The Fake Mate

what are we going to do when we get back to work, Noah?

I am doing everything humanly possible to focus on work, but it is decidedly . . . difficult. It’s only been forty-eight hours since Mackenzie and I left the lodge, and I’ve had to endure a scathing text from Hunter and his aunt Jeannie about the state we left the bedroom in. It was well worth the bill they’re going to send me for cleaning, I think. More than, even.

Mackenzie had seemed so unsure when we piled up in my car to head back here, everything about her demeanor speaking of an uneasiness about what would happen when we got home. I hadn’t been able to find the exact words to explain it to her then, how after only a few weeks with her I’m considering turning all my plans upside down—too afraid to scare her off. But still she’d melted into my kiss, and she’d said again that she would go on an actual date with me when we got another night off, and I think that’s a start, at the very least.

I spoke to the board director at the hospital in Albuquerque this morning, and it’s funny. Before all of this, I couldn’t wait to get out of here. The idea of packing up and moving to another state for a fresh start with more open minds had been exciting—and now it only makes me unsure. Logically, I know the fact that I’m so unsure now of what I want to do is one thousand percent to do with Mackenzie and this strange thing blossoming between us, just as I recognize that hesitating for these reasons could end up being a massive mistake. So why am I dragging my feet, suddenly asking the director to give me some time to consider his offer?

Maybe I really am losing my mind.

I shake my head as I give my attention to my laptop, clicking over to my email client to find a message from the enigma herself. My smile is immediate, my entire body perking up at the idea of speaking to her even in this small way, and I think to myself fleetingly that I really could be losing it.

I have had two people ask me this morning if you took me to a cave for the last few days. I hope your morning is going a little less annoyingly.

I grin as I tap out a reply.

So, I’m assuming it wasn’t a good idea to hint we took a spelunking trip on the side?

I can imagine the way she’ll roll her eyes when she reads it, can practically hear her laugh, which makes my chest feel tight.

Seriously. Am I losing it?

I’m distracted from my musing by a knock at my door, sitting up in my chair as the doorknob turns and the door creaks open to yield a familiar head of sandy blond hair peeking around it.

“Hey,” she calls, and that one word is enough to make my heart pick up its pace.

“Hey,” I answer, watching her step inside with a brown paper sack. “I was just emailing you back.”

“Probably writing me poetry, right? Just make sure you give me a really stellar analogy for my eyes. None of that ‘bright pennies’ bullshit.”

My lips curl as I shake my head. “Duly noted.”

“I brought you lunch,” she tells me, sitting the sack on my desk.

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Really?”

“It’s not a big deal,” she says almost defensively. “I just know how you get when you’re busy, and you have that heart cath later.” She shrugs. “I figure after robbing the entire hospital of you for three days I can make sure you aren’t getting shaky fingers from low blood sugar.”

It’s a small thing, but it makes me happy that she thought of me, a feeling of thrill stemming from the simple brown paper sack that’s now sitting on my desk. “Thank you.”

“It’s only a sandwich,” she says flippantly. “Just plain old turkey. Don’t get too excited.”

I chuckle as I reach for the bag. “I will make sure not to read too much into the sandwich.”

“Good,” she says with a grin. “I don’t want you to get any preconceived notions before we go on that date.”

I pause from opening the sack. “Preconceived notions?”

“Yeah,” she says seriously. “Like, that you can get away with just a sandwich or something.”

My eyebrow quirks. “Oh?”

“I’m an expensive date, Noah,” she tells me pointedly. “I’m a five-star kind of gal.”

“Your favorite food is soup,” I remind her.

She waves me off. “Yes, but I’ll be ordering the fanciest soup,” she assures me. “Gold flakes in the broth, maybe.”

“Right,” I chuff. “Of course.”

She plops down on the edge of my desk. “So how has your day been?”

“My day?”

“Your day,” she echoes. “Have you been listening to whispers going quiet every time you walk into a room?”

“I’ve been here, mostly,” I tell her truthfully. “I had a lot of procedure notes to document. Playing catch-up.”

She winces. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be.” I reach across my desk to place my hand over hers. “Seriously.”

There’s a flush of color at her cheeks when she smiles softly, but she turns her face shortly after so I can’t see. “It does feel weird,” she notes. “Coming back. It felt like we were gone way longer than we were.”

“I know what you mean,” I murmur.

I don’t tell her that I didn’t want to leave, knowing it might be too much, too fast. The last thing I need is to spook her when I’ve just gotten her to agree to considering a real shot at this.

When I open the bag, I notice there is only one sandwich. “Are you not eating with me?”

She shakes her head. “I have to get back. We’re pretty short-staffed today.”

“Well, I appreciate you taking the time to bring me a mediocre sandwich with no meaning attached to it,” I tell her flatly.

Mackenzie barks out a laugh. “Oh my God, sarcasm? I need to write about this in my diary. No one will ever believe it.”

“You’re a bad influence.”

She hops off my desk and circles around it, leaning down with her hand braced against my knee. My lips part in anticipation only a moment before hers touch mine, and I close my eyes as I relish the weight of her kiss, the softness of it still enough to make me want a hell of a lot more than just this.

“You’ll get over it,” she teases when she breaks away.

I swallow. “I have a feeling you might be right.”

She steps away like she hasn’t just made the idea of working that much harder—blowing me another kiss when she stops at the door to my office. “I’ll text you when I get off.”

“All right.”

I have to sit very still in my office chair after she’s gone, reminding my body that it can’t get worked up right now, no matter how much it would like to. I can’t believe that something as simple as a kiss—hardly even a kiss, really—could have my heart racing and my slacks tenting, but my body seems to have shifted into a state of constant neediness where Mackenzie is involved. It’s both heaven and hell.

I’m just starting to resign myself to finishing my notes a few minutes later when my phone starts vibrating across my desk, perking up instantly like an overzealous Chihuahua at the possibility of it being Mackenzie, as unlikely as that situation is. I’m not disappointed per se when I realize it’s my mother instead, but my zeal from a moment earlier dissipates slightly, and I chide myself for being so ridiculous.

“Hello?”

“When are you bringing this girl to dinner?”

“Hello to you, too, Mother.”

“Noah Taylor. I will come over there and put you across my knee. I don’t care how big you are.”

I close my eyes, leaning back in my desk chair. “I don’t think I will be bringing her to dinner anytime soon. It’s still very . . . new.”

“Not so new that you’re sneaking away from work to Hunter and Jeannie’s lodge, apparently.”

I frown. “It really is ridiculous that you know so much about my personal life, considering how little I share with you.”

“I know,” she snorts. “Imagine. Your poor mother begging for scraps about your life from Regina like some sort of stalker. Do you know how many times I’ve had to sit through that woman’s recollection of the time she met Roseanne Barr at a bar twenty years ago? She thinks it’s so clever that she met Roseanne Barr at a bar. And here I am, having to sit through this time and time again, pretending that I find it funny just so I can hope to gain any kind of insider info on my son, since he won’t ever—”

“Okay, Mom. I get it. You’re very mistreated.”

She hmphs. “I’m glad we’ve established this. Now tell me why I can’t meet my future daughter-in-law.”

“Well, you referring to her as your future daughter-in-law is a pretty big tick against you.”

“What? I mean, you’re already spending her heats with her, surely that means you’ll be—”

“We are not going to discuss Mackenzie’s heats.”

“Fine, fine. I just want to meet the woman my son is all gaga over.”

I want to argue with her assumption that I’m gaga over Mackenzie, but even in my head it feels like a feeble effort.

“Well, for one, I just got her to agree to go on an actual date with me,” I sigh. “Subjecting her to my parents feels like something that will scare her off.”

“You make us sound like a form of torture.”

A chuckle escapes me. “Can you guarantee that you won’t ask her if she wants kids at some point during the dinner?”

“Well, I could certainly try,” Mom mutters unconvincingly.

“I think you and Mackenzie’s grandmother would get along well,” I say, grinning.

“I wonder if Mackenzie’s grandmother has to pull information from her granddaughter like pulling teeth.”

“Just . . . let me figure out what this even is between us, okay? Provided that she doesn’t realize that she’s entirely out of my league, I’m sure I can arrange the two of you meeting . . . at some point.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re a catch. When you’re not being a surly hermit.”

“Your confidence in me is reassuring.”

“Have you heard anything on the Albuquerque job?”

I press my lips together in a frown. I have heard from them—but it’s something I haven’t mentioned to anyone, Mackenzie included. Mostly because I’m so unsure as to what I want to do about the opportunity. It’s most likely imprudent to be reconsidering my entire future based on the possibility of one date, but since I’ve already established that my mother’s assessment of me being gaga for Mackenzie isn’t entirely unfounded . . .

“I had an email from them when I got back from Pleasant Hill,” I admit. “I . . . asked for more time.”

“Are you still considering the job?”

“I . . .” My fingers drum along my desk absently as my frown deepens. “I should be, shouldn’t I? Not considering an opportunity like this just because I met someone would be ludicrous.”

I don’t say it like a question, realizing I’m talking to myself more than my mother.

“Someone and the one are two very different things,” my mother offers.

My voice comes out softer, like I’m afraid to say anything in relation to the possibility. “There’s no way I can know that. Not after so little time.”

“Honey, I’ve known you your entire life, and I can confidently say that the fact that you’re even struggling with this is a good indication that you at least have an idea.”

She’s right. I know she is. Pre-Mackenzie me wouldn’t think twice about climbing the ladder career-wise, no matter what it meant for my personal life. It’s all I’ve ever been concerned with. But then again . . . I’ve never had anything else to be concerned with.

“I just worry she’ll . . . change her mind about all of this.”

About me, I don’t say.

My mother doesn’t answer right away, but I can practically hear her thinking from the other end of the line. Eventually, she sighs into the receiver. “That’s the funny thing about love, Noah. It’s terrifying, and there are no guarantees. We don’t fall in love because it’s a sure thing. We fall in love because our hearts don’t speak the same language as our brains. Your heart doesn’t have that little voice that worries about what-ifs. It sees something good and it goes all in. Sometimes you just have to listen to your heart more than your head.”

My thoughts trip over the word love, because that also feels like some sort of foreign concept that couldn’t possibly relate to whatever it is Mackenzie and I are doing. It’s too soon. It has to be. At least . . . that’s what my head is telling me. I wonder if my mother is right when she says I should be listening to something else instead.

I shake my head, collecting myself.

“I just need a little time to sort through everything,” I settle on resolutely. “We haven’t even been on an actual date. It’s entirely possible that giving this a real go will make Mackenzie see that she has better options out there than, as you put it, a surly hermit.”

“Don’t do that,” my mother chides. “Don’t hide behind your insecurities. I know alphas are supposed to be tough and impervious to everything, but we both know you’ve kept that part of yourself so carefully hidden all of these years because you’re afraid someone will see the real you and not like what they see. You’re afraid to let people in.”

“It’s just easier,” I admit.

“Yeah, well,” my mother says. “Love sure as hell isn’t easy either.”

I chuff a laugh through my nostrils. “Language.”

“I’m your mother,” she tuts. “Do as I say, not as I do.”

“Right.”

“Just try not to get too in your head about this,” she urges. “I have a good feeling this Mackenzie of yours might surprise you.”

I don’t tell her that Mackenzie surprises me every day.

“Sure,” I answer, my lips tilting up at the corners. “I’ll try.”

“And bring her to meet us soon, damn it.”

“Lang—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Her tone is softer when she adds, “I love you. Even if you’re a surly hermit.”

My grin spreads. “Love you too.”

I hang up the phone, tossing it aside as I open my laptop to search for somewhere to take Mackenzie. I have every intention of finding her the fanciest damn soup she’s ever had.