Page 38 of His True Mate

“It’s nice to meet you,” Winnie said.

“We do a ladies’ night once a month and it’s coming up on Thursday. If you’re free we’d love to have you join us. It’s a great way to meet some of the other mates.”

“Peyton, she just got here this morning.”

“Whatever, just think about it, okay?”

“Okay,” Winnie said grabbing the ketchup as soon as I set it down and then proceeded to dump it all over her eggs and hash browns too.

Peyton left us when she was called back into the kitchen.

I sat there grinning at Winnie as she dug in.

“What?” she finally asked.

“You didn’t have to do that just because I like it that way.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ketchup.”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you really think you’re the only one on this planet that eats your eggs and potatoes with ketchup? Really?”

“Ouch.”

She snorted. “This is really good by the way. I feel like I’m starving all of a sudden.”

“Well, eat up. We can always order more if we need to.”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “There’s a ton of food here.”

I shrugged. “If I’m going to eat more than a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, then I like to go big.”

“I’m not complaining, but I don’t think we’ll need more.”

The rest of our meal was pretty quiet. Winnie didn’t seem to have a need to fill the silence all the time and I appreciated that.

After breakfast we headed over to Sydney’s store. Begrudgingly Winnie picked out a bunch of new outfits. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when Syd rang up the total, but I didn’t even flinch as I handed over my credit card.

One of the benefits of living a simple life meant I rarely spent money so when I needed to, it was no big deal to me.

“I know I’m being ridiculous,” I told her in the car on the drive home to drop off her new things. “I get it, and I’m sorry. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your clothes except that they are so damn sexy that I just want to rip them off of you. I don’t have a problem with that part,” I confessed with a grin. “But I don’t particularly like feeling the need to rip the throat out of my closest friends and Pack family just at the thought of them looking at you like that.”

“It was just a shirt, Clay. I was fully covered except my stomach. There’s nothing sexy about my stomach.”

I snorted. “You’re very wrong about that.”

She huffed.

“Do you at least like the new clothes?”

I knew it was a different style than she was used to, and truth be told several of the outfits she’d tried on I’d refused to buy her because she looked too damn good in those too.

“Yes, but I really did love that lilac dress you fussed over.”

“I loved that one too,” I admitted. “Too much,” I murmured, hoping she didn’t hear.

“Is it always going to be this way? You dictating what I can and can’t wear, because this isn’t sitting so well with me.”