I’m concentrating on a piece of oak I’ve dragged into my workshop when Max calls out.
“In here!” I shout back. Grabbing some tarps, I try to cover it up but Max catches me in the act.
“What are you doing?” he asks, eyeballing me.
I cross my arms defensively. “Nothing.”
“Is that…”
“Doesn’t matter.” I throw the rest of the cloth over it to stop the conversation. “What’s up?”
Max gives me a look, but he lets the subject drop. “Bastien told me about the conversation you had with the Winter pack. About their omega.”
I rock back on my heels cautiously. “Yeah. Devlin asked us to let Ava know.”
Max inhales slowly, trepidation on his face. “Do you think we should?”
Hesitating, I turn and start fussing with my workbench. “I don’t know,” I say at last. “And I don’t know her well enough to guess. Do you think it’s legit?”
Max frowns. “They’ve got no reason to lie.”
I turn to face him, crossing my arms. “I think it’s a possibility. And I think we need to tell her. It’s not our job to keep things from her. She’s not a child.”
Max grimaces. “I know that.”
I raise an eyebrow at the light flush on his cheeks. “Something to tell me?”
The flush deepens, and he looks away. “It’s nothing.”
Hmmm.
“Max,” I say softly, but with enough meaning that his head snaps up to face me. “You’re developing feelings for her.”
He swallows, hard. “I can’t have feelings for her. Not like that.”
“Why not?”
Max gives me an incredulous look. “Why do you think? Shehatesalphas, Nik. With good reason. She’s not going to choose to stay here with us permanently. I got her out. We got her out. I need to be content with that and not ask for anything…more.”
“Says who?”
He splutters. “You know what she’s been through. And what she’s got to come. There’s no way in hell that this is even a possibility. And she was my patient!”
I sweep past him, ready to go rescue Luc from Nash’s treehouse.
“She was never just an ordinary patient, Max,” I say, turning back to face him. “Was she?”
I leave him behind to think it over. I know what he needs – time and space to think through his feelings. Max feels so passionately about everything that sometimes he has trouble taking a step back.
Ducking under the branch of a tree, I frown, making a note to come back and cut it down before anyone gets hurt. My hands pause on the solid wood when I hear voices in the distance.Female voices.
I debate hiding for about a second before they both come into sight.
Ava looks a little better. Still pale, still exhausted, still covered in bruises, but there’s a lightness to her expression that wasn’t there yesterday. Her hair falls in damp ringlets around her face, the morning sun flashes hints of bronze and caramel. She’s wearing a yellow sundress, the soft cotton fluttering around her bare legs and showing just a hint of her bump.
Her light expression drops off when she spots me, panic leeching into her face. Beside her, Leah threads their arms together and tows her forward, murmuring into her ear.
When she doesn’t run away, I decide to stay where I am and let them come to me.
