Safe? What kind of kid was worried about being safe? I knew, but that was because you were never in my mother’s house.
I peered into the woods, my eyes rounding as three white wolves bounded through the trees.
“Look!” I shouted. “Are they shifters?”
“Yes. These woods are like a playground for the pack.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. It was fascinating—an entire world I knew nothing about—and it was nerve-wracking. I scrolled discreetly through the messages on my phone, seeing that my sister had read my last message with the address to Rhett’s family home.
I trusted Rhett. I just didn’t trust myself. This might be another exhibit to add to my museum of stupid choices.
“Having second thoughts?”
I took a long look at him for the first time since we started driving this morning. He was quiet, which seemed to be the norm for him. There was tension in his hands as they held thesteering wheel a little too tight, his shoulders pressing up to his ears.
“Are you?”
“I just—“ He fixed me with that golden gaze. How had I never seen a shifter do that before? “I just want to get this right.”
Show his mom he was happy while she still had the good health to appreciate it.
How sick was she? Was I about to walk into a hospice care situation and see someone on the brink of death?
My anxiety wasn’t improving.
I asked about seven hundred questions between Fairbanks and here, and I still felt like I didn’t know enough. Like there was something I was missing.
Rhett cleared his throat, and that weird sensation in my chest jolted.
“Hey,” I murmured, putting my hand on his arm as I remembered what he said about shifters and touching. “We’ll get it right.”
“I haven’t seen my mom or my brothers since December.”
“It’s okay, I haven’t seen my mom in two years.” And two years wasn’t long enough.
“It’s different for shifters. Your family is your first pack. We have a bond, just like mates do. Being away…it feels wrong.”
The SUV bumped as we turned down a freshly cleared gravel driveway. I could see a house nestled in the trees. It was an A-frame design with clear windows stretching from the ground up to the eaves.
There were two trucks and a rusted Ford Bronco parked near the front door.
Rhett pulled in beside them, setting the car in park but not turning the key.
I unbuckled my seat belt, returning my hand to his arm.
“Is this about your mom?”
He stared out the windshield into the snow-covered trees. “She’s gotten worse. I can feel it.”
“It must be hard to see her like that.”
“It is. She was older when she brought us home, but she never acted her age. Until Dad passed, she had more energy than me.” A sad smile ghosted over his lips.
“I’m sorry.” It was the best I could do. For all my yapping, I wasn’t very good with words.
He took my hand from his arm, pressed it between his hands, and brought it to his face. His breath warmed my knuckles as his lips brushed along my skin.
My chest jolted harder, goosebumps tingling up my arm.
