by Terry Spear
He noticed then that the sun was beginning to set. He motioned with his head toward the deck. “Come on. Let’s watch the sunset over the lake. I can never get enough of it.”
“You’re a wolf,” she said, as if he needed reminding.
They set the buckets of berries in the kitchen, and he walked with her out to the deck.
The dusk and dawn were times for lupus garous to enjoy running in their wolf form—and safer if hunters were around illegally hunting them.
They sat on two outdoor, cushioned rocking chairs. Pine trees towered next to the deck on both sides. The dark blue lake stretched out before them, and the distant, misty-looking mountains served as a backdrop for the setting sun. Paul loved seeing the sun set over the lake. The way the top half of the sky was blue and a ribbon of orange and yellow rested on top of the distant mountains, the colorful sunset reflecting off the rippling waters and turning it orange as a motorboat off in the distance clipped the water.
He glanced at Lori, expecting her to be observing the sunset, but she was watching him. She folded her arms and looked crossly at him. So much for simply enjoying the beautiful colors painting the sky, mountains, and water.
“Why did you kiss me? In front of Rose, her mom, and my grandma?” Lori asked.
Paul had thought she was still mad at him for interrogating her about the Cooper brothers. This was a much more interesting topic. “I was making up to you. For scaring you.”
“Ha.” She continued to study him, watching his reaction and trying to get a feel for what was going on between them.
“I was. And I was ensuring you didn’t hit me with the broom again.”
She chuckled and looked back at the sunset.
He smiled, loving the way she was as radiant as the sunset when she smiled or laughed.
“I bet you were surprised.” She glanced back at him.
He laughed. “Yeah. I didn’t realize I would be attacked by a broom-wielding martial-arts instructor. We thought you needed rescuing.”
“Seriously? From the two of you, maybe. We thought you had sneaked in Rambo-style because Catherine said you couldn’t come over. And you were dying to know what secret activities we were up to at that time of the morning. And you’d have a little fun at our expense.”
He was surprised to hear the women had assumed that. “You couldn’t have believed that of us.”
“You’ve done it before.”
“What, when we were teens? We haven’t done anything like that in eons. Besides, we had just come off a dangerous mission. We were still thinking in terms of hostages, hostage takers, and a rescue.”
Chapter 6
Remembering her grandma’s words about Paul feeling bad over losing a hostage, Lori wondered how much that was affecting him. None of them had considered that Paul and Allan came into the house like that because they truly thought the women were in danger. She wondered if Catherine had questioned Allan about it privately later, and he’d told her what happened on the job. And then Catherine told Emma. When Lori thought of it like that, it seemed as though the men had brought the mission home when they arrived at the house in full combat mode.
She wondered if Paul and Allan were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She and the pack members worried about that when the men went off on an assignment. What had happened on the last job?
As perceptive as she usually was, she should have realized their behavior could have been related to the mission. In fact, Paul’s reaction to this business with the Cooper brothers could be too. She felt bad that she hadn’t considered it before. Now she was dying to ask Paul about his last mission, though in the past, the SEAL team didn’t talk about their missions. Maybe among themselves or maybe to their mates, but not to anyone who wasn’t involved in the assignment.
Yet, Allan had to have been sufficiently worried about Paul to mention some of the circumstances of the mission to his mom.
Paul’s focus was again on the sunset. “We knew something bad had to be going on at the Rappaports’ house. The last time we arrived at the cabin and didn’t inform Catherine right away, she wasn’t happy about it. She always wants us to come by as soon as we arrive. We planned to drop off our gear and then head over there and pick up groceries afterward. We figured she’d want to fix us breakfast, at the very least. So you have to admit we were rather surprised. Then we heard you and Rose screaming and—”
“I didn’t scream.”
He turned to study her, his brow furrowed. “In the kitchen you vehemently said you wouldn’t do it. I thought some man was trying to force you to do something horrible.”
Lori’s cheeks warmed a little.
“What was that all about?”
“Catherine wanted me to tell the two of you that you were being auctioned off. It wasn’t my idea! So I wasn’t about to take the blame for it. Or be the messenger either.”
“Ah. And Rose’s scream? Hell, she screamed when we were on the speakerphone with Catherine, then someone else yelled, and then the phone clicked dead. What would you expect us to think?”
“That someone had a little accident? But really? That was the reason you went all Navy SEAL wolf on us?” She kept herself from probing about his last mission. “Okay, Rose picked up a plate Catherine had been warming on top of her toaster oven. It was hotter than Rose expected, and she burned her hand and dropped the plate. On my foot! Which protected the plate from breaking. I yelled out in surprise when the plate hit my foot. But Catherine must have ended the call with the two of you right after that. She checked Rose’s hand to see how badly it was burned, and it wasn’t that bad. Rose was startled more than anything.
“Right before the two of you barged into the kitchen, Rose tripped over a box of jams and jellies that she forgot her mother had set on the floor, which made Rose drop the plate she was taking to the dishwasher. This time she didn’t have my foot to protect the plate from shattering on the ceramic tile floor. When the plate broke, she said she was giving up on dishes and got another cup of coffee. I got the broom to clean up the broken plate.”
“And then used the broom on me.”
Lori cast a smile at him again. “You have to admit it did stop you.”
“Not for long.”
“Well, if it had been someone else, I would have continued to fight.”
“Not kissed him back.”
Now that they had gotten off the subject of Dusty and the necklace, Lori was feeling more relaxed. She hadn’t been up here since the incident. Paul had sensed that right away, and she wished she could have said and felt otherwise.
Not that the brothers were inherently bad, she didn’t think, or she wouldn’t have agreed to them coming up to the lake. She and Rose were trying to learn why the men were now living in the Cunningham pack’s territory. She’d thought questioning them was a good idea. The brothers said that they’d had to move from their last jobs and find new homes because the rancher had retired and sold off his ranch. And they’d lived close before so the area felt like home. Now she worried that something more might come of it, considering the way the brothers had given Paul the eye, especially when her grandma outbid everyone for his services.
Paul watched Lori as she looked toward the west, her mouth still curved in a tantalizing smile. “Sunset’s gone. Do you want to keep me company while I make the jam for tomorrow?”
He sure did and joined Lori in the kitchen, where she began washing her bucket of berries. He followed her lead and washed his. Then she put them all in a big saucepan and added sugar in the same quantity as the huckleberries. After that, she dissolved pectin and added it to the fruit and sugar mixture.
“Do you want me to break up the berries more? Less?” She paused in stirring them and crushing some to make the mixture more jelly-like.
He peered over her shoulder, breathing in the sweet berry-and-sugar mixture and Lori’s swee
t she-wolf scent. “Smells great. Looks great.” He wasn’t just talking about the jam. “Just right.” He hadn’t eaten homemade jelly in eons, so this was really a special treat. He remembered fondly eating jam on bread before it had even cooled all the way when his mother made it.
Lori looked up at him and smiled a little. He wasn’t moving out of her space, just smiling down at her, his mouth close to hers. Hell, he’d never enjoyed watching someone make jam as much as he did Lori. He was ready to kiss her again. She shook her head and turned to finish cooking the jam. He only let her get away with avoiding any further entanglement because he didn’t want to make her burn the jam. Otherwise, he would have kissed her.
Lori began to transfer the jam into jars and seal them. She’d let the jars cool down so she and Paul could have some jam tomorrow.
“See? I knew what you’d like for breakfast. Waffles, pancakes, or French toast with fresh huckleberry jam.” She licked some of the jam off the spoon she’d used to stir it.
The way her tongue licked the spoon made him think of tangling his tongue with hers again.
“Or honey. Don’t forget how much I like honey,” he said. He let his gaze switch again from the spoon to her lips and thought about how much he’d enjoyed licking the honey off them.
She chuckled.
Unable to stop himself and hoping Lori was of a like mind, he took the spoon from her and set it in the empty saucepan. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, tasting the sugary berries on her lips and tongue as she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave in to the kiss.
“I couldn’t wait for breakfast.” He gave her a firm squeeze. He wanted to tell her she shouldn’t have run off every time he came home. That maybe if she’d hung around, he might have changed his plans and hung around longer.
This was how he imagined being with her—her soft body pressed up against him, her tongue stroking his, her arms securely wrapped around his neck, telling him just how much she wanted this too.
Then she broke off the kiss and turned away, though he still had his hands on her hips, not wanting to lose the connection. “Um, okay so I guess it’s time to—”
He waited to hear what she wanted to do.
“Retire to bed so we can get up early, eat, then tape up the wall and get it ready to paint.” She looked back up at him, her lips slightly swollen from their kiss, her eyes darkened with interest.
Since kissing her further wasn’t an option…
“Well, are you ready for bed?”
He raised an eyebrow.
She gave him a get-real look. “I’m not suggesting anything here.” Though she couldn’t help but be amused.
He laughed. “I wasn’t either. What were you thinking of?”
He could sure be cute sometimes. She liked that playfulness when he wasn’t being all dark wolf and overly protective. She turned off the living room light and headed for her bedroom at the end of the hall. She wished Paul and Allan would settle down in the area. She wouldn’t mind dating Paul, if he was going to stick around. But she had known, even at an early age, that both men loved adventure, the thrill of danger, and excitement—and setting down roots here would be anything but.
“By the way, now that you know why I kissed you, I’m curious. Why did you kiss me back?” Paul asked when she reached her bedroom door.
“To prove you weren’t the only one who could be so rash.” Before she did anything else that was rash, she stepped into her room, said good night, and closed her door.
A big part of his desire to show her how he felt had to do with the changing of their shifter life spans. At first it was subtle, as far as they could determine. Once they reached puberty, the shifters stopped aging—often showing no real change in their age for many more years. But as the years went on, they’d seen faster aging in their older shifters and weren’t sure what was causing the change in their aging process to more closely align with human ages. Maybe chemicals in the foods they were eating? Or pollutants in the environment? Or genetic evolution: now that more shifters existed, maybe they didn’t need such longevity to locate wolf mates. No one had a clue what it was, but it meant that he didn’t have forever to do something about his infatuation with Lori.
Paul’s thoughts were on Lori, and he was certain he didn’t have a lot of time to waste. He thought he had a good head start, but he could never really know where Lori was concerned.
He went to bed thinking about Lori—watching the sunset with her, picking berries, and kissing her for a second time. For the first time since he and Allan had come off the last mission, his focus when he retired for the night was on something other than the woman he’d failed to rescue.
Despite not discussing anything about the failed assignment with Lori, he felt better…just being around her. And despite having some discussion about the Cooper brothers and being irritated over that, he realized something else about Lori. She got annoyed with him, and she had every right to be, but she also showed some sense of understanding. Like when they were little and he’d lost his parents and he’d kept busy, avoiding the issue.
He remembered quietly sitting on a riverbank, alone, watching the water flowing over the stones and feeling like the whole world rested on his shoulders. At eleven years of age, he had inherited the pack. His age hadn’t mattered. He had always been in charge when he was with the other wolf cubs while his parents were off on a jaunt and other older wolves were busy. He was just a natural leader.
But there he had sat—worried about the pack, about doing the wrong thing and losing the few of them that were left. He’d felt isolated from the others, unable to cope with the grief he felt from losing his parents. There hadn’t been any time to devote to processing his feelings. And he hadn’t wanted to give in to his grief anyway. It wouldn’t have helped the pack to survive.
Then Lori had joined him at the water’s edge. He hadn’t wanted her to. He’d looked at her with an expression that said he didn’t want any company, but she had ignored him and sat down right next to him. He learned right then and there that his alpha-wolf posturing had no effect on her. So he had given up trying and continued to stare morosely at the water.
She began to tell him how she felt about losing her parents and her grandfather, and then he couldn’t hold back any longer. The painful memories of seeing his parents attacked as they tried to protect the other wolves of their pack came flooding back to him all at once. The tears had dribbled down his cheeks without his permission, and when he hastily brushed them away so Lori wouldn’t see, she had wrapped her arm around his shoulders and told him how much she loved and missed his parents too. Which had made the tears slip down his cheeks even more quickly.
From that day forth, he had seen her differently—the bringer of light, the healer, the only one in the pack who had touched him in that way.
He knew then that, given the right moment, he would give up the ghosts haunting him this time too, and Lori would be the angel who gave him peace of mind again.
* * *
Lori tossed and turned in her bed, wishing she had said something to Paul about his last mission. She’d had a lead-in a couple of times, but then the subject had shifted, as if he was afraid she might talk about it. Somehow, she had to let him know she was there for him any time he needed to talk. Instead of discussing anything further about someone like Dusty Cooper!
She couldn’t quit thinking about the way Paul had kissed her in the kitchen again, only this time at the cabin. And how much she wished they’d do it again. She was certain he had feelings for her like she had for him. But was it enough to convince him to settle down?
Next time Hunter called, she figured Paul and Allan would be on their way. And it would be several more months before she saw them again. Maybe Emma was right. Maybe Lori did need to just lay claim to him and make him see that he wanted to stay here more than he wanted to run off on missions. But s
he knew deep down that the reason she hadn’t made more effort to chase after him was the fear he would reject her—that the mission would always take priority over her.
She growled and turned over in her bed. She wanted him, had always wanted him since they were little. Everyone had been so devastated. He’d truly been their knight when the rest of the pack had fallen.
Despite everything that had happened, Paul had set aside his grief to pull them together and ensure they survived.
She closed her eyes. She would not think about this any further. This was the reason she didn’t like being around him when he came home to visit. She couldn’t quit thinking of him and wanting more. Yet when she left town whenever he visited, what happened then?
She still thought about him—wondering how he looked, how he felt about her, if he would ever choose to stay in the area. Not that her grandma had ever let her off the hook when Lori had taken off. Emma had sent texts and phone calls telling Lori about every time Paul dropped by to visit. Not what he said or did or how he looked, because she wanted Lori to come and see for herself.
“Don’t you wish you were here to visit with him too?” her grandma would ask Lori.
She growled again.
Chapter 7
The next morning, Paul got up long before dawn but found Lori already up, making a pot of coffee.
“I thought we might run in the dark before we have breakfast and start working on the room.”
Though Paul had run through the woods with Allan earlier, giving in to their wolf need to explore and race through the forest, they had planned to take another wolf jaunt last evening. Until everything had changed with the auction and Paul being here. Then again, now that Allan was seeing different women on dates, running with him wouldn’t have happened anyway.
Paul was glad that Lori was a wolf and wanted to take a run with him.
“You have to ask? Work first? Versus a run as a wolf?” He smiled. “Of course a run as wolves appeals more than anything.” Well, almost anything. Kissing her longer, harder…and more—appealed too.
