Chapter Nine
“Why are you shaking?” Nathan asked, glancing at her hands.
Delta tucked them under the jacket he’d draped over her legs when they’d got to his truck. The drive home had taken about half an hour, and over that time, she’d come down from the adrenaline of seeing him in a different way, in a different environment.
It wasn’t them in a crowded bar anymore. Now, it was just her and Nathan in the cab of his truck where here heart had been broken just yesterday.
“I don’t know why,” she answered softly.
“Are you cold?” he asked, putting his large hand in front of her vent to test the air temperature.
“I don’t get cold. I’m a werewolf, remember?”
“Right.” He cast a frown at her, and there was worry there in the whiskey-brown color of his eyes. “You aren’t scared of me, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m just thinking.”
“About yesterday?” he guessed.
She offered him a nod and stared straight ahead at the snowflakes that fell in front of the truck, illuminated by his high beams.
He grew quiet as they climbed the winding road to Rogue Pack territory. As he parked in front of the dilapidated cabin, he said, “Are you sure you want to stay here alone?”
“Yes.” She inhaled deeply and forced a smile. “I’m sure. I need it.”
He ran his hand down the facial scruff on his jaw. “I could go wolf tonight and make sure you are all right.”
“I’m not yours to worry over anymore.”
He huffed a sound and shook his head, averted his attention out his driver’s side window. “I still care. I’ll be worried all night.”
Delta shrugged her shoulders up to her ears.
“I think that’s part of the consequences.
I think you have to sit with that feeling until it goes away.
And it will. You will move on with someone else, and so will I, and someday our two-month pairing will just be a funny story that the Pack makes fun of us for. ”
“No one will make fun of us,” he said.
“I bet you a thousand dollars they will. Have you met them?”
“I’ll punch them square in the dick if they do.”
She giggled and wrung her hands under his coat. “I wish you would’ve been yourself from the very start.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I do think we will be good friends. It’ll just take time.”
“Friends,” he murmured, still looking out his window.
“Thank you for chopping wood for the stove. And for working on the roof,” she said, gesturing to the tarp that covered the roughed in parts.
“And for bringing over the furniture. And for buying our food at that bar earlier. I’m grateful but it has to stop, you know?
You can’t keep coddling me, Nathan. I won’t grow.
Hey,” she said, brushing her fingertips against his arm that rested on the console between them.
“Are you listening? I really want to grow.”
“I know,” he rumbled. Those gold eyes swung to her and were accompanied with a sad smile now. “I probably need to do some of that too.”
“Growing?”
“Yeah. Growing.”
Her heart hurt. This was another goodbye, in a way. It was them having mature conversations about moving forward instead of lashing out at each other.
The break-up felt so real now.
“I should’ve had more talks like this with you when I had you,” he said.
Movement caught her eye, and she watched a bunny hop lazily through the snow on the edge of the woods. “Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. I made mistakes too.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t even know how to talk to you. I just got quiet. I just didn’t know how to get around the walls, and then I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was building my own.”
“Why did you want to leave your Pack so badly?” he asked.
“I never understood that part. You had a good Pack. You’re close to your dad.
You had friends there. I remember seeing you sitting with a bunch of them when I first saw you.
You’d already broken up with Decker, and you were good, so why did you do an Arrangement? It seems so extreme.”
Delta shrugged. “I’d never considered it before you showed up.”
“What?”
“I saw you there, talking to Brody, and I liked your smile. I liked your laugh. When you looked at me, I felt this…this…electricity. And then you went to that dinner with our Pack, and I kept finding these excuses to be closer to you. Not to talk to you, because of the stupid shyness, but just to be around you. My wolf was quiet when I was close to you. Just watching you. I felt…” Delta inhaled deep and shrugged again. “I felt like myself.”
Nathan pursed his lips. “And then I went and made you feel like anything other than yourself.”
“I remember being really happy when you asked my dad if you could take me out. You were giving up one of your nights with Brody to spend with me. My Pack is good, but I’ve been there my whole life.
When you talked about Coeur d’Alene, it sounded like this fantasy.
Like a dream. I wanted to go there. With you.
When you brought up an Arrangement, I felt lucky.
I was going to be paired with the Second of the Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack, and the seventh son of a Donn, and my dad was content with that. I was just happy because it was you.”
“But you didn’t know me.”
“You didn’t know me either and you said yes to the Arrangement.” She offered a sad smile. “We were both good at mistakes back then.”
He stole his gaze away from her again and looked back out the window. “It feels like a long time ago.”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like that,” she said low.
“Maybe not.”
It was quiet for too long, so she inhaled sharply and pushed his jacket off her legs, set it into the back seat of the truck, and then grabbed her purse from the floorboard.
She pushed open her door and slid out of his tall pickup.
Her heeled boots sank deep into the snow, and some of the cold stuff fell into the gap at her ankles. “I’ll see you when I see you, friend.”
“Hey Delta?”
“Yep?” she asked, turning back for him.
He looked so handsome, sitting there with his arm draped over the wheel, eyes boring into her, face illuminated by the soft glow of his headlights. “I had fun today.”
“We will have more fun days with the Pack.”
“No, I mean I had fun with you.”
“Nathan,” she whispered, hanging her head. “You can’t play with me like this.”
“I like getting to know you. As friends.” There was an odd note to his tone on that last part though.
“Goodnight, Nathan.”
“Can I come in?”
“What? Absolutely not. I don’t do booty calls.”
He belted out a laugh, and his eyes were glowing again now. “Booty calls? Look, I can sleep easier if I see you have everything you need to stay out here alone.”
Delta narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “No coming onto me.”
“You didn’t fight that kiss earlier.”
“That won’t happen again. I was lost in the high of a better day. I have my senses about me now.”
“Your senses about you? You sound like a grandma.”
“Bye,” she drawled as she shut the door.
He rolled his window down. “One minute. Just a glance at your den. I won’t even come all the way inside.”
She stood in front of his headlights with her arms crossed over her chest.
If she let him in, would it hurt anything? He would be in the same room as her eventually. They were still in the same Pack.
“One minute,” she said sternly.
He turned off his truck and pushed open his door immediately and shut it behind him.
He shoved his hand deep into his pockets and led her around the side of the house like he knew exactly where he was going, and she guessed that made sense.
He’d been working on this place while she’d been away today.
It smelled like him here still. He wore cologne. Delta had never got up the courage to tell him, but she really liked that smell. It had turned out to be a comfort to her, in the before.
He waited by the door for her to move the heavy plank out of the way and swing it open. The latch had failed long ago, so on the inside, she had to hook a wire from the door handle to a nail on the wall beside it.
He stayed just outside the door frame and leaned forward, scanning the inside.
“Give me a second. I have a couple of lanterns.”
“Has Liam talked about when they’re getting the electricity turned on up here?” he asked somberly.
She clicked the button of the lantern, and it flared to life. She adjusted the power up until it lit the room. “Luckily for me, my ex-boyfriend chopped a bunch of wood for me, so I can do it like they did it in the old days. By firelight.”
“Ex boyfriend,” he repeated, leaning his arms on the door frame. “You mean ex mate.” A long, low snarl rattled his throat, and Nathan shook his head hard and disappeared out the door and into the night.
Delta stood there frozen and confused for the full minute until he returned.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m going a little crazy right now.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and his chest heaved with his breath.
“Are you going to Change?”
“Not in your territory. Neither one of us needs that.”
Delta swallowed hard and studied his face in the gold lantern light. His eyes lifted to hers, and they were a glowing shade of yellow in this strange lighting. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Delta,” he said softly. “Just so you know. My wolf would never go after you. I just don’t need the humiliation.”
“I…I don’t understand. Why would you be humiliated if you Changed? I’ve seen your wolf before.”
“Yeah, but that was then.” He shifted his weight to his other leg and cocked his head. “Things are different now.”
She nodded, pretending to understand. “Um, do you know how to start fires?”
His gaze dashed to the wood stove and back to her. “You don’t know how?”
“I could figure it out,” she said, her cheeks heating. “Never mind. I can get it. I’ll just look it up on the internet.”
“I wasn’t judging. Just honestly asking. If you don’t camp a lot, you wouldn’t know how.”
“I did camp a lot.”
He frowned and leaned on the frame again. “When you were a kid or something?”
She nodded. “With my dad and some of his friends.”