Page 61 of The Enforcers: NOAH

But he’d shared some of his past with her, and she knew how painful it had been. She owed it to him to do the same.

“I went to Alaska right out of grad school, in September of that year,” she began. “I’d gotten a prestigious grant that I could use for whatever project I wanted, and I’d been corresponding with a man online who was trying to find a cure for a genetically-based disease that was threatening a unique wolf population in the Alaskan bush. A man named Justin Adams.”

The name brought him back to her with a rush. Tall, unruly blond hair, lean muscles that rippled when he walked, thoughtful gray eyes and a white scar that ran down his right cheek, and didn’t hurt his good looks one bit.

Quiet and secretive, and yet caring and passionate. Even sitting here with Noah, her heart ached, remembering the way she had felt about him.

She gave a soft snort of laughter at her brash, confident younger self. “Justin was reclusive and secretive, but we’d established a relationship online, sharing our research, and I thought he trusted me. Like an idiot, I took my grant money and flew up there without telling him, thinking when he saw what I had to offer he’d let me share in his field research, too.”

She shook her head. “Now I realize what I did.” She looked around the room at the assembled shifters. “I blundered in there, thinking I was going to save the day. Justin was furious at me, but now I realize he was probably terrified of what I’d find out.”

She dropped her eyes. “I thought he had this amazing rapport with the wolves,” she said. “But…it was more than that. They were shifters, weren’t they?”

Tristan nodded.

“And he was one too,” she whispered. Tristan nodded again.

Noah leaned his cheek on her hair. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I still never should have done it,” she said. “Justin tried to make me leave, at first, but when he saw the lines my research had taken, he let me stay. His wolves were suffering, and he was desperate to help them.”

She paused. “And we had…something. I felt it online, but when we saw each other, it was instant.”

She fell silent, remembering the excitement when she went to meet Justin for the first time, and the disappointment when he was so angry that she’d come.

And yet, he hadn’t been able to let her go, either. They had more than chemistry—they had a rapport she had never shared with anyone else. He introduced her to his beloved Alaskan wilderness, and to the wolf pack he loved.

She felt Noah stiffen, and the vibration of a low growl beginning in his chest. She pulled back from him, startled, until she saw the hurt on his face. The others turned away, not looking at them, giving them a little privacy.

Mina twisted so she could whisper in Noah’s ear. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop if you want. I know you don’t want to hear this part.”

He cupped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her head toward him so their foreheads touched. “Do you need to tell it?” he murmured.

She gazed into his gold-flecked eyes. “I think so. I think I need to get it out, so it doesn’t eat away at me anymore. Can you…would you help me?” She put a hand on the center of his chest.

He took a deep breath, and the growl receded. “Whatever you need.”

She settled back into his arms with a sigh. “I couldn’t understand why Justin was always so worried that outsiders would come and hurt his wolves, hunt them, even though wolves were protected by the Alaskan government. When he finally allowed me to go into the field with him and study them, he made me swear I would never tell anyone—that I wouldn’t even publish my findings without his permission.” She paused. “I agreed.”

By that time she was so in love with Justin she would have agreed to anything he said, but she would never say that in front of Noah.

She shook her head, frowning. “For so long, all this was a blur,” she said, almost to herself. “Or it just wasn’t there. The way Justin died, how the cabin burned, the whole day before it happened…”

Tristan was gazing intently at her. “And now you remember it all?”

Mina nodded slowly. Tristan sat back with a little sigh of relief.

“You came to the cabin,” she said, looking directly at Tristan. “I was there with Justin. You told him hunters were coming, and the pack was in danger.”

Tristan closed his eyes, looking like he was in pain. “I was too late,” he said. “They were already on the way.”

Mina nodded. “It was late at night,” she told the others. “Justin told me I had to leave the next morning, as soon as it got light. I didn’t want to go, but he just kept saying I didn’t understand, and he couldn’t protect me.” She laughed bitterly. “I said we should call Wildlife Management or the State Patrol. He tried to make me swear not to. We had a huge fight about it, and that was when…”

She took a deep breath, and Noah squeezed her hand. “That was when he told me he loved me. He said he’d loved me the whole time—that we were fated to be together—but he’d fought it because we were from two different worlds. We…we spent the night together.”

Tears threatened, making her throat tight and her chest ache. She gulped them down. Noah’s chest was vibrating again, but he interlocked his fingers with hers, his hand warm and steady.

“I lost all these memories,” she said. “All this time, I didn’t remember. If I’d been stronger, if I hadn’t blocked everything out, nothing that happened tonight would ever have happened.”

She looked up. “Because I would have known Justin was Brock’s father.”