Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I don’t want to let go of the hurt and fear. It’s the only solid thing in my life right now.
But it’s past noon, and it’s warming up, and it’s ridiculous that we should be out in the wilderness with a pup on the way. Am I really going to go through with this? Even scavengers deliver in the infirmary these days.
I take off Cadoc’s jacket, and he takes it from me, slinging it over his shoulder. Every so often, he passes me a water bottle, the fancy metal insulated kind. The sky is a bolder blue than it has been, almost like we’re on the verge of spring, but the frigid gusts of late winter air haven’t lost their bite as they gust down from Salt Mountain to the foothills.
Once we’re at the bottom of this particular hill, the air grows still. The slopes to the north and west serve as windbreaks, and suddenly, you can hear more than a dull roar in your ears. Birds. Squirrels. Tiny critters under the torn, brown leaves. Maybe shrews or field mice.
I’ve mapped this valley, although if I had to say, it’s more glen or dale than valley. Smack dab in the middle is the confluence of two tributaries that flows all the way to Moon Lake. Hard to say what to call them. They’re wide enough to be rivers, and seem set enough in their path, but they’re also shallow and slow.
The whole place will be pretty as a picture when it turns green.
Cadoc squats and drops my backpack. He digs a small notebook out of his pocket and scribbles.
I inch closer to peek over his shoulder. He’s sketching a very rudimentary diagram of the valley.
“What are you doing?”
He blinks up. His lips curve ruefully, and he holds up his drawing. It looks like a stick figure with a triangle for its head.
I plop down next to him and snag my backpack. It feels nice to sit. I usually meander, but I’ve been pushing myself so Cadoc doesn’t slow himself to a patronizing crawl, and he has a much longer stride than I do.
I rustle around in my bag, take out my map, and unfold it, pinning down the edges with the heels of my boots so it doesn’t flap. Cadoc lowers himself to sit beside me. His hip touches mine. And his shoulder. His elbow. We’ve got an entire field. He doesn’t need to be pressed against my side.
I’m not going to scoot away. That’s juvenile. I’m showing him a map. It’s fine for him to be so close. My heartbeat can just simmer down. I’m not interested.
I focus on the paper between my stretched legs. “If you’re making a map, you’ve got the wrong tool for the job. Where’s your gridlines, you know? Where’s your scale?”
I pluck his notebook from his hand and thumb the pages. “This is gonna get wet. You need a good coated paper. I got this from Mrs. Dee. She uses it to print her resume. See how I taped a few sheets together so I can do a few square miles per map?”
Cadoc bumps my upper arm. “You’re holding it for her?” His lips are soft and curving slightly. Tentatively. It’s a joke.
Do I find it funny?
I’m toting around a bag of hurt—and tummy bloat and more aches and pains than I’ve ever had, even hungover—which makes me not want to find him amusing in the least.
But on the other hand, it’s sunny, even if it’s cold, and I have company, even if he’s probably trouble, and I hate him. He’s dangerous, but Ifeel safer, and it’s disorienting, but also an improvement over the past few weeks.
I decide to take a joke.
“Nah, I stole it.” I give him big owl eyes.
A crease appears on the bridge of his nose. I don’t think he can tell if I’m teasing or not.
I take pity on him and let the corners of my mouth sneak up. His follows suit. Then he shifts, kind of awkward all of a sudden, and makes a show of looking at my map, reaching over to smooth it flat. His forearm brushes my knee. Tingles dance across my skin.
“Why’d you add these trees and not the rest?” His fingers graze the triangles I added for a stand of oak.
“They’ve got some vines on them that I want to check out come spring.”
“Your map’s to scale?” His forehead furrows, and he scans back and forth between the streams and woods and hills as if he’s checking my work.
“Wouldn’t be as useful if it wasn’t.”
“Yeah.” His gaze falls to my face and rests there, heavy, like he’s searching. Or memorizing. I squirm.
He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs. He wants to say something, I can tell, but all he does is look. I tuck a loose lock of hair behind my ear. I bet the tip is bright red. It’s warm to the touch.
I glance up at him from under my lashes. He’s looked at me like this before. That awful night in the Airstream. Earlier when I sat on Abertha’s porch in the rocker. In the Commons when I sat across from him eating steak. In the Bogs in front of my trailer.
He’s always looked at me like this. It’s not an expression, per se. He only really has variations on deadpan, but this look is different because it’s longer, and he doesn’t seem to want deference. He’s not expecting a bent neck—which is good since he’s not getting one.
And he keeps looking, past when anyone else would feel compelled to look away. It’s like the staring contests Nia, Bevan, and I used to have. I always lost.
Is Cadoc actually interested in me?
Of course he is. I’m the vagina Fate served up to him on a silver platter.
And what does it matter? It didn’t stop him from spitting me out of his mouth like brussels sprouts.
“Why’d you come after me now?” I ask. He can’t think the question comes out of nowhere, not when he’s still looking at me like that. “What changed?”
He reaches out, his hand uncertain, and brushes the line of my jaw with his calloused fingers. It feels like a cat’s tongue. Somehow, I can feel the tickle low in my belly.
“I did,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you couldn’t trust me before. You can now.”
“Why would I?”
“You’ll see,” he says.
I don’t have anything nice to say, so I keep my trap shut.
He shrugs, flashes a wry smile, hops to his feet, and offers me his hand in one smooth motion.
I make him wait, carefully folding my map and tucking it into my backpack, slipping out the rubber band in my hair, and tying it back again into a ponytail. I’m being petty, and no one in the Bogs would tolerate it, but Cadoc waits, patient, eyes glued to my hands as I smooth my limp, greasy hair.
“I must smell awful,” I say without thinking.
“Not to me.”
I roll my eyes and let him help me up. I don’t have a pregger belly yet, but my abs aren’t working up to standards, either.
“You smell like a whole spice rack,” Cadoc says and stiffens, my small hand enclosed in his larger one. I can see his dismay. Not literally—his face hasn’t suddenly developed the ability to express emotion. But it’s a combination of the pause and the feeling in our bond—he thinks he put his foot in his mouth.
He’s embarrassed.
He’s capable of embarrassment.
This is freaking delightful.
“Is that a compliment or a complaint?” I can’t help but needle.
“I didn’t mean it—” The sentence kind of teeters over a ledge.
“So what do I smell like then?”
He turns stern and rigid, ignoring the question and striding ahead toward the wider of the two streams in a very business-like manner. He squats to let the water run over his hand.
He’s doing a lot of squatting and crouching, and each time he does, his thigh muscles strain against his jeans and bonkers, half-baked ideas fly around my brain—perching on his thigh and kissing him, straddling the thick, hard thigh and grinding.
I don’t have the excuse of heat. Maybe I’m hormonal because of the pup. Maybe I’m a ‘leg woman’ like Bevan refers to himself as an ‘ass man.’
The blush creeps up my neck, hot and prickly. I shouldn’t forget that I’m capable of embarrassment, too.
“If you’re self-conscious, you could rinse off here. I’ll keep guard.” He frowns at the surrounding woods. “I wouldn’t look if you didn’t want me, too.” He winces and tacks on a muttered, “Of course, you don’t want me to.”
I wait a beat to make sure he’s done. I had no idea that Cadoc Collins lacked game to such a degree. Pritchard’s smoother, and he once offered Nia a packaged apple pie if she’d let him touch her boob.
“I’m not self-conscious.” I’m not sure why that’s the part I feel the need to address first, but it is. I join him by the stream and lean over, trailing my fingers in the current. It’s freezing. “I can’t. It’s too cold.”
His eyebrow quirks.