Chapter 17 #2
Miranda sighs. “When my mom was sick, I was sure she would never die. Even at the worst of it all, I just refused to believe there would be a day when she wouldn’t be in my life. But a year has passed. The grief doesn’t disappear, but you have no choice but to keep moving forward.”
Her words make me look at her. Her arms are around my neck, her cheek against my shoulder. “How did you do it? With everything you were going through, how did you not just give up?”
Her eyes get a distant look. “My mom asked me not to give up. There were times when I wanted to. There have been times I’ve been dangerously close to it.”
Something cold moves through my chest. My wolf goes still, then alert, snarling at the idea of her being lost to me before I’d even found her, and for a second, I can’t trust my voice.
She lets a sigh slip through, oblivious. “I get tired of everything sometimes. I just want to hide from the world.”
My hand tightens around her arm. “Even now? With me and Ethan?”
Her lips part, a complicated emotion entering her eyes, and she looks away, her voice quiet as she says, “Not so much now.”
We sit like that in silence, my heart soaring a little to know that our presence makes her feel safe and secure.
“Do you like my home?” I suddenly find myself asking.
“It’s nice. I already told you—”
“But is it to your liking, your taste?”
Miranda lets out a small laugh. “Why does my taste matter?”
Her laughter fades when she meets my gaze. “It matters, Miranda. Can you see yourself living here?”
She swallows. “I like the isolation, the proximity to the forest. I like your grounds. I like the quiet here. So yes. Maybe I could.”
I smile at her.
She looks away, but the tips of her ears are red.
The sun is in the sky now. I help her up. “Come on. Let’s go inside. Ethan will be awake.”
We walk back together, and it seems the distance between us has shortened. “What were you doing out here anyway?”
She glances at me. “I woke when you left. I thought you went for a walk, and after a while, the idea seemed nice, and I just decided to do the same.”
My eyes flit toward her. She’s become quieter in these past few days. I did think it was her no longer worrying about survival, but what if it’s something else?
“Are you okay?”
She blinks up at me. “What?”
“You haven’t said anything about any of it.” My hand comes to settle on her arm. “You’ve been through a lot in a few days, Miranda. And you’re not acting like yourself. I mean, if you don’t snap at me once or twice during a conversation, I’m going to worry.”
She huffs a tired sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “I don’t know how I feel right now. It’s like I’m suspended in a moment, and I just don’t know when it will end.”
“In a bad way?” I ask tautly.
She purses her lips. “No. I guess not. I’ve just always been running after the next thing, the next loan repayment, the next bill, the next hustle to make sure I can cover some expense. Suddenly none of that is important, and I don’t know how to feel about it.”
I give her a grin. “Relief?”
She lets out a gust of air. “For this peace to shatter.”
I go still and then turn her around to face me, my hands on her shoulders. “Miranda, everything is fine now. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
She just bites her lower lip and looks away. “You’ve never lived on the edge, Grayson. The idea of being content, of being happy and safe and secure is a dream.”
“It’s not a dream any longer. You’re free, Miranda.” My voice is firm, my grip on her tight.
She meets my gaze. “But now I’m indebted to you. No matter what you say, that feeling doesn’t change.”
“After what you’re doing for me and Ethan, no you’re not.”
Once again, her gaze diverts, and it upsets me. The woman I’ve known never felt small in my presence, never felt she couldn’t stand toe to toe with me. I thought paying off her debt would give her relief. But instead, it’s done something to her confidence. And I don’t know what it is.
“When does it become real?” Miranda suddenly asks, pulling away from me and continuing walking toward the house. “Our first declaration in a fully public setting?”
“This weekend. There’s a friendly game on Saturday, and once it’s over, I’m going to come to you and kiss you in front of everyone.
” When I look her way, her cheeks are flushed.
“Before that, we’ve got two team sessions this week.
You’ll be at both of them. The photos of you on the sidelines need to land first, in context.
The article and the photo from the restaurant are already circulating.
By Saturday, the puzzle pieces will click together when the announcement goes out at the game. ”
“This is so complicated. Why can’t we just tell people we’re engaged and be done with it? Why are we dancing around the topic?”
I grin, putting my arm over her shoulders casually. “Because this is how it’s done. Vanessa has stirred dangerous waters, and this is the only way our kind can combat her.”
The words our kind slipped out, and I stiffen.
Miranda’s step falters under my arm for just a second.
She doesn’t respond, though, and I hope she doesn’t think too deeply about it.
Just when I’m beginning to relax, as we reach the patio, she stops at the door with her hand on the frame.
Her expression has shifted into something more cautious when she turns to face me.
“Is Ethan like you?”
Frowning, I ask, “What do you mean by that?”
“Strong, the way you are.” The words are chosen carefully. “Fast, like you.”
It clicks for me, and my chest tightens. So it didn’t exactly miss her.
“Yes.” My voice is quiet. “He’s like me.”
She nods to herself, like she’s filing something away. While I wait for the next question, the obvious one, the question that could destroy everything, it doesn’t arrive. Her eyes stay past me, toward the trees.
“Does that change anything?” The question comes out as level as I can make it. What I’d do if she said yes, I don’t know.
She’s quiet for a long moment.
Then she shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t.”
That answer loosens something in me, and I don’t trust myself to respond.
So I open the door for her instead.
The rink is loud.
Skates carve on ice, sticks crack against pucks, and the steady rhythm of practice fills the building. Coach is running us through cycle drills, and the team is putting in real work for the first time all week.
For my part, I’m putting in real work for an entirely different reason.
Miranda is at the boards. She’s wearing a button-up shirt, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, a clipboard tucked against her side.
Pretending to focus on the medical observation list isn’t going well for her.
Every time I score, her head lifts. When I check someone, she winces.
The pretense that I haven’t noticed lets me score three goals in twenty minutes.
The team has noticed too.
“Fiancée’s watching, Wolfe.” Brody whips past in a tight arc. “You gonna keep showing off, or you gonna pass the puck?”
“Try keeping up,” I shoot back.
“I’m pacing myself.”
“That’s what slow people call it.”
Samuel cuts in from the left and bumps my shoulder. “He’s been doing this all morning. The team is embarrassed for him.”
“Your shot percentage is what’s embarrassing.”
A wounded sound escapes him as he skates off.
Of everyone on this team, only Brody, Samuel, and Eric know the engagement is a fiction.
The rest of them believe it’s real, and they’ve been brutal about it since Miranda walked in.
Three different teammates have already offered me unsolicited advice on rings, honeymoon destinations, and what to do when a woman wants to redecorate.
None of them have been punched yet. I’m calling that an achievement.
Another thing none of them have done is point out that she’s human. If Coach accepted her, then that means they do too.
Eric glides past on the way to his goal, helmet pushed up. “If you score on me one more time today, I’m filing a grievance.”
“Then file it.”
“I will.”
“With who, exactly?”
“Your fiancée over there.” He grins. “She seems reasonable.”
“You’d be wrong about that.”
Brody howls from the other side of the rink. Coach blows the whistle to bring the noise down, and we reset. Winning the next faceoff cleanly, I thread a pass through three players to Samuel, who buries it in the corner. Looking at the boards isn’t something I need to do. I can feel her watching me.
Practice runs ninety minutes. We cool down. The team peels off toward the locker room in the usual cluster of jokes and threats. As I skate to the gate and pull off my helmet, Coach is right there.
“A word with you, Wolfe.”
I follow him. He leads me past the bench and into the tunnel, just inside the shadow where the corridor opens off the rink. We come to a stop. He turns around, and he isn’t in a hurry to speak.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He studies me a moment.
“When you told me Ethan adored her, I didn’t realize the extent of it.” His voice is careful. “I’ve seen him with other pack members.” His pause is deliberate. “I’ve never seen him react to anyone the way he reacts to her.”
Because she’s his. The thought rises before I can shut it down. Pups know their parent’s fated mate before the parent does. They feel it through the bond. Mine recognized her in a park before I recognized her at all.
My face stays still.
He watches me a moment longer. Then he steps past me and claps a hand on my shoulder as he goes. The touch is light, firm, familiar.
“Be careful, Grayson.” His voice drops, meant for me only. “Be very careful, son.”
My body freezes.
Coach is already walking. The hand is gone. He’s moving down the tunnel toward the locker room at the same unhurried pace he uses for everything, while I’m standing in the half-shadow trying to remember how to breathe.
Does he know?