Chapter 8
EIGHT
LANIE
Midnight’s Secret Kisses
My cheeks are still flushed when I pull into Valiant Peak for fuel.
Cord’s touch ghosts over me, his smoke-and-whiskey scent permeating my skin.
He’s set my head awhirl with emotions I haven’t had to process since my last breakup a few years ago, something I have no intention of revisiting anytime soon.
Cord doesn’t seem to have the same asshole qualities as the few men who populate my past.
But then, they never had either. At least, not in the beginning. And I’m scared of making those same mistakes again.
“I heard a girl came into town this morning with Mister Rand and told Jenkins where to go with his dire wolf crap. That wouldn’t happen to be you, now, would it?”
I turn from the cashier, tucking my purse under my arm, and collect my sandwich in its paper wrapper.
Dammit. I forgot how fast rumors travel in small towns, and Valiant Peak definitely qualifies as one of those.
The man, dressed similarly to the cowboys at Coyote Falls, albeit in a brighter, sunshine-yellow shirt decorated with red embroidered birds, holds the door open and follows me outside.
“I lost my temper,” I confess, and then shake my head to dispel the memory. “Anyway, have a nice day. Er, night.”
“Rand must be impressed.” The cowboy follows me around the back of my car. He’s heading to his car. His truck. Somewhere else. Only there is no other car for him to climb into. Nerves jump beneath my skin, and I grip my keys tight.
Just a cowboy with great dress sense following me. Like that’s not creepy at all.
“I’m sure Cord has other things to occupy his time.”
“Like you.”
I spin on my heel, still clutching my sandwich and not unlocking my car, to find the man behind me. He has a classic cowboy look, blonde hair flowing over his forehead in a cute little curl. The rest is tied back in a long ponytail at his nape. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“You might have seen me at Coyote Falls when you picked up your little girl. I’m Levi.” He holds out a hand.
I hesitate, then touch two fingers to his briefly, pretending to juggle my keys and my dinner.
“Lanie. Not my daughter,” I say. Cord seems to keep most things close to his chest. But if he’s as wealthy as I suspect, that choice of personal privacy doesn’t surprise me.
“Anyway, I need to be going.” I unlock my car, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“Are you coming back for the rodeo?” Levi asks conversationally, his hand propped on the door, though his grip prevents me from shutting it all the way.
“I’m not sure. Are you riding?” I fidget with my keys. My phone is on the dash. I reach for it under his watchful gaze.
“Nah, I prefer a different sort of spotlight.”
“Is it a draw for the bulls?” I have no idea how these things work, but I manage to unlock my phone, my finger poised not-so-covertly over the call button.
“S’posed to be.” He backs away finally as I tug the door closed. “Night, ma’am.”
Levi tips his hat as I pull away with a polite smile.
When I hit the road, the mirror shows him standing where I left him, watching me drive away.
My sandwich scoots across the passenger seat.
I sacrifice my phone for my food, grab sideways for it, manage not to run off the road, and lunge for my phone.
That opens when I press my thumb to the screen.
The call button comes up with Cord’s name highlighted.
I wonder if that’s what made Levi back off so fast, or maybe I’m paranoid and not used to people anymore.
Stick to the wolves, Lanie.
They’re so much easier. But staying away from Cordell Rand and Coyote Falls isn’t.
My oversized pile of handwritten notes hides everything I search for as if it has a personal vendetta against me for abandoning it the day before.
I swear I saw the data for the wolf cubs I’d observed in play training—stalking and pouncing, emulating social cues from the matriarchs within the pack.
Those same females helped define the early social interactions for the pups.
One of the most unusual features of my pack was that the older wolves picked the youngest pups up and carried them between their den to the place where they played and trained to become fully fledged hunting and active members, particular to that pack.
I keep wondering if I’ll have a chance to observe that same encapsulated behavior elsewhere, or if it’s specific to that family structure and location.
I’d last seen those notes at least two—no, maybe three days ago.
Collecting information has never been my issue.
It’s just… getting it all into the programs that will collate everything neatly that sucks.
I flick to my screen that shows what looks like a scribble diagram but actually tracks my wolves’ progress.
If I can’t be with my pack, at least I can still see them, even if ‘seeing’ equates to colorer lines on a map of the archipelago.
Sally sits at my feet, drawing.
“If you were a few years older, you might be able to help me,” I tell her, turning the same page over twice in my hands, and know it’s not what I’m looking for. “Dammit, where is that graph—Got it. Sorry, sweetie.”
“It’s all right.” Sally holds up a picture.
I take it absently. “What’s this? Oh—” My brow crinkles as I stare at the page.
“It’s Uncle Cord’s ranch. See? That’s the house, and the barn, and when I shot Billy.”
“You get on well with all the boys there, huh?” I grin, taking in the familiar lines of Coyote Falls surrounded by paint-speckled cows in remarkable detail.
“Yep.” Sally pokes the paper in my hand.
“Those are some amazing skills, Sally.” I break off as an email alert blinks on my screen. “Give me a moment, okay?”
“I know you’re not tech-savvy,” Sally tells me, before she scampers off with her art supplies, likely in search of food.
I scan the email twice before the information settles into my stats-soaked brain.
The funding body I’d applied to nearly twelve months ago hadn’t replied to my application for a further grant, which meant cutting my research short, hence moving in with Winnie.
I read the entire thing a third time, and a whole lot slower.
Grant pending approval. Status update required.
My heart tugs in two directions as I make notes of the additional paperwork needed, knowing I can provide what they’re asking for.
This is huge; the funding will mean the ability to return to Alaska and continue observing the pups right through their juvenile period for the next twelve to eighteen months, which I was so worried about missing.
I can return to my pups.
The singular thought settles on me as both a weight and a joy, both vying for dominance.
If I return to Alaska, my data collection will be complete, and I’ll be able to submit my papers to journals having studied the pups’ full transition through their juvenile period into adulthood.
It will be the most comprehensive study in that region for decades. The university will be ecstatic.
But taking the grant, if it gets through the final approval stage, would mean returning to Alaska for the better part of the next two years.
I bite my lip, remembering Cord’s blue eyes and the way I felt curled in his arms today, and a cold pit settles in my stomach.
I’m in too deep already—is it wrong to want to see where what we have goes?
The discomfort makes me stand up and pace the room.
I tell myself to get a grip. I made the shortlist for the extended grant, and I have to take it if I get it.
I’ve worked too hard to let an opportunity like that go, for a man who might not even want someone who darts about locations on a whim, following wolf tracks through the seasons, no matter how the mountains of Coyote Falls call to me.
“What’s got you so hyper-focused?” Winnie drops her work bag on the kitchen table. “Sally said you’ve been attached to that computer all day.”
“Just, uh, working.” I type frantically, rechecking my notes and flicking through stats I’ve already input, making sure I’ve got everything.
“How did your date with Cord go?”
“Good.” The graph I need appears magically. I prop the sheet beside my laptop, working the calculations through in my head. “He, uh, kissed me.”
“He did?” Winnie shrieks.
I pause halfway through typing a sentence. “Is that bad?”
Cord’s kisses were pretty damn good, in my limited experience, the echo of his touch tingling my lips. Apparently, Winnie doesn’t agree.
“He doesn’t usually get involved. Unless…”
That one word reverses gravity’s pull.
“Unless?” I stop breathing as I pivot on my chair to face Winnie.
Her face scrunches. “Unless Rand wants a fling. He often does this around that rodeo of his. He chooses a girl early on, so the rodeo bunnies leave him alone. It’s kind of a pattern.
” Winnie rests a hand heavily on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Lanie. I should have mentioned it.
I thought there might be a spark between the two of you, but it’s also good to be wary—I don’t want you to get hurt. ”
Apparently I don’t have to worry about that exit strategy, how good his kisses are, or what the mountains behind Coyote Falls look like, after all. I swallow past a lump in my throat that already tastes like regret. Alpha wolf, here I come.
My fingers tremble over my keyboard long after Winnie leaves me alone to find her offspring as I plan my return to Alaska.
Winnie supplies me with coffee for three days straight before she begins her new campaign.
“You enjoy spending time with him, right? Why don’t you go to the rodeo, have fun, and then… do whatever afterward?”
“That sounds sensible.” I nod as Winnie swaps my coffee out for wine. My fortifying sip is more like a slurp; that isn’t ladylike. I’ve definitely spent too much time with wolves recently. Or maybe too little.
“Pffft. Have you heard from him?”