Longing for Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 5) (3 page)

“That’s not a bad idea,” Sam agreed. “I’m almost the only game in town.”

“It’s you or Paddy’s,” said Greta. She let the tap go carefully and pushed a paper coaster onto the bar, then carefully set his beer on it. “And if you raise prices, everyone who just wants a tattoo and not art will go there. You’ll have more time to do the tattoos you really like doing, and you’ll make the same amount you do now.”

“Are you a business woman or something?” he asked.

Greta laughed.

“It’s Anchor Steam’s hoppy amber ale,” she said.

“How much?” Sam asked, reaching for his wallet.

“On the house,” Greta said. “Since you nearly had a heart attack and everything.”

Sam took a long swallow. It was strong beer. Good.

“Thanks,” he said. Normally he’d argue, but he didn’t think he had it in him.

He finally scanned the bar, looking for Greg, who he’d nearly forgotten about.

“You meeting someone?” Greta asked.

“I’m on a date,” he admitted, then wished that he hadn’t.

Why? Because Greta might tell Calder?

“Good luck,” she said. “I’m glad you’re getting out there again.”

Sam nodded once.

“Thanks,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he was glad about it, but he took his beer and walked to the booth where he’d seen Greg sitting.

Greg stood up as Sam walked over, his hands in his pockets like he was nervous.

“You look like Sam,” he said.

“You must be Greg,” Sam answered.

There was a beat of silence, and then Sam stuck out his hand. Greg shook it.

Greg was attractive, and Sam knew it: he was a couple years younger, tall and buff, with a neat beard and a sort of Scandinavian handsomeness. He didn’t feel a thing, though: no rush, no spark of nervousness, no flicker of desire.

He seems nice
, Sam thought. They both slid into the booth and Sam put his hands around his beer, wondering what the hell people did on first dates. Did they talk about their days, tell each other about their jobs?

And when the hell did he bring up Calder and Marie? Even if he still hadn’t really dated, Sam wasn’t an idiot. He knew
one mate died, one left, and this is the first date I’ve gone on since that happened seven years ago
wasn’t a strong selling point for himself.

“Do any interesting tattoos lately?” Greg asked.

“How do you define interesting?” Sam asked. He took a long drink of his beer, wishing it were even stronger than it was.

Greg shrugged.

“Anything stand out?” he asked.

“I put a zombie unicorn on a college student’s back,” he said. “It was actually pretty tricky, since she wanted the unicorn to be white, and white is hard to work with.”

“Why a zombie unicorn?” Greg asked.

It was warm in the bar, and Sam pushed up his sweater sleeves, revealing the tattoos underneath. He had full sleeves down both arms, and about every six months he thought about getting his hands done but hadn’t yet.

“I didn’t ask, to be honest,” Sam said. He took another long swallow. “After a while, I realized that everyone’s tattoos have some deep, convoluted meaning that really only matters to them, so I stopped asking that. Now I just ask what lines I can change, whether we can place it differently. That sort of thing.”

Another pause. Sam wondered where Calder had gone with the plates and whether he was coming back.

Maybe Greta warned him
, he thought.
I hope so
.

“How was your day?” Sam finally asked Greg, remembering the other man in front of him.

“It was all right,” Greg said. “We’ve got a big event coming up, so my boss was on my ass all day for the invitations to go out...”

Greg went on, but Sam wasn’t listening. He didn’t mean to tune the other man out, but he couldn’t get Calder’s face out of his head.

He looked happy
, Sam thought.
He was smiling when I opened the door. Did he find someone new? Two someones? Is that why he’s never come back, because he’s settled down somewhere else, with two other people?

Maybe they have a kid. Maybe they have two or three. Maybe he’s moved on six years ago and here I am, still stuck in the past like an idiot.

“...Sam?” Greg asked. He frowned, looking more concerned than anything. “Is something wrong?”

Sam looked at the other man and realized that he hadn’t heard a single word that Greg said. He looked down at his beer and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Listen, you seem like a great, nice guy, but this isn’t going to work. It’s me, not you. It’s very, very much me and not you.”

Greg looked puzzled, but he wasn’t heartbroken. Sam guzzled the last of his beer.

“It was nice meeting you,” he said, then got out of the booth.

“Bye!” called Greta, and Sam gave a single, short wave as he escaped out the door.

He put his hands in his pockets and dropped his head down, power-walking to the alleyway behind the bar. It was dark and smelled like garbage, but Calder wasn’t likely to be using it, so it was perfect. The cool air felt good in his lungs, and without another soul around, he finally started relaxing.

The first order of business was to tell Scarlet no more dates. At least not for a week or two. Until Greta’s wedding was over, he just wanted to lie low: his tattoo shop, his house,
maybe
the grocery store.

Then, Calder would leave again, and Sam’s life could proceed.

Even that thought twisted something in his stomach.

It has to be one way or the other
, Sam thought.
Either he’s here or he’s not.

He kicked a paper cup down the alleyway.

I wish he’d stayed,
Sam thought.
We would have figured it out
.

Then he snorted softly to himself.

That’s water under the fucking bridge
.

He turned onto a street, glancing both ways, then walked along it, crossing Main Street to the alleyway on the north side, back to the smell of trash and being totally alone. His shop was only a few blocks away, his car parked behind it, and then he could go home, have another drink. Sit on the couch and watch brainless TV until it was time to go to bed.

Two years after Marie died and Calder left, he’d finally moved into a one-bedroom cabin back in the woods. In those first days, all he’d wanted was to be left alone. He’d gone days — weeks — without seeing anyone else, most of that as a wolf.

The only thing that made him shift back was needing to pay the rent on his new house. He’d found a couple of odd retail jobs, gotten another tattoo, and eventually started apprenticing with a tattoo shop in Canyon City.

Fast forward five years and he had his own shop in Rustvale, the Midnight Gun. He even had his own apprentice: Scarlet, the ex-con who’d convinced him to go on the date with Greg.

Sam came up to his truck, and instead of getting in he leaned against the side, tilting his head back.

Your life is good
, he told himself.
You run your own business doing art. How many people can say that?

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

It doesn’t matter what Calder’s doing. It doesn’t matter if he’s married and has ten kids and barely remembers your name. You’re fine. You’re gonna be fine.

Sam got into his car, and he drove home with the radio volume turned way up. He took a shower and ate leftovers standing at his kitchen counter, then poured himself three fingers of whiskey and watched a western he’d seen a thousand times before.

Then he went to bed, and after a long time, he finally fell asleep.

By the next afternoon, he was beginning to feel like the previous evening had been a weird dream that hadn’t really happened. The day skated by: he did a touch-up, filled in some color on someone’s half-sleeve. He was cleaning up, wiping his equipment down and sterilizing the gun when the doorbells chimed.

“Are you Sam?” a voice said as he looked up.

The woman speaking didn’t
look
like the tattoo type. She was on the short side, snub-nosed and blond, her long hair braided and wrapped around her head in some complicated configuration.

Sam straightened up. Something inside him suddenly felt unstable, uncertain.

She made him
nervous
.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m Sam. You looking to get inked?”

She laughed, and the sound made the corners of his mouth tug upwards in a smile.

“Not at all,” she said. “Scarlet left her sweater at the bakery. I was headed this way and I thought I’d drop it off.”

In her hand, she held up something fuzzy and knit.

“I’m her other boss,” she said. “The morning boss. Annika.”

Sam crossed the waiting area to where she stood, shook her hand, and accepted the sweater.

“You’re the reason I can’t have her for the next few days,” he said.

“Blame the bride, not me,” she said. “The bakery’s running at max capacity from now until Saturday. No rest for the wicked.”

“How’s Greta holding up?” Sam asked. He moved Scarlet’s sweater from hand to hand, the soft fabric whispering through his hands.

“She’s a champ,” Annika said. If she was surprised that Sam knew Greta, she didn’t show it. “She already runs a bar, so it’s not like she’s a stranger to managing people and making decisions. I think she might murder her brother, though.”

Something went cold in the pit of Sam’s stomach.

“Why?” he asked, trying to sound non committal, like he was making conversation and not desperate for information on the topic.

“He showed up yesterday out of the blue,” Annika said. She stepped closer, like she didn’t want anyone else to hear her gossiping, even though they were the only two people in the shop. “Apparently he’s been gone for a really long time, and he didn’t even tell Greta that he was coming to her wedding, so now all her numbers are off, and she’s tasked Elliott and Shane — her fiancés — with finding him a suit.”

Sam knew exactly where Calder had a suit: in a box on the floor of his closet. It had been the one
really
nice thing Calder had owned, so Sam had kept it, thinking that maybe someday, he could stand to take it out and get it tailored, wear it himself. They were the same height, after all, and close in size.

He didn’t tell Annika any of that. They’d only just met, and for the first time in years, Sam had a strange thawing sensation inside him, like something coming to life again after a long winter. No reason to ruin this nice moment with his whole long, sad story.

“Two days isn’t much,” he said. “He didn’t give her any warning at all?”

Annika just shook her head.

“Apparently there’s a story behind him leaving,” she said. “He had a mate, and then something really bad happened, and he couldn’t deal with it and literally drove away one night. Left his mate a note that the mate wouldn’t show anyone else.”

Tell her
, Sam thought.
She’s going to feel like an idiot when she finds out it’s you.

He couldn’t bring himself to it, though. He liked the way that she looked at him, like he was just a guy with a tattoo shop who also knew Scarlet, not like someone who’d been discarded and forgotten by his own mate.

“Sounds rough,” Sam said.

“Greta and her brother won’t even talk about it,” Annika said. “I think there’s a juicy story there, but no one’s opening up.”

Her brown eyes flicked up to his, and for a split second she put her hand on his arm.

“Thanks for giving that back to Scarlet, she’s always telling me your place is freezing.”

Sam laughed. “She’s not happy unless it’s eighty-five degrees,” he said.

“I’ll let you know if I get any more of that story out of Greta,” Annika said, winking once at Sam. “It was nice finally meeting Scarlet’s other boss.”

“You too,” Sam said.

Then she was out the door, and Sam watched her walk past the windows.

Inside him, something new flickered, and he put Scarlet’s sweater on a chair, then stared at his hands and wondered what was happening.

Chapter Three

Annika

As soon as she was past the windows of the Midnight Gun, Annika stopped and leaned against the brick building.

I just winked at a stranger
, she thought.
Well, not a stranger. He’s a friend of a friend, kind of?

But still. Who winks at people?

Come on, Annika.

Moments later, she had her phone out.

You never told me your other boss was hot
, she texted Scarlet.

Then she put her phone back in her pocket, smoothed her hair, and walked on.

Sam?
Scarlet replied.

Yes, Sam!
Annika texted back, feeling a blush creep up her cheeks. It wasn’t like Scarlet had a third boss, and besides, even if she had mates already, Scarlet had
eyes
.

And she had definitely never mentioned that her
other
boss was six foot two of tattoos and muscle, with green eyes and gold-brown hair down to his shoulders.

You’ve never met Sam before?
Scarlet texted.

Annika sighed. They
did
own shops on Main Street about four blocks apart, so Scarlet had a fair point.

Nope. I gave him your sweater, though.

Thanks
, Scarlet texted.

At the bakery, Annika tore down the
Back in 15 minutes
sign and walked back in, tying her apron around herself as she headed into the back of the store.

On a whiteboard on the wall was a massive list of what needed to be done for the wedding. At this point, most of it was crossed off. The layers of the wedding cake were baked, wrapped carefully, and in the freezer. The cookie dough for the other wedding desserts was in the fridge, along with balls of pie dough for the rehearsal dinner’s dessert.
 

That was tomorrow, of course. Before Scarlet had left she’d peeled, cored, and cut a few dozen apples, and now Annika dumped them into a massive bowl, adding industrial levels of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Her apple pie recipe was a little involved, but she was glad to be baking and not looking at a list for a while. This was the first wedding she’d ever done, and Annika really,
really
wanted everything to go right. She wanted it so much that she’d started dreaming about making the cake, including a nightmare where two wolves got into a fight and one knocked the other into it.