Wes made her weak, and she hated it. He ruined everything.
He reached forward and turned down the music as he rolled to a stop at the main road. “Where are we going?”
“Ooooh no. I’m not telling you. You’ll ditch me at the first gas station.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because abandoning people is your number one move.” Yeah, she threw it out as a burn, but he didn’t react like she’d thought he would. There was no fire, no insult hurled back at her. Instead, he nodded his head and said, “I understand how you would feel like that.”
“Cut it out! You’re being weird.”
His nostrils flared, and he looked like he was counting to three in his head for patience. “I wish I could ditch you right here.” There was truth in his voice.
“Aaaah, that’s better. There’s Old Wes, wanting to shine through the mature imposter that has taken over his body.”
“I miss when you were nice.”
“I don’t. Nice me got hurt. Take a right and keep going south until we hit the New Mexico border.”
“You’re really not going to tell me where Sam is?” he asked, turning onto the two lane paved road.
“Nope. Not until we’re close.”
“You’re annoying now. That’s new.”
“You’re an asshole still. That’s old.”
“Controlling.”
“Full of yourself,” she spouted off.
“I liked your hair better blond.” His voice rang with a lie, though.
“Untrue, ha! You like how I look now.”
“Like a goth Barbie Wolf.”
“Maybe I have my nipples pierced now.”
When Wes jerked his attention off the road to her, the truck swerved dangerously.
Summer grinned. “Joke. Probably.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Wes muttered, looking grumpy. “You gonna mess with me the whole way there?”
Summer mimed shaking something up then looked at her hand. “Magic 8-Ball says it is decidedly so.”
Wes snorted and then reshaped his expression into one of indifference. “Where’s your clothes?”
“On my body.”
“No, I mean the clothes you’re traveling with. And how did you get into my house without anyone catching you?”
“A lady never tells her secrets.”
“That’s actually the opposite of true. Women blab every secret.”
Summer rolled her eyes. “I’m not most women.”
“No, you got nipple piercings now.”
“Hahaha, I knew you would keep thinking about that. Typical. Always thinking with your dick.”
“Maybe I don’t like nipple piercings. Maybe it’s a turnoff.”
“I can see your boner from here.” She pointed.
“Pointing is rude.”
“I learned my rudeness from the best.” She pointed at Wes’s face.
He turned the radio back up, and Summer settled in for a long ride, sure to put her feet up on the dashboard because Old Wes kept his truck sparkling clean, and from the pristine condition of this fancy truck’s interior, New Wes had kept the habit. There was definitely mud on the bottom of her boots. She ground her feet against the dash to make sure as much mud got on there as possible.
He slid her a narrow-eyed glance but didn’t say anything.
The silence lasted for exactly two minutes. She used that time to draw little penises into the mud smears on the dash with her index finger. Wes was growling a lot.
Wes turned down the radio again. “Seriously, how did you get onto my property?”
“The truth?”
“That would be nice,” he said sarcastically.
She inhaled deeply and rambled all on one breath, “I figured out Sam was alive a month ago and started going to my therapist more to prepare me to meet you again and then I hitchhiked all the way here from Aspen because I can’t drive on account of the wolf because she makes me have severe road rage so thank you for that little gift and then I walked right onto your property and let myself in the back door and none of you idiots even had a clue I suppose because your land smells like cow crap and all of the mooing is very loud and Hunter and that Bryson guy weren’t paying very good attention.” She inhaled deeply and then said, “I had plenty of time to go through your whole room. I wasn’t quiet about it, and nobody came to stop me. No one at your ranch pays attention. And that’s why you morons almost got taken out by the Westland Pack. The end. Oh, and I need to stop by a grocery store.”
“For clothes and bathroom stuff?”
“Nope, for nipple piercing cream,” she said sarcastically.
Shaking his head, he muttered, “I wish I could throw you out that window.”
Summer laughed and stared at his erection, pressing against the zipper of his jeans. “Let’s play How Long Can Wesley Keep a Boner.”
With a growl, Wes reached into the back seat and dragged up an old flannel coat that smelled like Old Spice, cow fur, hay, and Wes. He settled it over his lap and muttered, “Go to sleep.”
“Are you talking to me or your dick?”
The steering wheel creaked under his tightening grip. He looked so defeated.
Feeling happier than she had in months, years perhaps, Summer hit the butt-warmer button of the passenger seat, wrapped her arms around her knees, and looked at the beautiful woods blurring by her window.
This was good. It was a way of gaining closure. Her therapist had said this would be great for her wolf, to see that her Maker wasn’t a monster. That she didn’t have to be defensive for the rest of her life. That she could cope and heal and move on.
The Maker of Wolf was just a person who’d made bad decisions.
Yay for emotional growth.
Chapter Three
Wes couldn’t stop looking at her. He could barely keep his eyes on the road. She was curled into a ball, head on the console, arms wrapped around her middle. She was growling softly with each breath. To human ears, it would sound like quiet snoring, but he knew better. Even sleeping, her wolf felt the need to let everyone know to back off.
Damage. He’d damaged a wolf so badly, she could never appear vulnerable, even when she was unconscious.
Jesus, Summer was beautiful.
The rumble strips roared under his right tires. He jerked the truck back into his lane and held his breath, waiting for Summer to wake up. But she didn’t. And he could see the exhaustion so easy now in the evening light with her face relaxed—the deep bags under her eyes and the hollowness of her face. The sharp cheekbones that had been hidden by healthy weight before he’d ruined her fuckin’ life.
A therapist. God, what she must’ve been going through to trust someone like that. It was a move of desperation he’d never seen or heard of a shifter ever doing before. Shifters were a secret. The animals had deep instincts to take their existence to the grave, to protect themselves and their own kind. At least the sane ones. The ones that went crazy with bloodlust were the risks. They didn’t think straight, and if they got too close to exposure by hunting people? It was the other packs’ jobs to put them down.
Was Summer one of them? Was that where she was headed? As much as he wanted to think not, he was a realist.