“I’d like to invite you to stay at my house,” Joe said, surprising her.
What did he mean? Was he inviting her or was he setting her up to say how he wasn’t going to invite her? She waited for clarification.
“Thing is, Kevin—you met him briefly yesterday—is still living at home. He’s of an age, but it’ll be a while before he moves out, I hope. Anyway, he’s never known me to invite anyone to stay at our place before, so it might be a little awkward,” Joe explained, but she still wasn’t sure if she was invited, or not.
“I don’t want to cause any difficulties with your family,” she put in, hoping to get to the bottom of things. “If it’s easier, I can stay at a hotel or something.”
Joe looked pained. “On the one hand, we’re both adults. We should be free to do as we wish, and my teenaged son shouldn’t be surprised that his old man might have a lady friend. On the other, it would be the first time I ever brought someone home since he lost his mother. I know my son is a good boy, but I can’t really predict how he might react.”
“Would it be any easier if you took me to a hotel and maybe…stayed for part or all of the night? Would that help ease Kevin into the idea that you might have a sex life again?” she asked, daring greatly. “You know, without rubbing his nose in it?”
Joe seemed to think about that, frowning as he had some internal debate. “To be honest, I don’t really know if I’m ready to have a sex life again, as you put it. I only know that I want to be with you. Only you, Enid. Nobody else.” He pinned her with that laser blue gaze she’d fallen in love with. “And I’m not really sure what that means, if anything.”
Her breath caught in her throat. That sounded serious. As serious as she’d been feeling, if she was being honest. Why did being with Joe feel so…momentous? She just didn’t understand it herself. Every time her mind went to that conundrum, she shied away. Shifters could only have one true mate. Any thoughts of a future with Joe were just pipe dreams. His heart had already been given to that brave, fierce woman who had died in the wreckage, holding Enid’s hand.
“Just to be clear, I feel kind of the same. I haven’t been in a relationship for a long time, and right now, nobody else has even come close to interesting me that way, except you,” she admitted, feeling a bit shy but wanting honesty between them. “I’d like to spend more time with you, if that’s what you want, too.”
“All right, then. I like your idea about not rubbing Kevin’s nose in it. It may upset him no matter what I do, but I think it’ll be easier if we’re not in the same house. Tonight, I’ll take you over to the bed and breakfast in town. I’m in and out of there when we have important guests, so I don’t think anyone will say anything to embarrass you. And I can tell Kevin not to wait up for me. I’ve done that before when work ran late, but he’ll probably be able to figure out that there’s something more to it this time. I know I surprised him by flying off with you. He’s probably already put two and two together. My pup is pretty sharp.”
Enid liked the pride in his voice when he spoke about his youngest. “You know tomorrow’s the solstice,” she said, broaching a subject that had been crossing her mind since she realized she’d have to stay. “Do you have a priestess in town or a ceremony planned?”
“We don’t have a priestess at the moment. The last one moved to be closer to her daughter, who was starting a family, and we haven’t found a replacement yet. There is a wise woman who acts as midwife, and I think she might be holding a small ceremony up at the Pack house, but I’m sure she’d welcome you, if you wanted to stay and lead the festivities for us. That would mean staying until dark falls tomorrow, though, and you’d miss whatever you had planned for Henri’s Pack.”
“Actually, we’d decided to cancel any official celebrations since we didn’t know how things would go with Lucinda. Even now that she’s healing, she’s stuck in the hospital for a good long while, and Henri will be at her side, so the Pack isn’t going to do anything in particular, except maybe a group run,” Enid told him. “I can easily be spared, since I can’t run with them. I’d be honored to help out here, if you like. I can always either fly off tomorrow night or stay an extra day. Either way is fine.”
“We usually have a howl after the ceremonial part, but like I said, the ceremony wasn’t going to be anything elaborate this year. I think folks would be glad if you’d do the full solstice ceremony for us. We have a lot of elders who probably enjoy the ceremony more than the party and run after,” Joe told her. “I’d count it as a personal favor if you’d stay,” he added, shooting her one of those patented laser blue looks that made her swoon a little every time.
How could the man be so darn sexy?
“Then, I’ll stay, of course,” she told him. How could she deny this man anything when he looked at her like that? It wasn’t humanly possible.
“Great. I’m taking you home to my place first,” he told her. “We’ll have lunch and iron out the details while I make a few calls to set things in motion. Then, we’ll do a little shopping so you can have some clothes and other necessities. I know you thought you’d only be here a few hours, so your shopping spree is on me, since you’re doing us a favor in conducting the ceremony. Then, we can drop off your new stuff at the B&B. We’ll see what time it is by then, and go from there. I’d like to take you to the barbeque in town for dinner. You can meet my daughter and older son. They both work there. Then, we can swing by the Pack house if you want to see what the facilities are like before we go back to the B&B.”
“Wow, that’s a full schedule.” She marveled at his decisiveness. Then again, that was part of being Alpha, she supposed.
“If you’d rather relax at the B&B, just let me know,” he told her quickly.
“No, it’s all good. I like to hit the ground running,” she told him. “Remember?”
They shared a smile.
“I do seem to recall you saying something like that once before,” he replied, grinning.
How was it she was so comfortable with this man after only knowing him such a short time?
Joe felt good about having Enid in his house. It wasn’t the same house he’d shared with Tess. That home had held too many memories for them all, and he’d moved them out of it a few years ago. He’d built this new home a bit bigger, with the growing pups in mind, but they’d left, one by one, until only Kevin was left at home with Joe. No woman had ever shared this house with him. It was free of the sad memories of Tess and the happy life they’d had together.
He still owned the old homestead, and he kept it in good repair. It was farther back on the property, separated from this house by a stand of cottonwood trees. He and the children gathered there on special days to remember Tess. They also patrolled the area around it in their wolf forms, at times, just to feel a bit closer to their past and the woman who had been central to the family at one time.
The new house held none of those memories, though, which was a good thing, right now. Joe ushered Enid into the house, surprised to find Kevin there, waiting for him.