There was nothing for me to do but let him lead me to his car in the small parking lot. He opened the passenger door for me, and I got in. Then he went around to the driver’s side.
“What about your lunch?” I asked him as he pulled out onto the street.
He kept his eyes on the road. “It’ll wait.”
An awkward silence filled the car. I didn’t know what to say, and he was oddly quiet. I was glad I lived close by and the ride took only a few minutes.
He parked in front of the apartment steps, and I was out of the car before he could come around to open my door. He stood on the other side of the car, looking a little bewildered. I didn’t blame him because my behavior probably seemed strange.
I twisted the strap of my bag. “Thanks for bringing me home.”
“No problem. You feeling better?”
“Yes. I feel silly getting sick over a little blood. And for taking you from your lunch.”
He tapped the roof of the car. “Don’t worry about that.”
The longer we stood there, the more I felt the weight of his stare. I swallowed. “Anyway, Peter’s waiting for you. You should probably go.”
“Yeah.” He opened his door. “I’ll see you around.”
He got into the car and backed out. I waited for him to leave before I went up the stairs and entered the apartment. I tossed my bag on the kitchen table with a loud groan.
“Way to go, girl. Next time, faint and the humiliation will be complete.”
I sighed and went to change my clothes. At least I no longer had to worry about the werewolves somehow sensing what I used to be when they got close enough to smell me. And I’d managed not to panic about being held by one of them. Granted, I’d been occupied by other things, but it was definitely a big step for me.
I had to admit Roland had surprised me. When I thought of werewolves, gentle wasn’t a word that came to mind, but he’d handled me with so much tenderness and concern. Maybe I wasn’t being fair to him because of my fear of werewolves in general. As long as he didn’t discover my horrible secret, I should be safe around him.
Not that I was going to spend that much time with him. I’d left Westhorne because I wanted a normal life among other humans, and there was definitely nothing normal about Roland Greene.
Roland
“You going to eat that?”
Pete’s voice jerked me from my thoughts, and I looked down at the half-eaten chicken pot pie in front of me. He and I were never ones to waste good food, so I slid it across the table to him. “Go ahead.”
“You’re quiet,” he observed as he dug into the pie.
I thought about how tense Emma had been on the drive to her place and the way she’d practically jumped from the car when we got there. “Is it just me, or does she seem uncomfortable with us?”
“Emma?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Yes, but remember that Sara said Emma’s nervous around new people.”
“She seemed fine with the people here,” I pointed out.
“Maybe it’s just guys.”
“Can’t be. She said she and Scott were friends.”
“Must be you then,” he said with a grin.
I clenched my jaw. Of all the people Emma could have made friends with, it had to be Scott Foley. He’d been a total jerk and a bully in high school, but he changed after Sara disappeared last fall. Since then, he was like a different person. But it was hard for me to forget the way he’d treated Sara all those years.
I wondered if Scott knew Emma was Sara’s cousin. The idea of him around Emma didn’t sit well with me, but it wasn’t like I could tell him to stay away from her. Emma worked in his family’s restaurant, so they’d see each other all the time. And it was her choice who she wanted to be friends with.
Sara said Emma had been through a lot. Remembering how weak she’d been earlier, I wondered if maybe she’d recently recovered from an illness. She’d been light as a feather when I picked her up, although her body hadn’t felt too thin or frail.
Pete pushed away the empty plate and leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh. “What time are you heading over to Brendan’s tonight?”
“Mom told me to be there by six.”
It was tradition to have a cookout at Brendan’s farm to welcome the first wolves arriving for the pack gathering. The official gathering didn’t start until next week, but some people liked to come ahead of time and make sure they had their choice of housing. Unfortunately, some also came early to check out potential mates. It was easy to spot those wolves – both male and female – because of the hungry look in their eyes. They were the females I wanted to stay as far away from as possible.
I’d given up on trying to find a way out of attending the party. Now I was thinking of how early I could duck out of there without pissing off Maxwell or my mother.
Pete smiled as if he’d read my mind. “Might as well suck it up. No getting out of it.”
“I know.” I stood and threw cash on the table to cover my lunch. “But I have to say it’s days like this I wish I’d stayed in California.”
* * *
I looked around Brendan’s backyard that was quickly filling up with people. The smell of cooking meat made my mouth water because I’d only eaten half my lunch at the diner and I’d missed dinner to come here. But I would have gladly traded Brendan’s barbecued ribs for a plain ham sandwich if it meant I didn’t have to be here tonight.
“How long do I have to stay here?” I asked my mother, who was arranging bowls of potato salad on a picnic table.
She laughed. “You just got here.”
“Yeah, and I’m ready to leave.”
Straightening, she gave me a knowing look. She took my arm and led me away from the crowd. “Meeting unmated females doesn’t mean you’ll have to mate one of them. And very few wolves imprint immediately.”
“Dad knew as soon as he met you.” My father died in a trucking accident when I was four, but I still remembered his stories about how he and Mom met.
“Yes, but that doesn’t happen often,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. Some wolves mate for life and never take another if their mate dies. When I was a kid, I’d wished she and Nate would fall in love and get married so he and Sara could live with us out here in the Knolls. But my mother never wanted another mate after my dad.
“But it can happen.”
“Your wolf won’t imprint when you’re in human form, you know that. Your father and I met in wolf form. And even then, it took three days for him to imprint.” She smiled in remembrance. “He always did like to take his time with things.”
Pete split from the crowd and walked over to us. “Hiding?”
“Just trying to talk some sense into my son,” my mother said. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“Not a chance,” I muttered as she walked back to the picnic table.
“Come on, man. It’s not that bad,” Pete said. “You don’t have to hook up with anyone, and some of the girls here are pretty cool.”
“Says the guy who wouldn’t mind being mated,” I grumbled.
He shrugged. “I didn’t say I wanted to be mated yet. I’m just not against it like you are. If it happens, it happens.”
I watched the people milling about, talking and laughing, a lot of them catching up with friends and family they hadn’t seen in a while. Paul was there, engaged in conversation with two blonde girls I knew from Bangor. I saw them whenever I went to visit my grandmother. Allison was my age, and her cousin Patty was two years older. They were nice girls, but they were also unmated.
Paul looked in our direction. I shook my head at him, but he’d already started toward us with Allison and Patty in tow. I swore softly, earning a chuckle from Pete.
Allison giggled. “So this is where the hot single guys are hanging out.”
Patty was less obvious than her cousin. “Haven’t seen you two since Thanksgiving. You didn’t stay in Bangor long.”
“Something came up,” I said.
That something had been Nate arriving at Westhorne as a vampire. Nikolas had sent the Mohiri jet for Pete and me so we could be with Sara.