The Wolf's Mate Book 3: Callie & The Cats (29 page)

After three dresses, Lisa chose a cute dress
in holly green with a sash at the waist and some rhinestone
accents. She began to try on shoes when Callie's cell phone buzzed.
She expected it to be one of the boys checking up on her, so she
answered without looking at the screen, “Wedding Central.”

“Callie?”

“Oh, hey Cades. What’s up?”

“I thought you were going to call me when you
got settled in Indiana?”

Oops.
“I’m sorry, Cades. We’ve been
super busy since we got here. I did intend to call you.”

“Okay. Well, we haven’t gotten a wedding
invitation, and I was just wondering if you’d set a date yet. You
said spring, but it’s already almost spring.” Shit. She hadn’t even
included them in the invitation mailing. Just showed where her
pregnancy brain was right now.

“Well, we’re set for May 1, at a small chapel
in town. Are you and Jason interested in coming?”

She sounded offended. “Of course. You’re my
best friend, Callie, not to mention that you’re Jason’s cousin.
We’d all like to come.”

Her mouth went totally dry. All of them. Like
the pack? “We who?”

“Um, me and Jason, Michael, Linus and Karly,
and Bo.”

She frowned. “If all the upper ranks are
here, who’s going to handle pack business?”

“Peter will. Jason already talked to him
about it. And Linus’ mom is going to come up to watch the baby for
them. And it’s just for a couple nights. We could come to your
rehearsal dinner. Is there a decent hotel around?”

Everything in her world narrowed to what
Cades was saying. She hadn’t expected them to come. She’d thought
Cades offered reflexively because they were friends, and she
suddenly felt badly that she didn’t consider Cades her best friend
anymore. Did that make her a bad person? Felt like it. As aware as
she was that Peter, Tina, Jason and Michael were part of her
family, they were distant cousins. And in all honesty, although
they provided the support she needed with the pack, it wasn't as if
they were all one big happy family.
They
were, but Callie
was just the orphaned girl that needed a place to live for a few
years.

At one time, the pack had consumed her every
thought. Since she left and met the boys, it was as if that time
was buried far back in her memories. And in all truthfulness, she
had actually not given the pack a second thought when she was
making her plans and now six of them wanted to join them. And for
the rehearsal dinner no less!

She fudged the details slightly, “We’re going
to mail out invitations this week. I’ll send four of them, one to
Peter and Tina even though they won’t come. We’re having our dinner
that Friday, and of course you’re welcome. I’ll make sure there’s
something in the invitation about the rehearsal dinner so you can
let me know for sure one way or the other.”

Lisa took that moment to say, “Are these
shoes too high to stand in all day?”

“Who is that?” Cadence said defensively.

“Lisa, my,”
shit!
“matron of honor. I
just picked out my dress and she’s trying on shoes.”

There again was the deafening silence. “I
thought I would be that for you. You were my maid of honor.”

“I’d like you to be a bridesmaid, Cades, if
you’re interested. It’s just a small wedding, and Lisa and Rhett
have been so good to us. Besides, I wasn’t sure that Jason would
want you to walk down the aisle with their brother Alek who is
their best man.”

She sounded stiff and unhappy. “What are your
colors?”

“Dark green and black. You don’t have to do
this, I’ll understand.”

“No, it’s fine. I wanted to let you borrow my
mother’s bracelet for your “borrowed” thing, like I wore in my
wedding. I want to be there for you, Callie. I want you to have
your family with you.”

Her frown felt like it took over her whole
face, but before she could tell her that she already had her family
– she was surrounded by them – Cades said, “I have to go. I’ll keep
an eye out for the invitation. Love you!”

Callie stared at the phone. Lisa sat down
next to her, “I can step down, you can let your friend be your
matron.”

“No, Lisa, no. I asked you because you’re
important to me and there’s no one else I’d rather have with me
than you. To be honest, I completely blanked on the pack. I think
the babies are making me a little nuts and forgetful.”

Lisa smiled gently and dropped the subject
for which Callie was grateful. They headed to the mall and got her
wedding lingerie, which included white satin panties, a garter belt
and white stockings. While they were there, she got a cute black
baby doll to wear to bed that night, but only Eryx got to see it.
Right after they sat down to dinner, Ethan got a call from their
father that he’d like some help at the boarding house, so he left
the two of them alone for the first time in several weeks.

Eryx ran his hands along her back, over the
satin of the babydoll, after they made love and he cuddled her into
his chest.

She was already sleepy; it had been a long
day. And the times when one of them could get her alone, it seemed
like they were more patient to bring her pleasure so that by the
time they came, she was wrung out and hung up to dry. Not that
she’d complain. She could remember her times as a teenager, having
sex and not really enjoying herself, wondering what all the fuss
was about. Maybe it was Ethan and Eryx's age and being more
experienced. Maybe it was because they were lions and they truly
cared about her pleasure. Or maybe she knew her own body well
enough to help them bring her to pleasure. Not that they needed
directions anymore. They could both send her spiraling into
pleasure with a few well placed touches, and it seemed like the
further along she got, the more sensitive her skin became. And
they’d definitely noticed.

She was nearly asleep when Ethan climbed into
bed. He made an annoyed sort of sound and she felt his fingers
graze the baby doll. “Damn, what did I miss?”

“Take the morning off. She bought it for both
of us anyway,” Eryx yawned. He shifted her off his chest so she was
cuddled between them and she wriggled and woke up enough to yawn
and grab for Ethan’s arm, which he gave willingly and cuddled
behind her.

She woke up slowly with feather light touches
on the inside of her thigh. She recognized the mouth right away,
but even if she hadn’t, Ethan kept his hair slightly longer than
Eryx’s so that it tickled when he leaned over her. She yawned and
stretched, shifting under him. One of her legs was across his waist
and the other tucked behind him, and he was kissing softly across
her belly and running the tips of his fingers on her legs.

“Morning, beautiful.” He smiled, “I’m sorry I
missed you last night.”

“You can stay home today?”

He hummed in his throat, “Yes, I am all yours
today. In fact, Lisa has gone running errands with the kids so we
have the house to ourselves and we can be as noisy as we like.”

“Do you like it when I’m noisy?” She ran her
fingers through the soft dark hair at the side of his head.

“I love it when you can’t stop your reactions
to me, because you're feeling so much.”

He gave her a long look with his dark grey
eyes and she felt her heart swell at the love she saw in the
depths. They made love and took their time, reveling in the
emptiness of the bed and the quiet of the house. Afterwards, they
showered and dressed and went for a walk around the farm. It was
simple and sweet, and they held hands as they walked in the still
chilly March air.

She confessed her worries at having the pack
at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, and how she’d felt about
Cadence's insistence that the pack was still her family. After a
few quiet minutes passed, Ethan stopped walking along the tree line
and pulled her into his arms.

“You’re our family, Callie, and we’re yours.
You left the pack for a reason and Cadence has forgotten what that
was. If you want them to be there, then we’ll make room for them.
The winery can just move us into the larger private room. But if
you don’t, then don’t feel guilty. You can close that chapter of
your life to start this new one with us. But it’s your decision.
Whatever you want, Eryx and I will both support you. You have to
know that.”

“I know,” She sighed into his chest and drank
in the scent of him. She felt selfish for wanting to walk away from
that part of her life when it seemed like Cades was nearly
desperate to see her. Maybe this could be closure for her like
Ethan thought.

Even though it went against her better
judgment, she had Ethan change the reservation to include six
wolves at the table for their rehearsal dinner at Caske Winery and
she mailed off invitations to the people she’d grown up with. She
crossed her fingers that it wouldn’t come to bite her in the ass,
even as she was fairly sure it would.

Chapter 21

**Ethan**

It was moving day. Again. Finally. Fucking.
Finally. He was looking forward to laying Callie down on their bed
in their new home and making her scream all night. He was pretty
sure she hadn’t forgotten how to be noisy those few times that
Uncle Rhett’s house was empty, and more than once in the last
couple of weeks, she’d appeared out on the farm in the afternoon
wearing a skirt with nothing underneath and wanted a quickie. Food
aversions aside, they were all enjoying her increased sexual
appetite thanks to the pregnancy.

It was a week until the wedding, and they
were just waiting for Eryx to get off work so they could carry
their kitten across the threshold together. She was bursting at the
seams to get into the house to see everything. They’d managed to
keep her out the last two weeks while they moved furniture in from
another storage barn on the farm. Besides the hooker-red couch and
the king mattress from his room, coupled with a four poster bed
that they purchased just for her, they hadn’t needed to buy
anything else except an extra large kitchen table and chairs.

When Eryx finally pulled up in front of the
house, they walked back together with Callie between them and then
he swung her up in his arms and Eryx angled his arms under her as
well and she groaned, “You guys make me feel like a whale!”

Eryx shushed her with a grin, “It’s
important, love.”

She smirked and made the motion to zip her
lips and they carried her across the threshold of the home that was
several months in the making. They put her down gently and she
kissed them both and then with a happy sound and a clapping of her
hands, she moved around the downstairs and looked excitedly at
everything. She loved the kitchen and he couldn’t wait to cook for
her.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs that led
up to the second floor, she pulled her sweater over her head and
hung it on the banister and said, “We have to christen every room
in the house. Let’s start with the bedroom.”

They raced to her and followed her up the
stairs and carried her again over the threshold of the most
important room in the house. And then they made love all night.
First, in the master, and then the master bath, and then she
cajoled them downstairs to the kitchen to eat a late dinner which
they promptly worked off, spreading her on the new kitchen table
like a buffet and taking her as hard as she demanded.

He and Eryx both called in sick the next day,
and they finished christening the downstairs, and then the stairs
themselves, and then they spent the rest of the day pampering their
kitten and talking together. It was one of the best days they’d had
in the many, many great days since Callie had come crashing into
their lives.

On Wednesday, when Eryx headed off to work,
Ethan cuddled for a while with his sweetheart and then got up and
made her breakfast and brought it up to her in bed. She picked at
the food and settled back under the covers.

“Sweetheart, can I make you something else?”
He smoothed the hair back from her face.

“I’m just sleepy, Ethan.”

“Everything will be fine this weekend,
Callie.”

She gave him a steady look and then closed
her eyes in a final sort of way and he took the cue to just leave
her to her thoughts. If he’d learned anything about her over the
last few months it was that if she wasn’t ready to talk about
something, she wouldn’t. “I’m going to clean up downstairs. I’ll
save this plate for you, for later.”

He kissed her temple and left her in the
bedroom, shutting the door and heading downstairs. He cleaned the
kitchen, wrapped up her plate, and then got dinner prepared. He
knew from what he’d heard learned from the humans that they’d
befriended over the years, that for most marriages, the men worked
outside the house and the women handled the meals and the cleaning
and the laundry, even if they also worked. He didn’t really
understand that. He got great joy out of taking care of their
family. Even though Callie did her fair share, or rather as much as
he and Eryx would allow, he preferred to take care of her because
he loved doing it.

He got beeped for the ambulance and answered
the call, which he hoped would be a quick one. He changed into his
uniform and left a note on the pillow for his sweetheart for when
she woke up. He hated leaving when she was asleep, but he was on
call today and although there wasn’t much that happened in this
little town, he was kept busy. Several hours later, he stopped in
the station to turn in the beeper. He only had one more shift and
then he was off until after their honeymoon.

“You talked to Callie lately?” Eryx looked up
from his desk.

Ethan leaned in the doorway. “Not since I
left this morning. She was asleep so I left a note. Why?”

“I called a while back to see if she wanted
to get lunch with me, but she didn’t answer. I’ve been trying every
15 minutes.”