Right or wrong, she couldn’t get that thought out of her head.
She didn’t want that thought out of her head.
Through the rearview mirror, she watched Alaina sniffle and stare out the side window. Remy was watching Mallory intently.
“What?” she finally asked, glancing over at him. They’d reached the city center of Duluth. She merged onto US53 South. Remy barely flicked a glance at the road sign.
“I’m just waiting for you to say it out loud,” he replied.
“Say what?”
“That we’re going to help her.”
She stole another look in the rearview mirror. “I don’t expect anything from you. I’ll drop you wherever you want me to. But yes, I’m going to help her.”
She said the wrong thing. She could tell by the way his mouth pinched, the tension in his shoulders. She wanted to ask but was conscious of their audience in the backseat. Besides, what the hell had she said? This wasn’t his battle. He had no ties to her pack, and she had no expectations of him.
They’d shared a harrowing experience followed by a remarkable afternoon in bed four years ago. And while she’d thought a thousand times since that she’d like to reach out to him, none of that added up to her having expectations of him.
He’d told her himself that he was a lone wolf; he hadn’t been part of a pack since his teens, and he was perfectly okay with that lifestyle. Didn’t sound like there was room in his life for whatever she may or may not have fantasized about a time or two or a hundred.
And then there was her. She was a mess. She knew it, she knew she needed to fix herself; she just hadn’t figured out how yet. Not wanting to burden him with her own issues was also a large part of the reason she’d stayed away for the past four years. Someone who was a self-proclaimed lone wolf would certainly have no interest in striking up a relationship with someone who had the amount of baggage she had.
Clutching the steering wheel and staring straight ahead, she asked, “What do you want me to do?”
She could practically hear the arching of his brows in his tone as he said, “That’s a loaded question.”
She gritted her teeth. “Where do you want me to take you? Were you staying somewhere nearby? Can I drop you at a hotel?”
“Yes, I was staying nearby, and no, you cannot drop me at a hotel. Although if you want to swing by and pick up my stuff, that’d be okay. And then I suggest we keep driving. At least until Indianapolis, I’d say. That’s probably far enough away to stop for the night. And when we do stop, we need to make sure we are in the middle of a metropolitan area. The more humans around, the better. In case they figure out our plan and catch up to us. They are less likely to attack with human witnesses.”
Mallory blinked rapidly, staring straight ahead, afraid to glance at him. “Are you…are you making a plan to go with us?”
Finally, she looked over, and noted the tension in his jaw. His words were almost a growl as he snapped out, “Yes, Mallory, I am going with you to Florida.”
ChapterFive
Remy wanted to demand his bear explain why it had chosen such a complicated, headstrong woman as their mate. Except he knew better.
It was all up to the fates. He had as much control over that as he did his hair color.
Well, he supposed he hadmorecontrol over his hair color.
She, on the other hand, seemed to believe she had control over whether she would accept her fated mate. Either that or she didn’t realize they were mates yet.
They hadn’t actually discussed that sensation that had poured over him when they’d spent that afternoon together in that hotel in Detroit. The same sensation he’d assumed had poured over her.
That sense of destiny. Like he was meant to be with her for the rest of his life.
But then she’d taken off, and he’d assumed she’d simply been running scared. They’d been through a great ordeal, after all. He could hardly blame her for needing space.
Now, as he sat in the passenger seat of her vehicle and they headed southeast toward Chicago, he considered that maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe she hadn’t realized what had occurred between them. He knew it was possible for bears not to realize their fated mate if they weren’t in the right headspace. He’d been there, had witnessed it, with Peter Karhu and Winona Orzo.
So, yeah, it was possible. Especially for someone like Mallory, who, he suspected, felt like she had something to prove. She wasn’t ready to let go of her demons, so how could Remy expect her to embrace a future with her mate?
He curled his fingers into his jeans, bunching the material into his fists. He needed to prove to her that she wasn’t alone. He needed to show her that whatever she was fighting, he was in her corner. He wanted to help.
He needed to help.
