Glassed Destiny

Dinner for Four

"Are you sure you want to go?" Jim asked. "Will wouldn't mind if you changed your mind, you know."

"I'm sure," she sounded so certain. It only took her a few minutes to change and she was ready. A yellow dress with some sparkly jewelry held him frozen for a second. He swore she would look beautiful in anything, but he never would forget the moments when she would go all out like this.

She had no idea just how much power she had over him, although Jim was starting to believe that she was starting to. He would have never agreed to bring any of his dates to his family's house, not even for the holidays. That was only reserved for something serious. And he wasn't even sure if she wanted them to be serious or not.

"It was going to have to happen sometime," Skaal interrupted his thoughts. "Might as well be now. At least we know that she's going to be safe with us."

"That's not the point," he held back a sigh. "You forget all that happened up there."

"No, I didn't," the wolf snarled in the confines of his mind. "If they so much as lay a finger on her I'll rip their heads off."

"We can't do that to family."

"Family shouldn't be doing that to mates."

Jim blinked a few times, trying to get the thoughts out of his head. The last thing he wanted to be arguing about was whether someone would do something to her. They were all family, but every family had its bad eggs. And everyone had skeletons hiding in their closet.

"Are you just going to pout the whole time?" Indigo snapped him back to the present. She had a coy smile on her face. "I didn't think it was going to make you that angry to go and see your brother."

"It's a bit more complicated than that," he told her, thankful for the reprieve. "And I'm not pouting."

"What?" she giggled. "Are they going to show me your baby pictures or something?"

"Don't tempt them," he smiled. "Will just might if he thinks it'll bother me enough."

"I bet you were a cute baby."

"Why are you suddenly so focused on babies?" he shot a questioning look her way. "Suddenly you find out that my brother's wife is pregnant and you're baby crazy?"

"Oh, please!" she shoved him a bit. He was driving them, but her push against him didn't do anything to his grip on the steering wheel. "I just thought it was cute that she was pregnant!"

"I definitely told you that she was," he told her. He remembered that she had asked about them not too long ago. It was about the time that he had started hunting in the forest.

"Did not!"

"Did too."

He could at least say that the drive there was worth it. Jim loved long drives, which probably helped in his profession more than he thought. Going through the dirt roads to his childhood home brought back great memories of when he would be rough housing with Will when they were younger. He told Indigo the few spots that he remembered the most while he drove, one being a particular tree that looked about ready to fall.

"That one we call Old Sturdy," he told her.

"It looks like it's one storm away from falling," Indigo's eyes went big as she stared at it. He was lucky that the sky hadn't grown too dark to hide the memories that he had. Her reactions were enough to chase all the worried thoughts away.

"It has for a while," he chuckled. "I'm sure there's still kids who try and see if they can make it fall. But, no matter how many hits you give the old man, he'll always stay up, with his branches reaching the sky."