Chapter 13
13
W e’re climbing out of Nathan’s car outside the Blackshaw farmhouse, fresh from laughing over amazing coffee and the most incredible cherry pie I’ve ever had in my life when the front door swings open and Dayne’s bulky figure fills it.
He’s holding a wiggling toddler in his arms when he nods a greeting at me, then focuses on Nathan. “I need to talk to you.”
I eye Angel’s red face and tear-stained cheeks, and can only assume I missed out on the loud screams Nathan warned me about.
Nathan frowns. “But?—”
Dayne is already walking back inside, the door slamming shut behind him. “ Now .”
That’s alphas for you. There’s no later. Only now.
Nathan blows out a frustrated breath. “I’ll see what he wants and be right back.”
So much for our run in the forest.
Maybe this is a good thing, I tell myself, tamping down my disappointment. We’ve spent most of the day together, which is probably too much time.
I back up. “No worries. It was fun while?—”
“Peach.” His expression is serious. “There’s no ‘it was fun while it lasted’. Let me see what Dayne wants and we’ll pick up where we left off, okay?”
I should say no.
Really, I should.
“What stage are we at now in romancing Clara Vincent?” I ask, curious.
His grin is wicked. “That would be ruining the surprise. I won’t be long.”
He kisses me and I watch him stride over to the house and disappear inside before I turn toward the path that leads to my cabin. I should clean up, but I know I won’t. I’ll put something trashy on TV, crawl into bed, and call Martha.
A woman calls out, “Clara?”
I peer over my shoulder.
A beautiful woman with long blonde hair, wearing a white midi skirt and blank tank top, is hurrying down the stairs. Savannah, I recall.
“Do you have a minute?”
“I do. What’s up?”
As she hurries over, her scent drifts toward me.
Nathan said Savannah was pregnant but was keeping quiet about it for now. I do what the rest of the pack must be doing: pretend not to notice the faint scent that tells me she’s pregnant.
“I saw Dayne drag Nathan upstairs to help with the twins, so they’ll be awhile.”
I frown. “ Help with the twins? I thought he was in trouble.”
After the way Dayne growled his order, it sounded like Nathan was going to get pulled up about something.
Savannah shakes her head. “Not in trouble. No one can get Angel down for her nap with the ease he can. It’s like magic.”
I angle my head back to the house. “Really?”
She nods. “They love him and he loves them right back.”
I remember him holding Angel on my first day here, and how eagerly she reached for Nathan. He looked good.
Natural.
Like he would be a good?—
Hold up, Clara. Where the hell are you going with this thought?
“You’re about two seconds away from walking into a tree,” Savannah’s amused voice punctures my thoughts.
I stop inches away from said tree and smile gratefully at her. “Uh, thanks. Got a little distracted there for a second.”
Her grin is impish. “Ah. It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain someone, would it?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.
She laughs as she hooks her arm with mine and leads us into the forest. “Regan was right. Being on the other side of this is so much more fun.”
“Other side of what?” I frown.
“Knowing a packmate likes someone, seeing said packmate squirm and try to deny it, all while blushing hard enough to light up a room.” She pats my arm when I try to tell her she’s wrong. “We’ll talk it out over hot chocolates. Luka makes the best, but mine isn’t bad.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“We’ve barely seen Nathan since you got here.” Her eyes sparkle as we continue our walk through the forest. “And when he has shown his face at the house, he’s wearing a smile none of us have ever seen before.”
My steps slow. “What kind of smile?”
I like Nathan’s smiles. They’re infectious. It’s probably why I didn’t immediately shove him out of my bed when I told him us sleeping together would be a onetime thing only.
“The kind that says he is also developing feelings for you.”
We reach the cabin and she leads the way in as I’m processing how I feel about Nathan developing feelings for me.
Savannah gives my bed a thoughtful look, and I blush and look away. She’s a shifter. There’s no way she wouldn’t know exactly what Nathan and I have been doing in here.
“I’ll make us those hot chocolates,” she says, guiding me toward the dining table as she continues to the kitchen.
I take a seat at the bench and watch her grab a metal tin of cocoa from an open shelf, a pan from a cupboard, and a container of milk from the refrigerator.
She sets to work making cocoa on the stove as I prepare myself for a talk I’m not sure I’m eager to have. Especially since it concerns my love life. I have a feeling all those times I teased Martha on her love life are about to bite me in the ass.
“I haven’t told my packmates I’m pregnant,” she says as she stirs the contents of the pan.
I blink, surprised at the whirlwind change in conversation. “Uh...”
Have I dodged a bullet? I think so.
She darts a rapid glance my way, her expression wry. “I want to talk about Nathan and you, but I kind of need to talk to someone who isn’t my pack about something that’s a little scary.”
“Like having a baby?”
She nods. “Like having a baby.” She abandons stirring, leaving the wooden spoon in the pot as she leans on the counter and crosses her arms. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to have one at all before.”
“Because you don’t like kids? Nathan told me about the wilderness retreat thing.”
Maybe a bunch of kids running wild in the forest killed any desire to have kids. It sounds like it could be a traumatic enough experience to do the job.
“He did?”
I nod.
“No, I like kids,” she softly denies. “But I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it. Responsibility scares me. It scares Jeremy as well, and that whole kids camping in the forest thing turned out to be a pretty big mistake. But this is our kid. There’s no saying, ‘we made a mistake, let's send the kid back to their parents.’ We’re stuck with it.” She winces. “You shouldn’t really call your kid it, should you?”
“So you didn’t tell your pack because you’re scared?”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t told them because they’ll be excited and I’m still at the scared part. What if I never move past that to the excited stage? What if I’m scared the entire way through?”
The chocolate bubbles over and she yelps and grabs the pot before it can completely boil over. She pours chocolate into two white mugs she pulls from another open shelf, sprinkles mini marshmallows on top and flicks off the stove before carrying both mugs to the table.
She gives the stove a wipe down, something I commend her for because my lazy ass would’ve left that spill until it had gotten good and dried on, making an easy cleaning job a hard one. Then I’d hate cleaning even more than I do already.
“Thanks.”
“It was my mess,” she says as she takes the seat opposite.
We spend the next couple of seconds sipping hot chocolate. “This is so good. I have to try Luka’s if his is better.”
Her eyes turn dreamy. “You totally should. Ask him. He’ll make it whenever.”
I take another sip from my mug, studying Savannah as I ponder something. “You’re like my sister.”
She blinks. “I am?”
“Martha is a worrier,” I explain. “She always envisioned the worst thing that would happen. And then the one time she tried to see the good in someone…” I recall what happened in Minnesota. “Let’s just say it didn’t turn out great, so that only made her more anxious.”
Savannah’s expression is curious.
“It’s a long story.” I shake my head. When Martha met her mate Ty, she had just about every door closed possible. “She saw danger and threats everywhere we went because she was so worried about me. She stopped seeing the good things that could happen. Like meeting her mate. Like finding a place that felt like home.”
Savannah smiles. “Yeah, that sounds like what I’ve been doing. Focusing on the bad and closing my eyes to the good. It’s the same with the house.”
I tilt my head, curious. “What about the house?”
She wraps her hands around her mug, and her gaze is distant. “The worst thing that ever happened to me happened in the farmhouse and I swore I would never live in there again. It’s why I lived in this cabin.”
“But you’re not living in the cabin anymore.”
“No. Because all the best things in my life also happened in that house. It’s where I had my happiest memories until I let all the bad taint the good.”
I’ve heard about Dayne’s reputation for killing his family and the old alpha. Most shifters have. Everything I’ve heard and seen has proven that Nathan was telling the truth when he said those were rumors.
I guess everything went down in the house and Savannah was part of it.
“So now you live in the house?”
She nods. “It wasn’t easy at first, but it’s always been home, and it’s full of the people I love the most in the world. There’s nowhere else I’d want to be or to raise my child.”
She smiles suddenly.
“What?” I ask.
“Jeremy and I had this stupid argument once. He compared our future baby to a donut.”
I stare at her.
She laughs. “It was stupid. But…” Her smile fades. “There’s so much I don’t want to change. Neither of us were great at opening up to each other, but we’ve finally reached a point where we are now. I don’t want to lose that.”
“Who says things have to change?” A male voice comes from directly outside the closed front door and Savannah and I both jump.
She glares at the door. “Jeremy! Are you out there eavesdropping?”
The door swings open and a tall, handsome dark-haired man with whiskey-brown eyes, wearing black jeans and a white tee, smiles at me before focusing on Savannah. “Do you think I won’t notice when my mate takes off? I was worried. More worried because you’ve been so quiet lately.”
Her glare melts away. “Oh, I just…”
He holds a hand out to her. “Come here, baby.”
Savannah puts her mug down and walks over to him.
Jeremy draws her into a hug. “That’s why you didn’t want to tell anyone about the baby yet?”
She shakes her head.
He tucks her closer, kissing the top of her head. “I told you before that nothing else matters to me but you and donut.”
I hide a smile as Savannah growls. “ Donut ?”
“Yeah. Donut. Come on, we’ve got a lot to talk about. Mainly the good things.”
“Like?” Savannah peers up at him.
“Like where we’re going to live. One room in the house isn’t enough. And names. Donut is cool, but I’m sure we can do better.” His smile fades as he looks down at her. “And our happy future. All the good things we have to look forward to.”
As he leads Savannah out of the cabin, she twists to face me. “Thanks for listening. It helped a lot.”
I lift my mug. “Thanks for the chocolate.”
Savannah stops just outside. “You should try it.”
“Try what?” I ask.
“Looking at the positives. Like maybe staying.”
I smile and nod, but I’m sure I won’t stay. My feet will soon get itchy and I’ll want to move on. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will.
“And Clara?” Jeremy asks.
“Yeah?”
He gives me a searching look. “I haven’t known Nate as long as Savannah and the rest of the Blackshaws. But go easy on his heart, eh? It’s surprisingly soft. And us guys don’t always have it easy when we lose our minds over our women.”
“Lose your minds?” I echo, though I can’t imagine Nathan has lost his mind for me.
“Yeah.” He draws Savannah closer to his side. “Once, I did something pretty stupid thinking it would mean I got to keep Savannah. I didn’t tell her the truth, and I should have.”
“And the truth was?” I ask.
Savannah grins at him. “That he was my mate. I didn’t see it when I should have.”
They leave, and I let my hot chocolate get cold thinking about Nathan’s soft heart.
It’s probably the truth.
I hurt Nathan with one thoughtless comment, and I never want to do it again, but I’m not sure that’s enough of a reason to stay.