Wow, this dude got around. “How long have you been out here?” I asked, walking up to the window. Now that I’d cooled off, I felt less hostile towards him.
“I never left,” he said, and my eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t want you to feel… look, it’s hard to be a new wolf without a packmate close by.”
Aww. Damn, he was sweet. I couldn’t stay mad at him.
“Where’s Maddy?” I craned my neck to peer inside the truck cab but didn’t see her.
“She got a ride home to get some rest.”
I shifted on the balls of my feet. “Brayden, you don’t have to bodyguard me or whatever this is, okay?” I opened my bag and showed him the gun. “I can take care of myself.”
It occurred to me that maybe I felt good inside my house and not lonely because he’d never left and was a mere fifty feet away.
“Want a ride?” He ignored my attempt to shove him off.
I opened my mouth to say no when I realized that I’d chatted with him for so long I probably would be late without a ride.
With a nod, I walked to the front of the truck but watched him. His gaze raked over my bare legs as the truck lights bathed them in their golden glow. My body heated as his gaze trailed up to the two-inch strip of stomach I was showing and I swallowed hard. I had this weird love-hate relationship with Brayden and I barely knew him. One second I was fantasizing about kissing him and the next I wanted to smack him. That felt like the kind of emotions you reserved for someone you’d known longer, but I guess since we had this pack link it made all the feelings more intense.
I slipped inside and buckled in, noticing his gaze flick to my bare legs. Without a word he started the truck and then headed for the bar.
“You know, we could use a vet tech at the animal hospital I work at two nights a week,” he said.
I perked up. “You work at Bonner General and the animal hospital?”
He nodded. “Keeps my skills sharp so that I can take care of the werewolves in this area. So do you want the job?”
Did I want to be a vet tech two nights a week while going to veterinary school?Hell yes. But I wasn’t qualified. “That’d be awesome… but I don’t have my vet tech license.”
“You could work the front desk, then, and when you’re ready for residency I could teach you,” he said.
Wow, getting a vet residency was really hard here. You had to usually go down to Coeur d’Alene or Spokane to match with a doctor.
I shrugged. “Sure. I mean, I’d have to check with my bar schedule and see what days I’m not working, but—”
“I was thinking you could quit the bar. I could supplement your monthly income if needed—”
I crossed my arms as he pulled into the space in front of the bar. “So you only asked me to work the front desk because you want me to quit the bar? Do I look like a secretary to you?”
I mean, nothing wrong with secretaries, but I didn’t like what he was playing at. “I want to be a doctor like you, and I make way more money bartending than I ever would making appointments for a flea bath,” I snarled.
Brayden tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You’re so stubborn!”
“Damn straight. Don’t forget it,” I told him.
He suddenly chuckled, reaching out and stroking a freckle on my wrist. The action sent heat down my chest and it settled between my legs. “She had a freckle here too,” he said, and I froze.
“Who?”
He swallowed hard, his gaze flicking to his tattoos. “There is something I need to tell you.”
I was already stiffened, but at that my entire body felt like it turned to cement. I was a statue. Unmoving. No one ever said anything good after “there is something I have to tell you.”
“Each one of these names… is the same person,” he said, and I released the breath I’d been holding.
“Lena?” It hit me then. The wolf tattoo. All the names.
He frowned. “Maddy told you?”
