TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 237

Two hundred and thirty seven

15 Benus

The guard who’d driven me had already pulled away by the time I reached Cassidy’s front door. She lived on the military base, perhaps trying to lose herself in the sterile routine of the place to forget what had happened to her.

Cassidy opened the door before I could even raise my hand to knock.

“You’re on time,” she muttered, stepping back to let me pass.

Her space was sparse but clean, filled with simple handmade furniture and collections neatly arranged on shelves.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

She pointed down the hallway. As I walked past, a wall of photographs caught my eye. There was a man who must have been her late husband, an older woman sharing Cassidy’s face, and a blue-eyed boy captured at various stages of growing up. Given the timeline, it had to be Cassidy and Alpha Kieran’s late son.

I continued to the bathroom to avoid the awkwardness of Cassidy catching me staring. When I returned, she was standing in front of her open refrigerator.

“Apparently I forgot to feed myself.”

She closed the door, grumbling under her breath about needing to go grocery shopping.

“I can go with you,” I offered. “I won’t be in the way.

She looked like she wanted to snap, but she stopped herself.

“I shop faster on my own.”

I nodded, knowing she wasn’t just buying groceries. She was buying an hour of absolute silence.

At the door, she paused and glanced back over her shoulder.

“Don’t go through my things,” she said, “and don’t spend the afternoon trying to think of ways to make this less awkward, because I don’t think it’s possible.”

I remained silent, and the door clicked shut behind her.

She stayed far longer than a grocery run required. I wasn’t offended by the absence. She had lived alone in this house long enough and I had walked into the middle of them and demanded space. The math of her resentment was simple enough.

I didn’t touch her things, but I did stop in front of the photographs on my way back to the living room. The boy had her mouth paired with Kieran’s gray striking eyes. In the earliest frame, he was a wrinkled newborn; in the final one, he looked to be about three years old.

Cassidy returned two hours later, carrying brown paper bags. She ignored me until I got up and offered to help with a basket of laundry sitting on the side counter.

“Leave it,” she said.

I sat back down on the couch, watching her move around the kitchen. After a while, a faint sound drifted from somewhere down the hallway. It was her voice, reciting something. Underneath the silence was a wound far heavier than grief. Wanting to give her total privacy, I picked up my sweater and stepped outside the front door.

She emerged minutes later as though nothing had happened. Without a word, she set a plate down on the stool beside my outdoor perch. It held sausage rolls and hand pies, the pastry crust properly done in a way that proved

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whunted and thirty seven

+15 8gnus

she had been working with dough for years.

“I didn’t poison it,” she muttered.

“Reassuring,” I said, attempting a small joke. “These smell incredible.”

She turned and headed back inside without a response.

I went back to the couch, wondering how I was ever supposed to crack the ice between us. Somewhere between trying to formulate a real question and realizing I didn’t know what to ask, my eyes grew heavy. When I finally woke up, the room was dark, and Cassidy was tapping the edge of my foot.

“Room’s at the end of the hall.”

“I’m fine here on the couch.”

“You’re pregnant. Go to the room.”

A small tight knot in my chest loosened. She was still cold, but the baseline concern was there. That was something.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of her grumbling about the weather. She was standing at the kitchen window, glaring at the downpour as if holding the storm personally accountable.

“Going to get half-soaked before I even reach the gafe.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said, swinging my legs out of bed.

She turned around, her brow furrowing. “What? No.”

“I can’t spend the entire day here by myself. Lady Joanna said she would be monitoring our time together.”

“Just Joanna,” she corrected, snapping her fingers at my use of the formal title. “She only said that to motivate you.”

“Well, it worked. If I go back and she asks what we did, and my answer is that I stayed home alone while you worked, neither of us looks good.”

A long pause followed while she weighed the logic.

“Fine,” she said, grabbing her coat. “But I’m not babysitting you.”

She pulled an umbrella from the stand by the door, popped it open as she stepped outside. I scrambled to keep up, but she walked incredibly fast, while I had the heavy stride of someone in her third trimester. She shortened her steps to match mine. I couldn’t help but chuckle quietly.

When we reached the military base kitchen, a woman wearing a White apron couldn’t stop asking who I was.

“Why did you bring a pregnant woman into a chaotic kitchen, Cassidy? Is she your daughter?”

“None of your business,” Cassidy said, setting her bag down on a shelf. “Move,”

A man working near the prep counter stared at me with open curiosity as Cassidy guided me toward the back station. I took a spot beside her, ready to help, and began washing the pile of vegetables she handed over. Once they were clean, I picked up a knife to tackle the potatoes.

“That’s not how to peel a potato, you’re wasting half the flesh,” Cassidy snapped, snatching the knife away.

“You don’t have to talk to her like that,” the woman in the apron said from across the room.

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15 Benus

“It’s fine,” I said hurriedly, wanting to diffuse the tension. “I truly am wasting it. Let me just stick to the vegetables.”

I felt Cassidy go still behind me at my compliance, but she didn’t voice whatever thought she was holding.

For the next few hours, I washed produce, carried light trays when they needed moving, and restocked the coffee station whenever someone pointed toward the empty canisters. When I eventually found a broom in the corner and started sweeping up the debris near the main prep area, Cassidy firmly took the handle from my fingers.

“If something happens to you in this kitchen, I’m the one held responsible. Sit down.”

She pointed to a metal stool at the far end of the counter and went right back to her work. The helpful woman in the apron drifted toward my corner twice to spark a conversation, but I kept my answers short and polite. Whatever friendliness she was offering in contrast to Cassidy’s harsh exterior wasn’t something I was going to exploit to make myself feel better.

Later, Cassidy pulled a tray of wrapped sandwiches down to my end of the workspace. She slid one toward me without making eye contact and kept her focus on packing the rest.

I picked it up and took a bite. “You really are incredible at baking.”

“You’re over-exaggerating,” she said, her hands never stopping.

“I’m really not.”

“You are. You’re doing it entirely so I’ll like you.”

I let out a loud laugh. She didn’t look up at me, but she didn’t turn away from the tray either.

The rain had thinned to a light mist by the time her shift ended. We walked back toward the house in silence, but this time, it felt far more comfortable.

Back inside, I watched her slip seamlessly into her afternoon routine, placing everything back in its exact designated spot. I had only been in her world for a day and a half, but despite the sharp words and the silence, she had already carved out a physical space for me in her home.

We weren’t friends, and I doubted we ever would be. Still, as I watched her move through the house, I realized I wasn’t looking at her the same way anymore.

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