Page 34 of The Alpha's Surrogate

“Where were you, though?” he asked in a straight voice. “I really was looking for you this morning after I woke up.”

“Oh, I’ve been in the lab,” she said. “Fannar stopped by. He said he was delivering the mana crystal flowers, and that he was in a bit of a hurry.”

Callahan nodded. “Sounds like Fannar. Always in a hurry somewhere…” He fell into an awkward silence, stirring the coffee in his mug. “Listen, Josie. About last night—”

“I’m sorry, can we talk later?” Josie said quickly. “I’m in the middle of some tests and I just wanted to grab some coffee. Sorry.” She all but ran out of the room, spilling some coffee in her haste. Callahan watched her go with bewilderment written all over his face.

She slammed the lab door shut and walked to the sink. She splashed water on her face and tried not to think of how idiotic she had looked fleeing from Callahan like that.

She had no doubt she had hurt him. She felt guilty for starting anything at all. It was obvious she had no intentions of taking it any further. All she’d done was lead him on, and leave him hanging. She’d never felt like such a terrible person before.

She looked at the samples of midnight bloom and mana crystal sitting on the table, and decided to turn her guilt into productivity. She planned to bury herself in her research until she stopped feeling like a monster.

Several hours later, a knock sounded on the door. Callahan poked his head inside. “Hey,” he said. “You’ve been locked in here the whole day. I made you some lunch. Would you like some?” He didn’t look as hurt as he had earlier, and his voice didn’t bear any malice.

She looked up from the microscope and rubbed her eyes. She’d been hunched over it for hours and her back hurt. “I made some amazing discoveries, but nothing too helpful. I think I need a few more hours.”

He entered the lab and leaned on one of the tables, careful not to upset any of her glass bottles. “How about you tell me what you discovered?”

She raised a brow and looked at him. He looked serious enough. She loved how seriously he took her work. The effort was charming. She told him all about midnight bloom and all she’d learned about the plant.

“You see?” Callahan said triumphantly. “Told you there were discoveries to be made here.”

She smiled. “You did. Which brings me to my main problem. Quincy was convinced that mana crystal flowers from Silver Peaks could be combined with the native midnight bloom plants. They are both mana boosting substances, although they act in different capacities. To an extent, he was right.”

“To an extent?” Callahan asked, frowning.

“Yes. They respond well together, at first. But the composition causes a rapid chain reaction. In plain language, they don’t just refill mana and regenerate damaged tissue, they keep reproducing at a rapid rate until eventually, poof.”

She pointed at the cylindrical dish under the microscope. “If I gave that to an injured wolf, they would get better for a little bit, and then they would explode.”

Callahan’s eyes widened. “ I didn’t know you were in the business of making incendiary devices. Isn’t that…dangerous?”

“Very,” she agreed. “Looks like I’ll need to do some more research on this. This could be really helpful for wolves, but I can’t harm lives in the process. I am excited about it, though. After being idle for so long, I’m glad to have a challenge.”

“And I trust you to worry at it like a dog with a bone,” Callahan teased. He drummed on the table with his fingers and the silence swelled between them. “Well, there’s some lunch in the kitchen, I’ll leave it in the oven for you. You should eat something.”

“I will,” Josie said, looking everywhere else but at Callahan.

He sighed. “I’ll get out of your hair now. You have a lot of work on your hands, it seems.” He got up and left.

Josie stole a look at him as he left, and the defeated expression on his face broke her heart a thousand different ways. She took a deep breath and turned back to the microscope, pushing her guilt even deeper.

Chapter 14 - Callahan

Two weeks had passed since the night Callahan had spent with Josie, and in that time, she’d treated him with more indifference than she ever had before. He kept waiting for signs that something intimate had happened between them, but she seemed content to pretend as if nothing of the sort had happened between them at all.

It was almost as if the night they’d shared together existed only in his mind, and he hated that. At first, it hurt him, leaving him worried and confused by her actions. The hurt quickly turned to irritation the longer she avoided the topic.

To his credit, Callahan never forced the issue, and he tried not to allow his irritation to show when he was with her, but his patience was running thin. He had no idea how long she planned to keep up the act, and he didn’t know how to proceed with her.

It seemed like things were finally starting to look up for them. They had gotten closer than ever, and their relationship was on the rise. And now they were back to square one in the blink of an eye.

He saw less and less of her as she spent more time in her lab, running endless tests on her plants. He showed interest in her work and tried to offer assistance to her when she needed it, but her general indifference to him was starting to chafe at him.

It hurt him more because she had been the one to initiate the act. She’d jumped on him, after all, and thrown all caution to the wind.

Why had she done that if she planned to push him away afterward? The more he thought he understood Josie, the less he realized he did. There was no predicting her actions, and he was learning that lesson the hard way.

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