Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 (25 page)

“He’ll be back,” Mae said again, warm and confident. “I wasn’t certain what to think of him, you know. He looked like trouble, but not the kind who’ll roll around with you for a few hours and walk away. You know…” She grinned. “Not our kind of trouble.”

Lorelei was spared from trying to think of a response by a rough knock on the open doorway, and Fletcher stuck in his head. “I need to borrow Lorelei for a few minutes, if you can spare her.”

Mae waved her hand. “You’ve been cooped up in here too long anyway. I know you don’t love this like I do.”

“I like to stay busy.” But she rose anyway, grateful for the interruption.

Though, judging from Fletcher’s expression, it had been every bit a rescue. Once he got her out of the barn, he offered her a rueful smile. “How has it been? The sage relationship advice, I mean.”

“Plentiful.” She laid her hand on his arm. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Pack is family. Pack is love. Pack is unconditional belonging, as long as you hold to your place.” He rolled his eyes skyward. “Pack is, at times, an unrelenting pain in the ass.”

She had to laugh. “And you’re a rolling stone, right?”

“With a lady in every sanctuary.” He joined her in laughter for a moment before his expression sobered. “No sage advice from me. I already told you the only thing I have to say on the subject.”

The morning of Colin’s departure, Fletcher had caught her brooding over a meager breakfast and admonished her with simple, damning words.
Colin doesn’t know how to belong to anyplace or anyone. Wait until he comes back before you decide this is over.

It certainly fit with what she knew of Colin’s life, and she’d taken it to heart. “I haven’t written him off. Just been reevaluating some things, that’s all.”

“Yeah?”

Curious, but not pushy. Lorelei shook her head. “I’ll have to see what Colin thinks about it, won’t I?”

“Sooner rather than later. I wasn’t saving you.” He turned her toward the little house and nodded to a rental car sitting in front of it. “He’s here. And waiting for you.”

And just like that, with a handful of words, he shattered her hard-won equilibrium. She swayed a little as she blinked at the nondescript blue sedan. “When?”

“Not long. Twenty minutes?” Fletcher looped an arm over her shoulders, companionable enough to seem casual but sturdy enough to steady her. “I can go with you, if you want. But it seems like maybe I could put myself to better use keeping your overly solicitous packmates occupied.”

“No, it’s—I mean, I…” She trailed off with a groan as the tap-dancing in her stomach intensified. “He wanted to see me?”

“Oh yeah, honey. Pretty definitely.”

“Taking that as a good sign is optimism, not desperation, right?”

Instead of an answer, she got a fond kiss on the top of her head. “I changed my mind. I
am
giving you a piece of sage advice. Be gentle with my friend’s heart, Lorelei. He’s not as tough as he looks.”

Who was? Even carefree Fletcher carried a certain vulnerability deep in his eyes. No, the more Lorelei learned about the people around her—about her
pack
—the more she realized that telling everyone the truth about her past never would have damned her. They all hurt, and the best way to diminish that pain was to share it.

The screen door on the small house stuck, and Lorelei jerked it open with a rattle. “Colin?”

“In here!” Colin’s voice came from the kitchen. He continued speaking, words clearly not meant for Lorelei. “There we go. I told you she’d be along. The farm’s a big place.”

“Too big,” a woman grumped.

Disbelief carried Lorelei through the front room and hallway, all the way to the open doorway leading into the old-fashioned kitchen. Boz sat at the table, her face and clothes dirty but her hands clean and wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee.

“There’s Boz’s girl,” Colin murmured. “I told you I wasn’t lying.”

Boz almost knocked the chair over as she rose to shuffle across the room. She grasped Lorelei’s cheeks and stared up into her eyes. “That’s barely you at all. So much more than you. Oh, my girl. My girl.”

“Boz.” She reached up and touched the old woman’s hands. “What are you doing here?”

“The dark one brought me.” Boz tugged Lorelei closer, as if her whisper wouldn’t carry to Colin’s ears either way. “Not so dark, eh? Just stubborn, like old Boz. Couldn’t have a nice boy like that living under my bridge.”

Lorelei had asked her, so many times, but she’d clung resolutely to the streets, to the only home she seemed to remember. But somehow, Colin had managed to lure Boz away. “Why now?”

“Sat like a lump, he did.” Boz released her, only to give Colin a dark look that he met with an innocent smile.

For some reason, it made the old woman laugh, and Colin found Lorelei’s gaze again. “We had a staring contest. How many days did that last, Boz?”

She huffed. “The stars went swimming in the river and you still weren’t coming back to my girl.”

She’d come to bring him home.

Lorelei had never thought of appealing to her sense of duty, and now she didn’t know why. Boz thrived on having someone to take care of. Here, in Clover, she could have her pick of wolves to mother.

And Colin had known.

Lorelei tried to smile, but it trembled until it broke in a sob.

Colin’s smile faltered, but Boz hustled to Lorelei’s side and wrapped frail, too-thin arms around her with inhuman strength. “There, there now. All those years waiting for you to cry. Boy.” She twisted her head to glare at Colin. “Boy! Are you always a lump?”

“No,” he murmured, chastened. He circled the table slowly and held out one arm.

Lorelei closed her hand around his wrist. “Thank you.”

He shifted his feet awkwardly, looking torn between embarrassment at her gratitude and pleasure. But he let Boz fold him into the three-way hug, and his arm slid around Lorelei’s waist, tucking her to his chest as if she still fit there.

Still
belonged
there.

Maybe she did. There was only one way to be sure.

It was selfish to want a few minutes alone with Lorelei
that moment
, but Colin had been trying to acknowledge his selfish impulses, if only to himself. He wanted a chance to resolve things with Lorelei…but his feelings would wait. Boz wouldn’t.

Of course, settling the old wolf into Green Pines hadn’t been easy. Boz might be crazier than the dinosaurs, but she had her own ideas about pack and tradition, and trying to circumvent a single one of them turned her stubborn and intractable.

Getting Boz used to the pack—and vice versa—devoured the afternoon. He was tempted to sneak Lorelei away while Boz and Mae were bonding, but Eden gave him a look only a fool would ignore and announced they were going to eat dinner together as a family. No exceptions.

It was okay to feel selfish. It was even okay to eye Jay’s mate and wonder if locking her in the pantry for a few hours would amount to dishonor or outright mutiny. The witch’s spell had stripped away the barriers between intellect and impulse, and Colin hadn’t become a monster. Actions were what mattered, and he trusted himself to do the right thing.

But as Eden and Lorelei walked the old wolf to the little house after dinner, Colin forced himself to admit another unpleasant truth.

He was nervous as hell.

Twisting anxiety forced him to bypass Lorelei’s room and wait in his own. For all the spindly, delicate furniture and ill-advised decoration, it was a familiar place covered in his own scent and the lingering remnants of hers. It felt safe. And it carried none of the echoes of their last fight, of Lorelei’s cutting pain and wild words, all the things that had driven them into the woods and into the path of danger to begin with.

Waiting here meant she had to come to him. Not a play for power, but a careful strategy, one he’d reasoned out while trying to coax Boz back with him. The last thing you wanted to do with a wolf who’d been hurt was corner her.

Of course, that only worked if they came to you.

Thankfully Lorelei did, knocking quietly after only a half hour of Colin’s anxious pacing. When he pulled open the door, she stood there, her hands nervously clenched in front of her. “Are you busy?”

He stepped back, giving her a clear path of entry. “Not at all. Got Boz all tucked in?”

“I think so.” Lorelei brushed past him. “I don’t know if she’ll sleep tonight, but she’s here. Thank you.”

“She’s important to you.” He eased the door shut only to engage the soundproofing wards, but moved to perch on the couch instead of standing between her and the exit. “And she’s part of your history.”

“And that’s important to you.” Her inflection almost turned the words into a question, but not quite.

“Yes. You’re important to me. All of you. The parts you’re ready to share…the parts you’re not.” He closed his eyes, because he couldn’t say the next words with her looking at him. Not when he knew they could hurt. “I’ll be your friend and your packmate either way. And I’ll wait for you, if that’s what it takes. But I can’t be more until you trust me all the way.”

“We can’t be friends, Colin. You know that.”

It would have been gentler to punch a few of his teeth in. He kept his eyes clenched tight so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. “No, I don’t know much of anything about how this works. I just know that I’d do anything for you…except one thing. Don’t ask me to push you again. You may not mind a few emotional bumps and bruises, but it kills me to give them to you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Soft steps crossed the floor, and she touched his arm. “I thought I was all right. Everyone kept asking about the things that happened in Memphis, and I figured if I was okay with all that, it’d be good enough.”

She filled his vision when he opened his eyes, as beautiful and ethereal as ever. His hands itched to close around her, to drag her into his lap. Not for sex, though his cock would stir if he allowed himself a half-second to consider it. Holding her would be enough. Burying his face against her throat and knowing he was home.

With supreme self-control, he kept his hands resting on his thighs. “You weren’t all right.”

“No,” she whispered. “I haven’t been for a long time.”

There it was, the admission that validated his instincts and broke his heart. “Me either. But I think I’m starting to get better.”

“So am I.” Lorelei smiled, tentative and nervous. “But it’s not something I can do alone. I need help. Fletcher’s going to help me find someone—a counselor who knows about supernatural things.”

Gratitude flooded him, along with a thread of jealousy. Jealousy that the idea hadn’t been his, but overwhelming relief that Fletcher, with his wealth of contacts, had stepped into that void. “Good. That’s good.”
God damn it, stop saying good.
“Really good.”

Fuck, this was hard. His fingers twitched, as if they’d wrap around her waist without his permission. Sometimes he thought the wolf had enough control to grant his body permission to move without his brain’s approval.

“Good.” She stared down at him, her eyes wide and so, so blue. “We can start over, can’t we? Do it right this time?”

He wanted to snatch at the chance, but she needed to know the whole truth. “Does it matter that I’m already in love with you?”

She exhaled in a rush. “I hope not, because I love you too.”

So much for self-control. He rose and let his hands have their way, tugging her snug against his chest. The top of her head fit just under his chin, and it felt good to be wrapped around her.

It felt right.

Of course, there was wanting to start over, and then there was being able to go through with it. “Tell me about Robbie,” he murmured.

It took her a moment and one soft little sigh to answer. “It was ugly at first. His father and I had only been dating for a few months, and he didn’t want a kid, so he split. It wasn’t easy, but I made it.”

Colin stroked her hair with a hum. “What a sorry bastard.”

“It would have happened eventually. It mostly made me sad for Robbie.”

For all his own father’s inability to understand why apprentice vigilante was an inappropriate occupation for an eight-year-old, Colin had never questioned the old man’s love. His sanity, his judgment, his parenting skills—but not his commitment to his son.

“It would have been sad,” he agreed, stroking her hair again. “But he had you.”

“He had me.” She shifted in his arms. “I had just finished college, and I got a job with an interior-design firm in Memphis. We were driving there when the accident happened.”

Tension trembled in her limbs, but her voice held relief as well as sadness. Colin tightened his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her temple. “A fresh start doesn’t mean you have to tell me everything all at once. Not if it’s too much.”

“You know most of the rest. There was a man in the road—I don’t know who he was. Whether there was something wrong with him, or if that was just the way he hunted. I swerved and flipped the car down an embankment.”

“It’s not an uncommon way for lone wolves to hunt,” he admitted quietly, stroking her back. “Even if you’d hit him, he probably knew how to roll with the impact. The bumps and bruises heal by the time the victim gets out of the car.”