Page 2 of The Protector’s Heart

He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, picking up her naturally sweet scent. She smelled like wildflowers to him and his beast. He forced himself to stay in his seat and not stalk to her and make sure everything was okay. She did not like wolves, because her ex-husband was a total whack-job wolf. He’d mistreated her and her son more often than he’d been kind to them. Even now, she was still technically married to him. According to Brynn, he refused to sign the divorce papers.

Malachi thought it was quite cruel of fate to give him a mate who hated what he was at the core of his being. He’d win her heart eventually, he was sure, but the problem was he couldn’t even get close to her without her defenses going up. He’d only been around her for a little over a month, but he was certain she was meant to be his mate. He just needed to convince her of that.

Turning his attention back to the monitors, he mentally flipped off whoever was in charge of werewolf matings and tried not to think about the alluring woman with the pretty brown eyes.

* * *

By the time the workday was over, Malachi was no closer to figuring out how to deal with Nila than he’d been the first day he met her, when she was crying in the closet of the doctors’ office because her ex had beaten up a teacher at her son Jack’s daycare when they’d refused to allow him to take the boy.

“Mal?” Brynn asked as he drove her home.

“I’m sorry, Brynn, what?”

“You’re like a hundred miles away. What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s Nila, right? Tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help.”

He looked at his alpha and she smiled encouragingly. “I just need her to see that I’m not like her ex.”

“Anyone with half a brain would know that. He’s a total nutcase.”

“She doesn’t want anything to do with me on principle. Her ex is a bad wolf, so for her, all wolves are bad. I can’t show her I’m different because she won’t even give me a second glance.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said.

“What?”

“When we were coming back from lunch today, she’d gone to have lunch with her son and came back a little before us. She stood at the front desk and stared at us while we walked into the office, and then she darted off like her butt was on fire.”

His wolf practically cartwheeled in his head. “Really?”

“Well, she sure wasn’t looking at me. I know I’m pretty, but neither of us swing that way. So yeah... I think she likes you. You’re fighting an uphill battle, but you’re not going to back down.”

“Any advice rattling around in that head of yours?” he asked hopefully.

“I wish I could tell you a way to handle things with her that would guarantee success, but I can’t. It might be enough eventually for her to see you watching over me while I’m working, but I think her ex was really nice in the beginning. It wasn’t until they were married that he changed and began to mistreat her.”

Malachi growled.

“I know you’ll figure it out, Mal. If you’re really mates—and I believe you are from what I’ve seen—then she’ll see the truth of what you are. She just needs time. You can prove you’re not like her ex and take care of her the way I know you’re dying to.”

“How’d you get so smart?” he teased as he pulled the SUV along the curb in front of her home.

“Just naturally brilliant.” She grinned at him as Acksel opened her door and helped her out.

“Thanks, Mal,” Acksel said.

Brynn tried to say goodbye to him, but Acksel swung her up into his arms swiftly and kissed her. She waved at Mal, and he shook his head with a chuckle and headed home.

The place he called home had at one time belonged to his parents, and then Brynn had rented it for a few years. The three-bedroom house was in a development in Wilde Creek, on a cul-de-sac, surrounded by homes owned by wolves in the pack as well as a few humans. Brynn hadn’t done any interior redecorating when she’d lived in the house, but she had planted some shrubs outside that smelled like cinnamon. He was glad when she asked Jeremiah, one of the pack omegas, to transplant the shrubs to her new home with Acksel.

Parking in the driveway, he got out of the SUV, walked up the sidewalk to the front porch and unlocked the red front door. He hung his keys up on the hook just inside the door and shut and locked it, toeing off his shoes before walking through the family room to the kitchen. He made a sandwich and stood at the counter. He had dishes, he just didn’t use them. He looked at the kitchen table he’d purchased last week. The oval, glass-topped table had looked perfect when he’d seen it in the furniture store. Too big for one person, but just the right size for a family.

A pang of loneliness and longing hit him hard as he looked at the table and chairs that he’d bought with Nila and Jack in mind. He was really getting ahead of himself by buying things for her when she wouldn’t even give him the time of day, but he didn’t care. One day she’d be sitting at the table with Jack while he made them dinner, and she’d know that he’d cared about her from the moment they’d met. It was more than a physical attraction—he wanted to take care of her, protect her, and love her, and he wanted her to feel safe.

Someday he’d get beyond the walls she’d erected to protect herself and her son and he’d prove to her that he was the right male for her and would never betray or mistreat her in anyway.

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