Page 12 of Wolf Lost

Even without the money and the house and all the fancy things they’d been able to afford, that was Kismet. It was his ordinary life, just a soldier, injured and dumped by the army, living with friends he had made in his unit. But he wasn’t just an injured soldier; he was a goddamn werewolf. And his friends weren’t just friends; they were his brothers. It was more than anything he could have imagined as a child.

He snatched a blanket off the top of the sofa, a ridiculously soft chenille thing, and tossed it over his shoulder before heading out onto the deck. When he got outside, he draped the blanket over Sawyer, startling him momentarily.

“Is this really normal for May?” Sawyer asked, turning toward Dez, still shivering despite both Dez’s fleece jacket and now the blanket.

Dez was wearing a black sleeveless tank and no jacket, but he’d been raised in a colder climate than Southern California. “They tell me it gets warmer in June, but it’s never going to be as warm as you’re used to. And in the winter—” He broke off, lowering himself slowly into the chair nearest Sawyer, and then motioning out to the mountain behind the house. “We’re two miles from a ski resort. There’s going to be snow. A lot of snow.”

Sawyer looked out at the trees, his brow furrowing as though bothered by something. “Why did the three of you move here? I mean, tell me it’s none of my business or whatever, but none of you are from here, right?”

Dez shook his head. “Ash is from California, like you. Gavin’s from Connecticut. I was born in Nebraska.”

“Don’t tell me this is a happy medium,” Sawyer pursed his lips and turned to look at Dez.

It was nowhere near anything, or any of their homes, so the question made sense. Instead of answering right away, he cleared his throat. His cheeks were hot in the cool May evening. “We, ah, we were drinking. I’d say a little, but you know how much it takes for a wolf to get drunk.”

“Little binge, then?” Sawyer asked with a grin, then made a face that looked like he was remembering his own adventures with too much alcohol.

Dez remembered the night vividly, despite the fact that he’d had more than a bottle of whiskey. “None of us had a home we wanted to go to, or family we wanted to see. So we grabbed Ash’s darts, put up a map and threw them.”

It had been Gavin’s idea, as most things were. He’d unrolled the huge map of the US and used two of the darts to tack it up. It had curled in at the bottom corners, but Dez had figured they didn’t want to end up in Alaska anyway.

He pulled himself out of the past and turned back to Sawyer. “Gavin got some place in Kansas, and no one wanted to go there. Ash sucks at darts, and he got the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Me, I decided that werewolf reflexes were too good, so I turned around and whipped it behind my head.”

“Kismet?”

Dez laughed, a little embarrassed at the memory. “Damn thing didn’t stick in the wall. I hit it with the wrong end. But yeah. It left a dent in the map right on top of Kismet.”

Dez hadn’t grown up with money, and he’d never spent any time looking for vacation spots, so he hadn’t even known what the place was when Gavin had read it off the map. The look on his face when he’d said it, all nostalgia and mild chagrin, had told Dez what the place was: a relic of Gavin’s rich childhood, and one he was ashamed he could no longer afford.

Well, Dez had decided he wasn’t going to let his brother be shamed by the fact that he’d chosen his morals over his family’s money, so Kismet it was. It was the most expensive place he’d ever been in his life. When the realtor told him how much the house cost, he’d thought maybe the guy had accidentally left out the decimal point. Even milk was expensive; or maybe it had gone up while he’d been in Afghanistan.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Kismet was everything they’d wanted in a new home. The house was perfect. And the old bakery from that morning, with its unusual neighbor, peeling linoleum, and too-old appliances was probably perfect too.

“Sounds like kismet to me,” Sawyer joked. It was either weak or a dad joke, but either way, maybe it had been kismet, or destiny, or whatever a person wanted to call it. Here they were, newly moved into town when Sawyer arrived in desperate need of the kind of help they could provide.

When Sawyer looked up, Dez shrugged at him. “Maybe. Seems like a nice town so far. If the guys could settle on a coffee shop already, it’ll be better.”

“Coffee, huh? Starbucks doesn’t have that on lock?”

Dez shrugged. “I didn’t care. Gavin thought we should start a business. Ash reads a lot of romance novels, and apparently everyone meets in coffee shops these days.”

“Sure,” Sawyer agreed sarcastically. “I’m sure that’s the only reason you guys decided to sell hot drinks in the middle of freaking Antarctica.”

Dez couldn’t help but chuckle. It was a little silly, but when Gavin had said business, Asher had blurted, “A coffee shop!” And that had been that. Dez was fine with it, as long as no one expected him to drink the stuff. He glared down at his hand, stretching it and curling up the fingers and then relaxing them, one after the other. He probably couldn’t make it, either. He wondered what use he’d be.

He looked back up to Sawyer with as much of a smile as he could muster. “You asked.”

“I did. And you tell a pretty good story, even if you’re full of it.” Sawyer leaned toward Dez, eyes skimming over his arms, and unless he was much mistaken, there was some appreciation there. “Aren’t you cold?”

Dez gave a dismissive wave. “I was born in Nebraska. I know how to deal with cold.”

Sawyer gave an indelicate snort, then inched his chair over next to Dez’s. Before Dez could ask what the hell he was doing, he tossed the blanket over so both of them were covered. They sat there together in silence for a long time, watching the stars.

9

Keep the Faith

Dez had a beautiful smile. That was what Sawyer was still thinking about around midnight, when Ash led him to one of the extra bedrooms on the first floor.

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