The Reluctant Mate: (Book 13, Grey Wolf Pack Romance Novellas) (4 page)

“So what’s your business going to be?” she asked, moving the conversation away from any other females.  For some reason that was important.

“Uh, Woodworking.  I’m going to make… things.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I uh, for the past year I’ve been kind of training.”

“Oh, I thought you were overseas,” she said with a slightly sinking feeling.

“Discharged.”

Jolene frowned.  “So you’ve been back in the country for a whole year?”

“Uh, yeah.”

She couldn’t help but feel a pang of unhappiness about that.  When he was overseas, she could pretend that his letters got lost, or he couldn’t find a telephone or a computer. 
But a whole year?
  There was no reason he couldn’t have contacted her in all that time.  Not that she should complain.  Really, what was she to him?  His brother’s ex-girlfriend.  Yes, she kept thinking it over and over, but really, she was no one to him.  Although, she had thought they were friends at least.  She had thought they were close friends at one point.

Jolene shook her head.  It wasn’t important.  They
were
still friends.  And Reid was hardly the most communicative man on the planet.  Getting information out of him was akin to pulling teeth out –
painful
.

She smiled genuinely.  She was happy he was back.  She really was.  She’d missed him.  More than she’d ever realized before and she didn’t want to drive him away with her needy insecurities over the fact that he didn’t send her a freaking postcard.  Instead, she focused on trying to be happy for him.

“Please, tell me about it.”

He looked at her doubtfully.  “Really?”

“Yes, I want to know everything, so spill.”

He blushed, but he smiled, and he opened up to her like a flower.

Chapter Three

Reid grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator.  Harry, his dad, was slumped in front of the TV, snoring in his recliner.  His mom, Norma, despite the late hour, was gossiping on the phone.  He’d never known anyone talk more than his mom.

Although Jolene could be chatty, she was chatty in a good way.  She talked to make people feel good – to make him feel good.  His wolf wagged his tail, happily.  She could probably care two hoots about what kind of wood he liked to work with, but she asked because she knew he was interested.  She had a way of making people feel better about themselves.  Or maybe it was just him – she made him feel better and less awkward.  She made him feel like he was actually an interesting person.

Maybe she never had to do that with other men.

He thought of Beau and his hand clenched around his bottle as his wolf snarled.  No, Beau never needed anyone to make him feel good about himself, he was too busy making others feel lousy.  He could care less about the torment Beau put him through, but how many times had Jolene cried over him flirting with other females, or forgetting her birthday, or his other selfish antics.  Yet she always forgave and forgot.  It infuriated the hell out of him.

His mom waved at him and fiddled with one of her hair curlers. 
Uh oh
.  She wanted him.  Reid was about to make his escape when she hung up.  He uttered a silent ‘crud’ as she steered him to a chair and poured his beer into a glass. 
A freaking glass!
  She was also the kind of woman who insisted on eating hamburgers with a knife and fork.

“I didn’t think you were coming in tonight, sweetie.  I thought you were going to sleep all night in the garage.”

Reid grunted.  His dad also grunted in his sleep and then farted before turning over.  His mom rolled her eyes. 
Prince Charming had nothing on his dad.

Reid was using his parents’ garage as a work area until he could rent somewhere.  It was an ideal space, but it meant that his day was littered with visits from his mom who wanted to see what he was doing.  Sure, she brought snacks, but he kind of preferred the solitude.

In spite of his protests, she bustled around the kitchen making him a small snack before bed – a huge, quadruple decker sandwich with three kinds of meat.  “Did you have a good day?”

He grunted again, and she sighed.  “Did you see anyone when you went into town?”

“Saw Jolene,” he blurted without thinking.  Or maybe because he and his wolf were only thinking about her.

He’d sensed she was hurt that he never got in touch while he was away, but given he was trying to forget about her, he didn’t think long phone calls where he had to listen to her agonizingly sweet , dick-hardening voice were the way to go.  Course, apparently absence only made the heart grow fonder. 
Not to mention the state of his dick
.  He couldn’t forget the feel of her body against his.  Absently, he rubbed a hand over his bicep where she’d squeezed his arm when they said goodbye earlier.

“Poor girl.”

He looked up sharply.  His mom was always disappointed Beau never married her.  Reid kept his happiness over
that
fact to himself.

“She barely even leaves her house anymore except to go to work,” prattled his mom.  “Ever since her husband left she’s been so closed off and quiet.”

Reid frowned.  That wasn’t the way he would have described her earlier.  She seemed as vivacious as ever.

“The male she married was awful.”  Norma clucked her tongue.  “It was just a rebound marriage, and she never loved him.”

“Good,” he breathed.

“Hmm?”  She placed the towering sandwich in front of him.  “Did you say something, sweetie?”

“Good night, mom.”  He grabbed his food, beer and pecked his mom on the cheek.

Norma beamed at him.  “Good night, dear.”

Reid climbed the stairs to his bedroom, mulling over what his mother said.  His bedroom was the same as it was six years ago. 
The same as the night of the engagement party
.

That night… that was the night he knew he needed to get away from her, that his obsession was too much to handle.  Needed to try and forget. 
What he did…
no, it didn’t matter now.

His eyes roved over the pictures on the wall.  Pictures mostly taken by Beau, featuring Jolene smiling as her blonde hair whipped around her face.  Jolene as she licked an ice-cream.  Jolene as she dozed on their couch.

Jolene closed off and quiet?
  Yes, he’d seen that before – when Beau broke her heart.  But he hadn’t seen that in her during their lunch.  Did he dare to hope that she was happier for seeing him?

As a wolf given to introversion and pessimism, it wasn’t easy, but yes, he felt a flicker of hope for their future

*

Jolene moaned as his breath blew over her nether lips.  Her fingers tangled in his silken locks as he suckled on her clit, teasing the sensitive pearl between his teeth and soothing it with his tongue.  Her hips undulated against him as his fingers squeezed the flesh of her thighs.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Her lover looked up, a half-smile dancing on his lips as his eyes burned into hers.

“Reid,” she whispered as lightening flashed through her body.

Jolene sat bolt upright in bed; her nightshirt was soaked in sweat, and her wolf was howling.  She pressed the heel of her hand against her hammering heart.

What the heck was that? 
A sex dream?!
  She hadn’t had a sex dream since… ever.  And Reid…

Jolene chewed her lip as she tried to free herself from the tangled bedsheets.

She caught sight of the clock. 
Crap, crap, crap.
  She was now late for work.

Chapter Four

Jolene ran into the office, half an hour late.  She’d slept in. 
Slept in!

The last three months she’d barely been able to sleep at all, but last night she’d been dead to the world the moment she hit the pillow.  And damn, she’d been too engrossed in her naughty dreams to wake – only doing so when she found release.  She couldn’t believe she was so turned on that she actually orgasmed in her sleep.  It was so… so… unlike her.  She could count her sexual partners on one hand, and nothing she’d experienced with them had ever been so explosive as her own freaking imagination.

And Reid…  Her wolf wagged her tail.  She hushed the beast.  She was almost thirty for heaven’s sake.  She was too old to turn into a lovesick puppy.  But, Reid?  She’d never… well, apart from that one dream… but that wasn’t…

Raised voices in the mayor’s office pulled her out of her bubble of thought.

Shit, that was her boss and Adam, her Alpha.  Her wolf paced uneasily.  It wasn’t good when they fought – they both looked at her like she was the enemy when they were angry at one another.

Adam stormed out of the office, growling – he caught sight of Jolene, and she instinctively bared her neck in submission.  He huffed and carried on walking.

Her boss yelled for her. 
Just great
.

*

Marley twirled a lock of hair around her finger.  Reid glared at her to get out of his way.

“It’s Melinda’s birthday on Friday; we’re having a party at our house.”

Reid grunted and carried another crate of beers into the bar.

His mom, the pack gossip machine, had heard that Bar Luna the pack-owned bar was a little short staffed due to Kim being on maternity leave.  Norma had readily offered his services.  He didn’t exactly mind per se, he'd prefer to be in his workshop – well, his parents’ garage – working, but it wasn’t like he really had anything to make yet.  He was hoping for a few custom orders – once his reliably boastful mom had managed to tell the whole pack about how wonderful his work was. 
There was a benefit to having a motor mouth mother
.  But a few extra dollars from the bar work couldn’t hurt, and it didn’t hurt that Kim was a close friend of Jolene.  Doing Kim a favour might help him.

Unfortunately, Marley would also be working at the bar as a waitress.  Not that it mattered much to him.  But in the last hour, she’d batted her eyelashes at him so hard it was a wonder she hadn’t flown away.  She was starting to get hard to ignore.

The bar wasn’t open yet, they were getting ready for opening hour, and Andy, the head bartender, and a black bear shifter was doing a stock take.  He had no idea what Marley was doing, other than badgering him.

“I said it’s…”

“I heard,” Reid muttered.

“You can come if you want,” said Marley in a shy, little girl voice that was more obviously fake than her aquamarine blue eyes – she’d had dull brown eyes the last time he saw her.

Not that he had any problem with brown eyes. 
No siree
.  Jolene had brown eyes.  Warm, honeyed brown eyes that looked at you like you were the most important person in the entire world.  Eyes that haunted his dreams and made his horny wolf howl to the moon.

“What’s changed?” he asked blandly.

She frowned exaggeratedly.  “I don’t know…”

“Six years ago you wouldn’t have invited me.  What’s changed?”  He didn’t ask out of anger more out of curiosity.  He’d never been in any doubt as to why he’d never been popular in school.  Or why his classmates didn’t hammer his door down to invite him to parties.  Quiet loners who went out of their way to avoid talking to people didn’t garner attention.  But what had changed?  He certainly wasn’t trying to get Marley’s attention now, any more than he had been when he was a teenager.

Andy, who had been trying to ignore their rather one-sided conversation actually perked up to hear her answer.

Marley still looked like she didn’t understand.  He was starting to lose his patience.  “Well, things are different now,” she said slowly.

“I’m still the same person.”  He hated to admit it, but it was true.  Still the awkward idiot mooning after a woman who could do so much better.

“You have changed,” she said in exasperation – as if it were obvious.  “I can be seen talking to you now.”

That actually made Reid laugh.  Marley scowled at him.

“Marley, can you help out in the kitchen please,” said Andy, gently, but in a way that suggested arguing would be more futile than resisting the Borg.

Marley, completely confused by Reid’s reaction huffed and stomped away.

Andy shook his head.  “My mate says she was a handful when she was a teenager.  You can take the popular girl out of the school, but not the school out of the popular girl.”

Reid rolled his shoulders in agreement.  Andy’s mate, Delilah, had been in their class at School.  She wasn’t exactly popular either, but she had been the Alpha’s daughter, and future Alpha’s sister, plus she had a popular boyfriend at the time.  She had been saved from torment from girls like Marley by association to a bunch of scary males.

“Will you be going to the totally epic party Melinda’s throwing?” Andy asked with a smirk.

Reid gave him a look like he’d just escaped from a lunatic asylum.  “No.”

Andy nodded.  “Nah, me neither.”  He sniffed.  “But then, I wasn’t invited.”  A gleam of humor shot through his eyes.

“Yeah, you seem real cut up about it,” murmured Reid.

Andy beamed.  “Yeah, I was just thinking that rather than going home to my mate and cub, I’d much rather go to a party thrown by wolves who still act like teenagers and want to spend the evening dry humping, actually humping and throwing up.  They’d probably kick me out as soon as I told them the music was too loud.”  He chuckled before following Marley into the kitchen.

Reid got back to work.  He hoped that Marley’s sudden interest in him wasn’t going to last long.  He wasn’t sure how long he could hold onto his temper while she simpered over him.  He didn’t particularly have any ill will toward her over the way she used to treat him, but he certainly didn’t want to improve their relations either.

As far as he could see, the only things that had changed about him were his size, age and how much hair he had.  Being in the army hadn’t improved him or made him any worse for that matter.  But that wasn’t why he’d joined anyway.  It had been a quick, easy escape from the pack to try and clear his head, to try and get over a female who his naturally pessimistic nature told him would never want him.

But after years in the army and another apprenticing as a carpenter, he felt comfortable in returning.

He wasn’t sure what he had thought when he came back; he’d wondered if he really would have been able to resist Jolene, but either way, he couldn’t stay away any longer.  He was glad he hadn’t, but after six years of patient waiting, he wasn’t sure how much more waiting he could stand.