Page 11 of Mated to the Pride

I slipped my feet out of bed, but soon realized I wasn’t healthy enough to stand. The exertion of trying had me enveloped in a coughing fit.

“Preston…?”

I shrank a little as the petite, blonde form of Jessica Dorsey stepped in through the doorway. Her smile was soft and apologetic. “Sorry to barge in,” she said. “I don’t want to invade your privacy. Just… that’s a hell of a cough, you know? Had to make sure you weren’t dying.”

“Not dying,” I clarified, throat still raspy. “Just sick.”

“Uh huh. Hale said you weren’t doing too good,” she said, leaning against the wall slightly. I hadn’t spent much time with her yet, as much as I loved to hear her talk to the others. She was so bright and bubbly, and I didn’t feel like my quiet sarcasm quite measured up.

Okay, maybe I was a little shy.

“Here,” she said, ducking back out again. “This is silly of me. Let me get you some water.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, but she had already disappeared. When she returned only a minute or so later, it wasn’t just water in her hands. She was holding a tray, complete with a couple of slices of toast and a chopped-up red apple. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“And you don’t have to eat it,” she insisted. “Not if you don’t feel like it. I just wanted you to have something, just in case. Sorry, the toast might be a little cold now. Ididkeep it under a little heat, but…”

“It’s perfect,” I assured her, already trying to sit up a little more in bed. Whatever Jess said, leaving this food uneaten was not an option. She’d gone to the trouble of making it for me, so I’d try to eat it. End of story. “This is sweet of you. Thank you. Please don’t feel like you have to play nurse.”

“Please,” she said. “I’m always the mom friend anyway.”

She hovered at the doorway. From the crooked twist in the corner of her smile, I began to realize that I wasn’t the only one who was shy. Knowing that made things a little easier, somehow.

“You don’t strike me as the mom friend,” I countered, leaning forward to adjust the pillow behind me. As I struggled, Jess crossed the room to take it out of my hands. “Okay, I take that back. Yes, you do.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, with playful sarcasm. This close to me, I could smell her perfume — light enough not to make my dizzy head feel worse, but still distinctively fresh and floral. She was summer personified, especially when she smiled. Like now. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Here I am telling you I don’t want to hijack your privacy, and now I’m fluffing up your pillows. I can’t help myself.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I actually kind of figured I scared you,” she said. The shyness tugged her gaze out of mine, but she managed to pick it back up. When our eyes met again, I saw a flutter of attraction that took me aback. So far, I’d figured she had a crush on Stone.

Maybe I was wrong.

“I wasn’t trying to be unfriendly,” I said. “I hope it didn’t come across like that. And you don’t scare me, either. You’re great. I’m just… kind of quiet, I guess.”

“The strong, silent type,” Jess said. “I know it.”

She took a few steps back to sit in the armchair. I felt my whole body relax at the thought that she wouldn’t be leaving any time soon, and it took my breath away as much as the coughing fit had. I’d spoken to her so little so far that it had escaped notice, but… the way I felt in her company, particularly under the heat of her sole attention, was overpowering.

“Well, Preston,” she said, folding her hands. “Now you’re a captive patient, no more strong-and-silencing. I want to get to know you while I have the chance.”

It was much easier to ignore the lights on my vision and the room swaying around me with her pretty face to focus on. I shrugged, turning one of the rings in my ear and trying to play it cool.

“Sure,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

Jessica

It would be a lie to say I wanted Preston to stay sick. Obviously, I wanted him feeling at his best — but by the same token, I couldn’t honestly say I regretted his illness either. He seemed to be less uncomfortable every day, and in the interim I had plenty of time to spend one-on-one with him, learning his unique and playful sense of humor without the hustle and bustle of his three brothers-at-arms to distract me.

Blake and Hale’s handsomeness still intimidated me, and I could barely take my mind off Stone. Now I just happened to have another North man making me blush too, and this one was at home 24 hours a day.

It didn’t help that I seemed to make him shy too. The tips of his ears lit up red whenever I came into the room, and it put a crooked smile on his face that I couldn’t stop thinking about. As he started healing up and feeling a little better, it wasn’t far from my mind that we could be so much more than colleagues if one of us just made the first move.

It was four days later that I heard his bedroom door creak open behind me. I was standing at the hob, getting some bacon ready for his lunch, and when I turned around to check on the sound, I was pleasantly surprised to see him emerging from the room.

“Hey,” I said, beaming. “You’re up and out.”

“At last,” he agreed. “The cabin isn’t spinning around me. I feel pretty clear-headed, actually. Seems like I turned a corner.”

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