Wes strode into the living room, his boots thunking hollowly against the hardwoods, his jeans sitting low, belt buckle with a motherfuckin’ bald eagle positioned right over his dick, its beak open in a bird-of-prey scream, like come-and-get-it. White T-shirt under an open blue and white flannel that made his baby blues a stupid shade of you-know-you-want-to-ride-this, and a cocky smirk that she knew from experience was the closest thing that man ever got to a smile. A heavy brown canvas duffel bag hung from his shoulder, and he clenched the strap with one large hand in a pose definitely intended to make his arm muscles flex to accentuate the curves of his shoulder and triceps. Even his chin-length hair was waving perfectly under his cream-colored cowboy hat like he was some model in a photoshoot. Where was the fucking breeze even coming from? Or did his hair just move like that by magic? To attract females. Obnoxious. His perfectly trimmed short beard was annoying, too. He definitely manscaped now…probably had a six-pack under that shirt…
“You still think I look good,” he accused her.
A professional at emotionless facial expressions, Summer murmured coolly, “The only thing I find attractive about you is your duffle bag. Probably gonna steal it later.”
The smirk fell from his face, and Summer smiled internally as she walked out of his house.
These next few days were going to be more fun than she’d thought.
“Which one is your rig?” she asked innocently, like she couldn’t smell Wes’s Old Spice cologne wafting from the black on black Ford Raptor sitting out front.
“Since you’re playin’ dumb, it’s probably the one you’re walkin’ straight to,” he muttered from behind her.
“I’m not playing dumb. I’m just waiting for my chance to insult you.” Summer turned and gave him a Cheshire cat smile over her shoulder. “The setup for an insult is always important.”
Wes’s frown was cute. If she thought stuff like that was cute. Which she didn’t. Because it was Wes. Wesley.
“I used to say that,” he told her.
Oh, she knew. Thanks to the wolf, she remembered every single thing that had ever happened in vivid detail.
“Okay,” he said, making his way around the passenger’s side door. He opened it for her and leaned on the door. “Go on and impress me with an insult on a motherfuckin’ Ford Raptor. You can’t get a better truck for performance.”
Summer smiled with teeth and then slammed the door closed without getting in. And then she opened it again for herself. “Don’t need a man to open a door for me. Especially not a Kaid.” Primly, she climbed up into the passenger’s seat and said, “You gonna try to buckle me in next so I don’t chip a nail?”
Wes looked so shaken, he just stood there with his mouth hanging open. “Uuuh…I…” His frown deepened. “That was the first time I ever opened a door for a gi—”
Slam!
Summer pulled it shut before he finished talking. No admissions, no saying he’d changed, no making her feel special. He was probably going to be dead in a couple of days.
Wes tossed his duffle bag in the bed of the truck and made his way to the driver’s side door, yanked it open, and got in.
“Don’t get attached to things that burn you,” Summer recited out loud.
“What?”
“That’s what my therapist says. It’s my mantra now.”
“You have a therapist?” he asked in a baffled tone.
His hair was hanging in his face on one side. Kinda cute if she was into that kind of thing. Which she wasn’t. Maybe she would shave his hair in his sleep so he would stop annoying her with his attractiveness.
“She’s very nice,” Summer said softly.
“Is she human or shifter? You can’t be telling humans what you are, Summer. It ain’t safe.”
“Why don’t you want Hunter to come? Do you still hate him so much you’ll leave him out of seeing Sam?”
Wes huffed a dark laugh. “You don’t know me anymore.” He turned the key, and the engine roared to life.
Summer buckled in and pulled her knees to her chest, stared out the front window as Wes drove them down the long gravel drive away from his home. “Raptors have damn near 500 horsepower and are built for performance and speed, and you have it on a ranch. It’s not a hauling truck, Wesley. It’s a truck made for getting attention. You always needed that though, didn’t you?”
“We take Bryson or Hunter’s rigs into town when we blow off steam or run errands, Summer. This truck sees the feed store and the ranch. I got it for four grand under MSRP, and it’s my dream truck. I saved for it. It ain’t for anyone but me. And when I have a bad day, I leave all this ranch shit behind me and take it out and jump it. They’re made for that, too. And he hauls what I need just fine if the boys’ trucks aren’t available to me. You really don’t know me anymore.”
“Why leave Hunter?”
“Look, you don’t just get to come in here and ask questions. My life isn’t an open book for you to insult. I don’t want him coming with me. Bryson either. End of discussion.” He reached forward and turned up the radio dial to volume level eight—almost, almost, loud enough to hurt her ears.
“I never saw a trio of more broken brothers than you Kaids,” Summer murmured. Wes didn’t respond, so she kept right on talking. “I always wondered what it was, you know? Back in the days when we were together and things made sense. I could understand most things about you except your relationship with your brothers. Sam was like a demigod to you that you barely were brave enough to talk to. You were this better version of yourself around him, like you wanted so desperately for him to like you.”
“That’s enough.”
“And Hunter? He looked at you like you were the moon, and you treated him like dog-sh—”
“I said enough, Summer.”
His tone was different, and it stopped the word in her throat. Just froze it there. That had never happened to her before. She clutched her neck and tried to finish the word “shit” but she couldn’t.
“What have you done?” she choked out. “How did you do that?”
Wes slid her an angry look and said, “Please don’t make me do it again. I don’t like it.”
Alpha. The word whispered to her through the bond. Alpha? No, no, no, Wesley Kaid wasn’t built to be an Alpha. He was an enforcer. A fighter. A killer.
“Did you brand them?” she asked in horror.
“Hunter, Bryson, Sadey, and Maris are mine.”
Something about that stung to her core. He’d chosen them. Improved enough for them. Branded them, but what had he done to Summer? Changed her into a monster and abandoned her.
She slammed her head back against the seat to punish her emotions and stared out the window. “I guess I don’t know you anymore. But then again, maybe I never did.”
“You’re probably the only one who ever really knew me.” He said it as soft as a breeze, and she almost missed it.
Why? Why did seeing him again wrench open all this emotion? She’d been working on this moment, preparing for it for a month, ever since she’d dug into the sickly bond that kept haunting her dreams. She’d followed every new instinct she possessed and found out Sam was alive. All she had to do was stay unaffected like she had been practicing the last few years. It was simple.