Chapter 14 #2
“And for now,” Kendrick said, regretfully untangling Forrest from his hair, “perhaps we can find a nice little pub where we can catch up.”
A short time later, Nia sat in a booth across from Beck and Kendrick at Full Moon Taproom. Cole had suggested the place but had declined Kendrick’s invitation to join them, something Nia was infinitely grateful for.
“Three stouts,” Kendrick said when the waitress stopped at their table. “And I’d like to try this local whiskey that you’ve got advertised.”
After the waitress left, he leaned on the table. “I doubt it’s as good as what I could get back home, but it’s at least worth a shot!” He snorted at his own pun.
“Aren’t you worried about being up for the, um, meeting tomorrow?
” Nia asked. The bar was a shifter-friendly place, and in fact seemed to be full of almost nothing but wolves, but she couldn’t just openly discuss a group of dragons living in the mountains.
If the Montclairs didn’t know about them, it wasn’t likely that anyone else around there did, either.
Beck laughed. “He’s had a very long time to build a very high tolerance.”
“Quite true,” his uncle agreed. “We might be traveling for business, if you will, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy all that Red Lodge has to offer while I’m here.”
The waitress brought their drinks as well as a shot of whiskey for Kendrick. He sniffed it and then took a generous sip. “Not bad.”
Nia picked up her tulip glass and took a long sip.
It had a good creamy head and went down smoothly.
How long had it been since she’d just sat down and talked with someone?
She’d only been in Red Lodge for a couple of weeks, but it seemed every one of those days had been consumed with either working on the bakery or diving deep into her misery over Cole. She took another sip.
Kendrick set his whiskey glass down. “So, you’ve found your mate?”
She slammed her glass back to the table, making a bit of it slosh over the side. Nia grabbed a napkin and held it over her mouth to keep from spewing her stout across the table.
“Damn.” Beck handed her another napkin as he elbowed his uncle. “It wouldn’t have hurt you to beat around the bush a bit instead of just attacking it.”
“Why mince words?” Kendrick argued. “Finding a mate is a big deal.”
“If the tension in that packhouse tells me anything, it’s a very big deal,” Beck observed, lifting a brow at Nia.
“Yeah,” she said, recovering. She wiped the spilled beer off the table. “You could really tell? Just from that short conversation?”
“I’ve never seen a man so determined not to look at a pretty woman,” Kendrick noted. “The two of you could have stood with your backs to each other and made more eye contact than he did with you.”
“Yet his attention was still on you the entire time,” Beck added. “The conversation was about Eve, but not so much for Cole.”
“Oh.” She took a deep breath and leaned against the cushioned booth back.
Full Moon Taproom had a dark and moody atmosphere, but the crowd seemed boisterous and happy.
It was the kind of place she’d probably enjoy going if she got to stay in Red Lodge.
“I guess I thought we were doing a better job of hiding it.”
“Ach, you can’t hide a connection like that,” Kendrick advised. “The real question is why you have to hide it at all. Cole seems like a respectable man. I’m also secure enough to say he’s rather handsome.”
“He is all of that.” Nia had thought a lot about the coven sisters she’d left behind in Salem, but in that moment, she realized how much she’d missed and needed her entire family.
That had come to include the dragons, who were just an extension of the coven in her mind.
She felt safe and even somewhat relaxed as she detailed the obstacles that stood in the way of her being with her mate.
“So, that’s pretty much the problem,” she concluded.
“If I were to stay here and be with him, then Brianna would be furious with me, and the pack would probably be furious with him. It’s just too complicated.
I think everyone could get past the fact that I’m not a wolf, but they’ll never get over the age difference. ”
Kendrick laughed a little as he took another drink of whiskey and let it roll around on his tongue. “People are so silly.”
His lighthearted mood was a stark contrast to the heavy emotions weighing her down, and Nia looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been on this Earth for over eight hundred years, lass.
I believe that age is something people have just decided to get hung up on.
Most of the rules of society are that way, really.
At some point, someone decided it was a problem, and we still think of it that way, even if it isn’t logical.
I mean, what does it really matter if there are a few years between you? ”
“It sure seems to matter to everyone else.” Nia had personally seen all the uncertain looks from the Montclair pack members, but those couldn’t hold a candle to the way Brianna had looked at her.
“That’s precisely my point.” Kendrick pounded his fingertip into the table. “Your relationship isn’t about everyone else. That’s the truth for Cole, even if he’s the Alpha. It’s really just about you and Cole. How do you feel about the age difference?”
“Well, I…” Nia trailed off. Cole’s age had caught her off guard. It’d made her realize that a person could be fated to another, even if they might not typically come together. But the only thing that had truly bothered her had been the reactions of all those around them. “I’m all right with it.”
“It’s difficult when you feel like you’ve got everyone watching you,” Beck said sympathetically.
“When I first showed back up in Chelsea’s life, no one knew if they could trust me or if I was right for her.
It was because they cared, of course, but you’re still really aware of what they think. You don’t want to be judged.”
“Yet I am,” she said softly. “I didn’t do any of this on purpose. I didn’t seduce him. He didn’t take advantage of me. They’re looking at us like that, though.”
“Try to isolate your feelings,” Beck advised. “Think about what you would really want without the muddiness of everyone else getting involved. I think that might help.”
“I’m not sure I can handle it,” she told them. “For the last few days, my plan has been to go back home to Salem. It sounds simple to say I should just stay here and be with Cole because I want to, but that means I’ll have everyone glaring at me and shit-talking. I don’t want a life like that.”
“No,” Beck acknowledged. “That’ll be hard. You’re a responsible adult capable of making your own decisions, and maybe in time, they’ll come to understand that.”
“How many years are between you?” Kendrick asked as he tried his beer.
Nia glanced at the table across from them to make sure they weren’t listening. “Eighteen.”
Kendrick snorted. “Why, that’s nothing! Maeve and I have over seven hundred years between us!”
“But that’s different.” He was a dragon. He lived for such a long time that to everyone else he seemed immortal, even if he wasn’t truly.
“I don’t think so. Maeve had been around long enough when we met that she didn’t have too much hesitation about it, but what might it have been like if we’d met while she was twenty or thirty?
Our bond would’ve still been there, and I would’ve still pretty much looked like this.
Everyone who knows us now thinks we’re a good match, but what would they think if we’d met at a different time in our lives?
” Kendrick lifted his stout and took another big swig.
Nia opened her mouth to argue, but found that she couldn’t. If she were in her forties and Cole in his fifties, there wouldn’t be nearly as many objections, if any at all. If she’d actually met him back when she was in college, however, a relationship would’ve been completely out of the question.
“A fated mate is something worth fighting for,” Kendrick advised, “especially since you might have to wait hundreds of years to find another one. Dragons have that kind of time, but do you?”
The waitress returned to check on them, and their conversation moved on to other topics. Nia told them a little about the bakery, but she was more interested in hearing everything that’d happened back home.
As they talked, she considered all that Beck and Kendrick had said.
She wasn’t a little girl. She was a grown woman with a mind of her own.
And the age difference really might be a matter of perspective.
Didn’t she deserve to be with her mate? And didn’t Cole deserve that, too?
He’d been waiting around a lot longer than she had.
But everyone will hate you, the voice in the back of her mind said, even as her lynx urged her to make the choice that would bring her closer to Cole.
They’ll think you ruined their pack. Your lynx might be happy, but you’ll have to keep your distance from everyone else.
Cole will have to decide between his pack and you on a daily basis.
And what about Brianna? What if you drove her away from her family with your selfish actions?
Some people could do what they wanted and damn the consequences, but she wasn’t sure she was one of them.