Zack took one look at her father and frowned. “You already told him.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” He looked past her to Austin. “I never wanted her to get hurt. If I’d known, I would have taken them somewhere else.”
If the words registered, her father showed no sign. Instead, he walked up to Zack, his faded blue gaze taking stock of every scar, every line on his nephew’s face. Then he lifted a hand, patted Zack’s cheek and pulled him down into a hug.
Eden held her breath as Zack stood there, stiff and awkward in the embrace of a man who had never really been related to him—not by blood, anyway, even if Zack looked more like Austin than Eden ever had. But the bonds of their sad, broken little family had never rested on blood.
Austin clutched Zack to his chest like a long-lost son, and Zack’s reserve melted under it. After an eternity, he lifted his arms and hugged the older man back, that tired, tentative gesture alone enough to make Eden’s eyes burn. She turned away and hurried into the kitchen, covering her tears under the mundane task of making coffee.
Zack was alive. His so-called father was dead. The ghosts of Green Pines couldn’t hurt him anymore, and Jay and his friends would make sure the same was true of whatever ghosts had followed from Memphis.
After so many years of secrets and suffering, maybe the Green family could finally start to heal.
Chapter Four
By the time Jay pulled his beat-up old truck into his driveway, Eden thought the short walk to the front door might be more than she could manage. Not physically—her body still thrummed with enough inexhaustible energy to leave her fidgeting, but her mind and heart hadn’t caught up.
Or maybe being a werewolf only made your body stronger. Maybe the rest of her would never catch up, and she’d be a battered, stunted soul in a too-healthy body.
Like Zack, whispered a traitorous inner voice. Like Lorelei and Mae.
Eden pushed the thought away and waited for Jay to kill the engine before grabbing his hand. Touch rooted her now, like hopping onto a steady rock while the ground around her turned to quicksand. The darker thoughts melted away, replaced by her own attraction and the wolf’s more cunning interest.
“How are you holding up?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know.” She ran her thumb over the back of his hand, savoring the heat of him, the way even the barest brush of skin felt illicit. Intimate. “I needed to get away from the farm again…but I still feel selfish for coming back here with you.”
“We can be there in a matter of minutes if anything happens. Zack has my number.”
She knew. Just as she’d known she’d reached her limit when Mae had snapped at one of the men over something tiny and foolish, her snarling tone more like a wounded animal’s than a human’s. The need to soothe her throbbed at the base of Eden’s skull like a migraine waiting to split wide open, but her attempts to reach out to the girl only provoked more fear.
Time. They all needed it, and no one knew if there would be enough. “Does it get easier? Not being able to help them, I mean. Not being able to make them feel safe.”
He hesitated, and she realized he was thinking of doing it to her right now, thinking of lying to make her feel better. But finally he said, “No. The only thing you can do is try to make a safe place, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
If Lorelei’s pain stuck in Eden’s throat like shards of glass, what was her own agony doing to Jay? She shifted on the bench seat, easing close enough to touch his jaw with her free hand. “Does that mean I’m hurting you?”
“No, nothing like that.” He covered her hand with his and smiled faintly. “I just know how you feel, that’s all.”
“Good.” She smoothed her thumb over his lower lip and remembered what it had felt like to kiss him. Hot and heady, every sense alive and screaming for more. More touch, more taste…more skin. “I feel safe right where I am. Confused as hell, but safe.”
His smile grew, and he reached down to retrieve the grocery bag from the floorboard beside her feet. His arm brushed her leg as he moved, and his smile faded as he straightened. “You never said how it went today. Breaking the news to your father.”
“He coped.” Jay’s throat had been so close to her mouth that she could have bitten it. Sank teeth into skin, left a bruise. A territorial statement she wasn’t brazen enough to make with words. The thought intoxicated her, and she stumbled over her next words. “He, uh, he was more worried about Zack than me, I think. Zack looks worse off…”
“Looks can be deceiving.” Jay dipped his head and caught her gaze. “Eden?”
His eyes were gorgeous. Dark and warm. “Yeah?”
His fingers brushed her cheek. “Come inside. I’ll make dinner, and you can relax.”
She realized she was swaying closer to him when her lips bumped his palm. She froze, her mouth parted on his skin, torn between the urge to lick or bite and the knowledge she had to pull back.
Not like this, in the front seat of his truck. She closed her eyes and eased away. “I’m sorry. I’m having trouble with the concept of personal space right now.”
“You might for a while yet, but I’ll try not to lean on you if I can help it.”
Eden opened her eyes with a frown. “Lean on me?”
“Push you,” he explained. A moment later, a swell of something filled the space between them, a call and a warning all wrapped up in one.
She almost rolled to her back with a whimper. A growl worked its way up her throat as her wolf fought the urge, leaving her torn between conflicting needs—test him by meeting challenge with strength, or fold and beg for the safety of his protection.
Eden made the choice before her wolf could, ducking her head and burying her face against his chest with a choked groan. “I don’t think I’m a very smart wolf.”
He tangled his fingers in her hair. “You’re new, honey. Cut yourself some slack.”
His chest was solid under her cheek. His hand in her hair tugged just enough to be a quiet show of dominance, one edged in sensual promise. She swallowed hard and wet her suddenly dry lips. “Is this how werewolves flirt?”
“Better than having to sniff someone’s ass, isn’t it?”
It startled a laugh out of her. “In most circumstances, I imagine.”
“Mmm.” He rattled the bag. “Steak. You haven’t lived until I’ve grilled one for you, and that’s a verifiable fact.”
Steak sounded delicious enough to set her stomach to rumbling, but when she lifted her head, Jay’s fingers stayed tangled in her hair. The pull was a different sort of delicious, dark and hot, and she caught his gaze as he freed her with teasing slowness.
He released her with a half-smile. “Fair warning. I’m going to kiss you again tonight…but not just yet.”
Her heart skipped a few beats out of sheer glee. “I’d warn you about what I’m going to do in response, but I can’t tell if my inner wolf will pick a fight with you or try to tear your clothes off. Probably one of those two, though.”
“Finding out is half the fun.” Then he pushed open his door and slid out of the truck.
She tugged absently at her own door handle, transfixed by the fantasy of wrestling to see who would come out on top. She forgot that the passenger door only worked from the outside until Jay pulled it open for her.
Eden stared at him for a moment before easing off the seat, clutching her overnight bag. “I didn’t know you could cook,” she said, carefully picking a topic that wouldn’t involve either of them na**d and rolling on the ground.
“I can—badly,” he confessed as he laid his hand on her elbow. “But open flame and I get along really well.”
“I’m hopeless. The family skill in the kitchen must have skipped my generation.”
Jay led her around the side of the house to the back door. “I survive on breakfast foods and eating out. Aside from the steak, you’ve already tasted the best I have to offer.”
“You probably help keep my dad in business some months.” She stepped through the back door and hesitated just inside. This was a warning Jay deserved. “He’s got some ideas about you and me. He might decide to have a talk with you.”
Jay followed her across the threshold. “You’ve been staying at my house, spending all sorts of time with me. Of course he’s got ideas.”
Eden dropped her bag on the couch and sank beside it with a relieved sigh. “Don’t let him nag. I’m a grown woman, and he has to get used to that.”
Jay laughed as he set the grocery bag on the counter. “How do you know he’s not going to tell me how pleased he is we’re an item?”
If anyone could sidestep her father’s grumpy disapproval, it would be the Chief of Police. “I bet you charmed all your girlfriends’ parents growing up. Or were you not always this responsible and upstanding?”
“Not by a long shot.” He pulled a glass dish from a cabinet and began to gather items from the refrigerator. “I was quite the hellion, actually. Into all sorts of stupid shit.”
“So you started out a bad boy and ended up a cop?”
His expression sobered. “I managed not to run afoul of the authorities, but one night I wound up on the wrong end of a bad fight. A local pusher who used half-feral werewolves as muscle.”
Oh, God. “How old were you?”
“Twenty-two.”
Barely more than a kid. “ Did you find someone to help you?”
“Yeah.” His gaze lost focus, as if he was looking at something very far away. “They left me in an alley, and I would have died if Murray hadn’t found me. He was an old wolf by then—older than I knew, probably. Practically lived on the streets.”
Eden shivered in spite of the warmth of the room. “I think I must have had it easier than anyone.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head as if to clear it and laid the steaks in the glass dish. “There’s no such thing as easy. There’s only the difference between problems that are obvious and the ones that are hidden, right?”