Chapter 14 Another Claim
Jules POV
I smelled Wade on her before I reached the bottom step.
Wade’s scent lay deep on her skin, hours old and mixed with cedar, salt, and the warmth that meant she’d been pressed against him long enough for their scents to blur together.
My chest tightened, but I kept walking. I’d promised myself from the day she arrived that I wouldn’t make my wants her problem.
Nora sat at the kitchen table in her old flannel and work jeans, both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee she’d made herself.
Her hair was still damp and loose past her shoulders.
She looked up when I came in, and recognition sharpened her expression.
Like she’d been waiting to see who would come downstairs first and had already decided what face to wear for each of us.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning.” She lifted the mug. “I made a full pot.”
“Thanks.”
She almost smiled. I moved past her to the counter, poured myself coffee, and studied her reflection in the window above the sink while pretending to look at the weather.
The sky was gray, the lake looked like hammered lead, and the wind pushed the birches sideways.
It was a standard October morning on Superior’s southern shore.
No mark on her neck.
I’d looked without meaning to and found the skin where her neck met her shoulder bare and unbroken.
Wade’s scent sat heavy on her. His wolf had clearly been close enough to bite, but he hadn’t.
I filed that away and said nothing, because it wasn’t mine to say and because the relief I felt disgusted me a little.
“You’re up early,” I said, turning back with my mug.
“Couldn’t sleep past five.” She rubbed her thumb along the ceramic rim. “Too much in my head. I couldn’t sit upstairs waiting for the whole house to wake up.”
“You eat yet?”
“No. And I could.”
I opened the fridge and started pulling things.
Eggs, butter, the last of the sourdough Bette had brought from the bakery on her mail run.
Half an onion, some cheddar I’d been saving for tomorrow’s soup.
Nora watched me work, attentive and quiet, the same way she’d watch someone rebuild a carburetor.
I cracked eggs into a bowl and started whisking.
“You cook like you’ve done it your whole life,” she said.
“Since I was old enough to reach the stove.” I diced the onion and dropped it into the hot pan. The sizzle filled the kitchen. “My mother said if I was going to eat everything in the house, I’d better learn to replace it.”
“Smart woman.”
“Smart enough to make sure I learned.”
Nora’s mouth curved, close to the full smile I’d gotten once at dinner.
Nora sliced the bread while I folded the eggs with the onion and cheese, then I put two plates together without asking what she wanted.
She’d eat whatever I made. She always did, and she always cleaned her plate.
Every empty plate fed the fierce, stupid satisfaction I took in caring for someone who mattered to me.
I set her plate down and took the chair across from her instead of beside her. I’d been doing that for two weeks, choosing the farther seat, keeping my hands occupied, making sure my body stayed where my intentions said it should.
Nora ate three bites before she put her fork down and looked at me.
“Jules.”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you so careful around me?”
I could have deflected, but she’d asked me straight. Nora had no patience for evasions.
“Because I’m attracted to you,” I said. “And I’ve been keeping my hands in my pockets on purpose.”
She didn’t flinch. I could see her turning the information over, checking it against what she already knew, testing it for fit.
“Since when?” she asked.
“Since your first day here.” I took a drink of coffee to give my hands something to do. “You were covered in road dust and asking for nothing you hadn’t earned. I noticed.”
Her breath came out in a short, uneven sound that was almost a laugh. “You hid it well.”
“I was trying to.”
She picked up her fork again and ate another bite, chewing slowly. I let the silence work. Nora spoke when she was ready.
“You’ve never said anything,” she said finally. “Not once.”
“Wade’s my Alpha and my closest friend. You’re his confirmed mate. And you showed up here with one man’s rejection still burning a hole in your chest. The last thing you needed was another wolf putting his wants on you.”
“So you just… waited.”
“I’m still waiting.” I said it without heat. “I told Wade. He knows. I’m not hiding it from him. I want you, Nora. But what I want doesn’t override what you need, and what you needed was a place that didn’t come with strings.”
She set down the fork a second time. Her hands were rough and scarred and beautiful, and I wanted to put my mouth against the callus at the base of her thumb so badly my teeth ached.
“Pine Harbor started feeling like a home the day you handed me a plate,” she said.
“At that first dinner. I’d been driving for two days and sleeping in my truck and I hadn’t eaten a real meal since the ceremony.
You put a plate down in front of me and didn’t ask me a single question about why I was there. ”
“I knew why you were there. You were hungry.”
“Yeah.” Her voice was low and serious. “I’m not ready to decide what any of this means. With Wade, you, the bonds, and Rafe coming, I can’t sort it while everything’s still in motion.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“I know you would. That’s why I’m telling you now.” She held my gaze, and something in her expression changed. “I see you, Jules. Don’t think I don’t.”
My heart kicked once, hard, against my ribs. My wolf wanted to howl. I kept both reactions off my face. She needed me steady.
“Well, that’s a start,” I said. “Eat your eggs before they get cold.”
She did.
? ? ?
Wade came downstairs while I was washing the pan.
He paused in the kitchen doorway, and his eyes went from me to Nora and back in under a second. His wolf was close to the surface. I could read it in the set of his jaw and the deliberate way he moved to the coffeepot without touching either of us.
“Morning,” Nora said to him the same way she’d said it to me, her tone level and calm, giving nothing extra.
“Morning.” Wade poured coffee. His gaze stayed on the mug. “You’re both up early.”
“I made breakfast,” I said. “There’s eggs left.”
“I’m fine.”
The tension in his body said otherwise. He couldn’t know the words, but he could smell the charge in the air. Wade’s knuckles went white around the mug, and through the bond he shared with Nora, his wolf was alert to whatever had passed between us.
Nora put both palms flat on the table and looked between us.
“I’m right here,” she said. “Whatever this is, I’m not going to sit in the middle of it and pretend I can’t feel both of you sizing each other up.”
Wade exhaled and set the mug on the counter.
“Jules is my sworn packmate,” he said. “I’m not going to order him away.”
The words cost him. I could hear it in the care he gave each one. He meant them, but meaning them and enjoying them were two different things.
“Good,” Nora said. “Then we understand each other.”
She stood up, carried her plate to the sink, and went upstairs to change for the shift. The old floorboards creaked beneath her footsteps above us. Wade and I stood in the kitchen and didn’t speak until we heard her door close.
“She told me she’s not ready to decide anything,” I said, keeping my voice low and direct.
“She told me the same thing.” Wade’s eyes found mine. The pain in them was real, sharpened by all the uncertainty Nora’s two bonds had brought into his life. “I need you to understand something, Jules.”
“I understand it.”
“If she chooses you—”
“She hasn’t chosen anyone.”
“If she does. I won’t fight you for her. But I won’t pretend it doesn’t fucking hurt.”
I nodded. There wasn’t a joke in the world that could make this lighter, and for once I didn’t try to find one.
? ? ?
Hank brought the news before lunch.
He’d driven west along the shore road to an auto parts supplier for brake pads and a serpentine belt Nora needed for the Rasmussen plow truck. He came back with the parts and his face set in the flat, careful expression he wore when something was wrong and he wasn’t sure how much to say.
“There was a black Silverado fueling west of Ontonagon,” Hank said. He stood in the boatyard office doorway, still in his jacket. “Michigan plates. Copper Point territory sticker on the rear glass.”
Wade looked up from the haul schedule.
“One truck or more?” he asked.
“Just the one. Driver was inside paying. Tall. Dark hair.”
Wade went still, his body coiled.
“How far is that station?” I asked, because someone had to keep asking practical questions.
“Several hours in good weather.” Hank shifted his weight. “He pulled out eastbound while I was loading.”
Nora was under the Rasmussen truck in the bay, legs sticking out from beneath the bumper, radio playing something with fiddles. She hadn’t heard Hank come in. Through the office window, I could see the soles of her work boots and the edge of a creeper wheel.
“He told her he was coming by the end of the week,” Wade said. His voice was flat. “She never agreed to see him. He’s coming anyway.”
“That’s Rafe Sutherland?” Hank asked.
“That’s him.”
Hank looked at me, then at Wade, then at the bay where Nora worked. He didn’t ask what we planned to do. He knew when to leave another wolf’s trouble alone.
“I’ll let Arvid and Bette know,” Hank said, and left.
Wade stared through the window at Nora’s boots for a long time.
“I’ll stand where she can see me,” he said. “And I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
I nodded. He turned from the window.
“Keep the yard running, Jules. The boats still need hauling and the bills still need paying.”
“I’ve got it.”
He went to tell Nora.
I stayed in the office and listened to the wind coming off the lake, hard and steady, pushing whitecaps against the breakwall. Somewhere west of us, on a two-lane road through pine country, Rafe Sutherland was driving toward the woman he’d thrown away.
I didn’t know what Nora would do when he got here. Nobody did, probably not even her. But she had seen me.
I pulled the parts receipt from Hank’s bag, entered it in the ledger, and started prepping the afternoon’s work orders.
The boats needed pulling. The plow truck needed its belt.
Bette’s invoices needed reviewing, and someone had to thaw chicken for dinner.
I kept the yard moving while Wade told Nora what Hank had seen.
By the time Nora finished her shift, the belt was on the plow truck and the last boat on the afternoon schedule sat secure in its cradle. She washed her hands, shut off the bay radio, and crossed the yard with Wade beside her.
Rafe could reach us that night. If his sickness forced him to stop and sleep, he would be in Pine Harbor by morning. The knowledge followed us home, unspoken at dinner but understood by everyone at the table. Whatever he brought with him, by tomorrow it would be in our kitchen.