Page 65 of The Strongest Wolf

I don’t know how much time passes with me leaning my back against the cabin door, and my head tilted up, but it’s long enough for the soles of my feet to get cold from the wooden floors. Somehow, slipping on shoes when I knew Galen was leaving didn’t seem important at the time.

With the way that my eyes are burning and the tickle in my throat, I know what will happen the moment I lower my head.

When my nose itches, I swallow hard as I press my back harder against the door, willing myself not to cry.

Several minutes later, longer than it should take to get control of myself, I lower my head and take in the empty cabin.

My gaze skates over the bed with the rumpled sheets and Galen’s wild forest and new leather scent covering every inch of it.

Don’t, Sierra. Just don’t.

So I focus on the coffee cups on the bedside table. I have a sudden flashback of him pressing a white mug of steaming hot coffee into my hand because he’d woken before I had.

“Here, little wolf,” he murmured, kissing me lightly on the lips. “Sorry for making you wake up so early.”

But he hadn’t made me wake up at all. As if I was going to let him leave while I slept through it. As if I could sleep through it at all.

My attention shifts to the cozy all-wood kitchen, which is little more than open shelving, a wooden counter, a two-seater dining table, a refrigerator, and a stove.

It’s not a mess, since Galen made it his mission to cook and do everything over the last couple of weeks, but it could do with a pick-up.

Cleaning will keep me distracted, at least for a little while, because Eden saw enough from this morning to know that I’m not okay. Eventually, she’s going to come and check on me. I’d rather she didn’t find me curled up on the couch in my sweats, crying into a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.

Even if that’s exactly what I want to do.

I’m halfway to the refrigerator to dig out the ice cream—never mind that it’s still morning—when I halt.

“No. Pull yourself together, Sierra. This is not you,” I whisper.

But the thought of staying in this cabin alone for… potentially forever doesn’t appeal to me either. I never even bothered to ask Galen what was going on in his pack. Presumably, shifters were causing trouble, but whatkindof trouble?

And what if it takes longer than a few days for him to resolve?

What if he doesn’t survive it?

Plastic creaks ominously. I force myself to loosen my hold on the cell phone before I do so much damage to it, that even if Galen called, he wouldn’t be able to because his phone would be in pieces.

“Clean, Sierra,” I murmur beneath my breath. “Keep your hands busy.”

Back in Dexter, cleaning was never my favorite thing to do. I liked the results of it: having a tidy cabin, fresh laundry, and clean counters. The actual cleaning itself…? Yeah, not so fun.

“And put the phone on the other side of the room so you’re not tempted to keep checking it every five minutes,” I tell myself, my voice firmer than it was before.

I make myself cross over to the bedside table, put the phone down, and pick up the empty coffee cups. Though not before double-checking that Galen hasn’t called already.

He hasn’t, because he’s barely been gone for ten minutes. What is wrong with you?

So, just as I focused on cleaning back in Dexter to distract myself from Galen in the shower, I put my head down, close my mind and my heart to what’s going to happen between us, and I bust my ass cleaning.

But the problem is that a one-bedroom cabin takes far less time to clean than the Stone pack farmhouse. A lot less.

An hour later, with the bed, floors, kitchen, bathroom, and every object cleaned and dusted to within an inch of its life, I run out of jobs.

So I decide to clean myself, telling myself that I won’t do the one thing I’d hoped I’d left behind in Dexter.

But the second I step under the stinging hot shower and steam swirls around me, a habit I thought had died rears its ugly head.

The first tear burns a little as it falls. Even though I’m alone in the cabin with the front door closed, the bathroom door the same way, and the shower curtain blocking me from the world, I press my forehead against the tile, lower my head so water can stream over me, and let the rest of my tears fall.

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