The Falcon Ridge Series Book 2 Not Just A Girl

(Chapter song ‘Sway' by Michael Bublè)

JAYSON

"You're late. Sit down." My dad barks as I enter his office.

I grab a chair across from him and sink into it. "Sorry. I was just checking to make sure Sarah was still being taken care of."

Derek, from beside me, snorts. "Yeah, I bet you were taking care of her."

I whip my head around and shoot him glare.

He chuckles. "Relax. God, you're so high strung. You’d think you'd be more relaxed with your new little doll to play with."

I lean back. "Jealous?" I smirk.

"Damn straight. Trust me, if you weren't your father's kid, I'd be snaking that hottie right out from underneath you." He laughs while he crossing his legs.

My eyes narrow and a growl comes from deep in my chest.

My father shakes his head. "Can we focus please?"

"Sorry." Derek says still with a shit eating grin on his face.

"I've received some new information that will certainly help things. The Alpha." My dad pulls out a file.

I sit up. "Who is it?"

"Surprisingly, Desmond White." He opens it and tosses a photo of a dark tanned man with almost black eyes, on his desk.

Derek looks confused. "The Dragon's Gamma? Are you serious?"

My dad flips through the file. "We're not so sure now. From the Intel we gathered, with the help of Luke Jackson, we found that we were wrong about Karver. Karver was the puppet. It's White that's been pulling the strings."

"Whites the Beta." I lean my chin on my hand.

"Yes and now with Torrent gone, it looks like he's taken up Alpha and cleaned house. He's gathering any wolf willing to join him."

"So, what? We take him out and that's the end of it?" Derek suggests.

I shake my head. "Possibly. Plus, the more rogues we kill, the less that will be out there. If we can take out White, there will be no ranks, so they'll spend years fighting each other for power."

My dad closes the file. "Where are we on bodies, Derek?"

He sits up. "I managed to call up some favors from friends in White Rock. In total, we have 250 signed up."

"Jayson?" My dad turns to me.

I clear my throat. "Out of a hundred, we got eighty. I can't make everyone fight." I warned him earlier.

My dad flicks his pen in his fingers. "Over three hundred. We can actually win this."

I smile. "Looks like it."

"As long as they don't get more." Derek warns.

I nod. "The scouts will keep an eye on them."

My dad stands. "Alright. I have another meeting. I'll keep you all informed as Intel comes in."

Derek stands and turns to me. "You have time to go over some training?"

I shake my head. "No."

"Why?" He crosses his arms.

I stand, dusting the arms of my shirt and straightening my collar. "Because I have a date with a beautiful woman and I don't like making her wait." I shoot him a cocky smile.

He narrows his eyes. "I hate you. I really do."

I chuckle. "Jealousy isn't a good look my friend." I slap his arm.

I stride out of my dad's office.

****

Now, Black Lake may be small, but we have a few amenities. Like an arena for things like basketball, or skating.

Which is where I'm taking Sarah. In one of our many conversations, she told me she can't skate. I lived on skates as a kid, so of course, I have to teach her how.

"Jayson, I can't do it." Sarah says nervously.

"Yes, you can. Just push off to me." I wait with my arms stretched out. I shake my hips with a grin as ‘Sway' plays on the loud speakers. “Come dance with me.” I smirk.

She shakes her head, holding on to the boards. "No. I'll fall."

"So… You get back up." I wave my arms. "Come on. Just try."

Skaters whizz by us and people are dotting the bleachers, drinking hot chocolate or whatever's in their cup, talking and watching the skaters.

Sarah looks around. Her light cheeks a darker shade of pink because of the cold air in the arena.

She blows out a breath. "Come closer."

I laugh. "Okay. A little closer." I sashay a little closer to her and do a little spin on my hockey skates.

She narrows her eyes. “Show off.” She grumbles as I laugh.

I have a distance between us so she can skate to me. She pushes off the board. Her feet are wobbly and she travels only a few inches.

"Ok. Good. Get your balance. Now come to me." I wave my arms again.

She takes a wobbly step.

I shake my head. "Don't walk. Push off with the skate like I showed you."

"Okay." Her voice shakes.

"Don't worry. I'll catch you." I reassure her.

"You better. I'm trusting you." She warns.

"Come on." I wave again.

She pushes off with a skate and starts to move. She smiles then pushes the other skate.

"That's it. Good, Sarah. Ok, a little faster." I encourage.

She pushes off again and again.

"Excellent. Baby, come on. You can do it." I beam.

She's smiling, but then her body starts to wobble. It's like time stops as I watch her start to lose it.

"Whoa. Whoa!" I skate to her, but I'm too late. She's down on her but, groaning.

I skate to a stop. "You, ok?" I giggle.

Her face scrunches. "Maybe we should go skiing. It hurts less." She scowls, rubbing her but.

I laugh and help her up. "No. You got this.

"Ok. Try again." I back up.

She pushes off, wobbling all the way. Again, and again. "Come get my hand. That's it."

She starts to giggle as she moves forward. "I'm doing it! I'm skating!" She smiles.

"Okay. Don't look at your feet. Look right here. Right at me." She looks up and our eyes lock.

I'm backing up as she's moving forward. "Come to me." I say as I lock with her eyes.

She's almost to me when she starts to lose it again. She gets wobbly and starts to fall forward.

"Whoa...I got you." I skate forward and just before she's about to fall on her face, I catch her bring her up to my chest.

I don't know what it was. Was it the music? The skating? The look of her cold with her cheeks all pink? The feel of her body in my arms? Her eyes had a hold on me as she pulled herself up into my arms.

Without taking my eyes off her, I threaded my fingers into her soft hair and I pressed my lips to hers. I asked for entrance and her lips parted.

Her body completely melted into mine as I held her. The cold air warmed around us as I held her, kissing her softly in the middle of the rink.

Skaters skated around us in a circle and they seemed to fade away as I felt myself starting to let go. The urge to tell her how I really feel was growing.

I brought my other hand up and cupped her cheek as I kissed her. It was perfect until her skate came out from under her. She broke apart. "Oh crap!"

She grabbed at my arms, frantically which caused me to lose my balance. "Oh, shit!" I say as we both went down with a thud.

I groan and she does too, but then she starts to laugh. She flops on her back, holding her stomach. Her face turns red with laughter.

I felt like a damn hero hearing that beautiful laugh.

I stand up and brush the snow off my jeans.

"Way to ruin a moment." I say as I catch my breath, giving her an arm. She takes it.

I pull her up. She's still slightly laughing as our eyes lock again and I pull her to me.

I gaze into her big, blue eyes. I was about to open my mouth and tell her how I really feel when she interrupted me. "You want to go for hot chocolate?"

I blink at her for a second. "Uh... yeah. That sounds good."

She turns to the rink exit and I blow out the shaky breath I was holding. It's probably for the best. I don't know if I'm really there yet.

We put our boots on and head out to a little coffee shop a few doors down. I order for us. Sarah has a big pile of whip cream on hers with chocolate shavings. Everything she does has to have an air of fun to it.

We sit on a bench. I lay my arm across the back as she sits next to me. We don't really say anything at first. It feels like there kind of an elephant in the room. I side eye her as she drinks her hot chocolate with the whip cream almost melted into it. She’s watching the people walk around the square.

She glances at me and I chuckle. Her eyes meet mine.

"What?"

I try to contain my amusement as I look at her. "Nothing. You... uh... here...."

I reach over and wipe off a tiny blob of whip cream off her little button nose then lick it off my finger.

"Oh." She wipes her nose trying to hide her embarrassment.

I chuckle. "So, what do you want to do now?"

She shrugs. "Wanna take a walk?"

"Sure." I stand up and grab her hand to help her up.

I throw out my cup and stuff my hands in my pockets as we head to the boardwalk. It's not at some spectacular beach front or on the edge of a marketplace. It's literally a board walk through the trees of the forest that run around our little town.

As we walk slowly through forest, the breeze swirls around us through the leaves of the trees.

She’s holding her cup in both hands when she glances at me with this look that says she wants to say something, but she's unsure if she should.

"What?" I arch a brow.

"I want to ask you something, but it's kind of personal. I don't want to make you mad." She bites her lip.

I stop and face her. "You can ask me anything, baby."

She sucks in a breath. "Tell me about you and Wren."

Shit. I wasn't prepared for that one.

"Um..." I rub my nape as we continue walking. "Not much to tell, really. We were together for a bit and just kind of drifted apart after that."

She watches the ground. "You were sleeping with her? I mean, before?"

"Well, yeah. Our relationship was kind of serious." I stuff my hands in my pockets.

She quickly glances at me. "Did you love her?"

Damn. The big question.

I scrub a hand down my face. "Yeah. We were in love. For a long time."

"Do you still... love her?" She stops and after a beat, I stop, too.

"What? No. I mean, as a friend. She's one of my best friends, but no, I'm not still in love with her. Why would you think that?" I looked at her confused.

She took a drink of her hot chocolate. "Well, um, I was thinking about… your office...a nd..." She mumbles

I grab her cheek, shaking my head. "No. That wasn't like that. We kept things casual, just physical after our breakup. That's it. It didn't mean anything."

Sarah's just so innocent. It's probably hard for her to understand that hookups don't necessarily have to come with feelings. Although, I respect the hell out of Wren, we both agree, there's nothing there.

"Why did you break up?" She searches my face.

There it is. The one thing I hoped she wouldn't ask because the answer even pisses myself off sometimes. That fucking moon. It ended up tearing me and Wren apart. I was so damn sure and when nothing happened, I couldn't deal.

"It's complicated, but in simple terms, we found out we weren't mates and broke up." I stuffed my hands in my pockets and continued walking.

"That's it? The moon? The moon made her walk away from you?" I guess I started walking a little too fast because I caught her trying to catch up so, I slow my pace.

"No. Sarah, I... I was the one that walked away. She wanted to make it work, but I didn't see the point." I looked down at the boardwalk.

"You didn't see the point in staying with someone you loved?" She was confused.

I shrugged. "Not when my fated was still out there. It broke my heart. I was so fucking sure. I stood there with this goofy grin on my face, waiting for the moon to peak and when it did, nothing. Not a damn thing. I could see it in her eyes. The disappointment. The heartbreak. We had been talking about it for weeks. Planned our future together. All of it was smashed to hell because the fucking moon."

I glance at her as she walked in silence.

"I went a couple more years. I thought, there had to be a reason. I went to each ball, thinking this is the year I find out why the universe would destroy something so perfect. I wasn't surprised that I found nothing. I gave up after that. I figure now, I'm just meant to be alone."

"What about me?" She stops again.

Again, a topic I would really like to avoid.

I turn and smile. "You are an anomaly. The last thing I ever thought I wanted was an insane, drive me up the wall, crazy, effortlessly beautiful, little blonde girl." I cup her cheek as she giggles. "Sarah, I'll admit. I wasn't looking for this. I fought this, so hard, but you make this damn impossible. It's like I have no control over my own body. I've never felt that before. Even with Wren. And, honestly, it scares the fucking shit out of me."

"Why?" Her big gorgeous, deep blue eyes find mine. She's looking for answers that I can't really give her.

"Because. I'm scared the universe will tell me I don't deserve you. That we won't be together forever like I so desperately want. You've turned me back into that goofy kid, grinning waiting for the moon. I'm not sure if I want it this time. I'd rather live not knowing then stand there and watch your beautiful face fill with heartbreak." I stroke her cheek with my thumb.

She stares into my eyes. "But what if I want it? I feel something, Jayson. Something big. I know you're the first boyfriend I've ever had, but I can't shake the feeling that this is all supposed to happen."

This was getting too deep for me. I needed to get us off this subject before I say something that might hurt her.

I give a quick smile. "Well, the moon is still two months out. We can talk about it some more later. Right now, let's just focus on us and the fight, okay?"

I could see she didn't want to let it go, but she did.

"Sure." She started walking again.

I caught up and wrapped my arm around her. "I have an idea. How would you like to go dancing?' I shook her and gave her a big smile.

She smiled at the thought. She dropped her cup into a garbage can and gave me a playful look. "Race ya to the car?"

"You're on."

She took off running back up the boardwalk, laughing like the kid she is as I chase her.

This. This is what I'm terrified of losing. Her playfulness, her touch, her kiss, her heart. Please, whatever is controlling the cosmos. Don't take Sarah away from me.