Page 67 of To Challenge a Wolf

“What do you want?” he growled. His hands were tight, white-knuckled on the wheel. His jaw was tight. His breaths were tight.

She ground her teeth right along with him. It was supposed to work. Talking to him openly, asking for him to be honest… Rhett was an honest wolf by nature. This should be working.

“You said you wanted me,” he said quietly. “Fate aside. Past aside.”

“I do.”

“Then I need this to be enough, Viv. What I can give. This is it. I can’t give more than…than what I have.”

“You have your heart, Rhett. I’m asking for your heart.”

“And I told you already, I don’t have one. Now am I still enough?”

She blinked rapidly for a few seconds. No crying. Of course Rhett was enough for her, if he didn’t withhold his heart, if he let her hold it and cherish it and touch his scars. But if he refused…if he never let her hold him…if she had to live the rest of her life hearing him insist his heart was lost while seeing the evidence of its depth in so many things he said and did.

A low growl began, deep in his chest, but it strangled in his throat, made his next words sound painful. “You can say no. You know that, right?”

“I’m not saying no,” she said. “I’m telling you you’re wrong. Your heart is there, beating strong and good behind the armor, behind all your locked doors. And I’m asking you to trust me with it.”

She saw him, a glimpse from fifteen years ago, as clear before her face as the natural beauty out the windshield in front of her. Rhett, no more than a pup, crouched in a corner of the room, eyes flat and body trembling, ready to be attacked. Expecting to be attacked. His fists were raised, arms shielding his chest from blows that could kill him. Protecting his heart.

“Trust me, Rhett.”

“I do,” he said. “But I think the wolf you really love was lost a long time ago, even before I left.”

“Am I allowed to think otherwise? For both of us, for now?”

“Not if it’s going to hurt you.”

“Right now the thing that would hurt me is giving up on what I know you still have inside you. What we need to find again. To prove you wrong.”

He gave a broken laugh that held more heart than he believed he had. She wanted to point this out, but she would only send him deeper into himself.

She let silence settle over the truck cab. She didn’t allow herself to break it when it deepened, began to throb. She’d pushed with everything she had. She’d wrestled with the buckles on his armor and taken all her tools to the locks. And still Rhett had kept himself protected. Worse, he’d told her there was nothing to protect. Nothing for her to fight for.

He couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be.

His phone buzzed. He fished it out, woke it with the face ID, and handed it to her. “Is it April?”

She tapped the text notification.

April:After ten-and-a-half hours of labor, baby boy is safely delivered! Kolson Michael Reed, 7 lbs. 2 oz. Ember worked hard and is a tired, happy new mama. She’s doing well, as is our sweet little pup. Congratulations, Ember and Aaron! And congratulations to Quinn on his new cousin!

She read the text aloud, and Rhett’s growl held pride and satisfaction. One more example…but she couldn’t start listing evidence of his dear wolf heart every time he showed it. Not aloud, anyway.

“It’s a fairly detailed text,” she said. “I mean, to send a bachelor.”

Rhett shrugged. “She’d copy it to everybody.”

“Just assuming everyone was equally interested?”

“The pup is pack to me. As are his parents. Of course I’m interested.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “Hey, Viv, would you send a reply?”

The whiplash from their previous topic began to fade. True, Rhett tended to be immune to conversational whiplash, especially when he didn’t care for the previous topic anyway. But his ability to recover from something so raw as if he’d never felt the rawness…

“Viv?”

“Sure, I’ll send it. You dictate, so it doesn’t sound like me.”

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