Twenty-Two
Cam
No one said we had to bang in the shower, but we definitely did.
it didn’t matter; the bite was right, the mark fixed, the bond whole.
how couldn’t it have been, after our mind-blowing performance in bed?
after that, i was convinced that we’d been crafted for each other, and i’d already been slowly boarding aunt caroline’s fated-mates train before that.
Wyatt was perfect for me, in every respect. The fireworks in bed just proved what I already knew. He was the only one for me.
Still, it was hard to resist him when he was fully naked, water running down his pale skin in rivulets, his hair matted to his neck.
And the bite. My heart swelled whenever I saw it, and my chest got tight. It should have made me feel guilty—the bruising was already coming up, and I’d made him bleed. Instead, I felt nothing but the warm glow of pride. Wyatt was mine, forever, and everyone would know it.
Or, well, every shifter in Coyote Creek would know it. And they’d know to keep their dirty paws off my mate.
We took so damn long in the shower, the hot water ran out. The spray turned cold, dousing us both with icy water, and we yelped and hopped out of the shower stall, stumbling over each other, scrabbling for towels.
Then we laughed and made out a little on the counter, before Wyatt finally pushed me back and said, “We should probably get out of here.”
I remembered Cal pestering me about taking too long earlier this morning. God, that felt like a lifetime ago. “Yeah,” I agreed, then tucked a towel around my waist.
We dressed again and headed back downstairs. Thankfully, the place was pretty much deserted. I could hear Caroline and Karla rummaging around upstairs, probably still packing. My brothers were nowhere to be seen. Cal was probably out in the barn, and who knew where Cody and Connor had gotten to.
I took Wyatt’s hand and squeezed. “So, what do you wanna do with the rest of your day off?” I asked, twirling him around, then catching him and dipping him low.
He giggled with surprise, then slowly righted himself. “Um. I don’t … really know.” He scratched at his cheek, and my heart melted a little more. My mate was so adorable. God, I had to be the luckiest alpha in Coyote Creek. Maybe the entire state.
“You … wanna go into town, get something to eat?” I cocked my head.
Wyatt blinked those beautiful hazel eyes of his. “Uh … sure.”
We stared at each other for a moment or two. “I’ll drive?” he offered at length.
“I can—”
He gave my shoulder a pointed look, and I scowled. “It’s fine.” I waved my arm up and down. “I told you—shifter healing. All good now.”
“Maybe,” Wyatt muttered. “You should still do some physiotherapy. Make sure it really is all good.”
I sighed. “Fine, fine.”
Wyatt almost glowered at me, then said, “Doctor’s orders.”
I stared at him. It was all I could do as a wave of emotion washed through me. Confusion, then amazement, and finally, pride. My mate was a veterinarian. He had a doctorate.
God, he was one smart cookie. I wondered how I could have possibly gotten so goddamn lucky. All my life, I’d lived in Cal’s shadow. Cal was bigger, stronger, smarter, better than me. So I’d never bothered trying to compete with him; I’d learned to be … well, a bit of a wild child, if I was honest.
I’d acted out, if I thought about it, long before Mom got sick. But that had made it worse. I’d had so many detentions when she got sick. Skipped so many classes. Run with the wrong pack, as Dad would have said.
It was like no one gave a shit about me, not unless I was entertaining them. So I’d learned to be the funny guy—always pulling pranks or cracking jokes.
Making people laugh, even at my own expense.
And then I’d gotten angrier, wilder—and the jokes hadn’t been jokes anymore. They’d been cruel. I’d cut anyone down, and the pranks had turned mean.
Cal had done his best to keep me in line. He’d managed to scare Carter stiff for a little while, before Carter went off the rails. Carter had shipped himself off to military school.
Me, on the other hand … I’d dropped out of school first chance I got. Mom had died. She’d fucking died, and nobody gave a shit. Not the kids who laughed at my jokes, said I was so funny. Not the teachers, who bitched that I kept cutting class, that I was failing.
Not even Dad. He’d been so deep in his own grief, he hadn’t bothered much with us. I’d hidden my report cards from him, didn’t mention suspensions or detentions, and he never asked.
Cal had tried. He really, really had, but when a teacher who knew flunked me instead of trying to help …
I quit. I gave up. Nobody cared, and school was useless, so why bother?
It wasn’t like I needed an education in Coyote Creek.
Cal was gonna inherit the ranch, and I’d stay there with him, help him out.
I didn’t need to know trigonometry to bale hay or ride a horse or rustle up the cows when it was time to send them to slaughter.
I certainly didn’t need to know anything they were teaching to shift into my fur and run in the woods.
And here was Wyatt, with his doctorate. In medicine. I felt a pang of guilt, in that moment, that he was shackled to my stupid ass.
Wyatt jangled his car keys, breaking me from my reverie. “Uh, so … does this count as a … date?”
I blinked, like the idea was novel. Then I grinned. “It absolutely does,” I replied, sliding into the passenger seat of the car.
We were mates, but I hadn’t even taken Wyatt on a date yet. Fuck, I was doing this whole alpha thing entirely ass-backwards.
Doesn’t matter, I told myself. We’d bonded; we were fated mates. I’d have the rest of forever to tour Wyatt around what little Coyote Creek had to offer and show him my favorite spots.
First up: Sally’s diner.
There weren’t too many restaurants in Coyote Creek; town was small, and the population was mostly rural farmers and rednecks spread out over who knew how many miles, into the mountains.
If people did come to town, they weren’t expecting much—solid homestyle cooking, a greasy spoon, and maybe somewhere to grab a cup of coffee.
There was a grocery store, a few clothing shops that seemed to change with the seasons, and a rundown cinema that had been operating since the 1940s, at least, and that was about it.
When we were kids, our parents had taken us about half an hour north, maybe longer, to the giant shopping mall for clothes, maybe twice a year. Cal and I did most of our shopping online now, since we could get almost anything shipped to the house or the post office.
Despite how dinky our little town was, I was suddenly proud of it as I instructed Wyatt on where to park. I paid the meter, then led him to Sally’s.
Sally’s was an institution. I had no idea how long it had been here; it just always had been.
We hadn’t come often when we were kids—it had been a challenge for our parents to get all of us herded into two cars and drive us into town.
We usually went further afield. I remembered stopping in a few times when I was a child, maybe when I’d been running errands with Mom or Dad on the weekend.
Usually with Dad, when we hit the local hardware store.
Anyway, the place had been there forever—probably as long as the Carlyle clan had been, if I wanted to think about it. I’d learned a little bit about the history of our town in school, but most of my knowledge came from stories our parents had told us, from my grandparents.
The eponymous Sally no longer ran the place, being long dead and all, but her daughter had been Sally, and her daughter after her. Now, though, the place was run by Jess, whose mother had, for some reason, opted not to name her Sally, even though she was the heir apparent to the restaurant dynasty.
Jess was in her mid-forties, with close-cropped, curly hair, and a habit of wearing too much makeup. Even if she wasn’t named Sally, I was pretty sure she’d inherited her fashion sense from generations of diner operators.
She quirked a brow when we walked in, the little bell above the door tinkling.
The diner was already hopping, even though it wasn’t quite noon.
Jess pointed to a booth at the far corner of the wraparound window, before the hostess, a girl I’d gone to school with named Melissa, could get back to the station.
Wyatt followed me, sliding into the booth across from me. “You’re pretty well-known around here, huh?”
“Hey Cam,” Melissa said as she slid menus across the tabletop. “Been a bit, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, and she glanced at Wyatt.
“Hey,” she said. “Haven’t seen you before—you new in town?”
“Er, yeah.”
“This is Wyatt. He’s the new vet, helping Vern.”
“Oh,” Melissa said, eyes lighting up in a way that made my hackles rise. “The new vet, huh? How’s working with that old crab apple, Vern?”
“He’s not so bad,” Wyatt said, then turned crimson.
Melissa quirked a brow, then shot me a look. I had the stupidest urge to bare my teeth at her. She was a shifter too—a cougar, perhaps fittingly enough.
She gave me a half-shrug, then looked down at the pad of paper in her hands, snapping her chewing gum as she did so. “You wanna order?”
“I haven’t—” Wyatt started, but I put a hand over his. I barely resisted the urge to twine our fingers.
“Two strawberry shakes to start,” I told her.
“Got it,” she said, then sashayed away.
Wyatt was giving me a skeptical look. “Seriously?” he asked. “Ordering for me?”
“You’re new,” I told him. “You don’t know what’s good—you have to have a strawberry shake at Sally’s at least once.”
“Hn.”
“If you hate it, you can at least say you tried it,” I explained.
“Fine,” Wyatt said, then picked up the menu. He skimmed it, eyes bouncing over the words.
I already knew what I wanted; Dad had always ordered for us when we were kids, using the same logic I’d just applied to ordering for Wyatt.
I’d tried other stuff on the menu when I’d gotten older and braver, but I always came back to “my usual.” Dad had been right: the burger really was the best thing on the menu.
I hadn’t found anywhere else that could compare—not that I had a lot to compare to.
Wyatt inhaled deeply, then set the menu aside. “All right,” he said, “I forfeit. What’s good?”
I nodded, then turned to Melissa as she approached again. “Shakes,” she said, sliding them across the table. “Ready to order?”
“Two burger-n-fry combos.”
She nodded. “Ketchup?”
“Yup.”
“All the fixins on the burgers?”
“Yep.”
“’Kay. Need any vinegar?”
“Nah,” I said, then glanced at Wyatt. “Unless you’re one of those weirdos who likes vinegar on their fries?”
Wyatt looked practically green with the suggestion. I laughed. “I’ll take that as a no,” Melissa said, then snapped her notepad shut. “Two burgers, two fries, coming right up.”
She sashayed off again. I glanced back at Wyatt, who, if anything, looked even greener now. I frowned. “Uh … you okay?”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“You tried the shake?” I asked, suddenly worried I’d accidentally poisoned my mate.
“No,” he croaked, then took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just—I think it’s the grease.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing around. “Yeah. Kinda is a greasy spoon, isn’t it?”
He snorted a laugh. “What?” I asked, and he shook his head again.
“Just … don’t think I’ve ever heard someone call a place a greasy spoon in real life.”
“Well,” I grumped. It was what my grandparents had called the place.
He patted the back of my hand, then reached for the shake. He jammed the straw into it, then took a sip.
His eyes widened, and he looked at the shake like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. “That’s …”
“Good, right?” I grinned. “They use fresh berries.”
“Good doesn’t even begin to describe it,” he muttered, then stuck the straw back in his mouth.
I grabbed my own shake, pleased as punch that I’d chosen the right thing for my mate.