Wolf at the Door: Salvation Pack, Book 1 (23 page)

“Would you like some coffee?” She bustled to the counter and grabbed the carafe. She started to fill it with water.

“Yeah. I’d like that. And I have just the thing to go with it.” Gator went to the freezer and pulled out a wrapped bundle. He held it up triumphantly. “Coffee cake. I baked several last week and froze one of them. Won’t take but a few minutes to thaw it in the microwave. It’s not chocolate, but it’s close.”

“Sounds perfect.”

The two of them worked side-by-side in companionable silence. The coffee was brewing and the cake was thawed when she heard the front door open.

Gator snorted. “Knew those two couldn’t stay away. They love their stomachs too much.”

Sure enough, Armand appeared, followed quickly by Cole. “Coffee cake.” Armand sniffed, his laser gaze homing in on the plate in Gator’s hands.

“Gwen gets to take as much as she wants first. Then me. You two can have the leftovers.”

She almost laughed at the disgruntled expression on Armand’s face. “There’s plenty,” she assured him, and he gave her a grateful smile.

When they were all seated around the table with coffee and cake, she decided she had more questions. “Jacque and Louis live here, right?”

Gator nodded as he swallowed a piece of cake.

“Where do the rest of you live?”

Gator took a sip of coffee. “There’s another cabin just beyond the clearing out front. It’s about two minutes beyond the trees to the right. There’s a path there. I’ll show you tomorrow. The three of us share it, but we eat most of our meals here.”

She took a bite of the coffee cake and almost moaned out loud. If she was here very long she was going to gain weight. Gator was a phenomenal cook. She thought about the three men seated around the table with her all living together. It fascinated her that three grown men would live together by choice. Or maybe it wasn’t by choice at all, but by necessity. “Is it because you didn’t have the time or resources to build individual homes?”

Armand looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “We’re pack. We live together.”

She frowned, trying to understand. “Then why do Jacque and Louis have their own place? Why didn’t you simply build one big place?”

Gator swiped up the last piece of cake and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Jacque is the alpha of this pack. This will become the seat of power when he mates and has children. Louis will stay with them until he mates.”

“I see.” Gwen managed to smile weakly though the almost debilitating pain that rushed through her at the thought of Jacque mating and having children with some nameless, faceless female. Of course he’d want a family and children, to grow his own pack. He had a long life left to live. He wouldn’t want to do it alone.

“Gwen—” Gator began, but she cut him off.

“So when you all mate you’ll build your own homes.”

Armand nodded as he sipped his coffee. “Yes. We built two homes for now. That’s all we needed. We own about five-hundred acres of land here. We’ll expand when necessary.”

She felt all their eyes on her. Gone was the easy camaraderie of earlier. She wished she’d never asked about their housing situation. It was a kick of reality, a reminder that she was temporary, not really one of them.

She pushed away from the table and took her mug and plate to the counter. She opened the dishwasher and loaded her dishes into it, taking the time to compose herself.

This new information changed nothing. She knew her time here was short, knew Jacque would be mated and have children long after she was dead and buried. His lifespan was so much longer than hers their time together couldn’t end any differently.

She was still determined to grab every bit of happiness she could in the time she had with him. She took a deep breath and put a smile on her face. “Thank you for the coffee cake and company. And thank you for sharing your wolves with me. I’m honored.”

“Gwen…” Armand trailed off.

She shook her head. “I’m going to bed now. I’m tired.” That was no word of a lie. She was suddenly exhausted.

She headed toward the hallway but stopped when Cole called her name. She was surprised that he’d spoken at all. “Don’t forget this.” He ejected the empty magazine from the gun and popped in the full one. He made sure the safety was on and handed it to her. “Keep it close at all times.” He opened the box of ammunition and began to load the empty clip.

“Thank you.” She took the weapon from him.

He inclined his head but said no more. The room was silent as she left them to finish their coffee without her.

Chapter Seventeen

Gwen couldn’t sleep. As much as she wanted to it was still too early and the bed was simply too big and lonely without Jacque. Somehow she’d gotten used to sleeping with him wrapped around her. She was going to need one heck of a body pillow when she left him. Maybe two.

The other men were long gone. She’d heard them leave about a half hour ago and had spent that time staring at the ceiling thinking. Not good. There were simply too many thoughts colliding with one another for anything to make much sense.

“Enough.” Gwen threw back the covers and got out of bed. She was wearing a pair of navy cotton pajama bottoms with little stars and moons on them and a plain white T-shirt. Comfort was key for her.

She padded to the door and opened it slowly just in case she’d miscalculated and one of the men was still out there. She liked them all, but she didn’t want to face any of them right now, not with their last conversation still ringing in her ears.

She listened carefully and heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator. The coast was clear. It felt strange to be in the house alone, without Jacque or one of the others around. “You’re used to being alone,” she reminded herself as she made her way into the office.

The light from the hallway illuminated the table with her laptop and files stacked neatly on top. She didn’t look too closely at the piece of furniture. The memories of what she and Jacque had done here were still too close to the surface and her body began to hum with desire.

Unacceptable. She had to start guarding her heart. It might be too late to keep herself from falling in love with Jacque, but that didn’t mean she had to keep being stupid. She needed to start protecting herself from the inevitable hurt that would come when it was time for her to go.

“Stop it.” She plunked down into the chair someone, probably Jacque, had placed in front of the table, leaned forward and turned on the desk lamp. A warm, mellow glow covered her workspace.

The urge to bang her head against her makeshift desk was overwhelming. One minute her brain was warning her to protect herself from emotional hurt, never mind the physical threat she was under from outsiders. The next her heart was urging her to give herself to Jacque without reserve. It was enough to give a girl a headache.

She took a deep breath and swore. She’d forgotten the gun.

The house was probably the safest place for her to be as protective werewolves surrounded it. Still, Jacque had given her the weapon for a reason.

She pushed out of her chair and hurried back to the bedroom. The gun was sitting on the nightstand where she’d left it. She grabbed it and carried it back to the office, placing it gingerly on the table next to her laptop.

She fired up her computer and organized her files while she was waiting. “Let’s see what’s happened in the world since you’ve been away.”

Surprisingly, not that much email had accumulated in her inbox. There was the large contingent of junk mail, which always made her laugh with their promises to improve her sex life or to inform her she’d won the lottery. That was quickly sent to the trash bin.

There was a letter from an editor of one of the magazines she wrote for on a regular basis inviting her to submit a proposal for their special spring issue. Spring was months and months away, but that’s how it went in the magazine business, as you were always working a season or two ahead. Come to think of it, she had a piece in their special October issue, which should be in her mailbox back in Wayman’s Peak, along with a few paychecks she’d been waiting on. She really needed to get her mail. Maybe she could get it forwarded. She’d have to check on that.

It didn’t take her long to deal with her outstanding email. She agreed to write a piece for the editor because she was going to need every penny she could get if she was going to move.

And speaking of moving, she took a deep breath and Googled the local realtor in Wayman’s Peak. She checked out his website and was satisfied with what she saw there, so she sent him a quick email asking if he would be interested in selling her Aunt’s house. Well, it was hers really, but she hadn’t lived there long enough for it to feel like hers.

The thought depressed her. She’d always wanted a home, a place where she felt as though she belonged.

Maybe she’d use the proceeds of the sale to buy a new house in a rural area of another state. Maybe she’d live off the money from the sale and write her book. That was assuming she could actually sell the place considering the housing market was almost at a standstill in that area. She’d cross her fingers and hope for the best.

She pulled up a couple of stories she was working on but couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for them. Gwen closed the documents and clicked on her book file. She’d barely started it, but she had character outlines, a vague plot summary and a bunch of ideas for scenes. She’d written the first chapter so far. It didn’t take her long to lose herself in the story and she quickly reread the first twelve pages.

Funny how the more she read, the more the werewolf in her tale had come to resemble Jacque in her mind. She shook her head and put her hands on the keyboard. Closing her eyes, she let her imagination drift. This was a story, not reality, and the characters were of her making. She had control here.

Her eyes popped open and her fingers began to fly on the keyboard. Her hero was about to get a rude awakening if he thought he could boss around her heroine. No too-stupid-to-live heroine for her. No, she was going to write a kickass heroine, one who would give the alpha wolf a run for his money.

Gwen lost herself in her work, in the story. It was a safe place for her to disappear for a few hours, far safer than the world she now found herself inhabiting.

Frustration ate at Jacque as he loped back to the house. The grounds were quiet, but his blood was thrumming, warning him something wasn’t right. He stopped just beyond the back yard and shifted, letting go of his wolf form and embracing the human side of himself. He stretched his arms over his head and turned to greet his brother.

“How are things?” What Jacque really wanted to ask was how Gwen was, but he didn’t want to rub his brother’s nose in the fact that he’d won the right to be with her. Louis saw right through his question.

“Gwen’s fine. She turned in early, but she didn’t stay in bed. The light came on in the office a couple of hours ago.”

Jacque frowned. “Did anything happen to upset her?”

Louis leaned against a tree, tipped back his head and stared up at the black night sky. Only a few stars could be seen tonight as clouds dotted the sky. “Other than the obvious that her life is in danger from a pack of crazy-ass werewolves and she’s sleeping with a werewolf who will be alive long after she’s dead. No, not really.” Louis hesitated and sighed. “That’s not quite true. Gwen was asking about the housing situation, one thing lead to another and Gator mentioned that your house would be the seat of power when you mated and had children.”

“Fuck.” Jacque scrubbed his hand over his head. The cool night air circulated around him, but he didn’t feel the cold. His werewolf metabolism ensured he’d stay warm enough no matter what form he was in, but there was a solid block of ice in his chest. What must Gwen have thought? “I’m going to kill him.”

“He feels bad enough as it is.” Louis faced his brother, hands on his hips. “And it’s no more than the truth. You know it is. Gwen will live maybe four more decades. You’ll live three times that.”

For the first time in his life, Jacque wished he were human. He hated the idea of Gwen growing old without him, of living without her, of having a husband who wasn’t him and children who weren’t his.

But reality was what it was. None of them could change it. “I’m going inside.” He started to brush by Louis, but his brother put his hand on Jacque’s shoulder.

He paused. Louis’s eyes were filled with infinite sadness. “Keep her with you. Let her live out her life with you. You’ll still have time to mate and have children after she’s gone.”

Jacque closed his eyes as the truth of his brother’s words hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut. Once she was gone, he’d still have one hundred years left to live.

“Don’t let her go or you’ll regret it forever.”

“I know.” Jacque grabbed Louis by the shoulders and hugged him. They pounded on each other’s backs, the emotion between them palpable. Their father had done his best to pit brother against brother while they were growing up, but it had never worked. If anything, it had driven them to become closer. “Thank you.”

“I’ll protect her with my life,” Louis vowed. “And so will the others.”

Jacque nodded, almost overwhelmed with the love and support his friends gave him. Not friends, brothers. They were all brothers, pack, and nothing was stronger than that.