Page 17 of Wolf Reborn

Miles had the right to not choose him, and the possibility that he would exercise it was nerve-wracking.

Also, if he’d admitted to the pack that it took him half an hour to pick out black jeans and a green sweater, they’d have laughed at him. Miles had always liked the sweater, not that Gavin thought a piece of clothing was going to tip the scale in his favor.

Either the lying had been too much, or it hadn’t.

Once he was in the car, he was set on his course. There was no more turning back, no more doubt. He’d made the choice, and it was done. So he didn’t dither over the route or spend a lot of time sitting in his car when he arrived.

If nothing else, it was too damn cold to sit around in a car he’d turned off. He didn’t know how Miles had done it, though he supposed that people from the area were more acclimated to the weather than his little pack.

Gods, it was thirty degrees out lately, and locals were still wandering around in short sleeves and sandals.

He dragged himself up the stairs to Miles’s apartment and rang the bell, head down, then focused on his own breathing. There was no reason to jump to conclusions about how things would go. Miles had always surprised him. It was one of his favorite things about the man.

The door opened to reveal a half-dressed Miles, buttoning up his uniform and looking harried.

Gavin frowned. This was not part of his plan. He was supposed to invite Miles out to dinner, sweet-talk him over some ridiculously weak tea and tiramisu, and then beg him to understand. He couldn’t say all that in the face of Miles getting ready for work, though. All that came out was, “You don’t work Thursday nights.”

That earned him a distracted smile as Miles waved him in, wandering away from the door.

It seemed like a good sign, overall. If Miles weren’t willing to hear him out, he’d have told him to shove off. Miles was straightforward like that; it was one of the things Gavin liked (loved) about him. Surprising and straightforward. It seemed impossible, but there it was.

“Brown flaked on another shift,” Miles called from the kitchen. “You’d think if a guy gets all the way through the training, he’s prepared to do the job, but apparently not.”

Gavin scowled at that. Deputy Brown had been into the shop, and he didn’t like the guy. He didn’t have a rational reason for the dislike—or at least, he hadn’t. Now, the man was ruining his plans. “They don’t have enough backup?”

Miles came back out of the kitchen, a granola bar in his hand. “Nope. With Martinez out on maternity leave, that means we’re dangerously understaffed. It’s a small town, ba—” Miles paused in the middle of calling him “babe,” a nickname he’d been using off and on for months, and his face twisted with something like regret.

“Miles—” Gavin started, but Miles cut him off with a shake of his head and one raised hand. Gavin swallowed hard. This was it. This was where Miles told him to lose his number.

But then Miles stepped into his personal space, looking deep into his eyes. It wasn’t adoring or sexy, but serious. Subdued. “You came to talk. About—about the things we need to talk about. Right?”

Gavin nodded. He wasn’t sure how to follow that up. It was what he’d come about. Should he blurt it out? Wait to be prodded?

“I want to have this conversation.” Miles said, stuffing the granola bar in his pocket and grabbing his utility belt. “I think... if nothing else, I think we owe it to each other to have this conversation.”

Well, that didn’t bode well. It sounded a lot like, “We need to talk,” and Gavin had known they needed to talk, but in this case, it felt like a precursor to goodbye. In that moment, Gavin finally realized how much he didn’t want it to be that—how much he wanted Miles to stay.

“But?”

Miles’s lips twisted in a concerned frown. “But nothing. I want to stay, but even if we weren’t understaffed, I couldn’t beg off the extra shift. There’s a kid out there on the mountain.”

“There’s... there’s what? Someone’s missing?”

“Not exactly.” Miles finished with his belt and grabbed his uniform coat. “Some resort employees saw a little kid climbing this morning on the north side of the highway. They said he was alone and couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. They tried to stop him, but he ran off.”

A kid.

Lyndon.

It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? A nine-year-old couldn’t get from California to Colorado on his own.

But Graham had proven that someone with the odds stacked against them could do incredible things, even if he’d been quite a bit older than Lyndon.

“Do you need help?” Gavin asked, and he wasn’t sure if he was hoping for a yes or a no.

Miles shook his head. “I mean, yes, obviously, but it doesn’t work that way.” He paused and bit his lip, uncertainty in his eyes, before he turned to pick up his badge. “I guess it’d probably be nice to have someone with your, uh, skills, working with us. But that’s against regulations.”

Gavin nodded, trying to look understanding when in reality, his mind was going a mile a minute, already having left the apartment. Then he shook his head and turned back to Miles, focusing back on the matter at hand. “We’re going to talk. You—you still want to do that?”

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