Chapter 5
Angie
It took half a day for the roads to clear. My stomach was tight with nerves, and a breakfast of Skittles didn’t help. Rhett kept glancing over at me, brows knit, and I was terrified he was about to tell me I smell like sweat and fear, or something equally embarrassing.
In the light of a new day, my agreement to this arrangement seemed less adventurous and more insane.
I was about to be in a town full of shifters. I was going to a house full of shifters to lie to their faces and hope they didn’t go feral if they caught my dishonesty.
I was going to meet a man’s mother.
No one had ever introduced me to their mother, not even my ex-fiancé.
It felt…significant.
My throat worked. Someone finally cared enough to introduce me to their family, and it was fake. Our ruse cheapened it. I was just going to be an accessory to Rhett for the next twenty-four hours.
I sighed, resting my chin on my hands and staring out the window. There was a big, friendly sign that said, “Welcome to Glacier Run.” A stunning mural of different colored wolves howling at the northern lights was painted below it.
Buildings came into view, and I was surprised by how normal everything looked. I spotted a hardware store, a coffee shop, and a thrift store. People were walking through the snow, some of them carrying paper bags or pulling sleds full of stuff.
It was easy to tell shifters from humans by how bundled up they were. Shifters were walking around in sweats and a hoodie like it wasn’t twelve degrees outside.
“This is where I grew up,” Rhett said quietly. His tone was calm, detached even.
He wanted to get this over with.
Whatever tension I imagined between us yesterday was gone. He kept me warm last night because he was a nice guy.
And yeah, I did feel his morning wood all nestled up against my backside, but I decided he didn’t want me to mention it.
Now, I was on edge. The last of his warmth had seeped from me, and I didn’t know what to say. Quiet gnawed at me, leaving holes for doubt and anxiety to creep in.
We turned off Main Street, and immediately the trees grew dense. Within two minutes we were deep in the Alaskan wilderness again.
Just as quickly, the trees parted, and we were in a suburban neighborhood. Rows of cute houses lined the streets. Some still had holiday wreaths and red ribbons decorating them, the evergreen colors standing out brightly in the snow.
At the end of the road was a cul-de-sac. Perched right in the middle was a massive building, completely out of place with the modern houses.
It looked like a log cabin on steroids. There were at least three floors with a porch that wrapped all the way around.
“Who lives there?”
“That’s the packhouse. Unmated shifters, guests, and new members of the pack stay there. The alpha family keeps an office there so they’re available. We also host events there. Christmas parties, weddings, even birthday parties.”
“Can I go inside?”
Rhett studied me in his peripherals. “I can give you a tour after Mom’s birthday.”
He turned away from the pack house and out of the neighborhood, following a narrow two-lane road back into the woods.
“I lived there for a little while when I was a kid.”
“What was it like?”
“Loud. Busy.” He tapped his thumb absentmindedly on the steering wheel. “Safe.”
Safe? What kind of kid was worried about being safe? I knew, but that was because you were never in my mother’s house.
I peered into the woods, my eyes rounding as three white wolves bounded through the trees.
“Look!” I shouted. “Are they shifters?”
“Yes. These woods are like a playground for the pack.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. It was fascinating—an entire world I knew nothing about—and it was nerve-wracking. I scrolled discreetly through the messages on my phone, seeing that my sister had read my last message with the address to Rhett’s family home.
I trusted Rhett. I just didn’t trust myself. This might be another exhibit to add to my museum of stupid choices.
“Having second thoughts?”
I took a long look at him for the first time since we started driving this morning. He was quiet, which seemed to be the norm for him. There was tension in his hands as they held the steering wheel a little too tight, his shoulders pressing up to his ears.
“Are you?”
“I just—“ He fixed me with that golden gaze. How had I never seen a shifter do that before? “I just want to get this right.”
Show his mom he was happy while she still had the good health to appreciate it.
How sick was she? Was I about to walk into a hospice care situation and see someone on the brink of death?
My anxiety wasn’t improving.
I asked about seven hundred questions between Fairbanks and here, and I still felt like I didn’t know enough. Like there was something I was missing.
Rhett cleared his throat, and that weird sensation in my chest jolted.
“Hey,” I murmured, putting my hand on his arm as I remembered what he said about shifters and touching. “We’ll get it right.”
“I haven’t seen my mom or my brothers since December.”
“It’s okay, I haven’t seen my mom in two years.” And two years wasn’t long enough.
“It’s different for shifters. Your family is your first pack. We have a bond, just like mates do. Being away…it feels wrong.”
The SUV bumped as we turned down a freshly cleared gravel driveway. I could see a house nestled in the trees. It was an A-frame design with clear windows stretching from the ground up to the eaves.
There were two trucks and a rusted Ford Bronco parked near the front door.
Rhett pulled in beside them, setting the car in park but not turning the key.
I unbuckled my seat belt, returning my hand to his arm.
“Is this about your mom?”
He stared out the windshield into the snow-covered trees. “She’s gotten worse. I can feel it.”
“It must be hard to see her like that.”
“It is. She was older when she brought us home, but she never acted her age. Until Dad passed, she had more energy than me.” A sad smile ghosted over his lips.
“I’m sorry.” It was the best I could do. For all my yapping, I wasn’t very good with words.
He took my hand from his arm, pressed it between his hands, and brought it to his face. His breath warmed my knuckles as his lips brushed along my skin.
My chest jolted harder, goosebumps tingling up my arm.
Why did touching him feel so natural?
Rhett closed his eyes, sighing deeply. When he opened them again, they were a cool shade of brown. They crinkled when he smiled at me and said, “I hope you’re ready for the circus.”
He wasn’t kidding.
The moment we started up the walkway, the front door flew open. A young man charged us at full speed, long blonde hair whipping around his boyish face. Rhett pushed me out of the way just in time, catching his attack with a grunt.
The young man wrapped his arms too tightly around Rhett’s neck, using his body weight to topple him off the path and into the snow. I stared slack-jawed, half expecting this to turn into a fistfight.
Rhett was a trained assassin or whatever. This had to be the moment he went all James Bond and knocked someone out cold.
I backed away, hitting the warm hood of the SUV. What did I do? Should I help him? Throw a snowball?
Rhett didn’t pull any deadly kung fu moves. He laughed hard and long, rolling in the snow and getting the upper hand on the young man. They were closely matched in build, but Rhett was taller and broader.
I looked closer, realizing our blonde attacker was barely more than a teenager.
Rhett scooped a handful of snow off the ground and rubbed it into the kid’s face as he howled for mercy.
“You little shit.”
“Better than being a big shit!”
Rhett climbed off the kid, offering him a hand and pulling him up.
“Angie, meet the biggest pain in my ass,” he said, wrapping an arm casually over my shoulder.
I was still blinking, pumped full of adrenaline at the sudden wrestling match. My lips parted, searching for a response, but I couldn’t stop staring at Rhett. His entire body had relaxed, his face animated.
What would it take to get a man like him to smile at me like that?
The kid grinned at me, extending a hand. He was all dimples and blue eyes. Rhett shared zero resemblance with him. “Holy shit! No kidding?”
Rhett batted his hand away, and he laughed.
“Right, I forgot.” The kid stuffed his hands in his pockets and said, “Hi Angie! I’m Ross. Thank God you’re here. Mom was going to start arranging matches for us if one of us didn’t mate soon.”
“She wasn’t going to arrange any matches for you, kid,” Rhett argued, ruffling Ross’s hair.
“She already has a few she-wolves in mind ‘when we’re of age.’”
“Take this.” Rhett hefted his abused suitcase out of the snow where Ross tackled him. “I need to feed Angie.”
Ross obediently rolled the suitcase up the front walk, waving us in the front door. The scent of savory food filled the air, and my mouth watered.
Yes, please feed me.
We stepped into a simple foyer and removed our shoes.
The walls were pale yellow, and there was a framed picture of six happy faces beaming at me next to the coat hanger.
Rhett helped me remove his coat and layers, hanging them on the overfull hooks.
There were gloves and shoes scattered all around the floor, and I wondered how much younger the rest of Rhett’s brothers were.
Male voices murmured from somewhere just out of sight. A crisp, feminine voice cut them off as she yelled, “You need butter and flour!”
“I know how to make a roux, Mom. Relax.”
“And the potatoes—“
“Woman, you asked me to cook for you because you know how good my cooking is. Now stop fussing and go watch The Price is Right, or whatever you old ladies do these days.”
I froze behind Ross as he led us around the corner, uncertainty gripping me as I waited for the sharp response. Kitchen cabinets slamming. Any sign that the argument was boiling over and we were in the danger zone.
The woman chuckled. The male voices resumed their conversation. There was no explosion.