Twenty-Three
Wyatt
Spring melted into summer, and i settled into routine in coyote creek.
the intensity of the spring faded as the weather got warmer.
there were still plenty of animals that needed care: a horse that threw a shoe, a cow with a fever, and all the newborns that needed their checkups and shots.
and, of course, there were plenty of personal pets that needed tending as well.
god knew dogs got into more garbage and stuff as they spent more time outside, and there were plenty of skunks around to mean that tomato juice was flying off the shelves at the grocery store.
cats required their shots, and both types of pets needed solutions for fleas and ticks, just like the bigger animals.
I saw off Mrs. Wilson with her chattering chihuahua for what felt like the fifth time that week, barely holding my nose as she headed out to get yet more tomato juice. Stupid dog didn’t seem capable of learning to leave the strange black-and-white striped creatures alone.
I threw open the window in the exam room.
My lunch break was next, which would give the space time to air out.
I was working out of the little clinic Vern had at Sunny Acres—an old barn he’d converted.
It worked wonders; he’d left a couple of stalls from the barn, which meant we could conduct exams on bigger animals when the farmers could get them up to the clinic.
The day was a warm one, near to the end of May, which meant it had been almost three months since I’d arrived in Coyote Creek. I peered out the window, breathing in fresh air, watching the leaves of the massive old oaks fluttering in the breeze.
A bark nearly startled me out of my skin, and I glanced to my left to find Cam trotting down the laneway in his fur.
I almost slammed the window shut in my haste to book it out of the clinic.
“The hell are you doing,” I snapped at him.
Coyotes weren’t exactly a common sight in the middle of the day, and he didn’t usually take the risk of running around in his fur at this hour.
Someone might have called animal control or, worse, simply decided he was a problem they needed to deal with right then and there.
“Relax,” he said as soon as he’d shifted.
I rolled my eyes and tossed him my lab coat. He shrugged it on, then continued up the steps to the house. I followed, folding my arms, still waiting for an explanation.
He marched upstairs to my room and raided the stash of clothes he’d stored in the dresser. I leaned against the doorframe. Vern was out on calls. Probably would be for most of the afternoon.
I glanced at my watch. “I have a patient at two,” I told him.
He whirled around, clapping his hands together. “As fun as that would be,” he told me, “that’s not why I’m here.”
I frowned. Cam showing up unannounced for anything other than a booty call was pretty much unheard of. “Did someone die?”
He almost tripped down the stairs. “What? No. God, do you have to be so morbid?”
“I mean …”
The floorboards creaked as we crossed back into the kitchen. Cam produced his phone, then slid it across the counter to me. “Check it out.”
I peered at the screen for a second, then looked back up at Cam. “Yeah? It’s a house.”
“Not just any house,” Cam said.
“Fine,” I conceded, glancing back down at the screen, registering a few more things—it was a webpage, clearly on a realtor’s site. “It’s a house that’s for sale.”
“It’s our house,” Cam said.
I frowned. Then I looked up at him again. “Cam … I know you think vets make good money and all, but I just graduated. I have a mountain of student loans. There is absolutely no way anyone is giving me a mortgage.”
I pointedly didn’t mention that he didn’t even have a job. It was something I’d been wondering about, but I hadn’t really had the courage to ask him about it yet.
Cam frowned. “Who said anything about a mortgage?”
I stared at him for a full minute. Then I said, “That’s usually how you buy houses.”
He tilted his head, then looked back down. “Huh. Uh. Well.”
I waited. Then he said, slowly, “Cal said it was covered.”
I almost fell out of my chair. “You let your brother buy you a house?!” I roared.
“What? No! I asked Cal about my …” He trailed off, waving a hand. He seemed to consider. Then he leaned forward, putting an arm on the table. “We’ve owned that ranch forever, Wyatt.”
“So?”
He took a deep inhale. “Okay. Where to start? Uh. So my great-great-great-great-great …” He paused, counting his fingers. “I think that’s enough greats.”
“Get to the point, Cameron.”
“My ancestors,” he said, “one of them was a doctor. And he and his wife bought up a lot of the land around here, back when the government was selling it stupid cheap. You can ask Aunt Caroline about it, or Cal, next time you see one of them. Anyway—the point is my family’s been landowners for a long time.
They let logging happen on the property back in the day, then had cattle.
More recently, we’ve sold off some of the land, but the point is—uh. There’s … a lot of money.”
I pursed my lips and stared at him. “You’re rich?” I asked finally.
He scratched the back of his head. “I guess? I mean, I had to ask Cal how much was in the trust fund—”
“You have a trust fund,” I squeaked.
“We all do,” Cam said. “Cal, me, all the brothers. I think Aunt Caroline had one too—her daddy, my granddad, gave her the ranch where her and Aunt Karla live.”
“Oh,” I said simply.
“Surprise?” Cam asked, smiling. “Uh. So. Yeah, I asked Cal if … if the trust fund would cover the house, and he said there was no problem.”
I screwed my eyes shut. I tried to take deep, calming breaths through my nose. My head felt light, like it was going to float right off my shoulders. “You have a trust fund,” I repeated, even as dark spots danced across my vision.
“Yeah,” Cam agreed.
“And you just … bought a house. Like straight-up bought it, no … down payment or …”
“Wyatt?”
I slumped into one of the kitchen chairs. It seemed like I’d forgotten how to breathe; I couldn’t get enough air.
“Are you okay?” Cam asked. When I glanced up, he was kneeling in front of me.
“No. No, I’m not okay.” I drew another shaky breath. “You just told me you …”
Cam pressed his lips together. Worry clouded his eyes. “Is … Are you mad at me?”
I screwed my eyes shut and clutched at the table. When I was sure I wouldn’t just pass out, I shook my head minutely. “Just … shocked. People don’t just … most people can’t just …”
Cam was silent. I sighed, looking away. “I just wish you’d, uh, mentioned the whole trust fund thing earlier.”
“Didn’t seem important,” Cam offered, slowly getting back to his feet. He pulled out one of the other chairs and sat down.
I crunched my brow. “Kinda is,” I muttered. I wanted to ask more—like how much Cam had actually paid for the house, how much was left in the trust fund if anything at all—but that seemed nosy. It wasn’t any of my business.
Was it? We were mates or whatever. Was that like … being married? Did that mean I was Cam’s spouse? Did that give me a right to ask about his money?
It didn’t feel right. And it didn’t feel right that Cam had just up and bought a house.
Our house, he’d said. I swallowed, then lifted a hand to dash tears from my eyes before they could fall.
“Wyatt?” Cam’s voice was quieter than I’d ever heard him before.
“Yeah?”
“Are you … feeling okay?” He was watching me with keen eyes, that worry still etched in them. He sank his teeth into his lip, like he was hesitating. Then he said, slowly, “You’ve been kinda … off.”
I wanted to bristle at the idea he knew me well enough to know when I was “off.” We’d only known each other for three months.
At the same time, it was almost soothing to know that, in the span of three months, Cam had come to know me better than almost anyone on the face of the Earth. I could feel him through the bond. It had taken some getting used to, but the sensation had only grown stronger over time.
It wasn’t like I could read his mind or anything, but I could feel him.
At first it had only been strong emotions—like the first time we’d fucked after he’d bitten me, and I had felt the overwhelming heat of his love.
Or when he’d gotten angry at Cal a few weeks later.
I’d been out on a call, and quite suddenly, there’d been heat in my chest like the worst case of heartburn I’d ever had.
I’d had to step away from what I was doing, because I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
More recently, I’d been able to feel gentler emotions too—sadness, kindness, even silence.
I had no doubt that Cam could feel me through the bond. He was probably more sensitive to it, being a shifter and all, so who knew how much he’d sensed?
And he had to know I was perpetually, low-grade worried about how I was sick and tired (literally) all the time.
Maybe he didn’t know what was causing my concern, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t had plenty of opportunity to witness me suddenly clapping a hand over my mouth and rushing out of the room, or trying to breathe through the nausea or going to bed at nine o’clock whenever I could.
I’d been trying to excuse it as just being overworked and stressed about money, because, hello, student loans and paying rent and shit, but …
“I’m fine,” I said, then offered him a wan smile. I reached for his phone, trying to summon excitement. “Why don’t you walk me through our new place?”
Cam grabbed the phone back, unlocking it and dragging up the slideshow. “Isn’t it great? It’s not the biggest, but y’know, I don’t think we need a mansion or anything, and this one is cute. And it’s not too far from here, actually, so it will make it easy for you to commute.”
I could practically see him wagging his metaphorical tail. Cute. He was so goddamn cute. I felt a smile soar across my face as I watched him scroll through the pictures, happily explaining each different room, then detailing what he was going to do to renovate the place.
Between a couple of the bedrooms, he glanced up to meet my gaze, and I said, “So when do we get to move in?”
Whatever he was going to say next died on his lips, and excitement bloomed in his eyes. “Uh—well. I … I kinda wanted to get the bathroom and the kitchen remodeled before, but …”
He scratched at the back of his neck. “We could move in any time, as long as you don’t mind sawdust and paint fumes.”
I chuckled. “It can’t be worse than the smell of cow,” I told him. “How about the twenty-first?”
“Of June?” he blurted.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s my birthday.”
“Your …” His eyes—no, his entire expression—lit up. “Your birthday!”
I nodded minutely, and I swore, I could see his coyote ears pricking up and his tail thumping. “I gotta get you a present!” he cried.
I pointed to the house on the screen, slowly fading to black. “You did.”
He glanced at the phone, then back at me. “A better present,” he declared, and I flushed, curling my toes in my shoes.
Slowly, I got to my feet. “I gotta get back to work,” I told him. “Next patient will be here in five.”
He stood, pocketing his phone. “I gotta go sign some papers,” he said. He reached for my hand, squeezing it tight. “Let’s do dinner?”
I shook my head. “I’m working late tonight.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Saturday,” I said, knowing tomorrow was likely to run late too.
“Saturday,” he agreed. “I’ll take you someplace nice.”
“Sally’s is fine,” I said.
“Someplace with champagne,” he was saying as we stepped back out of the house.
I shut and locked the door, then rocked up on my toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Sounds nice,” I told him. “I’ll see you later.”
With that, I headed back to the clinic.