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Jason doesn’t address me. He gives her a meaningful look.
“We’re just having breakfast and then I’ll bring her back to her van,” she defends herself. “Unless you want to come to the library with me, Erica?”
I stare blankly. “Um…”
“It’s here in the village. I have a corner of our town hall as our library,” she explains. “It’s just across the street from your van.”
I give her a non-committal smile. Of course Bailey Blackwood would want me at the library. She wants to pump me for information. I already know she’s the town librarian in a way that means more than checking out book club picks to the residents of the village. She’s recordkeeping.
“You might want to go check on Rye,” she suggests to Jason.
“Did that. I’m makin’ sure this one doesn’t take off again.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Jason. Not until Riley and I straighten things out.”
“You know who I am?”
“I do.”
“How much do you know about us? How much have you fucked around with our lives?”
“No offence, but I can’t talk to you about anything like that. But I’m not planning on leaving the village until Riley and I have an important conversation.”
Jason stares at me with hate. It’s a stare that’d make anyone wither. If they hadn’t already withered inside long ago.
“I’ll wait here and just make sure,” he says, crossing his arms over his fabulous chest.
“Go on, Jase. I believe her,” Bailey says.
“If you try to leave town before Riley says it’s all right, we’ll find you,” he warns, finger pointed at my face.
“I’m here until Riley and I figure it out,” I say, hoping that’s before Halloween. That I’ve got closure by then. Because there are people that I need to check in on, who will need our coven’s help then.
“So, let me get this straight,” Jason leans forward.
“Here we go,” Bailey sighs.
He shoots her an annoyed look and then turns his ire to me. “You took one look at him and decided you wanted him, right? Because he’s big, strong, good lookin’?”
It was a lot more than that. Jason is big, strong and good-looking too, and he was there the day I first saw Riley. It’s not like I can even articulate just what it was. Because it was everything about him. And even if I were in my regular state of mind right now I’d have trouble with articulation, because this big, strong, good-looking guy is addressing me on the street while he’s naked.
“Well, let me tell you somethin’,” Jason goes on, pointing his finger in my face, “Riley Savage is more than meets the eye. That’s a man who’d put his life on the line for his family, his pack, for a stranger even. He’d give anybody the shirt off his back. He puts himself last in every fucking thing he does. Everyone else is first. He’s loyal. Strong. He’s got a heart bigger than anyone’s. And I’m not convinced you deserve him, so if he gives this thing a go with you, you’re gonna have a lot of work ahead of you to convince me and most of us that you deserve that shot with him. Because I wanna know my boy’s got a woman who will deserve all he’s gonna break his back to give her and I sure as shit don’t think it’s someone who’d fuck him over for seven years.”
“Jase,” Bailey tries to chastise, but I doubt he even hears it. He turns, shifts to his wolf form again, and runs the other way.
“Don’t listen to that. He doesn’t know you and he’s got no right to tear a strip off you when he hasn’t a clue what your side of the story is.”
I shrug. “He kinda does. It’s good that Riley has such good friends. But anyway, where did Amelia and Ivy go?” I need to change this subject.
“Their men sent them home when the restaurant emptied out.”
She opens the door to her house, and we’re greeted by a hesitantly smiling blonde woman and a tall, built, angry-looking salt and pepper-haired man who has to be Graydon Blackwood.
“Dad, Mom, this is Erica Young. Erica: Carrie and Graydon.”
“What’s she doing here?” Graydon demands as I’m extending my hand to shake Carrie’s hand. Before she can accept my hand, he’s putting himself between her and I. Protectively.
“Do not let her touch you, Care.” He points, finger close to my face. “You don’t touch my mate. Have you touched my daughter?”
I don’t have a chance to reply before Bailey answers for me. “She hasn’t touched me, Dad.”
“What’s your designation in the coven?” he demands.
“Spell-writer,” I answer.
He looks me over with scrutiny.
I know this man knows our coven; he was mated to Soleil over thirty-four years ago. Their mating was severed just months after Greyson was born. This was just a short while before Cornelius Savage poisoned his brother Tiberius and abducted Tyson.
