Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Grayson
The forest floor is cold under my paws, but I push harder anyway, lunging over roots, tearing through underbrush. It should clear my head. It isn’t working.
I’m letting a human woman into my son’s life.
The thought circles back for the hundredth time, and I put on a burst of speed to outrun it. It doesn’t help. It just circles faster.
It was impulsive, a move born from desperation.
Ethan doesn’t bond with females. Maybe because Vanessa left scars on his young heart that still haven’t healed.
If I had known earlier what she was subjecting our son to, the constant neglect, I would have divorced her myself.
I would have snatched Ethan from her arms the moment he was born.
But I was young and idealistic. And my son paid the price for my foolishness.
Linda is the only female Ethan has tolerated, maybe because she was in his life since he was six months old. But I can’t understand what it is about Miranda Carver that has my son talking about her like she hung the moon.
The pretty lady. That’s what he called her this morning at breakfast, completely unprompted, over a bowl of cereal. Is she coming back, Dad?
I rumble in approval. She really is pretty, even when she’s insulting me. Wolves prefer dominant females. It’s hardwired into our biology. Female shifters are willful by nature, built for strength, and that is what male wolves are drawn to. A mate who can hold her own. A mate who doesn’t break.
Miranda is not a shifter. But every instinct I have seems completely indifferent to that fact.
I exhale sharply through my nose, paws hitting the ground in a hard, steady rhythm.
I keep coming back to the only explanation that makes sense.
It’s her stubbornness. The sheer, spectacular stubbornness of this woman who looked at a man twice her size offering to wipe out her debt and said absolutely not.
Who sat in a diner and ate apple pie like she was annoyed at it.
Who slapped her hand over my mouth to stop me from asking a question she didn’t want to deal with.
She is, without question, the most prideful person I have ever met.
The memory surfaces uninvited. Her face in my car, all flushed indignation, sputtering I’m not kissing you for driving me home! The way her eyes had gone wide when I’d leaned in. The way her scent had shifted into something spicier, almost mouth-watering.
She’s very pretty when she’s worked up like that.
The drive home had been difficult with constantly having to adjust my pants.
The sound that escapes me is almost a laugh.
I’m distracted by movement to my left, and two shapes break through the trees, one large and the other even larger, running in perfect synchrony.
I recognize their scents before I see them clearly.
Samuel, lean and fast, his wolf a dark gray shadow between the trunks.
And behind him, Coach Ramirez, whose presence presses against my instincts like a weight settling over the back of my neck.
They fall into flanking positions without a word. This is pack language. No conversation needed.
For a while, the three of us just run. Then Coach nips at my heels, and I surge forward on instinct. Samuel matches my pace, and for ten minutes, there are no complicated problems, just the ridge and the cold air and the ground flying under our paws.
By the time the mansion’s lights come into view through the trees, the worst of the noise in my head has quieted.
We shift at the tree line. The change moves through me fast, bones resetting, muscle contracting, the brief, searing pain that never fully goes away. Then I’m standing upright, breathing hard, human again.
I head for the back door and flip open the laundry box sitting against the outside wall.
It’s always stocked, a habit I picked up years ago for exactly this kind of situation.
Pack members pass through, wolves come in from runs, and nobody wants to walk back into civilization in just their skin.
I grab three pairs of folded pants and toss one each to Samuel and Coach before pulling on my own.
“Beer?” I call over my shoulder, heading for the kitchen.
“Obviously,” Samuel says.
I come back out with three cold bottles and drop into one of the garden chairs. The night is clear, the kind where you can see every star if you bother to look. I don’t. I’m still thinking about a pair of brown eyes and the quality of a specific person’s glare.
Samuel takes a long drink. “Any update on the doctor situation?”
Coach exhales slowly, like the question costs him something. “No.” He turns his bottle in his hands. “I’ve been weighing bringing in a human from another pack’s network. But a human loyal to someone else’s pack is a liability I don’t want sitting in our locker room.”
“Agreed.” I raise my beer.
“So we’re stuck.” Samuel leans back, looking at the sky. “Unless someone has another idea.”
Silence.
Then, almost before the decision finishes forming, I say, “I have someone in mind.”
Both of them look at me.
“The nurse who patched me up in the ER.” I hold up a hand before Coach can speak. “Before you say anything. I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds,” Coach says, “like you want to hand our secret to a human woman because she put stitches in your leg.”
“No. Because a few nights ago, five men cornered her in the hospital parking lot. I stepped in.” I turn my bottle in my hands.
“She watched the whole thing, Coach. Afterward she pulled me back inside and patched up a stab wound that was healing too fast right in front of her.” I pause. “Didn’t say a word about it.”
Samuel raises his eyebrows.
“What were you doing there?” Coach asks.
“Returning a favor. She found Ethan when he wandered off last week.” I meet his eyes. “She had every reason to start asking questions. She didn’t. She looked right at me and said she didn’t want to know.”
Silence.
“And you believed her,” Coach says.
“She even grabbed a crowbar and went after one of the men herself.” Something about the memory still sends a satisfied rumble through my chest. “When I pushed her to ask, she looked me dead in the face and said she didn’t want to know my secrets.”
“What’s her stake?” Coach asks. “Why keep quiet?”
“Because she’s practical.” I take a drink.
“She likes minding her own business, and that’s the kind of person we need.
She’s dealing with some debt trouble. If we pay her well, she’ll have every reason to protect the arrangement.
She’s not going to blow up the one situation that’s actually working in her favor. ”
Samuel looks intrigued. “This could actually work.”
“I want someone who’s in it for the right reasons,” Coach says.
“She’s in it because she needs the money and she’s not willing to compromise her integrity for it.” I set my bottle down. “Honestly, Coach, that combination is harder to find than loyalty.”
A long silence. The garden is quiet except for wind moving through the trees at the edge of the property.
Finally Coach says, “Bring her to Saturday’s practice session.”
“Saturday,” I repeat.
“I want to see her myself. How she carries herself, how she handles being around the team. If I like what I see, we’ll talk terms.” He finishes his beer and stands. “If I don’t, we move on.”
“Fair enough.”
Coach gives me one more look, the kind that’s been honing itself on me since I was sixteen years old. “Don’t make this personal, Grayson.”
I say nothing, which is probably its own kind of answer.
He leaves through the side gate. Samuel lingers, finishing his beer with a grin that I don’t trust. “So. This nurse.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying.” He spreads his hands. “It’s the first time in years I’ve seen you go to bat for a woman.”
“I’m going to bat for our team’s medical coverage.”
“Sure you are.” He stands, still grinning. “What’s she like?”
I think about it for a second despite myself. Sharp. Exhausted. Too proud to take help she desperately needs. Funny in a way that seems accidental, like the wit escapes her before she can calculate whether to use it or not.
“Difficult,” I say.
Samuel laughs all the way to the gate.
I sit there alone for a while after he’s gone, looking at the sky.
Saturday. Which means I have to call Miranda tomorrow and tell her that our morning at the park has been rescheduled.
Replaced, actually. Replaced with a hockey practice and a scrutiny session from an alpha who doesn’t give second chances.
She is going to have things to say about that.
A lot of things.
I lean my head back against the chair, and something that is not quite a smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. Miranda Carver, standing on a rink, arms crossed, chin up, looking at me like I’m the most inconvenient development in her entire week.
Yeah.
I’m almost looking forward to it.
The puck hits the back of the net with a crack that echoes through the arena, and I feel it in my teeth. It’s a clean and perfect shot.
I circle back to center ice, stick loose in my hands, and tell myself that the burst of energy today has nothing to do with the woman standing behind the glass. My eyes still search for her anyway to gauge her reaction.
Miranda Carver is leaning against the barrier with her arms crossed over her chest, watching us practice like she’s evaluating a particularly disappointing science experiment.
She’s in jeans and a dark sweater that shouldn’t look as good as it does, and her expression is the same flat, unimpressed mask she wears every time she looks at me.
My wolf preens anyway.
I push harder. Faster. Intercepting Samuel’s pass, I weave through the defense line, deking left, cutting right, then firing a wrist shot that sails past Eric’s glove and buries itself in the top corner.
“Damn, Wolfe.” Brody skates up alongside me, breathing hard. “What’s gotten into you today?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.” He follows my eyeline toward the glass. “Who’s that?”
“Nobody. Keep playing.”