Chapter 12 #2
In the living room, a man in flannel is dead asleep on the leather sectional with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes.
Down the hall, somebody's shouting about football stats over the sound of a blender.
On the massive wool rug in front of the fire, a charcoal-gray timber wolf is curled into a tight doughnut, sound asleep and snoring softly.
I stop dead in my tracks, my hand tightening on Boone's jacket. "Boone."
"Yeah?"
"Is that a wolf?"
"That's Caleb."
I wait. "Does Caleb live here?"
"No," Boone says, setting our bags down near the stairs. "He lives about two miles down the ridge. He does this sometimes when he's tired."
"He just walks into your house as a four-hundred-pound predator and naps on your rug?"
"He's about a hundred and eighty pounds," Boone corrects mildly. "And the rug's heated from underneath."
"Naturally."
A tall, broad man with iron-gray hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and quiet, heavy shoulders steps out of the kitchen carrying a massive wooden salad bowl.
He has Boone’s broad jaw, his calm, heavy gait, and eyes so dark they’re almost black.
The air in the room shifts slightly when he enters—not with tension, but with that dense, gravity-like presence that marks a pack alpha.
Thomas Kinkaid sets the bowl on the table, wipes his hands on his jeans, and looks straight at me.
“Maisie,” he says. His voice is deep, a low baritone that rumbles in your chest. He doesn’t hug me, which I appreciate, but he extends a large, calloused hand and wraps it around mine in a warm, steady grip. “Good to finally meet you. Boone talks about you plenty.”
“Don’t start, Dad,” Boone mutters, his ears turning slightly pink.
“I’m not starting anything,” Thomas says smoothly, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. “Just stating a statistical fact. The boy called us three times in October to explain the molecular structure of feline kidney tissue.”
I slowly turn my head to look at Boone. “Feline kidney tissue?”
“You were studying for a quiz,” Boone says defensively, looking at the ceiling. “I was helping you review.”
“You reviewed with me on a Tuesday,” I say. “You called your parents about my quiz?”
“He told us you got a ninety-four,” Linda chimes in, walking out of the kitchen with a platter of pot roast that looks like it could feed an infantry division. “And then he told us you hadn’t eaten lunch because you were stressed, so he brought you a sandwich. Have you eaten tonight, Maisie?”
“We had coffee—”
“That wasn’t the question,” Linda says, already grabbing a ceramic plate from the sideboard and heaping two massive slabs of roast beef, three scoops of mashed potatoes, and half a loaf of crusty sourdough onto it. “Sit down. Right there.”
I sit. I don’t even try to argue.
Boone immediately pulls out the chair next to mine and drops into it. Before I can even pick up my fork, he reaches across the table, grabs another roll, butters it thoroughly, and sets it on the edge of my plate.
I look at the plate. I look at Linda, who’s already ladling dark gravy over the meat. I look at Boone, who’s watching me with absolute satisfaction.
“Oh my God,” I breathe, pressing my fingers to my forehead. “There are two of you.”
Thomas snorts from the head of the table, pouring water into four heavy glasses. “There are considerably more than two of us, Maisie. You’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg.”
Dinner is loud, fast, and unpretentious.
The man asleep on the couch wakes up about ten minutes in, wanders over without washing his hands, grabs two rolls, grunts a greeting at me, and sits down.
“That’s Uncle Wes,” Boone whispers in my ear.
“Is he actually your uncle?” I whisper back.
“No. He went to high school with my dad. Everybody calls him that.”
“Got it.”
By the time I finish half my plate, I’m so full I can barely breathe. Linda tries to put another slice of roast on my plate, but I hold up both hands in surrender.
“Linda, please. If I eat one more bite of beef, I’m going to turn into a wolf just from protein density.”
Linda laughs, a rich, warm sound, and takes the platter away. “Fair enough. Boone, take her bags upstairs. She looks exhausted.”
Boone’s childhood bedroom is on the third floor, tucked under the sloping eaves of the cedar roof.
When he pushes the heavy oak door open and flips the light switch, I step inside and immediately start laughing.
“What?” he asks, dropping our bags onto a wooden bench near the closet.
“Nothing,” I say, walking over to the wide wooden desk under the window. “It’s just... you.”
The room is enormous, smelling strongly of cedar, old paper, and Boone’s specific scent—cedar, leather, and that warm, spicy musk that makes my mating mark hum.
The walls are covered in framed team photos, a state championship football pennant from his senior year, and a massive map of the surrounding county with pack boundaries marked in red grease pencil.
On the desk, sitting next to a stack of old alpha leadership journals, is a wooden pen organizer. Inside it, arranged in terrifyingly precise rows, are two dozen Pilot G2 gel pens.
Blue. Black. Red. Green.
I reach out, pick up a green pen, and turn to look at him. "You've had an intuitive filing system since you were sixteen."
Boone closes the bedroom door, leans his back against the heavy wood, and crosses his arms over his chest. "Organization is a leadership skill."
"You're a lunatic."
"I'm your lunatic."
"Debatable." I set the pen down and cross to the bookshelf beside the bed. Sitting on the second shelf, right next to a bronze regional MVP trophy, is a framed five-by-seven photograph.
I pick it up and gasp.
It's Boone at approximately fourteen years old.
He's already broad-shouldered, but his limbs are entirely too long for his torso, his ears stick out like handles, and his hair is cut into an aggressive, tragic bowl cut that parts awkwardly down the middle.
He glares at the camera like he wants to murder the photographer.
"Oh," I whisper reverently. "Oh, this is holy."
In half a second, Boone crosses the room, his long strides silent on the wide pine floorboards, and reaches for the frame. "Put that down."
"Never." I dodge behind his desk chair, clutching the frame to my chest. "This is going on my desk. This is going on my phone lock screen. I'm sending this to Delilah right now."
"Maisie, I swear to God—"
"Who cut this hair, Boone? Did your mother use an actual mixing bowl?"
"It was a team cut," he groans, lunging across the desk.
He snatches the frame out of my hands with effortless werewolf speed, sets it facedown on the top shelf—out of my reach—then hooks his large hands under my armpits.
He lifts me straight off the floor like I weigh nothing and drops me onto the mattress.
I land on the thick patchwork quilt with a breathless laugh, but before I can sit up, Boone comes down over me.
He doesn't crush me with his weight—he braces his forearms on either side of my shoulders, his massive body caging me against the pillows. The humor in his face drops away, replaced by that heavy, focused intensity that always makes my pulse hammer against my ribs.
"You done teasing me, Pope?" he rasps, his amber eyes dropping to my mouth.
"Probably not," I whisper, my fingers tangling in his short, soft hair. "I've got about forty more questions about Uncle Wes, and I haven't even seen your baby pictures yet."
"Tomorrow," he murmurs, his head dipping low. "Right now, you're in my bed."
His mouth slams into mine, hot and hungry.
This isn’t the careful kiss from our first date. It isn’t the panicked ones from before the full moon either. This is deep. Practiced. All claim. His tongue slides against mine and his scruff scrapes my chin. Then his heavy thigh slots between my legs and presses hard against my center.
A loud, helpless moan breaks out of me.
Boone freezes instantly. His mouth rips away from mine, his breathing ragged, and he snaps his head toward the closed bedroom door.
I blink up at him, dazed and flushed. "What?"
"My parents," he whispers, his jaw clenching so tight a muscle jumps in his cheek.
"They're downstairs, Boone."
"Maisie." He looks down at me, his pupils blown wide, dark and predatory. "We're werewolves. My dad can hear your heartbeat from the kitchen. If you make that sound again, he'll hear it from the driveway."
A slow, wicked grin spreads across my face.
"Really?" I whisper.
"Do not," he warns, his voice dropping an octave into a low, rumbling growl. "Do not test me in this house, Maisie. I've spent twenty-one years maintaining a shred of dignity under this roof."
"You had a bowl cut, Boone. Your dignity died in 2018."
He groans, burying his face in my neck, but his hands slide down to grip my hips, hauling me flush against his rock-hard erection through our jeans. He grinds against me once—slow, deliberate, and filthy—making my breath hitch.
"Sleep," he mutters against my skin, though his body vibrates with pure, coiled tension. "Before I forget my mother is thirty feet down the hall."
I laugh softly, wrapping my arms around his massive shoulders and holding him tight. And for the first time in three weeks, I fall asleep without setting an alarm.
Tuesday morning starts at six-thirty with the smell of sizzling pork fat, black coffee, and absolute bedlam downstairs.
When Boone and I make our way down to the kitchen in flannel pajama pants and thick socks, the great room looks like a diner at rush hour.
Linda stands over a twelve-inch cast-iron skillet flipping homemade buttermilk biscuits, while Thomas sits at the head of the kitchen island reviewing a thick stack of forestry ledgers.
Caleb—now fully human, wearing faded jeans and a thermal shirt—leans against the counter, buttering his fourth piece of toast.
“Morning, Maisie,” Caleb grunts, barely glancing up. “Boone, you look soft. College is ruining your conditioning.”
“I benched four-forty on Friday, Caleb. Eat your toast and shut up.”