Another day passed.
His wolf was in a constant state of heightened anxiety. Every time Blaze left the Steel Protection building, his wolf tried to force him to run the mile down Main Street to the diner.
He sent a third message.Hi. Just checking. The app shows the messages are being delivered. I don’t want to be a guy who pushes. Tell me if you want me to stop.
He waited.
Nothing.
His wolf was unbearable. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat a full meal without his stomach turning over. He spent the night doing pushups on the floor of his apartment until his arms gave out, and when he finally slept, he dreamed about her face. He woke up with his wolf pushing at him so hard he thought he was going to come out of his skin.
The next morning, he showered, dressed, and left the Steel Protection building on foot. He couldn’t take it anymore. He knew it was the wrong move to confront her at the diner, but his wolf didn’t care. His wolf wasn’t waiting for his mate to decide whether to acknowledge his existence. His wolf was going to make the first, second, third, and one hundredth move. The inner beast was going to let her smell his scent and let her animal decide what she wanted to do about him.
Chapter
Five
Stella satat her desk with the schedule for the week open on her laptop. The vendor invoices were stacked in the wire basket waiting for her signature. But instead of dealing with her morning tasks, she was reading Fighter Wolf’s last message.
Hi. Just checking. The app shows the messages are being delivered. I don’t want to be a guy who pushes. Tell me if you want me to stop.
She had not responded to him at all. The messages just sat in her inbox, waiting unanswered. What was she supposed to do? Fighter Wolf was her mate. She’d been waiting for him for so long she’d almost given up.
But how could she be mated with a man her own dad had banned from the diner? Shane Keenan did not do a thing like that lightly. Only a handful of people had been banned from the diner in the thirty years he’d run the place. That ban was law for the Keenans. And Stella was nothing if not loyal to her family.
That was the reason she’d taken on the job as diner manager after her parents retired, after Theo went off to Portland andthen went to be head chef at the Fate Mountain Lodge. All of his work had been prestigious and award-winning. Even her dad had once been a reality TV show star.
Stella’s loyalty was the reason she’d been willing to take the supporting role. To stay in the shadows of the famous chefs in her family. She’d taken after her mom in that way. Family loyalty was unquestioned and ironclad. Her dad wasn’t a demanding or strict person by any means. That made the ban even more meaningful.
But her bear howled and raged every time Stella thought about Fighter Wolf. The idea of rejecting her mate because of something like a wrecked diner haunted her every thought. She still hadn’t decided what to do. She hadn’t been sleeping properly because her bear was constantly moaning and demanding she go over to Steel Protection to claim her mate.
She closed the app, put her phone in a drawer, and walked out to the dining room.
Nell was on the floor with her apron tied and her sleeves rolled. She was working booths three through six and the back half of the counter. Stella walked the room with the coffee pot in her hand, pouring refills and checking on customers. Mr. Henson was at his usual stool with the paper folded to the sports page. There were two contractors at the end of the counter in dusty Carhartts.
Stella stopped to check on Mrs. Crowley, a regular who’d brought in an out-of-town guest she introduced as her sister-in-law. Stella refilled their coffees and took the orders herself.
“Two eggs over easy with crispy hash browns,” Mrs. Crowley said. “And buttermilk pancakes.”
The sister-in-law looked at her menu and then up at Stella. “Smoked salmon benedict and the Belgian waffle with strawberries.”
Stella put the order in at the pass and tapped the bell once. Eddie calledorder inwithout looking up. Nell was at the register ringing out the contractors, two of them up at the counter end with their wallets already out. She handed back their change and receipts and said something that made the older one laugh. They tipped their hats at her on the way out.
Eddie called tickets through the pass faster than the servers could pick them up and the smell of bacon grease and fresh coffee and pies in the warming case was thick in the room. Stella was running coffee to a table of four in a booth near the front window when she heard the crash from the kitchen.
The whole dining room flinched. Stella set the coffee pot down on the warmer and walked back through the swinging door into the kitchen. Eddie was standing in the middle of the line with a hand over his mouth.
A full sheet pan of bread pudding for the dessert special was upside down on the floor in front of the oven. A stack of clean plates had come down with it. There was custard and shattered ceramic everywhere. Maya, one of the prep cooks, was on her knees with the dustpan.
“Eddie, what’s your replacement plan?”
“Apple crumble. I can have it out in twenty.”
“Good. Do it.”
She walked back through the swinging door into the dining room. She lifted her eyes to scan the room, and her gaze landed on a figure standing in the front door. Fighter Wolf.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
