11. Juniper #2
Lord, he was imposing. Something about the way he carried himself, the sway of his shoulders, and the confident stride made him seem bigger than life.
Also, the sheer power of his alpha aura was enough to make everyone stop talking and take notice.
I hadn’t truly noticed it earlier given the stress of the situation, but now?
He was like some ancient wolf god walking through his empire.
“Afternoon, June,” he said.
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. “Uh, hi. Is something wrong?”
He grinned as he shook his head. “Nothing wrong. I only wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me in my cabin.”
All the women shared a look, their eyes wide. Even Linnea looked startled.
Not wanting to seem ungrateful, I said, “Sure. Yeah. That sounds nice.”
His grin broadened, and he winked at me. That simple gesture was somehow both friendly yet explicitly intimate, and it sent a barrage of butterflies swirling in my stomach. Oh my.
“Great, I’ll see you in, say, an hour?”
“Okay,” I said, grinning back at him.
Without another word, Levi turned, nodded a greeting to the other women, and departed.
“That was weird, right?” I said once he was gone.
“Levi always eats alone,” one of the other women said, a scowl on her face. I was pretty sure I’d seen her with Eugenia earlier in the day.
“That’s true,” Linnea admitted. “He takes his dinner in his cabin every day. Rainier joins him now and then, but as far as I know, no woman has ever had dinner with him.”
Heat rushed to my face. All I wanted was to get out of there.
“Maybe, uh, maybe I should head back to my room,” I suggested. “Clean up before dinner, you know?”
Linnea nodded. “Probably a good idea. I need to go help Sarah with dinner anyway. I’ll see you later tonight.”
“Sure.” On my way out, I noticed several women were whispering and glancing in my direction.
An hour later, I stood on Levi’s porch, my stomach twisted into knots.
Within seconds after my knock, he opened the door and gave me a knee-weakening smile.
Behind him, I spotted a neatly set table with cast iron pots and pans sitting on wooden trivets.
The smells wafting toward me made my mouth water.
“Come on in,” Levi said, stepping aside.
As I stepped inside, Levi put his hand on my lower back and guided me farther into the room. That soft, innocent touch sent a warm jolt of pleasure through my skin, which tingled all along my lower back and up to my shoulders. I had to force myself not to gasp or turn to look at him.
The cabin was pleasantly warm, thanks to the fire crackling in the fireplace. Most of the electric lights were off, and the ones that were on gave the space a cozy vibe.
“It smells good,” I said, hanging my coat on a hook near the door.
“Good timing. They delivered it about five minutes before you got here,” Levi explained as he lifted a large glass bottle, holding it up for me to see. “Wine? I wasn’t sure what you liked.”
“That sounds great, actually,” I said.
Levi pulled my chair out for me and laid a napkin across my lap, his fingers grazing my thighs. His warmth seeped into me, leaving trails of pleasurable fire across my legs. He might have looked like a hulking lumberjack, but he was a gentleman. He popped the cork, poured me a glass, then sat down.
“Sorry, we don’t have any stemware,” he said, gesturing to the heavy glass tumbler I held.
“Wine is wine,” I said with a smile. “Doesn’t matter the glass.”
Levi lifted the lids on the pots and pans. Linnea had been right. A pile of breaded and fried chicken pieces sat on one pan, the roasted brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes in another, a pan of freshly baked biscuits, and the beet salad she’d told me about. To my surprise, it looked really good.
“We don’t judge here,” Levi said. “Go ahead and dig in. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
Something about the way he said that word, the way he looked at me, made me think he wasn’t just talking about food. I cleared my throat and tried to shove those thoughts away. That was ridiculous. I was reading into things that weren’t there.
My stomach growled, so I put a bit of each dish on my plate, then decided to start with the salad. Much to my surprise, it was fantastic. The vinaigrette was seasoned, which complemented the earthiness of the beets, and tanginess of the blue cheese.
“Oh wow,” I said.
Levi grinned. “It’s good, right?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” Levi said as he spread butter on a biscuit.
“What would you like to know?”
He gazed at me for a beat, then said, “Something simple to start. What’s your favorite color?”
“That’s a weird question, but okay. Purple.”
Levi nodded along, but something in his eyes told me he had been expecting a different answer. Strange.
“What was it like growing up in Idlewild? What did you do for work there?”
“My grandparents own a little secondhand shop. They sell a bit of everything. Vintage clothes, knick-knacks, furniture. Anything people don’t want that they can turn around and sell. I help out there.”
“Did you like it?”
I opened my mouth to answer but couldn’t come up with an appropriate response. Was it what I loved? No. Did I enjoy helping my family? Yes. Would I rather do something else for a living? One day, maybe.
Rather than go off on some deep existential tangent, I simply said, “It’s a job. I like helping my grandparents.” I paused, hesitating to say more, but I was here for this man’s help. Why not tell him everything?
“I suppose you could say it was nice. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get back there. Unless you’re able to help me.”
Levi’s lips curved. “It must have been bad. The way things went down, I mean. I know you told me what happened, but for you to be out here? It had to have been a tough decision.”
“It was my only decision,” I said. “I’ve got maybe a month before I need to figure out what to do about my grandparents.
I love them so much, and my friend is helping out for now, but she has her own life.
She can’t be saddled with the responsibility of assisting two people as they grow older.
I need to learn to shift, so Ander will take me as his mate. It’s as simple as that.”
“Nothing in life is ever simple,” he said, that same sad half smile on his lips.
Sighing, I took a sip of wine, then glanced around. “Speaking of not simple, this whole place is incredible. What made you want to start it?”
Levi leaned back in his chair, eyes tilted toward the ceiling. Finally, he sat forward and chuckled lightly, as if thinking of an old joke. “I kind of fell into it, I suppose.”
“Fell into it?” I said, smirking at him and taking a bite of food. “Creating a village from scratch isn’t like ending up in the restaurant industry.”
“Fair,” he said with a nod. “I guess it was close to eighty years ago when I started. I’d been living in the woods as a wolf.
I’d built this cabin,” he added, gesturing to the building we sat in.
“but that was only to have shelter in the winter. I found a young woman out in the forest one fall afternoon. She was sobbing; I shifted and approached her. She told me her mate had been killed by a jealous man who wanted to claim her as his. The murderer was her alpha’s brother, and she didn’t think she would ever get justice.
She couldn’t face living her life with the man who killed the man she loved. ”
“That’s awful,” I said. My situation was bad, but it was nothing like that.