Page 25 of Forget me Knot
“Same.”
“Do you miss your family?” I blurt out and then wish I had kept that question swirling around my head instead.
“No.”
The one forceful word makes me frown.
Jack’s face hardens for a moment, and I see a flash of something dark in his eyes. Pain? Anger? Regret? It’s hard to tell. “They supported your family’s decision and did nothing to help you, even when I begged and pleaded. They are dead to me.”
He climbs off the bed with the fluidity of the powerful alpha he is and disappears through the door, closing it quietly behind him.
“Oh,” I mutter. That is not something I knew. He never told me until now. I can see why it was, or appeared to be, so easy for him to walk away from them and come here with me. But now it’s all coming back. The thing about the Trials is, you can’t keep track of them. They are the world’s best-kept secret, and it is only an hour before the auction starts that alphas and packs who have expressed interest are notified. If you are more than an hour away, tough fucking luck. Try again next time. So, while the Trials may not be in the area as a whole, their scouts and security escorts are. And that is bad fucking news for me and for Emily.
Sighing, I reach over for the remote and turn the TV off. I climb off the bed and open the door to peek through at Emily. She is still fast asleep, and that makes me glad that she feels safe enough to be able to do so. The door to the bathroom is closed, so I assume Jack is in there, confirmed when the shower blasts on, making the old boiler thud into action. I cringe, but Emily doesn’t even stir.
Closing the door again, I crawl into bed and close my eyes, letting rest wash over me, though my mind keeps circling back to Jack. To the look in his eyes when he spoke about his family.
When I hear the bedroom door creak open, I open my eyes to see Jack creeping tentatively inside, his hair damp and tousled from the shower, a fluffy pink towel wrapped around his hips. I snicker at the sight. He’s too fucking cute. When he moves closer, his earthy scent is masked by my blueberry-scented shampoo and body wash, and I let out a guffaw louder than I should’ve. I clamp my hand over my mouth as he glares haughtily at me, trying his best to look all alpha-y despite the circumstances.
“Maybe I need to bring my own towels and toiletries over,” he suggests, giving me a penetrating stare.
“Maybe.”
My sly agreement makes him narrow his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Why not?”
He nods slowly, contemplating the why or why not of this. “You know what? Maybe I will. Your towels are an assault on my manliness.” The challenge is laid bare, but we are still dancing around this issue. Both of us are as bad as each other. But it still drives home the very real problem of his prime alpha, whom I was trying to forget.
“Good,” I retort, shoving Max Hamilton aside and pulling the duvet up to my chin. “I’m sure your ego can handle it.”
He moves towards the bed, his eyes never leaving mine. “Scoot over,” he says, and without waiting for me to comply, he nudges himself beside me under the covers. I make a face but lift the duvet higher to accommodate his massive body in my double bed.
“Just so you know, you smell like a berry farm,” I tease, wrinkling my nose playfully.
“And you love it,” he shoots back, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me closer.
I laugh softly, feeling my body relax into him. “Maybe I do.”
For a while, we lay there in comfortable silence, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my arm as I try to focus on anything other than how warm and solid he feels beside me.
“What in the hell are we going to do with Emily?” Jack whispers after a moment.
“Christ only knows,” I mutter. “But we can’t not take care of her now. She came to me for help, and I won’t let her down.”
“I know, but she can’t stop here. That idiot enforcer knows where she is, which puts you in danger as well. I can’t be here twenty-four seven.”
“I know.” The thought had crossed my mind. I can’t shut my shop up, I’d go broke, but opening the doors every day while Emily is hiding out is not an option either. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck,” Jack echoes softly, his fingers stopping their patterns as if he’s lost in thought. The silence stretches between us until, finally, he exhales deeply. “We need a plan.”
I nod against his chest, appreciating the steady rise and fall of his breathing. “Got any brilliant ideas then, Mr Man-With-A-Plan?”
“Not yet. But I’ll think of something.”
Yawning, I don’t answer him. He will figure something out if I don’t. Between the two of us, we have to have a plan of some kind. My own is to run like hell and never look back. But Emily is too young and too scared to do that.
“Find her a mate?” Jack mutters awkwardly after a few seconds.
