Page 57 of To Challenge a Wolf

“No problem. Enjoy your Sunday evening and don’t worry about me, okay?”

“I will now. Thank you.”

She set her phone beside her plate, where her venison burger and loaded fries had begun to cool. Rhett gave a quiet rumble, audible to no one but her—and Trevor, probably.

“Careless of her,” he said.

“We all make mistakes.” Vivian shrugged. “Tomorrow I’ll move to the closest hotel, wherever that is.”

This time he only grunted.

This wolf could be so ridiculous. “Rhett, it’s fine. I’m on vacation. Let me know your schedule tomorrow and Tuesday, and I’ll drive back over. Honestly I’ve got no business staying a full week anyway. That’s a lot of hotel money, whether I’m at Julianne Mitchell’s or in a Best Western.”

Her peripheral vision had noticed Kelsey and Trevor leaving a minute ago, but now they detoured toward her and Rhett.

“Hey,” Trevor said. He shoved his hands into his back pockets. “I wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping.”

“But?” Rhett cocked one eyebrow and leaned back in the booth like a mob boss entertaining a lackey whose proposition he’dalready ruled out. Good grief, the wolf was intimidating when he wanted to be. Both Trevor and Kelsey looked unfazed, and in this moment Vivian wanted to cheer them on.

“But,” Trevor said with a gesture toward his mate, “we’ve got a really great pullout sofa bed. I built it to fit me, so you’d be comfortable on it, Vivian.”

“Wait, what?” She couldn’t help darting a look at Rhett. Surely this wasn’t the suggestion he’d anticipated from them, but his tiny smirk said it was. “Are you sure you want me? I mean, you just met me.”

“You said maybe a week? Sounds fun to me,” Kelsey said.

“Well…”

She tried to think of a reason to say no. Of course she wanted to save money. Of course she wanted to get to know members of Rhett’s pack. But this was the sort of offer she’d never make herself. She enjoyed having company in her apartment. She was a fairly expert hostess. But at the end of the evening, she wanted everybody out and her space to herself again.

“If you feel weird about it, that’s okay too,” Kelsey said.

“It’s not that…exactly.”

“Tell you what. I’ll give you my number, and you can sleep on it. Just let me know in the morning if I’ll be seeing you before, say, nine that night.”

They exchanged numbers, and as Trevor and Kelsey walked away hand-in-hand, Vivian shook her head. She looked up from her phone to find herself under scrutiny. “What?”

“You’re going to take them up on it.” A slow smile lifted his mouth. For the first time she recognized how hard his smile had to work to warm his eyes. Dirtbag Stone.

“I’m thinking about it,” she said.

“That means you’re going to do it. When you’renotgoing to, you know straight off.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense.” Or was it?

They ate quietly for a few minutes. The fries—smothered in cheese, green onions, and bacon bits—were so delicious Vivian couldn’t stop groaning her delight. She had to force herself to stop devouring them long enough to taste her burger, and then she sat back in the booth and closed her eyes.

“Glad you like it,” Rhett said with a smirk.

“This should not be called the bistro burger. It should be called the blissful burger.”

He laughed, a rumbly sort of sound that held nothing sharp or sarcastic. Such a rare sound, she’d nearly forgotten it.

By now Trevor and Kelsey had driven a few miles away. She said, “Rhett, how much does your pack know? I mean, do they even know you grew up near Charleston? Or are you this mysterious figure without a past altogether?”

He’d ordered a baked potato rather than fries. He took several bites before answering. “Malachi knows.”

He was avoiding the real question. She finished her burger and let him finish his. Then, with a few fries left to savor, she said, “Other than Malachi, Rhett. What do the rest of them know about you, from before you came to them?”

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