“I’m sorry?” Bathsheba said, confused.
“Not you,” I told her quickly, glaring at Jackson and trying to drive at the same time. “I have a backseat driver that won’t be quiet.”
He simply grinned at me, amused by my surly attitude. “Just tell her we’ll go to dinner and I’ll be quiet.”
I didn’t want to go to dinner. Not with the Alliance, who were a bunch of busybodies that stuck their noses in where they didn’t belong. My pack didn’t need the Alliance. That was for shifters that didn’t have pack support. We had everything we needed now that Jackson had arrived to lead us.
Except my new leader? Had some ideas I wasn’t keen on. I glared at him again, and found him giving me a challenging stare. An alpha stare. I continued to glare at him, not willing to break gaze. The first one to look away would lose the challenge.
“You’re about to run over that mailbox,” Jackson murmured at me, eyes still locked with mine.
Shit. I broke gaze, righted the truck on the road, and gritted my teeth. “We’d love to go to dinner.”
“Perfect,” Bath said happily.
We made plans for over the weekend. A double date (god) over dinner. When the conversation ended, I clicked off my phone and tossed it into my purse, glaring at Jackson out of the corner of my eye.
“Challenging me while I’m driving is totally not playing fair.”
“The Alliance would be good for the pack,” he said.
“I disagree.”
“And that’s why I had to challenge.”
“Yeah, but while I’m driving? Not cool.”
“I guess I could have used other methods of persuasion,” he said in a husky voice. “Would you prefer those next time?”
A ripple of awareness ripped through me, and I remembered his mouth on my neck, licking my skin. I sucked in a breath, my ni**les going hard. “A challenge is fine,” I said flatly.
He laughed.
A few minutes later, we pulled into a tiny suburb sprawl in the midst of nowhere. Jackson gave me a curious look when we took a right on Alice Lane. “Is that a coincidence?”
“Nope,” I told him. “I own all these houses.”
He looked impressed, staring out the window at the small ranch-style houses, neatly lined up on acre plots. “How many are there?”
“Fifty-six,” I told him. “I wasn’t joking when I said I was a slum lord.”
He chuckled. “These aren’t slums to me. They’re nice houses.”
They were. I was proud of them. “My dad was a builder,” I told him. “Worked for other people for the first twenty years or so, and then came into some money when his father died, and left him a couple hundred acres out in the country. My father decided that he’d do something with that land and that money, and built a bunch of houses so he could rent them out to people that needed housing but couldn’t really afford it.”
“Your dad sounds like a great guy,” he murmured, still looking out the window.
“He was,” I said, my throat getting tight as I thought about my father. Gone five years now, still missed him every day. I swallowed and cleared my throat. “We could probably get a grand a month for each of these houses, but we only charge three hundred. Everyone that lives here needs some sort of assistance. We have a lot of single mothers, elderly, disabled, you name it. Lots of shifters, too,” I said, glancing over at him. “Gotta look out for our own people.”
“Of course.”
“Anyhow, our pack does fine with what we bring in a month. Fifty-six houses at three hundred a month is still a good living, and we’re helping people out. I can’t bring myself to do it.”
I’d argued with Cash about it time and time again, too, because he didn’t have the same generous spirit that Dad had. I got a vague pang of worry about Jackson. What if he thought the same way that Cash did? That fifty-two grand a month instead of fifteen was worth putting the squeeze on our poor residents?
But he only looked over at me. “You got any plumbing issues? I’m more than happy to help out.”
And that was why I was starting to think that maybe this could work, despite our issues. “All the time,” I admitted with a smile. “Summer tends to be heavy on electricity issues, though. Air conditioners going on the fritz and such. I do a lot of quick maintenance on them, but I have to call someone out every now and then.”
He grinned at me as we pulled into a driveway. “I’m starting to learn that you’re a rather self-sufficient woman.”
His praise made me feel warm inside. I couldn’t help but watch him as I introduced him to my tenant and we stepped inside the already-warm house. I tinkered with the AC, checking the p-trap and resetting the breakers while Jackson chatted with Eliza and even held her baby while she pointed out issues with the toilets running and making their water bill climb.
Luckily, the AC fix was an easy one, and I had it blowing cool air again within an hour. Jackson fixed her toilets, a leak in the kitchen sink, and by the time we left, had completely charmed Eliza. I drove him out to another house that I knew had leaky faucets, and we got those fixed as well. With fifty-six houses to maintain, I pretty much ran out to visit at least one a day. That was my job - making sure everyone was taken care of and collecting rent. Once we were done, though, I drove around the small suburb since Jackson seemed interested, and gave him a tour of Alice Lane as well as Cash Drive, June Court (my mother’s name) and Donald Way (my father’s name). We unofficially called them the Savage Estates, and even though it was just a bunch of ranch houses out in the boonies, I was proud of them and what they represented. Jackson seemed pleased at them, too. I then gave him a tour of the rest of Savage property, since my big Victorian was situated on a couple hundred acres in the other direction. They’d been seeded with a lot of fast growing trees and barb-wire fenced some time ago so we’d have a safe place to run and play and be wolves without fear of getting shot by hunters. It was a rarity in this day and age, and I loved the freedom we had.
The Savage pack was self-sufficient. We didn’t need anyone. We especially didn’t need the Alliance.
And part of me kind of hated that we needed Jackson. The fact that he made me feel all weird and fluttery inside? Felt a bit like betrayal. Like being attracted to him meant I was somehow doing a disservice to my pack history.
~~ * ~~
The day was a long, long one.
By the time we’d finished running around the Savage Estates and touring our property, we came home and ordered pizza. I found that the rest of the pack seemed to be getting along great, with the exception of Len, who had returned but was still sulky. We all hung out in the living room and watched movies together, eating pizza and popcorn and chattering through the movie.
Holly held the baby, and I noticed that Dan sat next to her on the loveseat, though he was stiff and awkward.
I knew how he felt. I’d sat on the sofa and Jackson had promptly sat right next to me, draping his arm over my shoulders in a possessive move that Len hadn’t missed. I knew it was for show. Jackson had to push his role as alpha and my mate onto the others. Once they accepted it, they’d relax and settle in and things would smooth out. Len would step back into his role as beta and be fine with Jackson.
It was just me that was skittish. Me that had a hard time relaxing when Jackson’s arm lay over my shoulders or played with my hair. And when I yawned through the second movie and Jackson suggested that we head to bed? I was pretty sure that everyone scented my nervousness, even though no one commented on it.
We headed up to my room after saying our goodnights to the others. Our Victorian was split, bedroom-wise, and the alphas had rooms opposite from the rest of the pack. Our rooms were bigger than the others, and the room that Cash had shared with Joanne was currently empty. Jackson could always take that one once his dominance was firmly established.
But for now? While we were still establishing pack hierarchy? He’d be bunking with me.
And that made me nervous and on edge.
His hand was on my back as we entered my room. My bed was a full size and stood in the center of the room. I stared at it as I entered, painfully aware of just how small it would be with two normal-sized people in it. I turned and shut the door, trying to think. There was a chair in my room, but I was aware that Jackson hadn’t slept much last night. Putting him back in the uncomfortable chair would be unfair to him, and I needed him strong.
But I still hesitated.
“I can sleep in the chair,” he said, as if sensing my thoughts.
“No,” I told him. “It’s cool. We can share the bed. We’re supposed to be mated, anyhow.”
“You sure?” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Oh yeah,” I said, making sure my voice was as casual as I could make it. “No problem.”
“All right, then.” He moved into the room and began to strip off his shirt. “You want the right side or the left side?”
“Left.” We were so normal about all of this. Like it was nothing. I glanced over at him from under my lashes and noticed his broad bare chest. He was unbuckling his belt and sliding down his jeans, and I caught sight of a pair of checkered boxers before I turned away again.
I needed to change, too. I could just strip down my clothing. Nudity wasn’t anything for shifters, especially werewolves, since you tore off your clothing before a change so you didn’t ruin it. I’d seen everyone in my small pack more na**d than most people saw their spouses. But this was different. This was me, getting undressed to climb into bed with my mate.
But I couldn’t leave the room to change. What if the others noticed? Plus, I needed to get used to seeing Jackson na**d - the full moon was tomorrow night and that meant a pack run. If I acted all maidenly around him then, it’d make things worse. Sucking in a deep breath, I turned my back to him, pulled my shirt over my head, and began to change out of my clothing.
I kept my eyes straight ahead, staring at the wall as I methodically undressed and changed into my sleep t-shirt. If he watched me, I didn’t notice. I concentrated on undressing and then tossing my clothes in the hamper. When I turned around, Jackson was already in bed - right side - and fluffing one of my pillows. I sucked in a deep breath, turned off the light, and climbed into bed next to him.