Alphas on the Prowl (15 page)

“Nice knee socks,” Hailey observed as he took a seat. He jerked in surprise, splashing hot coffee over his wrist and bit back a curse. A patron before them had left napkins on the table, and after setting down his coffee, he grabbed one and scrubbed at his stinging wrist.

“I was going to soccer practice,” he muttered, and she laughed. More like cackled like a witch contemplating blasting him with the business end of her wand.

He took a miserable gulp of coffee and burned his tongue. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to swallow, scorching his throat. He wouldn’t be able to taste for three days now. Great.

Hailey lifted her mug to her lips and blew across the pitch-black surface before taking a small sip. “So tell me. What was going through your head that day I stood in front of your desk in Western Civ and you wouldn’t look up and acknowledge me?”

Goddamn. The woman pulled no punches. He set his mug on the table to let it cool. “I was having a difficult time reconciling the idea of shifters being real.” He bowed his head to think for a moment, gathering himself, then looked up. “Also, I felt betrayed. You’d kept this huge secret from me for months. I had no idea who you were. I had no idea how to handle someone who shifted into a wolf.”

“How about the same way you’d handle someone who doesn’t?”

He sighed. “Sure. But I didn’t know that back then. Shifters had come out what? Two years before that? Some ridiculously short period of time. I couldn’t deal.”

“Obviously,” she said, a sullen glint in her eyes. “It took all the courage I had to tell you, but I didn’t want there to be secrets between us. Not if we were going to take things to the next level. You can’t expect to know everything about a person the first few months you know them. Maybe not ever.”

“I think something like you can turn into a big gray wolf is one of those secrets that eventually ought to come out. Sooner rather than later.”

She glared. “Wolf shifters have had relationships with humans for centuries. We just never told you before. But then our population started exploding. Babies we had with humans turned out shifters – that never happened before. Like me. I should have been human like my father, but I ended up a shifter like my mom. And we weren’t having one or two babies; we were having freaking litters. Three, four. The cats got it into their arrogant heads they could announce what they were, so the wolves had to come out too. Because we protect! It’s our reason for living, Ryan.”

Hailey took a deep breath and sucked down half the coffee in her mug, her hands shaking. “I guess having a reason to exist sounds pretty lame, but it’s true.”

“Everyone needs a reason to exist,” Ryan argued.

“Bullshit. Most people only go through the motions of existence. Wolf shifters know they need to protect people. That’s why so many of us are doctors and fire fighters. Things like that where people need us.”

Ryan nodded.

Hailey clenched her coffee mug. “Being rejected by someone you’ve come to feel like he’s yours to protect, you have no idea how much that hurts.”

Tears glittered in her eyes for a moment until she blinked them angrily away.

“Anyway, I guess you weren’t that hurt last night if you could go to soccer practice this morning.”

“Ribs are a little sore,” Ryan admitted. “I’d planned to stay out of the way most of practice, but I wanted to get out of the house. It’s Saturday and I’m already so much of a hermit I feel like life is passing me by and the next thing I know I’ll be an old man.”

“You don’t have a girlfriend?”

Ryan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Did she care? “No.”

She stared him with such a strange expression, a lump formed in his throat.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s hard to believe you have trouble finding someone to be with. You’re still the most gorgeous man I ever met.”

“You say that like it hurts you.”

She shrugged. “It does, actually. I used to be able to see your face every day. Now it seems weird to be looking across a table at you. I miss you, Ryan.”

The admission hung between them, and Ryan didn’t know what to do. God. In a minute they’d both be crying. “I miss you too. Every day that first summer and then in the fall when I heard you’d transferred, it was worse.”

“How’d you know I transferred? You asked?” She leaned forward a fraction.

“I went looking for you everywhere. I wanted to apologize. Start over,” he admitted.

She went blank again. She didn’t believe him and the moment fractured.

“Do you have even one shifter friend?” she asked.

“James is a wolf shifter. He’s on my soccer team. We hang out sometimes,” Ryan answered carefully.

She grimaced. “With the rest of your team, no doubt. Probably not one on one.”

She had him there. James wasn’t even one of his real friends – more of an acquaintance.

“I’m sure I have shifter friends. Some of them try to keep a low profile. Especially in view of the strained relationship between humans and some cats. Shifters aren’t always welcome, you know.”

“Yeah.” She snorted. “No shit.” Her eyes scorched him as she raked her gaze up and down his body and obviously found him wanting. “We tend to lose friends when we tell them who we are. It’s why I haven’t got any real human friends. Or why I can’t keep roommates for long.”

Ryan blinked at her. “You shift in front of your human roommates?” The image of the dark-haired man morphing into a panther flashed into his head, and he drove it away. Something of his atavistic disgust must have showed on his face because Hailey stared at him with a terrible, betrayed expression.

She bunched her fists, and he thought for a moment she might launch herself at him over the table. He braced for impact.

“Why should I hide who I am in my own home?” Her voice shook with rage. “Maybe I’m cold in the winter and with blankets on I end up hot and feeling suffocated, but if I kick them off, I’m cold. Why shouldn’t I be able to sleep in my own fur and be comfortable? Just because my roommate comes home, drunk, at three AM, walks into the wrong room, and screams the building down, why should I be the one who’s the jerk in that scenario? You make it sound like I’m peeing with the bathroom door open or walking around naked in front of their boyfriends. I’m in my own room! Minding my own business!”

“Hey,” Ryan said, making placating motions with his hands. They were receiving looks from all the patrons and Pam blatantly stared. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay!” Hailey’s chest heaved. “I tell everyone what I am. I’m not hiding it. I told you, and you freaked out and I felt so bad I vowed I’d never let anyone human know who I was, but then I thought, screw that, I’m not ashamed.”

She leaped to her feet and looked around the room until everyone’s gaze riveted to her. She pounded her chest with a fist and yelled, “Hey, people! Guess what? I’m a wolf shifter! I can shift into a big bad wolf! What do you think of that?” She glared at each person in turn, focusing in on a young mother with a four- or five-year old little boy. The woman put an arm around her son and managed a weak smile.

“I…” she faltered. “I think that’s…okay.”

“Yeah, sure.” Hailey abruptly deflated and sank into her chair, cheeks burning.

Aghast, Ryan could only stare.
He’d
made her like this. Overwhelming guilt swamped him as a dreadful silence reigned. Ryan swore he could even hear Hailey’s heart galloping. Maybe it was his own. Jesus.

“Anybody need a refill?” Pam raised her voice to be heard around the room, and several people surged gratefully to their feet, waving their cups.

The young mother was one of them. She took her son by the hand and went to the back of the hastily forming line.

Hailey’s breath came fast and hard, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

He had no freaking clue what to do. He wanted to get up and take her in his arms, but he thought she might kick his ass if he tried. He couldn’t think of anything to tell her that she wouldn’t spit at him for saying.

When the young mother reached the counter and placed her order with Pam, the little boy took advantage of her distraction. Moving against the tide of people pushing for the front, he made his way to Hailey’s side. His blue eyes glowed.

“Hey, wolf lady,” he said, tugging at her shirt sleeve. Hailey bit her lip and looked at him. “You wanna know what I think about you being a wolf?”

She melted and whispered, “Sure, I do.” When he held out his hands, she took them.

“I think it’s
awesome
,” he shouted into her face, making her laugh. Most of the other patrons chuckled, but Ryan noted several who shook their heads and clucked derisively. A protective fury swept over him as he struggled hard to keep his cool. People could be such bigoted dicks.

The little boy reached to hug her around her neck, and Hailey embraced him, gave him a squeeze, and let him go.

The young mother watched the exchange from the counter, her wary expression fading. Ryan relaxed when she smiled. No prejudice here, thankfully.

“Michael, come here and let the nice lady drink her coffee. I got you another smoothie.”

“Yay!” shouted Michael, and he dashed toward his mother. He stopped halfway and turned to bestow a shy smile on Hailey. “Bye, wolf lady!

Hailey settled back in her chair, face shining.

She saw Ryan staring at her, and her smile wobbled.

“I love little kids,” she confessed. “They’re not afraid of me.” Her expression clouded. “They don’t learn to do that until they grow up.” She grabbed her purse and bolted for the door.

Ryan charged after her. She wasn’t going to run away from him. Not now.

***

Hailey walked blindly without any coherent thought as to where to go. She heard Ryan running behind her, but didn’t slow or acknowledge him – even when he fell into step with her.

She stared straight ahead, glad for the curtain of hair obscuring her side vision. He matched his stride to hers, his breathing and heartrate elevated.

“Hay?” he whispered in such a forlorn voice the wolf inside her squirmed, wanting to protect and make things better. No. Seeing Ryan had been a stupid move. What was there left between them but betrayal and bitterness? He could tap dance all he liked to try to make her forget how he’d treated her, but it would always be the elephant in the room. Or, ha, more aptly – the wolf in the room. The one he wanted to deny existed. If she’d been plain Hailey Green they might still be together by now. Married maybe. With kids like that little boy maybe.

Hailey swiped at her eyes before they could leak and make things a hundred times worse. Jumping up and yelling she was a wolf shifter in front of the whole coffee shop – what the hell had that been about? Not hiding who she was and blatantly screaming it at the top of her lungs to strangers were two separate things. Dumb. Ryan made her lose her damn mind.

“Have dinner with me tonight?” Ryan said with a persuasive smile. “I’ll make reservations at La Fleur.” She pressed her lips tightly together and didn’t respond.

He said, desperation coloring his tone, “Come on. It’ll give you an excuse to wear your best dress if nothing else.”

“Maybe I don’t have a dress good enough for some fancy French restaurant,” she snapped.

“No.” The anger in his voice made her turn her head to stare at him. Sure enough, his eyes glittered, and two hectic spots of color marred his cheeks. “You aren’t going to throw obstacles in our way like this. Stop with all the snarky comments. Admit you’re afraid to go out with me. Scared as hell you might forgive me. Apparently hating me has given you a frigging reason to live or something these past five years. What are you going to do if you lose all that passion?”

“You have barely been a blip on the radar of my life since college.” So furious she couldn’t see straight, Hailey clenched her fists and fought hard not to swing at his head. “I’m not afraid of anything!”

A triumphant smile curled his perfect mouth. “I’ll make reservations for eight, then. Pick you up at seven-thirty.”

Trapped, she could only glare at him, struggling to breathe more than a pinhole’s worth of air at a time.

“I’ll need your address,” he said, still smirking as if he’d won the war. Hailey ground her teeth together. Maybe the first battle, but never the war. Those honors would go to her.

“I’ll meet you there,” she said.

“Come on.” His eyes flashed, temper marring his victorious grin. “Now you’re afraid to ride in my car? Afraid of BMWs? Or me?”

“We can take your car, but I’m not telling you where I live. Take it or leave it.” Hailey jutted her chin, and he smiled at her, the triumph erased, the anger faded. She remembered that grin from college. He’d been one of the happiest, most open people she’d ever met, and he’d always made her feel excited to be alive. It was no different five years later. A thrill shivered down her spine. Dinner with Ryan. Not at the college café or a fast food place.

Five years ago he’d asked her out to a real restaurant – Italian not French. She’d been planning to wear her best dress. But then she’d told him about her wolf, and all bets were off.

Hailey’s spine stiffened as she fought a wave of humiliation. Screw that. Here was a second chance. Tonight, he wouldn’t back out on her. She’d get her date with Ryan and then she’d be the one to walk away. Yes. That sounded like a plan.