Chapter 2
“This…is Nia?” Cole asked, the three words taking all the air he could hold in his lungs.
His daughter laughed. “Yes! I mean, I figured you would’ve guessed already since she was the only lynx running with us. I can make it official, though. Nia Patel, this is Cole Montclair.” Brianna gestured between the two of them, her eyes sparkling with joy.
Cole’s wolf exploded within him. He’d felt so strange when he’d joined the rest of the pack on their run, coming in late after having to work overtime.
He hadn’t even been sure he was going to join them on the run, but something deep within him had urged him to.
Cole had convinced himself that a bit of exercise would give him some relief after a long day, but it’d actually left him more tense than before.
Now he understood why, but what the hell was he going to do about it?
His mind raced over the numbers as he stepped forward and held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said stiffly.
Nia’s wide, dark eyes were locked on him. Her deep black hair shimmered in the golden light of the sunset. She had to know, but she didn’t hesitate to take his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
Electricity shot through his palm, zipping up his arm, across his chest, and flowing through his body. His wolf twisted and turned inside him. It only confirmed what he already knew, but he wanted so badly to deny it. This young woman was an absolute knockout, but she was Brianna’s friend.
His daughter’s friend.
Her fingertips lingered on his wrist and then swept gently across his palm as they let go of each other, sending more lightning flowing through his veins.
Cole cleared his throat. “I’m, um, glad you made it safely.” Did she know? Had she felt it, too? She must have, but she only spoke to him with her eyes. They both understood what was happening, then. Good.
“Dad, what’s the matter with you?” Brianna asked with another laugh. “You’re being weird.”
“Am I? Oh, sorry.” Brianna was right. He was the police chief of Red Lodge and the Alpha of the Montclair pack.
He had no problem speaking with strangers or meeting new people.
Folks had often accused him of being too eager to get past the small talk and get down to business, but he was standing there acting like he had no idea how to carry on a conversation.
“I’m just distracted. It was a long day at work. How’s the bakery?”
They could talk about anything as long as it wasn’t about him or the connection he felt to Nia.
Brianna cocked her head to the side and narrowed her green eyes. “It really must’ve been a long day if you want to talk before you’ve even had dinner. Let’s get inside. I’ve had a roast in the slow cooker all day.”
“Right. Yeah.” Cole had known all about the small, family-style dinner Brianna had imagined for welcoming her friend to Montana.
Now, he just wished he didn’t have to be a part of it.
He followed Brianna and Nia down the short path that led from the clearing to Brianna’s house, just a short distance from the packhouse.
He hung back, letting the two of them catch up, their arms looped and their heads bent together.
They were a matched pair, two girls who’d been randomly put together in the same dorm room back in college and had been bonded since then, even when the miles separated them.
Brianna had been brimming with excitement for the last few months, ever since she’d asked Nia to move to Montana and live out their dream.
Cole had been excited for her, glad to see his daughter putting her whole being into something she truly felt passionate about.
That excitement faded, now conflicting with an entirely different emotion rooted deep within him as he followed them up the deck stairs and held the screen door open for them.
Nia’s scent floated past him, the sweetness of citrus and vanilla with the warmth of cocoa and musk.
Cole clenched his teeth as his inner wolf howled with desire.
“I’ve just got to throw a couple of sides together,” Brianna said, heading to the kitchen sink to wash her hands.
“What can I do to help?” Nia asked, following her.
Cole took a look at the modest kitchen, which barely had enough room for two people. He could easily calculate just how close he’d have to get to Nia if he offered to help, as well. “I’ll just…” He slipped down the hallway to the bathroom.
He closed and firmly locked the door behind him as though that could keep their beasts from feeling what they did. Cole braced his palms on the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered.
But it wasn’t him, nor was it his doing. Cole couldn’t help it any more than Nia could. What must she be thinking just then, trying to figure out how her soul had become bonded to that of a man so much older than her? If that was his own daughter…
He took a deep breath and forced it out slowly. He was a leader in his personal and professional lives. He could handle this. Couldn’t he?
Cole studied his reflection, something he didn’t do very often.
He only needed to look in the mirror long enough to shave and then comb his thick hair to appear somewhat professional, and beyond that, it didn’t matter.
But now he spotted the lines that swept out from the corners of his eyes and the creases on either side of his mouth—crow’s feet and smile lines, as if that made them sound any better.
Cole studied the sprinkling of silver strands in his hair, although at least his hairline was holding firm.
He closed his eyes. I’m thinking about this too much. I can’t do anything about it. I just have to go out there and pretend nothing’s wrong, that nothing has changed since yesterday. Just get through the meal.
After washing his hands, Cole returned to the kitchen ready to face this dinner with stoic determination and control.
“Dad, could you get the bottle of wine from the fridge?” Brianna asked.
“Sure.” He could do that. Simple enough. Nia was at the stove, only a few feet from him, but she was busy seasoning the steaming broccoli in front of her. Cole opened the fridge and scanned for the bottle of wine.
“Could you hand me the butter?”
Nia’s voice was soft and bright, seductive even when speaking of something so mundane. Cole clamped down hard on his wolf, wishing he could muzzle the bastard. “Sure.” He flicked open the compartment in the door, pulled out the butter dish, and handed it over without looking. Safe. Simple.
But the very tip of her finger grazed the size of his hand, and Cole felt a zing of energy explode on the underside of his tongue.
He grabbed the bottle of wine, stomped over to the rack where Brianna kept her wine glasses, and went around to the table where he could pour their drinks in relative safety.
“There, I think that’s everything!” Brianna announced as she carried the roast to the table a few minutes later.
“It smells delicious,” Cole told her, wondering if he sounded as normal as he wanted to. “You always were a better cook than any of the rest of us.”
“Now, I’ll have to see if my baking skills hold up to the test!” Brianna enthused as she stabbed a thick slice of beef with the serving fork.
“They definitely will,” Nia told her as she scooped mashed potatoes onto her plate. “If that croissant bread you made is anything to go by, we’ll have customers flocking to our little place.”
“I just can’t tell you how happy this makes me!” Brianna squealed, reaching across the table to grab Nia’s hand. “Can you believe how long it’s been since we dreamed all this up?”
Not long enough, Cole thought. He caught a brief glimpse of Nia from the corner of his eye and decided to keep his focus on his food as much as possible.
“I thought it was just for fun back then,” Nia replied with a laugh as she passed the bowl of potatoes to Cole.
He was careful to keep his fingers well out of the way as he accepted it.
“It was fun, but it’s still real. Oh, hang on!” Brianna jumped out of her seat and ran from the room.
Cole felt the awkward silence fill the air, as thick as if it were a presence of its very own. He served himself some steamed broccoli, painfully aware that Nia had made it, and then put the bowl on the table between them so that there was no chance in hell they could accidentally touch.
Brianna’s footsteps thundered back into the room. “Look! I still have it!”
“What? No way!” Nia reached out to take the ragged piece of notebook paper Brianna held. She studied it for a moment and then burst out laughing. “I think we spent more time designing the seating area than we did the kitchen itself. There are just big blocks that say ‘stove’ and ‘fridge.’”
“The funny thing is, the place I leased has a similar shape to it,” Brianna told her. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
As Nia and Brianna passed the scrap of paper back and forth, their designs drawn in faded pencil with plenty of notes and scribbles all around them, Cole felt his connection to Nia like a punch in the gut.
Brianna was twenty-eight. She was grown, but in that moment, it was impossible not to see her as the young, enthusiastic college student who couldn’t wait to figure out her life.
They’d come up with that plan while staying up late one night in their dorm, in search of treats and coffee to keep them going while they studied.
He’d heard the story plenty of times now that Brianna was actually going to open the place.
Nia was so young. What could she want with a forty-six-year-old man?
“Dad?”
He came back to himself, holding his fork in the air over his plate. Cole was staring at Nia, and she was looking right back at him. What did he see in her eyes? Interest? Curiosity?