“How do you like your meat?” I asked. “No pun intended.”
She grinned. “Medium rare.”
“Good girl.” I stabbed the steaks with a large fork to put them on a clean plate.
Her laugh was throaty and went straight to my dick. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through dinner without taking a bite out of her. We wanted to get to know our mate with her clothes on first. Show her we were interested in more than just her scorchingly hot body.
“Have a seat, sweetheart.” Holt indicated the patio table, on which he’d set cherry red placemats and napkins. “I’ll grab the salad.”
My mom had made the dish—a beautiful Greek salad with cherry tomatoes, olives, red onion, and feta cheese. She’d dropped it by the minute she heard we were having our mate over for dinner, giving us all the help we could get. Obviously she was afraid Ali would run away screaming because of either of our bad cooking.
Holt’s parents had moved to Alaska a few years back to be close to their grandpups there. His sister had mated an alpha wolf in Anchorage.
I had to be grateful my parents hadn’t freaked out over our mate being a human and a rancher. Of course, I hadn’t told them who her father was. It would come out soon enough—it was a hurdle we’d all have to deal with—Holt, Ali and I, primarily. For the moment, though, I liked having their full support and excitement.
Holt emerged with the large bowl and we sat down at the round glass table.
“How come we haven’t seen you around West Springs before?” Holt asked after we’d eaten in a contented silence for a few moments.
“Like I said last night, I’m back from college. It took a few extra years because I took time off to travel. It’s… strange to be back. I mean, this is where I want to be, but I’m trying hard to find my place as an adult, instead of a kid.”
“Yeah, that must be hard when you’re back under your parents’ roof,” I said. While I loved my family, staying with them when I returned to town to visit made me feel like I was the one who was eleven, not Ariel. The only changes my parents had made to my childhood bedroom was replacing my small twin bed with a much larger one. There were still trophies from Little League on the shelf.
“Exactly,” she replied, nibbling on a piece of feta. “Except my mom died when I was a kid. It’s just my dad who raised me and Steven.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She waved it off as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. “It was a long time ago. But I agree with you, about coming back. I mean, I returned to the promise of running the ranch myself in the near future. Taking over as the next generation. My dad’s getting older and it will all be mine someday. I thought we’d be acting as partners. But he seems to have forgotten that I’m not sixteen anymore.”
I worked very, very hard not to say one goddamn thing about Bob Jenkins. That was because I couldn’t think of anything that was nice about the man, especially after we’d overheard how he’d berated her over us the day before.
Well, maybe one thing. He had a charming, beautiful daughter whom I was destined to spend the rest of my life with.
“You might have to fight for some autonomy, huh?” Holt said, finding more diplomacy than I was capable of.
She put her fork down and took a sip of wine. “Yes. I’ve worked at some really large ranches in Australia and Chile the past few summers. I have ideas of things we can do to streamline processes and boost profits here.”
I leaned back in my chair. The sun had cut through the trees and was lighting up her auburn hair so it glowed.
Fuck. Beautiful, ambitious, and well-traveled. Holt may have stuck closer to home, but I was pleased she knew about the world around her. It made her… open to diversity, which I hoped included shifters.
“Damn, girl. I knew you were impressive the first moment I saw you, but my appreciation just grows,” I told her. “Tell us about Australia and Chile.”
She shrugged, like international travel for a woman in her early twenties was nothing. "I wanted to see other places before I came back home. West Springs is so small, so perfect, but I wanted to see what was out there, to know what I was missing.”
I reached out, took her hand. “Think maybe what you were missing was right here all along?”
I didn’t mean her ranch.
Holt took her other hand and she looked between us, then glanced down at her plate. I could feel the quick thrum of her pulse in her wrist. This was the moment. A turning point. Something pivotal. She was smart. She knew what I was asking. What her answer meant.