Francine reveled in being told how brave and fierce she was by the various wolves in Eve’s pack, until Jada rolled her eyes and said something about not getting too big for her britches. When Jada finally made her go upstairs to the room they’d share, Francine insisted on sitting down before taking a shower, then fell asleep immediately. Jada sighed and enjoyed the quiet, moving slowly as she shuffled through the room.

Eve had handcuff keys in the kitchen utility drawer, which made Jada raise her eyebrows, but at least it got the cuffs off her. Her wrists bruised just a little from the metal and falling on her arms, and she rubbed them absently as she got in the shower. She heard when Cooper and Simon arrived from all the growling and the uptick in volume from downstairs. Part of her wanted to race downstairs, her hair still wet and tangled, and demand he tell her more about being mates and where they were going and why he wanted to apologize. She wanted to hear his voice and smell his hair and let the steady drum of his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

But they had business to discuss, clearly, and she didn’t want to show up again and disrupt whatever kind of deal Cooper and his brother would put together. She hoped the alphas got along and didn’t start fighting. She was tired of running and being chased, and it sure as hell seemed like they all had more in common than they were willing to admit. She rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror, combing her hair out so it wouldn’t snarl more before it dried. Men. Hopefully they didn’t spend all night growling at each other.

Jada couldn’t sleep, though. Something left her restless, whether it was the excitement of the day or a lingering concern over Cooper and his brother. She wanted them to get along. Clearly they’d cared about each other at one point, and what tore them apart was a simple misunderstanding. If they’d just talk about it, they could work it out.

She covered her face with her hands. She should have taken her own advice a few days earlier, and Cooper might not have been locked in the infirmary when the wolves showed up. She should have talked to Cooper instead of retreating into her own head. But it was safer there, and she wasn’t certain he would have listened. Jada sighed and pushed to her feet, searching for actual clothes to wear so she could check on how Cooper was doing. She wasn’t stupid enough to show up half-dressed, since that would no doubt send Cooper into a frenzy to protect her from the other men.

Jada refused to second-guess herself about relying on her own thoughts instead of immediately talking to Cooper, since she’d done what Cooper told his brother—they all did the best they could under the circumstances. The best she could hope for was learning a lesson for the next time Cooper acted like a fool or hurt her feelings. Since no one had ever showed her what a good relationship looked like, it was no wonder she didn’t have any roadmaps for how to be with Cooper.

She closed the door behind her, waiting until she was sure Francine still slept, then tiptoed down the hall to the stairs. Almost everyone had disappeared, no doubt to see their beds for the night, and the broken door and windows had been boarded up and covered to keep out the wind. Jada held her breath when she saw Cooper seated in front of the fire, frowning at the flames. His brother sat across from him, holding a beer bottle, but no one else was there. Neither of the men spoke or moved for so long she started to wonder if they were asleep.

Jada made some noise as she walked down the stairs, and Cooper immediately sat up. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jada said. She hesitated, not sure where to sit, then walked over to take a place on the end of Cooper’s couch—not within arm’s reach of him, but still on his side. She hoped he got the message. “Just couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d see who else was still up.”

Ace looked remarkably like his brother, particularly in the flickering firelight. But he didn’t smile as easily as Cooper did. Ace lifted his beer bottle in a brief salute to Jada. “I can still rescue you, if you’d like.”

Jada managed to smile. “Thank you, I’m fine.”

Cooper didn’t immediately try to smother her in an embrace, but instead studied her face for a clue to her mood. “Ace and I were just... catching up.”

“It sounds like you have a lot to discuss,” Jada said. She glanced between them; something major had to have happened, beyond just Cooper thinking Ace was dead. “Why are you two so angry at each other?”

“He left,” Ace said, shrugging. There was more to it, from the set of his shoulders, but Jada knew she wouldn’t get to the heart of it the first night she met him. The bear looked into his beer bottle instead of at his brother. “And started demonstrating the same behaviors we hated in our father and uncles and the rest of the clan. I always thought he was better than that.”

Cooper’s head tilted back so he could stare up at the ceiling, heaving a sigh like he had to dredge it up from his toes. “I told you it’s a misunderstanding, Ace. Father sold you a load of shit about me before you faked your death. You don’t believe him about anything else, so why do you believe what he told you about me?”

“Prove him wrong,” Ace said. 

Cooper scowled and gripped the couch cushions under he nearly tore the fabric. “You arrogant, irritating little—”

“It sounds like Ace is agreeing to go back to the Lodge with us,” Jada said, trying to be bright and cheerful. “So you’ll have a chance to show him how different you are.”

Both men looked at her blankly.

So Jada went on, studying her nails so she wouldn’t see either of them react to what she said. “Francine and I are going back with Kira and Ethan, probably the day after tomorrow once we help Max and Eve clean up.”

“Harry also wants to go west,” Ace said slowly, grudgingly. He clearly disagreed with the alpha’s decision. “So the pack will follow. Whatever load of goods Simon sold him, Harry bought. So we’ll be in your hair for a while yet.”

“Excellent,” Jada said. “That will give you and Cooper plenty of time to get reacquainted.”

Cooper’s frown deepened. “Jada, I don’t know if that’s—”

“It’s a great idea,” she said, trying to give him the same look Eve had given Max when he said something ridiculous the night before. “Isn’t it?”

Cooper’s lips twitched, then he sighed. “Sure. It sounds fantastic.”

At least Ace’s smug look could have been partly from amusement. Maybe watching his big brother get ordered around by a girl would soften Ace’s disregard for his brother. After all, a total jackass like their father would never have allowed a woman to argue with him in public, much less interrupt him or tell him what to do. Jada knew that much about her own father, and it no doubt applied to the bears as well.

The fire had fallen to mostly ashes, so Cooper got up to stir them and add one small log. Jada leaned forward into the warmth, smiling to herself. “It looks perfect for s’mores, don’t you think? I always wanted to try one.”

“You never had s’mores?” Ace asked, his eyebrow quirked.

He didn’t make it sound like she was a freak of nature, even though it was what Jada feared. It didn’t bother her too much, so she could shake her head and shrug as she watched the coals glow and the wood start to catch. “Nope. We saw them on television and in movies, and I remember having a fire where someone roasted marshmallows, but they didn’t share with the kids. With the girls, I should say. But it always looked really nice.”

Cooper grunted, shaking his head. “Roasting marshmallows is an art. It takes a bit of practice.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking. Then the corner of his mouth pulled up and she knew. She gave him a dirty look. “Don’t tease me.”

“Never,” he said.

Ace grumbled and pushed himself to his feet, taking his beer into the kitchen. “I’m giving up for the night, if you’re okay being alone with this asshole, Jada?”

“Yes, I’m fine being alone with this asshole.” Jada didn’t look at Cooper, even though she wanted to smirk at calling him an asshole almost to his face.

His brother lumbered through the back of the house and outside, marked by a swinging door, and no doubt joined the rest of his pack in the barracks’ guest rooms. Which left Jada and Cooper near the fire, the last ones awake in the whole house. Jada took a deep breath and faced him, drawing her knees up to her chest. “Okay. Start talking.”

“Talking? About what?”

He looked genuinely puzzled, so she knew it wasn’t a ploy. He didn’t seem like the game-playing type. Jada rested her chin on her knee. “You said you were going to apologize to me. And then you said I’m your mate. I’m still confused about those two points, so I might need more from you on that.”

Cooper nodded, finishing the rest of his beer before setting the bottle on the coffee table. “I absolutely apologize. I was an idiot and a jackass, and I never should have taken that tone with you or with Francine. I’ll apologize to her tomorrow morning when she gets up. I’ll make it up to you eventually. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, since I knew that you’d been spoken to harshly your whole life and I still couldn’t temper my tone. I’ll make it up to you, and I’ll never do it again.”

“Yes, you will.” Jada held up a hand to forestall his immediate objection. Her head tilted as she watched him, wanting to smile as the fire back-lit his hair and highlighted some red strands in the dark mess. “Cooper, no one’s perfect. You were in pain and you snapped, and I reacted to that. I’ve had a lot of time to think it through, and it took hearing other people talk about how awful you are to show me that you’re not. You’re…human. Well, human and bear. But you’re not perfect, and I’m not perfect, and no one is perfect. I just…if we think this might work and you want to stay together and try it, then we have to be okay being ourselves. Being imperfect together. Which means you might hurt my feelings and I might hurt your feelings, but we have to be okay with talking about it and doing our best to not do it and apologizing when we do.”

He didn’t move other than reaching for one of her hands. “Are you…do you want to stay together?”

“You’re my mate, aren’t you?” Jada smiled, even though there was still a wiggle of doubt in her chest. “I wanted to see the world and travel and go to school and a bunch of other stuff, but I’ll be okay going back to the Lodge with you and staying there. I’m sure we’ll be happy.”

She wished she believed it. Her chest ached a little, thinking about all the things out there, all the adventures waiting, and she held her breath. There were always movies. Movies and documentaries and other people’s stories. That would be enough.

He squeezed her hand. “I don’t want you to give that up, Jada. I want you with me, but it shouldn’t mean—”

“It’s a scary world,” she said quietly. “And I think it would be nice to feel safe for a while. It sounds like the Lodge is safe. And I think Francine needs a normal life for a couple of years, so she can go to school and make friends and be a regular teenager. The world will still be there in a few years. And if we have kids, well... The world will be there in twenty years, too.”

Cooper whispered something under his breath, then held his arms open. “Could I…would you mind a hug?”

Jada scooted across the couch so she could lean into his side, resting her head on his shoulder, and Cooper’s arms immediately wrapped around her in an embrace so tight her ribs objected. She sighed and balanced her legs on top of his, and Cooper leaned down to kiss the top of her head as he grumbled and rumbled and dragged a blanket over them.

His strong heartbeat beat steadily in her ear as Jada’s eyes drifted shut and finally she knew she could sleep. It would be okay, life with him in the woods. From everything Kira and Ethan said, it was a quiet and restful place, filled with all kinds of goodness. It was the kind of home and family that Jada so envied Eve and Max for, and it was in Jada’s power to give that to Francine. That was worth a whole lot more than going to strange places where she didn’t know the language and getting lost and maybe getting into trouble.

She tried to believe it, but even with Cooper holding her tight, she wasn’t sure if it was true.