Mom’s eyes lit up. “Well, not really. Not yet. But the boys have promised to help me get it started someday soon.”
My stomach twisted with guilt at the hopefulness in her voice. We had promised to help, and I had every intention of following through, but things kept popping up that prevented it.
“I’m sure it’ll be lovely,” Callie said, a wistful note to her voice. “My mom had an amazing garden when we were growing up. I used to help her in it all the time.”
“I bet she loved that,” Mom said.
Callie nodded, her face stoic, but I could see right through that. She was hurting at that moment and everything in me wanted to reach out to her. To hold her. To help her. To do anything I could to make it better.
But I didn’t have that privilege, so I sat back with my hands fisted in my lap. I had no one to blame but myself. I’d spent just as much time trying to get close to her as I had trying to push her away, and now we were stuck somewhere in the middle.
I had a feeling the conversation we were about to have would push us one way or the other, I just didn’t know which side I wanted to land on.
Chapter 17
Wyatt
“Should we go out back?”
Mom left a few moments ago, leaving behind an uncomfortable silence between Callie and me. I didn’t want to have this conversation with her, but I wanted to sit in this awkwardness even less.
“Sure,” she said softly.
We stood, and I ushered her in front of me toward the back door. I had to hold my breath as she passed so I could keep my head clear for the conversation to come. We stepped into the cool air and my stomach clenched in knots. The moment of reckoning was here, and I still wasn’t sure if I was ready.
Callie spun around and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Your mom’s human.”
I reached up to scratch the back of my neck. “You noticed that, huh?”
She sent me a scathing look that I absolutely deserved. “Of course I noticed, Wyatt. She’s not only a human, she’s sick, isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “She’s got lupus.”
“I’ve heard of that.”
I nodded. “It’s an autoimmune disease. Basically, her body is attacking itself. She’s actually a lot better than she was when she got here. Doc Monroe’s been taking really good care of her.”
“That’s why you ran off that day, isn’t it? When you got that phone call after we had lunch. Something was wrong with your mom, wasn’t it?”
I didn’t think she’d put that together so fast, but it was clear I was good at underestimating her. I’d have to stop doing that. “Yeah. She had a bad fever that day and Wes had to bring her over to Doc’s house.”
Callie turned away, her profile lit by the waning moon overhead. She was so beautiful in that moment, I didn’t know how I’d stop myself from touching her again.
“Is she going to be okay?” Callie asked softly. “I mean, is it under control?”
I blew out a deep breath and ran a hand down my face. “Well, like I said, she’s doing better, but we’re still not out of the woods. Because her immune system is so overworked, if she caught even a cold, it could be dangerous for her.”
Callie snorted. “Then I guess it’s good she lives with a pack of werewolves. She won’t catch anything from us.”
I swallowed harshly. “Yeah. Lucky.”
She turned back toward me, her eyes laser focused on mine. “Which brings me to my next point. Why didn’t I know your mom was human? Why were you keeping that from me?”
I bit my tongue as a hundred answers flew through my brain at once. At the last second, I chose the safest one. “We’ve kept it from everyone. No one in the pack knows she’s human except for Doc, Beatrice, and the alpha.”
“But why?”
Now it was my turn to look away. “How do you think a pack of werewolves would react to finding out there was a human living on their lands? In my last pack, they didn’t take it too well and I’m not willing to put her in that kind of danger again.”
She was quiet for a long time as every worst-case scenario played out in my head.
“So, you’re scared to tell them.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Terrified,” I admitted.
Callie took a rocky step forward and I quit breathing for a few seconds. “They’re not like that here. Most of these wolves were misfits in their old packs too. I can’t think of anyone who’d harm your mom just because she’s human.”
I caught her pale blue eyes and held them. “Are you willing to bet her life on that?”
She opened her mouth to respond but closed it just as quickly. That was all the answer I needed. “I’m not either. We took her out of a dangerous situation in our old pack and I won’t put her in a new one here.”
“So, what’s the plan, Wyatt? Keep her hidden for the rest of her life?”
A sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know.”
She took another step closer and my heart instantly picked up its pace. “I’d stand with you, you know?”
My brow furrowed as my heart thumped harder.
“We. I meant we would stand with you. My family. None of them would let anything happen to her.”
I swallowed harshly as I tried to get my pulse back under control. “Thanks, Callie. That means a lot.”
She looked like she wanted to press the issue, but when she sighed and looked away, I knew it was dropped for now. “Just don’t wait too long, okay? I think the longer you take to tell everyone, the worse it’s going to be.”
I scratched the back of my head again. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.”
We were quiet for a long moment after that. The woodland sounds around us amplified until they were almost deafening.
Finally, she put her hands on her hips and said, “You know, I came here to yell at you.”
My lips twitched with a smile, but I somehow contained it. “I figured.”
“Because you really deserve it.”
“I know.”
She blew out a big breath and looked away. When she met my eyes again, I found something in hers I hadn’t seen before. It looked like vulnerability with a hint of sadness, and it made my gut clench because I’d put it there.
“You kissed me,” she said simply.
My lips tingled just thinking about it. “I did,” I said, my voice rougher than I’d intended.
“And then you ran away.”
“Yeah, I did that too.”
“Why?”
I took a deep breath and looked away. I couldn’t stare into those big eyes of hers and talk about this because all I wanted was to do it again. To pull her as close as possible and lose myself in her lips. But I couldn’t do that.
Excuses, truths, lies, half-truths, they all spun around my head as I tried to figure out what I was going to tell her. Unfortunately, it seemed like what I could tell her and what she deserved to hear were two different things. Around and around they went while I watched her grow more agitated by my silence.
Finally, I blurted out the first thing that came to me. “It was a mistake.”