Page 58 of The Tracker's Revenge
He rubbed his forehead. “Um, not yet. I don’t know if it would be wise.”
“What if she gets attached to you?” I asked, afraid of throwing that out there, but unable to hold the words back.
“That won’t happen.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He lowered his eyes to the floor and spoke in a low murmur. “I guess I can’t be sure.” After a moment, he glanced up again. “The only thing I can be sure of is what I feel for you, and the promise I made you. I will find a way, Toni.”
“How long will that take?”
He pressed a fist to his mouth, looking as if he wanted to hold whatever needed to be said back. It was clear there was something he didn’t want me to know.
“What?” I demanded. “What aren’t you saying?”
“The wedding... my grandfather and Craig set a date.”
The air froze in my lungs as I gasped. I took several steps back, shaking my head, imagining Jake dressed in a tux with Allison hanging from his arm, resplendent in a white dress. My brain got carried away, and the next thing I knew, I pictured them walking down a set of church steps, the crowd waiting below, clapping and throwing handfuls of rice. And my imaginings didn’t stop there, they quickly devolved and had me waiting on top of a tree with a bucket of scorpions that I would dump on the happy couple as they walked by. Shaking my head, I snapped out of it and uttered the question that begged to be asked.
“When?”
“I have exactly two months to find a solution.”
My ribs seemed to shrink around my lungs, making it hard to breathe. There was a deadline now, and it felt like it marked the end of all happiness and the beginning of a death row sentence.
“Oh, Toni.” He pressed a hand to the side of my face and wiped away a tear with a brush of his thumb. I swallowed hard, shocked to find myself crying.
On instinct, I wanted to lash out, but I found that his eyes were wavering, and his lips were pressed into a thin line as he fought to contain his emotions. This had been his mistake, his fuck up, but he was paying for it, too. He hadn’t done it out of malice, only out of a desire to be honorable, to fulfill a promise to his father. I couldn’t keep berating him for screwing up—not whenIhad screwed up plenty of times in my life, not when he wanted to fix it.
Instead, what I needed to do was help him find a solution. Maybe I didn’t know anything about unbreakable pacts and werewolf traditions, but we could find a way out of this together.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head on his shoulder.
“We’ll find a way,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
He hugged me back and made a sound in the back of his throat, something that sounded vulnerable and incredulous at the same time. “I don’t deserve you. I got myself into this mess, and you shouldn’t have to suffer for it.”
He was so strong in my arms, and yet, the way his voice was breaking made my heart squeeze with emotion. I couldn’t face this like some sort of spoiled child who threw a tantrum and pointed fingers because things hadn’t gone her way. The old Toni would’ve done that. The old Toni let her entire life fall apart when Jake left. She had done nothing but despair. It had taken Rosalina walking into my life to put it back together, and I wasn’t that person anymore.
If I’d learned anything from my best friend it was that you had to help those you cared about. Besides, it would be stupid not to do it when my own happiness depended on it. And in the end, if we couldn’t find a way, at least I would have no regrets. I would know that I’d done everything in my power to stop the wedding, that I’d fought for the man I loved.
“You sure screwed up,” I said, hardening my resolve, “but if I’m to keep you, I can’t lie on my laurels, fanning myself. No, I will fight tooth and nail for you.”
Jake pulled away from our embrace, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. His lips trembled, and then he said, “The hell with it,” and he kissed me.
Holding my face in both hands, Jake pressed his mouth to mine, making my body shudder. It was a kiss unlike any other he’d given me. There was no desire in it, no sexual current of electricity coursing through my veins. Instead, I was suffused in Jake’s intense emotions of relief and tender love. It occurred to me for the first time that the weight of what he must do to break the unbreakable was more than he thought he was capable of bearing on his own, and that now that I’d offered to fight by his side, he found more hope than he’d had so far.
He pulled away, a tear sliding down his right cheek, cutting a path toward his stubbled jaw. It was my turn to wipe it away with my thumb. It was the second time I’d seen Jake cry. The first was when I shifted in front of him and showed him I was a werewolf. That he was crying, now, because he thought he might lose me, just brought me to a whole new height of adoration for him.
I exhaled, thinkingI’m fucking lost. Really, the man could have, then and there, asked for my heart on a silver platter, and I would’ve carved it out of my chest and put a cherry on top.
Jake stepped away, batting a hand across his eyes. “Um, I know just how you can help me.”
He walked toward the pile of boxes, took one down from the top, and opened it. “Books,” he announced.
Indeed, several books that smelled like they’d come from my Nonna’s attic were stuffed inside. Their leather bindings were old and dusty.
“Uh, you’ve decided to become a scholar instead of a private eye?” I rubbed my nose as I fought the urge to sneeze.
