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I watched him go to work and, before he entered the dark tunnel, he turned and smiled at me. I melted in place and didn’t know if my legs would work again.
Chapter Three
Life was spinning out of control, leaving me wondering what would happen next. Until Dean appeared in the forest that day, my wolf had never shown the least bit of interest in a male. Now, she liked him, and Shane…and it seemed Creek.
How many more?I asked her. If we’re going to have enough for a baseball team, we’re going to need a bigger house.
No more. Three. Three mates.She sounded so satisfied, I wasn’t sure how to break the news that I had not decided to take on number three. Number one, Dean, was miles away with the Midnight Alder pack, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get him back with Shane around. Add another male and he might hop a jet for Europe. Also, what if Shane didn’t like the idea. He’d been a great sport about Dean, especially considering the reaction he’d received from my first mate, and I wondered if it was to do with the order. Did Shane think mate 1 had more status or something?
Did other shifters operate that way? It wasn’t something I planned to allow anyone in my home to lord it over anyone else, but I was realizing how little I understood about how things did work in a household like ours. If I didn’t learn more about how to be part of this relationship, I feared I’d lose them all.
Once again, my inability to speak aloud reared its ugly head. I managed to get by most of the time, and I could have taken my whiteboard to one of the other women in the pack to ask their advice, but frankly none of them had been that nice to me, and I didn’t like the idea of being vulnerable in front of them. So…I went home and dug through the things Dean left behind, hoping to find some sort of contact information for the women he spoke of as if they had all the answers. His best friend Christi and her friend Wendy.
Dean had taken most of his things with him, but I sorted through some jeans and a jacket and a stack of books he’d accumulated while staying with me. The clothing proved fruitless, a few receipts from town, some notes he’d made about various jobs he was working on, and candy bar wrappers. I wanted to hug all those silly things, just because they were part of his life and made me miss him so much more than ever before.
I’d never paid a lot of attention to the books because until he entered my life, I couldn’t read well enough to be interested. But now…thanks to Dean, I had improved drastically. My throat swelled with grief at his absence as I opened a book about woodworking and read a few lines.
It was highly technical, and I didn’t even know he wanted to do that kind of thing. Sure, he cut firewood and had recently been using the portable sawmill to create boards, but the furniture and cabinetry in the illustrations in this book were works of art.
And I had no doubt he’d be a rock star at creating them. He’d need more tools, I could see, but it would be an amazing thing for him. Paging through, I came upon a folded piece of notebook paper and studied the armoire he’d marked. It looked like something from an antique store.
Tracing the lines of the dark wood, I wondered if he’d come back here and set up a workshop or if he’d decide to stay with the people he knew before. He could, of course. Maybe he’d decide to go back to college which, from everything he’d said, would be a waste of his true talents. Dean’s affinity with wood was apparent every time he touched it.
While thinking of these things, I toyed with the folded paper, rolling it over my fingers. There had to be a way to help Dean understand he belonged here with me and Shane and…if my wolf had her way…Creek.
I cringed at the thought of his reaction to the news that he might not be coming back to just one other mate but two. Crumpling the bookmark, I noticed something I hadn’t before. What had he written there? Notes about the piece of furniture? Or something else?
Like an email…
About the least tech person in the world, I barely knew what to do about it, but Shane would. I tore out of the house and down the path, determined to find him wherever he was working.
It took me a little while, but I finally came upon my mate standing with a group of other men outside the alpha’s house. He looked up and gave me a big smile, but I just waved the paper at him. In a really stupid move, I’d not brought my whiteboard, but luckily my mate was very intuitive and he took the page, looked at it, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “This is Dean’s friend, right? Christie?”
I nodded.
“Let’s send her an email now, then. I think you need to talk to her.”
A bobblehead didn’t have the motion I did as I let him know he was right.
He was punching letters into his phone when he paused. “Do you know how to email?”
Headshake.
“I’ll help you. If we can get a phone number, you can text. You really need your own phone. I’ve been charging mine here but we can get a little solar panel. I’ve been wanting to do that anyway.” He kept talking, but I was focused on the tiny screen. If I could have screamed, I would have. I needed someone to tell me Dean was okay, that he hadn’t forgotten me, that…just everything.
“Here you go. Just type on the keyboard what you want to say to her. Don’t worry about perfection in spelling or anything, okay?”
For once, I didn’t care. My spelling wasn’t bad for the length of time I’d been learning with Dean, but I’d recognized that communication was what mattered, and my choice of words would matter more than if I came before E.
Hi, I’m Jillian, Dean’s mate, and I need your help. I need to know he’s okay, and I need to know how to help him be okay with us. He told me you and your mates are happy together. I want that, too. Can we talk…maybe by text?
Jillian
I showed it to Shane and he smiled before hitting send. “That’s perfect. For a girl who doesn’t talk in the traditional way, you always seem to know just what to say.”
Tears filled my eyes at his praise. He couldn’t have given me a better compliment.
“Now,” Shane went on, “we wait for her to reply. Not everyone reads their emails all day or even every—” He blinked at the screen. “I guess Christie got your note.” He handed me the phone. “She’s writing to you, so you read it.”
