Page 46 of A Wolfe in the Woods

“No!” I said. “But I had thought…I thought that maybe…”

I didn’t have to finish.

“You don’t need more Lycans in your life right now,” Meg continued, her voice softening with understanding. She tried to lighten the mood with “Besides, they’ll piss all over you to mark their territory.”

A delirious bubble of a laugh rose from my throat.

“Come home, please,” Meg pleaded, her voice turning concerned again. As worried as I’d ever heard her. “I officially give you permission to end your vacay early. Okay?”

I closed my eyes, letting my breath tumble out of me.

“I’ll figure it out,” I murmured, thinking about my car, which I still hadn’t gotten around to repairing.

I hung up the landline and gazed around the cabin.

“Time to pack up,” I whispered to myself, wondering why I felt such disappointment. Evenhurt. I didn’t know Jonathan, clearly. But there had been something special last night, hadn’t there? A moment where we’d connected, where it felt like there was a possibility of something more, something special.

But I just couldn’t reconcile the Jonathan that Meg was painting—cunning and calculating, the villain in the newspapers—compared with the man in worn blue jeans showing me the secret garden he was trying to restore.

You never really know someone,I supposed.

After my small suitcase was packed up, I decided to head to the reception cabin first to see what I could do about my car. On my way down the dusty gravel path, I kept my eyes peeled for a familiar male—though out of hope or wariness, I wasn’t certain.

The AC blasted me the second I stepped inside the cabin. I frowned, feeling a strange sense that the layout of it had changed in the daylight. I’d grown up hearing stories about these woods all my life. Old, wild magic ran deep here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was steeped in the land.

“May?” I called out, pressing my belly up against the tall wood desk. The stain was faded in some part, but I thought it added to its charm.

I heard commotion in the back before May appeared. “Mornin’, dear,” she greeted. “Hungry?”

“No, but thank you,” I said, eyeing the older woman, wondering what I should say. “Um, something came up in Graymore and I have to get back early. So I wanted to see if you could help me get that tow into Everwick for my car and?—”

“No needin’ that anymore,” May replied, shaking her head. “Part came in yesterday, and Jon-boy fixed it this mornin.’ Just needed a new starter solenoid…which he covered.”

My chest squeezed. “He fixed it for me?”

She nodded. “But I’m sorry to hear ya have to be getting back to the city so soon. I thought we had ya for a couple more days.”

“Don’t worry about the reservation. I don’t need a refund—this is my own fault. I just can’t stay.”

“Hmm,” May grunted, waving her hand in the air as if to bat away my words. “I wasn’t worried about the money, dear. I was thinkin’ about Jon.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, then a soft smile crossed her face, one that struck me as a little sad. “Part of me knows he’s hidin’ away here in the woods. I just worry he’ll hide the rest of his life away.”

I didn’t know what to make of that—or what it had to do with me.

My brow furrowed as I thought of a reply, casting my gaze around the cozy interior of the reception cabin. The ice jug had been freshly replaced, droplets rolling down the side. Moonshade berries appeared to be flavoring it today, the color seeping into the water at the very top. On the wall shelf next to the fireplace, I spied a dried bundle of roses and wildflowers, popped into a ceramic vase. A little wooden box with carvingetched into the sides. A silver figurine of a wolf. A tiny framed oil painting of a?—

My eyes darted back to the wolf figurine, my lips parting.

A memory unlocked, stunning and surprising.

I walked toward the shelf, thinking it wasn’t possible. The closer I got, however, the more incredulous I became. I plucked it off the shelf, turning it over in my palm. Its eyes were rounded silver, unseeing. And yet a shiver went down my spine.

There was a familiar scratch running down the back of its leg, which had tarnished black with time. She’d always had it displayed, a gift from her mother that she’d had since she was a young girl. It had been on her bookshelf last I’d seen it. But now I couldn’t remember if it had been there when I’d boxed up her house after the funeral.

“This was my grandmother’s,” I said quietly, feeling the familiar heaviness of the solid silver. I turned back to May. Her clear eyes were pinned to the left of me, prompting me to clarify, “This wolf figurine. The silver one, on the shelf. How do you have it? Why is ithere?”