Chapter 1 #2
Amber, frankincense, and the scent of palo santo surrounded her, clearing her head. She stepped over the line of salt and padded through the darkened shop to the back counter. Aggie would still be sleeping. That last round of chemo had been really rough on her.
Which was why Jena had come back.
She moved about the cramped shop, gathering the next batch of items to take photos of.
Tourist season wasn’t what it had been, and with Aggie so sick, it cost more to keep the doors open than closed.
Online sales were the only thing keeping the shop her mother had started with her best friend afloat.
That and the paycheck Jena wasn’t getting anymore.
She scowled. The smart thing to do would be to sell off the inventory and the building.
They could use the proceeds to pay the back taxes and settle Aggie’s medical bills.
It was a historical property, and if they hit the market right, there might even be enough capital to get her some decent hospice care.
Yeah, the smart thing. Jena’s scowl deepened.
She’d been here for the past two weeks with that intent.
Instead, she’d been bagging groceries to buy time for the miracle to happen.
What exactly that was, she hadn’t a clue, but every time she went to dial a realtor she felt like she was gonna throw up.
Jena sighed, arranging tinctures against a makeshift backdrop. Whatever. It would be what it would be until it wasn’t anymore. She pulled her phone to snap a pic and upload it to the website, then cross posted to their storefront on a bespoke crafter’s site and The Witchery’s socials.
And as of right now, what it was definitely wasn’t smart.
Chase hefted the roast into the back of his mother’s SUV and closed the hatch, trying to control his wolf.
How Jena Seymore was even better looking than he remembered…
she’d always been pretty, but all her curves from high school had filled out and blossomed into something he seriously wanted to sink his teeth into.
And damn, those bright green eyes. He raised his ball cap just long enough to wipe the sweat from his brow.
What a firecracker. The way she’d sashayed out the door after putting his mother in her place? That sass was just the gravy on top.
His mother had more than deserved it. He’d been rightfully suspicious when he’d heard she’d been doing the grocery shopping herself these past two weeks.
He’d also known he should keep his distance from the curvy little witch, but curiosity had finally won out, and offering to help his mother pick up the roast had just solidified her motives.
Now that she’d gotten Jena fired, he knew damned well Ginny would be the one picking up vegetables.
God, his mother was a bitch. Why she couldn’t leave Jena alone—Christ, he wasn’t gonna be able to leave her alone after seeing her.
Knowing she was back in town had been making his wolf crazy enough, but now?
His urge to protect her—Jesus, just to be near her—had blown into overdrive.
The last time he’d seen her…He needed to apologize—for everything—and make sure she was okay.
Thankfully, she’d left her sweater behind.
It’d give him the perfect opening to talk to her.
Hopefully she’d talk to him after that fucking stunt he’d pulled.
He closed the trunk, his mind made up as it thunked. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Mary Montgomery turned to look at him like he’d just sworn in church. “What do you mean you’ll catch up with me later? Who’s going to help me unload these groceries?”
Chase shook his head. Unbelievable. Because she didn’t have a house full of servants waiting upon her every whim and his two younger brothers to muscle this crap inside. “I dunno, ask Patrick or Luke. I’ve got some stuff to do at the office.”
“But it’s Saturday! I don’t understand why you—” His mother’s eyes narrowed, then flicked to Cups at an abrupt chorus of feminine laughter.
She swallowed a smile that was far too lupine.
“Oh. Of course, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Don’t be late for dinner…and you know, there’s always room at the table for one more. ”
His inner wolf growled at the suggestion, and he curved a palm around the brim of his cap, pulling it lower as his mother got in her SUV and drove away.
The way his parents had been harping on that lately was gonna push him over the edge.
If he heard about his damned responsibility to mate and contribute to the pack one more time…
“Chase!”
He slowly turned, already knowing what he was gonna see.
Crystal, Becky, and his younger sister, Sue, decked out like this was Aspen.
They sat around one of the little round tables in front of Cups with their frapa-whats-its.
Christ. Dealing with their mean girl squad this early was gonna be straight-up painful.
He blew out his cheeks and crossed the street without looking, praying he’d get hit.
No such luck, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna improve as he pulled out a chair and flipped it around to sit. Last thing he needed was for Crystal to take it as an invitation to crawl into his lap, or his bed.
Again.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, glad he didn’t remember most of that. “Ladies.”
“It’s so funny that you’re here, we were just talking about you,” Crystal bubbled, fondling her straw. She wet her bubblegum pink lips, eyeing him like breakfast.
Hard pass, and there wasn’t a goddamned thing funny about any of this.
“Yeah?” he drawled. “How so?” Chase stared at his sister, and she didn’t return it.
Pack dynamics aside, why she was always sucking up to Crystal…
Sue had actually been a decent person at one point, but lately that’d gone out the window.
The little conniver had set him up. She’d known he was gonna be here with their mother.
“The Samhain festival this Friday…are you going?” Becky asked, her eyes flicking to Crystal patting her blonde updo with a smug smile on her face.
Shit.
“Isn’t everyone?” he asked, picking at a chip of white paint peeling from the table. He knew exactly where this was going and wasn’t about to jump on board.
Becky blinked at him. “Well, yeah, but, Shaun is taking me, and Kenny is—”
“I’ll probably head over with the guys,” Chase said, pointedly not looking at Crystal as he stood. “I’ve gotta meet a contractor at the office,” he lied. “See you at dinner tomorrow, Sue.”
She cringed and gave a little nod. Smart girl.
She knew she’d stepped in it, and they were gonna have words later.
What the hell was up with her lately? She knew damned well there was no way he was taking Crystal Chambers anywhere—especially not anywhere it’d be construed that they were a thing.
That drunken hook-up had set enough tongues wagging, and he sure as hell hadn’t been the one to broadcast it.
Especially not to his goddamned mother.
Crystal moued at him. “Will I see you later, too?”
“Probably, it’s a small town,” he said, putting the chair back where he’d gotten it from.
Their heated whispers followed him across the street, and he rolled his eyes.
Yep. He was a prick, and nope, he wasn’t gonna realize she was perfect for him.
Chase gritted his teeth as he stepped through the grocer’s sliding glass doors and made a beeline to the register Jena had been working at.
Nice, her sweater was still there. He picked up the bright blue bundle, fighting the urge to bury his nose in it as he turned to leave—
“Ah, Chase, a moment?”
Sal. Chase sighed as the troll came over to him.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” Sal wrung his hands, the sweat on his brow glistening in the overhead florescent lighting. “But I didn’t know what else to do. Your mother—”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about it. I appreciate you doing me a favor and hiring Jena.”
The grocer took a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing. “Honestly, I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did. This town doesn’t forget.”
Chase grunted, but that was a load of shit. It forgot everything that didn’t fit the damned narrative, and Jena had been as much of a victim as the rest of them. She hadn’t done anything to deserve the way people treated her, then or now.
Especially him.
He clapped Sal on the shoulder and used the side door to leave, picking up the faint trail of Jena’s scent down Main.
Granted, Chase didn’t know all the details, but he did know that her father had been into some shady shit and ruined Jena’s family name.
Before the warlock had come into town, they’d been guardians of the node of magic outside of town and were as prominent as the Montgomerys—Eastside or West.
Then people’s memories got fuzzy, and who the hell knew what really happened.
But it’d resulted in the smoldering ruins of their manor and the node falling to shit without someone maintaining it.
Everyone was still up in arms about Jena leaving instead of shackling herself to the thing, but Chase couldn’t blame her.
Not after how they treated her when her mom died.
He bit back a growl remembering Jena as a little girl with tears streaking her face, glaring around Aggie Wright’s skirts.
He ran a hand over his stubble as he turned onto Cross Street.
He couldn’t have been more than seven when it’d happened, but the visual still hit him like a fist. Christ, all he’d wanted to do was tear the throat out of whoever had made Jena cry, and the urge had never left him.
He raised the sweater to his nose, and bit back a groan, her scent triggering his mating pheromones.
Letting that fly was dangerous for them both, but damn, his wolf wanted to roll around in it.
Chase wanted to do a hell of a lot more than roll.
Jena was his—had always been his—though she didn’t know it, thanks to this town’s stupid vendetta against her family.
The only way he’d been able to keep Jena safe from his pack when they were younger was by keeping his distance and standing down.
He swore, thinking about that night that’d almost outed him—God, he’d been a fucking asshole—but if they’d gotten even an inkling that she was his mate…
Chase ran a heavy hand over his face, not looking forward to the shit show brewing, but he’d be damned before they kept her from him for another goddamned minute.
He’d deserved it, but her leaving the first time had almost killed him, and now that she was back, he wasn’t gonna let her go.