Grace stared straight ahead as she sat at the bar. She could feel eyes on her, and it wasn’t paranoia that made her think so. Everyone had seen her and Rafe talking and having a good time, until Mason had started something with him. God, werewolves were such hot heads sometimes.

And she’d just about had enough of Mason’s attitude. For the two months since she’d been back in East Brook, every time she’d seen him when she’d come to talk to Logan in Cold Bay she’d gotten nothing but attitude from him. At first she thought she deserved it. She’d hurt him so much, and although she’d broken up with him for reasons other than the ones she’d told him, her guilt over the past had kept her from making an issue out of it.

She sighed as she pushed her drink away and stood up.

“Sorry for that scene.” Rafe came to stand beside her, and she pushed her lips together as she looked up at him. “I’m going to assume that any chance of you wanting to see me again is out of the question.”

“The last thing I want in my life right now is drama. I think you’re a nice guy, but I’m not looking for anything right now.” And that was certainly true. She didn’t even know if she was going to stick around in East Brook now that she was no longer needed to save her pack.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called a nice guy before.” Rafe gave a rueful shake of his head, and smiled down at her. “Still, no hard feelings?”

He stuck out his hand and she looked down at it for a minute. For a second she wished that Mason wasn't crowded into her head as much as he was. She’d meant what she’d told Rafe, he was a nice guy, even if he didn’t think so. Why couldn't she be attracted to him? At least then she would have a shot at something she’d dreamed of having for years. A settled life and a family. Although Rafe didn’t strike her as the settling down type, so perhaps it was for the best that there wasn’t that spark between them.

“No hard feelings.” She took his hand out and shook it. “It was nice meeting you. Hopefully there won’t be any fights if I happen to see you again.”

“Maybe you should talk to him about what ancient history means. I don’t think he gets it.” Rafe gave her one last smile and turned away to go over to a group of men on the other side of the bar.

The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Mason. She was going home and trying to put the disaster this evening had turned into behind her. What was she thinking? That fifteen years was enough time to put the past behind them? The events of that summer still haunted her, and she’d been a fool to think that things would be different for him.

With a shake of her head, she hitched her purse up on her shoulder and walked out of the bar, trying to ignore the eyes that followed her. She was sure that the ones watching her wanted to know what was going on and why two members of the Cold Bay Wolf Pack were apparently fighting over her. Her past relationship with Mason was not common knowledge, so as far as the people in the bar were concerned she must be some sort of femme fatale. What a joke that was.

She marched out the door and put the occupants of Sawyer’s Place behind her. Let them think what they wanted, they would anyway.

The gravel in the parking lot crunched under her shoes, and as she made her way to her car, she glanced to the left and saw Mason. He was sitting against the bumper of what she assumed was his truck, with his head hanging down.

Her heart went out to him for a second. He looked so alone, sitting there by himself. He turned his head, as if he could sense her looking at him, and the scab forming on his lip made her harden her heart. What was she doing feeling sorry for him? The man was a jackass and had brought all this on himself.

She turned her face forward and walked to her car.

“You can date him if you want.” His voice was a bitter rumble, and for a second she thought she could not have possibly heard him correctly. She paused in the act of pulling her keys out of her purse and turned to look at him again. His eyes were on her, but in the dim light of the parking lot she could hardly see his expression.

“What did you say?” She must have misheard, because there was no way he actually thought she needed his permission to do anything.

“I said you can date him if you want.” He turned his head back forward and stared straight ahead.

That’s what she thought he’d said, and the rational part of her brain said it wasn’t worth getting into it with him. It had been a long night, and neither of them were in the frame of mind necessary to have any sort of discussion. She unlocked her car door, tossed her purse inside but instead of getting in, she slammed it shut again. The sound of it rang out like a shot as she spun around and marched over to him.

“I don’t know if you realize this or not, but we haven’t been together for fifteen years. I don’t need your permission to see anyone, and if you think I do, think again. You don’t own me and you have no right to tell me who I can and can’t date. I’ll see whoever I want, when I want.” She put her hands on her hips as she could feel the heat of her anger rising inside her.

He shot to his feet and towered over her. She didn’t back down because she knew, no matter what she said to him or how angry he was, he would never retaliate against her physically. It was a good thing too, because she could see his face darken in his anger.

“Oh I know you’ll see whoever you want. It certainly didn’t stop you from doing that when we were together fifteen years ago.” His lips curled out of reflex and as it tightened it opened the cut on it. A small bit of blood beaded on it, and he made no move to wipe it away.

“I thought you were over it?”

“I am.” There was so much heat in what he said, that she suspected he was trying to convince himself rather than her.

“Oh really? Then why are you being such an asshole? Why are you starting fights with members of your own pack?”

He turned away and braced his hands on the tailgate of his truck. “I think you should go home. There really isn’t much for us to say to each other.”

She stared at his back, tempted to make him turn around and face her. Why was she starting all this? She’d told herself over and over that she needed to move on, to move past him and all the shit that had happened. She couldn’t exactly do that if she was going to be picking fights with him in the parking lot.

“Stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours.” She turned and walked away from him. If he wanted to be a jerk and stew in the past, there was nothing she could do about it. Logan had told her to come to him if Mason’s behavior got to be too much, but she was reluctant to do that. Fifteen years away from her pack, away from all that was safe and familiar, had taught her that she couldn’t wait for other people to fight her battles.

She got in her car and took one last look in the rearview mirror. Mason was no longer standing at the back of his truck, and she saw his lights come on. He pulled away from the bar, and she bit her lip as she watched him speed away. He was never going to be able to forgive her for what he thought she’d done all those years ago.

She started her car and pulled out of the parking lot at a more sedate pace than he had used. When she’d first come back home, she’d foolishly thought that Mason would have moved on past the events of the summer when she’d been eighteen and he’d been twenty. Fifteen years was a long time to hold on to bitterness. Perhaps he had moved on until she came back to remind him of how horribly it had all ended. Why the hell had she lied to him when she broke up with him?

Her mind worked overtime as she drove out of Cold Bay toward East Brook. She knew the answer to that. Telling him that there was someone else had been the only way she could get him to accept their break up. And she couldn’t tell him the truth about why she’d been forced to leave him and her home behind at the age of eighteen. Only one other person now knew that there had been no man for her other than Mason that summer and even Logan didn’t know the extent of the devastating reason she’d been forced to flee East Brook.

She sighed as she pulled into her driveway, and killed the lights on her car. Her late mother’s house loomed in front of her, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get it to feel like home anymore. It was the house her mother had shared with her stepfather, and most of the memories inside it were not happy ones.

But she had no other place to go, since she’d given up everything from the life she’d built over the past fifteen years to come home. She’d tried living her life as a human, and the wolf side of herself had missed not being part of a pack. She’d never given up her membership to the East Brook Pack, and therefore could never join a new one. Maybe she should have. Perhaps she wouldn’t be in as much turmoil as she was now, reliving painful memories she thought she’d buried a long time ago.

She got out of the car and walked to the house. As she walked in, she looked around, as if seeing it for the first time. There was no sense of attachment when she was in here. Everywhere she looked there were memories tucked away, most of them bad. Perhaps she should cut her losses, list the house for sale and put East Brook in her rearview mirror. Now that Logan had gotten both packs to follow him as alpha, she was surplus to requirements.

She locked the front door and went to the bedroom she’d claimed for her own. She wasn’t going to be able to decide anything tonight. What she needed was a good night’s sleep and hopefully she would achieve clarity in the morning. If she decided to move on from here, at least she knew that she could do it. She’d started over once, she could do it again.

* * *

The sound of fists pummeling the heavy bags and the general chatter that went on in Mason’s boxing gym usually soothed him, but not this morning. He’d gotten some funny looks when he’d come in this morning, and it only reminded him of what an ass he’d made of himself last night. What the hell had he been thinking, going after Rafe like that?

He’d tried to put it out of his mind, but unfortunately he couldn’t. All night he’d been bombarded with images of Grace standing over him in the parking lot. The fire in her eyes when she’d told him that he didn’t own her made him want to pull her to him and see if he could capture some of that fire on her lips. Thank God he’d resisted the impulse, since he didn’t want to compound his stupidity of the evening by making an even dumber mistake.

“Hey Mason.” A cheerful child’s voice piped up beside him and he looked down to see Connor, Logan’s son, grinning up at him. He certainly looked a lot better than he had the last time he’d seen him. His heart had gone out to the boy when he’d come into the bar last night to tell his father that strange men had taken his mother. He was glad for both Connor and Logan’s sake that no lasting damage had been done to Faith. Mason was fairly certain that Logan would have lost his mind if anything had happened to his woman.

“Hey Connor, go get changed. You’re going to be working with Don today.” Mason reached out to ruffle the boy’s dark hair. As Connor sped away toward the change room, Logan walked up to him with a neutral expression on his face. There was a hardness in his eyes, and Mason didn’t fool himself into thinking that last night’s debacle hadn’t reached his alpha’s ears.

“Logan…”

“In your office. Now. What I have to say doesn’t need an audience.” Logan’s voice was low, and could easily have been described as a growl. Yep, he knew about what happened last night, and as Gary had predicted he was not happy about it.

Mason sighed and turned around to walk toward his office. There was a lull in the noise for a second, which meant that the other people in the gym had not failed to notice their alpha’s presence.

Mason opened his office door and swept his arm out to indicate to Logan to go in. He closed the door behind him. Logan was right, Mason certainly didn’t want an audience for the dressing down he was sure to get. He squared his shoulders and prepared himself to face his alpha like a man. Once his anger had rushed out of him last night he knew he’d been in the wrong, and now it was time to pay for it.

“Look Alpha, I really have nothing to say for myself.” Mason turned around to face Logan, and pain went slamming through his jaw as his alpha’s fist connected. His head snapped back and he hit the door behind him. The noise of his body slamming against the wooden door would surely have been heard. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Well you seem to want to fight, so I’d thought I’d give you one. Do you need me to kick your ass? Don’t fool yourself into thinking I won’t do it.”

Mason shook his head and cast his eyes to the floor. Hopefully the sign of respect would take some of the anger out of his alpha. He didn’t want to fight with Logan, and while they were evenly matched in size and build, he knew that Logan was pissed enough to wipe the floor with him. Besides, he wouldn’t put up that much of a fight against him knowing that he deserved to have his ass kicked.

“I’m sorry, Alpha.” He glanced up at Logan as he crossed his arms over his powerful chest.

“You’re sorry? Was there something about my speech last night that you didn’t get? Did you not hear me specifically say that it was time to put our differences aside and stand together?” The muscle worked in Logan’s jaw and Mason could feel the heat of shame burning under his skin. When he’d picked the fight with Rafe last night he had not been thinking about how it would look to those around him. All he’d thought about was that Rafe had been paying attention to Grace and he hadn’t liked it.

“I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t really thinking at all. I don’t know what I can say except I’m sorry and it won’t happen again.”

Logan uncrossed his arms and dragged his hands through his hair. “Jesus Mason, what the hell? The last thing I expected to hear this morning was that my lieutenant and my enforcer got in a scrap last night. What the fuck happened? I didn’t know you and Rafe had any beefs with each other.”

“We don’t.” Mason turned away and went around to his desk. He didn’t want to have to tell Logan what the root of the problem was, since it would only piss him off again. He waited for his alpha to sit in the chair across from his desk and he sat back down and looked over at him.

“Then why did you have to be pulled off each other.” Logan leaned forward to drum his fingers on the top of Mason’s desk. There was no way he was going to let it go until he told him.

“Rafe was talking to Grace.” He wouldn’t look at Logan when he said it, because it sounded like the stupidest reason to get in a fight. He could see that now, in the cold light of day. Too bad he hadn’t seen it when he’d been in the throes of a jealous rage last night.

“You have to be kidding me. He talked to Grace. That’s it? Just talked to her?”

Mason glanced up to see the look of disbelief on his cousin’s face. His mouth tightened for a second but he refrained from pointing out that he would have reacted the same way if another guy was making a move on Faith. It was hardly the same thing, since Logan was in love with Faith.

“He may have flirted with her. Look, I’m not proud of myself and I know it was a stupid thing to do. It won't happen again.”

“You’re goddamn right it won’t happen again. I told you weeks ago to get your shit together as far as she is concerned. I know it was hard at first, seeing her again. God knows, I know what it’s like when someone you thought was in your past comes back into your life, but grow up. This pack is more important than your hurt feelings. Did anyone at the bar know what it was that you were fighting about?”

“Pretty sure they did, since he was talking to her and then next thing we were fighting in the parking lot.” It hadn’t exactly played out like that, at least not in his mind. But he was certain to the casual observers who were there last night, that was how it would look.

“You are unbelievable. Rafe too, and he’s next on my list for an ass kicking when I get done with you. Don’t you think enough attention had been called to her last night when I announced to everyone that I was not going to mate with her? Do you think you did her any favors with her pack with you and Rafe fighting over her like a pair of mutts over a slab of meat?” Two red spots burned on Logan’s cheeks, and it was obvious that his anger was not being mollified by this conversation.

“If it makes you feel any better, she read me the riot act after it was over. She got pissed when I told her that she could go ahead and date Rafe if she wanted to.” And she’d looked magnificent doing it. The old desire, the yearning he’d had for her years ago when he couldn’t get enough of her had flared to life. Even now, when he knew that there was no going back with her, a part of him wanted to.

“It doesn’t make me feel any better. And I’m sure you giving her permission to run her own life didn’t make her feel any better either.” Logan shook his head and sighed. “I know her coming back was unexpected, but you have to get over it. I need you by my side, and I need this pack to be strong. I have other things to worry about right now, and in-fighting between members of the pack is not one of them.”

“I’m sorry. What do you need me to do to make up for it?”

He’d do whatever it took to make things right for the pack. Logan was right, things weren't exactly rosy right now, and if they were going to make it through the next little while intact they needed to stand together.

“Well, you can start by going to see Grace.”

“What? What do I need to see Grace for?” It would be so much easier for him to move on if he didn’t have to see her, didn’t have to interact with her. She still had the power to pull him to her, to make him want her, and a part of him hated her for it. Why couldn’t he just forget her? She’d forgotten him fast enough. She hadn’t even waited for them to break up before she’d moved on to someone else.

“You are going to see her for two reasons. First, you are going to apologize, which I’m sure you didn’t do last night.” The heat of embarrassment that stained his face told his alpha all he needed to know. He’d said several things to Grace last night, but an apology had not been part of it. “Second you are going to bring her to my office. I need to meet with her.”

“What about?” Why would Logan need to meet with Grace? Surely now that he’d chosen to be with Faith, he wouldn’t need to meet with her any more?

Although he tried to suppress it, that old feeling of jealousy rose up inside him. What was wrong with him? He needed to get his head examined, because there was no way there was anything going on between Grace and Logan. His alpha’s devotion to Faith was evident to anyone who had eyes to see it for themselves.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Logan got to his feet and Mason followed suit. “You’re coming to this meeting too.”

There was a look on Logan’s face that told him this was not a request from his friend, but a command from his alpha. Mason squared his shoulders and followed Logan out of the office. He had no idea what the meeting could be about, but he'd know soon enough. What he needed to do now was go to Grace, apologize to her and move on.