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Graham felt like the sun had gone out with Alice’s flight, though the room was still infused with golden light through the filmy curtains. Part of him wanted to roll on the rumpled bedcovers and inhale her scent on the pillows.
The rest of him wanted to hit something.
This is not fate.
His lion wanted to pursue her, of course, but Graham tamped down that with a growl of his own. Ciao indeed. If she wanted to keep this casual, fine.
He was glad he hadn’t told her his real name, even while he felt like he was a bottle under unbearable pressure, desperate to tell someone, anyone, especially her, who he really was, and beg for forgiveness.
One of the pillows tore apart under his hands before he could stop himself and Graham rose with a snarl to take a shower and wash her from his skin.
Her key found the bottom of his foot, and he growled in pain before he picked it up and was sorry he looked at the cottage number because now he’d know where she was staying. Dammit. He put the key on the bedside table, vowing to return it to the lost and found, and stomped to the shower.
He left the cottage in utter disarray, knowing that he’d hear about it later and not caring.
Still damp, still stung, he threw himself at his garden until afternoon, tying up the bean vines that were unfurling wildly across the beds, gently thinning the new lettuce, turning fresh dirt to plant a new batch of cucumbers.
By the time the staff meeting came around, he had buried everything again and felt the familiar layer of indifference settle around him. As long as he didn’t think about her, he wasn’t angry.
And Graham was good at not thinking about things.
He was still carefully not thinking about anything when he arrived early at the staff meeting, and he was sorry that he wasn’t in a better mood, because Neal and Tony were there, grinning and catching up on all the gossip and adventure that had happened at Shifting Sands since they’d been there.
“... Which is when the boat blew sky-high and Laura and I were left adrift in the middle of the ocean,” Tex was explaining.
“The fireworks were nice,” Laura said, laughing. “And he sang to me!”
“Sounds romantic,” Neal said with a grin.
Neal hadn’t done much grinning before Mary, Graham observed, and he scowled harder than ever. Wasn’t that how mates were supposed to work? His own experience was proving vastly different.
Tex went on to talk about the otter who saved them.
“That was me,” Jenny explained. “Not dead after all!”
That was when Neal realized that Graham was there, and he interrupted the story to rise and shake hands with a smile.
Graham shook the offered hand, but gave no reply to Neal’s cheerful greeting, wondering if there were layers of meaning in his knowing grin. Would Mary have already had a chance to tell him about his unorthodox introduction to her bridesmaid?
Fortunately, Breck arrived just then, and Neal turned his greeting to him, letting Graham edge into the room and find an out of the way chair to sit on. “I hear you got married? Can this be? Is it possible? Did she drag you kicking and screaming?”
“There was screaming and a lot of clawing,” Breck conceded. “But not so much of the dragging.” He was grinning broadly, his eyes soft the way they always were when he spoke of Darla. “Wait until you meet her,” he added adoringly. “She’s so amazing.”
Graham caught himself before he could growl out loud.
Lydia came in then, and gave Neal and Tony each a warm, affectionate hug, Wrench glaring over her shoulder at the strangers protectively. “You’ve done so much for us,” she told Tony appreciatively.
“Oh, it’s not so much,” Tony said, abashed. “Just doing my job.”
Lydia wasn’t the only one who made a skeptical noise. As an agent in the Shifter Affairs department, Tony had been instrumental in getting all the shifters who had been rescued from the zoo the paperwork and legal documents to return to their lives after a period of long absence and, in many cases, presumed death. Following that, he had been extremely useful in stopping a mob boss that had been hounding Jenny, Laura, and Wrench.
Congratulations were still being exchanged, for Neal’s upcoming nuptials and Tony’s impending fatherhood, when Scarlet arrived to start the meeting at one o’clock on the dot.
Graham stared fixedly at the floor, refusing to look at her.
The meeting was lighthearted, centering around the details of the upcoming wedding and the day-to-day considerations of the resort. The lawsuit from Darla’s mother had not materialized, and if money was tight, it appeared that they were at least fairly well set to meet the coming weeks. Scarlet was glad to report that they were going to have a steady stream of guests; the debacle of Darla’s wedding had not only not hurt their guest list, the publicity seemed to have been largely in the resort’s favor.
As Scarlet concluded the meeting and left, nearly everyone else remained and the conversation dissolved into further gossip and talk about the wedding.
“How long are you staying?” Lydia asked.
“Three glorious weeks,” Amber said in delight. “The wedding is the end of next week, and we’ll have a week afterwards.”
“We’ll be leaving the same time,” Tony added. “This is our last chance for a vacation before the baby comes.”
That led to excited speculation about the baby, its gender, and what its shift form might be.
Laura shyly confessed her own pregnancy news to Tony and Neal. “We haven’t told Scarlet yet,” she said, her hand in a beaming Tex’s. “We’re... not really sure what our plans are next.”
Graham squirmed, and looked for a way to leave that wouldn’t be obvious; choosing a chair in the corner had kept him out of the conversation, but it had also trapped him in the back of the room with no polite way of slinking out.
Babies, weddings, mates, and secrets.
He was in hell.
Then Neal turned around in his chair to look directly at Graham and said pointedly, “Speaking of honeymoons...”
And everyone looked at him curiously.
“I hear you and Alice didn’t waste any time,” Neal ribbed.
Graham had liked Neal much better when he said much less.
“Alice?” Breck said, puzzled. “Mary’s friend? The maid of honor?”
“Honeymoon?” Laura said curiously.
There was a moment of silence, Graham wishing he could actually make someone burst into flames with a glare.
Then Neal, oblivious to his efforts at directed spontaneous combustion, laughed. “Mary says you looked like someone had slapped you with a fish. And apparently the kiss was enough to sizzle the plants in the courtyard.”
The staff erupted into congratulations and speculation.
“The last bachelor tumbles!” Travis crowed.
“I’m so happy for you,” Lydia said warmly.
Wrench was sitting close enough to Graham to give him an approving punch in the shoulder and Graham turned on him with a growl.
Now that the attention was on him anyway, there was no point in trying to get out quietly. He stood and shoved through Wrench and Lydia, then plowed through the room, chairs crashing aside to a chorus of surprise.
He slammed the door so hard behind him that it rattled the artwork on the walls outside, and stalked away to find something to drink.