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“I didn’t know this was your pack, Trace.If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t have tried to hide outhere.”
“Yeah, it never occurred to any of us that you might be there,” he said, sighing. “But I thought you knew who I was. You knew my name and…well, it doesn’t matter now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” His voice teetered on the brink of exhaustion.
“Anything else you want to say, boss, or should I just take it from here?” Randy asked, grabbing the phone from my outstretched hand.
“Do you think you can manage to take it from here, Randy? Can I trust you to babysit my mate until I can catch a flight back to Flagstaff?”
I winced, sympathizing with the beta who didn’t deserve the harsh criticism.
“I guess you probably can,” he said slowly. “Seeing as how I wasn’t the one who let her get away in the first place.”
The phone erupted with a string of expletives from Trace, but Randy didn’t look concerned. He ended the call and ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes bouncing from Gabe to me and landing on Gabe’s hand, still rubbing circles on my upper back.
“If you want to keep all your appendages intact, you should probably stop touching her like that. Just a friendly warning before our alpha returns.”
__________
It turned out that a direct flight from Boston to Flagstaff was over six hours of airtime. Add that to the drive time to get to the airport and the two hours Trace had to wait in the airport for a flight, and his estimated time of arrival in a best-case scenario was sometime after seven in the evening.
Randy was worried that I would try to bolt if one of us leftthe room for any reason, so the first three hours of waiting consisted of him leaning against the door and Gabe and I whispering to each other in the corner.
If Gabe had a single spiteful bone in his body, he would have been pissed at me for keeping so many secrets from him. Instead, he listened to my story and asked questions to understand my motivation for coming to Tumblewild in the first place. He sighed and shook his head when everything was out on the table. I held my breath, waiting for his judgment.
“It’s not what I would have done, but I can understand that you felt the need to run and hide from Trace. I’m glad you ended up here with me instead of with a psychopath or something.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever told me,” I said, only half-joking. I reached forward to hug him and thank him for not hating me.
From his space near the door, Randy cleared his throat and shook his head, not taking his eyes off the game he was playing on his phone.
Gabe released me and scooted away to put some space between us. I turned my attention toward the door, specifically focusing on the beta.
“Um…Randy?” I asked, squirming slightly.
“Yes, Mariam Hinder slash Ella Landis slash the future Mrs. Trace Everett?”
So, Trace’s last name was Everett. I stored that piece of information away. “I need to use the restroom, please.”
Randy didn’t even look up from his game. “Nope. Not going to happen.”
“I’m not sure if I can hold it for another five hours,Randy.”
“Then things are going to get a little more interesting in here.” His tone made it clear he wasn’t interested in negotiating.
Gabe growled low, which caused Randy and me to both turn and look at him with surprise. “Come on, Randy,” he said. “Even prisoners get to use the bathroom. Let her go. She’s not going to run anywhere, right?” He turned to me for confirmation, and I nodded. There was no getting out of this mess.
“Oh, is that right? I don’t think you know Ms. Whoever-she-is as well as you think you do, Gabe,” Randy grumbled. “That’s what the council had been doing this whole month, if you didn’t know. We have been going on a crazy wild goose chase looking for her. But does it bother her that you’ve had twice the workload, and Trace has been a complete lunatic to the point that none of us want to deal with him right now? You bet it doesn’t. She wasn’t interested in even hearing him out or trying to make it work. She ducked her tail and left him standing in a parking lot. If her scent was any indication, she probably went back to fuck her boyfriend on the same night she got another motherfucker killed for jumping on his dick.”
My wolf whined, not wanting to hear any more. I was beginning to like Randy about as much as I liked Neil back home. Gabe’s growl intensified.
“Do you really think that our alpha is going to appreciate you saying those things about his mate? When he gets back here-”
“When he gets back here, he can say it all to her face himself,” Randy finished.
Gabe stood up and helped me to my feet. “Randy, I’m trying to understand what you’ve gone through this last month and be sympathetic to all the shit you had to endure as our beta, but I’m taking her to the bathroom. You can come with us if you want.”
Randy’s gaze turned to steel as he looked Gabriel up and down. Finally, he stood and opened the door. “She has four minutes, and then I’m coming in there.”
The beta called to Linda and motioned for her to join us. She was going to be my babysitter while the men waited just outside, but I couldn’t care less. I really had to go.
