Lucy remained still.
Then her tent exploded inward, razor sharp claws tearing through the fabric and slicing through her shoulder. Her screech finally flew free and she scrambled backward, away from all the sharp pointy things shredding the thin blood red nylon.
She screamed and screamed and screamed, and still the giant wolf tore apart her tent in a frenzy. Its claws raked down her leg and its fangs gnashed within an inch of her arm, but its body became entangled in the fabric. This only enraged it more. A bloodshot eye locked onto Lucy and she could have sworn the wolf smiled. But not a nice smile. A smile that said, “I can’t wait to gobble you up, little girl!”
The cacophony was too much to hear anything beyond her own screams and those of the wolf, but the wolf heard something. It stopped moving. It turned its head, bloody drool dripping from its snout.
A howl. Close by. Then another.
The wolf growled, but not at Lucy. At least, not at first. It gave her a furious glare and then wriggled itself free from the remains of her tent and loped off into the forest.
“Jesus,” Mason whispered when she finally stopped speaking. “What happened?”
Lucy shuddered, not wanting to remember all of what happened next. Mason wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her trembling body close. She immediately felt calmer and leaned into him, taking comfort where she could find it.
“A hiker found us the next morning. I was in the hospital for two weeks. A bunch of people questioned me, told me everything would be okay. I guess they were right, in a way. By the time I went to recuperate at my grandmother’s in Pepper, about an hour away from here, my college had been paid for, my parents’ mortgage was paid off, and I had a healthy settlement from the Forest Service over the ‘incident.’ I still would have rather had my parents back.”
They sat in silence for a moment, their ice creams forgotten and melting down their hands. She didn’t care. Mason’s closeness was all that mattered. He gave her strength she didn’t know she possessed.
“I’ve spent the last ten years trying to build a life away from Ashtown, one that wasn’t clogged with… memories. I went to school, I built a career as an accountant, I went to more therapists than Woody Allen. I put my past behind me.”
“So, what brought you back to town? Selling the house?”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. She’d already shared her deepest darkest secret with him. The latest bit of drama in her life barely compared.
“Long story short, I was framed for embezzling. Turns out that blood really is thicker than water. Especially, when the president of a family-owned company discovers his uncle has been feeding a bad gambling habit by stealing from the corporate bank account. After I tried reporting it to the authorities, the family covered the uncle’s activities and pinned it on me. They couldn’t press charges, of course, but they hid their tracks enough to satisfy the investigators. Then they took their revenge by spreading the word I was a thief. Good luck finding an accounting job with that kind of rumor going around.”
“Assholes,” Mason growled and then gripped his cone so tightly it crumbled in his hand.
Lucy smiled at his protectiveness. “Yeah, well, whaddya gonna do? My grandmother is great, but I needed to get away, go somewhere to regroup.”
He threw his ice cream in the trash can next to the bench and shook off the droplets of creamy goodness before giving her a curious look. “You mean you needed someplace to hide.”
A denial sprang to Lucy’s lips, but before she could speak the words, she realized he was right. The truth hurt. She shrugged and tossed her own sloppy cone into the trash. For some strange reason, she’d lost her appetite.
Mason turned to her, took her sticky hand in his and gazed deeply into her eyes. “There’s no reason to hide anymore, Lucy. I won’t let you. You’re too spectacular to hide away.”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, but she couldn’t look away from his hypnotizing green eyes. Not that she really wanted to.
“And you need to know,” he continued, wiping a fleck of ice cream from her chin, “you’ll never be alone again. You will always have me. Me, my brothers, my entire pack. Your pack. You are the alpha mate, and every member of the pack will support you, no matter what.”
Wouldn’t that be nice? she thought. She wanted to believe him, more than anything. But life had a nasty way of reminding her that whatever progress she made, it would be there to take it all away.
“I don’t know, Mason,” she whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder.
He kissed her temple. “What don’t you know, my love?”
“I’m not strong enough to take on that kind of responsibility. An alpha mate should be strong, a formidable force. That’s just not me.”
She felt his lips smile against her skin, and then he said, “You’re wrong, but that’s okay. I can be strong for the both of us until you realize it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mason and Lucy spent the rest of the afternoon window shopping along the main drag. He’d expended a lot of effort building up Ashtown’s reputation as the hottest spot for hipsters to hang, and it had worked. After they invariably moved on to fresher roadkill, the middle class would catch wind of the town’s charms and it would be come all the rage with suburbanites. Then they would follow the hipsters’ breadcrumbs, leaving Ashtown to the snowbirds. Then he’d just figure out how to repeat the cycle.
In the meantime, Lucy seemed to be having a great time pawing through all the junk that reminded her of her childhood. It warmed his heart to see his mate’s spirits lift. She’d suffered enough in her life. It was time she enjoyed herself a little.
“I had this exact toy when I was nine,” Mason said as he handed her a ninja action figure dressed in a red Hawaiian shirt. “It was my most prized birthday present that year. Then Kade stepped on it with his baseball cleats. Smashed it into a million pieces.”
“I hope he replaced it for you with his allowance.” She had a glint in her eye that suggested she already knew the Blackwood brothers weren’t sitcom perfect. He laughed.
“Not a chance in hell. I was so mad I shifted and tackled him. Dad caught us before Kade got to shift, and I was grounded for a week. On my birthday!”
“Poor baby,” Lucy mocked, stroking his arm like he was a whining puppy. “Stories like that make me grateful I was an only child.”
“You never wanted someone to fight with? To share your clothes with? To tell your darkest secrets to?”
“Not really. Besides, I had my mom for fighting. At least during my teenage years.” Mothers and daughters, an eternal struggle.
“So, you were a daddy’s girl?”
Lucy snorted softly and played with the arm of an old Fisher Price record player. “No doubt about it. We loved to listen to his old Sinatra albums. I didn’t really care so much about Ol’ Blue Eyes, but I loved how much he loved him.”
“We should go listen to some of them,” Mason suggested, hoping she’d take the hint and invite him over to her house. Not that mates required invitations, but he was still trying to be a gentleman—at least until she finally accepted him as her mate.
Lucy sighed sadly. “Can’t. I have his old record player somewhere, but the albums were stored in the basement and it flooded a few years back. The caretaker threw them all out. All I have left are the memories.”
Mason grabbed her hand and dragged her from the little curio shop. “We can fix that.”
As the Record Turns was one of the first “cool” shops to open on Main Street in recent years. He had no reason to visit the store often, but if someone was in the market for vintage vinyl, there was no better place in all of Georgia.
“Any one in particular?” he asked as he headed straight for a section at the back devoted to the Rat Pack.