But he’d decided, in some clearing in the Manzano Hills, that he was going to find his mate. He needed to get around more werewolf women. He’d spent so much time not being Dee’s mate, and then not seeing Paige. If there was a wolf out there for him, he was going to find her. Or else, he and Paige were going to have to have a serious talk, and it would probably involve a lot of babbling about mushrooms, and he just didn’t know if he could do that to her.
All for some feeling that Fate might be drawing them together. Might.
“You staring at my ass for a reason, cowboy?” the girl asked, a bite to her tone.
Adam looked up into her eyes and saw the same nip there. “I was just thinking.”
“About my ass?” She raised a brow at him.
He wasn’t certain whether she meant that as a come-on or not. Werewolves were a strange bunch. Every pack handled their wolf-ness a little different, and all four of the families who had gathered had their quirks. The New Orleans wolves seemed to not have any qualms about open-talk when it came to sex.
There was a time and a place for that.
“I wasn’t thinking about your ass.” He held up his hands. “Promise.”
“Maybe you should’ve been.” She wound her hair around in her hands and secured it on top of her head. “You’re the younger VonBrandt brother, right?”
“Adam.” He held out his hand to shake it.
“Yes. I remember you.” She offered one hand. “Aria LeBlanc.”
“Are you with Francis?”
She nodded and glanced up toward the house, as though the very word made her check for her alpha. Some enforcers were very tuned-in like that.
“So, why weren’t you checking out my ass?” Her smile almost twinkled.
With a laugh, he followed in the rhythm of her footsteps and they moved toward the house. “I can stay back here and do that, if you’d prefer.”
“No need. If I have to ask you to look at my ass, you’re probably not my type to begin with.” A smile was obvious in her voice, although she was walking several steps ahead of him already.
He tipped his head to one side. She did have a point. He hadn’t needed the encouragement to look at Paige’s ass.
Another few wolves came out of the trees pulling at clothes and zipping zippers. Adam looked, instinctively, for his sister and brothers. One of the girls gave him a little wider smile than the other two.
He cleared his throat and tried out his best host voice. “Y’all have a good run?”
Two of them kept walking and ignored him completely, but the smiley girl slowed down and yelled over, “You’ve got beautiful country here.”
“Wish I could claim responsibility for that one,” he said.
Aria glanced over her shoulder from far in front of him, taking long steps, and rolled her eyes, but Adam waved her off.
“You must be the sheriff?” The smiley girl offered her hand. “I’m Gretchen Price.”
Adam took her hand. “Actually, I’m his brother. Younger.”
“That’s a strange name.” Her laughter rang out across the empty yard and one of her companions turned around, giving her a head shake.
“No, my name’s not younger,” he said. “I am younger. My name’s Adam.”
He dropped her hand. She was pretty, too. In a different way than Aria had been. More like a girl-next-door look, where Aria had a touch of the sex-kitten. Was he into sex kittens? Or girls next door?
He tried to remember back to when he’d first met Dee, and they’d first slept together. She’d been such a horse person, he’d felt a connection with her immediately. Maybe that had been it.
“You’re Adam?” asked one of Gretchen’s companions. A short girl with chestnut hair, she waited for them to catch up to her and offered Adam a handshake. “Jessa. I’m Phillip Quade’s granddaughter. Dee told me you come up to Tulsa for the rodeos.”
He couldn’t help a small smile, and was tempted to look up into the sky, or wherever Fate lived and give them a wink and a nod. Maybe if he asked for a million dollars, it would drop into his lap.
A quick glance down at the handshake reminded him of how electric the air had been between him and Paige the first time he’d touched her. Adam pulled his hand away from Jessa and kept walking between the two beautiful women.
He didn’t feel anything. Not for any of them, and he’d even seen Aria’s bare ass. Maybe if he’d seen her tits instead.
“She said you breed horses,” Jessa said.
Both she and Gretchen watched him, like there should be some answer to that statement, but Adam just shrugged.
“I have some good stock at my ranch, but most of the breeding we do is for the family herd.” He thumbed back toward the barn. “That’s what all the trips to Oklahoma got me, anyway.”
The two El Paso women exchanged a look in front of him. Dee had obviously let something slip. Although, wolves were known to be horny after a long run. Maybe they wanted a little something.
Adam waited for his flirt to kick in, but he just couldn’t turn it on. By the time they’d reached the house, Jessa had practically thrown Gretchen in his lap.
The guy who had been walking with them had staked a claim possessively on Jessa, and Aria was nowhere in sight.
Gretchen was beautiful, but… He couldn’t make himself turn his focus on her.
He ushered them all into the kitchen, where they dug around in the fruit bowl. “We’ll have some pastries here in just a bit. Meg is a baking genius, let me tell you.”
He stopped himself from continuing, when Paige’s face cropped up into his mind. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to think about Paige for awhile. Adam was just going to try to see some of these she-wolves who were here for the run, in case Fate decided to pull something.
Go ahead and pull something, jackass.
Gretchen and Jessa had taken up a conversation about the best pastries in El Paso, and the male wolf turned an orange over and over in his hands. The door opened behind him, and Aaron stepped into the kitchen with a big smile.
“How was everyone’s run this morning?” he asked.
Adam didn’t answer. Didn’t even meet his brother’s eyes. He knew Aaron wouldn’t like the idea of him sidling up next to all the single females in a hundred yard radius, but he was running out of options.
“That’s great to hear,” Aaron was saying in response to something Jessa said. But he pinned Adam with his sharp, alpha eyes. “What about you? I didn’t see you all night.”
“I was on the south ridge, by myself.” He grabbed an apple and walked around the kitchen island.
“You know what that means.” Aaron waggled his eyebrows like a cartoon coyote. “Sulking. Might as well get a glass of Scotch and stare out the window.”
His brother laughed raucously at his own joke, but the three strangers in the kitchen thankfully didn’t find Aaron’s joke funny. They smiled politely, but Aaron kept laughing.
“You need to talk to me later, Adam?” Aaron picked through the fruit and selected an orange, tearing into the skin with his bare fingers. The sharp citrus scent that filled the air grounded Adam.
“I’m fine.” He tried to ignore his brother, but Aaron tossed part of a peel at him.
“You’re not fine. I heard all about it from Tonya.”
Adam rolled one shoulder and opened his mouth to answer, when a perky young blonde woman opened the kitchen door and smiled shyly at all of them. She had the kind of deferent humility that he’d always noticed in Paige. A quietness. A depth.
When she tried to sneak past them, he tossed the orange peel back at his brother and followed her. Another target. And one that made him think of Paige, so maybe the bond thing would be transfer-y.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” He almost smacked his forehead at the idiocy of his opening line, but he was desperate. Didn’t have much time before everyone hit the hay to rest from the run, and not long after that, the families would be gone. He’d never taken the time to introd
uce himself to all the single ladies in the packs before, but after Dee got mated, and then Paige…
He needed to know.
The blonde passed him a shy smile. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m Adam.”
“Cami,” she said without turning around.
“I haven’t met you before, so I just wanted to introduce myself.” He extended his hand toward her retreating back.
She stopped in the foyer and crossed her arms. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got to get upstairs before I fall asleep. Runs make me so tired.”
“Me, too.” Adam let loose his best flirtatious smile to set the poor girl at ease, but she was still a little edgy. Reminded him of Paige. Eyes on the ground, something going on in that noggin.
“I really should be going.” She edged toward the stairs, but he put out a hand to stop her.
He just needed to shake her hand. That had been when he’d known with Paige. So maybe if he could get his skin on Cami’s skin. Maybe that’s when it would happen.
The doorbell rang and they both jumped. The smell of warm pastry seemed to seep through the door and wrap him in comfort. Must be Berg with the kolaches.
“Hang on, just a sec,” he said, keeping the hand up. “My friend is stopping by from a local bakery. You’re going to want to try this.”
Adam kept one eye on her, from the side. He couldn’t afford to lose his chance. Maybe if he could get one of the gooey pastries out of the bag and put it in her hand, he could accidentally touch her skin and see if he felt anything.
When he opened the door, instead of his big baker friend, he caught a noseful of that smell and an eyeful of red hair. He froze as the warm, familiar sense of home curled around him.
“Paige.” A slow grin spread across his face.
Even though she was cramping his werewolf matchmaker style, he couldn’t deny…he was happy to see her.
* * *
Adam greeted her with a smile that almost made her forget how he’d turned tail and run from her the night before.
“I didn’t know you made deliveries.”
“Berg is home sick,” Paige answered quickly. Heat crept up her neck and no doubt her face was beginning to flush. She needed to drop this order and get out of here before she embarrassed herself. Or started crying. Or both.
“Here.” She thrust the bags into his arms and turned around, steeling herself against taking off in a full-on sprint for the car. She didn’t need to run. She shouldn’t feel like she needed to flee, but she did. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to ask him why and then he’d think she was a rambling clingy chick who thought a kiss meant more than it did.
It’d just been a kiss. Nothing more. He probably kissed girls all the time. That thought made her stomach churn. The image of his lips on another woman threatened to break her right there on his porch.
“Paige, wait.”
She kept walking.
He spoke with someone at the door and then she heard it shut.
Her relief was short-lived. Footsteps pounded the pavement behind her and she sped her pace a little, trying to reach her car before he caught up.
“Paige. I’m sorry.”
She reached her car door and yanked on the handle, but it didn’t open. Sometimes the old thing got stuck.
“Paige, please.” He was next to her, reaching for her.
He touched her shoulder and she jumped. The spark was still there and it hurt because she wanted him so much.
“Sorry? For what? Breaking my heart? Or stomping on it, with an excuse like being too fast or too old for me? I get that I’m not blonde and gorgeous and supermodel tall, but I didn’t deserve what you did.” Shit. Did I just say that? She slapped a hand over her mouth as tears burned in her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just don’t want to be the douche that takes advantage of a situation.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
She kicked a rock with her booted toe and looked over the top of her car, across the field. Two figures moved in the distance, catching her eye. They looked very similar to the wolves she’d thought she’d seen on her property two days ago. They trotted toward the barn behind the house and then…one second they were wolves…then the next second they were—PEOPLE! Naked people.
She gasped for a breath and managed a half-wheeze-cough. “I guess it wasn’t the mushrooms.”
“Mushrooms? What are you talking abou—Fuck!”
Silence surrounded them for a millisecond before Adam exploded with action. He snaked an arm around her waist and carried her around to the passenger side of her car. His other hand dug into her hip pocket, retrieving her car keys.
Before she could say a word, he’d stuffed her into the passenger seat and was climbing into the driver’s seat.
* * *
His heart raced like a Derby frontrunner. He wasn’t sure what had made him carry her off, but it’d been all instinct. Every extremity in his body pulsed with adrenaline, blood and fear.
Fucking Dee and her fucking mate. Shifting out in the open where everyone could see them. Gods. What was he going to do?
The gate opened in front of them and he turned onto 16, trying to slow his breath. He glanced to the side, afraid of what he might see, but Paige wasn’t crying or flipping out. Shit, he was freaking more than she was.
She bit her fingernail and stared out the window, shaking her head in little bursts and fluttering her eyelashes. Seeing wolves become people hadn’t seemed to faze her like he’d expected it would.
“I don’t get it,” she finally said, keeping her eyes turned away from him. “You stop kissing me and say it’s moving too fast—which I never said, by the way, so I don’t know where you got that idea—and then when I come to your house and see some weird shit on your lawn, all of the sudden, you’re making my decisions for me like I belong to you or something.”
Adam’s heart bumped against his chest. You do belong to me, something urged him to say, but he couldn’t. He sure as shit hadn’t thought about any of this before it’d happened. He was way too tired to make any proclamations like that right after a run. “I had to take you off the ranch, and it had to be right away.”
She shook her head and sighed. “You’re a confusing man.”
“My goal in life.” He tossed a hundred-watt smile, hoping to ease some of the tension, but she just kept shaking her head.
“Why did you have to take me? Those wolves turned into people. You didn’t have to protect me from them. They weren’t going to hurt me.”
He let out a long, slow breath. There was only one way to do this, or she might secretly dial nine-one-one and accuse him of kidnapping her. Allan wasn’t on duty because of the run—who knew which of the deputies might answer that call and throw him in jail.
“Well, you’ve seen it twice now, so I guess I can’t hide it from you anymore.” He put on his turn signal, then thought better of it. He was turning into his own house. He couldn’t do that. The first place Lee and Miles would go was his house. At least, he could stall them. Who knew if they even saw what Paige saw. Or if they were even back to the security center, returned from the run.
He wasn’t sure how much time he had, but he needed to make the most of it.
“We need to talk about this somewhere, can I take you to your house?”
“I’m at work today. I have to go back to the bakery. I assumed that’s where you were taking me.” Her eyes went wide. “I have to go back. I still have four hours left on my shift.”
“I need you to call in sick.”
“I can’t call in sick!” She threw her hands up. “Like you own me or something? Come on, Adam. Just take me back to the bakery.”
Adam pulled the car to the side of the road, shifted it in to park, and turned in the seat to face her. “Okay, here’s the thing. Werewolves are real. I am one. Our secret is hidden from humans, and our security team probably knows that you’ve seen us shift. So I have about thirty seconds to con
vince you to go somewhere private so I can think about this, or our security guys will find you and erase your memory. They’ll go deep, Paige. They’ll take it all. And I can’t let that happen to you.”
He waited, breathing in tandem with her as she stared at him. He had never really taken the time to study her eyes like this.
Looking for some signal of emotion in those deep pools of green-gold…he could fall into them and be home.
Her quick breath drew his attention to her mouth.
“Fine. I’ll call in sick.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out her phone. With a few quick strokes, she had dashed off a text. “I told her my car broke down and I had to call a tow truck. Hopefully, we can have all this fixed in an hour and I can go back to work.”
Adam almost laughed just to break the tension as he pulled back out onto 16. He’d been to her house, now, so he knew where she lived, but he was still uncertain about how long they could stay there.
Whatever happened, it would be more than an hour, and she certainly wouldn’t be going back to the bakery until he could do a little damage control.
Chapter Seven
His one salvation was that there was a good chance Lee and Miles wouldn’t be able to figure out who she was. It wasn’t like they had face recognition software or any Army shit like that. They were just a couple of guys patrolling boundaries and watching security cameras.
Adam hustled around Paige’s house, locking doors and windows. He had to make the house secure. On the off-chance that Lee or Miles did manage to figure out who she was, he didn’t want any surprises.
He had to find somewhere else to take her.
Hotels were out of the question—he only had credit cards, and if they figured out her name, they’d be looking for her name, too. His only hope was that Lee and Miles would assume he wasn’t stupid enough to be at her house. He’d hidden her car around back, by the horse barn. If they came from the road, they might assume the house was deserted, and move on.
To Find a Mate: Somewhere, TX Saga (VonBrandt Family Book 4) Page 5
