Page 35 of What a Wolf's Heart Decides

She sighed and turned toward an antique looking chest of drawers with a large mirror that reflected the entire room—and the disheveled female in plaid pajamas.

Ugh, she could not let Bard catch her like this. Approaching the mirror, she pushed her hair away from her face, smoothing the curls. She could pull off a decent blowout with a hair dryer, but she’d been too tired to bother with it last night. As a result, her hair had dried in a riot of light brown curls—a look only Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman could pull off.

Haley pivoted and went to her suitcase. What she really needed was a hair tie. It was the only way to contain—

Record needle scratch. Absently, she let her arms fall to her sides, her hair tumbling down her back once more. She barely noticed, because her gaze was fixed on the single sheet of paper sitting atop her suitcase, the bold handwriting visible even from a distance.

Bard had left a note? That meant he’d been in her room.

While she slept.

Her heart pounded. She glanced over her shoulder at the rumpled bed, then down at her pajamas and bare toes. Oh god, how long had he been in the room? Had she snored? She’d been so exhausted last night, she hardly remembered stumbling from the bathroom to the bed.

What an absolute ass! He could have slipped the note under the door, but no, he had to invade her privacy when she was at her most vulnerable. Creep.

Quickly, her embarrassment was replaced with a rising anger. “Let’s see what the creep has to say,” she muttered, striding to the suitcase and snatching the note from the top.

Bard’s handwriting was as straightforward and no-nonsense as the man himself, with dark, heavy slashes of block print.

Miss Michaels — I was called into work unexpectedly.

She stopped reading. What did he mean by “called into work?” An Alpha’s “work” was leading his pack and running his territory. “Called in” was odd phrasing, as if an employer had ordered him to report to an office or something. Then again, maybe he meant there was an emergency within the pack.

She shrugged and bent her head over the note once more.

Unfortunately, our meeting will have to wait.

I’ll return in the early evening. In the meantime, make yourself at home.

— BB

P.S. If you’re considering leaving the territory, don’t. Every wolf in Elder Lake answers to me, and I’ve ordered them not to help you.

She clenched her jaw.

P.P.S. Also, the temperature falls below freezing at night. You would never survive a trip south on your own.

Now, her jaw dropped open. Was he some kind of mind reader? She balled up the note and tossed it into the corner.

No, more likely he’d just guessed what her next move might be. If the whole town was populated by werewolves, and he’d forbidden them to lend her aid, her only recourse was to strike out on her own. It wasn’t like she could steal a car or borrow someone’s phone.

Phone.

There had to be a phone in the house somewhere. She could call Max and tell him what happened. Why the hell hadn’t she thought of it before? The New York Alpha always knew what to do in a crisis.

She turned on her heel, rushed to the door, and yanked it open. Even though Bard’s note said he was gone, her heart still thumped hard as she stuck her head in the hall and looked it up and down. Everything was quiet. Still. The sort of stillness that only came when there wasn’t another soul in a building.

Buoyed by that thought, she slipped into the hallway and hit the stairs. There was bound to be a phone in the study. If Bard was like any other Alpha, he probably took all his important calls there—

Someone pounded on the front door just as she reached the bottom of the steps.

Her breath caught, and she froze. The door was just ahead, its forest green paint broken only by a small, rectangular window. It was positioned perfectly for a man to look out.

Or in.

“Hello?” The pounding rang out again. “Haley Michaels?”

She stared at the door. Whoever was out there, it wasn’t Bard. The voice was far too friendly to be his. Besides, why would he knock on his own door? He certainly had no problem waltzing into occupied bedrooms.

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