With Becky and Lily, it was long behind him now.
Rob ran through the usual pack agenda and then opened the floor for new business.
“I have new business,” Nate Brown said, standing up.
Aw, fuck. Seriously, every time this guy spoke up it was to take a pot shot at Rob’s leadership. The guy was open about his dissatisfaction over the direction the pack had taken allowing us to mate humans and whatever else he could stir up shit about.
There was always something.
I swore I heard Rob’s teeth grinding from my seat. “What is it?”
“Were you going to tell us about the threat to our pack from your neighbor?”
“What neighbor?” I couldn’t help my angry outburst. If he was talking about Natalie, we were going to have more than words.
I was gonna tear his head off.
Rob held up a hand in my direction, his stern glance conveying his displeasure. At me, even though Nathan was the one being a pain in the ass.
Fuck.
I shut up, and Nathan waited. I could practically sense his giddy excitement over the trouble he was about to cause.
“You heard the question,” Rob prompted. “What neighbor?”
“I think you know exactly who I mean. Natalie Sheffield and her plans to open a bed and breakfast right next to you. To the entire pack.”
What the fuck? How did he kn—oh shit. We were talking on his roof when we’d fixed his chimney! What a dumb-ass move. Fucking shifter hearing.
A stir went around the room, and I muttered a curse. Clint wrapped a hand around my forearm to prevent me from leaving my seat. My wolf was pissed. Natalie wasn’t here. She wasn’t in danger, but I wanted to protect her still.
“Keep your cool,” he muttered under his breath. Not that muttering worked well with shifters.
Keeping my cool was an impossibility. My wolf wasn’t going to sit on my ass when a threat to Natalie was being made. I was ready to tear out throats. One specifically.
Rob frowned. “That situation is being handled,” he said curtly.
“I think this pack deserves to know how it’s being handled. Having a revolving door of humans adjacent to pack land is a problem. A big problem,” Nate said.
There were a few murmurs of assent around the room.
A low growl started in my throat.
“Knock it off.” Clint tightened his hold on my arm.
My parents, who sat a few rows ahead of us, turned to look at me, taking in Clint’s hand on my arm.
“It’s being handled,” Rob repeated.
“But how?” This time it was someone else who asked the question, which meant Rob would probably have to address it. If it wasn’t my mate who’d moved in, I’d have been rational and thought the question reasonable. A human next door, especially one who might open a B&B, could make trouble for a pack.
Dammit.
Rob closed his eyes as if begging for patience. “We are working with Natalie Sheffield to find another solution for the property.”
“I’ll gladly go by the place and—”
“You won’t,” I snarled. Clint couldn’t stop me from flying to my feet. I jabbed a finger in Nathan Brown’s direction. “Nobody goes near that place, do you understand me?”
“Rand!” My mother sounded shocked.
“Enough, son,” my father used his quiet authoritative voice on me. The one that usually worked.
Rob’s nostrils flared. “Sit.” His alpha command might have worked under different circumstances. I felt my knees start to bend, but my wolf responded with a surge of energy to combat it.
Clint seized the moment of weakness to yank me back down to my seat.
A rumbling went around the room.
“As you can see,” Rob cut over it, and the room fell silent again. “One of our pack brothers has a horse in this race.” He paused a moment for that information to land.
A mate? She’s his mate? a few people whispered.
My mother’s eyes went round, and she laid a hand on her cheek with pleasure.
“And that is how I’m handling it,” Rob continued. “Rand will win over his mate and bring her into the pack. Then I’m certain we can come to an arrangement that works for Ms. Sheffield and the pack.”
My stomach knotted up. I didn’t like hearing Rob announce my intentions to the whole pack like that, especially because while the fact that the words were true, they weren’t completely accurate. He was being diplomatic and trying to shut it all down. I knew it was to quell the dissent against his leadership. To get the assholes off his back and mine. Still, the moment he ended the meeting, I stalked out, skipping the potluck. I couldn’t stay even though I knew my parents would want to talk. To celebrate. I couldn’t now, not when my mate was being threatened.
Nathan Brown had better watch his back. Because I would mate Natalie. I’d bring her to pack meetings if she wanted to come. If he made the tiniest remark about her, I’d fucking kill him.
My brother may have more experience in that area, but I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.
16
NATALIE
I’d spent the last twenty minutes in the storeroom counting liquor bottles. It was early and the bar was quiet. It was after happy hour and well before the evening crowd arrived although Tuesday didn’t get packed like the weekend. I adjusted the count of tequila on the clipboard then moved onto the vodka. It had been a few days since I’d told Rand he needed to chill the fuck out… at least that was the way I thought about it.
The guy was the epitome of alpha, over the top male.
Every time I worked, he showed up to walk me to my car and then followed me home. He sat at the bar in what I now considered his usual stool and ensured no one messed with me. Not that Cody or the weekend bouncers would allow it. We’d spent every night together either at my house—where the smoke alarms had been installed and the wiring work was in progress—or at his cabin. I’d had a little chat with myself, meaning my pussy, and she’d won. We were going to sex it up for as long as we could with Rand.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t still resisting his claim on me. He didn’t love me. Of course, I didn’t love him, either. While I’d known him most of my life, I didn’t really know him. Although, he would argue with me about that since we were more intimate than I’d been with anybody. That didn’t mean I was in love. I didn’t even know what love was. It wasn’t like I’d had a good example of it at home. I never felt loved by my parents. The closest I’d felt to affection was the kindness from Uncle Adam. I liked my friends. But the Big L? Love? Nah. It was a stranger to me. I’d never professed love to the few boyfriends I’d had in college.
I’d learned to have sex without love. If I waited to be in love with someone to have sex, I’d have died a virgin.
I had no idea what was going to happen in the future, but I knew I couldn’t hang my hat on Rand’s supposed undying love and a happily ever after for the two of us. Planning on this thing going somewhere would be a big mistake.
That was what it felt like with my work, too. I was going nowhere.
I was in a flipping storeroom counting liquor bottles. I had an advanced degree in music, and I was in a cowboy bar in the middle of Montana. I’d taken the bad situation of being a broke grad student who hated her field of study to something worse. I wondered if on some subconscious level I came here so I wouldn’t have to play music any more. There was nothing in Montana for me to do as a violinist. Lessons to local kids? As if that was going to pay the bills.