AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Aye. I think we really accomplished a lot in the short time we worked on this.”
“We did.” And so well together. Between the two of them, they had some great ideas from festivals they’d attended, plus his knowledge of his own pack’s strengths and her experience. Most of all, working with Calla was a real pleasure. He could see how well she planned her parties and other social gatherings, how he’d been wrong about her apparent frivolity. She actually had a real business sense when she figured costs and revenues. She was just as thorough and detailed as he was. He admired her for all of it.
They sat together on the sofa this time, enjoying their wine, but he couldn’t quit thinking about Baird and his involvement in this business with Calla. He didn’t want to bring it up again, but after Baird had called and threatened her, and with his men still in the area, there had to be something more to this.
“Calla, I’m certain Baird’s angry because you stood him up at the wedding, and female wolves are a rare commodity. So he can’t easily find another she-wolf for a mate. Not only that, but he’s an alpha—the lost honor and pride in losing you after you said yes has to be killing him. His men are probably talking behind his back about how he couldn’t keep his woman. And I know he’s got to be furious that we’ve taken you in—given his kin’s history with the MacNeills.”
“But?”
Guthrie frowned. “It just seems like this goes further than an obsession over the woman he loved and lost.”
She shrugged. “I have a steady income. Some men might find that handy. But I live in the old carriage house behind my parents’ place so I don’t have any properties to call my own, if Baird was hoping to add the manor house to his assets.”
“Your parents have no other children, though, and everything—including their manor house and any other investments they have, their hotels even—would go to you, right?”
“Sure. But he’s not someone who thinks about money a lot.”
“You mean like me?” Guthrie asked.
She smiled a little. “I never heard him talk about finances. We just never discussed them. Though I did talk to Robert, his pack financial manager, for tips on good investments.”
Guthrie grunted. “I hope you didn’t invest in anything his cousin was in charge of.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nay. I was just asking to see if he knew something I didn’t.”
“Do you have money? Investments?”
“Sure, I’ve got investments. Just because I spend large amounts of other people’s money doesn’t mean I spend my money like that. I’ve saved up a lot of change. But like I said, it’s not anything Baird and I ever talked about.”
“Having kids?”
She raised a brow. “I assumed he wanted kids. But nay, we never actually talked about it. Still, it’s a natural inclination wolves have.”
“Did you plan to live with him or…”
“We were getting married,” she reminded Guthrie.
“Aye, lass. But were you planning on moving in with him?”
“We hadn’t really agreed on anything.”
Guthrie raised his brows this time.
“We were going on a two-week honeymoon, and then he had to go out of town on business. So I assumed we would stay at either my place or his until we got a place of our own.”
Setting his empty wineglass on the table, Guthrie let out his breath.
“What?” she asked, sounding exasperated with him.
“How could you agree to marry him without nailing down all the details?”
She shrugged. “I assumed we’d figure it out.”
She finished her wine and set her glass on the table. “What about you?”
“What about me? Do I want kids? Aye.”
She smiled.
Seeing her amused expression, he asked, “What’s that look for?”
“You’re good with kids. I can see you helping out at a children’s birthday party.”
“Not dressed as a clown, nay. Otherwise, aye, I could help. As to the finances, if you need help with investment tips, I’m all yours.” He meant for more than just investments. “So, did we cover all the topics?”
“Last night,” she began hesitantly, “you seemed upset, but today…”
“Today, I feel like you do. It’s time to move on. As long as you’re agreeable, lass.”
“But last night…” she said again.
“Julia made me appreciate some things about my past relationship with Tenell. And after I gave it considerable thought, I realized she was right. Once I came to the conclusion that it was truly time for me to move on, I knew I was ready. When I decide something as important as this, I don’t waste time.”
Just then she looked so sweet and kissable that he took her soft sweater-covered shoulders in his hands and began to kiss her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. Even though she had more clothes on than she did last night—jeans, a sweater, and boots, nothing like the slinky toga—she was just as seductively appealing.
He swore he wouldn’t go as far with her tonight. Not when they were in the initial courtship phase, but wolves didn’t usually take months to come to a decision. Aye, they mated for life, but if they really felt the heat between them, the compatibility of likes and dislikes about life in general, the sense of caring, protectiveness, and desire, they didn’t wait a year to mate. That made him think she’d had doubts about Baird all along, even if she’d denied them to herself.
There wasn’t any way that Guthrie could court the lass for a year without taking her for a mate well before that.
This…was exactly what Calla had been looking for in a wolf all her life. The heat, the fervor, the common interests, the need, and the mutual respect they had for each other, a wolf that was as close to being right for her—she thought—as he could be.
“Kids,” she said against his mouth.
He smiled against her lips.
She looked up at him.
“Aye,” he said and plunged his fingers through her hair as he tongued her mouth with hot, passionate enthusiasm—as if he intended to work on having kids with her right that very minute. Which had her smiling, though she had no intention of going that far this soon.
But when he lifted her sweater, pulled down her bra, and began suckling a breast, she was rethinking the waiting scenario.
