Chapter 19
Nineteen
The white wolf—a male—locks his gaze with mine, his eyes a startling shade of dark ruby. Then a voice reaches my ears, deep and gravelly. “It seems I have saved you.”
— TESSONJA ODETTE
“Can I ask you something?”
Ford and I had spent the last hour touching and petting, cuddling and kissing. It was the best, most romantic night of my life, and it made me think there was something to be said about angry sex.
“You bet…” he said, sounding drowsy and unsure.
I was the little spoon in our bed, my back pressed up against his bare front. The flames danced in the fireplace, and I fought the urge to drift off.
I wasn’t ready to let go of this amazing moment and fall asleep. Once I did, it would be over and I wasn’t willing to concede yet.
“Do you ever shift when you’re making love?”
His big hand stilled on my hip. He’d been stroking me possessively, his hand brushing out a mine mine mine rhythm that my heart had silently echoed right back.
“No,” he said curtly. “No, I do not.”
“Not that I want to have sex with a wolf,” I rushed on because since I’d made things awkward between us, I might as well go whole hog. “I don’t think bestiality is my thing. But for a moment there, near the end, I thought…”
I’d thought that maybe he was thinking about biting me.
I brushed my fingertips over the side of my neck, where the skin felt sensitive and ever so slightly, just barely, abraded. Touching that almost-mark sent a shock of pleasure through me, so my words were not intended as a complaint. I was, in fact, already making a mental list of other places Ford could bite me.
“It’s a wolf thing,” he said finally.
I waited, the logs popping in the fireplace, but apparently Ford was under the impression that those four words explained everything. I love you toomight have done the job, but it’s a wolf thing most definitely did not.
“And?” I prompted.
“Wolves mate for life,” he said reluctantly.
Secrets ahoy. The fire was burning low now, the room growing darker and darker. Ford’s arms around me reminded me I had my very own super hero. “And the biting?”
“We mark our true mates.”
“So it’s like the wolf version of a wedding ring?”
He shrugged. “Sure, if by wedding ring you mean irremovable ball and chain.”
Huh. There went the romantic atmosphere, up in smoke. “Did you think about biting me, Ford?”
“I would never do that without your permission,” he said stiffly. “You do not have to worry about that.”
“And if I gave you permission?” I asked, curious.
“I won’t bite you.” He sounded so certain that the urge to interject and argue with him was strong. “It’s not right, and it does not end well.”
“Have you bitten someone before?”
I was suddenly, insanely jealous.
“No!” Now he sounded horrified. “That is not how a claiming works. Once you mark your mate, there is no one else for you. You are bound together. Forever.”
“So there’s no wolf divorce court.”
“No.” His tone made it clear he was done discussing this, but I had questions.
“So you’re not mated currently.” I twisted in his arms so I could see his face.
“No.”
“And you’ve never been mated?”
“No.”
“Not to Deelie Sue?”
He hesitated. “No, but she did make it clear that she would be…amenable. There aren’t all that many wolves here, and other wolves have suggested that we would make a good pair.”
I choked on nothing, certain I’d heard wrong. “Like, they want you to hook up and run Moonlight Valley?”
“It was suggested that we could be Moonlight Valley’s breeding pair.” He tensed. “Which sounds like a sperm donor plan and awful, and I was never inclined to agree. I told them no.”
“Are they pressuring you?” I set my palm against his cheek. “Should I go kick some wolf butt?”
“No. The Wolf Council thinks wolves should go only with wolves. It sure makes keeping the secret easier.”
Was this when I should mention Aunt Sally’s unexpected revelation that I was, apparently, part cat shifter? I hesitated. It felt like I was keeping secrets, or at least taking the easy way out. And yet, now didn’t feel like the right moment to share that particular secret. Even if I was part cat (and I still didn’t understand how that worked), I was not a wolf. I was not mate material in the eyes of this council of his. They were illogical. And bigoted. And I didn’t like it at all.
“So both your parents were wolves?”
“No. Just one.”
If his body got any tenser, he’d snap like a plant in a cold freeze.
“Which one?”
His eyes narrowed. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it does.” I frowned at him.
“Yeah.” He stared at me steadily. He definitely wasn’t telling me everything.
“And your daddy?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Darrell is a werewolf.”
Huh. He’d used the present tense, but I’d thought…
I re-ran what I knew, looking for mistakes in my conclusions. Darrell had disappeared. The gossip (aka “unverifiable, unscientific, and absolutely not a proven fact”) was that he’d run afoul of the biker gang he’d hung out with, and they’d done him in. Other people thought someone had come for him for something he’d done to a loved one.
Absolutely no one believed, not for one instant, that Darrell Boone was a fine, upstanding, ethical man. He’d been a lying, abusive, often violent piece of shit, and that was a fact. He’d certainly shown that side of himself often enough in public.
“So your momma…”
“Is also a werewolf.” His gaze dipped to my chest, and he reached out a hand to cup my breast, his thumb rubbing gently over my nipple.
“But you said only one of your parents was a werewolf?” Perhaps the amazing sex had adversely affected my ears.
“Our daddy did not tell Momma about his being a werewolf. She found out when Maverick was a baby and shifted in her arms. It was a shock.” He moved, easing me back onto the mattress and swinging over me. I was surrounded by a hot, hard cage of Ford.
“Ford.” I struggled to remember what I had been asking. “Ford, how did she become a werewolf then? Did someone do something to her?”
“He bit her,” Ford growled. “He marked her and then he tried to change her over by biting her some more. He went ahead and did it without asking her. She would never have agreed, and it didn’t take. It mostly doesn’t. His bite transformed her, but she couldn’t shift back.”
I stared at him, speechless. That was awful. That wasn’t just crossing a boundary. That was blowing it up with dynamite and then bringing a mountain down on top of it for good measure.
“She’s out there in the woods. Sometimes we see her. The Wolf Council banished Darrell to Alaska.”
“He—”
“When a wolf is too far from his marked mate, he can’t shift back,” Ford said. “He loses his human side and goes over to wolf. Darrell is up there, running around with the polar bears, and none of us ever want to see him again. That’s why I would never bite you.”
“Okay…” I didn’t want to be changed into a werewolf, unable to shift back. Plus, who knew what would happen since I was half cat shifter.
Should I tell him that now? More importantly, did his momma know what had happened to her? How much human was left in her? And could we get married like humans did, get each other rings, stand up in front of the preacher?
It was early days, but I could imagine that future for us. Not to make light of what had happened to Mrs. Boone, but thinking about Ford and me together forever felt right. “We should probably talk about your ignoring my call on Thursday, though. I’m still mad about that.”
“I should not have ignored you.” His mouth traced the curve of my breast.
I leaned into his touch, my eyes closing. “Promise me that you won’t ever do that again. I need to know that I can call and you will always, always pick up.”
Ford hesitated, stopped his delicious ministrations to my breast. The silence stretched out between us, growing colder and more tense. I did not think he was plotting how best to have his wicked way with my willing body.
I opened my eyes and met his gaze. He braced himself over me, his arms braced on either side of me. His lips parted, paused. He was thinking on what to say—or how best to say it. I did not think it would be a compliment on my bedroom skills.
Finally, he said, “For as long as we’re seeing each other, I’ll pick up when you call. I promise.”
“No.” I narrowed my eyes at him. He was splitting hairs. “No, no caveats. No asterisks, no fine print, no disclaimers. I just want a promise. You promise me that you will never ignore me again. For the rest of our lives. Forever. If I call you up in heaven after we’re dead and buried, you will answer. You will not cut yourself off from me.”
Ford swung off me, and then climbed off the bed for good measure. This was not a promising direction for our conversation.
He prowled toward the fireplace, pacing back and forth. Since the cabin was cozy and he was large, he had to make multiple circuits while he worked out what was troubling him. I enjoyed my view of his fine butt and his muscled shoulders, but I could see the storm coming. We were about to shipwreck.
“Ford?”
He turned around abruptly, swiping his boxer briefs from the floor. He sat down on the edge of the bed to pull them on, careful not to brush against me.
What. The. Hell?
He reached for his jeans, then got up and retrieved a T-shirt from somewhere.
“Are you leaving me?”
Ford’s stormy blue eyes met mine. “I can’t promise you what you asked.”
I had to take a moment to process what he’d said. It made no sense. We’d done things, said things, meant things.
At least, I had.
I scrambled off his bed, dragging his sheet with me. Naked fighting felt too vulnerable right now.
“Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“I have no clue!” I clutched my sheet tighter than an embarrassed virgin confronting a Regency rake in her bedroom. It was righteous outrage or bodily assault, so I was taking the high road here. “Sometimes you talk to me and sometimes you don’t.
“Apparently, you’ve been pining after me for years, waiting for me to come back to Moonlight Valley. You announce that you’re courting me, but then you spurn my sexual intimacies! Shutting me down! We make a deal to date for twelve months and then you’re still not all in. You’re more than half out! Why am I the only one committing here?”
Ford buttoned his jeans with short, jerky movements. I glared up at him. He was too tall, too big, too massively, mountainously unreachable.
“You are going to leave, Alice. Your all in has a time limit. You just want a playmate until your time is up and you go.”
He stabbed me ruthlessly with his words. Punch, punch, punch.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. “That is crap, Ford, and you know it. Have I done anything to make you question my commitment?”
“When you go, you go for good. Don’t expect me to call, to text, or to be your friend. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
This time his word-dagger sliced through my ribs and hit my heart. I’d given him everything, opened up in every way possible in that bed. This cabin. This night. I’d been completely, one-hundred-percent honest.
Ford gave me a look and then returned to his pacing. “Tonight was a bad idea.”
I could not… What did he mean? “Like…a mistake?”
“Yeah.” He frowned fiercely at the fire. “A mistake. A giant, colossal mistake.”
If I was in, he was out. This seemed to be the unfortunate pattern in our relationship.
“I don’t get it.” I tried to think of a tactful, diplomatic way to ask my question and then gave up and blurted it out. “Why would you ask me to be in a twelve-month relationship with you if you didn’t plan on giving us twelve months?”
“Alice…” he started, then exhaled, frowning even more fiercely. “Alice, I know all about your plans.”
“My what?”
“Alessandro told me about your aunt. About your inheritance. About your plans to head straight to Nashville.”
“What?”
“To leave. To get on with your life. To follow your dreams right now since you no longer need to wait on a business loan.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ford swung around, swiping a hand down his beard. His eyes narrowed. “Your cousin, Alessandro. He pulled Atticus and me over on Thursday afternoon, and he told me you’d inherited a fortune, more than you needed to launch your pet emporium. He said you were planning on getting started right away.”
I shook my head. “He lied to you.”
Ford straightened, swinging around to face me. His sapphire eyes looked downright incredulous.
“I mean—” I hurried to clarify. This was not the moment to be inaccurate. “My…aunt left me a ton of silver. And cryptocurrency. There’s enough money there for me to get my business up and running. In fact, if I’m careful, I have an enormous safety net. I might not have to work, ever.
“But I wasn’t planning on moving to Nashville tomorrow or this week. Nor anytime soon.”
His beautiful mouth tightened. “Why not?”
I stared at him. He held himself aloof, his body tight, rejecting me. I’d told him a mere handful of minutes ago—perhaps not even an hour—that I loved him. He had to have been thinking, even then, that I would up and leave, would never come back.
“Hold on.” I held onto that thread. “You thought I was…and so when I showed up here, you… We made…” I stabbed an angry finger at the mussed-up bed.
“So Alessandro tells you I’ve got some money and you decide that everything is finished between us but there’s time for one night of sex? You had no problem letting me walk out of your life? Because I meant so little to you? Did you ever want me, or was it just convenient sex for you?”
Ford glared at me, balling his hands into fists. His eyes were amber, but that was fine with me. I was mad at his wolf, too. I was mad at the world.
So I kept right on going. It felt good to clear the air between us. “Or do you not trust me? Is it because I’m not a wolf? Am I not good enough for you because I can’t shift?
“Or do you not trust my ability to honor a commitment that I made voluntarily and with my eyes wide open? Are you that sure that I’ll leave? Let me have tonight, Alice. Just tonight. That’s what you said to me.”
Ford stood there. Silent. Reserved. Judging me.
“Tell me right now! The only reason we had sex tonight is because you believed I was leaving town tomorrow. Soon. Now that I have the ability to leave, you don’t trust me to stay. You never trusted me.”
“I trust you,” he said quickly.
I spoke over him, saying, “We are not done, Ford Boone!”
“Alice.” He growled my name, almost reluctantly. “We have always known we would be done. We said twelve months and no more. Now we’re just done sooner.
“We don’t have a future together. You know you’ll be making your plans for Nashville. We were always marking off the time together, and now I’m saying we’ll call it now. We’re over.”
“You don’t get to call time on us!” I yelled.
“I do too,” he bellowed. “I’m doing it because I won’t hold you back. I will not keep you here when there are things you need to do elsewhere. I am not Darrell!”
“Did you not hear me when I said that I love you? Ask me to stay.” I strode up to him, putting myself into his space. I would not allow him to ignore me. He did not get to put me in this weird, Darrell-shaped box. He was no more his father than I was his mother.
“If you love someone, you set them free. You don’t trap her!”
I staggered back, my butt planting on the bed. Was that… Had he said… Was I the someone he loved?
“God forbid that you take a chance, that you don’t know what the outcome of a decision will be, right? You’re one-hundred-percent in control. You won’t even say ‘I love you’ outright, will you?”
Ford’s gaze went from heated to ticked off in a heartbeat. I’d struck a nerve. “You win. I LOVE YOU. I love you. Of course I love you. Why else would I be here with you?”
“Great!” I hollered at him. “We’ve finally found something we both agree about, because I LOVE YOU TOO. I’ve only been saying it over and over. So why can’t we be together?”
Ford inhaled sharply, pulling himself back together. “This is not a movie, Alice. As much as I love the future I see in my head when I think about us together, you see something different. I don’t—I won’t—take that future away from you.”
“So you’ll march off and live alone, a cranky hermit wolf?”
“I’ll be fine.”
I glared at him. “Fine? Fine is not happy or satisfied or a billion other good things. It’s mediocre. Fine, Ford. No. You should want better for yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” he ground out. “I’ll be even more fine knowing that you’re ruling the Nashville business community.”
I grabbed his arm. He did not get to push me away.
“Is this about the wolf bite? Why do you have to be so noble? Can’t you trust that we’ll be good together, that we can navigate all the bumps life puts in our way? I don’t need a fairy tale, Ford. I need you.”
“Life is not a fairy tale. I know that. Let me tell you about the hell of living with a selfish wolf. My daddy was a mean sonofabitch. He took what he wanted, and he didn’t care what all the rest of us needed, let alone wanted.
“The way he saw it, Momma lived for him, and us kids were merely his future legacy, little mini-me mirrors that were mostly annoying. He marked her so that she could never, ever walk away from him, no matter what he did or said.
“I vowed I would never, ever be like him. I will not mark the woman I love. I will not tie her to my side, unable to go more than ten, maybe twenty miles from me without enduring pain and discomfort. I will always make sure that the people I love have options.”
There was nothing I could say to that. He was a good man, and his decision was honorable. Nearsighted and wrong in a way I could not articulate, but well-intentioned and loving. He thought he would hold me back, that he would force me to give up my dreams. He was afraid he would diminish and imprison me.
Ford gently disentangled my fingers from his arm, then brought my fingers to his mouth. “You have dreams, Alice. They’re good dreams. But more importantly, they’re yours. Not mine. I will not stand in your way. I will not tie you down here. We’re over.”
Ford clenched his jaw, released my hand, and stepped away. He pulled on his socks and his boots, found his keys.
I watched him.
I did not have any more words.
I did not have a plan for this heartbreak.
I did not know how to fix it.
I could not hurt him by demanding he stay, that he let me stay. He refused to let me in or to trust me with the part of himself that had been so badly hurt by what his daddy had done. Because I knew he wasn’t Darrell. After all, no one was Darrell but Darrell.
And Ford was Ford.
He refused to let me in, he had closed the door on our relationship, and I had to respect his choice.
I gave it one last shot, though. He was worth trying for, worth sacrificing my dignity for.
“I would like to renegotiate the terms of our relationship. Instead of twelve months, give me forever. Stay with me now, stay with me tomorrow. Stay with me every day. And I will do the same for you. I promise you that. Let me be enough for you; let me be your mate.”
He winced and opened his mouth.
I stopped him. I opened my heart. I let him see that vulnerable, loving, Ford-shaped space I’d made inside me for him.
“Come with me, Ford.”
He blinked, surprised. “What?”
“Come with me to Nashville. Come with me wherever I go tomorrow and the day after that. We’ll go together.”
Ford looked at me.
He did not say anything.
Instead, he walked over to the door and opened it. Paused for a moment with his hand braced against the doorframe. And then that bastard shifted, his human form cracking and reforming, thick auburn fur boiling over his skin as the wolf took the place of the man.
The wolf took one look at me and bolted out the door.