I reach over for Deke, and he grabs my hand. We hold tight to each other as Teddy tips us one way, then the other, giving us both an eagle-eye view of the New Mexico landscape below. The buildings and roads look like child toys, tiny pieces lost in the greater wilderness. The roads give way to miles and miles of patchwork color—the pine trees aglow with their shimmery yellow leaves, in between the green-blue of the spruce and pine. The tops of the tallest mountains are streaked with white snow.
It’s so beautiful, I choke up. I squeeze Deke’s hand harder, and he squeezes back. The chopper’s too loud for us to talk, but we don’t need words to share the moment.
Finally, Teddy sets the chopper down on a bare hill top. The grass flattens in a wide circle, and the branches of the surrounding trees wave wildly in the man-made wind.
“This is our stop,” Deke shouts. He grabs a picnic basket I didn’t notice strapped in the back and comes around to help me out of my seat again. The cold gusts through me, but the fresh mountain air is worth the chill. Teddy touches his forehead with two fingers and flicks them in my direction in silent farewell before lifting the chopper and flying off again.
“He’ll be back,” Deke says. He puts down the picnic basket and helps me out of my helmet and goggles before stripping off his own.
“This is crazy!” I burst out. I do a spin with my arms flung out like I’m Maria in Sound of Music. Green grass on the mountain top, birds chirping, trees all around, the scene is pretty enough to be in a movie. “I can’t believe you arranged this!”
Deke lays out the red and white checkered picnic blanket. “Figured the wedding party can’t follow us here.”
“So you just rented a helicopter?” I shake my head as I sit on the blanket. “This is unreal.”
“Teddy’s an old friend. He was into it. He packed all this.” Deke sets a picnic basket worthy of Yogi Bear next to me. It’s full of sandwiches, bottled ice tea and all sorts of goodies like grapes and cashews and a cheese plate.
“Oh, yum.” I get busy setting up our meal while Deke stretches out beside me. “Teddy didn’t want to stay for the picnic?”
“Teddy was gonna stick around. His original idea was to serenade us.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet! You told him no?”
“Teddy plays the bagpipes. I told him fuck, no.”
I cover my face and laugh. “This is incredible. My God, Deke, this is the best thing anyone’s ever done for me. Thank you so much.” I bite my lip. I want to lean down and kiss him, but as soon as our lips touch, I know I’m going to want more. Outdoor sex in October never appealed to me before, but if there was a guarantee that Deke’s friend wouldn’t come back and get an aerial view of me naked, I’d totally do it.
Deke shakes his head as if he knows my thoughts. “You want to thank me, eat some of this.” He hands me the cheese plate. “You barely touched breakfast.”
Warmth spreads through me. He noticed.
Who is this guy? He’s too good to be true.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” My stomach growls.
“I told Teddy to pack girly shit. I figured you’d like that stuff.”
“What girly shit? Olive tapenade?” I spread the tapenade on a cracker and hold it in front of his mouth. “Open,” I order.
He shakes his head but obeys.
“So is Teddy one of your army buddies?” I ask.
“Something like that.” Deke says, cagey as always when he's talking about his old career.
“So you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me,” I tease.
His lips quirk. “Something like that.”
“And he threw all this together in what, an hour?”
Deke shrugs. “I may have prepped him.”
“Operation Save Sadie,” I quip, and his cheek curves for a second in a stealth smile.
“What did you do in the military, anyway?” I ask after I’ve devoured most of the cheese plate. I'm fascinated even though I know he's not going to tell me anything.
“I did whatever the Army told me to do.”
I roll my eyes.
“I'll tell you,” he says, scooting closer to me on the picnic blanket. “but you got to give me something in return.”
“I'm not giving you my panties,” I say flatly, and he throws back his head and laughs. The sound warms me from the inside out.
I pop a grape into my mouth and enjoy the rare sight of Happy Deke.
“No,” Deke says when he’s done laughing. “I was thinking more you tell me what's up between you and your dad.”
I bite my lip and look away. “I just never made him happy.”
“Is that your job? Make your dad happy?” Just like Deke to slice to the heart of the matter in as few words as possible.
“He thinks so.” I toy with a few cashews on the plate. “Ever since my mom left me. My mom didn't want to leave me,” I clarify. “She finally got fed up with my dad but didn’t have the money to divorce him. So she moved away. He didn't let her take me. She tried, but she couldn’t afford the lawyers to fight. And I was just a kid. I didn’t get a say. I would’ve gone with her.”
“Sucks, babe,” Deke sums it up in his typical Deke manner.
“Yes. Yes, it does.” I toss the cashews into the woods for a lucky squirrel.
Deke takes my hand and threads his fingers with mine. “This wedding, these people, this is your dad’s sort of scene?”
“Yep. All of it. Jenn and I grew up together. Lacy and George are friends of his.”
“You don’t need to impress these people.”
“I know, I know, but—”
“No. They should be working to impress you.”
I let those words settle over me like another warm blanket.
“I felt braver with you beside me,” I admit. “I’m a nice person, but I can be a doormat. Having my own bodyguard makes it easier to set boundaries.”
Deke’s eyes glint green in the sunlight. He cups the back of my neck and yanks my lips to his. I groan and tug him closer, slanting my head to offer my mouth fully up to him. Our tongues tangle, heat rising between us. I want to shrug out of my coat and straddle him. Start something and see where we end up.
But Deke’s phone beeps between us. I draw back, feeling dizzy. “You should probably get that.”
Deke checks his phone, looks away and swears under his breath.
“What? Is something wrong?”
“Nope. Nothing to worry about, babe. C’mon. Let’s pack up before Teddy gets back.”
Deke
“What the fuck are you thinking?” The rage in my alpha’s voice sets my teeth on edge. After returning to the resort, I excused myself from Sadie’s side and headed outside to return Rafe’s call. She has no idea how much trouble I’m in. Even if she did, she wouldn’t understand. She’s human, I’m not.
Another reason we don’t belong together.
“We are still trying to sort out the shit that went down in Switzerland, and you decide to take off. I thought you were going for a hunt as a wolf. Burn off that edginess you’ve had since you met that human. I assumed you were alone, doing what you needed to do. Today I get a call from Teddy Medvedev saying he picked up you and the female in a bird in Santa Fe and took you for a ride.”