Page 34 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

“Vanessa! Sweetie! Where are you?”

I knew I needed to call back, but I couldn’t. It was so hot, and the smoke was so thick. I couldn’t think. I needed to hide. Needed to be safe from the?—

“Are you okay?”

I jerked my head up sharply, knocking over half of the little teepee I had been building. Cursing under my breath, I tried to recover from the memory I had slipped into. While Leo was busy trying to regain his memories, I was trying to erase the ones that haunted me.

“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking about stuff.”

“More about work?”

Not really, but I gladly took the escape route. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I took a deep breath, settling myself and looking inward so I could answer that question honestly. I didn’t like lying to Leo, but I’d never told a single soul about that fateful night. “Right now, I’d like to build a fire.”

“I can do that.”

“Wecan do that,” I corrected gently.

The smile Leo sent me was so sweet it could have given me a cavity. I didn’t know how such a large, hulking man could make me feel so safe with a single facial expression, but he did. Together, we built a very small campfire. Anything too big would smoke and heat us out of the cave space, even if it was bigger than my own living room.

Once the fire was roaring, Leo and I moved to the chairs and watched the flames crackle. There was something hypnotic about it, soothing in its destruction, invigorating in its power. Fire was one of the many conundrums of nature. I’d feared it for a long time, which wasn’t exactly surprising. In fact, it was those high school bonfires that had first allowed me to see the good parts of it.

“It’s so nice to slow down and justbe,” I mused after a long stretch of silence. The quiet between Leo and me wasn’t uncomfortable. It just…was.

“I understand what you mean.”

“You do?”

Leo nodded. “I’m still figuring things out, but I do remember a time where I felt like there were never enough hours in the day. I was a leader, and I was so busy trying to make sure the members of my pack could live their lives and prosper that I forgot to take any time for myself. I was supposed to take a mate, have kids, you know all of that stuff, but it just felt like there wasn’t enough room for that.”

A leader, huh? For some reason, that made complete sense to me. Although he wasn’t the biggest talker, I’d always sensed a great intelligence behind Leo’s eyes. He was always learning, always observing, and he wasn’t afraid to ask questions—a trait I was particularly fond of.

“I can’t imagine being responsible for so many people’s lives,” I murmured, staring into the flames. Strange how something so beautiful had ruined my life.

At least, that’s what I used to think. Lately, however, it was hard not to feel like things were going all right for once. I had my garden, I had my cats, and although money was tight, we were about to go into a harvesting season, which meant I could really cut down on my grocery budget.

“Youareresponsible for lives. Yourself, your cats. Mine.”

“That doesn’t count,” I said quickly.

“Why not?”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

“I know some may discount your cats, but I see how you treat them. They’re your family.”

He was right, but I wasn’t used to people acknowledging it without judgment.

“They’re the family I found,” I murmured, flirting as close to the truth as I dared. “I lost the one I was supposed to have a long time ago.”

Leo seemed to know me so well, because he didn’t ask any questions. “So, we’re both missing things we’re supposed to have. My pack and your family.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

Maybe that was why we’d connected so easily. We had the same wounds, even if we got them in completely different ways.

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