery kisses to my hand.
“Sit!” I bark and he obeys so I can get past him and assess the situation.
Wild, beautiful brown eyes land on me. She definitely looks panicked—hands threaded in her curls, bottom lip sucked between her teeth.
Her scent—lilacs and roses—has turned into something sour and dead.
She's wearing a short, floral dress and it's slightly askew, like she's been pulling at it.
“What happened?” I demand.
“What—?”
“What happened?” I cut in again.
“I—” Her eyes drop to her shoes, then flick back up again. Blood rushes to her beautiful dark cheeks, deepening their color. It makes her eyes sparkle, and I have to shake myself to stay focused. Is she… embarrassed?
I stride around the couch and into her space, just a little. Hoping my scent grounds her instead of overwhelms her. My hands come up to her cheeks, thumbs rubbing her temples. “Princess, whatever happened—I can deal with it. Can you just tell me?” I ask as gently as adrenaline will allow.
She sighs, resigned. “There’s a spider,” she admits.
I blink. Swallow. Try to keep every emotion locked behind a solid wall.
“What?” Maybe I heard her wrong. She barely mumbled it.
“It was a spider, okay? But it’s not just any spider, it’s a giant hairy beast.”
I start to chuckle. Then the chuckle turns into a full belly laugh. She scowls at me, and the expression does absolutely nothing to help. I have to lean back on the arm of the sofa to brace myself.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe through fits of laughter. Then I do something neither of us expects—I reach out and pull Winnie into a hug. At first she’s stiff, and I almost pull back and apologize, but then she softens and wraps her arms around my middle, resting her head against my chest—and I’m doomed.
“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you,” I say once I’ve managed some control.
“The whole way here I was picturing robbers, or that you’d fallen off a ladder, or that you were drowning in the lake.
And you weren’t even here—just your phone.
” We’d found her through location tracking on her phone.
She turned it on when we started the group chat.
I don’t know why—maybe it was automatic and she didn’t even know—but I’m grateful for it today.
“So something like a spider… I’m glad it’s something easy I can fix. ”
“I have arachnophobia. It’s a real thing. Spiders are my nemesis.” Her voice is muffled in my chest, and I love the warmth it leaves there.
“Okay, well. Let’s go see your nemesis. Where is it?” Deputy pads behind us as she leads me to her small half bathroom.
I take it back. The spider is horrifying.
“Why the hell is it that big and hairy?” I ask. “Is it a tarantula? Did someone lose their pet tarantula?”
This time she giggles, and it does backflips in my chest. I want her to do that as often as possible.
“No, it’s a wolf spider,” she says. “Super common in the area.”
It’s sitting on the wall of her half-bathroom, just above the toilet. I look around at the cramped space. The guts this is going to cause… a simple piece of toilet paper isn’t going to cut it. I take off my shoe.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I look from the shoe to the spider very pointedly.
“No.”
“No?” I repeat, flummoxed. “Would you like me to seal off the bathroom instead? Let him have it?” She actually seems to consider it for a moment.
“No, of course not. But you can’t kill it,” she insists.
“The laws of physics and nature say I very much can,” I reply, raising my shoe.
“No!” Winnie grabs my arm. She’s practically dangling from it. I have to hold in another chuckle. This woman is adorable and slightly ridiculous. “It doesn’t deserve to die just because I can’t stand its existence in my home.”
I sigh and lower my arm. “What do you expect me to do then?”
“Trap it in something and put it outside.”
“Put it outside?” This cannot be a real suggestion.
“Gently,” she affirms.
“I can’t do that. Look at that thing.” I point. The spider twitches, and we both flinch.
“The laws of nature and physics say you very much can,” she says, throwing my words back at me.
I glower at her before storming into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Finding something to capture it with.”
“Without harming it,” she reminds me.
I sigh. “Without harming it,” I agree.
One cup and a piece of paper later, we’re standing in the bathroom again.
I lean forward, and just as I’m about to catch it under the glass, it scuttles up the wall.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I yell. A soft squeak comes from Winnie as I lunge, slamming the glass over it. The spider skitters inside the trap, and it almost looks like it’s trying to find a way out.
“Paper,” I say, reaching behind me without taking my eyes off it. She slips the paper into my hand, and carefully—oh so carefully—I start sliding it under the glass.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
As I’m bringing the whole thing away from the wall, thinking I’ve successfully trapped the planet’s ugliest spider, the paper bows—giving the spider a clear exit that it chooses to take… right up my arm.
I scream. It’s definitely a manly scream and not nearly as high-pitched as it sounds in my own ears. I flail. The glass goes flying and smashes on the ground. Winnie screeches behind me. Deputy starts barking. Her front door bursts open.
And I’m faced with the worst humiliation of my life as Corbin comes thundering into the cottage.