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“My mate ispurposefullyavoiding me, so yeah, I think it’s a great idea.”
Well, he was really mad.
I dropped the back of my head against the seat’s headrest and sent a text to my boss, letting her know I was sick.
She immediately told me to take off as much time as I needed—and thanked me for all the work I put in every week. It was good to feel appreciated, even if frustration was my main emotion at the moment.
We wereboth tense as he drove out of the city and into the forest. I had no idea where we were heading, though I knew we weren’t going toward Scale Ridge.
Despite being pissed, when he rolled the windows down, I took a deep breath of fresh air.
The forest smelled incredible.
And being out in the trees, even while in his truck, made me feel whole in a way nothing else ever had.
As much as I’d been trying to avoid it, I knew working that many hours was wasn’t sustainable for me. I couldn’t avoid Archer forever. I was shitty at staying away from him—and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
And man, I was exhausted.
Two hours down the empty highway, Archer pulled onto a dirt road.
We left the windows down, neither of us minding the dirt. I noticed a few cabins buried in the trees as we made our way through, and my curiosity grew.
“What is this place?” I called out, having to raise my voice to speak over the sound of the wind.
“The original pack land,” Archer called back. “I built here first, but when our numbers grew too rapidly, we had to move to the current city to bring the building costs down. Now, a handful of us maintain cabins here. Some of the wolves rent them out. I don’t.”
I didn’t blame them for keeping the homes. The forest was stunning, and outside the cabins and dirt road, the land looked untouched.
Plus, there were probably a lot of humans who would pay a ton of money to stay in a cabin on the original Wildwood pack land.
We droveanother half an hour before we finally pulled into the garage of a cabin. Despite how old it must’ve been, the place was gorgeous. The siding was painted a rich green color, and looked like it had been done recently. The large windows were clean. The boards making up the porch were lined up perfectly.
Unsurprisingly, Archer had taken good care of it.
He closed the garage behind us, and was there to catch my hand when I stepped down. I accepted his help, despite my defensiveness creeping back in.
When I started to pull my hand from his, he slid his fingers between mine.
My throat swelled at the gesture, and the blissful warmth of the contact.
“I come here when I need to clear my head,” he said, leading me inside. “It’s smaller than our house in the city, but it’s quieter. You can see the stars easier at night, too.”
We stepped into the house’s kitchen, and I looked around the space. The cabinets were a dark shade, and the countertops were creamy granite. The walls were warm white, and the floors were dark brown wood—old, and worn in a way that made the place feel lived-in.
It was homey.
Really, really homey.
My throat swelled more.
“How long are we staying?” I asked.
“As long as it takes for us to figure out how to get on the same page.” He released my hand and strode up to the fridge. When he opened the freezer, he seemed to be cataloguing what he had.
“I really don’t want to lose my job over this,” I said, leaning against the cabinets.
Truthfully?
