Herded

Beck POV I had stayed off Alder Lane for four days. Mostly. My wolf had taken one look from the tree line that first night, and I had let him, and I wasn't proud of it. After that I kept us both on this side of town. I worked. I ran until my legs quit. I didn't sleep much. It was a little after two, and we didn't open until four. The door was unlocked for the beer delivery. Walt sat at the end of the bar with a beer and a crossword, because he has always treated my hours as a suggestion. I was carrying a rack of clean glasses out of the back when the door opened and her scent came in ahead of her. That was all the warning I got. One second of warm skin and that sweetness under it, and my wolf came up off the floor of my chest like somebody had called him to dinner. "We're," I said. I never got to "closed." She was standing in my doorway with the daylight behind her, in a blouse, holding a casserole dish. And I dropped the rack. All of it. Twenty-five glasses. I had carried that rack ten thousand times. It hit the floor on one corner and went off like a gunshot, and glass skated to every wall in the room. Nobody moved. I had never broken a glass in that bar. Not one. "Oh my God," she said. "I'm so sorry. Did I startle you?" "No." It came out flat. Good. Flat was all I had. She recognized me then. I watched it land. Her eyes went wide and the color started up her throat, same as it had on the porch, and I knew exactly how far down I wanted to follow it. She had buttoned that blouse one button higher than she needed to. I wanted to open it with my teeth. I wanted her up on my bar with her knees apart and my mouth between them until she couldn't remember what she had come in for. I stood in a ring of broken glass and thought about it in detail. "Well, hello again," Walt called from the end of the bar, like nothing in the room was broken. "How's that couch treating you?" She jumped a little. Then she found him, and some of the stiffness went out of her shoulders. She knew a face. "It's a very good couch," she said. "It ought to be. That's my dish, by the way. Set it anywhere, darlin'." She put it on the nearest table. Then she started toward me, already bending to reach for the biggest piece. "Here, let me help." "No." She stopped with her hand halfway out. "It's my fault. I can at least…" "No. You'll cut yourself. Stay there." It was sharper than I meant it. She straightened up and took one step back, and I hated that step. But she was in sandals, there was glass from wall to wall, and the thought of her bleeding on my floor did something to my wolf that I didn't have the room to manage. I got the broom myself. She stood by the door with her hands clasped in front of her and watched me sweep. I could feel it on the side of my face the whole time. "You'll want a wet bar towel for the slivers," she said after a minute. "The broom just spreads them around." I looked at her. "I used to tend bar. A long time ago." She was right about the towel. I wet one and got down on a knee and wiped the floor, in front of my mate and the town notary, and tried to look like a man who had meant to do this today. "Are you the owner?" she asked. "Yeah." "I'm Lainey. We just moved into the house on Alder Lane." Lainey. I had heard the boy call her Lane. I hadn't had the whole thing until now, and I held on to it harder than I should have. "Beck," I said. She nodded. Then she took a breath, like somebody about to jump off something. "Are you hiring?" "No." It was out before she had finished the word. It was the right answer. It was the only answer I had planned on giving. Her face fell. It wasn't much, just a small drop around the eyes before she caught it and put a polite smile over the top. I felt it like a boot in the ribs anyway. "Oh. Okay." She nodded a couple of times. "Well, I'm sorry to bother you. It was nice meeting you." She turned for the door. Let her go. That was the plan. She walks out, she finds something else, and I get to keep my hands and my head to myself. "Wait." I had tried not to say it. I heard it come out of me anyway. She looked back. "Um." I don't say um. I have never said um in my life. "Did you try the diner down the street?" "Yes. I've actually tried everywhere. Nobody's hiring." She gave a little shrug, like it was nothing. "They told me to come here. But that's okay. I'll figure it out. I always do." She lifted a hand to Walt, and then to me. "You both have a good day." I always do. She said it lightly, the way people say a thing they have had to say too many times. And nobody was hiring. In my town. I knew damn well the diner needed help. They had been short a waitress since June, and there had been a sign in that window all summer. I had walked past it that morning. The hardware store had been asking around for a part-timer for a month. Nobody had turned her down because they were full. They had turned her down because every door in Cedar Ridge had been told to close, so that the only one left open was mine. I had stood in this room and told them she was taken. I had told them not one word, and to leave it alone. They had looked me in the eye and said yes, Alpha. Then they had gone out and herded her straight to me, like a bunch of sheepdogs with casserole dishes. She had her hand on the door.