About Face (Wolf Within) (3 page)

Now I needed a shower and time to pull myself together before the ceremony at seven, and Lauren would need me to reassure her and help with her makeup and…

Breathless, I contemplated the depth and complexity of my selfishness. What did it matter what I looked like tonight? She was going to bond with Jason. They were going to start a new life together. And I ran out on them the night before.

My cell phone was full of both voice and text messages, mostly from Lauren, although Scott and Faith both left a few. A notable exception was Jason Allerton. He was royally pissed at me, I guessed. Big deal. I was furious with him, so we were even.

“You don’t want me to bond with him.” Lauren’s voice was subdued, and she walked away from me so she could look out the motel window at the shore beyond. I wanted to remind her she was in her slip, but I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t her mother, no matter how much she looked to me for support. She was fifty-eight years old, even if she didn’t look much past thirty. She could decide for herself if she wanted to stand in front of an open window in her damn underwear.

“Lauren, are you sure this is what you want to do? You don’t have to, you know.”

“Oh, but, Stanzie, I
do
!” She turned away from the window with such exquisite happiness on her face I took an involuntary step back. I had never seen Lauren Newcastle look like this before. “Jason is the kindest, gentlest and most understanding man I’ve ever met. I
want
to be with him. Every minute I spend with him I just keep thinking how much I like him. How much I want to show him who I am. I feel like I’m eighteen years old and back in Aspenmoon with my family. Happy.

“Do you ever think about a time in your life when you were so happy you couldn’t even imagine what anything else felt like? When unhappiness was missing your favorite television show because you’d stayed outside in the twilight too long chasing lightning bugs with your twin sister?” She giggled. In that moment, she was heartbreakingly beautiful.

“I know you don’t have a twin sister, but you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Murphy’s face flashed before my eyes, damn him, and my eyes burned. I had to nod because I couldn’t speak. Lauren didn’t notice. She was too caught up in her own feelings.

“I can’t wait to leave Massachusetts and go to Montana. I’ve never been farther than Louisiana, and that was just for a week. Jason says the forests there are deep and dark and the streams are so clear you can see your wolf’s reflection if you stand still. And it tastes sweet and pure, and it’s so cold it freezes your tongue, even in July. Can you imagine, Stanzie?”

I thought the forests in New England were wild and wonderful places, but I wouldn’t say that to her. I tried to imagine this conversation she’d had with Jason about the forests in Montana. He’d never once even referred to his pack or his home in all the talks we’d had together.

I’d known he was from Silverlake because it was the premiere pack in America, even if it wasn’t the oldest. He was one of the most influential and powerful Councilors in the United States and among the youngest ever appointed. He’d joined the Great Council when he’d been only forty-seven, which was nearly unheard of in the Pack.

He’d been an Advisor from the age of twenty-four and Alpha of Silverlake at twenty-six. He’d served on the First Midwestern Regional Council for ten years before joining the Great Council.

Someday he would head the Great Council, I was confident.

All the things I knew about Jason Allerton’s life, I’d learned from Murphy or picked up through the Pack grapevine. He’d never shared much about himself with me, and I’d never questioned that. I’d been too busy looking up to him as a father figure to ask him anything about himself.

I bowed my head. Tonight I’d vowed to suck it up and stand behind Lauren as she joined with Jason. I’d planned to put aside my reservations and fury and be there for her, even if I couldn’t believe she did the right thing.

Now I was ashamed of myself. For two months she’d been falling in love, and I’d only seen a woman who couldn’t make a decision. A woman I wanted to morph into a responsible, nurturing mother who would make me feel as if I mattered as my life slowly fell to pieces around me.

So goddamn selfish. I, I, I. Never a thought for her except in terms of how she related to me.

Maybe Jason did care about her. Sure, he’d been on a search for a new bond mate, but perhaps Lauren had been a real candidate, not someone convenient.

He’d only known her for two months and already reached her far more deeply than I had after thirty-two years.

“Wren, I’m going to miss you so much, but I am so glad you’re happy. Of course I want you to bond with Jason. You two are going to be great together.” Tears spilled down my cheeks as I looked at my mother and knew I was once again going to lose her.

Her smile was incredulous, and she crossed the room to fling herself in my arms.

“Stanzie, you just wait. Everything will be different now that I’m with Jason. I feel like I’ve got a second chance, and this time I’m going to do it right.”

Somehow the scent of Chloe combined with Escape worked with Lauren’s chemistry. Either that or my throat was too clogged with tears to really smell.

“Come on, I’ll help you with your make up, okay?” I took Lauren by the hand and led her to the vanity. I wanted her to look especially beautiful tonight.

Chapter 2

The room glowed with candlelight. Golden light shimmered against the soft cream paneling and danced in circles across the ceiling.

Six people stood in the front of the room before Kathy Manning, who was dressed in her ceremonial Councilor’s robe of dark blue trimmed with white.

As the highest-ranked Regional Councilor in attendance, she would perform the bonding ceremony.

Her serene expression gave no clue to her actual feelings. It had to hurt to be the one to preside over her ex-lover’s bonding ceremony to someone else he’d just met two months previously. Someone he couldn’t keep his eyes off.

Jason Allerton was smitten, there was no escaping that fact. How I hadn’t seen it before tonight, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps he hadn’t allowed himself to look at Lauren the way he did tonight.

They were the center duo, facing one another hand in hand, and simply drank each other in as the candlelight enveloped them in a soft, amber glow.

The other duos were younger—first-time bonding for both of them—but Lauren and Jason were the ones who drew our gazes.

The families and packs of the duos stood behind them as witnesses, and beyond us were several round tables with pristine white tablecloths and summer floral centerpieces. The sweet fragrance of tiger lilies perfumed the room.

I’d managed to hop in the shower, wash my hair, throw on my new red dress and black spike pumps. My hair had even cooperated with the curling iron, although I was pretty sure all the curl would fall out halfway through dinner. It didn’t matter.

When I took a deep breath, I must have made a wistful sound because my cousin Faith, who stood beside me, moved closer so her shoulder brushed mine. She took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

I hadn’t seen her in two months, and during that time her pregnancy had started to show. She had a definite baby bump beneath the wine-colored Empire maternity gown draping her body. She placed my hand across her abdomen, and I felt a tiny, fluttering movement. Had that been a kick?

“My God,” I whispered and turned to her in excited shock.

“I know.” Her whole face glowed. She was beautiful. “Grandmother Carolyn says it’s twins, Stanzie. Can you believe it?”

“Twins!” I pressed my forehead to hers and grinned. “You are so lucky, Faith.”

“Scott wants two boys, but I think one of each would be nice.” The babies, or at least one of them, fluttered beneath my hand again, and Faith went still so I could feel it better.

“Alpha female, surely the Pack prospers because of you.” The words were traditional, but I’d never said them before. They felt strangely right to say to my cousin who was Alpha of my birth pack.

“Someday I’ll say the same to you.” She seemed convinced, but I wasn’t. Hard to be Alpha without a bond mate.

I twined my fingers with hers as Kathy began the ceremony.

Halfway through I started to cry, thoughts of Murphy and Lauren and Jason tangled together in my head, impossible to sort out and laced with a bittersweet ache that tingled through my whole body.

Scott Charest—my cousin’s bond mate, Kathy Manning’s Advisor, and my friend—wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close. Faith kept hold of my hand. Alan Perrault, another friend from Mayflower, moved close behind me, his body warm against mine, his breath soft in my ear.

I remembered us in bed together, the first step of his wolf’s initiation, and leaned back against him as Lauren fastened her new bond pendant around her throat and Jason Allerton did the same with his.

* * * *

After the ceremony we feasted on baked stuffed shrimp and Maine lobster. I sat at the table with Jason and Lauren, Faith, Scott, Shane, Samantha and Todd.

Todd was Faith’s father and Shane and Samantha were his bond mates.

The rest of Mayflower ate at nearby tables. No one from Silverlake was present, and I wondered if that bothered Jason.

He and I sat on either side of Lauren, but we didn’t talk. He and my mother were very wrapped up in each other, but he made the effort to chat with Faith, who sat on his other side.

Lauren had chosen the baked stuffed shrimp for an entrée, as had Jason, but I saw how she cast wistful looks at my lobster.

I put one of my lobster claws on her plate, took half a baked stuffed shrimp in return, and her face lit up.

“I couldn’t decide what to order,” she confided in my ear with a little laugh. “So I ordered what Jason did, but when the lobsters arrived, I realized I should have ordered that instead.”

“Always order something different than what Jason does,” I suggested. “Then you can share, and you won’t be disappointed. That’s what I always did when Murphy and I went out to dinner.”

I bit my lip as I remembered the many restaurants we’d visited on our road trip from Texas to Massachusetts. We’d gotten to know each other as bond mates during that time.

We’d made a thirty-hour drive last nearly four weeks. If we liked a city or town, we’d stayed there for as long as we liked.

We’d remained nearly a week in New Orleans. It was there we’d figured out the rhythms of each other’s bodies and the sex became intense. The third day there we hadn’t even gotten out of bed until after sunset, and then only because we were starving.

It was there, too, we’d vowed to share our food and always order something different so we could try more than one thing. From appetizers to desserts, we never had the same thing, and we shared it all.

“I wish you’d work things out with him,” Lauren whispered as she dipped a succulent piece of lobster claw into the melted butter on my plate. I moved it to her plate because I never put butter on my lobster. I loved the taste of it plain.

“Who?” I pretended ignorance and she sighed.

“I know you’re thinking about him. You just said his name. Murphy, your bond mate. You always get that same starry-eyed, wistful look on your face when you think about him.”

“Wren.” I wished I’d ordered wine with my meal but I hadn’t because I was still slightly hungover.

“I know you don’t like to talk about him, but I think it’s a shame. It must be really hard to see all the duos and triads together tonight and be alone.”

I winced, the ache inside me so raw it hurt.

“I’m fine,” I gave her a bright smile that didn’t fool her. “Anyway, tonight is about you. You and Jason and the other two duos who bonded tonight. You better drag him on the dance floor because I want to see if he can keep up with you.”

Lauren giggled and the whole table looked indulgently at her. Sometimes I couldn’t believe this perfectly stunning woman was my mother. She seemed so unearthly, and I was so very grounded and real. It was as if a fairy had given birth to a peasant girl.

My appetite gone, I gave Lauren the other lobster claw and excused myself to go to the bar for a drink. Hangover be damned.

* * * *

Once there, I pulled a Lauren and couldn’t decide between a mixed drink or wine.

The back of my neck tingled as someone moved close behind me and then came to stand beside me. Scott. He gave me a grin and stood close so our shoulders and hips brushed together.

He studied the twinkling bottles of alcohol behind the bar and frowned. Then he saw the beer and wine list and brightened.

“Two Labatts.” Scott decided for me, and the bartender bent beneath the bar to retrieve the bottles from the mini fridge.

When she’d opened them and moved down the bar to attend to another guest, Scott turned to me and said, “Hunt with me tomorrow night.”

My stomach flip-flopped, and it wasn’t all due to the fact Scott was gorgeous as hell. It mostly had to do with waking my wolf now that she was supposedly normal.

“What if she won’t come out?” Scott was possibly the only person on Earth I felt comfortable with talking about my wolf. Comfortable was not even a very good word. He’d been there the last time I’d tried to shift and couldn’t do it.

“It was the pack bond holding your wolf back, Stanzie.” He nudged my beer closer to my hand with his bottle. Ice-cold condensation dripped down the brown glass. “It’s gone now. She’ll come out.”

I cast him a doubting look.

“And if she doesn’t, I’ll be there with you. Look, we’ll shift away from the rest of the hunt. That way if there’s an issue, no one will know. But there won’t be.”

Shift away from everyone else. I took a sip from the bottle. The beer tasted bitter as my thoughts. I hadn’t participated in many Regional hunts, but when I had, I’d always shifted away from everyone else and gone the opposite direction, with Grey, Vaughn and Elena, my former pack mates, chasing after me.

Now my wolf was theoretically normal, and Scott, unwittingly, proposed the same basic concept. Screw that.