Page 22 of The Alpha's Surrogate

“I bet you can,” he agreed. “But you’re going shopping to replace your stuff. I was thinking. Did you plan to make the trip back with two arms laden with shopping bags?”

Josie bristled. She hadn’t thought of that. She’d just wanted to get away from Callahan for some time. “I could have hitched a ride,” she said. The defense was pathetic and they both knew it.

“Not a chance in the world,” he said. “You’re new. The other wolves don’t know you, so they won’t trust you. Plus, you frown too much. You won’t find someone to piss on you if you were on fire. Come on, get in, let me take you.”

She frowned and he made a gesture with his hands, showing her that she was only making his point for him. Annoying as he was, he wasn’t lying. It was going to be almost impossible for her to get help in a new town. Wolves were loyal to their own, but they were very distrustful of other wolves, especially lone wolves.

She hated the smug look on Callahan’s face, but she got in anyway. “There. Now was that so hard?” he asked, smiling and stepping on the gas.

Oak Mall was massive. It was probably smaller than the malls found in regular cities, but it was still bigger than anything they had in Silver Peaks. There was a thirty-foot oak tree standing in the parking lot, its branches as thick as tree trunks.

People streamed in and out of the mall, and if she couldn’t smell them, Josie would have thought Callahan had brought her to some human city. That was the thing about the Summer Rain pack. They were too…humanized. And there were so many of them.

She turned to Callahan and caught him watching her with a smile on his face. “It’s amazing, right?” he asked.

“How?” She didn’t know how else to phrase the question. But she needed some answers. How were they so different? How did they stay safe when their town was so huge? How did they keep humans from moving in? How were there so many of them?

Callahan shrugged and grinned. “Come on, I’ll show you around. First, you need some toiletries, I think. And then we need to get you some clothes for warmer weather. The weather is so different here.”

She wasn’t surprised to see how popular and well-liked Callahan was. He always had that effect on people. Well, most people. Not her. Every stop they made, he was greeted warmly, although Josie got some cold stares every now and then, just as he had warned her she would.

He introduced her as his friend’s sister from another pack. They were both visiting, but she would be around longer. He had his reasons to hide her identity, but it still hurt her to hear him call her his friend’s sister.

She went about her shopping quickly, wanting to be out of the crowded mall as quickly as possible. She’d never learned how to be comfortable in a crowd. She didn’t trust them. And now that she had a target on her back, she trusted them even less.

Callahan was the perfect gentleman and insisted on carrying all six bags back to the car, no questions asked. She wasn’t proud of it, but she did steal glances at the way his muscles strained under his plain black t-shirt.

Walking behind him back to the truck, she could imagine them living this life. A normal couple after shopping, on their way back home. All that was left was a little kid, swinging from both their arms.

That had always been his dream. To settle down, have a family, and live happily ever after. And now, he was settling for life as a single father, having a child through surrogacy.

Somewhere in the last ten years, something must have gone horribly wrong and changed him. She refused to entertain the nagging feeling that this was somehow her fault. She couldn’t take responsibility for it. To do so would be to admit that she had hurt him, and she wasn’t willing to accept that.

So, she brushed the image of the perfect family out of her mind, and with it all feelings of guilt and wrongdoing. For the first time in her life, Josie understood why people called her cold.

***

She was in the bathroom when she heard her phone ring. She had already called in to work to inform her boss about her urgent and unexpected trip. There was only one other person who could be calling her now. Klaus.

If Callahan walked in and saw that he was calling her, he was bound to connect the dots. She needed to buy some time with Klaus, give him some sort of explanation about who Callahan was. But she couldn’t have Callahan getting involved and ruining everything.

She dried off quickly and rushed out of the bathroom with a towel across her chest. She grabbed the phone from the desk near the balcony just before it stopped ringing. It wasn’t Klaus, it was Dr. Stephanie.

“Hello, doctor. Good morning.” She sat heavily on the bed, relief flooding through her.

“Good morning, Josie.” Dr. Stephanie’s bright and sunny voice was a relief. “You sound…out of breath. Is this a good time?”

“Of course it is,” Josie said. “You just caught me in the middle of some exercise. That’s all. What’s up? Any news?”

“Actually, yes. That’s why I was calling. We are ready to move on to the next stage of the process, insemination. We were hoping you’d be available to come in tomorrow? That is, if it’s convenient for you to—”

“Tomorrow is perfect!” Josie said, a little more eagerly than she’d intended. She cleared her throat. “What time works?”

“Ten am. I know you live far away, but the sooner we can get it done, the better. Think you can make it in time?”

“Of course, doc. See you at 9:45.” She hung up the phone and allowed the news sink in. Pregnancy had always been an abstract concept to her. Something that happened to others, not her. And yet, it was happening, and she couldn’t wait.

She tapped her phone thoughtfully. She needed to call Klaus. There was no getting around that. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

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