Heartsong (Green Creek Book 3)

Bright and early the next morning, Gordo appeared in the basement. He didn’t have to kick the line of silver away because there wasn’t one. Ox had told me I could take my old room the night before, but I’d gone to the basement instead.

And stared at the ceiling for most of the night.

I was groggy and exhausted by the time Gordo came down, a stern look on his face, arms full of clothes.

“Get up,” he said.

I didn’t know why I thought it would work. Last time I’d gotten the hose. But still, I turned away from him on the cot, pulling the blanket over my head.

“Last chance, Robbie.”

“Fuck off, Gordo.”

“All right,” he said. “If that’s how it’s going to be.”

I thought he was going to leave.

I should have known better.

One moment I was in my blanket cocoon, and the next the cot was tipping over, sending me tumbling to the floor. “Hey!”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. Get dressed.”

“No.”

He bent over me, eyes narrowed. “Tell me no one more time, I dare you.”

I steeled my nerves, looked up at him, and said, “No.”

Five minutes later I was glaring daggers at his back as I followed him up the stairs. The clothes he’d given me were a little tight, but they smelled like oil and metal and wolves. The shirt had a patch on it, my name stitched neatly into it.

“The sun isn’t even up,” I grumbled.

“It’s good to know your powers of observation are still intact.” He paused at the top of the stairs. I almost bumped into his back. He turned around, looking me up and down. He sighed and reached into the pocket of his work pants, which matched the ones he’d given me. He pulled out a pair of glasses and handed them over to me. “Put those on.”

“I can see without them.”

“Good. Then I’ll just break them.”

I yelped as he started to do just that, snatched them out of his hands, and put them on. Something soft crossed his face before he rolled his eyes. “You look stupid with those on. You’re a terrible werewolf.”

“You just handed them to me.”

“I know. And I hate myself for it. Come on. You’re not going to be late on your first day back. You’ve already missed enough time as it is, and I will not hesitate to fire your ass.” He was about to turn around, but he stopped. His brow furrowed and he frowned. Then, gruffly, “I know you think that it didn’t work with Kelly because of you. But that’s not it. Or at least that’s not all of it. If he’s anything like me, he would rather have you here as you are than not at all. No matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, don’t ever think you won’t get to where you need to be. And we’ll be right there, every step of the way. Okay?”

I nodded dumbly.

“Okay. Now enough of the feelings shit. I already get too much of that with Mark. Move your ass. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Gordo’s had been fixed back up, the pictures reframed and hung back on the wall. Some still had obvious tears in them, but tape held them together. Someone had patched and repainted the wall.

My missing poster was gone.

The sun was barely over the horizon as Gordo sat me down at the front desk, pushing me down on the chair. Music poured in through the door that led to the garage. Chris and Tanner were laughing.

“This is yours,” Gordo said.

The desk was sticky, and the computer looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. A phone with multiple lines sat next to it, the handset smudged with something black. “Gee. All of this? You really shouldn’t have.”

He smacked the back of my head. “Less talking, more listening.”

I grimaced as I poked the mouse. It was crusty. “Do you guys ever clean here?”

He almost looked embarrassed. “We didn’t—shut up. It was easier when you were here. You kept things clean.” Then he grinned. “You made a good office wife.”

“Oh, fuck you, Gordo.”

“You answer the phones. You schedule appointments. You do intake when people bring in their cars.”

“I don’t even know the programs you use on the computer,” I pointed out.

“You wrote most them. You’ll figure it out.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. You get a break for lunch, and you can take a smoke break or two if you need it—”

“I smoked?” I asked, incredulous.

He snorted. “You tried once. Then you bitched for a week after that the smell wouldn’t go away.” He scratched the back of his neck. “None of us smoke, not anymore, though I would probably kill half of you for a cigarette, Mark be damned. But it’s the same principle. Smoke break is just a break. Any questions about office stuff, don’t ask me. I don’t understand half this shit.” He paused. “I may need you to look at my computer in the office. It’s beeping. At me. And runs really slow.”

“How did you guys ever survive without me?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment as I turned the computer on. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, kid, it wasn’t survival. It was a holding pattern. Stasis. And it wasn’t good.”

I turned to look back at him, but he was already pushing his way through the door. He called out over his shoulder, “And there’s a damn Keurig machine that you won’t even remember asking for. You said it would make the place look more professional. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s there anyway.”

Everything was a mess.

I spent ten minutes wiping down the desk and keyboard with an ancient bottle of cleaner I found in one of the drawers. The Keurig sat on a card table next to a water cooler. An assortment of K-cups sat in an old wicker basket on the table. I sighed as I stared down at it. It didn’t look professional at all.

Before I could do anything about it, the front door opened.

Rico walked in, followed by Ox.

“—and it sucks, alfa, and I know that I’m part of it, but I don’t know how to let it go,” Rico was saying. “I don’t know how to fix… this.”

He stopped when he saw me standing next to the desk.

I waved pathetically.

“That’s why you insisted on picking me up,” he said to Ox. It was an accusation.

Ox didn’t look perturbed. “I wanted to spend time with you.”

“You brought me a muffin. You never bring me food. Especially muffins. Seeing as how that’s what Joe did when he was jailbait and trying to get up all on your junk, I see right through you, alfa. I won’t fuck you, and I’m still going to be pissed off.”

“I like one of those things better than the other,” Ox said, patting him on the shoulder.

“It better be the pissed-off thing,” Rico grumbled. “Because I’m fucking sexy. Bambi says so.”

“Sure, Rico,” Ox said. “Whatever you say.” He pushed by him and came to stand before me. I itched to reach out and touch him but kept my hands at my sides. “All right?”

I nodded. Then shrugged.

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine. “It’ll work out,” he whispered, and I heard the low, deep thump of packpackpack in my head, foreign and quiet. “You’ll see.” He stepped around me and went back into the garage. Tanner and Chris called out in greeting as the door swung shut, leaving Rico and me alone.

I fidgeted next to the desk, unsure of what to do, what to say. If I should say anything at all.

Rico sighed. “So I guess you’re back, huh.”

“I guess.”

“For good.”

“I think so? I’m still trying to—”

“Would you hear me, dear?”

I snapped my head up.

He squinted at me. “Do you feel like going on a murderous rampage?”

“That’s not funny.”

He pointed two fingers at his eyes, then at me. “I’m watching you, Fontaine. If you even step one foot over the line, I will pop a cap in your ass.”

I snorted. “Do you hold your gun sideways like a badass when you aim?” I hadn’t meant to say that. It just came out. I didn’t know where it’d come from.

He was surprised. “You’ve said that to me before.”

“I did?”

He bristled. “It doesn’t matter. I will straight-up end you.”

“Try it, Espinoza.” I sneered at him. “We’ll see who ends who.”

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. He rubbed his jaw. “Weird.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “It’s still hysterical hearing someone so short trying to make big-boy threats.” He bumped me hard as he passed me by. “Keep working on it. Maybe one day I’ll be intimidated, but don’t hold your breath. Or maybe do and see how long it takes for you to pass out or die.”

It felt like a start.

It was awful when it happened.

It was like I lost control of everything.

I was surviving the day by the skin of my teeth. The phone rang incessantly, and by the fifth call from someone I didn’t know excitedly telling me how happy they were I was back instead of actually needing to make an appointment, I thought about throwing it across the room and hoofing it back to the basement.

I stayed.

I was in the garage, frowning at an invoice that didn’t make any sense, as it seemed as if Gordo was charging next to nothing for a considerable amount of repair work. Gordo was telling me that he only charged people what they could afford, especially when they were hurting financially.

Both of the main garage doors were open, and the air was warm. People walked by on the street. A few of them even poked their heads in to wave at me happily. I waved back, but Gordo told them to come back another time when they looked like they were about to walk in and talk. I was grateful for it, as I was already overwhelmed.

“I’m not in this for money, kid,” Gordo said. He was tapping on a tablet he said was used as a diagnostic tool. I wondered if I’d made him get it, as it was more high-tech than anything I’d seen so far. “I like cars. I sometimes like people. I don’t give a shit about becoming rich.”

“Then how the hell is this place even open?” I demanded. “You can’t expect to turn a profit if you don’t—”

“Pack finances.” He looked up at me. “We don’t have to worry about money.”

I was horrified. “You do pay me, though, right? I don’t work for free?”

He laughed, sounding lighter than I’d ever heard him. “Yes, Robbie. I pay you. We’ll get you hooked back up into the pack accounts. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

I leaned against the SUV he was working on. “So….”

“So?” he asked, looking back down at the tablet.

“How rich are we?”

He snorted. “Get back to work.”

And I was going to do just that, except that Kelly Bennett decided to appear right at that moment.

Wearing a deputy’s uniform. Tight green pants with a tan button-up shirt that pulled against his torso. He had a mic clipped near his shoulder and a black utility belt around his waist. He wasn’t carrying a gun, but I barely noticed because at that exact moment, I discovered my legs decided to quit working and I tripped and fell into the side of the SUV.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at me.

“Sorry,” I said quickly, using the SUV to pull myself back up. And immediately hit the top of my head on the open hood. “Son of a bitch.”

“What are you doing?” Gordo asked slowly.

I laughed wildly. “Nothing! It’s nothing. Just… don’t even worry about it.”

He turned toward the front of the garage.

“Oh no,” he said when he saw who was standing there. “Not this again.” He pointed the tablet at Kelly. “I swear to god, if I find an animal carcass brought here at any point, I will make both your lives a living hell. Do you understand me? I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“I can’t believe we have to watch this all over again,” Chris said to Tanner. “It was bad enough the first time. Remember when Robbie figured out that he wanted to put himself all over Kelly?”

“Yeah,” Tanner said. “How could I forget? We had to tell Ms. Martin that her side mirror was broken by accident instead of telling her the truth, that Robbie got a weird wolf boner and forgot his own strength.”

“Maybe it’ll be like it was with Ox and Joe,” Rico said, tapping a socket wrench against his hand. “Mini muffins, you know? I ate, like, ten of them.”

Chris looked scandalized. “You did what? That was one of their mystical moon magic presents! You don’t touch another man’s mystical moon magic present, Rico. They could have killed you, or worse, gotten confused and made you their mate.” He frowned. “Are there werewolf threesomes? That sounds complicated. Too many limbs. I don’t know anything about being a wolf.”

Ox said, “Maybe consider stop talking. And get back to work.”

“Sure, Ox,” Tanner said. “We’ll do just that.”

They didn’t move.

They stood there staring at me.

Even Gordo.

And Ox.

I ignored them as I rubbed the top of my head. “Hey,” I said quickly to Kelly, completely forgetting about the invoice lying on the floor. “What’s up? What’s going on? What’s the haps?”

He bit his bottom lip like he was trying to keep from laughing at me. He blushed slightly as he said, “I just… thought maybe we could have lunch? Together? If you’re not busy.”

I shook my head furiously. “I’m not busy at all. I have absolutely nothing to do.”

“That’s not true,” Gordo grumbled behind me.

I ignored him. “I like your pants,” I told Kelly seriously and immediately wished I had lost my voice as well as my memories. It was a weirdly dark thought to have.

“That sounded creepy,” Tanner called. “Try again.”

I glared at them over my shoulder. “Would you fuck off?”

Chris pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “Spoken like he works at Gordo’s. I’m so proud. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”

“I dunno,” Tanner said. “He was weirdly prudish when he worked here before. Robbie 2.0 is like the bizarro version of Original Flavor Robbie.”

I hated them all so much. I was never going to forgive them. I turned back to Kelly. “Lunch,” I said. “I can do that. Like, you have no idea how much.”

“Good,” Kelly said softly. “Maybe we can go to the diner?”

I nodded. “Just… can you give me a minute? I’ll meet you out front. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“I won’t.” He nodded at the others and turned back toward the sidewalk.

I whirled around, eyes wide. “What do I do?”

“He’s literally standing five feet away,” Gordo said dryly.

I lowered my voice. “What do I do?”

Gordo sighed and turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “I deserve this. For everything I’ve ever done, I deserve this.”

Tanner and Chris shoved him out of the way, standing before me with their arms across their chests. They looked me up and down. “He looks like a roughneck,” Tanner said. “He’s dressed for the part.”

“Eh,” Chris said critically. “Not quite.” He rubbed one of his grimy hands over my face, smudging oil against my skin. “There. That’s better. No one trusts a person who works at a garage and doesn’t get dirty.”

“He looks like one of those cover models on the books he used to read,” Tanner whispered. “The Mechanic’s Heart or whatever.” He squinted. “Maybe a little too short, though. Sucks you couldn’t figure out how to make yourself taller while you were gone after you tried to kill us.”

Gordo choked.

“That might be too soon,” Chris said.

“Not helping,” I growled at them.

Chris shrugged. “I can smell your arousal. I don’t know that I want to help.”

“I’m not aroused!”

“Uh-huh,” Tanner said. “You hit your head on a stationary object at the first sight of Kelly. Ox once walked into that wall over there, and then he banged Jessie.”

“That’s my sister,” Chris hissed at him, turning to glare over his shoulder at Ox, who seemed to be resolutely ignoring everything that was happening.

“I know,” Tanner said. “But it’s true. And then he walked into the side of the house at underage Joe in tiny shorts. And he eventually banged him too.”

I looked pleadingly at Gordo.

He shook his head furiously. “Leave me out of this. I don’t know the first thing about—”

Rico coughed roughly. It sounded strangely like bullshit.

“You made heart eyes at Mark,” Tanner accused. “For years.”

“I was trying to murder him with the power of my mind,” Gordo retorted. “I don’t do heart eyes. I don’t even know what that is.”

“He’s right,” Chris said. “Don’t take advice from Gordo. You’ll end up surly all the time until you’re transformed by the power of love.”

“I’m not transformed—”

“Mark has a magic tattoo on his neck that you put there while he fucked you in the butt,” Tanner said. “And wow, I never thought I’d have to say something like that out loud. We really do need to work on boundaries in this pack. New rule. We all mind our own business and never talk about any of this stuff ever again.”

“Agreed,” Chris said.

And with that, they turned around and left me standing there.

“But—”

“Nope,” Tanner said without looking back at me.

“But—”

“Sorry, kid,” Chris said. “You did it once already with Kelly. Pretty sure you’ll figure it out.”

“You guys suck,” I muttered. “And don’t make that into an innuendo.”

Tanner snapped his mouth closed, looking disappointed.

“Anyone?” I asked. “Hello?”

They all ignored me.

“I quit,” I announced savagely.

“You get an hour for lunch,” Gordo said in a bored voice. “If you’re late coming back, I’ll dock your pay.”

I threw my hands up and stalked out of the garage.

“So,” I said for the fourth time as I sat across from Kelly in the booth. I almost felt bad about the pile of shredded napkins in front of me. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. Sure, I had no real idea who this man was, aside from superficial things, but Chris was right; we’d done this all before. I could do it again.

“So,” Kelly said, hands folded on the table.

I racked my brain for anything to say. “Do you like….”

He nodded at me to continue.

“Things?” I finished lamely.

He bit his bottom lip as he looked out the window. “Things.”

I groaned, putting my face in my hands. “Ugh. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“All of this.”

“That’s vague.”

I dropped my hands and immediately started shredding another napkin. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About what?”

“This. The pack. Everything.” I sighed. “You.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Who says you have to do anything?”

I was confused. “I have to prove myself.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think that anyone is saying that.”

“Maybe not in so many words. But it’s—you can’t think that everything is going to be easy. It’s not.”

“I didn’t say it would be. Or that it is.”

“Rico said—”

His expression hardened. “I have a good idea what Rico said.” He sighed. “Look, Robbie. I know it’s tough. And you’ve got all this shit swirling through your head. But Rico is….”

“Justified in his absolute hatred of me?”

He traced a finger along the tabletop. “He doesn’t hate you.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I kind of think he does. I mean, I don’t blame him. I can’t. I don’t remember what happened, but it was bad.”

“It was,” he said bluntly. “But that wasn’t your fault.”

“You all thought it was.” And that caused my heart to seize in my chest. This void in my head, this blank space where apparently years of memories should have been, was vast. I didn’t know how I’d never noticed it before. It was like I’d been drugged. I didn’t know how to reconcile what my head told me versus what I was hearing from the man across from me and the others.

He winced. “We made mistakes. All of us. It doesn’t make it right. It caught us off guard, and given all that we’d been through, it… I don’t know. We trusted people we shouldn’t have before.”

“And you thought I was the same as them,” I said dully.

He was frustrated. I could see it on his face, could smell it in his scent. His hands curled into fists. “I….”

I shook my head and forced a smile. “It’s okay. I don’t know that I would have thought any different had it been someone else.” I frowned. “And I mean that. I really don’t know what I would have thought.”

He sat back against the booth. “It’s not okay, Robbie. And we should have known better.”

“But….”

“But we were hurting,” he admitted. “And we put blame on people who didn’t deserve it. I know you don’t remember, but my father knew Osmond for a long time. He wasn’t great, but we thought we could trust him. And then Pappas after you. It turned out he knew far more than he was telling us. In the end, before he turned, he tried to make amends. But by then it was already too late. He was the one who bit Mark and spread the infection to him.”

“And Carter?”

Kelly’s mouth thinned into a white line. “When we were kids, Carter hated the idea of someone being hurt. He’s very protective that way. It was worse when he was shifted, because he would always try to lick everyone’s wounds to clean them.”

“Instinct.”

Kelly shrugged. “Maybe. And it’s something he never grew out of. He was there when Mark was bitten. He tried to clean the wound. It spread to him.”

“How do they fight it?” I asked. “How are they not completely insane by now?”

“Ox,” Kelly said.

“Because he’s different. That’s what you said.”

“He is. I think my father knew that. Saw something in him the rest of us didn’t. Oh, we loved him right away. He was this shy, awkward kid. Big, but awkward. And Joe…. Joe didn’t talk for a long time before he found Ox.”

“Because someone took him,” I said without thinking. “Someone hurt him.”

Kelly looked at me sharply. “How do you know that?” His eyes widened. “Are you remembering something?”

I shook my head, and I hated the way his face crumpled. “Something Ezra—” I caught myself. I coughed. “Robert Livingstone told me.”

The skin around his eyes tightened. “What did he say?”

I was about to tell him when a terrible thought struck me, one I wished I never had to have. And it tumbled out before I could stop it. “Is that what this is all about?”

He was quiet for a moment, like he was steadying himself. “What?”

“You,” I said, and I hated myself for it. But I had to get it out there. I had to know. “The others. The pack. All of this. Is this why you finally decided to come find me? So you could figure out what I’d learned in Caswell?”

“Is that what you really think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said roughly. “You said it yourself. You thought I’d betrayed you. You thought I was like this Osmond or Pappas. You let me go. Carter said the pack figured out where I was eight months after I was gone. Elizabeth said I was gone for thirteen months total. That means there was five months where you just left me there. Like you—”

Abandoned me is how I meant to finish, but I couldn’t get the words out through the lump in my throat. It made me sick to my stomach. The wounded look on his face only made it worse.

He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply through his nose. “Like the only reason we decided to rescue you was because we thought you could tell us what we needed to know about Michelle Hughes and Robert Livingstone.”

“Right,” I whispered. Then, louder, “I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Oh, Rico probably didn’t like it, which is why he’s acting like he is. But if I did hurt Chris and Tanner, then why the hell aren’t they terrified of me? Why are they acting like they give two shits about me?”

He slammed his hand on the table as his eyes flashed open. The noise of the diner died around us as people looked over. People who had waved enthusiastically at me when we’d come through the diner door. People who had told me how happy they were I was finally back and asked just where had I been all this time? Their eyes had shifted side to side, and they’d whispered pack business, right? like it was some great secret.

Dominique was behind the counter, watching me like she thought I would shift right then and there and attack.

The humans in the diner didn’t know what I’d done. But she did. That much was clear.

“They act like they give a shit because they do,” Kelly said through gritted teeth. “It took them time—hell, it took all of us time—but they know what happened wasn’t your fault. You had no control over your wolf.”

“How do you know that?” I asked angrily. “Maybe I did. Maybe if I get my memories back you’ll see I’m just like Osmond. Just like Pappas. Just like Livingstone or Alpha Hughes or anyone else who wants to hurt you. Maybe there was no magic at all and I did what I did because I wanted to.” I was panting by the time I finished, my throat raw.

“You weren’t,” Kelly said. “You aren’t. You’re not like them. You never have been. And you never could be.”

I laughed bitterly. “Sure, you can say that. But how do I know it? I don’t even know who I am.”

“He didn’t take everything.”

“He took enough.”

Silence fell over the table, awkward and heavy. I wished Kelly had never come to the garage, or even better, that I was still trapped in the basement behind a line of silver. It seemed safer down there.

Kelly said, “I knew. The moment I saw you standing on the porch when we came back from hunting Richard Collins. I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That you were my mate.”

I hung my head.

“Mom always told me when it happened, I would know. She couldn’t explain how exactly, but she said it would be like this light. In my head and chest. The clouds would part and there would only be sun where there’d once been shadow.”

I blinked rapidly against the sting in my eyes.

He shifted in his seat. “And I guess it was like that. But I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. I was different than I was before I left with my brothers and Gordo. Harder. Less trusting. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want you. I was too focused on trying to keep my family alive. I didn’t trust you, especially given all we’d been through. I told myself that I was pissed off about it because you were a stranger and you’d carved yourself a home in the hole we created when we left. It took me a long time to realize I was jealous too.”

I looked back up at him. “You were?”

He shrugged. “A little. I didn’t know what to make of you. You were always… there. There was this one day before the hunters came and tried to take over the town. It was just you and me. We were in the kitchen, and you said something that made me laugh. It took me a moment to realize I was the only one laughing, and when I stopped, you were staring at me like it was the first time you were seeing me. After that, you always found some reason to stand near me.”

“Wow,” I muttered. “So smooth. I don’t know how you were able to resist.”

His lips twitched. “I don’t know either. It was weird. Good weird, but weird all the same. And I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything about it. I knew who I was, and I knew who you were, and I didn’t know how to make it work or even if I wanted to.”

“The whole ace thing?”

He snorted. “Yes, Robbie. That was part of it.”

I hesitated. “I didn’t… force you?”

He shook his head. “No. Never.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“It is.” He leaned forward, resting his hands on the table again. It wouldn’t take much for me to reach over and take his hand. I didn’t. “I know you can’t remember, and that’s not your fault. But you can’t blame us for remembering. That’s not something we can control. We shouldn’t have done what we did. Or what we didn’t do. We should have believed in you more.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked, needing to hear it from him. “If we were together, why didn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you do everything you could to get me back? I may not remember what we had, but I know I would do everything I could to get to someone I cared about. Nothing would have stopped me.”

He was at a loss for words.

I nodded. That was all the answer I needed.

Then, “I did.”

“What?”

“I did,” he repeated. “Gordo and me. We looked for months. And then Ox found out what we were doing, and he helped too. It took a long time, but we spread the word through the packs we trusted. This network we have, these wolves and witches and humans who believe in the Bennett pack, they kept an eye out, ears open, for any hint. Any rumor. Any sighting. It took eight months, but then we found you. In Caswell. There was a wolf who said he’d seen you in the compound. He was visiting, and he recognized you from your picture. He said he tried to talk to you, tried dropping a couple of hints, but there was nothing.”

I couldn’t think of who this had been.

“And it hurt,” Kelly continued, “because he said you seemed happy. And I almost convinced myself that maybe what we’d thought was right, that you had betrayed us. But then I remembered something, and I knew it couldn’t be true.”

“What did you remember?”

“The way you loved me.”

It was a punch to the stomach.

“You loved me,” Kelly said softly, “without reservation. Without expecting anything in return. You loved me, and I knew that you wouldn’t stop, not unless you were forced to. And I knew then that I wouldn’t stop, no matter what it took.”

“I wish you had,” I said hoarsely.

“Why?”

“Because you’d still be a wolf. You wouldn’t be stuck like you are. And now we can’t fix you, and it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault.”

I scoffed.

“It isn’t. We’re—goddammit. It’s not just you, okay? Aileen and Patrice are right. We’ve lost our way. But that’s not forever. We’ll find out how to fix all of this. We’ve come too far, been through too much, to have it all end like this.”

“But you’re still a human.”

“And I hate it,” he said. I started to get up, but he reached out and gripped my hand tightly. His skin was warm, his fingers thin and bony. “I feel weak and tired all the fucking time. But it brought you back to me. And I would do it again and again and again. You said you would do anything for someone you cared about. Me too. My wolf was taken from me. I can barely breathe at the loss of it. I feel like I’m cut off from everything I’ve ever known, and there are days when I think I’m losing my mind.” He swallowed thickly. “But I got you back, so it was worth it.”

He turned his hand over, his fingers grazing against my wrist. His pulse fluttered just underneath his skin.

“Chris and Tanner have had time,” he said. “They’ve come to terms. And once they knew where you were, we had to stop them, physically stop them, from going across the country and storming the compound and killing everyone who stood between you and them. Jessie too. Rico…. It’ll take time, but I know he’ll come around. You’re home, Robbie. At last.”

I held on to him with all my might. I thought he would bruise, but he didn’t try to pull away. “What do we do now?”

He cocked his head. “Now? We try again. Maybe things won’t be the same, but you’re still you. Deep inside. You’re still the Robbie I know. And even if things don’t work out between us, even if we never get back to where we were, it’ll be okay because I’ll have you here. And that’s the most important thing.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe you’ll want to find someone else to—”

I shook my head furiously. “No. I don’t—that’s not what I want. I don’t want that. I want….”

I wanted a pack who loved me.

Who trusted me.

Who never wanted to let me go.

Who missed me when I was gone.

Who thought about me and smiled.

I wanted a home.

He watched me as I struggled to put into words this overwhelming desire, this thing within me that I had dreamed about for as long as I could remember. I’d had it once. I wanted it again more than anything.

He said, “Then we start again. We take it one day at a time, and we start again.”

“How?” I asked helplessly.

He pulled his hand away, and I bit back a protest at the loss.

I was bewildered when he held it out to me. “Kelly Bennett.”

I stared at it. And him.

He wiggled his fingers.

I took his hand carefully. He was breakable. He was soft. I didn’t remember him, but I wished I did, because I thought maybe he could be everything. He was a summer filled with green, like so much relief.

It was preposterous. This moment. Him. All of it. But he shook my hand up and down.

“I’m Robbie Fontaine,” I managed to say, feeling stupid. “It’s nice….”

“To meet me?” He sounded amused.

I shook my head. “No. Well, yeah. But it’s just… nice.”

“I think so too,” he said, and instead of letting me go again, he kept his hand on mine on the top of the table.

“What if this doesn’t work?”

“Maybe it won’t,” he said slowly. “But that won’t be because I didn’t give it all I had. I will fight for you, Robbie. No matter what.”

I was speechless.

Dominique came then, carrying two plates. “Sorry about the wait,” she said. “You looked like you weren’t ready yet. You good now?”

“I think we are,” Kelly said, and he never looked away from me.

She leaned over, set the plates on the table. Before she stood back up, she kissed Kelly on the cheek. He grinned.

It was breathtaking.

Dominique glanced at me as she turned to leave. She stopped. She said, “We haven’t had a chance to talk. I’ve heard about you.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Is that bad?”

“Nah,” she said. “At least not about you. It was bad. For them.” She nodded at Kelly. “I came after everything. Just passing through.”

“But you stayed.”

She nodded. “Green Creek does that to you. It’s not like anywhere else I’ve been.”

“And Jessie’s here,” Kelly teased her.

“She is,” Dominique agreed. “Probably more than I deserve once we figure things out, but she’s foolish and doesn’t see it.” She looked at me pointedly. “I’m not one for pack. Always been a bit of a loner. But it’s good having one so close. It takes the edge off, especially with Ox. Got me this job and everything. Said I could make something of myself. I figured why the hell not. I didn’t have anything else to lose. It stuck.” She patted Kelly on the shoulder before she turned away.

I watched her leave. “Jessie, huh? I thought she and Ox were… whatever, at one point.”

Kelly snorted. “Sexual fluidity is a thing that exists. You lost your virginity to a woman.”

I blinked in surprise. “How did you—oh. Right. What about you?” I balked, horrified. “Oh my god, ignore me. What the hell is wrong with me?”

He laughed until I thought he would pass out. I wanted to hear that sound for as long as I could. For a moment it was like this was a first date, like we were relative strangers just getting to know each other. Like we had all the time in the world.

We didn’t, but I could pretend. Because there was a man like sunshine sitting across from me, acting like there was no place he’d rather be than here with me.

Everything would come to a head at some point, and I thought it would be soon.

For now, though, Kelly Bennett was looking at me with such a spark in his eyes that I could barely function.

I said, “So, a cop, huh?”

And he said, “Yeah. A cop. It’s not bad. I actually like it more than I expected to. And it helps to have one of us patrolling through town in an official capacity. Makes people here feel safe. And we can keep an eye on things.”

“The uniform,” I said, feeling my face grow hot. “It suits you.”

He grinned as he looked out the window. “Thanks, Robbie.”

And on and on it went.