Page 39 of Wolf Reborn

“Okay,” Miles agreed. He paused a moment to think things through. Gavin kept dancing away from him. The pack had kept their distance at first, but now they’d let Miles in with reckless abandon.

What did Miles want if things didn’t work out between himself and Gavin?

Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He couldn’t imagine giving up on Gavin. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not after a thousand missed opportunities, or a thousand more three steps back days.

Damn it all, he was in love with Gavin.

“Am I allowed to be in the pack?” he finally asked. Instantly, Gavin nodded. “Good. Then that’s what I want. I want to be in the pack. The Second Chance pack?”

“The Kismet pack,” Gavin corrected. “We’re the only werewolves in Kismet, and it’s our territory. Most packs go by the last name of their alpha, or their founding family, but that didn’t feel right for us.”

“I want to be part of the Kismet pack,” Miles finished and looked at Gavin expectantly.

For a fraction of a second, he was terrified Gavin was going to laugh and yank the offer back, but that was silly. Instead, Gavin gave him that soft smile. “Then you’re a part of the Kismet pack. We’re happy to have you.”

Miles wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe the feeling of Gavin in his chest flared brighter than before. Even more, half a dozen other tiny, distant emotions popped into being inside him. Without more than a thought, he could tell them all apart. Each member of the Kismet pack had a place in his heart, even little baby Paige, sleeping soundly in her crib downstairs.

Those little blips of energy in place, it was easy to know that what he had with Gavin wasn’t a pack bond. It was too big, too strong.

And surprising precisely no one, Gavin was still stressed. Miles wrapped his arms around Gavin’s middle and tugged him down onto the bed until they lay there together, staring at the ceiling. “There’s something else. Something that was bothering you this afternoon.”

Gavin gave a deep sigh.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“What? No. No, you’ve been perfect. You are perfect.” The sadness that opened up in Gavin at the words were a surprise, even if Miles already knew something was wrong.

He turned and wrapped an arm around Gavin’s chest, kissing his bare shoulder. “So why does me being perfect suck for you?”

Gavin sighed and brushed his cheek along the top of Miles’s head. “It sure made it harder not to just grab you and drag you up here,” he said, tone falsely light, and Miles knew his two steps forward for the day were up. That was okay. It had been a forward day, overall, and that mattered most.

Besides, it was hard to complain, lying there in a king-sized bed as soft as a cloud, the man he loved lying by his side. Accepting him. He curled up next to Gavin, tucking his face into the man’s shoulder, and stopped worrying, at least for one more day.

20

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)

A week into the arrangement, everyone started calling the room “Miles and Gavin’s room.” Gavin had pouted and pretended offense, but no one had been fooled.

At two weeks, they had taken Miles’s days off to go retrieve everything from his apartment, and he discussed breaking the lease with his landlord, since there was no reason to keep paying for an apartment he was never going back to.

When they had tucked the last knickknack into place on Gavin’s shelving unit, Miles had given him a soft kiss, and they had tumbled into bed together.

As far as Gavin could tell, there were only two problems left in his life.

The first, and most important, was that Lyndon was still missing. The human authorities would have given up on finding him by now if his disappearance had been reported; a child gone a month had little real chance of being found. Maybe a werewolf had a better chance at survival than a human child, but the longer he was missing, the worse it was.

Gavin didn’t know why, but he was convinced the boy was in Kismet, or coming to Kismet.

In Kismet.

He was the boy who had been spotted a whole month ago climbing the mountain. Why hadn’t he come to the pack? Had he gotten lost? Stuck in the storm? Died of hypothermia?

Instead of sitting around obsessing—or strategizing—Gavin went walking. Constantly. Along the highway, down the passable trails and back roads, wherever he could get to despite the fact that the snow was piling up.

Unfortunately, it was like that first blizzard had opened a floodgate, and while it hadn’t gotten as bad again, it hadn’t let up enough for them to retrieve Miles’s car. Dez had taken the sheriff and a mechanic down to inspect it, and they had determined that it was going to be a loss, too damaged to be saved.

Miles kept telling them it was good, that this much snow meant money for the resort, for the town—heck, for the shop. And that was certainly true. They’d been forced to fill everyone’s schedule, the whole pack working as much as they were willing and able.

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