Reign: A Royal Military Romance (47 page)

Both women seemed to simply be watching him, waiting for him to make a move.

“Want to come sit down?” he asked, trying to look at Emily and not Leah. After all, this was supposed to be her show.

“Thanks,” Emily nearly whispered, and walked to the middle couch. Nathan sat on the couch to her left and Leah on the couch to her right, so they were facing each other.

Perfect
, thought Nathan.
I’m on a date with a twenty-year-old, I can’t stop thinking about her sister, and I’m not even sitting on the same couch as either of them
.

I’m giving Brock a piece of my mind when I see him again.

L
eah kept
her hands carefully folded in her lap as she watched Nathan try to make conversation with poor Emily. Years and years of training from her parents kept her still and quiet, even as inside, she was screaming and shaking.

She couldn’t believe the way she felt around him. Not that she had very much experience at all with men outside her family, but this was insane. Whenever he made eye contact, her insides went gooey, and it felt like a ball of hot magma was sliding down the inside of her body, from her stomach all the way down to the spot between her legs.

Not that he was looking at her very much. He seemed to be pointedly avoiding it, actually, and that made it even worse — he made her feel like this, shaky and nervous and sweaty, and he barely seemed to notice that she was in the same room.

If I’d known it was going to be him
, Leah thought to herself
,
I’d have argued more with mother
.

As it was, she wanted to let her hair down, cross the room, and throw herself on him, and he didn’t seem to notice that she existed.

That’s well enough
, she told herself.
You’re betrothed, remember? To Ian, your soulmate?

Even the thought felt sour and stale.

“Um, I really like embroidery,” Emily was saying in her quietest, meekest voice. “Sometimes I do custom pieces for the women in town, but there isn’t very much demand.”

“Embroidery is sewing, right?” asked Nathan, his eyes practically boring into Leah’s little sister.

Emily just nodded, her eyes nervously flicking from Nathan to the floor and back.

“What kind of things do you embroider?” he asked her.

“Pillows, sometimes? Wall hangings.”

There was a long silence as both of them seemed to try and think of something to say. Nathan had been trying valiantly to make conversation, but he looked like he was plumb out of leads, and poor, chronically shy Emily was clearly terrified that this enormous, handsome man in a leather jacket was interested in her.

“She did all the edging in my trousseau,” Leah offered.

Nathan barely glanced at her before looking back at Emily, like he was deliberately trying to pretend she wasn’t there.

“What’s a trousseau?” he asked, refusing to make eye contact with Leah.

He won’t even look at me
, she thought. Her heart sank.

“The marital bed linens,” Leah said. She’d forgotten for a moment how different their clans were. “In our clan, women usually make all the sheets and pillowcases and covers for their marital bed.” She shrugged. “It’s sort of a preparation for marriage, I guess.”

“Leah has a really big trousseau,” Emily offered in her soft little voice, seemingly relieved that the conversation was no longer about her.

Thanks, kid
, Leah thought, though she couldn’t be mad at her little sister.
Make me sound like the batty old spinster I am
.

Maybe thirty-two wasn’t that old to be unmarried in some places, but among the Yukon clan, it was practically ancient. If you weren’t married by twenty-four, people started looking at you funny.

“I’ve been working on it for a while,” she said, trying not to sound bitter. She didn’t want to sound that way in front of this perfectly gorgeous man, the one who made her feel so
funny
, even if he was there for her kid sister and refused to make eye contact.

Leah’s other sister, Abigail, appeared in the doorway.

“It’s dinner time,” she said.

Leah thought she might pass out from relief.

* * *

E
ven though the
house where they were staying had come furnished, its dining room table wasn’t nearly big enough for all eleven of them. When you had seven siblings, it was rare that anything was big enough: houses, cars or bank accounts.

They’d found two folding tables somewhere in the house and set them up next to the main table, making it all one long, if slightly shaky, eating surface.

Then, her father spent most of the meal grilling Nathan about himself, no one else really saying anything. Leah sat far on the other end of the table from Nathan so she wouldn’t have to notice him avoid her eyes.

“Tell me what kind of carpentry you do,” boomed Jonah, his voice commanding even as he, in theory, made polite conversation.

“A little bit of everything, actually,” said Nathan. He’d finally taken off his jacket at her mother’s insistence, and underneath he was wearing a blue-and-white plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal heavily muscled forearms, a tattoo of a bear outline with a constellation in on one.

Leah was discovering that she liked a man with nice forearms. Even though she had to lean pretty far forward to see Nathan’s face with four of her siblings in the way, she could see the way his hands moved a little as he talked, the way he gripped his fork as he ate her mother’s pot roast.

Even that made the heat rise to her face, and she hoped no one noticed.

“Your alpha said that right now you’re working on a kitchen remodel.”

Nathan’s hand twitched a little, the muscles in his forearm flexing.

“I’m finishing up the cabinets this week,” he answered. “They should be done before too long. I also do a lot of custom furniture.”

“You make a good living?”

There was that twitch, again. Leah knew that he probably wasn’t used to quite this level of nosiness on a first date, if this was even a date. Emily hadn’t said a word since the meal had started, but her father had already inquired after the purity of Nathan’s bloodline, Nathan’s place in his clan, and his older brother’s abandonment of the North Star pack.

She was pretty sure this wasn’t how most people dated.

It was more or less how I dated, though
, she thought, and then remembered Ian’s face with a guilty rush.

He’s my fiancé
, she reminded herself.
Stop looking at this other man already
.

Although she hadn’t heard or read any of her father’s and Ian’s communication, she was certain the exact same questions had been asked. Of course, she hadn’t been invited to take part until the very end, so at least Emily was getting to know her suitor a little better than Leah had.

Ian’s your soulmate and you love him
, she reminded herself automatically.

God, she wanted that to be true.

Her sister Abigail nudged her elbow, and the two of them rose, collecting the dirty plates from the rest of the table, something that had been women’s work since Leah had been tall enough to reach. She did it automatically, not realizing until it was too late that she’d be the one taking Nathan’s plate away.

As she reached over him, her arm grazed his.

There was that feeling again, the electricity that sent shivers down her spine.

Then Nathan jerked away without even looking at her, responding to something else her father had said.

Leah rushed to the kitchen, fighting back tears.

What is wrong with me?
She thought, dumping the dishes in the sink.

“Will you slice the pie? I always ruin it,” said Abigail, coming in behind her, her arms full as well.

Leah turned her back and walked for the door.

“One minute, I gotta pee,” she said, and vanished before Abigail could tell that anything was wrong.

In the bathroom, she flushed the toilet for realism’s sake and then soaked a wash cloth in cold water, holding it to her reddened eyes.

You seriously cannot freak out over this
, she told herself.
It’s nothing. It’s nerves. You’re about to marry your soulmate and this is all just normal stress-stuff.

Leah thought that maybe if she said it enough times, she’d start thinking it was true, even though deep down she knew it wasn’t,

She remembered something her mom had told her, once, when her father had just started discussing the match with Ian:
You’ll learn to love him
.

The advice had come as a shock, after being raised on the fairy tales of shifters who were soulmates, after being told that every couple she knew had experienced love at first sight, that special
knowledge
that they were right for each other.

Apparently, that wasn’t always true.

Leah exhaled, hard, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were almost back to normal, and if anyone noticed something wrong, she could blame it on chopping onions earlier.

“There you are,” said Abigail when Leah came back into the kitchen, setting out dessert plates on the counter for Leah to scoop pie onto. “You just ran outta here like your tail was on fire.”

“Sorry,” Leah said, making the first, perfect cut in her signature strawberry-rhubarb pie.

* * *

N
athan wouldn’t look
at her during dessert, either, though Leah managed to make sure that Abigail, not her, gave him his pie.

As soon as he bit into it, she could tell he didn’t like it.

Good
, she thought, just a little bit angry.
At least I won’t marry someone who doesn’t like my baking
.

She did pride herself on her baking.

“What kind of father do you think you’ll be?” asked Jonah.

Leah sneaked a glance down at Nathan, who looked very much like he was trying not to look nervous. Quizzing someone about his future children when he’d only said a handful of words to his possible mate was probably outside the norm, too, though Leah had watched it happen to both her sisters’ husbands.

“My parents were pretty strict, and I turned out okay,” he said. It didn’t exactly answer the question, but it was close enough.

“Didn’t your brother run off with a girl?” asked Jonah, and even watching nothing more than Nathan’s hand, she could see him stiffen.

“It’s been a few years,” he said, and Leah did feel bad for him now. She tried to get her father to meet her eyes, hoping she could somehow convey
just let the man eat his pie
, but he wouldn’t look at her, his gaze locked onto Nathan, his prey.

“Didn’t he fight to take Alpha first?” said Jonah. He was holding his fork almost like it was a weapon, not even looking at his pie.

“Yep,” said Nathan, his tone sounding the littlest bit angry, like he was keeping himself in check but barely. “He was alpha for about twelve hours, and then he drove off with his girlfriend.”

Jonah Whitehorse seemed to consider this for a moment and he carefully cut the corner from his pie, scooped it onto his fork, before he finally spoke, lifting it to his mouth.

“Interesting,” he said.

Nathan didn’t respond, but his gaze swept over the rest of the Whitehorses — everyone but Leah. He skipped right from her father to her sister, passing her by like she didn’t even exist.

Leah clenched her jaw and cut through the buttery pie crust until her fork clinked loudly against her plate. She didn’t even understand why she was so upset — just because she found him so attractive, he was supposed to want her back?

It’s more than that
, a voice in her head whispered.

She took another bite of pie, trying to quiet that voice.

The questioning continued through the rest of dessert and then coffee, also served by the Whitehorse women, though again Leah managed to get out of having to be near Nathan.

Nathan seemed to be getting increasingly frustrated and agitated as it ground on, which Leah could tell through the funny little tics he had. The way the skin tightened around his eyes or how he held his fork.

She couldn’t tell if anyone else noticed.

Finally, with the meal over, it was time for Nathan to leave. Leah couldn’t tell if she was relieved or upset.

“The pie was very good, Abigail,” he said as they all stood around the table, formally saying their goodbyes.

“It was Leah’s, actually,” she said.

“Oh. Thank you,” he said, without even bothering to look at Leah.

Inside her, something snapped.

He didn’t have to like her pie. He didn’t even have to know her name, but if he going to compliment
her
pie, he had to give her credit.

After all, it was
her pie
.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said, her voice ice-cold.