“Good enough. You don’t need to come. Stay here with your mate.”
“You’re exhausted. Let me drive you while you get some rest. Then I’ll bow out and catch a ride home.”
“I’m not abandoning you on the side of the road.” He looked at her incredulously.
“I think we can work out a better plan than that,” she chided him.
“Oh. Yeah. I guess so.” He really was tired.
Hillary handed him his phone. He stared at it for a second. Zach must have had it. He hesitated. Once decided, there was no going back.
He shook his head. The lead spikes in his gut, the iron bands around his heart, told him he was already past the point of no return. Now he just needed his woman.
He typed in two words and sent the text.
Myra lay on the bed, Cindy propped up on the pillows next to her, her thigh acting as a pillow, her fingers sifting through Myra’s hair soothingly. When her phone beeped, she snatched it up.
Challenge accepted.
“Oh god!” she gasped, trying not to cry again. She was a badass alpha, she shouldn’t be crying this much.
Fuck it, she was a woman who was being torn to shreds, she could cry as much as she wanted. Her phone beeped again. Another message. She wiped her eyes and blinked them clear.
“Okay, he’s driving. Hillary told him that would be easier than flying since neither of us has the good sense to be near a major airport right now.”
“Take a shower. Then we’ll start driving, too.”
“I shouldn’t make him wait, we need to get going!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s hours away. It will take five minutes and make you feel a hundred times better. Trust me. I’ll work out the route while you’re in there.”
She gave her best friend a hug. “I love you, thank god you’re here.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were on the road. Her sense of loss lessened, and she knew that though they were hours apart, they were headed toward each other.
“Will you be upset if he doesn’t want to move to Arizona, and we have to change our plans?” she asked Cindy.
“No, of course not,” Cindy replied. “I mean, I think it would be awesome if we all start this pack together, but if you can’t do it, if he can’t do it, another alpha will come forward eventually. It will work out the way it’s meant to.”
“He might be fine with it,” Myra said. “I don’t think he was especially tied to Montana, it’s just where he was settled at the time.”
“Yeah, but Arizona isn’t just anywhere for him.”
“True.”
“See if you can take a nap, then you can spell me after a while,” Cindy suggested.
She really didn’t think she’d be able to fall asleep, but the next thing she knew it was dawn and she could feel him coming closer.
They stopped for a bathroom break and picked up some food to eat in the car, since Myra wasn’t willing to stop long enough to eat. “Do you want me to drive?” she asked.
“No, I’m good. I’ll let you know.”
Trusting Cindy’s word, she picked up her phone. Debated. Opened the messaging.
Are you okay?
She waited.
