Now he’d passed all his training and was a full-fledged enforcer, he only attended the weekly sessions, but I made sure to catch every one of those too.
Was my obsession a little unhealthy? Sure was. But it was almost like a compulsion at this point. I couldn’t have stopped myself from watching him every week even if I tried. Which I admittedly hadn’t really done.
“Callie?”
I jerked my eyes away from Wyatt’s broad chest where I’d been staring for the past couple of minutes while my brain went haywire. “Huh?”
Abraham frowned. “What’s going on?”
I shook my head, my traitorous eyes darting toward Wyatt once more. I made sure to keep them away from his gaze though. I’d made that mistake once and was in no hurry to repeat it. “Oh. Uh. Are you ready to leave? We’re already running late.”
Abey’s frown deepened. “Leave?”
I narrowed my eyes at my older brother. “Yes. You promised to give me a ride downtown to the lab. Remember?”
His deep blue eyes widened as realization seemed to sink in. Just as quickly though, he winced and looked down at his desk. “I totally forgot about that.”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Abey.”
He held up a hand. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Callie. I know I promised, but I have an important conference call in about ten minutes that I can’t miss. Can I take you after?”
“No. I only booked an hour at the lab and I’m already only going to get about forty-five minutes of that time because I’m so late.”
“I’m sorry, Callie. I just can’t do it. I promise to make this up to you next week.”
I blew out a deep breath, my shoulders slumping. Not only would I be wasting money on an hour of lab time I’d already paid for, but this would set my research back by a whole week. Which was something I could afford even less.
“I can take you.”
My eyes whipped in Wyatt’s direction. “Huh?”
I was staring at his mouth instead of his eyes, so when his lips curled into a smile, my stomach hollowed inside me. “I said I can take you.”
My head was shaking back and forth before I’d even thought it all the way through. “No, that’s okay.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Yeah, why not?” my traitor brother piped up.
I shot my sibling a glare before focusing on Wyatt’s mouth again. “I don’t want to trouble you. Clearly, you’re busy with Abraham here. I’ll just book two hours for next week.”
Wyatt turned toward Abey. “We’re about done here, aren’t we, Alpha?”
Abey shrugged. “Yeah, we’re good.”
Wyatt faced me again, his lips tipped into a smile. “See? No worries. I’ll go pull around to the front.”
“It’s not big enough,” I blurted.
Wyatt, who was halfway out of his seat already, paused, his mouth curling with a frown. “How do you know it’s not big enough?”
Because I stalk you and I already know your Jeep won’t be big enough for everything I need to bring to the lab.
“Oh. Uh. I’m just assuming. I have a lot of samples I need to transport and that’s why Abey was taking me in his truck. Do you drive a pickup?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
Wyatt shook his head. “No.”
I pursed my lips and shrugged. “Well, thanks anyway.”
I turned to leave when his voice stopped me. “I can borrow Wes’ Suburban. That has to be big enough.”
I winced at the office door before slowly spinning around again. “A Suburban?”
Wyatt smiled at me again and, darn it, that made the butterflies in my stomach sit up and take notice. “Yeah.” He turned to his brother who was in the next chair over. Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed him sitting there. That’s how all-encompassing Wyatt’s presence was. And that’s exactly why I needed to find a way out of this.
“No, that’s not neces–”
“You don’t mind, do you, Wes?” Wyatt asked, completely ignoring my weak protests.
Wes shrugged before digging in his pocket and tossing a set of keys toward his brother. “Knock yourself out.”
Wyatt turned to me, keys dangling from one of his fingers and another grin on his face. “Looks like it’s all settled.”
I pulled my lips into the best smile I could manage. “Looks like it.”
Unless I can come up with some other excuse in the next thirty seconds that gets me out of this.
I wracked my brain as I stood there like an idiot, but nothing came to me. There was not a single reason I could come up with that would make sense. I needed to get to the lab and a packmate was willing to drive me. It was as simple and convoluted as that.
“Great,” I lied. “I’ll meet you downstairs. I just need to run to my room for some stuff.”
“Do you need help bringing anything down?”
My eyes widened while my heart thumped once painfully.
Wyatt. In my bedroom.
Heck no.
“No. That’s not necessary. I just need to grab something quick and I’ll meet you down by the garage.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a few then.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I opened my mouth to say okay again but, thankfully, snapped it shut at the last minute. I’d already sounded like enough of a moron for one afternoon. With my lips pressed tightly together, I spun back around and left Abey’s office as quickly as I could without actually running. I heard Wyatt saying his goodbyes to his brother and mine and hurried down the hall so I wouldn’t have to be in it alone with him.
Not that it mattered much.
I was about to spend the whole drive to downtown Asheville inside a moving vehicle with him. Alone.
My stomach fell at the thought as I continued to distance myself from him.
I sped around the corner and into my hall where I finally took off at a run. Thankfully, none of my sisters were around and therefore there was no one to witness my mad dash to my bedroom. Once there, I slammed the door closed and collapsed against it, drawing in big breaths of air that were doing nothing to calm me down.
Two months.
I’d been able to avoid this guy for two whole months and one tiny mistake had led to me not only having to talk to him again, but being stuck in a vehicle with him. How was I going to get through twenty minutes alone with Wyatt right next to me? How was I going to stop myself from looking into his warm brown eyes again, or making an idiot out of myself like I did every time I talked to him?
I thumped my head against the wooden door as my mind raced with ways out of this. But for all my brainpower, I was coming up empty.
I glanced at my watch and realized I was out of time, anyway. If I was going to get anything done at the lab, I needed to go now. I would just have to take the Wyatt problem minute by minute and somehow make it through. There was no other option.
Gathering a couple notebooks and my backpack, I left my room, feet dragging the whole way. I walked slowly down the stairs, my mind in overdrive as I thought through my situation.
It was clear there was no getting out of it. I’d already agreed, and truthfully, I needed to get to that lab. Which meant I needed to find a way to deal with my awkwardness toward Wyatt and somehow rein in the attraction I felt because I could not go there with him.
That left me with only a few options.
One was, I could do my best to ignore him. Keep my answers brief, keep my gaze out the window, and just grit my teeth until we got there. The problem with that solution was it would be incredibly rude to ignore him, especially because he was doing me a favor. It didn’t matter that I had a perfectly good reason to keep my distance. Our parents raised us to have better manners than that, and even the thought of going against our upbringing made me itch.
So that was out.
And if I couldn’t ignore him, that meant I’d have to talk to him. Interact. Something that would be hard to do when I felt
like a bumbling idiot around him. But maybe that was what I’d been missing this whole time.
Maybe instead of avoiding him, I needed to expose myself to him more. Maybe I’d been making a big deal out of nothing this whole time. Maybe Wyatt was just another wolf in a pack full of them and I could treat him as such.
I didn’t have high hopes, but I also didn’t have any other options, so that was what I’d have to go with.
When I made it down to the garage, Wyatt was already there, standing beside a large maroon SUV, his back turned to me. I took a moment to appreciate his large frame and broad shoulders. When he spun around, that maddeningly attractive smile was back on his lips and I had to look away.
“You all set?” he asked.
I swallowed once and nodded toward the garage door. “I just have to grab my samples.”
Without waiting for another response from him, I punched in the security code and stood there with fisted hands as the door rose to reveal the depths of the garage. I felt Wyatt come up close behind me, but I did my best to ignore him as I walked over to my racks of samples. Hefting the first load into my arms, I turned to find Wyatt with a frown on his face.
“Want me to get those?”
I shook my head. “If you could just open the trunk, that would be great.”
His brows were still furrowed, but he hurried to open the tailgate on the borrowed SUV. Once I’d deposited my first armload, I turned to grab more and almost walked into Wyatt coming up behind me with a mountainous pile of sample racks.
“I can handle this. Why don’t you just sit in the car?”
Wyatt snorted as he set the racks in the trunk and turned to grab more. “Not likely, Callista.”
I frowned at his muscled back as he walked away from me. “You know I’m a werewolf, right? I can more than handle carrying these myself.”
Wyatt spun around but continued to walk backward toward the garage. “I know exactly what you are,” he said easily, but his words stopped me dead in my tracks. It felt like there was some deeper meaning there, but maybe that was my imagination. I shook off the heavy feeling and followed him. “But I’m not going to sit and watch you carry all this shit when I could be helping.”
I sighed, but kept my lips pressed together to prevent another retort from flying out. If I knew southern men, and worse, southern werewolves, I knew there’d be no winning this argument. Instead, I followed him silently and watched through narrowed eyes as he picked up a set of racks that were taller than him and turned to leave. There were only a few left for me to grab and I worked to feel grateful and not annoyed that he’d basically rendered me useless.
Once I deposited the last of the samples in the SUV, I left Wyatt to arrange them in a way that would allow the trunk to close while I secured the garage door. When I turned back around, he was standing by the passenger door with it held open and another handsome grin on his face.
I suppressed a grimace as I dutifully walked over and slid onto the leather seat. “Thanks,” I muttered as he closed the door and walked around to get in on the driver’s side.
So far, my plan was not working. Spending more time with Wyatt wasn’t lessening the attraction or allure, it was only deepening it. Now I had a twenty-minute drive to downtown Asheville to get through, all with Wyatt Carter sitting less than a foot away from me. I closed my eyes and slouched down in my seat as I willed my stupid heart to slow down and my hands to stop sweating. I had a feeling this was going to be the longest twenty minutes of my life.
Chapter 6
Callie
“So, what is all that stuff?”
How had I never noticed how intoxicating his scent was before? It was like warm leather and the spicy musk of a man. It swirled around me in the confines of the SUV as I tried my best to hold my breath and ignore it.
And had he always been this hot? I don’t mean looking, even though, of course, he was that too. I meant physically hot. Like I could feel the heat of his thick arm even though there was at least a foot separating us.
Between trying not to sniff him and also ignore the heatwave emanating from his skin, it was almost possible to forget the deep pulling in the pit of my stomach. Almost.
“Callista?”
I whipped my head in his direction, as always careful to avoid his eyes. Thankfully, he was facing the road and not me, making it a lot easier to escape the warm brown depths I’d gotten lost in once. I sat up straight in my seat and said, “Huh?”
The corner of his lip twitched, and I couldn’t help but focus on it.
“All the stuff you have loaded in the trunk. What is it?”
“Oh. That.”
Silence stretched between us as I sat there transfixed by his mouth. Finally, he turned to me and my gaze darted to the balled-up fists in my lap. “Callista?”
Crap.
He’d asked me a question, hadn’t he?
“Right. Sorry. They’re water samples.”
I glanced back up at him in time to watch one of his thick brows arch. “Water samples?”
“Yes.”
Silence again.
“What kind of water samples?”
I turned to look out my window. It was much easier to watch the pine trees whipping past than to fight the urge to stare at his masculine profile. “They’re from rivers and lakes around North Carolina.”
I’d thought that talking to him more would desensitize me to his charms, but it wasn’t working. Or maybe I wasn’t letting it work. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough to just be his friend and packmate. It certainly seemed like all I was capable of was making an idiot out of myself. I discreetly crossed my fingers in my lap, hoping he’d drop this line of questioning and we could spend the rest of the trip in an awkward, but safe silence, but I wasn’t that lucky.
“What are you doing with the water samples?”
I sighed quietly. “Testing them.”
“For what?”
Pursing my lips, I answered, “Contamination.”
“What kind of contamination?”
Closing my eyes, I counted to five slowly before opening them again. It didn’t seem to matter how curt I was, Wyatt wouldn’t be dissuaded. I was bordering on rude and still, his tone was light and inquisitive, not hinting at any irritation at my brusque behavior at all.
What was with this guy?
“Contamination from fracking.”
“Isn’t fracking the process of drilling for natural gas?”
I frowned at the passing scenery before slowly turning to face Wyatt. “You know what fracking is?”
He shook his head, and if I’d been looking at his eyes, I’m positive I’d have seen them rolling at me. “I know how to read, Callista.”
“Callie.”
“Huh?”
“Call me Callie. No one calls me Callista.”
He was quiet for a minute, so I peeked at his profile to find his pink lips curled into a grin.
“So, does that make me your friend now?”
“What? No.”
His thick blond brows pulled low over his eyes as he touched his chest with his fist. “You wound me, Callista.”
“Callie,” I reminded him through gritted teeth.
“I’d think only your friends would have the privilege of calling you by your nickname. And if I’m not your friend, then I guess I’m stuck calling you Callista.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re my packmate. Isn’t that enough?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not for me.”
“Why not?” I asked, my voice bordering on whining.
He turned to face me, and I quickly averted my gaze before it could get caught in his. “Because I want more.”
His voice was so deep and sincere, I felt it all the way to the marrow of my bones. I had no doubt he meant what he said and could only hope a friendship was all he was looking for. I didn’t have time or room for anything more.
“How can we be friends when I barely know you?”
Wyatt pu
rsed his lips and nodded slowly as he navigated the winding back roads of Asheville. “Good point. I guess that means we’ll have to get to know each other.”
Dang it.
That was not the direction I was hoping this was going to go in. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I opened my mouth to argue, but closed it before any half-cocked excuse could fall from my lips. What would I say anyway?
I’ve got enough friends?
I’m too busy for friends?
I couldn’t possibly be your friend because you do something to my insides that drives me to distraction?
Each excuse was as poor and ridiculous as the last. So, with that realization, I slumped against the gray leather seat beneath me and sighed. “Fine. We can get to know each other.”
He shot me a sideways glance that I resolutely avoided. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t want to be my friend.”
That’s because I don’t.
“No, no,” I lied, “that’s not it at all. Don’t mind me, I’m just… busy.”
He cocked an eyebrow in my direction. “It looks to me like you’re just sitting there getting chauffeured downtown.”
I narrowed my eyes at his profile and sat up straighter. “Just because I’m getting a ride somewhere doesn’t mean I’m not busy. I’ve got a million things to think or worry about at any given time and they’re all fighting for attention.”
He nodded slowly. “Like the contamination left behind by fracking?”
I blew out a deep breath. “Exactly.”
“What happens if you find contamination?”
“We document the findings, inform the proper authorities, then we contact the fracking company and try to get them to stop.”
“Does that usually work?”
I bit my bottom lip and turned to stare out my window. “Not usually.”
Silence stretched between us as the futility of my efforts crept around the recesses of my mind, reminding me that I was just one small fish trying to take on a whole ocean of corruption.
Chasing Callie (Southern Werewolf Sisters Book 1) Page 5
