“What are you doing?” I demanded, my dream of a steaming hot shower evaporating before my very eyes.
“I’m taking you home,” Ethan replied, as he accelerated even faster, instead of slowing down for the third and final exit that would take us back to my apartment.
“My home is back at exit twenty-five in Havendish,” I reminded him, as he happily motored in the wrong direction. “We’ll have to back track a little, but if you get into the right lane right now, and take Buchanon to Havendish, it won’t be that far out of our way.”
Ignoring my advice, Ethan did not get into the right lane, nor did he take exit twenty-eight. “I’m talking about your new home,” he spoke, brooking no arguments. “You’ll be staying with me until we figure out a way to keep you safe.”
Were we talking about my “fertility” smell again? Good lord, this was insane. I’d been fertile for quite a few years now, and I’d never been attacked like I was tonight. Despite what Ethan said, I wasn’t a ware. Garrett was an anomaly. A freak who liked to hurt women. I wasn’t some honey trap that needed to be protected. This wasn’t Alaska. I was safe in Montana. None of the Tupilaq pack even knew I lived here. If they had, surely they would have attacked before now.
“I’ve been taking care of myself just fine before you came along, Ethan,” I countered, this particular night notwithstanding. “I know you and my dad were close, but I’m not your responsibility. You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” Ethan asked befuddled.
“Take care of me. Bring me to your home like some lost, stray puppy. I appreciate everything you did for me tonight. I really do. Garrett was a monster and if you hadn’t showed up when you did, I’m not sure what would have happened. But I can’t just give up my life and come live like some freeloading dependent at your house. I don’t want to be that way with you,” I ended, looking away so he couldn’t see the hurt in my eyes.
“You think I want to treat you like my daughter?” He posed, his eyes becoming unfocused and distant. “That’s not what I’m doing, Millie. I promise you.”
No? Then what was this? Did Ethan see me as an equal? Or something more?
We drove for a few miles down the highway before Ethan turned off an exit I was unfamiliar with.
“What’s your girlfriend going to say when she finds out that you’re keeping your best friend’s daughter in your home forthe foreseeable future?” I posed, angling for some information about the man’s private, social life.
“That’s not going to be a problem,” Ethan answered. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
I tried not to let that fact run happily away with my imagination. Just because he wasn’t seeing anyone, didn’t mean he wanted to start seeing me. Fertile scent or not, Ethan probably would always see me as my father’s little “princess”. Not exactly a promising start when it came to significant others.
“Why not?” I found myself asking then. “I mean, it’s not like you’re unfortunate looking or anything.”
Ethan’s smirked and his gaze flicked for a second in my direction, then back to the dark road in front of us. “I can’t tell most women that I’m a shifter, and I don’t want to lie to someone about who I am. It’s not how I want to live my life.”
I couldn’t help but feel that comment came from a place of experience. “You don’t want a relationship with a human then?” I posed, feeling like my balloon of hope where he and I were concerned was deflating by the second.
Ethan might believe I was a ware, but I knew differently. I was a human woman. Sooner or later, he’d find out I wasn’t like him and that he’d never be able to trust me like he did one of his true pack members. That fact saddened me to the core.
“I’ve dated human women in the past,” he answered earnestly, “but it never works out long term because I can’t share my life with them like I want to. I always have to hold back and hide a piece of myself in the dark. To pretend to be something I’m not, less than I am.”
“I can understand that,” I sadly returned. Needing to change the subject, which was getting way too heavy for my liking, I said, “So tell me about your place. If I’m going to be staying there for a few days, I should know where it is and what I can do there.”
This question visibly cheered up my companion. “I built a log cabin in the woods a few years after I moved to Montanna. There’s a lot to do there. You can hike and enjoy the beautiful scenery and solitude. There’s a swimming hole that you can swim in when the weather turns warm. There’s even a sizable library lined with my favorite books. If that doesn’t appeal to you, I have access to satellite TV with unlimited channels and a fully equipped gym.”
“You built the place all by yourself?” I asked, in awe of the man even more than I already was.
“Not all of it,” he clarified humbly. “I subcontracted some of the stuff, like the electrical work. But the rest, yeah, I built it.”
Wow! I’d never even built a bookshelf, let alone an entire library and the house it was installed in. “Where did you learn that?”
“I apprenticed with the head of the group home when I was in my teens,” Ethan said. “When I first got there, I was really young and didn’t feel like I belonged. Laurence was an amazing carpenter and a jack of all trades. When he saw how interested in carpentry I was, he kindly allowed me to learn alongside him. Exactly what I needed when my world had been upturned. Not only did he make me feel like family, Laurence taught me more about the trade than any school ever could have.”
That was so sad. My heart ached for Ethan, being on his own after some family tragedy. I might have lost my mom, but I’dalways had my dad. Growing up with one parent wasn’t easy, but it didn’t compare to the trauma of losing both parents and being thrust into the arms of complete strangers. I wanted to ask Ethan how he’d lost his parents, but I didn’t want to dredge up bad memories and old wounds just to satisfy my curiosity. Instead, I stayed with a safer line of questioning.
“Is that what you do for work now? Are you a carpenter?” I don’t think my dad had ever told me, and of course, I’d never asked.
“Carpentry is a passion of mine, not my profession. I’m actually in finance,” Ethan said, as we veered off what appeared to be an ATV path, but was actually a small, private, dirt road.
As built as he was, I’d have guessed Ethan worked outdoors all day long. Maybe his physique was a shifter thing. Or, maybe, just a hot-as-fuck Ethan sort of thing. The man had always looked absolutely heavenly to me. The few years we’d been apart hadn’t changed that at all.
This deep in the woods, without any lights from the city, it was obscenely dark. I’m talking pitch black. There were a million stars out, making the night sky look magical and distant compared to our lonely and desolate surroundings. Kind of like I felt, right about now.
