You Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 3)

Chapter 26: Garrett

I feel kind of stunned, like I’m in some trance or something, as I leave the Indigo Moon packhouse with Jeannie in tow. I can tell just from the look on her face that she’s concerned about me, and I appreciate it, but I really wish I hadn’t brought her. She’s Gabe’s mate and not really my friend, not without him anyway, and I mostly just feel exposed and humiliated, not to mention hurt and maybe even a little bit bitter.

What did I ever do to deserve this? Why do I have to stand here looking at Gabe’s perfect little fated mate while I’m still reeling from my second rejection? I mean, I guess it’s not really a rejection, but it still kind of feels that way. I thought I might have a second chance at finally finding a life partner, but really, I was just kidding myself.

Thankfully, Jeannie doesn’t try to say anything to me and just silently traipses after me to my truck. I feel her hand on my arm and realize that she’s trying to hold onto me the way that Gabe taught her to do when a man is escorting her somewhere, and I sigh, deciding to allow it. It’s not her fault that I’m so unlucky, and I don’t want to treat her badly just because I’m upset.

I open her door for her and help her up into the truck before making my way around to my side, muttering to myself and kicking at the dirt as I do. As much as I’m trying to keep it together until we get out of here, it’s taking a whole lot out of me. What I really want to do is scream or rip something to shreds, though I know better.

I know better even if we were at home, but this isn’t even my pack. Any display of emotion would only prove to their Alpha that I’m not good enough for his daughter, and it certainly isn’t a good look for my pack either. Maybe I’ll never be Alpha, even if I had been letting myself hope it for a minute, but I’m still the current Alpha’s son and anything I do reflects back on her.

And then there’s Jeannie right there to see everything, watching me with her curious, questioning eyes as I get in the truck. I can’t help letting out another heavy sigh, leaning my head back and scrubbing my hand over my face. And to Jeannie’s credit, she still doesn’t say anything.

I put my keys in and get the truck started up, silently getting us back on the road and headed home. I shouldn’t even have come. I thought it would help to see Leslie in person and make her tell me that she’s not interested to my face, but I think it actually made it worse.

I thought she liked me. She always seemed more interested in me than Gabe when we’ve met with her before, and it’s me she’s been texting for weeks. Flirty texts, suggestive texts even, and then eventually, texts filled with what I now realize were empty promises. She didn’t mean any of it. She found someone she likes better, and now I’m just some guy she considered for a minute.

“It’s her dad that’s the problem,” Jeannie says after awhile of riding in silence. “Whatever Leslie told you, she only said it because of her dad.”

I glance over at her, surprised and at a loss of what to say. I don’t even know what to think of that. Jeannie wasn’t even involved in our conversation, and she couldn’t possibly know that. Could she?

“Well, he’s the Alpha,” is the only response I can come up with for that, resisting the urge to ask her to tell me more about whatever she thinks she knows.

The hopeful part of me desperately wants to know, but I’ve learned that hope like that is dangerous. Hope means heartbreak, and what matters is that Leslie said what she said because no matter whose idea it was, she’s going along with it. She’ll be mated to someone else before I know it.

“So, even though she’s an adult, she has to do what he says?” Jeannie wonders, and I can tell it’s a genuine question, not a challenge.

“If she wants to keep the peace, then yeah. Defying her Alpha is a problem, but if doing so involves me and therefore my pack, then it becomes an even bigger problem. But honestly, Jeannie, I’m skeptical that it’s all her dad. I was standing right there when she told me to my face that her only interest in me was my potential to become Alpha, and she found someone else to give her that who’s a sure thing, so she doesn’t need me anymore. Besides, if it was all her dad, then why did he let us in to go talk to her?”

“I suppose that’s a good point,” she concedes softly.

I still kind of wonder what she thinks she knows, but not enough to ask. The sooner I can accept that Leslie is no longer an option and move on, the better. Letting Jeannie get in my head about something she heard an animal whisper to her or whatever isn’t going to do me any good.

We ride quietly for about another twenty minutes, but my efforts to hold back all the emotions eventually fail me, and I have to pull off the road. It’s not just me, either, but Sebastian. I don’t even understand why he’s suddenly all bent out of shape over Leslie because he’s been ambivalent about her at best this whole time. He wasn’t feeling any connection to her wolf, which is why I’d invited Leslie to come running with me soon hoping to remedy that.

If our wolves couldn’t find some way to connect then we wouldn’t be able to mate, so I was hoping to find that out before getting too far ahead of myself with the dreaming and planning. And maybe that’s where Leslie’s comment about the other guy being a “sure thing” comes from. I thought she meant because he’s definitely going to be Alpha, but maybe she meant because Sebastian has been so stand-offish with her wolf. Maybe she connected with the other guy already. That’s almost worse in a way because it makes it harder to be mad about it.

“I need a minute,” is all I say to Jeannie’s questioning look, muttering it as I yank off my seatbelt and flee the confined space of the truck’s cabin.

I don’t know what my plan is though. I kind of have an urge to run, but I can’t just leave her here. I want to scream, but that seems like a terrible idea on the side of the highway like this. Instead of doing anything I have the urge to, I just drag myself over to the side of the truck facing away from the road and plop myself down, leaning my back against the front tire. Maybe I just need air.

I groan when I hear Jeannie opening her door to come out and join me. I’m pretty tempted to tell her to go find a tree to jump in or something because I need a moment alone. I should never have brought her. I don’t even know what I was thinking when I did, I guess mostly just that I was afraid to come alone, and Jeannie seemed a better choice than Gabe for this.

When he’s around, I have a hard time getting women to give me a second look, and I know he was originally who Alpha Lewis had in mind for Leslie. Asking Gabe to come along on this seemed like a terrible idea, and with his mate standing right in front of me practically begging me to hang out with her, I decided to bring her along without a second thought.

But now I’m far past second thoughts. I think I’m onto about ninth thoughts, wishing with all of them but the first that I hadn’t brought her. I’m in no shape to be anyone’s babysitter right now.

She drops down on the ground right next to me, still not saying anything. I will say that’s something I’ve liked about her from the start. She’s not the type of person who talks just to hear her own voice, and she doesn’t do that thing people do where they try to tell you the things they think you want to hear. She can be a little tone deaf about people getting uncomfortable about a topic that comes up in conversation, but it usually isn’t even her that gets us there.

She waits for other people to start and lead a conversation, and I appreciate that she’s been pretty quiet since Indigo Moon. I just wish she didn’t have such a loud presence to begin with. She doesn’t even have to do or say anything for me to be acutely aware of her being there. And her face is so expressive that she doesn’t even need to talk sometimes. I can feel her silent questions.

“It feels like being rejected all over again,” I admit to her after a moment has passed in silence. “I can’t help feeling like it means there just isn’t anyone out there for me, and it’s not worth my time and energy to keep trying. Maybe I’m just meant to be alone.”

Jeannie reaches for my hand, and though my instinct is to pull away from her because I know Gabe wouldn’t like her touching me so intimately, I also don’t care right now. He’s the reason why days like today even happen to me. If he could have just kept it in his pants and waited for his own mate to come along, my mate never would have thought she had a chance with him.

And having someone touching me actually feels kind of nice. It doesn’t happen to me often, outside of my family anyway, and I crave it. I try to ignore that desperate urge to connect with someone, but it never really goes away.

The scary part though is that Sebastian doesn’t crawl away into some deep part of my mind when Jeannie touches me, the way he does when pretty much any female besides Gabby gives me any attention. He likes Jeannie, and he’s been responsive to her ever since that day she sought him out to comfort him. That’s another reason why bringing her along without Gabe here was a bad idea.

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts that I know make me not a very good person, not deep down where I keep all my bitterness and resentment locked away. That part of me very badly wants to spoil things for him the way he did for me, except I think it would be dangerously satisfying because Sebastian is on board with it. Not with the effect it would have on Gabe so much, because hurting Gabe means hurting Simon, but he wants Jeannie.

The tiny inner selfish beast that we’ve been keeping locked away all these years wants to stop caring about anything except how good it would feel to finally have someone for ourselves, and this whole thing with Leslie has done nothing to help me bury that part away.

Maybe that’s the real reason why I’m so desperate to get away from Jeannie. I never should have let myself be alone with her, and now that I’ve been torn wide open and she’s right there to watch me hurting, I need to push her away before I end up doing something stupid that I’ll regret.

“That girl you came over with today, Gabby? Do you know who she really is?” I ask her, the whole time trying to talk myself out of starting this conversation with her. And failing.

“The Beta’s daughter,” Jeannie answers, telling me she probably has no idea who she is to me, and I didn’t give her details earlier when I was warning her away from my ex-mate.

I know Gabe probably hasn’t told her, but I figured Gabby might have. There’s always some reason why she attaches herself to a person, and at her core, she loves stirring drama. Maybe that’s why she was paired with me, because look at me now. I’m about to do the same thing.

“And my fated mate, the one who rejected me,” I reveal to her, my heart racing with anticipation, knowing I shouldn’t be telling her any of this but feeling eager to discover what her reaction to it will be. “She cheated on me, and decided she wanted the other guy instead. That’s why I no longer associate with her.”

“Oh gosh, Garrett. I didn’t know that, or I never would have showed up at your door with her,” she tells me apologetically. “I’m so sorry. That was the last thing you needed today.”

Sebastian is getting a bit unruly from all the emotions he’s dealing with, same as me. Though he had no interest in Leslie, he understands what her pushing us away means as well as I do. We’re alone again, and probably always will be.

And just the mention of Gabby has him feeling simultaneously angry, hurt, lonely, and missing her all over again. I’ve had to fight him the times she’s come crawling back to try to reconcile with me. She doesn’t deserve us, but all he wants is his mate. In his defense, her wolf is probably innocent, but we can’t accept one without the other.

But with him so restless in my head, I lose my train of thought. What I’d intended to tell Jeannie next is that it was Gabe who stole Gabby from me, but instead, all I can do is cry out in anguish and hold my head.

The next thing I know, Jeannie is crawling over me to straddle my legs, wrapping an arm around me and using the other hand to tilt my head down to hers, pushing her forehead against mine. I don’t know what it is I’m feeling as soon as she does that, but there’s a sense of soothing warmth that shoots through my entire body, and I think she caused it. I also think Sebastian was her target because I can sense him settling down, relaxing in my mind as if relaxing against her comforting embrace.

And I do the same, closing my eyes and letting her hold onto my head like that, my arms instinctively winding around her and pulling her more tightly against me. It’s not quite as good as it was the few times I had Gabby in my arms, but it’s a pretty close second.

She eventually pulls her head away, but instead of pulling away from me entirely, she drops her head on my shoulder and scoots herself a little closer, winding both arms around me.

I don’t know how long we’ve been holding onto each other, but neither of us has even said anything yet. It’s all been instinct and our bodies responding to each other, and I almost don’t ever want to speak and ruin it.

It takes me a bit to realize that the shoulder of my shirt is becoming damp with her tears. I didn’t even know she was crying, she’s been doing it so silently and still.

“Jeannie,” I finally say, trying to reposition her so I can get a look at her face, but she’s clinging to me too tightly.

“No,” she answers, burying her face in my neck instead of letting me look at her.

So, I just hold her and slowly rub her back, worrying what could even have upset her so badly. Is she crying about my situation, or did something happen with her?

It suddenly occurs to me that it’s odd for her to seek me out the way she did this morning. She came over for some purpose, which she never got a chance to tell me about because I cut her off, demanding she get on board with my plans, and then I talked about me and my dilemma with Leslie the whole way here. And she’s been quietly supportive of me this whole time, never once demanding my attention even though she’s apparently had something on her mind that’s making her feel very emotional.

There’s only one thing I can think of that could upset her so much and send her to me for answers. My brother. Maybe that date last night didn't go as well as I thought.

Though I feel terrible for ignoring her needs all day, I’m mostly just angry now. It’s bad enough that his reckless behavior has hurt me so much, but it somehow bothers me even more now that his own mate is in tears over him. She’s probably the sweetest and most innocent person I’ve ever met, and she literally would not even hurt a fly. She’d charm the damn thing and send it on its way, or make it her cherished pet for the few days it would live.

But that’s beside the point. The point is Gabe doesn’t deserve her, and she doesn’t deserve someone so selfish who is just going to keep on hurting her like this. I think the Moon Goddess got it backward this time. Gabe should have Gabby, and Jeannie should be mine.

“Screw that guy. He doesn’t deserve you,” I bite out bitterly.

She responds with her first audible sob, choking on her tears, and I regret saying anything. Even that much was selfish of me. She needs my support, not my bitter commentary.

I place my hand gently on the back of her head and turn her face ever so slightly so I can kiss her forehead, and then I lean my head against hers and try to let how good it feels be the only thing I think about after that.