The grief and pain wouldn’t.
She pressed her forehead to his shoulder to remove the temptation. “I can’t make choices right now.
It’s too much. It’s all…too much.”
“I know.” Joe gathered her close against his chest, holding her in the circle of his arms. “I’ve got you.”
The words did what grief couldn’t. Cradled in his arms with his heart beating firmly under her cheek, she gave in and cried for the second time that day.
Joe leaned his head against a support beam on his front porch and clenched his hands into fists. “I can’t do it, Gavin.”
“You might have to.” The alpha’s voice was even, implacable. “Joe, I know you have personal issues with guiding someone you feel close to, but that girl is in a world of hurt right now. If she does this—”
“If,” Joe broke in, opening his eyes. “If.”
Gavin sighed. “Did she ask you?”
He fidgeted and tried not to remember the look on her face when she’d finally gotten around to it.
“Sort of.”
Sam spoke for the first time. “There’s no ‘sort of’ here. You’re a smart boy. Answer the question.”
Fine, damn it. “She asked, but she doesn’t know what that means, Sam. The only thing she’s seen is Keith and Abby, so she’s going to be expecting something…” Something what, Mitchell? “Something I can’t give her.”
Gavin stared at him, and Joe fought the urge to hide. For the tenth time since Brynn had turned those wide gray eyes on him, he wondered if he shouldn’t just give in. He could try his best. It might be good enough.
Memories of Tamara rose, and he shoved them down. It wouldn’t be right to offer himself to her, to let Brynn depend on him, if he couldn’t deliver. “Gavin, please.”
The alpha glanced at his wife. “Her state of mind?”
“Better than I’d expected.” Sam leaned her hip against the railing. “She’s hurt, and she’s scared.
Worried about her sister, but that’s not what’s motivating this. Not entirely.”
Gavin rubbed his hands over his face. “We’ve got time, at any rate. She can’t do it right away.” He leveled a reproachful stare on Joe. “You’ve been part of this from the start, Mitchell. You went with them when they brought Brynn back. It’s not surprising she looked to you.”
Guilt flooded him. “I know. I told her I’d be here if she needed me. But she won’t.”
“She needs someone strong,” Sam said flatly. “Someone who can handle things, no matter what happens. If this weren’t an emergency, I’d say she couldn’t undergo the change at all. Not with the emotional upheaval. But we all know what’s coming, and she’ll be a target because of Keith and Abby.”
Joe’s nails dug into his flesh when he clenched his fists again. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Hell, she might have changed her mind by the time she wakes up, anyway.”
Sam raised her hand in a placating gesture. “Cindy. Cindy could do it.”
Joe clung to her words like a drowning man. “She’d be perfect. Gavin, you know it’s true.”
The alpha inclined his head. “Maybe. Like I said, we’ve got time. No one’s rushing into anything like this. No way.”
“The full moon’s in a week,” Sam agreed. “Under the circumstances I’d say six months is reckless, but she has to wait at least one. In the meantime, Joe, you and Keith make sure she has other methods of defense at her disposal.”
Joe chewed his thumbnail. “I told her I’d teach her to shoot. It shouldn’t be a problem.” If he could keep his hands off her. “I’ll start as soon as she’s up to it. Keith has a full plate already.”
Sam nodded. “Get her a gun, and soon. Something she can handle. The alphas from Green Pond and St. Anthony are supposed to be here in a couple days, and no one’s going to have time to worry about gun-safety lessons once the summit starts.”
“Tomorrow, if she can,” he promised. “I think it’ll make her feel better.”
Gavin swiveled his head from one side to the other, audibly cracking his neck. “I’ll talk to Cindy before Brynn does. If she doesn’t have time to do it right now, we’re back at square one.”
“One more problem.” Sam lowered her voice. “Joe, you know what Keith was doing on his trip. If anyone outside of our confidence finds out that we’ve got a witch in town…”
“It’ll get ugly,” Joe finished. “Look, Brynn can make it through the full moon. After the summit, we can handle all this…stuff.”
“After the summit,” Gavin agreed with a glance at Sam. “We’d better get to the bar. People are going to have questions about the preparations and arrivals.”
She looked like she was going to disagree, but all three of them heard the soft sound of a door opening inside the cabin, followed by Brynn’s footsteps. Sam’s jaw tightened. “Take care of her. Call me if you need help.”
“We’ll be fine.” Joe watched them leave and turned back to the cabin.
Brynn stood in the center of his living room, and she looked like hell as she brushed tangled hair back from her face. “Hey.”
“Hey. Sleep okay?”
She shrugged one shoulder and didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m hungry. I don’t think I actually got around to eating this morning.”
“What do you want?” He headed for the kitchen. “Soup and sandwiches? Want me to grill something?”
“A sandwich is fine.” She glanced toward the door with a slight frown. “Was that Keith? Is Abby okay?”
“It was Gavin and Sam. But I talked to Keith earlier. Abby’s doing all right.”
Her gaze snapped back to his, and the weary fear in her eyes made him want to shield her with his body and his energy. “I don’t think she’d make it if something happened to me.”
“So you want to become a wolf.” He pulled open the refrigerator door. “To stay safe for Abby.”
“Maybe.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “But you’re right. Now’s not the time to think about it. Not when I’m this upset. But…the other thing. Learning how to shoot. How to defend myself.”
He took out sliced cold cuts and cheese. “When do you want to start?”
“Now?” She followed him into the kitchen and reached for the bread on the counter. “I can’t sit here and cry anymore. If I get much more scared, I think I’m going to go crazy.”
“You need a clear head if you’re going to learn.” Joe dropped the food packages on the counter and reached for two plates. “We can go over some stuff this afternoon, but you’re not laying hands on an actual weapon until tomorrow. Consider this the lecture component.”
She leaned against the counter and smiled, the expression wry. “I do have some technical knowledge.
Theoretical, anyway. I had to do a lot of research into firearms for a job I had last summer.”
“What kind of research?”
“For anti-gun legislation.”
Joe laughed. “How much of this research actually involved touching guns?”
“I’m thorough.” She untwisted the tie on the bread, pulled out a few slices and dropped them on one plate. “The other intern’s brother was a marine. He took us out to the firing range once. I didn’t mind handling the guns, but firing them was a bit much.”
“Not much of a reason to handle a gun if you’re not willing to fire it.”
“Yeah, well. A lot has changed since last summer.”
He had to give her that. “But your focus was mostly on safety in the theoretical sense. Controlling access?”
“Mostly.” Making the sandwiches seemed to calm her, as if the act gave her something to focus on.
Her heart rate slowed, and her nervous tension eased slightly. “I spent most of the summer on it. Going out to the firing range wasn’t really part of it, but it was a good excuse to stop staring at pages of statistics.”
Joe retrieved two bottles of beer and opened them. “Our routine is going to be a little more hands-on.
After the first day, I want you ready to carry a firearm and willing to use it, if you need to.”
Brynn’s smile was flat and tired. “Trust me. If someone shows up to take me back to Alan Matthews, I’ll shoot first and worry about the moral implications… Well, maybe not at all.”
“Good.” He slid her bottle across the counter and took a deep swallow from his. “Are you going to talk to Abby?”
Brynn finished the sandwiches in silence before reaching for the beer and draining half of it. “Yeah, eventually. I just need some time to think without her trying to make decisions for me. She forgets sometimes that I’m not a kid she needs to take care of anymore.”
“The alpha thing isn’t going to help that,” he pointed out.
This time her smile was real. “You only say that because you never met her before she became a werewolf. There was less snarling, but she’s always been bossy with me.”
Joe arranged the plates on his arm and carried them to the table. “Practically raised you, huh?”
“Pretty much.” She followed him, her beer clutched in both hands. “Alan Matthews grabbed me because I was right there in town, but he was lucky. I’m the one person Abby has always felt responsible for. She’d walk into anything if she thought I was in trouble, and that’s a lot of pressure.”
It was a lot of pressure on both of them. “Keith can help her now. What about you?”
“What about what?”
Joe arched an eyebrow at her as he slid into his chair. “You going to stop blaming yourself for the way Abby feels?”