Page 27 of Scarred Resolve

“How many guests would you like?” he asked, something mischievous in his tone as he pulled me closer to him.

“As few as possible,” I said with a poke to his chest. “You hear me? Less than fifty if we can. Smaller, even. Twenty-five.”

“Of course. Something small…” He leaned down and kissed my neck, leaving a trail as he went to my ear, his hot breath giving me goosebumps. “Something…intimate.”

Fear was forgotten as his mouth reached mine. There was always something he could do with a simple touch, a single kiss, or a well-delivered come-on. I was on fire for him. I started to play with the buttons on his shirt, making him chuckle and pull away.

“Maybe not out here. Trees aren’t comfortable,” he murmured even though I saw the same fire in his eyes and could smell it in the air between us.

“Good point. They would all tease me about leaves in my hair,” I said, knowing they wouldn’t. Not a single werewolf, including Landon and Dirk, would dare.

We both smiled at the absurd idea of it.

He held my hand, and since I didn’t want to let go, I followed him when he started walking back toward our home along the edge of my territory. After a long silence and my house slowly starting to peek through the trees, his hand squeezed mine, and we stopped walking before anyone could notice we were so close.

“It’s okay to be scared, Jacky. Even after everything we’ve faced and been through, it’s okay to be afraid. It doesn’t make you weak.”

“I know,” I said with a smile, but for some reason, Heath’s eyes grew sad again.

I didn’t understand why until I was inside and alone.

“I know,” I repeated to myself.

And caught the hint of the lie I was telling myself.

12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Davor landed without fanfare, and Niko picked him up while I prepared for a third werecat to be in my territory. A quick meeting with the pack had been called in my living room so Davor could see all of them, and they could see him. It was a safety thing, and none of us had the energy or time to deal with a dust-up because someone didn’t recognize someone else. We had done it for Zuri and Niko as well, and though the energy of the meeting was different every time, it always worked out.

“He’s only going to be here for a day,” Kody muttered.

“Yeah, but it’s Jacky’s family. We might as well do this in case he visits again in the future,” Shamus replied, his verbal shrug matching his physical one. I smiled at his good nature, grateful for him in the pack. Kody was his son and still young, and while he would jump to the moon for Heath and his father, he wasn’t as experienced as he thought in the little nuances and bigger pictures many of us tried to deal with every day.

I considered it for a second, then smirked to myself. I knew a lot of old—veryold—people who couldn’t see the bigger picture every time, either.

“I think it’s nice. We didn’t meet the entire family when they showed up for…” Stacy trailed off, and I watched her glance at Arlo, who was sitting next to Benjamin on the floor by my big windows.

“There were too many of them to safely do it,” I said quickly, not wanting anyone to drag up Arlo’s ordeal to fill in where Stacy trailed off. Arlo was doing well, but no one liked to bring up that incident. “Plus, there were members of my family there I didn’t want to introduce to the pack, not at that time.”

“Which ones?” Kody asked, perking up.

“Don’t ask Jacky to talk about specific family members in a way that would disparage them,” Heath said, not looking up from the newspaper he was reading. There was no heat in his words, sounding like an automated reminder. “It could cause problems for her with them. They are her family.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Kody said, not looking chastised but reminded of some discussion they had previously had about the topic.

I shrugged at Shamus, who shrugged back. I knew Heath had some rules, but I didn’t bother knowing all of them. Most of them were done for my comfort, security, or privacy. I rolled with it, knowing it wasn’t just for me, either. It was for the safety of the pack. It would be naïve to think we could trust everyone in my family when it came to the pack. Some of them had already made it clear that they would destroy the pack if they thought it was the best course of action.

“It’s no problem, but you have to be careful, especially with more of her family around,” Heath replied, still not looking up from his paper. He was projecting a calm that the other werewolves couldn’t ignore. Totally relaxed and uninterested, he was telling them that this wasn’t a big deal. Davor was coming into town, then I was leaving on werecat business with both of my brothers. The pack wasn’t told what was going on, and theywouldn’t be. There was no reason to rile them up. Everything they had seen unfolding over the last day was swept aside with partial truths and dancing around the actual situation.

Landon and Dirk weren’t inside, though. Because they did know the situation, they were hanging out in the security building together because they didn’t have quite the level of control Heath had when it came to keeping cool for the pack as a whole.

I felt Niko and Davor enter my territory and turned in that direction.

“They’re almost back,” I announced, trying to stay as calm as Heath was. If my life had a doomsday clock, it was now one minute to midnight. Knowing I couldn’t hide it well enough, I stepped out onto the porch, only to be followed by a distinct gait.

“You feeling okay?” Ranger asked me as he leaned on the fencing next to me.

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