by Naima Simone
His head cocked to the side. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” She tucked her hands in her coat pockets and mimicked his pose, tilting her head. “I don’t know how to ask this with any kind of political correctness, so please forgive me if I offend. But you do know your family’s like Rose Bend’s clapback to the Pearsons from This Is Us, right?”
Wolf stared at her. Blinked. Blinked again.
Then threw back his head and howled.
By the time his laughter abated to low chuckles, she couldn’t suppress the smile that curved her lips. The abominable snowman had disappeared, and the gently teasing giant she’d become familiar with the past few hours returned. Relief rushed through her, and no, she didn’t bother questioning its intensity.
“We’ve had several names thrown our way over the years, but we definitely haven’t heard the Pearsons. Which, can we just agree, is one hell of a family? Well, without the whole father-dying-and-leaving-me-curled-up-in-a-fetal-position-for-two-weeks-after-the-fire thing.”
“Did you just...?” Nessa gaped at him. “Did you...?” She leaned forward, her voice lowering to a whisper. “Did you actually admit that Jack dying left you weeping and traumatized and calling for your mama?”
“You heard nothing, woman.” His brows jacked down over his nose in a dark scowl. “Nothing.”
“Oh sure.” She held up her hands, palms out. And snickered. “Kevin.”
He growled at her, but a second later, he shook his head. “Come here.”
Inside her, something sweet, hot and achy pulled taut in response to his command. Her breath snagged in her lungs, and she froze, the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. Only instead of a car bearing down on her, it was the force of Wolf Dennison’s innate sexuality and charisma. And though every self-protective instinctive screamed at her to run, she did just the opposite.
She went to him.
Because she trusted him not to harm her? Maybe physically. But there were other ways a man could hurt a woman, and as certain as she was that the holidays meant an influx of traffic into the emergency room, she knew, given a chance, Wolf could devastate her in all those ways. Yet she stood still as he cupped one of her hips through her coat, lifted his free hand and trailed his fingertips over the closely cut side of her head. The caress tingled in her breasts, tightening her nipples, rippling lower in her belly...and lower still...
What did that say about her?
Masochist. Starved for affection. Needed to stop watching Aquaman every time it came on HBO.
D—all of the above.
And all sad.
“Why do you keep touching me?” As soon as the words echoed in the air between them, she mentally cringed, flames of mortification dancing over her skin. God, she hadn’t meant to say that. To let him know his nearness bothered her. That he bothered her.
“Do I?” he asked mildly, yet that soft tone belied the sharpness of his gaze, the firmness of his hold. The devastating sensuality of his touch as he dragged his fingers over her temple and traced her jaw.
Several strands of hair had made a break from the tie he’d had them in and teased the corner of his mouth, catching on the bristles of his beard. She focused on those rebellious strands, rather than on the riotous sensations wreaking havoc on her body.
And her common sense.
“Yes,” she said, feeling foolish. Why, she couldn’t explain to her own self. Because she needed him to acknowledge it? Or more specifically the why of it? “Earlier in the kitchen. Tonight at the hot chocolate stand. Now. Is that a Dennison thing, like the hugging?”
Or is it a me thing?
The question flew through her head, there and gone before she could banish it to the bowels of whatever hell it’d crawled from. She didn’t want it to be about her.
Just as she didn’t want to notice how faint lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. Laugh lines. Or how those same eyes weren’t just simple emerald. Striations of black and dark blue melded to form a gorgeous hue that defied the simple description of green. Or how a faint dip dented the middle of his full bottom lip.
She curled her fingers into the sides of her thighs. It wasn’t enough that her mother had charged her with keeping a secret and turned her into a liar by omission. Now Nessa was lying to herself. It was a bad habit.
“I’ll be the first to admit my family is an affectionate bunch, and to the unsuspecting, we can be a little overwhelming. But, Nessa...” He leaned forward, his voice lowering to a rough rumble that had liquid desire winding a treacherous path south. She fought not to squirm under his watchful gaze and reveal how his nearness threatened her equilibrium—and the dry state of her panties. “Your decision. Which one do you really want to discuss? Why I called you closer or why I can’t seem to keep my hands to myself? Fair warning. One is going to be a short conversation and the other is going to be peppered with four-letter words.”
Holy. Fuck.
And good God, would that be one of the words?
Staring into his eyes that had darkened with... Whew. She was too much of a coward to put a name to that. But staring into those eyes, her sex practically shouted.
But then her mind intruded, reminding her of Wolf’s behavior around Olivia Allen. Those two had a past, and it’d been clear Olivia wasn’t over it. And from Wolf’s stoicism and refusal to barely speak to the other woman, he might not be either.
Get involved with a man when she would be leaving in a matter of weeks?
Get involved with a man who was hung up on another woman when she would be leaving in a matter of weeks?
One was a terrible idea. The other was a terrible idea on roid rage.
“I’d like to talk about why you called me over here,” she whispered.
He nodded, although... Was that a flicker of disappointment in his eyes? No, she was obviously projecting.
“Good choice.” He nodded again, but then paused. “One thing, Nessa. My family, me—we tend to communicate with our hands as much as our words. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay and you just have to accept it, if that makes you uncomfortable. Your space is your space, and none of us will violate that. Understood?”
Here was her opportunity to tell him to back off, to not touch her. Right here. She was going to do it...
“Understood.”
He lowered his hand from her face and cradled her other hip, and the touch seemed to brand her through her coat and clothes.
“Thank you.”
Her head snapped back as if he’d clipped her on the chin. “For what?”
He didn’t immediately answer but studied her so closely she fought not to squirm. Fully grown women did not squirm. At least, that’s what she told herself. But those eyes...
Turn away. Don’t look at me. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from embarrassing herself by letting that damning statement loose.
“For not pretending there wasn’t a story,” he murmured. “And for coming to my rescue.”
Nessa parted her lips, a glib, dismissive reply hovering on her tongue. But it didn’t emerge. Instead, she met his steady, piercing gaze, and slowly dipped her head.
“Believe me, I’m no knight in shining armor. Or knightess. Whatever the female equivalent is.” Guilt propelled that confession out of her. As if, since she couldn’t admit to one secret, she needed to confess this fault.
“I think knight is gender neutral. What do you do for a living when you’re not visiting random Massachusetts small towns, Nessa?”
“I’m a nurse. In the ER.”
“So a natural-born caretaker. A problem solver. A healer.” He hummed. “Makes sense now.”
“What does?” Why did she ask? She shouldn’t have asked. She didn’t want to know what he thought.
This lying thing was really getting out of hand.
“How you instinctively protect people.
Seek to put them at ease. I saw it back at the inn with Ivy. You tried to do it again with that obviously tense...scene back there. And once more with me.”
His voice dropped, and his lids lowered, momentarily hiding his eyes from her. When his lashes lifted, she clenched her fists at her sides to stop herself from comforting him. Touching him. Anything to erase those dark shadows from his eyes.
“You can’t help who you are, and though I’ve never seen you in action, I bet you’re damn good at your job.”
His praise sliced through her chest, and in pure reflex, her hands flew to that invisible injury.
He couldn’t know. Couldn’t understand how his compliments made her feel like a fraud...a failure.
Made her tremble in fear.
When her mother had died, Nessa had thrown herself into work, finding solace in the hectic pace and organized chaos that had allowed her to think and operate on autopilot. But after Isaac’s death and the burden of caring for a bitter and grieving preteen, work had ceased to be that panacea. It’d stopped being her escape and had become something she’d longed to escape from. Her coworkers accused her of being an iceberg, but like that floating mountain of ice, above the water, she appeared stalwart, strong, unshakeable. But underneath... Underneath, the murky darkness hid a thick mess of weariness, fury, pain and sorrow.
Was it any surprise she’d eventually crashed into herself like her own personal Titanic?
Yeah, it had been.
One minute she’d been starting an IV and in the next, she’d been crouched against the wall, clutching her chest, terrified she was having her own coronary episode. Panic attack, the doctor had later informed her. Years in the ER, cool under pressure, and she’d suffered a panic attack. The next day, her supervisor and friend had “suggested” Nessa accept the bereavement time she’d refused after her mother’s death, as well as put in for the vacation days she never took. With little choice, she’d made the decision to take a break.
No one wanted an emergency room nurse who couldn’t remain reliable under pressure. She’d already lost her parents and her man. Losing her job might prove to be her tipping point. And if she lost nursing, what would she have then?
Who would she be then?
“Nessa?” Big hands cupped a shoulder and the back of her head. “You okay?”
She blinked, the delicious warmth seeping from him jerking her out of her dark memories. A panic of a different kind stirred in her chest, her belly. “I’m fine.” She stepped back and out of his hold. She couldn’t think with his hands on her. And around him, she needed every sense, every working brain cell. “And because I didn’t say it before, you’re welcome.”
He didn’t reply but scrubbed a hand down his beard. Then his attention shifted over her shoulder.
“Here comes your sister,” he said as she turned and spotted the trio of kids walking slowly in their direction.
Sonny and Cher linked arms with Ivy, their heads bent together. Even in the distance and shadows, Nessa caught the flash of Ivy’s smile. Gratitude and...envy...flickered in her chest. Warming her and leaving a filthy grime. What kind of person was jealous of preteens? Jealous over a smile?
She shook her head, wishing she could do the same with her heart and dislodge the emotions that had squatted there without her permission.
“Your mom called it with them.” She dipped her chin in their direction. “They already seem tight. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“Friends can never be a bad thing, Nessa.”
They are when you have to leave them, or they leave you. And make no mistake—someone inevitably leaves.
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, trapping that bit of truth. Wolf of Rose Bend, Massachusetts, with his big, gorgeous family in a fairy-tale inn and Christmas-frenzied town wouldn’t understand.
So she didn’t comment at all but instead frowned as another thought struck her. “Earlier you said several names have been thrown your family’s way over the years.” She stared at the stunning, grinning twins as they neared. Pictured Cole on the stage behind them, handsome and so distinguished. “Like what?”
A dark, fierce expression crossed his face, leaving only sadness and quiet rage. “You don’t want to know. And I don’t want to repeat them.”
She nodded. No, she didn’t want to know. But as a Black woman who lived in the diverse but historically not so racially tolerant city of Boston, she could easily imagine. Too easily.
God, sometimes people—this fucking world—sucked.
“Just to make sure,” Wolf said, his gaze still focused on Ivy and the twins, “but we’re going to pretend there isn’t a story there between you two, right?” he asked, mimicking her earlier question to him.
“Yes.”
He didn’t throw her reply to him back at her, but it was there between them, deafening in its hypocrisy.
I’m not used to dodging the big-ass pink elephant in the room.
“Fair enough.” A heavy beat of silence. “And, Nessa?”
“Yes?” she rasped.
He shifted forward.
Lowered his head next to hers.
“Welcome to Rose Bend, Nessa Hunt,” he said, his lips grazing the shell of her ear, the soft strands of his hair brushing her cheek.
Right. Welcome.
She’d just arrived in town to fulfill her absentee father’s dying wish.
But she’d never felt more like running away in her life.
Five
“TREVOR, WE’RE GOING to get ready to set the posts,” Wolf said to the teenager who worked for him part-time. Squinting at the wooden base that they’d already prepped and built in the middle of the town square, he pointed to a tool next to the sawhorse. It looked like two skinny shovels tied together with a flat collar where the heads met the handles. “You get the posthole digger and start digging. I’ll get on cutting the posts to length. If we knock this out in the next couple of hours, we can set the posts before we call it quits for the day.”
Trevor Haynes nodded, his blond hair flopping over his forehead. “Sounds good.”
They didn’t indulge in small talk as they got to work. Not because Trevor was the average moody sixteen-year-old. Well, to be fair, he had been when he’d initially started working with Wolf five months ago. But then again, he’d been ordered to do so by Cole, who was his lawyer. When the choices presented to a person were work at the town inn or take your ass to juvie, that kind of ultimatum tended to shrivel up the warm-and-tinglies. Trevor wasn’t a bad kid; he’d just fallen in with a fast crowd and had got caught up. Cole believed in him, though, and so Wolf had taken the kid on, too.
Yeah, Trevor had more or less been blackmailed into working with him, but they’d soon found their rhythm. The teen had taken to carpentry like a natural. Wolf only had to demonstrate a process or task a couple of times, and Trevor had it down. It was...exciting for Wolf to watch Trevor discover this new side of himself, this gift. Because that’s what it was. An artistic gift for crafting. And for Wolf, it was an honor to be his mentor.
Like today. It was Saturday, and Trevor should be hanging out with his friends. Instead, he’d shown up at Wolf’s cottage this morning, ready to ride down to the square and work on the gazebo. Yeah, he was a good, hard worker.
Now, if Wolf could just get Cher to stop turning into a real-life hearts-for-eyes emoji around him.
Wolf sighed as he tugged on his gloves, pulled on his safety goggles and picked up the circular saw. He’d really hate to have to take the kid out. Especially when he liked him so much.
“Hey, Wolf.”
Setting the saw back down, he tugged the goggles up on top of his head and grinned at the girl standing in front of the sawhorse. Today, Ivy Hunt had her thick curls down in a cloud around her thin shoulders, several multicolored bobby pins holding the hair back from her pretty face.
Like yesterday, she wore the same puffy winter coat, jeans and her ever-present earbuds. But unlike the first time he’d met her, she donned a smile.
“Morning, Mozart. What’re you doing here?”
Ivy jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I caught a ride with your sister Florence since she was coming downtown. I wanted to walk around and do some exploring.”
“By yourself?” He frowned. Yes, Rose Bend was pretty safe, but it was still a town in twenty-first-century America. And she was just a young girl alone. He wouldn’t even be comfortable with Cher walking aimlessly around, and she’d grown up here. “Where’s your sister?”
A cloud whispered across her face, sweeping away her smile and leaving behind a sulky pout and brown eyes darker with shadows. Just as Trevor’s surly demeanor hadn’t put off Wolf, neither did Ivy’s. Maybe because he could see behind the sneer to the hurt and the sadness. No, he didn’t know her and Nessa’s story—and he’d promised not to ask—but whatever it was, that tale contained a lot of grief and pain.
Since he was acquainted with both grief and pain, bed partners in the most fucked-up of ménages, he recognized them well.
“I don’t know.” Ivy shrugged a shoulder. “I left her at the inn. We didn’t come here to be in each other’s back pockets. She doesn’t even want to be here,” she muttered under her breath, but Wolf caught it.
Why? Why doesn’t she want to be here? What happened between you two? What can I do to help?
Fuck. And that right there. That ever-present need to help, to jump in and rescue, summed up quite nicely why he needed to back far away from Ivy and her prickly, goddamn sexy sister.
Complications.
Tangled complications. He’d proved time and time again he couldn’t save anyone. Quite the opposite. He failed them. Sometimes with consequences no one came back from. Including himself. So no, he wasn’t anyone’s savior.
He couldn’t even help himself.
These two sisters. Even knowing the best thing he could do for either one of them was keep his distance and let them work their own shit out, it didn’t stop him from wondering what had happened to make them circle each other like wary cats...or cage fighters searching for weakness.
