Dancer's Heart (7 page)

“We’re not officially mated right now?” Dani
asked.

“Yes and no. You’re wearing his marks, so yes
you’re mated, but in the eyes of the pack it’s not official until
the alpha recognizes the mating.”

“Thanks, Dade,” Adam said. He hadn’t doubted
that the male would welcome them into the stewards.

“In the meantime, if anyone asks you to do
something for them, be sure to tell them to talk to me or Acksel.
You’re a steward as of right now, and that means you’re supposed to
be focusing on the retirees.”

“Sure,” Adam said. “When do you want us to
start?”

“Have you talked to Jeremiah yet?”

“We were going to catch up with him and Honey
after this.”

“I think you can start tomorrow. Check in
with Jeremiah and then we can all meet tomorrow morning at eight at
the retiree development. We’ll divvy up the duties and you can get
right to work.”

Adam stood and shook Dade’s hand.
“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And welcome to the pack,
Dani.”

* * * * *

“That was easy,” Dani said after Adam got
behind the wheel and started the truck.

“Did you think it wouldn’t be?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe he might ask
us questions or tell us what the duties would be.”

“He knows me because of the pack. The duties
vary from day to day, and with the seasons. There’s always
something to be done. The stewards handle everything from the
exterior home and yard upkeep to cleaning and repairs inside the
home, and taking those who can’t drive shopping and to
appointments.”

“Neat.”

He smiled at her. “I’m so glad you’re excited
about the job.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s hard work at times, but
I know I’ll enjoy getting to know the retirees. Plus I get to work
with you, which is a huge bonus in my book.”

He turned into the retiree development and
parked behind Jeremiah’s SUV in the driveway. “Ready,
sweetheart?”

“You bet.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and she
tilted her head quizzically. “What?”

“You’re beautiful.” He reached out and
wrapped a lock of her pretty golden hair around his finger. “I look
at you and I see kids with your blonde hair. Wolves who smell like
peppermint.”

“Or reindeer who have amber eyes when they
shift,” she said with a laugh.

He nodded. “Exactly.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and scooted
closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I wish we were home so
we could talk more.”

“Me, too. I didn’t mean to get into a heavy
conversation before meeting with my friends.”

“It’s okay,” she said, pressing her lips to
his briefly. It was just the softest of kisses, but his wolf
growled for more.

She smiled as she gazed at him for a quiet
moment, and then she slipped back into her seat and reached for the
door handle. “Let’s meet your friends and then we can talk more at
home.”

After pushing his wolf back and shaking
himself out of the desire to put the truck in reverse and rush them
back home, he turned off the engine and got out.

“How long have you and Jeremiah been
friends?” Dani asked as she met him at the front of the truck.

“Pretty much forever. He was one of the few
guys who didn’t shy away from me or treat me differently after I
was burned.” It had been a hellish time in his life and he didn’t
like to think about it, but every time his leg ached, he couldn’t
help but remember the cause. Dani didn’t seem to care about his
scars, though. She treated them like they were just part of his
skin, and not the definition of him.

“That’s cool. Row and I were always
super-close. There are some female bears I’m friends with, but he
was my best friend.”

Adam and Dani held hands as they walked up
the sidewalk to the front door. When Adam lifted his hand to knock,
the door swung open and Jeremiah greeted them. “Hey! We were just
on our way out when we saw your truck. Come on in!”

“I’m glad we caught you,” Adam said. He and
Jeremiah embraced briefly and Adam greeted Honey as she walked into
the family room to stand next to Jeremiah. “Jeremiah and Honey,
this is my mate, Dani Grayson.”

Jeremiah gave Dani a little wave and said,
“You’ll understand if I don’t give you a hug hello. It’s nice to
meet you.”

Honey stepped away from Jeremiah’s side and
hugged Dani. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. We’d heard that Adam
found his mate, but no one knew anything about you. Come on in and
have a seat.”

“We didn’t mean to stop you from going to
work,” Adam said as he sat with Dani on the comfortable couch and
Jeremiah and Honey sat on a matching loveseat.

“We were going to run some errands in town
for a few of the retirees. It’s nothing that can’t wait while we
catch up,” Jeremiah said. “So you met in the woods? That’s the
rumor in town.”

Adam smiled as he put his arm around Dani.
“Yeah, on the full moon. She and her brother stopped in town to get
gas and she felt me.”

Honey sighed wistfully. “That’s very cool.
It’s like how we found each other,” she said as she smiled at
Jeremiah.

As the couples shared the stories of how they
met, Adam was conscious of a growing sense of camaraderie that he
hadn’t felt before. It wasn’t just that Jeremiah was his best
friend; now he realized that he’d come to think of him as a brother
of sorts.

“The reason we wanted to see you is that I
talked to Acksel and Dade about Dani and I joining the stewards.
They agreed, as long as both of you don’t mind the company,” Adam
said.

“Seriously? That would be awesome!” Jeremiah
said. “Honey and I were just saying the other day how it would be
nice to have some more responsible stewards who actually wanted to
do the work.”

Honey wrinkled her nose as she smiled. “The
teen wolves are just not that interested in hard work, unless
they’re doing it right in front of Acksel or one of the high-ranked
males. They’re always wanting to impress them, but when it’s just
us, they get powerfully lazy.”

“Unless there are teenage girls around,”
Jeremiah said with a laugh. “Then they’ll do anything that makes
them look strong.”

“Acksel said we could join the stewards now
even though Dani won’t be made an unofficial pack member until the
March full moon.”

“That’s great,” Jeremiah said. “Dani, do you
understand what we do as stewards?”

She nodded. “You work with the retired
wolves.”

“Right. When a wolf ages out of the pack,
they often find themselves alone. Some retirees are still mated,
but most of our retirees lost their mates and are alone. Because
they don’t join in the monthly hunts, they can get lost in an ‘out
of sight, out of mind’ way. When I was simply an omega, I used to
take the time to check in on them. I felt like it was important,
because I know what it’s like to be forgotten and overlooked.”

“When Jer was offered the opportunity to
fight for rank, he got a little pissed that Acksel expected me to
just take over all his duties,” Honey said. “Stewards are an
old-school pack position. Most modern packs don’t have stewards, or
even know what they are. They offered the position to both of us,
and it was a no-brainer. I love working with the retirees, plus I
get to work with my mate.”

“That’s so neat,” Dani said.

“How about we give you a tour of the
development and we can introduce you to the retirees?” Jeremiah
asked.

“That sounds great,” Adam said.

He and Dani followed them outside, and then
he walked with Jeremiah ahead of their mates, who already were
talking quietly together, their arms linked and smiles on their
faces as if they were old friends. “Thanks,” Adam said.

Jeremiah patted him on the back. “It’s my
pleasure. I’m glad you found your mate. Honey and I had been
talking about asking Acksel to make you a steward so that you could
help us out.”

Adam hummed. “I’m not sure he would have let
me do that. There aren’t a lot of omega males who can do the work
that needs to be done, but with Dani, it just made sense for us to
work together.”

“I love working with Honey. The retirees will
love to have another couple to help out. Honey and I have started
to get backlogged.” Jeremiah reached into his back pocket and
pulled out a rectangular magnet. “We’ll make up new magnets with
your cell phone number and Dani’s, so they can call you in the
middle of the night when the heat goes out instead of just us.”

“Or when one of the old ladies hears
something outside and wants someone to investigate,” Honey said
with a chuckle.

Adam glanced over his shoulder at Dani, and
she smiled, her blue eyes dancing. He knew then without a doubt
that it was the right thing for them to do. Dani had wanted to find
a place in the pack where she fit in, and not being able to take
part in the pack hunts on the full moon wouldn’t help her feel
connected to the group. But helping the retirees was a step in the
right direction.

As they stepped onto the porch of the first
home, Dani slid into his arms and kissed him. “This is
awesome.”

“I think so too.”

Chapter 6

The next afternoon, Adam opened the door and
Dani saw Brynn and two other women standing on the front porch.
“Welcome wagon!” Brynn said.

“Wolfy welcome wagon,” one of the other women
added.

Adam held open the door and said,
“Sweetheart, this is Mia Slattery and her sister-in-law, Nila.
Where’s Jack?”

“With Mal,” Nila said. To Dani she said,
“Jack’s my son. He’s staying with my mate, Malachi.”

“Who likes to call him ‘carrot,’” Mia said as
she stepped into the house and Adam shut the door.

“Who likes to call who carrot?” Dani asked as
she accepted a hug from Brynn and shook hands with Mia and
Nila.

Nila chuckled. “Jack’s favorite word is
carrot. When he met Mal, he started to call him carrot, too. It’s a
pack joke.”

“But you can only laugh about it behind Mal’s
back,” Mia warned. “It’s funny as heck though.”

“We’re kicking you out, Adam. We need to
welcome your mate to the pack properly,” Brynn said. She lifted a
large wicker basket from where she’d placed it on the floor when
she took off her coat.

“What’s the proper way?” Adam asked.

“With chocolate, of course,” Mia said.

Adam lifted his coat from the hook by the
front door and slipped it on as he walked over to Dani. “I’m
supposed to meet Jeremiah anyway so we can work setting up a better
schedule for the retirees. I’ll be back in a few hours. You have my
cell if you need me.” He kissed her and she smiled.

“I’m in good hands, I think.”

“Definitely,” Brynn said.

Adam grabbed his keys from the coffee table
and waved at Dani before shutting the door behind him.

Brynn sat next to Dani on the couch, and Mia
and Nila pulled chairs from the kitchen and settled across the
coffee table from them. Brynn lifted a beige towel from over the
contents of the basket and said, “Mia, Nila, and I want to welcome
you officially to the pack, in a totally unofficial way.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “It’ll be
officially-official on the full moon. But for today, we thought it
would be cool if we hung out for a bit and maybe answered any
questions you had. We’d like to get to know you.”

Dani made a clucking sound. “Aw, you guys are
so sweet.”

“It’s our pleasure. Now, tell us about the
night you met Adam,” Nila said as she opened a box of chocolates
and handed it to Dani. “I think it’s so cool that you found each
other in the woods!”

Dani told them about meeting Adam.
“Everything changed for me in that moment when he came out of the
shadows.”

“Were you afraid?” Mia asked.

She shook her head. “I knew he wouldn’t hurt
me.”

Brynn fanned herself. “So freaking romantic.
Acksel crawled into my bed in the middle of the night, drunk as a
freaking skunk.
Not
romantic.”

“But he made it up to you later,” Mia
reminded her.

“True. But I reserve the right to hold it
over his head for all eternity.”

Nila laughed. “Mal had the nerve to buy me
groceries and be amazing with Jack.”

“Such a brute,” Brynn teased.

Dani nibbled on a brownie studded with
walnuts. “What about you, Mia?”

“I’m in romantic limbo,” she sighed.

“With who?” Dani asked.

“My brother’s best friend, Lucian. He’s human
and in the military, so he travels all the time. I’ve been in love
with him since I was a kid, but Malachi has always said that I was
off-limits to him.”

“If you’re mates, why would your brother keep
you two apart?” Dani asked.

“Because Mal thinks he knows best. He says
Lucian’s life is dangerous. The heart wants what it wants, though,
and so does my wolf,” Mia said. Brushing her hands clear of crumbs
from a chocolate chip cookie, she said, “Let’s talk about the
bears. What was it like growing up with them?”

Dani settled deeper into the couch and told
her new friends about her old home. That fateful night when she’d
been orphaned and her entire herd killed, she thought she would die
in the woods all alone. “It was just luck, or maybe fate, that I
wandered into Oakville and Row’s mom took me in.”

“What about other reindeer?” Nila asked. “Did
the bears try to find people like you?”

“Reindeer, in addition to being nomadic,
apparently like to stay off the radar. Mom looked for them for me.
She even hired a private detective, but it was just recently that
he actually found a herd. Of course, by now they could be someplace
else, and we might not have found them. It doesn’t really matter,
though. Adam’s my family now, and we get to start a new family
together.”

“That’s so freaking romantic. I need a
truemate,” Mia said, slumping in her chair.

“I think you have one already, you just need
to knock him over the head to get him to realize it,” Brynn
said.