Page 31 of Cowboy Wolf Christmas

Cheyenne didn’t know what it was she’d said or done that’d caused the moment to go so horribly wrong, but she knew something had changed. One moment Silas had been holding her, laying a gentle kiss to her belly that made her heart flutter both there and in her chest, a kiss so tender and sincere it left her emotions nearly as exposed as the rest of her. But he’d said he loved her, said it first even, and that should have been all that mattered, right?

She eased up on her elbows, where she laid across the kitchen island, watching as he tugged up his jeans and stepped away from her. When he’d told her last night that he wanted her to stay, she’d thought everything had been clear, direct and tailored to her needs. She’d thought when she finally worked up the courage to tell him today that she wanted to stay, that this,them,was more important to her than any other plan she’d ever had in place, she’d thought he would be elated, overjoyed even. And hehadbeen as he’d claimed her.

Until he wasn’t.

She was back to feeling confused, uncertain again.

Silas had pulled on his jacket now, gone out the kitchen’s side door and into the night without another word to her. Going after him was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

But what if he needed space?

Easing her way off the countertop, she tidied herself and the gigantic mess they’d made, allowing enough time that if he needed it, she wouldn’t be intruding. She was trying hard to be considerate, attentive to her mate’s needs. It didn’t come easy to her.

Her mate.Those words thrummed through her.

The thought had once filled her with fear. Fear of being alone. Fear that she’d never have this kind of growing love that’d bloomed between them. But now, the word only filled her with warmth, joy for the future ahead. A future she knew they could both have, if he’d put his own fear aside and let them, let fate be. Be themselves, weird and wild as it was.

She smiled a little at that, silently reclaiming that childhood insult for herself as she pulled on her jacket and headed out into the night.

In the twilight, the towering pines and bare firs of the winter forest blocked the view of the Montana sky, condensing their world until it felt a lot more manageable, small. Like the two of them were the only creatures here, in the soft, quiet sounds of the forest. Silas stood at the clearing edge, near where the cabin’s property was nestled among the trees. His back was toward her, but with instincts like his she had no doubt that he heard her soft footfalls in the snow as she approached.

They stood there like that for a long time. Him, looking out into the depths of the forest, like Mother Earth held all the answers to his woes in the wooded palm of her hand, and her watching him, unable to tear her eyes away from this man, this wolf who’d so quickly become the center of her universe, her guiding star.

Finally, when she’d stood alone with him in the silence long enough to make her presence, her quiet support clear, she whispered to him against the howl of the wind. “If I said something wrong, I’m sorry.”

Silas whirled around, catching her wrist where she’d reached to touch him in an instant. “Don’t talk like that,” he whispered back. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Not a goddamn thing.” He brought his head down and laid a gentle kiss on her gloved fingers. “There’s nothing you could do to me that’s worse than what I’ve already done to myself.”

Cheyenne shook her head. “I don’t understand what you mean.” She stepped closer to him then, pressed a hand to his chest. “If you don’t want children, it’s okay. When you asked me to stay, I just assumed and I-and I started thinking of what things would be like and—”

“I want that more than anything, Cheyenne,” he said, cutting her off before she could even fully entertain the thought. “Christmases with you, a family, if that’s what you want too. A life shared, even though, just you is more than enough.” He shook his head as he took his Stetson off, quickly running his fingers through his hair. “I’m a greedy bastard when it comes to you.”

Cheyenne shook her head. “I don’t think you’re greedy. I wish you wouldn’t talk that way about yourself. It isn’t fair.” The wind whistled through the pine branches in a chorus of winter night air.

“Isn’t it?” He placed his Stetson back on his head. “I finally find the one woman I want to spend my life with, standing by my side, but I can’t have her all because of the choices I made.”

Cheyenne frowned. “Silas, we’ve already talked about this; you’re a Grey Wolf. You swore it, the whole pack saw and—”

“—It’s not as simple as that, Cheyenne.” He turned toward her then, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Do you know why I didn’t want to make the trip to the Missoula pack?”

Cheyenne paused. She hadn’t really stopped to consider it. She didn’t ruminate on things like that. “Honestly, I didn’t much think about it. I tend to take things as they are, but if I had to guess I would have said it was because you didn’t want to be stuck with me?” She asked it as a question. But Silas was already shaking his head the moment she finished.

“Not at all. Not by long shot.”

“Then why didn’t you want to go?”

He placed his hands on the narrow lines of his hips, dipped his head before he looked up at her again. “Because I grew up there. At the Missoula subpack and it was the first time I’d been back to that ranch in fifteen years.”

At first, Cheyenne wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly. “What?” She searched his face again, uncertain what she’d find there or if she’d even interpret it accurately if shecouldread it. Man, he was handsome. Painfully beautiful. “But you were a Wild Eight. You’re a Grey Wolf now, but . . . ”

“I was before too,” he said. “Before I joined the Wild Eight.”

She’d been young then, a bit younger than him and Missoula was so far. She didn’t know every member of the pack and subpacks. Not personally. There were so many of them.

She laughed then. She couldn’t help it. “Silas, do you hear yourself? That means you are a Grey Wolf. You always have been too.” The truth of that settled into her gut, like the knowledge had always been there. Her pulse raced with the joy of it.

“I wasborna Grey Wolf,” he corrected. “I became a Wild Eight by choice, and I’ve never regretted it.” He shook his head. “Not until you.”

Cheyenne felt herself still.

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