“Sorry. That was Mom. She wants me to convince Bea to come home, and if I can’t convince her, she wants me to resort to sisternapping.”
It could very well come to that if Bea was wallowing in depression. “Is that why you’re allowing me to tag along? So you have a partner-in-crime?”
“Why else?” He smiled, before nodding to my stomach. “Feeling better today?”
It took me a millisecond to remember the lie I’d fed him when I’d left Seoul Sister. “Much better, although I could’ve done with a few more hours of sleep.” I sighed and released my white-knuckled grip on my thighs.
“You and I both.”
After getting home last night, it had taken my mind and body hours to unwind and surrender to sleep. “What time did you close?”
“Five. Your friends were on fire last night. Especially that May girl.”
“Ah . . . that May girl.”
He looked away from the snow-packed road. “Not a fan?”
“Not really. Why did you say especially?”
“She and her friend, the one who kissed my bartender, spent the last two hours of the night dancing on the bar. Might have to hire them for future entertainment.”
“Ha! I’m sure their parents would love that.”
His eyes twinkled. “You had fun, though, right?”
“I did. It was perfect. Well, almost. If Bea had been there, it would’ve been perfect.”
He sighed, then grew silent as we came to a fork in the road. After fifteen minutes of pensive quiet, I spun the music dial and settled in for the rest of the drive. I must’ve fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I was being jostled from side to side.
When my head almost knocked into my window, I seized the grab handle. “You weren’t kidding about the cabin being isolated.”
The road we were on was narrow and dark, hemmed in by so many trees that sunlight didn’t penetrate. It had neither been plowed nor salted, yet tire treads flattened the snow.
“We’re almost there.”
I was glad to hear it because all the jouncing made my wolf bristle and long for firm ground. I forced her back down. Miles didn’t strike me as the type to be awed by our existence. More likely, he’d be the type to see us as dangerous predators and proactively welcome our annihilation.
A honeyed dot appeared amidst the tall trunks, then expanded into a doll-sized log cabin that couldn’t contain more than one bedroom. As we neared it, I thought I caught the flutter of lace curtains in one of the windows.
Miles parked the car by a narrow footpath, which seemed to have been haphazardly shoveled, then got out. I unstrapped myself and climbed out, my leg muscles gummy and sore from my nocturnal activities.
“We used to come out here and go ice-fishing in the lake.” He nodded to a great, glassy expanse that bordered the house. “I fell in once, when I was eight. Bea fished me out.” He shaded his eyes from the sun’s glare.
“Must’ve been scary.”
“Terrifying.” He shivered as though he’d slipped through the ice again. “Andreallycold.”
In wolf form, I’d splashed through shallow mountain streams, but not in human form. I lowered my aching eyes to the path. Amidst large boot prints, I noticed the distinctive shape of paws. Large ones. I covered them up by stepping on them before their sheer size could worry poor Miles more than he already was.
I sniffed the air, trying to detect Nate’s scent—who else would’ve visited Bea in fur?—but the chilled air veiled the various odors. Even Miles’s mix of leafy cologne and griddle grease was less pungent out in the open than it had been in the car.
“Fuck,” I heard Miles whisper right before a growl resounded through the trees, amplified by the nearby lake.
I snapped my head in the direction of the sound. A gray wolf with artic-blue eyes appeared beneath the fence of trunks, neck lowered and teeth bared. The animal was huge and clearly not human. I tried to put a face to the fur, but couldn’t remember a pure silver with such blue eyes. Instinctively, I whipped out my arm and halted in front of Miles. Of course, I didn’t realize how strange he might thinkmeprotectinghimcould be.
“Don’t worry, Nikki. I brought my gun.” His low words pulsed against the nape of my neck, eliciting a layer of icy goosebumps.
“No. No gun. The wolf won’t harm us.”
