The singular thought settles on me as both a weight and a joy, both vying for dominance. If I return to Alaska, my data collection will be complete, and I’ll be able to submit my papers to journals having studied the pups’ full transition through their juvenile period into adulthood. It will be the most comprehensive study in that region for decades. The university will be ecstatic.
But taking the grant, if it gets through the final approval stage, would mean returning to Alaska for the better part of the next twoyears. I bite my lip, remembering Cord’s blue eyes and the way I felt curled in his arms today, and a cold pit settles in my stomach. I’m in too deep already—is it wrong to want to see where what we have goes?
The discomfort makes me stand up and pace the room. I tell myself to get a grip. I made the shortlist for the extended grant, and I have to take it if I get it. I’ve worked too hard to let an opportunity like that go, for a man who might not even want someone who darts about locations on a whim, following wolf tracks through the seasons, no matter how the mountains of Coyote Falls call to me.
“What’s got you so hyper-focused?” Winnie drops her work bag on the kitchen table. “Sally said you’ve been attached to that computer all day.”
“Just, uh, working.” I type frantically, rechecking my notes and flicking through stats I’ve already input, making sure I’ve got everything.
“How did your date with Cord go?”
“Good.” The graph I need appears magically. I prop the sheet beside my laptop, working the calculations through in my head. “He, uh, kissed me.”
“He did?” Winnie shrieks.
I pause halfway through typing a sentence. “Is that bad?”
Cord’s kisses were pretty damn good, in my limited experience, the echo of his touch tingling my lips. Apparently, Winnie doesn’t agree.
“He doesn’t usually get involved. Unless…”
That one word reverses gravity’s pull.
“Unless?” I stop breathing as I pivot on my chair to face Winnie.
Her face scrunches. “Unless Rand wants a fling. He often does this around that rodeo of his. He chooses a girl early on, so the rodeo bunnies leave him alone. It’s kind of a pattern.” Winnie rests a hand heavily on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lanie. I should havementioned it. I thought there might be a spark between the two of you, but it’s also good to be wary—I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Apparently I don’t have to worry about that exit strategy, how good his kisses are, or what the mountains behind Coyote Falls look like, after all. I swallow past a lump in my throat that already tastes like regret.Alpha wolf, here I come.
My fingers tremble over my keyboard long after Winnie leaves me alone to find her offspring as I plan my return to Alaska.
Winnie supplies me with coffee for three days straight before she begins her new campaign.
“You enjoy spending time with him, right? Why don’t you go to the rodeo, have fun, and then…do whatever afterward?”
“That sounds sensible.” I nod as Winnie swaps my coffee out for wine. My fortifying sip is more like a slurp; that isn’t ladylike. I’ve definitely spent too much time with wolves recently. Or maybe too little.
“Pffft. Have you heard from him?”
I manage to emit part of a laugh that sounds nothing like one. “No. Did you really expect that?”
Her lips purse. “True. But…I mean, I can hurry things along.”
I blink as she reaches for her phone, taking a large drag of wine from the glass in her other hand. Her multiskilling distracts me for a critical moment. I lunge over her, sending the phone skittering across the couch.
“Don’t you dare!” I cry. “I’m not some hussy out to pick up your rich brother, Win.”
Considering that Winnie put me in this frame of mind in the first place… Gah. I shake my head, frustrated. I am most definitely not made for people. But the fact that Cord hasn’t called bothers me.
You can always call him.
The tiny voice inside my head bounces side to side and. Won’t. Shut.Up.
Winnie laughs. “I know that, silly. But from the way the girls chase after him at these events, he must be something special.”
“He is.” Sobering, I sit back, nursing my glass.
“Ooh, girl, I’d feel for you. But he’s my brother, so ew. And I get liberties.” Winnie scoops up her phone, firing off a quick text before I can protest.
