Chapter 19 Waiting in the Cold
Chapter nineteen
Waiting in the Cold
My shoulder ached when I lifted my arm above my head, and my fingers trailed along the bruise, the indents left against my neck where Cole had threatened to mark me.
It was exhilarating. Terrifying.
What was I thinking?
Cole wasn’t home. When I entered the kitchen expecting to find her, Chloe waited instead with a white paper bag in her hands.
“This is for you,” she said, holding the bag out.
Chloe hadn’t spoken to me since my first day with Cole, which felt so long ago.
“Thanks,” I said as I took the bag and looked inside.
A cheese and ham croissant.
“Why?” I asked, confused.
Chloe scowled, eyeing my neck. I dropped my hand, suddenly conscious that I was tracing the edges, enjoying the dull pain when I pressed.
“Cole wanted you to have it,” she answered.
“Why?” I asked again.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with that,” she answered, looking pointedly at my neck. “But that’s not the real question,” she continued.
“What’s the real question?” I asked.
She stepped closer to me.
“What does this croissant mean? Is it guilt? A bribe?” she asked.
“Guilt? Bribe? What are you on about?” I asked.
Chloe was intense in a way I hadn’t recognised in the brief time I had spent with her.
“Did she force you?” she asked.
“What?”
“You let her? Then the croissant is a gift: payment.”
“Payment?” I asked.
“So you’ll let her do whatever you were letting her do when she did that,” she answered, pointing at my neck.
“You think I can be bought with pastry,” I said, offended. “I’m going to leave now,” I told her, deciding the best course of action was to get as far away from her as possible. “Please, don’t follow me,” I added as I backed away until I had left the kitchen.
“I have more important things to do than follow you,” she said.
“Good to know,” I called from the entrance area, quickly pulling on a pair of sneakers.
Grudgingly, I did appreciate the croissant, finishing it before I reached the Pack House.
I didn’t see Cole at all that day.
I stayed up, listening for when she returned, but either she didn’t return or had been and gone again in the time I had slept.
The pattern repeated for days. A week.
She was avoiding me.
Again.
And I couldn’t stand it.
I’d enter the kitchen in the morning, and the pot of coffee would be warm like I had just missed her. I’d stay up as late as I possibly could, my head nodding heavy with sleep, and I’d been getting up earlier and earlier, trying to catch her in the act of sneaking in or leaving.
I was sleep-deprived. My undereyes were dark and drooping. I looked horrible.
I couldn’t take it any longer.
I wasn’t going to let her avoid me forever.
What was her plan? Avoid me until the National Assembly and have Darren—who I had been avoiding because all I could think about was Cole, and I didn’t want to talk about what happened—hand me back.
Back to Ashford.
Was that what she wanted? To be rid of me?
If it weren’t for the coffee pot, I’d assume she wasn’t sleeping at the house.
I was putting a stop to this.
I sat on the porch stairs and waited.
Waited against the cold, my jacket zipped up to under my chin.
Waited until I felt like a frozen popsicle.
Waited until I couldn’t feel my toes.
Waited until the presence of someone hovering above me woke me up.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said back angrily, because after all this time, here she was.
“Get inside,” she commanded.
“Where have you been?” I asked instead, refusing to move, mostly because my butt was so numb from sitting on the cold stone steps for so long I couldn’t feel it anymore.
“Do you need help getting up?” Cole asked.
“That’s not an answer,” I challenged.
“I’ve been doing my job, Harriet,” she said.
“Is part of your job ignoring me?” I asked. My nose ran from the cold, and I wiped it on the sleeve of my jacket. I didn’t care if it was gross.
Cole looked away.
“You can’t even look at me,” I said, pushing myself angrily to a stand and regretting it as I lost my balance and fell back down. “Fuck!” I said, more embarrassed than hurt.
Cole tried to help me back up, but I hit her hands away.
“Don’t touch me,” I told her.
“What do you want, Harriet? You must want something to have waited out here long enough to fall asleep,” she said.
“Why have you been ignoring me?” I asked as I got back to my feet more steadily.
“I’ve been working, not ignoring you,” she answered.
“I’m meant to believe that?” I asked.
“It’s the truth. I don’t have the time to be at your beck and call. I have a job, responsibilities,” she said frustratedly.
“You’ve been… working?” I asked.
Had she really just been working? Unconcerned with me? While I had been obsessing over her, desperate to see her, to smell her, to be near her, she wasn’t even thinking of me.
“It was an apology,” I said.
“What was an apology?” she asked.
“The croissant,” I answered.
“Okay, you need to get inside; you’ve been out in the cold too long, and you aren’t making sense or behaving rationally,” she said, stepping forward and ushering me inside with her arms out wide like she was moving an animal.
“I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot,” I said quietly, speaking to myself.
The warmth of the house hit me like a wave of heat.
“How long were you outside?” Cole asked.
I sat on the little stool near the shoe rack and struggled with numb fingers to undo the laces of my shoes.
Cole knelt, moved my hands out of the way, and undid the laces, removing my shoes for me. It reminded me of my first day with her.
“Harriet,” she said, getting my attention. “You’re beginning to worry me. What’s wrong?” she asked.
I laughed humorously.
“You worried about me? You’d have to care for that,” I told her.
“I do—”
“Don’t lie to me,” I interrupted her with a growl. “All this time, I’ve been waiting on you, thinking you were avoiding me on purpose, and I wasn’t even a thought to you,” I accused.
“That’s not true—”
“Oh, you weren’t avoiding me. You were just working. I’m not even worth avoiding.”
Cole gripped my jaw with a hand that was so warm against my cold skin it felt like it burned me.
“Stop interrupting me,” she demanded.
I didn’t reply. Her burning fingers against my skin were hypnotising. Warmth bleeding into me, painful and wonderful.
I reached up, holding her hand against me. The heat began to return to my fingers with the same delicious ache.
I looked up at her, her endlessly deep brown eyes staring back at me.
She was so close.
So warm.
I stood, holding her hand against my face, refusing to allow her to pull away, not that she did.
“You’re cold,” she told me.
“How long is it before the National Assembly?” I asked her; I wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. How long had she left me alone?
She pulled her hand away from me easily, and I whined pitifully, embarrassingly, at the loss.
“You’ll be back with your alpha by the end of the week,” she told me.
“My alpha?” I asked.
“The Blizzard boy,” she answered.
“You’re going to hand me back to him?” I asked.
I knew she would, but part of me had thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe she would keep me. After everything.
“But we’re…” I trailed off.
“We can’t be anything,” she answered, and I felt myself grow colder at her words. “I’m engaged to Andrew. I have responsibilities to keep.”
“You choose him over me?” I asked. I didn’t know why I was asking. I hadn’t even been aware that some part of me had been holding onto the hope that somehow she would choose me instead.
“It’s not that simple,” she said.
“Why’s it not that simple? Me or him?” I said with a desperateness like I’d never felt before, settling in the pit of my stomach. “Am I not better than him?” I asked, stepping into her personal space.
“Harriet,” she said like a warning.
“Is he better than me?” I continued.
She turned her face away from me.
“It’s not about that,” she said.
“You don’t want me?” I asked.
She turned back to me, something in her eyes that mirrored me. I gripped the collar of her jacket and pulled her down to meet me in a kiss.
She was soft.
And warm.
Cole placed her hands over mine and broke the kiss, pulling herself away from me.
“Please,” I begged.
“Go upstairs, shower, get ready for bed,” she instructed.
“So that’s it? Just go to bed?” I asked.
“I can’t give you anything else,” she answered.