AUDREY
Six letters. Boyd wrote me six letters.
They were all in my trash. Who was I fooling? I hadn’t taken out the garbage all week. If I was really done with Boyd, wouldn't I have burned them? Or never even brought them in?
I stared at the wastebasket.
Don’t do it.
Do not do it.
My phone rang. Shoot. It was Marina. I’d been dodging her calls all week because I knew if we talked, I’d spill everything. I sent this call to voicemail as well. She was used to my work schedule and sometimes a lapse in responses, but I’d text her, let her know not to worry.
Because if I talked to her now, I’d bawl my eyes out. Other than the day we broke up, when I lost it out front, I’d been trying to hold that mess in. I’d done a good job of it, but I was like a pressure cooker, ready to explode.
I stooped and picked out the envelopes from the trash can. I’d had six days to think about it.
To remember all the tiny things. The gentle way Boyd put my glasses back on for me after riding the mechanical bull.
The rough way he lost control with me when we had sex, as if he couldn’t hold himself back.
The respectful way he always treated me—opening doors and escorting me home.
But more than that because those were superficial things, I kept thinking about the story about his parents. How deeply he hurt over their deaths.
Most of all, I remembered how sure he was that I was The One. Whatever that meant to a wolf.
As much as I tried not to, I kept thinking about the fact that he was a wolf.
There were dynamics at play I didn’t understand.
Their customs. The culture. He’d briefly mentioned how they operated in a pack and how his brother’s disapproval of our relationship would be a big problem for him, considering how much he already felt like a screw-up.
While he was a grown man, he still had to take the pack into account when being with someone like me. Someone human.
He had used sex as a weapon. He’d used it to distract me from trying to figure out how a guy who had a sucking chest wound could be healed in such a short time.
How his injury had completely disappeared in days.
Well, probably sooner, but when the bandage had come off, his skin had been blemish free.
Had everything we’d done been at his brother’s orders?
Maybe he’d had to distract me, but perhaps he was the one who got distracted. Maybe he’d actually fallen in love.
Did wolves fall in love or was that all an act, too? I just didn’t know.
A heavy knock sounded at my door, making me jump back from the trashcan and shriek.
“Doctor Ames?” It was a deep, gruff voice that came through the front door. But not Boyd’s.
Disappointment crushed my chest. God. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hoped he’d show up until now. I’d told myself I wouldn’t see him if he had, but that was a lie.
I’d secretly wanted Boyd to come here and win me back. It was too bad he was so damn respectful of my wishes.
I opened the door a crack and sucked in a breath.
Rob. Boyd’s brother.
He took off his hat and held it in front of his chest. “Dr. Ames, could I have a word with you? Just for a minute?”
I tried and failed to swallow, then nodded and stepped back.
“Oh, I don’t need to come in,” he said, his gaze falling to the stack of unopened letters in my hand.
I tried to throw them back in the trash, but my fingers wouldn’t open, so instead, I tucked my arm behind my back to hide them. I didn’t know why—he’d already seen them and probably knew with some wolf sense that they were from Boyd.
“Dr. Ames, I just wanted to try to clear some things up. Some misunderstandings.”
“O-okay.”
“My brother’s in love with you.”
I stopped breathing.
“Yes, I asked him to keep an eye on you since you’d seen him get hurt at the rodeo, but you see, Boyd was only too happy to comply with his alpha’s orders for once in his life. Because getting close to you was the only thing on his mind.”
Oh shit. I was going to cry. I did not want to cry in front of Rob. I blinked furiously.
“It’s true Boyd was quite the womanizer in the past. But it’s different with you. He… smiles. He’s the real Boyd. Most of all, he doesn’t just take my shit, even if I am the alpha. I know because I’m also his brother.”
For some reason my fingers decided to go slack, and the envelopes clattered to the floor behind me. Rob looked down at them. His expression was hard to read, but I thought I detected sympathy there. Whether it was for Boyd or for me, I wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know if he explained to you how mating works for our kind?”
My heart started pounding. I gave a tiny, frantic shake of my head.
“Wolves mate for life. According to the lore, there’s only one female who will give a wolf the instinct to mate.
Wolves who don’t find their mate by a certain age...
” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “They can go moon mad. They become more and more feral until they lose their humanity completely. It’s dangerous, see.
Many wolves don’t wait for the mating instinct, they choose a suitable female and start a family. Much like humans, I’m sure.”
Goosebumps stood up on my arms. Yes, it was like humans, minus the part about having one true mate. Although I guessed some humans believed in that, too.
“Wh-why are you telling me all this?” I asked, pushing my glasses up although he couldn’t miss the way my hand shook.
“You’re Boyd’s true mate.”
“He never said that.”
“Did he say you were his, that he knew all along, from the very first, that he wanted you?”
I nodded, tears lodged thick in my throat.
“He didn’t use the word mate because he couldn’t share about his wolf.
His wolf chose a human, for whatever reason.
You. And while that’s generally against pack law, I would never presume to know better than the wolf instinct.
Nature always knows best, right? I know Boyd, and he’s a stubborn bastard.
There’s no way he would accept any female but you. So if you refuse him…”
I finally picked up what Rob was putting down. A giant sticky guilt trip. “He’ll go moon mad.”
“Right.”
I needed to be alone. I needed to think things over.
And yes, I might need to read those letters.
So I swung the door shut.
“Just think about seeing him?” he called out, just before I shut the door in his face. On the alpha. Of the Wolf pack.
I didn’t answer.
My head spun.
Or was that the room?
Whatever it was, I needed to sit down. Or maybe I needed an oxygen mask. Yes, an oxygen mask would be perfect right now. I sank to the floor and gathered the letters up in my lap.
An oxygen mask, or maybe a letter that I had a feeling had every answer I’d wanted for the past two days.
Marina: Call me or I will drive there and track you down.
Marina’s text got me off the floor. Well, at least from lying on the floor with Boyd’s letters strewn around me.
I pushed up and leaned against the couch and grabbed my cell.
It had been two hours since Rob left—not that I gave him any choice with the front door in his face—and I’d read through Boyd’s letters over and over.
I knew his heart now. I knew… everything.
He’d written long letters, telling me how he felt about me.
What it meant that his wolf had chosen me.
That he wanted to mate me… for life. He explained how a wolf marked his mate.
What it would mean for me, as a human. He said the pack would accept me because his brother would.
I held the letters to my chest, letting it all reverberate there. It was so much. It was everything.
Yet I was still sitting here. Alone.
Marina: Now.
I dialed, and she answered on the first ring.
“What’s wrong?” she asked right away.
“I’m in love,” I replied, then burst into tears.
I heard Marina laugh, but I couldn’t stop crying. I had no idea how long I cried, or why my sister stayed on the phone listening to me gasp and sniffle, sob and blow my nose. When I finally stopped, she said, “Are you crying because you’re happy or sad?”
“I don’t know!” I wailed.
“Is this about the guy with the weird name who ordered you lamb?”
“Jett? No, not him.”
“It’s the rodeo champ, right? Please say it’s the rodeo champ.”
“It’s the rodeo champ.”
She screamed, and I had to pull my phone away from my ear.
“Why are you crying? Did he hurt you? I’ll come up there and beat the crap out of him.”
Marina and I looked nothing alike, but she wasn’t any bigger than me. In fact, she was the same height, but had the slim build of a dancer. A strong wind would blow her over. Not that Boyd would hurt her, but she couldn’t even reach his throat without a step stool to punch him there.
“I’m crying because he loves me, too.”
I realized that I couldn’t tell her that he was a wolf.
She’d think I was mental, first off. Then she’d come up here to have me committed.
I wanted her in California, in college, where she belonged.
I could understand why Rob wanted to ensure their being shifters remained a secret.
Keeping Marina far from Montana would ensure she didn’t learn the truth.
She’d have to come here someday, but I’d worry about that then.
“Then what is going on? I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“We had a… falling out.” I told her about Karen, skipping the fact that she was a shifter. “I shouldn’t have believed her spiteful words, but it’s hard not to. You should see her. She looks like a Victoria’s Secret model.”
“Yet Boyd loves you.”
“Yeah, he does.” Having Marina say it somehow made things shift inside me. Rob had said the exact same thing earlier, yet I’d felt just as bad. Just as heartsick.
Boyd loved me. Boyd loved me. He didn’t say the words aloud. He hadn’t had to. I saw how he felt for me in everything he did. In how he protected me. In how he touched me. How he spoke to me. Fucked me.
In his letters, he hadn’t said it either. In fact, he’d emptied his heart to me in those six notes. Everything except those three words. He said if I took him back, that he’d share them with me. Say them, so I could hear them from his lips. Believe them.
“Marina… I have to go.”
“To see Boyd?”
“Yes. I have to go right now.”
“I’m coming out to meet him! In fact, I’m booking my flight now!”
I gave a watery laugh as I hung up on her, and I could hear her shouts of happiness. I hopped up from the floor and ran to my car. I’d waited my whole life for a man to be mine, to make a family with. A life with. I had it with Boyd. I just had to go and get it.