“Oh,” she replied, not really wanting to discuss his brother or the events from earlier. Instead, she tackled it from the contract side of their relationship. “Then I guess your need for us has ended early.”
“What? No. Of course not. The council has gone ahead and elected me as intended Alpha and the pack will vote for full title as soon as tomorrow, but I can’t just get placed one day and then my family disappear the next. It will be too suspicious. Especially now,” he said.
“Especially now? I would think that having found your wife kissing your brother would be the perfect excuse for a split,” she said, deciding to go there, after all.
“Look, about that. I know we look alike, and you hadn’t seen me before I left to go to the club. You had no way of knowing it wasn’t me. I mean, if we’d had more time together, then perhaps you would have realized it, but you and I hardly know one another in some of the most important ways.”
“Okay. Well, I’ve a contract to honor, so we’ll be here until the terms are met,” she said.
Tucker looked as if she had slapped him but said nothing and she found herself wondering if there was something he wanted to say and wasn’t. She quickly cut off her own thoughts, refusing to go down the path of trying to figure out what a man was thinking or feeling. She had done it so much with Blane and she was married to him. Tucker was just some guy who had hired her and her kids to pose as his wife. They had a great night together, but it meant nothing.
“Well, I need to go get cleaned up. I got a bit dirty trying to get the Barracuda going,” he said. “Are the girls asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“I thought you had planned to make some dinner tonight?”
“I saw no point in making a dinner just to eat it alone.”
“Well, I’m starved and I don’t feel up to frozen lasagna tonight. Would you be willing to make it now that I’m home? We could sit down and eat it together, maybe talk about what should happen from here.”
“Yeah, sure. Might as well not let it go to waste.”
“Thanks. I’m going to go get a shower and then I’ll help you.”
She nodded, already headed toward the fridge as he left the room. There was no reason to point out that she really didn’t need his help. By the time he got cleaned up and back down here, she could have it mostly ready. After turning on the oven, she washed two nice sized potatoes and placed them in a small dish in the microwave, piercing them to allow steam to escape. She had planned on baking the potatoes in the oven, but that would take too long at this point and they would essentially taste the same. Then, she turned on the large grill built into the kitchen island and left it to begin heating up while she made a salad.
Tucker returned just as she was drizzling a bit of oil and spices directly onto the grill and tossing the waiting steaks on top of it to sear one side and then the other. She left them sit as she retrieved a large baguette of bread and lay it on a tray to pop in the oven.
“What can I help you with?” he asked.
“Nothing. I have it under control. How do you like your steak?”
“Medium rare.”
“Perfect,” she replied, having guessed as much. You’d be hard pressed to find any wolf shifter who didn’t prefer their steaks rare to medium rare. Many of them would have preferred it just raw, in truth, but processed meats were not trusted as much as making their own kill, so they liked to make sure it was a little more prepared.
“I can set the table,” he said.
Leslie puzzled at this, wondering why she hadn’t thought to set the table already. While he put out plates and glasses, she put the salad on the table and retrieved the potatoes from the microwave, flipping them over and turning them back on while she grabbed condiments and took the steaks off the grill. A few minutes later, they were seated across from one another at the table.
At first, the conversation was a bit stilted. She wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to say to him anymore. Instead, they just busied themselves with their food.
“This is really good.”
“Thanks. It’s not a very complicated meal. I guess I’ve gotten used to cooking quicker style food since the twins came along. With all I had to do with them before I came here, I didn’t have time to really spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking gourmet meals.”
“You didn’t have to do this. I just felt bad that you had gone through the trouble of buying food and no one was here to eat with you. Marla said you had asked her and she had other plans, and I needed to get the Barracuda working.”