The Alpha's Mate (17 page)

“Oh Marshall, we’ve been standing here
playing games and you’re exhausted. Go sit down.” She looked in the
bag at the white freezer wrapped packages, the bottle of wine and
the loaf of bread. “I can cook a steak.”

“Three steaks, rare, and there’s one for you,
too. When was the last time you ate?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m eating now.”
Elizabeth shooed him with her hands. “Go. Sit. Down.”

“I can’t. I have to check on George. It’s the
reason I came, you know.”

He was through the kitchen door before his
statement registered. It was a good thing, too. Elizabeth felt her
smile fall along with her jaw and her eyes fill unexpectedly with
tears. She shook her head angrily. Just because the wolf kept her
company didn’t mean the man was interested in the same. Stupid
woman. A little friendly flirting wasn’t the same as a come on.
She’d blown her chance and now she’d end up as ‘just a friend.’

She pulled a platter down from the cupboard
and started pulling steaks from the bag. Unwrapping them one at a
time, she slapped them onto the counter.

“Hey, slow down.” Warm hands slid around her
waist and pulled her back against a solid chest. “They don’t need
tenderizing.”

Elizabeth stiffened, sucked in her breath and
her lips between her teeth. Being caught at her own pity party only
made things worse. She wanted to turn into his arms, but she was
too embarrassed. Cassandra wouldn’t be. She’d be purring and
rubbing herself against him with that secret smile on her face that
would tell him he was in for the night of his life.

But she wasn’t Cassandra and never would be
no matter how much she pretended or tried.

Marshall lowered his head and rubbed his
cheek against her ear. He kissed the lobe.

“George was the reason I came. You’re the
reason I’ll stay.”

She turned in his arms and glared at him.
“You did that on purpose. You waited right outside that door,
didn’t you? You wanted to see how I’d react.” She couldn’t pull
away. She was wedged between his body and the counter.

“Guilty as charged.” He lowered his head
toward her shoulder and kissed along the edge of her t-shirt. “You
told Roy to tell me not to come. Why?”

“Because I was worried about you, you big
oaf. Because I knew you’d be changing from man to beast and back
again and you’d have to change the others and heal some of them. I
didn’t want you to be vulnerable to whatever’s out there. Someone
wants to hurt you and these good people…”

He kissed her and Elizabeth forgot where she
was going with her mini-tirade. She snaked her arms up his chest
and wrapped them around his neck and kissed him back. She put
everything she had been feeling into it; all her worries for him,
all her concern for the people she’d grown so quickly to love, all
her anxieties and uncertainties about her own involvement with
these wolvers and how little she knew about any of it.

Marshall broke the kiss and leaned his
forehead against hers. “If we don’t stop now, George will never be
seen to and I’ll never get my supper.”

“And he that lives upon hope will die
fasting,” she laughed.

“I don’t think Franklin was talking about the
same thing,” he chuckled.

There were five steaks, not four, so she
fixed a platter of two along with bread and cheese for Gwenna and
George. When it was ready for delivery, the bedroom door was ajar
so she pushed it with her toe and quietly entered the room.

Gwenna looked up from where she’d been
watching at the side of the bed. She eyed the platter, took in the
aroma of the steaks and blew Elizabeth a grateful kiss.

Elizabeth barely noticed and her whispered
“You’re welcome,” was automatic. She was staring at George’s hip
and the warm golden glow of light that covered the injured area.
Marshall’s open right hand hovered about six inches above the area
and where his hand moved, so did the golden light. Suddenly, he
snapped his hand into a fist as if catching the light in his palm.
For a split second, she could see the glow between his clenched
fingers and then it was gone.

The air whooshed out George. He must have
been holding his breath. “Thanks, my lord.”

Marshall winced. “It’s me should be thanking
you, George. I made you wait until I’d tended to the others.”

“Bless you, Alpha.” Gwenna took Marshall’s
right hand in hers and kissed his palm.

“Don’t,” Marshall said sharply and snatched
his hand away. “I should have been here sooner. I should have known
there was more to his pain.”

“He’ll be all right though, won’t he?”
Elizabeth could hear the renewed fear in Gwenna’s voice.

Marshall opened his arms and gathered Gwenna
in. She was wearing Elizabeth’s nightgown, the one with the pink
roses and was obviously naked underneath, but the embrace had
nothing to do with sex and everything to do with strength and
comfort. Elizabeth felt a sharp pang of envy. No one had ever
hugged her like that; certainly not her mother who would think such
a display vulgar.

“He’ll be fine. He needs sleep and food.”
Marshall nodded at the dresser where Elizabeth had set the platter.
“Half of that. The other half is yours and don’t tell me you don’t
need it. I can feel the hunger in you. We’ll talk about moving him
tomorrow. He needs sleep and so do you.”

Marshall was right. Gwenna looked exhausted.
Her face was drawn and her eyes were red rimmed with dark circles
beneath. Elizabeth’s twinge of envy was replaced by guilt. Since
the others left, she’d only been in the room once, for a quick
shower and change of clothes. She’d taken enough time to pull out a
fresh nightgown for Gwenna and suggest a shower, but she hadn’t
really looked at her. Gwenna had been in the bed, curled around
George and Elizabeth had been too embarrassed by the intimate
setting.

She slipped from the room and went back to
the kitchen to take care of Marshall’s dinner.

These people, these wolvers, she thought
searching for the proper term, were like a huge extended family.
Most of the women came from other parts of the country and yet they
blended together like sisters and aunts and cousins, taking their
mate’s families as their own. They made no dates to meet or
appointments with each other. They just showed up. They were in and
out of each other’s houses the same way they were in and out of
each other’s lives. A part of her cringed at the lack of privacy,
but another part of her wondered if it wasn’t somehow freeing.

There was no public face to put on, no
questions of what to wear or where to be seen or with whom. Her
mother had many critical opinions about peers and voiced them
frequently behind closed doors. In public, she greeted them with
toothy smiles and air kisses. Elizabeth found she preferred Maggie
and Ruby’s good natured bickering. There was real love and
friendship between the two.

As she filled a second platter, one she
didn’t recognize as hers, she ran through the long list of women
her mother knew trying to find someone she could name as her
mother’s friend. She couldn’t and sadly, though her list was much
shorter, she couldn’t name one for herself, either.

Since she couldn’t find her one and only
tray, she left the kitchen balancing the platter and silverware in
one hand and the open wine bottle and two wineglasses in the other.
She was surprised to see a flicker of firelight from the grate. It
was a nice touch. The days were still warm, but there was a touch
of autumn in the evening air and a small fire would be enough to
ward off the chill.

Marshall was sitting in the tall wingback
with his back to her, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
His heavy hiking-style boots were beside the chair and she could
see his rag wool clad feet, toes pointed and crossed at the ankles.
She thought he was asleep, but he opened his eyes and smiled at her
as she set the platter down on the small table beside him.

“Hey. You don’t have to do that. We can eat
at the other table.” He took the wine and glasses from her.

“No. You’re comfortable where you are. This
is fine.” She pulled up a footstool and sat, hugging her knees.

He cut a piece of meat, looked at it and then
at Elizabeth. “Where’s yours?”

“Oh, I wasn’t really hungry,” she said,
“There were five steaks in the bag and I knew George and Gwenna
hadn’t had much today.” She shrugged. It would have sounded perfect
if her stomach hadn’t chosen that moment to growl loudly.

She reddened at being caught so blatantly in
a lie, but thought she was saved from further explanation when
Gwenna walked through with the empty plate.

“She gave you her supper,” Marshall said when
the other woman returned from the kitchen.

“She did? Why thank you, Miz Elizabeth.” She
didn’t say, “You shouldn’t have.” Or any of the other things people
say to be polite, but kept her eyes on Marshall.

“I guess I’ll have to feed her mine,”
Marshall said and winked.

“Why, I guess you will.” Gwenna grinned. Her
eyes lit up and she looked like she wanted to applaud. “Can I tell
George?”

“You can tell the whole damn world for all I
care.”

Gwenna fairly skipped back to the
bedroom.

Elizabeth eyed him suspiciously. “What was
that all about and why do I feel like I just passed some kind of
test?”

“Eat first.” He held the fork to her
lips.

“No. I refuse to eat until…” Her stomach
growled again, this time loud enough to be heard on the other side
of the mountain.

“Eat,” he commanded, “Before you wake up the
bears.”

She gave up and opened her mouth. While she
chewed and he cut another piece of meat, he explained.

“My father, the Alpha before me, always said
that the best packs were tied together through small sacrifices. If
a member breaks a leg at planting time, he needn’t worry. Each
member of the pack will sacrifice a little of their time to see the
job is done. No widow needs to worry that her children will go
hungry or that she’ll have to turn to the State for support. Each
family will sacrifice something from their larder. They’ll send
their sons to chop her wood and their daughters to watch her
children while she works.”

He continued to feed her until she held up
her hand to say, “No more.” And then he finished off the plate
while he told her stories of the pack.

“My family isn’t wealthy by the standards of
the people where you come from, but we’re well off by the standards
of these mountains. The Alpha taught us to be aware of our wealth
and be grateful for it, but never to flaunt it. He taught us that
the sacrifice of our time and our talents are more important than
simply donating our money.” He poured her another glass of wine.
“You made the small sacrifice of your supper to Gwenna and
George.”

“I didn’t give them anything. You brought the
steaks.” She was uncomfortable with calling it a sacrifice. It was
only sharing a bit of supper.

“And it makes you part of the circle. That
widow I told you about was grateful for the sacrifices of others,
but not beholding to anyone for them. When she made pies from the
apples someone brought her, she’d always make one for the old man
who lived here. He loved a good apple pie and had no one left to
make him one. Was her sacrifice of time and work any less because
the apples didn’t come from her tree?” He nodded at the empty
plate. “Those steaks came from McCarty’s freezer and the bread and
wine came from Lara and Morgan. That makes them part of the circle,
too. See? Small sacrifices that hold us all together.”

She liked sitting here next to him by the
fire. It felt comfortable and right. Maybe it was spending the day
with him as a wolf when sex wasn’t a consideration. Or maybe it was
the kiss in the kitchen that let her know in no uncertain terms
that he was still interested. Or maybe it was because so much had
happened in the last two days that her nerves were played out and
she no longer had the capacity to feel nervous over anything.

Oh, her body was still very aware of him. He
smelled like the woods that surrounded them with a dash of sun and
blue sky thrown in for good measure. And when he leaned toward her
with the fork poised at her mouth or a bit of bread dripping with
juices, she couldn’t take her eyes from his. She could drown in
those deep pools of blue.

He didn’t use his hands much when he spoke,
unlike herself, who could be a danger to others with her
gesticulations. How many times had she been corrected for the
overenthusiastic use of her hands? Marshall didn’t need broad
gestures. His body radiated power and his voice carried the
assurance of his position. When she first saw him in the beam of
her flashlight, she thought it was his tall, muscular body and good
looks that were his sole attraction, but now she thought that even
if he was a small man with a plain face, women would still be as
drawn to him as she was.

He didn’t need wild gestures to make his
feelings known. You had only to watch the subtle nuances play
across his face as he told her stories of the people here. The left
corner of his mouth curled up first before he laughed and when his
eyes crinkled with that laughter, the left one closed just a little
bit more than the right. They widened and turned a deeper shade of
blue when angered. The faint lines that ran from his nose to the
corners of his mouth became more distinct and his face sagged, just
a little, when he spoke of someone else’s sorrow. And then there
was that cute little ear twitch that happened when he was amused
and tried not to show it. It was happening now…

“Oh! I must have been off gathering wool. Did
you say something?”

He laughed indulgently. “Gathering wool or
compiling data?”

It was another fault her mother spent years
trying to correct. She blushed. “Sorry.”

“For what? I’ve seen you do it before.” He
gently tapped the top of her head. “You wander off in there, filing
away everything you hear and see or you’re rummaging around for the
information you need. You did it when you were working on George. I
could see it in your face; picking up bits and pieces, keeping what
you needed and discarding the rest. Thank you for that. I can’t
heal when I’m a beast.” He laughed again. “Though I admit, I wonder
what was running through your head just now.”