Page 30 of Strawberry Moon

“Right.” We weren’t close like that. Hell, I was probably giving him whiplash, acting one way then the other. Definitely not the behavior of an alpha in control, but I couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut anyway. “You should, um, you should come to the pack run next weekend. I don’t usually make it, but I was thinking it might—it might be good for me to spend some time with pack. And, you know, it’s usually a good time.”

“Oh.” Archer stared down into that last golden sip at the bottom of his glass. “Well, uh, I haven’t shifted yet? So I’m not sure I’d really be much good—”

“Someone’ll help you through it,” I offered before I thought the words through. What the hell did I know? Shifting was second nature to naturally born werewolves, but I’d never met a wolf who’d been made before. Maybe he couldn’t shift, and the “help” I was promising from an indeterminate someone, who definitely wasn’t me, would only frustrate and hurt him.

Oh, like hell I’d stand back and watch somebody else help Archer figure out how to find his fur. There my wolf was again, snarling in my head at the very idea of Archer shucking his clothes with some other wolf, making a go of it while I stood at the sidelines. Again.

I sighed, sinking down into my shoulders, staring at my clasped hands on the bar. “If you want, I mean. It might help to watch some other people shift, you know? And the light of the full moon... That’s got something to do with it.”

When I glanced over at Archer again, he was smiling, his brow cocked like he was pretty damn skeptical on that point. “Oh yeah?”

I guess he had been through enough months to figure out whether or not the moon cycles meant anything to him or his wolf.

“Just an idea,” I mumbled.

“Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll think about it.”

I looked into his eyes then, expecting the kind of nicely couched blowoff that was all too common in the South—“sure I’dloveto get a drink with you, buddy from high school I haven’t seen in ten years”—but he was staring right at me, his eyes clear and honest.

My wolf practically did a jig. “Good. Yeah. Great. So I’ll maybe see you then? And, uh, you can probably leave the sniffing samples at home this once, huh?”

Archer laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “One night off work might not hurt.”

“It won’t,” I agreed.

I watched as he threw back the last sip of his drink. He slipped off the bar stool, bit his lip, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and then Talin came up with my tray of drinks.

“You good?” she asked, and I wasn’t sure which one of us she was talking to, but it broke the awkward tension of the moment.

“Yup. Great.” I grabbed the tray. “I hope you come next weekend, Archer.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Have a good night?”

“For sure.”

He swung his leg out to the side, turned toward Andy, and headed for the door while I stared after him like I’d lost my damn mind, frozen right up until Jack shouted, “Ford! What the fuck?”

That shook me out of it, and I carried our drinks to the table. “Next time, you can get drinks,” I grumbled at my brother.

Jack snatched his. “If you’re gonna take forever, I damn well will.”

Ridge didn’t say a word, but his smile when he looked up at me was full, broad, and way too clever. I was in trouble, all mixed up on the inside, and right there, at least one person could damn well see it for himself.

22

Archer

Apack run.

It was so quintessentially werewolfy that I couldn’t pretend it was anything else. There wasn’t really a human equivalent—we never got together at a time of the month and hung around naked together. I mean, maybe some people did, more power to them, but I’d never been around it.

Family celebrations in my childhood had always been formal affairs. I would have to wear my suit, and eat canapés and listen to the adults drink champagne and talk about business, or gossip about each other. When I’d reached my majority, I’d just... opted out.

My grandfather had never made me come to company holiday functions, because I always made an excuse involving my productivity, and he always thought working was a better use of one’s time than a party, however stiff and formal that party might be.

The few times I’d gone to the Sterling Corporation’s Christmas celebrations, they had been exactly what I’d grown up with, but with more booze and less interest. Adult Archer cared even less about whose wife was banging her personal trainer, and whose husband had run off to Cancun with the nanny.

At least at twelve, banging had sounded exciting.

---