Page 52 of The Alpha's Surrogate

His eyes turned to the right and he saw Josie crying, her face shiny with tears. Behind her, Fannar was grinning wider than he had ever seen before. He reached out and caught Josie’s arm. She looked up at him and he smiled at her.

“Took you long enough,” Callahan said. “Looks like I had to die first to hear those words.”

Josie cried and threw her arms around him. He hugged her tightly, ignoring the burning pain in his left shoulder.

Chapter 23 - Josie

Josie spent the first week after Callahan’s near-death experience watching him closely. The fact that he’d almost died on her behalf was the strike that brought down her walls. If losing his life didn’t prove to her that he had no plans of letting her go, then nothing else could.

The words she’d spoken to him as he lay lifeless in her lab had come from a deep place she hadn’t known existed, and yet she found that she meant every word. She didn’t want to imagine life without him.

Callahan spent the next few days sleeping. She knew the poison still worked inside him. It would be weeks before it was drained from his system, if ever. There was no way for her to be sure, and she had told him as much.

But he’d gotten through the worst and was on his way to recovery. That didn’t stop Josie from worrying for him. Whenever he fell into a deep sleep, she abandoned everything else and stayed in bed by his side, watching him like a hawk.

Once, he’d come awake and caught her watching him. “You make me feel old,” he had said then. “I can feel your eyes on me even while I drift unconsciously. What are you so afraid of?”

She had surprised herself by telling him her fears. A few weeks earlier, it would have seemed the most unprecedented thing for her to do. Not anymore. She told him how much he had come to mean to her, and how his death had threatened to steal that from her.

She had told him how she was afraid of going back to the way her life used to be. She told him how she was afraid of being alone, and how the fear of losing him had shown her just how irreplaceable he was to her.

They’d had sex after that conversation. Josie tossed all her concerns for Callahan’s health to the wind, and she threw herself wholly into giving him enough pleasure to last two lifetimes.

When he’d woken up the next morning, he jumped out of bed with a wild, terrified look in his eyes. His expression settled when he glanced down and saw Josie’s naked body curled in the bed. She smiled knowingly at him.

She hadn’t run away. She was done running, and if this turned out to be a mistake, then it was a mistake she would gladly live with. She was still more afraid than a whipped dog, but she was determined to learn to live with the fear, even if she never learned to leave it behind.

Callahan visibly settled after that. Thinking back, she realized how on edge he’d been. Despite everything they’d been through, he was still afraid that he’d wake up one morning and she’d be gone again.

It hurt her that he trusted her so little, but she took responsibility for it. She’d disappointed him enough for him to become slightly cautious, especially when she was involved. It made her want to earn that trust. She’d never been more determined about anything in her life.

Their…intimacy increased after this. They took every opportunity they had for intercourse, giggling afterward like children being mischievous. The more time she spent with him, the more Josie realized just how much she loved him.

It amused her to admit to herself that she had always loved him. He made a point of reminding her that she had a lot of catching up to do. She did her best not to disappoint.

He’d changed the dynamic of their relationship a few days ago when he’d burst into the kitchen with a twinkling in his eyes. “I’ve told all my friends about you,” he said. “Scratch that, they probably know everything there is to know about you.”

He scratched his ear. “They are important to me, and I’d like to know what you think of them. I want you to know them as well as they know you, I want you to meet them. All of them.”

That scared her, and a long dead part of herself whispered for her to run. She uprooted that voice and ripped it into a hundred bits. She was done running. She was terrified out of her mind, but she was willing to work through the fear.

“That sounds like fun,” she replied with sincere excitement. “Oh, they can bring their partners too? We could have a big family dinner.” She reached across the kitchen table and held Callahan’s hand. “That’s what we are, after all, right? Family?”

They’d ended up in bed; it was only right, after all. Josie smiled at the memory. There were a million such moments between them, things that she had considered irrelevant before, now the most beautiful thing about their budding relationship.

On the day of the dinner, Callahan spent the whole day bustling around the kitchen enthusiastically. He danced, and spun, and chopped and tasted. When Josie offered to help him, he made a big fuss and shoved her gently out the kitchen, situating her in front of the television, with several sweet snacks to keep her busy for a few hours.

The aroma from the kitchen came from half a dozen dishes, mingling wonderfully to create an angry rumbling in her belly. She kicked her legs up and smiled pleasantly as she waited hungrily for dinner. Callahan had learned how to bring out the child in her with his cooking.

Fannar arrived first. Alone, of course. He had a gift bag in one hand, and a pie in the other. He smiled when he saw her, and handed her the items. “Hello, Josie. You look well.”

She smiled at him. She hadn’t forgotten his part to play in her rescue, and she put herself squarely in his debt. He had no skin in the game, and yet had agreed to take on an entire group of bears for a woman he hardly knew. Her respect for him had only grown ever since.

“Alpha Fannar, welcome. Yes, I am, thank you. Please, make yourself comfortable.” She took the items to the kitchen, and when she informed Callahan about Fannar’s arrival, the look on his face showed her that he felt the same gratitude that she did for the man, perhaps more.

The rest of the posse arrived in ones and twos. She kicked it off immediately with Juniper and Eleanor. The two women were as far apart as opposites went, but they had found common ground, and formed a lovely friendship.

They accepted Josie like a long-time friend, and for the first time in her life, she felt at home in a crowd. She felt her nerves fading, and one hour in she was laughing and jesting with the group as if she’d been doing it all her life.

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