Chapter Eighteen
Aimee knocked on Katie Faith’s back door and waited until her friend called out for her to come in. The last thing she wanted was to walk in on kitchen nookie. She’d learned after the first time. Also that Jace had a really great back.
“Hey, Katie Faith, it’s Aimee.”
Her friend whipped the door open. “I keep telling you to come on in. You’re not a guest who has to knock.”
“And I told you that since the last time I came in before knocking I can never see a can of whipped cream again without snickering.”
Katie Faith waggled her brows. “My husband is very creative. Come on through. We’re in the living room.”
She’d called over after Mac had left and gotten an earful before she said she’d be over in an hour and that Mac would also be coming by at some point.
Aimee took her hand, stopping Katie Faith in her tracks. “I’m so sorry about this. I know how hard it was before and I’m sorry you have to endure it again.”
Katie Faith hugged her tight. “You don’t have to apologize to me for this. This has nothing to do with you or even this campaign. This is all Scarlett and Dwayne.”
In the living room, her mom waited, along with Nadine. Jace was on the phone out on the back deck, the lines of his back broadcasting anger.
She hoped Mac wasn’t going to get hurt, or hurt Jace. She knew sometimes wolves would punch each other through a disagreement. So totally weird, in her opinion. But this was all his parents, so if anyone deserved a pop in the nose it was them, not Mac.
“He’s really mad. To be honest with you I don’t even care what Ronnie has to say. If I had sex with every single person living in the state it still wouldn’t be any of Ronnie’s business. Or Dwayne’s business. But this has Scarlett written all over it. Enough about that. Come on. Eat dip. Momma brought it over.”
“Oh, eat-my-feelings day, huh?” She insinuated herself between her mom and the food, helping herself, feeling much better now that she knew Katie Faith wasn’t upset with her.
Aimee felt Mac’s approach before there was a knock on the door.
“What’s he doing here?” one of Jace’s newer lieutenants asked.
“He’s with me.” Aimee got up and went to Mac to stand at his side. That’s when she noted the blood on his clothes.
He didn’t look as if most of it came from him though.
“He’s here because he’s a friend and I expect he’s going to let us know how he dealt with a wayward wolf,” Katie Faith said.
Mac tipped his chin at Katie Faith. Jace seemed to materialize out of thin air, so quiet was his approach.
“Why is it, Pembry, that your wolves have my wife’s name on their lips again?” Jace’s voice was little more than a growling snarl.
“Pembry seeks pardon for the words spoken by three of its pack members. They’ve all been disciplined by the Prime who made sure they understood their transgressions and would not be repeating them, or idle gossip, again. They have shamed my pack, and for that, they’ve been sent out for a thirty-day suspension.”
Aimee made a mental note to ask what a suspension was. This werewolf stuff was so intricate.
“This isn’t the first time, Mac,” Jace said, features less furious, but still concerned.
“I know. I wasn’t here the other times. But I am now. I’m working on it.”
“Thing is, none of that is my problem. I’ve got plenty of my own over here in Dooley. But when this stuff happens, it becomes my problem and then I get cranky. And what is my problem in a major way is that my wife is unhappy. I don’t like that. Not at all.”
Mac looked to Aimee a moment. “I understand. Which is why my discipline was severe and immediate. Ronnie’s already gone from town, along with Jay Twombley, who was the other numbskull with him down at the market. Don’t expect to see either back.”
“What about Darrell?”
Mac’s mouth hardened. “He’s hiding. He better hope he’s better at it now than he was as a kid. I found him every time. I will this time too. And when I do, he’ll be disciplined as well.”
“And the source of this here little bit of gossip?” Nadine asked, and Katie Faith made a face.
“Momma, this is werewolf stuff. Hang on a second.”
“Don’t you tell me to hang on, child. I’m your mother and I have a right to know what is going on.”
Jace gave a look to Mac, who nodded very slightly. Aimee knew what was happening there. One of those “see what you’ll have to look forward to soon enough” looks dudes gave one another.
To their credit, the men waited until Katie Faith soothed her mom enough to get back to speaking.
Jace and Mac moved away from everyone else to finish talking while Katie Faith shooed all the rest of the wolves from the room, along with mothers and best friends.
“It was said about me. I don’t know why it has to be all hush-hush now,” Katie Faith said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Who cares what Ronnie and Darrell think?”
“This is about way more than you. Not that you aren’t totally awesome to make up rumors about, naturally. But this is flailing. It’s like Dwayne has lost his mind and is panicking and throwing stuff out the window. Like in a cartoon chase. Scarlett did this to protect him in her own weird way. And it served whatever obsession she’s got with you and Jace.”
“She used to be nice to me! She’s going to be your mother-in-law. Bummer,” Katie Faith stage whispered.
Aimee flicked her ear. “That’s Mac’s momma. Stop.” Not that Scarlett had some hidden soft and wonderful side. Or if she did, it didn’t matter to Aimee. What mattered was getting things stabilized and she didn’t want to hurt Mac to do it.
“You love him,” Katie Faith said, and this time her whisper wasn’t so loud. “Oh my goodness. I know, it’s shocking. But it’s too late. Once you love one of these goofy wolves, they won’t go away.”
Mac was easy to love. It was his family she struggled with, but that happened to other couples too.
“Can I squeal a little that we both love werewolves and you’ll be Patron of the other pack? It’s sort of like we always planned.” Katie Faith grinned like a loon.
Mac and Jace turned to take them in, both men looking a little wary.
“I like it that he’s scared of me sometimes. Keeps him on his toes,” Katie Faith murmured.
Aimee snickered.
* * *
After an hour or so, long after the two wolves had worked out whatever it was they’d been whispering about in the corner, Aimee wanted to get Mac home where she could clean him up, snuggle him and figure out what happened to him that morning after the call came in from her mom.
She grabbed his hand and tugged. “We’re going now. I’ll see y’all later.”
“I’ll walk out with you,” TeeFaye said.
At the car, her mom hugged her tight and then, surprising Aimee, she hugged Mac too, holding his cheeks in her palms. “You’re a good boy, Macrae. Do what you know is right.”
His features softened and he hugged her once more. “Thank you, Mrs. Benton. I’m trying. I’ll keep Aimee safe, I promise you that.”
TeeFaye’s smile was quick. “Oh, I know you will, boy. Because my friend Nadine is a whiz at throwing cans of fruit at a man’s pecker if he gets out of line. Just remember that and we’ll be okay.” She winked.
“Uh,” Mac managed, “okay then. Well. Say hello to Carl and send my apologies about the gossip.”
“He went fishing with Avery today. Ha. They think we don’t know they’re just hanging out in the fishing cabin talking sports and drinking beer. It kept them both out of the fray, so that was good. You two head on home. I love you,” she added to Aimee, stepping back and rapping the top of the car twice for good luck.
“Are you all right?” she asked as he drove away.
“Been a long day, baby. A very long day.”
She took his hand, careful of the knuckles, which were healing but still looked pretty bad. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Do you mind a drive?”
“Nope, that sounds nice. As long as you’re okay.”
“I broke Ronnie’s nose,” he said quietly. “On purpose because, damn it, he won’t fucking listen any other way. Beat him severely enough that he couldn’t stand at the end. And then I sent him away. I banished him.”
Aimee wanted to soothe and take away his upset. But he needed to get it out, work it through. She could tell the way he spit the words out.
So she simply sat with him and let him unburden himself.
“Thing is? It had to be done and I don’t feel guilty about it. He deserved it for fucking up over and over and making me have to fix yet one more thing. I have enough on my plate and that asshole pulls me away from something important, like rare time with my woman, to instruct him on how to act. Pack discipline has been not only lax, but it also ends up with wolves acting out. They need a Patron. They need to be guided. My dad has barely paid them any mind and when he does, it’s to allow this kind of shit. This won’t be the last time I have to mete out discipline. If some of them fear me and that’s what keeps them in line, so be it. Idiots.”
She liked that he didn’t make excuses for the violence he had to use. Trusted that she understood the differences in his world and accepted them. And in doing so she accepted him.
And one thing Aimee knew for sure was that Mac needed to know who accepted him. Who found him worthy and good, even the dark edges.
He pulled off onto a barely visible logging road that ended at an overlook. When he turned the car off, she unbuckled and turned herself to face him better, taking his hand again.
“I’d left about a dozen voice mails for my parents after leaving our place and finally my mother calls me back after I lay out exactly what I’m going to do to Ronnie and the others. She didn’t deny anything. Says she and him are off on some last-minute trip away from town and the stresses of the campaign. Naturally they’re staying wherever strikes their fancy so they can’t give me any details yet. Tells me I have to wait to discipline anyone.”
Her eyes widened at that. The nerve of that woman to cause this whole mess, run off and then tell the only responsible person he shouldn’t act. Unbelievable.
He leaned forward to steal a quick kiss. “Thank you for reacting that way. I let her know how things were and hung up and had to discipline wolves who’d gotten that gossip from my mother in the first place. That’s what gets me. She did all this! I have no fucking idea why. The rumors aren’t even about you. How does she think this will turn out? It’s so fucking senseless I’d punch something if my knuckles weren’t sore already.”
“Her energy is very chaotic. Normally she’s a big character. She’s got a lot to say, most of it negative. But her sense of self is usually pretty good. But since Katie Faith came back, and her ending up in the Dooley part of town and then turning up to be Jace’s sweetie, something else is happening with her. I don’t know what it is. But it’s not always aimed at Katie Faith. Usually it’s—I can’t explain it well enough—but it’s about Jace. Sort of. In that area. Anyway, I’m not even sure this gossip was about the election. If it was your dad doing it I’d think differently, but that’s just what I’m picking up.”
Mac blew out a long breath. “My uncle mentioned Josiah today. That back in the day when he was...when he left, my mom’s name came up. But none of them knew exactly why.”
“Hmm. Interesting. You guys have pretty much acted like Jace’s dad never existed so I guess it never occurred to me that her issue might be with Jace’s daddy instead of Jace or his grandpa. Though JJ Dooley could aggravate a saint.”
“That was his punishment. To have his name never repeated again. To have his presence erased.”
“Oh my God, did you just tell me some sort of state werewolf secret?”
He laughed and this time it reached his eyes. “I can’t tell you much because I don’t know much. Whatever Dooley did, whatever Josiah did to merit his punishment has been sealed. I can make some educated guesses, given Josiah’s reputation and all. But I’m going to ask my mother, since hers is the name that keeps popping up.”
“I’m sure that’ll go over well.”
He snorted. “She’s not an easy woman. There’s something happening that I’m not seeing or understanding. Hopefully, we can get through it. As for my dad? He’s going to make me fight for every inch of the Patron seat.”
Mac was going to have to challenge his own father. What a terrible thing that must be to have to face. Sure, it was how packs worked, and even Jace’d had to bloody his grandfather to take over. But according to Katie Faith, it was more ceremonial than him actually harming his grandpa.
This sounded like Dwayne being a jerk.
“You should just say it all,” Mac told her. “Honey, you’d lose at poker so badly. You have no ability to hide your reactions.”
“I can if I need to. Usually. It’s just, I hate that you’re going to have to beat up your daddy to take over his job. And I hate that he’s making you do it. And I hate that he keeps stringing Darrell along, making him think he could take over when everyone else knows that would never happen. It’s mean. And I don’t like it when people are mean to you.”
“You defending my honor?” He brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.
“Someone needs to, may as well be me. I’m fearsome, don’t you know? If I could challenge your daddy in your stead I would just so I could kick him in the balls.”
“I’ve had entirely enough talk of ball kicking and can throwing at balls for one day, thank you. And thank you for being you.”
“We’re a team. Which works out for me because it means I rarely have to lift heavy stuff or deal with hard physical labor. But I know people. People who’d happily serve up some much needed justice to your parents. Usually I like people. Your parents and that dumbass brother of yours, I really don’t.”
“I wish you could feel the way about my family the way I feel about yours.”
“Well, your cousins are nice to me. I like Everett and Huston just fine. And your aunt and uncle, though I don’t know them awfully well, they’ve been very nice when I’ve interacted with them.”
“I’m supposed to invite you around more often. I should have told you that. My aunt will kick my butt for not saying it sooner.”
“You’ve been a little busy, it’s okay. Right now it’s just me and you. Let that be.”
* * *
Overhead, though the clouds were out, the full moon hung, calling to his wolf.
But it was the understanding in the gaze of the woman next to him that brought him to his knees
She leaned close then and he heard the gallop of her heart, scented the heat of her skin and the desire coming from between her thighs.
“You know what?” she murmured as she brushed her lips across his ear, combing his hair back.
“I knew a lot of stuff but all the blood in my body has settled in my cock. I’m at my dumbest just now.”
He felt the change of her mouth, her smile as she continued to drop kisses over his ear and neck.
“I was thinking I’ve never actually had sex in a car before.”
“Darlin’, your daddy’s the law,” he managed to say around a pretty useless tongue.
She sat back to give him a look. “I heard stories about you back in the day.” Her grin—dear God, her grin—sent a shiver through him.
“That so?”
She nodded as she went up on her knees and whipped her sweater off. “Males, be they fifteen or a hundred and fifty, think they’re the only ones who talk about sex among themselves.”
Mac sat suspended there, as always, utterly fascinated by her. This was what his wolf had imprinted on. The way she made every part of him perk up and pay attention. He never knew what to expect from her but when she inevitably surprised him, it had been the good kind of surprise.
The way she spoke and moved created its own sort of magic, a magic that seemed to always draw his own. There was no sound but the occasional ping of the cooling engine and the wind through the high treetops.
He paid attention to her skin and the way she held herself, assuring man and wolf she wasn’t cold. On the contrary, she was rosy, a pretty blush on her chest and up her neck as she teased him.
“Girls you dated shared pertinent details that had us all swooning. Don’t you notice how we all look at you when you’re around?”
Silently, Mac eased himself over the seat to her side, sliding it back to give them both a little more space. A decision he was doubly glad for when she straddled his lap to face him, settling in over his cock with her heat.
He had to let out a slow breath but he couldn’t erase all evidence of a little quaver at how insanely good it felt.
Her grin changed as the knowledge hit her. As she realized the power she held over him. Satisfaction settled in his bones.
He traced his fingers and palms up over her chest, across the curves and hollows of her collarbone until he grasped her slightly, the whole of his right hand wrapped around her throat to hold her still.
Her heart thundered, her skin heated and her pupils swallowed most of the color of her eyes.
“My weird little witch, when you’re in a room I don’t see anything but you.” He pulled her in gently for a kiss, letting go of her neck to draw down the skin of her spine.
Her taste seemed to pour into him, fill him with sensation as she took over, leaving a series of slow kisses across his face.
“You make me feel that way. Like there’s no one else for you in the world but me,” she said, her lips against his.
“Certainly no one else as important to me,” he told her as he popped the catch of her bra, releasing her breasts into his hands.
She arched into his touch, his name on her lips.
Around them, the night seemed to take a deep breath and then hold it. Anticipation hung as heavy as the moon. Something was coming that would change Diablo Lake and everyone in it.
“Do you feel that?” she asked him as she eased his shirt open, button by button.
Mac wanted to tease that he was feeling a lot of things, but he knew it wasn’t the time.
He nodded. “Is it harder for you, do you think? Because you’re empathic you get an extrahard dose of all the tension in town?” Mac worried about her in another way as he realized that must be true.
Aimee pressed a hand to her belly. “There’s a special kind of magic between you and me,” she said at last. “An old, elemental kind of magic.”
She got to her knees as he helped her shimmy from her jeans and panties, leaving her naked and gleaming in the wintry moonlight.
Her words, the way she said them, pulled him in like an embrace. Drew him in tight to her.
Like armor.
“It’s New Year’s Eve. A time between old and new. Here we are, you and me with our chemistry swirling all around, our magics making my head spin. There’s potential here.” Aimee placed a kiss over his heart. “It’s just... I want to pass from the old to the new out here under the moon with you. It’ll help, as we face whatever’s coming.”
How could he refuse that when his entire being seemed to nod in agreement? He needed that reassurance, the talismanic magic of that coming together would be his shield to face what was to come.
She freed his cock as he pulled out a blanket he’d just tucked in his truck earlier that day because he liked to go deep into the middle of nowhere and run and he’d planned to ask her along that night.
He held her, slowing her down. “I want to take my time. I’ve got a beautiful naked witch on my lap just waiting for me to pleasure. Let me marvel over my good fortune a moment.”
Which he’d intended to be stern about until she undulated, rolling her hips as she ground her pussy against him, slick, scalding heat surrounding his cock. Mac’s eyes may have rolled up into the back of his head for a moment at that slap of sensation.
Her laughter brought his attention back as he went in close, hugging her tight.
“You’re a temptation, Aimee.”
“Thank goodness. Otherwise you’d have moved on by now and I like you too much for that.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of moved into your house. What makes you think I’d go anywhere but wherever you are?” He pinched one of her nipples to underline that.
She hummed, clearly liking it so he did it again and once more until he moved to the other one.
Mac teased, moving from nipple to nipple, drawing out her pleasure, guiding her along that line between pleasure and pain. She let him know what she liked, and definitely what she didn’t.
Demanded more. Seduced him heart and soul. Gave herself as she took everything he gave.
They’d fogged the windows up, sealing them into their own world. He stretched a little, luxuriating in her weight in his lap.
She kissed across his neck, pulling his shirt away from as much skin as possible.
What a fucking thrill it was to have a woman like this touching him, worshipping him. giving him her whole self. There was nothing, no speech or guidebook, that could have prepared him for the entirety of what he felt right there with her.
As she’d said, they created magic, a mixing and marrying of hers and his, sewing them closer.
“You’re so damned beautiful it hurts to breathe sometimes when I look at you,” he told her, quite happy her response was to do that undulating thing again.
“Please fuck me already!” she cried and he pretended it was a chore to angle his cock with one hand while he guided her hip with the other.
“Fine.” He thrust up and yanked her down at the same time.
“Yes! That’s the way,” she shouted and he laughed.
“You know I love you, right?” he asked her, teasing with short, shallow strokes.
Her smile went very satisfied and a little feline. His wolf stirred at the sight. Pleased.
Proud.
“Well. I’d certainly hoped you did, as I love you back and that would have been so awkward if you just wanted to be friends after we banged awhile. Then I’d have had to get really mad at you for going and making me fall for your navy SEAL romance-novel-cover good looks, the giant dingle and your talent at making me come.”
He frowned, holding her from speeding his pace. “I was in the army.”
“Really? Right now that’s what your response is? You tell me you love me. Which is a good thing to say, I’ll grant you that. Then I tell you I love you too and how you’re all pretty to look at and have sexy times with and you get all pissy because I meant navy SEAL in a generic sense and you were in the army?”
He thrust deep and stilled, both of them gone silent but for an intake of breath. “Well, you put it that way and I do apologize.”
“You can make it up to me by getting down to business. You know how I like it. I know how you like it. And it turns out, hard and fast is the answer to all those questions.”
He had a beautiful woman fucking him and demanding more. Whatever he did to deserve this turn of good fortune, he’d be eternally grateful for.
“Brace your hands then,” he told her.
She made a little sound as her pussy tightened and heated even more. Then she braced her palms on the roof of the truck.
What a picture she made, bathed in winter moonlight, her magic seeming to sparkle around her here and there. Her position brought her tits right to his face, a very clever choice on her part to put them there.
Teasing slowly, he nibbled and licked around each nipple, making sure each time he came back, the edge of his teeth was harder.
And each time she grew wetter and hotter, her inner muscles clamping around his cock to the place where he only held back from climax by sheer force of will because he wanted her to come first.
Her clit under the pads of his fingers was hard and slick as he touched her, circling in just the right way.
She held back too, a challenge in her eyes.
But he knew exactly how she loved to be touched and when he began that slow squeeze and release of her clit, she only lasted two more thrusts, climaxing so hard there was simply no way he could stop himself from following her.
He fucked her as deep as he dared, she took and gave herself right back, demanding. A warrior in every way, even if she didn’t give herself the credit for it.
And the woman he loved.
She curled up against him and he covered her better with the blanket.
“Dingle?” he said at last and the ferocity of the happiness he made her feel brought a full-throated laugh from Aimee’s lips.
Lips still swollen from his kisses.
Her heart swelled with love. Right. On. Who knew how awesome such a thing could feel when it was absolutely right?
“I can say the other words. Cock, dick, prick, penis, rod, thunderstick, doodle, dingle, meat, jingle-jangle, Johnson, salami, all the good ones. I like to mix it up.”
“Jingle-jangle?”
“I made that up, I think. I like it though. So I’ll be using it in the future. Just so you know.”
“Okay, thanks for the warning.”
She needed to move and, uh, clean up her business because it’d be getting messier very soon in the position she was in.
Wiggling to the side—after he was a little grumpy to have her move, she loved the wolf part of him that loved to cuddle—she got herself back to rights as best she could.
“Happy New Year,” she told him as she settled against his body once more.
He turned, kissing her senseless right as she was just getting all her damned motor skills back. So sneaky.
“Happy New Year. Let’s go back home. Break out the champagne, have some snacks and hide from everyone in this town.”
* * *
As he unlocked the back door and held it open for her, she also sensed how much her house and the magic there had welcomed his. More than that, it had stamped him in a sense. Claimed.
“I like that you call it home.” Of course she’d noticed he’d moved in. Their coming together had been quick and intense, but despite that speed there was a deep intimacy and sense of comfort between them.
He followed her to their bedroom, undressing in that very shifter way—unashamed of nudity—and catching her attention for a few moments.
“This feels like home to me. You’re a big part of that. But this house gives me a sense of peace and safety. My wolf likes it. Likes the way you smell and the way our things carry a scent unique to just you and me.”
She gulped, snapping out of it long enough to change into flannel pants and a long sleeved shirt. He kept her house cooler than she did before, but as he was a giant, gorgeous furnace, she made do without complaint.
He knew she used the movements, the space to get changed, to think over her reply.
And how did one reply to her perfect male saying such amazing things to her and about her?
There weren’t words that could do it justice. So she settled on “Thank you. So, I guess I should tell you that you’ve got my magic all over you.”
Naked, tawny and gorgeous, he prowled from the bedroom and out to the kitchen. Naturally, as he was the aforementioned naked, tawny and gorgeous, she followed him out.
“Like how is your magic all over me? Tell me how it works?” he asked as he grabbed the champagne from the fridge.
“I think my magic is a lot like your wolf. Part of who you are. A life force that is of me, energy I can manipulate and shape to my will. But also I’m part of it. I need to nourish and respect my magic or it could fail me. Grow weak. It happens sometimes.” Aimee shuddered to imagine reaching out to connect with her magic and it not responding.
She grabbed some cheese and crackers and a few trays of appetizers she’d made earlier in the day before everything had gone to shit and ferried them to the big bed they so often spent their time in.
“So when I was upset and you touched my arm, you obviously used your magic to calm me down. How did that work?”
He poured them both a glass and they toasted.
“It’s more like my magic helped you clear your head long enough to think about it. So I didn’t calm you as much as I helped you focus. That’s the key to you.”
After she said it, she realized how creepy he might find such a thing to hear.
But instead he smiled in that soft, boyish way that made her heart go all gooey and then want to punch his momma. Like he did not hear how special he was often enough.
She needed to always remember that. She held the key to his most vulnerable side and that was a responsibility.
“The key, huh?”
“You’re a natural leader. I mean, obviously because you’re Prime and soon to be Patron and those things don’t happen to lazy wolves who only feel, or weak wolves who’re afraid to own what they are. At one time even your daddy had the guts to look himself in the mirror and lead Pembry.”
That was such a “Katie Faith” thing to do she stunned herself silent for long moments.
He wasn’t offended though. Something like pride seemed to flow from him.
“Usually it’s Katie Faith who blurts and speaks before she thinks. You’ve made me more like that. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to insult your dad. I mean, not at this very moment anyway.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “You didn’t insult either one of us. You were telling me about your magic and the key to me.”
She sent him a pretend-censorious look before going along. “You have a huge, passionate heart. The heart of a leader who does not expect anything less than total commitment from those under their command. But you’re also a trained thinker. You’re strategic. You see problems and immediately begin to break them down to figure out how to fix them. In a situation like the one you brought up, my magic helped you think because that’s what you needed to do.”
The wonder on his face was a gift. So rarely could she really talk about her magic like this. Other witches understood, as they had their own gifts but it was old hat after a while. And when she dated a human, she didn’t discuss it at all.
Opening up this part of herself to him mattered to her. Like it mattered that he wanted to know. Wanted to understand her.
“That’s pretty cool. So if someone else needed to feel more, your magic might work differently on them?”
Aimee nodded. “The better I know someone, the more intuitive my magic is. It’s why I chose this sort of work originally. It gives me the opportunity to develop years-long relationships with the people I see. My empathic ability is different with each person I encounter so that plays into it as well. Sometimes people just need a freak-out, you know?”
He paused, thinking about it. If anyone needed a little loss of control it was Mac. She doubted he even knew that.
“Do you think? What about my mom?”
“I’m fairly sure your mother gives in to her need to flip her shit on the regular. However, in general she’s a very guarded individual. She holds herself close and, look, lots of people do.” Aimee shrugged.
“Like she’s hiding something?”
“I can’t read minds,” she reminded him.
“I know you can’t. And I know we’re stepping over the line where we don’t talk about my family and the election. But I can’t imagine how we can continue to pretend to ignore the problem. And it appears the biggest problem is my dad and mom and I’m trying hard to figure out what the fuck to do. So any help would be appreciated.”
“As we talked about earlier before you sullied me in your truck, Scarlett Pembry is an angry person.” Maybe if she used Scarlett instead of your mom it would soften the blow a little. “She’s fearful, which is sometimes an indicator of harboring secrets. Sometimes those secrets are things that have happened to that person. They’ve been victimized and then buried it for self-preservation or it was part of the abuse and they’re silent out of fear, humiliation, pain, confusion, that sort of thing. And sometimes it’s secrets about things someone has done or knows about that bring a great deal of anxiety.”
“Which is she?”
Aimee sighed and ate some more. “She’s the latter. She’s done something, or someone close to her has, and she’s terrified someone will find out.” God, she really hoped none of those brothers of Mac’s were actually Josiah’s. That would be so weird and horrible for everyone.
“But I have to find out,” Mac said. The sadness was clear in his tone.
Scarlett was a grumpy old bitch who’d made Aimee’s best friend’s life hell, but she was Mac’s mom.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I could be wrong. I could be reading her wrong. It’s not an exact science.”
He gave her a look. “Aimee. Darlin’, I love you for trying to make me feel better right now. But you’re rarely wrong about people. I know that.”
Except for that whole “dating a married man on and off for a few years” thing. That big, glaring mistake.
She should tell Mac about Bob.
After the election, or at the very least, after Mac dealt with his parents and the whole future of the pack, she’d tell him.
Yep, total hypocrite because now she had a secret. And like most people with secrets, she told herself it was for the best if she just kept quiet.