Page 15 of Wild Alpha (Cold-Blooded Alpha #12)

W hen Fisher pulls his cell phone from his pocket and wanders away to answer it, I pretend not to notice.

We’ve just finished the first round of eating BBQ. More steak, burgers, and hot dogs are on the grill, leading to a third and maybe even a fourth round.

There are big appetites, and then there are shifter appetites.

As he pockets his cell phone and approaches, I tense up, knowing it was his dad calling for help.

I tried to ignore the urge to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t switch off my senses.

His dad has just provided him with the perfect excuse to escape this crazy world of shifters before he’s sucked in any deeper.

He smiles apologetically at Dayne and Talis. “Sorry to have to do this to you, but my dad just called and needs a hand with something in the shop.”

“That’s okay,” Talis says with a smile. She overheard the other side of his phone call, just like all the rest of us, and she’s pretending she didn’t.

“Go for it.” Dayne flips the steaks, and they sizzle loudly. “We should have more food ready when you come back.”

He isn’t coming back.

Fisher turns to look at me, his expression hesitant. “Do you want to come? I’ll only be a few minutes in the shop, and I wanted to swing by my place to pick up a few things to bring back to the cabin.”

My eyes meet his, and I realize I need to say something. He’s clearly expecting an answer.

I’m relieved he’s not using this errand as a reason to run, and I’m curious about what his home looks like. As for meeting his dad? I’m not sure I'm ready for that yet, or maybe ever.

Everyone is watching, their gazes shifting between me and Fisher. It’s weird. They’re smiling as if Fisher is asking me out, and they’re excited and eager for me to say yes.

“Okay,” I eventually say, if only to get them to stop staring.

“Don’t hurry back now,” Savannah says.

Eden muffles her laugh with one hand, and Luka, Dayne’s beta, says dryly, “She’s not trying to get rid of you. It sounded like she was, but she really wasn’t.”

Yeah, I know what's going on here. They know I have a thing for Fisher, and now they're doing everything they can to push the two of us together. My pack mates would've done the same thing, and it makes me want to laugh and cry because I miss my family so much.

As I walk with him to his car, I glance over my shoulder, sensing eyes on me.

They are all watching us with grins on their faces.

“Have fun,” Talis mouths.

And it literally feels like I’m going on my first date rather than a quick errand.

Hallee waggles her eyebrows suggestively at me.

Choking back laughter, I spin around, surprised and pleased when Fisher opens the door for me before I can reach for it.

“He doesn’t bite,” Fisher says with a smile as we make the drive into town.

I pull my gaze from the window. “Who doesn’t bite?”

“My dad. You don’t have to be nervous about meeting him.”

“What makes you think I’m nervous?”

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m always quiet,” I counter.

“Yes,” he agrees, “but this is a different sort of quiet. And there was a long pause before you agreed to come. The worst you have to look forward to is a series of terrible Dad jokes that I promise I will do everything in my power to save you from.” His voice is dry.

I study him for a beat. He’s a confident driver, and I feel perfectly safe. He’d reminded me to put my seatbelt on when he slid behind the wheel. I’d bitten my tongue instead of telling him that a car crash would have to be pretty severe to kill me. “You’re good at reading people.”

I have the benefit of a wolf in my head to help me out with her keen instincts. Over the past three years, I’ve steered clear of some dangerous situations that, without her help, I might not have survived.

Fisher is a human from a small Colorado mountain town he claims he's never left, and I have gotten pretty good at hiding what I’m thinking. How is he able to read me so well?

“You look like you’re thinking hard,” he says, shooting me a quick glance as we approach Hardin’s quiet Main Street.

A row of shops offers the essentials that everyone needs to get by: a diner, a small boutique, a bank, a grocery store, a gas station, and a couple more shops whose signs I can’t see. Only the diner has several vehicles parked at an angle outside.

“Just wondered why you’re so good at reading people.” Not people. Me .

A brief smile twitches his lips. “Working in a grocery store—hell, working in customer service—will teach you more about people than you probably want to know.”

I cock my head, interested. “They tell you things?”

He slows his car and pulls up outside the grocery store, stopping next to a small white van with doors on both sides and the back.

“I spent years learning to read people. I pay attention to how they talk to each other and how they react.

I can tell who's had a fight, and who's upset whom.

" He cuts the engine and winks at me. “And who's probably sleeping together.

The grocery store is the town's heartbeat, and everyone drops by for something.”

The grocery store door swings open with the faint sound of a ringing bell, and a smiling man in a dark blue apron over blue jeans and a white T-shirt steps out. His wide, open smile, big brown eyes, and a hint of gray in his brown hair identify him as Fisher’s dad.

“Ah,” he says, approaching with a smile. “You’re the big distraction stealing my son from me. I’m Mart.”

“Averie.” I’m unbuckling my seatbelt as his words catch up to me. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to steal him.”

His laughter is loud and contagious. “It’s not a complaint. I see a little too much of him.”

Fisher rolls his eyes as he gets out of the car, saying sarcastically, “Thanks, Dad. Just what a kid wants to hear his parents say.”

Mart is at my door, opening it for me before I can reach for the handle. I’d hoped to hide out in the car while Fisher went in the store and helped his dad with whatever task he needed help with, but it looks like there’s no hiding out here.

Talking with people used to be easier when I was around them more. Now, I fumble to find the right thing to say, yet I still end up saying the wrong thing.

“Come on in. I’ll grab us some snacks,” Mart says.

He wants us to eat here? Shit. I’d hoped this was going to be a quick in-and-out thing, not a stay-long-enough to have a full-blown conversation situation that I’ll have to talk to Fisher’s dad, maybe even about where I’m from. “I, uh?—”

“We can’t stay, Dad,” Fisher says, slamming his door shut. “We’re going to miss the BBQ.”

“Shame,” Mart says, closing my door. “At least I can grab you a soda and something to take with you.”

Fisher shrugs when I peer back at him. “That’s my dad. If he’s not actively trying to feed you, he’s scaring you away with his terrible jokes.”

“ Terrible !” Mart mock-glares at Fisher from the grocery store doorway. “I’ll have you know there?—”

“Dad,” Fisher cuts in mildly. “You say that like I don’t know you.”

Grinning unapologetically, Mart throws his arm around Fisher’s shoulder, giving him a one-arm hug. “Come on then, son. Let’s get this refrigerator emptied and ready to be moved.”

I follow them into the store and look around.

It’s larger inside than it appears from the outside, with three packed aisles. Every shelf is so well-stocked, I can’t see how anyone wouldn’t find what they need here.

“Wow, you have so much stuff in here,” I whisper, overwhelmed by it all.

It’s not untidy, though. The shelves are well-stocked but organized. There are labels everywhere, and it smells of lemon and pine.

“There’s a larger town a few miles east with a big-box store," Mart says, pulling products from a chiller on a wall beyond the front counter and cash register.

"I've never been a fan of those; they always seem so soulless to me. But that’s where folks go if I don’t have what they need. There's also a Walmart."

“Do you need help?” I ask.

“I won’t say no. More hands make the task easier,” Mart says with a smile.

“The chiller cut out this morning,” he explains as we unload the cabinet of food into the large plastic tubs he has placed on the floor nearby.

“A guy is coming to look at it, but it needs to be emptied and moved away from the wall so he can access the back. With people coming in and out all morning…”

“Didn’t find the time,” Fisher continues.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your date,” Mart says.

“It wasn’t really a date,” I deny. “Just a BBQ.”

I’m not sure what the BBQ was for. Since Hallee and the other girls kept pushing me to talk about Fisher, I wonder if it was really an attempt to bring us together.

Between the three of us, it doesn’t take long to empty the broken chiller.

Mart explains that "All the food is going into the big refrigerator in the back" once it’s empty. Then, it takes less time to carry the tubs into a large chiller room where other refrigerated items are stored in boxes.

When a dark-haired woman in her forties comes in carrying a reusable shopping bag, Mart greets her with a smile, and Fisher tells Mart to serve while we move the chiller away from the wall.

“He’s nice,” I say quietly, watching Mart laugh with his customer.

I thought it would be awkward and I’d struggle to know what to say, but I haven’t felt uncomfortable at all. Mart never runs out of things to talk about, and none of it involves prying into my past. He’s as easy to be around as Fisher.

"This, along with the diner, is the heart of Hardin,” Fisher says, watching him affectionately. He looks at me and quietly adds, "Losing my mom gutted him, and Dad is getting older. That’s why it was always so difficult to leave, you know?”

I nod. “I think I know.”

My dad held our pack together. Dad was exactly what we all needed him to be, and he took very little for himself.

He didn’t give himself enough time to grieve when my mom died.

He just continued being the alpha we all depended on.

That’s why I didn’t hesitate before agreeing to the mating ceremony I didn’t want; I was doing it for him as much as for the rest of my pack.

Fisher continues, “What my dad failed to say before was that not everyone in Hardin can get to the big box store or Walmart. He arranges deliveries to those who can’t make it into town, boxes everything up, and I deliver it for him.”

I remember watching Fisher load a box onto the back of a truck. “And everyone else comes into the store?”

“Not always. The locals have a tab. They tell us what they need, and we do the shopping for them, box it up, and they swing by to pick it up, paying later,” Fisher explains.

“They might also stop into the diner for a coffee and a slice of pie, especially if they live further away and don’t come into town often. ”

“That was Fisher’s idea,” Mart says as he approaches after waving the customer off. “We charge a little extra since it’s for picking and packing."

“Dad wouldn’t have charged a dime,” Fisher says dryly. “I have to remind him that this is a business and time costs money.”

“So, you sticking around, Averie?” Mart asks casually. A little too casually, because Fisher sighs loudly.

I shrug. “Um, not sure yet.”

I want to, but I ran here for a reason. That reason hasn't changed. Xavier is still out there, and he's still looking for me. If he turns up here, I can’t stay. Not when it would mean putting others in danger.

“Averie?” Fisher’s voice is soft, and he looks worried.

That man is far too good at reading my mind; it’s actually a little scary.

He’s the biggest reason I want to stay, but he’s also the biggest reason I should leave. Xavier is a possessive alpha. If he knew I was with Fisher…

“I want to,” I eventually say. “More than anything, I want to stay.”

“Then you’ll stay,” Mart says, nodding firmly.

Fisher gives me a long look, and I think he, if not his dad, recognizes there must have been a reason I was living on my own in the forest.

“We’ll figure things out,” Fisher says, taking my hand and squeezing it. “Maybe we could talk it over with Dayne?”

I’d rather not drag Dayne and his pack into my problems. He’s been kinder than I expected, but he has a family and kids, so I can’t ask him for help. It wouldn’t be fair.

“Give me a minute to pack up a few things for your BBQ,” Mart says.

Before Fisher and I can turn to tell him it’s okay, he’s disappearing into the back.

Fisher shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Once he’s made up his mind, there’s no changing it. I wouldn’t bother arguing.”

Five minutes later, Fisher is loading brown paper bags full of drinks, chips, dips, and candy into the trunk of his car.

I freeze when Mart hugs me after Fisher. “Come back soon, Averie. Maybe we could have a slice of pie the next time I decide to fill you in on all the local secrets, huh?”

Slowly, I return his hug, and Fisher looks pleased when I say, “I’d like that, Mart.”

Considering I’m used to hiding in bushes, I’m surprised I’m actually looking forward to it.