Tears surged into her throat. She couldn’t speak. From the bottom of her purse she fished her key ring, where only three keys dangled. She worked the house key free. Now she had only the keys to her car and to the front door of the coffee shop. Thank goodness the car was in her name or, no doubt, Dad would demand that one too. She handed over the key to the only home she’d ever had.
“Daddy, no,” Saffron sobbed.
“We’re not choosing this. Your sister is choosing this.”
Saffron rushed to Willow and threw her arms around her, luggage and all. “Please don’t go. Please just give them what they want.”
“Not this time,” Willow whispered.
“No guy can be worth this.”
Willow tugged open the door, dragged her carry-on along. Her sister gave a soft wail, cut off as Dad shut the door. The deadbolt slid home. Then Willow stood alone on the porch.
For a long time she didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. She was homeless, and it was her own fault. Clinging to someone she’d only just met, choosing him over her family. Dad and Mom were right. It was irrational. She should turn around, knock, agree to their terms, set her phone to speaker and call Ezra and tell him…
…tell him she didn’t care for him, didn’t imagine a future as his mate. Tell him to get out of her life for good. Tell him he meant nothing to her. In other words lie. In other words crush his dear good heart along with her own.
Not an option.
All right then. Make a plan. Figure it out. She carried her luggage down the walkway, fit her carry-on and duffel in the trunk, her purse and messenger bag with its delicate contents on the front seat. Then she slid in behind the wheel and stared down the dark driveway toward the street, toward town.
Where to?
She didn’t make enough to secure an apartment, not on her own. Or if she did, she’d become unable to pay back her student debt and certainly unable ever to go back for her Master’s. It was the whole point of tolerating Dad and Mom’s overstepping in her life—paying off undergrad, preparing for grad school. So it was school or Ezra. Her entire plan for the rest of her life…or Ezra. She lowered her forehead to the steering wheel and tried to breathe deep, but her fingers began to tingle, her chest to spasm with shallow gasps.
“What do I do now?” The words came in a flood, interrupted by the gasps that might be a bad sign, but she couldn’t stop either words or gasps. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do now, I have to figure out what to do now.”
Ezra.
“No. This isn’t his problem. I can’t make it his problem. It’s up to me not to—not to need too much. From people.”
Ezra.
“I can’t. He can’t see this. He can’t see me all needy like this.”
Plan. Come on. Step one: sleep in her car tonight. It would get cold, but she could layer up.
EZRA.
Her wolf’s face overtook her mind’s eye like a blinking neon sign. His deep green eyes, his cropped sandy hair, the strength of his jaw. He would want to know she was alone and scared. He wouldwantto know.
Her hand shook as she took out her phone, didn’t text, called instead.
“Hey,” he said.
“I’m homeless,” Willow said, and the gasping increased.
“What? You’re what?”
“Mom and Dad kicked me out.”
“Wil, I don’t know what you’re saying. I need you to tell me one more time as clearly as you can.”
She dragged in a long breath, tried to hold it in her chest, tried to release it slowly. Already the calm rich voice of her wolf worked its way to her cracked heart and brought the pieces back together. “My folks kicked me out. I’m sitting in my car. In my driveway. I was going to drive somewhere. But I have nowhere. I have nobody.”
“You have me,” he said, the words a rumbling growl. “Give me the address. I’m coming for you.”
“No, you—you can’t come here. You don’t need to. I just—I just thought I should tell you because—because you’d want to know. Because you’re my wolf.”
