Page 46 of To Challenge a Wolf

“Viv?” His voice quavered.

“Why on earth do you think I’ve looked for ten years? Do you think it was a hobby? An unsolved puzzle, like those people who listen to cold case podcasts and try to solve them?”

“I…yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“Well, you weren’t a hobby, and you weren’t a puzzle. You were the only friend I told when my favorite TV actress responded to my fan letter, when my cat disappeared, when I overheard our dads talking vampire business that scared the living daylights out of me. You were my Jamie, and I wanted you back.”

He didn’t respond. He was motionless as a statue. Then he said just above a whisper, “The night I left, Stone tried to kill me. I told him I wouldn’t kill for him, and he tried to kill me.”

She turned in his arms and wrapped hers around him. She ached for everything he’d survived, yet… “I’m so grateful. So, so grateful you’re alive.” And she found the words she most wanted him to hear. “Rhett, just give me a chance. Just try with me, try our very best and see what happens.”

“You’d do that knowing…?”

“That you’re a wolf? That you might bump into a woman in the coffee shop, and suddenly your brain will be on fire to protect her and build a life with her and make pups with her?”

He growled, a harsher sound than she’d heard from him all night.

“What? It could happen, couldn’t it?”

“I don’t like hearing it from you,” he rumbled. “Not from you, about some other woman.”

“Well, can’t that count for something?”

He was quiet a long minute. Then he said in a husky tone that sent fire into her veins, “I want you, Vivian. To be with you.”

“In case you didn’t notice,” she said, “it’s mutual.”

“But it’s been part of me…ten years.”

“What has?”

“Knowing Stone told me mates didn’t exist because…I guess because he wanted nothing left to distract me from becoming what he wanted. But he was a liar about that too. All this time I’ve spent knowing mates do exist, but they’re not us, and I’ll never have you. When you showed up here, I…”

“You were furious,” she said.

“You just showed up like it was…easy. But it wasn’t. Seeing you again was like an earthquake.”

“You missed me.” She could hardly say the words aloud. They were strategy-changing. Life-changing. “You thought about me, and you missed me, and you did nothing about it.”

“You’re not mine,” he said, so quietly she nearly didn’t hear him.

“Unbelievable. Most rebellious wolf on the planet, delivered beat-downs to six alphas, and you’re going to let fate have the final say about us.”

He let out a low growl of challenge.

“Prove me wrong. Forget fate. Be with me because you want to be.”

His growl faded. She knew this silence, could sense even in the darkness that he was thinking at hyper-speed, sifting through answers and problems and possibilities. At last he said, “I told you, I’m not a normal wolf. I’m too screwed up for this.”

“Well, guess what. I find that insulting. I get to choose for myself, and I choose you. All you have to do is choose me back.”

He was quiet a long time. At last he said, voice half-husky and half-brusque, “Might be fun, bucking fate.”

“Now you’re talking.” She pushed his chest lightly, then corralled him with both arms around his waist when he tried to step back. “We’re going to make a total mess of this. Are you ready to give it our best shot?”

He answered her with a kiss that left her feeling as though she stood outside, not in the chill of October, but in the heat of July.

Twelve

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