The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (5 page)

While they ate their respective breakfasts in
the corner booth at the back of the restaurant, Callie said, “You
know what I was thinking about the other day?”

She speared a wedge of French toast and asked
what. Callie's fork rested on her plate and she folded her hands
together, “I was thinking about the first time that you came to my
defense. In school, when we were in second grade.”

Cadence smiled and the scene played through
her mind quickly, like an old movie. She had known Callie since
preschool, but had not been friends with her. She was still very
much an outsider, even at age 7 in second grade. Wandering away
from the wall where she was spending recess holding it up with her
shoulder, she heard someone crying and went to investigate. She
found Callie on her knees with her head down, and three of the
bigger wolf girls standing around her, taunting her. Cadence didn’t
know what they thought she’d done to be treated so poorly, but
protectiveness for her rose up fast and she ran to the biggest girl
and shoved her. She stumbled back a few steps and Cadence stood in
front of Callie in what she hoped was an aggressive stance like
she’d seen some of the wolf boys do, and said, “You leave her
alone, Alice!”

The two girls with Alice gave Cadence nasty
looks as Alice growled, “Who do you think you are, mutt?”

“You leave her alone!” Cadence said it again,
bristling at the term “mutt”.

Alice shoved her hard and because Callie was
behind her, she tripped over her and fell onto her back. Renee
worked at the school at the time, as a teacher’s aide and lunchroom
monitor, and she had appeared suddenly and helped Cadence up. Her
tone was all wolf when she said, “What is the matter with you
girls?”

“She started it.” Alice sniffed.

Callie whined, “She did not you jerk!”

Renee gave a little shake to Alice’s arm and
said, “You don’t pick on your own, Alice.”

“The mutt’s not one of us.” She sniffed and
her two friends joined in.

“That’s enough. Go on and play or I’ll have
to speak to your fathers.” The girls walked away without another
glance and Renee helped Callie off her knees and gave long looks to
both of them. “You two go on and play.”

After that, they’d been joined at the hip.
There was safety in numbers, and they were fortunately in classes
together so they were as close as two kids could be.

“I was so glad when Alice and her cronies
left to go to that other pack in Tennessee after graduation. She
was such a bitch.” Cadence said, finishing up her plate.

“Yeah, me too. Did I ever say thank you for
that? No one ever stuck up for me before. Or believed I was worth
anything much.”

“You mentioned it a few times over the years,
Cal. You were my first real friend, too. It would have been much
harder for me if you weren’t in my life.”

After her fourth cup of coffee, Grey, the man
who had bought the restaurant from her father's estate and was part
of Jake’s pack, came up to the table with a large cardboard box
with numerous styrofoam boxes in it. "Hey, darlin'. Drop this off
at the garage, would you?"

Cadence raised her brow over her coffee. "Do
I look like a delivery girl?"

He sighed. "Come on, I'll comp your
meal."

"You comp all my meals." She pointed out,
irritably.

"I'll comp Callie's, too. Please? I'm
shorthanded and the lunch rush is going to start. I'll owe you."
She would have rather stayed to help serve lunch, honestly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Tell me why
everyone is acting so strangely towards me since I got back."

He went pale and swallowed loudly. "What are
you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. Chris is
hitting on me, I'm getting weird eyes from Jason's pack, and Jake's
fit to be tied about everything I do."

His lips pursed and she could hear his teeth
grinding together. "I can't honey, I just can't. It's nothing bad,
but that's all I can say. That's all anyone can say." He glanced at
Callie who darted a look away.

"You guys fucking suck." She motioned him
away and groused at Callie over her coffee. After a trip to the
bathroom, Callie and Cadence drove to the garage. Cadence carried
the box in after Callie hopped out and disappeared around the back,
forcing her to go inside alone. Michael was leaning over the
counter expectantly.

"Sweet. Did Grey guilt you into bringing it
over?"

She nodded, sliding the box to him. "Hey, do
me a favor." He said digging into the box and pulling out a box.
"Take this to Jason, so I can deliver the rest of this stuff."

"Nope." She turned to leave and he
begged.

“Please, Cades. It’s just a box. It’s not
like I asked you to deliver military secrets to China.”

Just a box. Yeah, and a Harley was just a
bicycle. “You could have delivered it yourself in the time it took
to argue with me.”

“So could you.” He arched a brow at her.

She gave up eventually, because Michael was
very persuasive when he wanted to be, and annoying when he set his
mind on something. She grabbed the box, stalked down the hallway to
Jason's office and tried to ignore her hammering pulse and suddenly
sweaty hands. Without knocking, she opened the office door and
Callie yelped in surprise and then looked guilty. She was around
the side of the desk by his chair, leaning very close next to
him.

Cadence stared slack jawed at the two of them
for a long moment, absorbing her guilty and flushed face and his
blank face. Jason cleared his throat. “Is that for me,
Cadence?”

Cadence chuckled, and it came out sounding a
lot more upset than she intended it to, because she wasn’t even
sure why she was upset. She mumbled an affirmative, dropped the box
on his desk, and walked away without another word. Something about
the whole situation bothered her.

She walked out to her car, ignoring Callie as
she called her and Michael as he said goodbye and when she opened
the car door and Callie was standing in the door of the garage she
realized what her brain had been trying to tell her. Was it
possible that Jason and Callie were together?

“I gotta run, Callie, I’ll...catch you
later.” She had to clear her throat twice. Callie didn’t protest as
Cadence drove off but she did look hurt. Her brain filled up the
silence in the car with more thoughts. This was why everyone was
acting so weird? Because her best friend was screwing the love of
her life? Callie knew her feelings for Jason and she had been
fucking him? Cadence felt like her heart was being squeezed in a
vise.

When she sat in the drive in front of her
house and turned off the engine, she listened to the errant train
in her head and then growled at herself. She was stronger than
this, wasn’t she? If Jason and Callie were together now, then she
could be happy for them. Couldn’t she? Didn’t she want Callie to be
in love and find a husband and have babies? Didn’t she want Jason
to be happy? He was so moody and brooding, he deserved a little
happiness, even if her own was leaking away fast.

Her cell phone buzzed and it was Callie. She
didn’t want to talk to her. Not right now. She went into the house
and turned off the cell and unplugged the house phone because the
near constant ringing was getting on her nerves. Burying herself in
her pillow on the bed, she let herself feel bad and be all pathetic
for a while, and then she shook all that off. She had survived a
childhood with a drunk father who thought wolves were the devil
incarnate and had made her feel like she was some unholy spawn and
not his own child. She could get over this. She would. Even if a
part of her was dying inside, she could put on a tough front and
not let them know that she was aching and falling apart. Her heart
was shattering in the wake of the idea that Callie and Jason were
together, even if it wasn’t confirmed.

She loved Callie like a sister, but the
thought of her in Jason's arms poked holes in her façade of calm.
She shoved those thoughts aside like a bad dog begging for table
scrapes and drifted off into a restless sleep.

Staring into her closet before work, she
impatiently shoved the hangers back and forth before finally
settling on black jeans, Harley boots, and a fitted tank with a
silver dragon that stretched from one side around to the back.
Almost the polar opposite of what she’d worn the night before, her
teasing, sexy attitude hadn’t reared its head because she was
feeling a little more broken than she had been when she’d driven
into town.

She wanted to be able to pretend that she
could handle seeing Callie and Jason together, so she steeled
herself as she walked into the bar, prepared to watch him with his
arm around her, whispering in her ear all the things that she
wanted him to whisper to her. When she put her hands down on the
bar top and let her gaze drift across the crowded bar to the table
where Jason and his closest friends were sitting, she was surprised
that Callie was not sitting next to him. Jason met her eyes and she
wanted to believe that there was love in the depths of those pretty
blue eyes, but the little nagging voice in her head reminded her
that Callie and Jason together explained a lot of what had been
happening since she got to town. Callie telling her that she had
choices – she meant choices other than Jason. Chris telling her
that she could choose a pack, he meant Jake’s because the only
reason she would choose Jason’s pack was for Jason. Sure, she loved
Michael, but in a completely non-sexual way. Like a lamp. She loved
him, but didn't want him like that.

For one shining moment, she let herself sulk
in pity at losing the man she’d loved for nearly her entire life,
and then went to work. Drinks flowed and the clink of glasses
against the bar top like something of a song, and although she was
not nearly as flirty and fun as she’d been the night before, she
buried herself in work.

It wasn't long before Callie came up to the
bar. "Cadence, can we talk, please?"

She gave her blank face. She could be civil
but she didn’t want to have any soul baring conversations right
now. "Did you want something to drink?"

She looked like she was going to cry. "Cades,
please, tell me what's wrong."

She ground out, "I said I'm working, Callie."
She walked away trembling and tended to others that were waiting.
Eventually, Jake pulled her aside. "What's bothering you? It's like
someone sucked all the life out of you. Where's the ballsy girl
that knocked Bruce backwards with my baseball bat?"

She sighed. "I don't know, Jake, I just, too
much is changing. I thought that I knew what I wanted and it's like
I have no idea anymore." She wasn't sure she could tell Jake that
she didn't know how she would handle Jason and Callie together, if
they really were. She was afraid to ask anyone for confirmation,
because if she was right and they were together, then that meant
everything she'd loved was gone in a blink. She could get through
it, get over him eventually, she hoped. But it would take time.
Lots and lots of time. For now, it felt as though her heart had
been cracked into a million pieces.

"Look, I'll tell you something I should have
told you a long time ago. You either fight for what you want or you
roll over and take what's given to you. You do have choices. There
is always a choice." Again with the word choice. She nodded at him
and went back to work, very thankful when she had nearly zero
interaction with Jason's wolves although she was very aware of
exactly where he was all the time.

All night she felt like she was being watched
intently from the direction of Jason’s booth, but every time she
looked that way he wasn’t looking at her and by the end of the
night she was beginning to think she had a serious screw loose.
Chris and Brett appeared to walk her out when Jake decided he’d had
enough of her not being her normal self, whatever that was. The man
couldn't be pleased no matter how she acted. It was before closing
and she was relieved to go. She wouldn't have to think about the
bar again for another week, although she would have to face
everyone at the bonfire.

"Come on, sweetheart." Chris pulled her
against him, his arm around her shoulder, and walked her out with
Brett on her other side. They talked about the bonfire, and she
said she didn't think she was going to go. "Of course you are."
Chris said. "It's the first one since you're back in town. And plus
you owe me a dance."

"Chris." She protested, blandly.

"Nope. I'll even pick you up. How's that
sound?"

She gave him a narrowed look and he held up
his hands. "I swear it's on the up and up. Come on, I'll bring you
flowers. I even know your favorite."

"Do you?" She was curious now. A few guys in
college had sent her flowers but no one had ever gotten her
favorite right.

"Yep." He grinned and wiggled his brows at
her and she felt one of the very tiny cracks in her heart heal a
bit. Chris, was he a choice that Jake had referred to? Chris didn't
like her that way, did he? Why now? Why this time when she'd come
home? Because she was not leaving, although she hadn't decided that
officially, or was it more than that?

"Okay. But it's not a date."

He pretended to be insulted. "Of course it's
not a date. I wouldn't take you to something ridiculous like a
community bonfire at my dad's house for our first date. Give me a
little more credit than that, sheesh." He leaned down and gave her
a lingering kiss on the cheek and said, "I'll pick you up at
8."

Brett gave her a quick kiss and they both
disappeared back in the bar once she was locked in her car. She did
notice when she pulled out of the parking lot that Callie and
Michael were outside, talking quickly, gesturing angrily.
Whatever.

She finished painting her room on Sunday, a
pretty taupe brown color with a little pink in it, that matched the
new comforter and curtains from Bed Bath & Beyond. She had
calculated and bought enough paint to paint the entire inside of
the house and she was determined to do it no matter how long it
took. It was kind of like exorcising her father’s demon from the
house and making it hers. Painting over the eggshell white of the
master bedroom and replacing all the furniture had been the first
part in making the house her own and making it into a real
home.