by Dakota West
“This is a beautiful spot,” she said, still in the entryway. “I never realized that this house was even up here. You’re perfectly hidden from the road, but you’ve still got a great view.”
“Yeah, I think we hit the jackpot,” said Elliott. “Here, come inside. Shane made appetizers. Can I get you anything to drink?”
They walked into the kitchen, and Shane turned around.
“Welcome to our house,” he said. “This is where the magic happens.”
Did you really just say that?
Greta laughed, her curls shaking a little.
“It smells magical in here,” she said. “What is all this?”
“Lamb, asparagus, stuffed mushrooms.”
“And there’s cheesecake for dessert,” added Elliott.
Keeping Elliott out of the cheesecake had been a chore. At one point, the other man had suggested slicing a centimeter from the top, so that they wouldn’t be able to tell they’d eaten some. Shane had threatened to padlock the fridge.
Greta’s mouth dropped open.
“Wow,” she said. “I can’t wait.”
She looked down at a wooden box in her hands, then held it up.
“I brought cocktails,” she said.
“That’s cocktails?” asked Shane.
“It was a gift,” she said. “And I’ve finally got the chance to use it. It’s an Old Fashioned kit. I think the idea is that, if you’re a fancy person, you get invited to all sort of soirees, and if you want to make your mark on society, you need to be able to craft the perfect Old-Fashioned at a moment’s notice.”
“So you’ve been blazing through the upper echelons of Rustvale,” said Elliott.
He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, looking totally at home and relaxed.
“Well, most of the echelons of Rustvale strongly prefer Coors Light,” she said. “So this little kit has been unused so far. You guys want to try?”
Elliott took boxes off the other half of the kitchen counter, walking a stack of them to a different corner of the kitchen, and Greta set up shop right next to where Shane was standing. He could feel her heat, and he closed his eyes and just inhaled her scent: spice, leather, and just a hint of something floral.
His wolf growled, but he shoved it down.
He watched as she opened the wooden box, then took out a little bottle of bourbon, a glass jar full of sugar cubes, a bottle of bitters, a little jar of preserved cherries, and an orange.
“The orange come included?” Shane asked.
Greta laughed again, the sound filling the kitchen with her voice, and Shane couldn’t help but smile.
He really liked her laugh.
“Thank god, no,” she said. “This whole thing would be shut from the mold and probably rotted through by now, I’ve had it for years. I think my mom gave me this kit so I’d get some alpha contender drunk and he’d inseminate me, and then I’d have to settle down.”
Her deep blue eyes flicked up to his, like she realized that she’d imparted too much information, too soon.
“My mom can be a little intense,” she said.
Shane smiled down at her.
“At least you got good whiskey out of it.”
He sliced the last lamb chops apart and washed his hands, and then he and Elliott stood around the kitchen as Greta made cocktails.
As much as he liked food, Shane had never put too much thought into his drinking, beyond enjoying it from time to time. Making an Old-Fashioned was really a whole process, though. Shane watched her crush sugar cubes with a wooden stick, then pour bourbon over the whole thing, squeezing the orange into it, then adding a cherry.
“The box doesn’t have ice, either,” she said. “You guys got some?”
Shane and Elliott looked at each other.
“Did you find the ice trays yet?” asked Shane.
It was basically a miracle that they’d gotten as much of their kitchen gear unpacked as they had.
“I don’t think so,” said Elliott. “Maybe the last people who owned the place left us some, though...?”
He opened the freezer and reached in. For the past couple days, they’d mostly been eating frozen burritos while they unpacked, so he had to push aside a whole pile of them before he could get to the back.
“You’d think a gourmet chef like yourself wouldn’t have a freezer full of microwave dinners,” Greta teased. She swirled one of the drinks in a little tumbler that had also come with the kit, then perched an orange wedge on the side.
“You’d be surprised what a gourmet chef is willing to eat when he’s dead tired from unpacking all his mate’s books,” Shane said, ribbing Elliott just a little.
“I don’t have that many books,” said Elliott, shoulder-deep in the freezer. He made a face as he jammed his hand between two burrito mounds, then grinned.
“I’m pretty sure they left an ice cube tray,” he said.
He pulled out a small, ugly, metal tray, his fingers sticking to it a little.
“Victory,” he said.
Greta took the tray from him and plopped two ice cubes into each tumbler, then handed them out.
“Here’s to winning at tic-tac-toe,” said Shane.
Greta frowned, then laughed.
“You didn’t win,” she said. “We tied.”
Shane just shrugged.
“Cheers,” Greta said.
They all took a sip, then smacked their lips for a moment, considering the cocktail.
“This is good,” Elliott said.
“It is,” said Greta. “I was skeptical of a cocktail in a box, but I think I like it.”
“Let’s go sit in the living room,” Shane said.
They hadn’t been able to unpack the living room in time, so they’d found some tablecloths and covered all the boxes with those. Elliott had commented that it made their house look like a funeral parlor, but Shane thought that was probably still better than nothing, so the cloths stayed.
One couch faced a fireplace, and a cozy fire that Elliott had spent a good chunk of the afternoon building crackled inside. Greta sat in the middle of the couch, and Shane sat on one side. Elliott brought the appetizers in from the dining room, then sat on her other side.
“So,” Greta said, swirling her drink in her glass. “Did you guys just come back for jobs, or did you move back for family or something?”
They exchanged a glance over her head.
“I’d wanted to move to Cascadia for a while,” Elliott started, his deep voice flowing through the room. “Oregon wasn’t great.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard other parts can be rough for shifters, especially wolves,” Greta said. Then she shrugged. “I’ve never lived anywhere else, though.”
“We didn’t really mean to wind up here, to be honest,” Elliott said. “It just sort of happened.”
He’s thinking about telling her he’s not working on horse breeding, Shane thought.
Come on. Not on the first date.
“Bad memories?” Greta asked.
Elliott just nodded, looking into the fire for a minute.
“I wish I could tell you that all those guys who beat you up were alcoholics with miserable lives, or had to shovel poop for a living or something,” she said, looking into her drink. “But mostly, they just... are regular guys, now, with regular lives.”
“We were all kids,” said Elliott.
“But they were asshole kids,” said Greta.
Shane just listened, intently. Elliott hadn’t been a big fan of talking about high school with him, and Shane couldn’t blame him. It sounded like a pretty rough time in his life, and by the time he and Shane had met doing a summer job on a farm, the skinny, nerdy, punchable Elliott was in the distant past.
All the same, Elliott almost hadn’t taken the job in Rustvale, but he knew that he might not get another offer like it.
“They made fun of you sometimes,” Elliott offered. “Didn’t they have some game called getta Greta?”
“Oh, god, that was elementary school,” Greta said, shivering. “They’d chase me around the playground and try to grab me, and when I told my parents, they said I should go on a diet so I could run faster.”
She shrugged, then took another sip.
“By high school, the boys mostly pestered other boys and I just had to deal with the mean girl squad.”
She drained her glass, and Elliott looked thoughtful.
“True,” he said. “In a way, I’m glad I just got stuffed into lockers.”
“I got my revenge,” Greta said.
“You spiked their lipstick with arsenic,” Elliott said.
“Itching powder in their underpants during gym,” Shane offered.
“Does itching powder exist outside cartoons?” Elliott asked.
Shane shrugged, and Greta laughed again. The sound made Shane feel warm, right down to his bones.
“Nothing that good,” she said. “I guess life got its revenge. They mostly live in trailers and have four kids now, along with mates who refuse to cook or do the laundry and spend too much time at the Tooth & Claw.”
“And you’re a successful business woman,” said Elliott.
“I’m pretty good at laundry,” Shane added. The Old Fashioned definitely made him feel braver.
“Right,” she said. “I mean, they think that I’m still a failure because I’m not mated and don’t have kids, but you know, I’m happy. I like my life, even if doesn’t have all the things that they think I should want in it.”
Her drink was totally gone, and Shane could see a slight blush rising to her cheeks.
“Shit,” Greta muttered. “That got pretty real, huh? I thought I was over high school.”
“No one ever really gets over high school,” Elliott said.
“Nope,” Shane agreed.
His high school hadn’t been the nonstop nightmare that Elliott’s had, but that didn’t mean he particularly wanted to relive it. Even though he’d been on the football team and everything, he’d never felt cool. Instead he just felt like the cool people let him hang out with them sometimes and would realize their mistake any moment.
“Let’s have more drinks,” Greta said, and she stood, walking back into the kitchen.
Chapter Six
Greta
Okay, Greta thought. Time to salvage this date.
Well, you’ve already talked about high school, disdained women with mates and kids, and told them your mom is a little crazy.
Where shall we go from here?
“You guys want another drink?” she asked, standing in front of the fireplace.
“I’d love one,” Elliott said. “That was delicious.”
“Same,” said Shane, as he tilted his tumbler up to get the final dregs of the sugar cube. “Actually, I think it’s just about time for me to come in there and put the lamb and asparagus on. They don’t take long.”
The two of them stood as well, following her into the kitchen, Elliott bringing the bread and dipping sauce. As he walked, he munched another piece of it, balancing his tumbler on the board.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” Greta asked. She quickly rinsed out the three tumblers, shook them dry, and then plopped a sugar cube into each one.
“The internet, mostly,” Shane said. He got out a pan and put it on a burner, drizzling oil into it. “I’ve always liked food, and when you’re in the middle of nowhere, if you want something you make it yourself.”
“True,” said Greta. “There are days I think I’d kill for some good Indian food. The closest place is over in Canyon City, and that’s a hike. It’s not even that good.”
“Shane makes a mean Mumbai Curry,” Elliott offered.
Shane grinned. “It’s all right,” he said. “It can be hard to find the right ingredients around here.”
Elliott shrugged and ate another piece of bread.
“I like it,” he said.
Greta frowned at him, playfully.
“Save some of that for me,” she said.
“Good luck,” said Shane. “If I were you, I’d stake out a couple pieces now and then defend them with your life.”
Carefully, Greta shook the bitters onto the sugar cubes, added a little water, and started crushing them. Whenever someone ordered an Old Fashioned at the Tooth & Claw — which was rare — she just made the damn thing with simple syrup instead of spending all this effort muddling. She was glad she was doing it the hard way tonight, though. Show off some bartending skills.
She had to do something to impress them, after all, because she’d basically just told them that she wasn’t interested in having mates or kids.
I wish I had a better filter, she thought. I guess I could always think before I speak, but I just never remember.
In the brief silence, she wondered if there was a way to say I’m totally interested in mates and kids with the right people on a first date without sounding like a total lunatic. Her older sister Gretchen had kids, and Greta loved her nieces and nephews.
Her brothers-in-law she could do without, but not everything could be perfect all the time.
As she swirled in bourbon, water, and then the orange slice, Shane dropped the lamb chops onto the pan. Greta turned her head at the loud sizzling sound, and Shane looked over at her, grinning. Smoke rose slowly from the pan, but he didn’t seem concerned about it, so Greta shrugged and went into the freezer for the ice tray.
“Turn the fan on,” said Elliott. Greta handed him a drink and tried to wave the smoke out of her face, coughing a little.
“I did,” said Shane. “I think it’s broken.”
Elliott reached over Shane’s shoulder and hit the switch a few more times. Nothing happened, and smoke kept pouring off the pan.
Greta handed Elliott his drink, set another down by the stove, and put her own on the counter.
“I’ll open a—”
The fire alarm went off, and Greta instinctively covered her sensitive ears with both hands.
“Shit!” Elliott yelled.
Greta leaned over the counter and opened that window, then ran to the back door and pushed it wide. Elliott grabbed a plate and went to stand under the smoke detector, trying to wave the smoke away.
“Do you have a fan?” Greta shouted over the shrill, ear-piercing shriek.
“I don’t know!” Elliott shouted back.
The noise filled Greta’s head, and she felt like her brain was buzzing with the noise. The smoke rushed out of the open door, but it wasn’t going fast enough, and her eyes burned, starting to water.
“What is on those lamb chops?” she yelled.
“What?”
“WHY IS IT SO SMOKY?” she shouted, then coughed hard.
“Sorry!” shouted Shane. “Just a couple more minutes!”
Now Elliott had two plates, one in either hand, and was waving them frantically at the smoke detector.
Mercifully, after a few more moments, the shrieking stopped, and Greta’s ears felt like they were filled with soothing silence.
“Who the fuck puts a smoke detector in the kitchen?” Elliott asked, staring up at the round white object, which was now flashing a pleasant green light intermittently.
“I don’t know,” said Greta. She coughed again, waving her hand in front of her face. Thick smoke still filled the room, but at least that horrible noise had stopped.
“Sorry,” said Shane, still standing in front of the stove with tongs. “My bad.”
Elliott and Greta looked at each other, Elliott with a plate in either hand and Greta holding the door open, eyes itching and burning. She’d always been sensitive to smoke.
“What’s on those lamb chops?” she asked. “Mustard gas?”
For a moment, Shane looked guilty, as he carefully turned a lamb chop over.
“There’s mustard powder in the rub I put on them,” he admitted. “And I’m not used to this stove, so I think I had it up a little high.”
Greta’s nose started running. She looked longingly at h
er drink, still sitting on the counter.
“So you literally just tried to smoke Greta out of our house,” Elliott teased. He walked to the counter and put the two plates down, then looked over Shane’s shoulder at the meat.
“Accidentally,” Shane said. Then he glanced over at Greta for the first time since the smoke alarm had gone off. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ve always been kind of sensitive to smoke, it makes my eyes water and my nose run and everything.”
Elliott picked up her drink and grabbed a napkin, bringing both to her standing by the door, halfway out onto the back porch.
“We can eat outside,” he said. “It’s a nice enough night, and Shane’s pretty much ruined the kitchen now.” His voice had a smile in it, and Greta saw the wink he tossed to his mate, still standing over the stove.
Something in their back-and-forth ribbing made Greta want to never leave this place, or their company. The Rustvale pack did a lot of talking about fated mates and all that, but when it came down to it, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen it in action, and what she had seen left a bad taste in her mouth.
Her sister Gretchen, for example. Both her mates always made a big deal out of stuff like Valentine’s Day or their anniversary, but the other 363 nights of the year, they both seemed content to sit on the couch and watch TV while she cared for their kids and cooked, as if a couple dozen roses a year made up for being a good conversation partner the rest of the time.
Greta wiped her eyes and nose, glad for the semi-darkness of the back porch. She’d gone through the trouble of putting eyeliner on for tonight, but it was probably ruined now.
“New place,” Elliott said. He’d grabbed a dishtowel, and was wiping off their plastic outdoor furniture. “I guess we hadn’t tested out the hood fan yet. We’ll put that on the list of things to fix.”
He pulled out a plastic chair for Greta and made a grandiose gesture toward it, as though it were a throne. Greta grinned, blushed, and sat.
