Chapter Five
Three hours later, Shane stood back and looked at his work. Years of working with wood were far from wasted, and he felt a little proud of how well this flower bucket rack came together. What he couldn’t be proud of, however, was how he treated Kimberly.
She had turned back into the ice queen after he all but attacked her and accused her of things he knew were wrong.
Gage wasn’t Kimberly’s type. At least, he wouldn’t have been when they were younger.
Part of him wanted to know how she’d react to hearing that her alpha had made remarks about her dominance behind her back.
Another part truly wanted to probe and poke the bear to see if she’d confess something.
If she didn’t like Gage, did she like someone else?
He could sense that she wasn’t mated because all wolf shifters could sense that spiritual bond between shifters.
But he couldn’t tell if she was in a relationship with someone.
If she tried to defend herself, to say that she wasn’t interested in Gage, perhaps she’d admit she was interested in someone else.
That, knowing she was taken, might have been the only true antidote to his obsession over her.
But the way he jumped into that topic was all wrong.
He had been too raw from her questions about what happened in Warrington.
Shane hadn’t even realized how sore he still was over it.
He could explain away why it happened and how it happened, but processing through the events didn’t heal his ego any faster.
He turned into a snappy rattlesnake that had been stepped on, and Kimberly didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that.
Now, she probably hated him even more for insinuating that she’d have shallow motivations for staying with such a small pack and an immature alpha.
Shane knew exactly what he had to do, what his gut begged him to do for the sake of any opportunity left to get closer to Kimberly. He had to apologize.
Yet, over the mechanical scream of the drill, he heard his father’s voice in his head, growling with absolute menace.
Alphas don’t apologize. They mean what they say. You will not stoop so low to ask forgiveness from a worthless shifter.
Without hesitation, without a moment’s doubt, because he knew that earworm was pure, one-hundred-percent Isaac Snyder, Shane rejected those words. He would apologize, because Kimberly was completely worthy of it.
All morning, Kimberly had attended to customers, taken orders, passed off orders, and spent the rest of the time in the prep room.
His ears were attuned to her movements, guessing what she could be doing, and a little thankful she wasn’t listening to the same music from Saturday.
Today, it was all modern pop that Shane barely recognized.
He packed up his tools and stepped up to the entryway to the prep room, edged by curtains held back by tasseled ropes. For a few seconds, he stood there, watching her arrange a new order. He studied the way she treated each flower and piece of greenery with the utmost care.
Shane cleared his throat. Kimberly slowed but didn’t stop or look his way.
“I’ve got to clean up some,” he said. “Do you have a broom?”
Kimberly jerked her thumb to a broom and dustpan leaning up in the far corner of the room. Shane left his bag in the entryway and fetched the broom, never taking his eyes off her, with hopes that she’d lift her gaze. She never did.
After he cleaned up the wood dust from around the rack, he came back to the prep room and decided to take the plunge.
Shane stood across from her at the prep table, put his hands on the edge and found the table was unexpectedly wobbly. By the way it tilted, he knew one leg had to be shorter than the others by a fraction of an inch.
Kimberly recoiled, eyes blazing and teeth bared like she was ready to growl but didn’t show the fangs for it. “Watch it!”
Shane quickly raised his hands in surrender. “My bad.”
Face pinched with disdain, she went back to her work, and Shane did too.
He leaned down and inspected the situation with the worktable.
He found the culprit and went to his tool bag.
With a few slivers of wood in one hand, a tube of wood glue, four nails, and a hammer, Shane knelt by the table leg just to Kimberly’s right.
Without understanding why, he felt a twinge of lust, being this close to Kimberly’s legs.
If he wanted, he could have slipped his hand right under the hem of her long skirt to feel for her soft, smooth skin.
Trailing up, he’d rediscover her curves, like walking an old path he used to know by heart.
“What are you doing?”
Shane realized he had been staring at her sandaled feet and bare ankles a little too long. He looked up and couldn’t help but admire the view of her looking down at him with those shadowed green eyes, full of curiosity but also a little shyness. There was a bit of the old Kimberly.
“I’m fixing your table. Can you take that off for a minute?”
Kimberly’s gaze jumped from him to the table leg, then her red vase and bouquet. She hastily snatched it up and took several steps away.
It took a little while to get it just right, but with the proper adjustment of the wedges, Shane was able to lengthen the shorter leg.
He tested his work. Solid as a rock.
“No more rocking.”
Shane stood and realized that Kimberly hadn’t moved from her spot, still clutching the vase between her hands, her chin just barely clearing the top of the flowers. She blinked and set the order down again, then tested it for herself.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
They were closer now. Just a foot of space separated them. The air sizzled, and Shane wanted nothing more than to grab her, set her on the table and prove it was the steadiest thing in the flower shop, besides her new flower bucket rack, of course. But that would have been harder to make out on.
“Kim,” he began softly, tenderly, “I’m sorry for what I said. It was low and I don’t have a good excuse. Please forgive me for accusing you like that?”
Their eyes met and that sizzle turned into a full, grease-popping, going-to-burn-the-kitchen-down kind of heat that made his hands twitch with need to feel her against him, just one more time.
The last couple of days had done little to settle the rediscovered desire for Kimberly and what they had before.
All facts and reality aside, he knew he couldn’t leave Tolstone without trying something, anything with Kimberly.
Even if they only went on one date, or just had coffee together, he’d be content.
“I forgive you.” Kimberly’s voice was low and equally sincere.
“If it makes you feel any better, Gage took back the joke about you before I had the chance to rip his head off.”
The corner of her mouth twitched with a restrained smile. “He better have. I was ready to tear into him too.” Then, she took in a lungful of air. “And I’m sorry for making so many comparisons to your dad … It’s just—”
“I know what he did to you and your family hurt you, and I don’t blame you for dredging up the past.”
A touch of something made her look pained. “It’s not the past I’m worried about. It’s the present.”
Kimberly turned to face him and Shane had to use every ounce of concentration he had not to glance down at her chest. She was wearing a flowy blouse that was just translucent and light enough to show the edges of her bra. His teenage self would have been salivating.
“Have you heard that saying about the two sons raised by a father who was a drunk?” she asked.
Shane shook his head.
“One son grew up to be drunk, like his dad. The other son never touched alcohol. When asked why, they both said, ‘I watched my dad.’ I guess I’m trying to figure out what kind of a son you are.”
Shane swallowed and he saw the way her attention flicked to his throat, then how her eyes dilated just a little. “I promise you, I’m not anything like my father. You know how much I hated the way he treated our pack.”
“I know the seventeen-year-old Shane. Not the twenty-seven-year-old who’s been through hell. Time changes people. I don’t want to get hurt again.”
The level of trust Kimberly must have had in him to say that had to mean something.
“And I don’t want to hurt you. I want to make up for what hurt I have caused.
” Shane took a half a step closer, so close that Kimberly had to tilt her head even further up to meet his gaze.
“Let me prove to you that I’m the son who doesn’t want to be like his father.
” He sucked in a breath for courage. “You remember how we used to watch foreign films without the captions and make up the dialogue for the characters?”
Kimberly’s perfect, kissable lips twitched in a smile and she nodded.
“Let’s do that again,” he offered. “We can meet at your place, eat pizza and junk food, and watch a movie like old times. Just us. No packs, no bad memories … and maybe…” Shane took the risk and reached for her hand, the one that he had accidentally touched the other day when they were moving stuff around her shop.
Her fingers were pliable as he curled his own around hers.
“Maybe we can get to know the twenty-seven-year-old versions of us.”
Kimberly’s mouth opened, ready to answer, but something stalled her for a few extra seconds. “Shane … I’m … I think I want to spend time with you, too, but … we both know this can’t go anywhere.”
His brows tightened. “Why not?”
Green eyes flickered with confusion. “Because it just can’t. We’re in Tolstone. You and your pack will be gone eventually, or my pack will, and we’ll never see one another again. It’ll be just like before.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Shane didn’t expect his words to be as husky and dripping with insinuation.
Kimberly caught onto it and he saw her cheeks colored. “Besides that, you’re an alpha. And I’m … I am what I am. It doesn’t work.”
“That wasn’t going to stop us before.”