While Mila poured syrup over her waffles, he imagined her pouring it onto him and licking it off with that cute little mouth of hers. He couldn’t even remember the last time he was this turned on. Roman cleared his throat. “Does Nelda still run that logging crew?”
“She oversees it, but Farris is running it now.”
Fuck, Farris would be a harder sell.
“Why?” Mila asked suddenly, looking up at him with narrowed eyes. Wolf eyes. God, he loved that wild color on her face. She was so good. Roman wanted to corrupt her and release that bad wolf he knew was buried in her somewhere. Buried…in her. Fuuuuuck, he wanted to take her out to the back of his jeep and lose his mind, strip her down, and push into her until she was screaming his name.
Mila was staring at him like he’d already lost that sanity. What had she asked him? Oh yeah, why was he asking about Nelda’s logging crew. “I was thinking about asking for a job.”
“I thought you had a job.”
The lace was the exact same shade as her skin. “Hmmm? Oh, right, the bar. Extra income.”
“You’ve been around humans too long,” she murmured so quietly no one would hear but him. “Your lies work with them. Not on me.”
Oh yeah, crap. “Fine, I want a pack job so I can stir the shit in the Bone-Rippers.”
“Is that what you’re doing here with me?” she asked carefully, her eyes downcast as she cut her waffle into perfect squares.
“I don’t know yet.” She wouldn’t find a lie in that because now he was confused about why he’d asked her to Jack’s, of all places in this town. It was like he’d wanted her to remember that hug in the woods. Had it meant as much to her as it had to him? All he knew was that when he’d held Mila, the ghosts in the woods had scattered, and he’d found peace for a few minutes.
“Roman, why are you here?” she asked softly, lifting those pretty eyes to him. He wanted to see all of them, wanted to brush her bangs out of her face, smooth them back, see if her skin was as soft as it looked. See if she was as soft as she looked…
“I came to be with my brothers when my dad’s ashes were spread.”
Sympathy pooled in her eyes. “Did you already scatter his ashes over the river?”
“Uuuum, no. Asherhole dumped them right behind Winter’s Edge while me and Gentry were trying to stop him, and we all got covered in Dad. It was fucking gross.” And now Dad’s ghost wouldn’t leave him alone. That probably had something to do with it, which was why Roman currently hated Asher the most out of his brothers right now.
Mila hid a smile, but not well enough.
“It’s not funny. I got ashes in my mouth.”
She snorted and pursed her lips harder as her eyes got round like dinner plates. And now a cute pink color was staining her cheeks. Roman liked making people laugh in general, but Mila was serious, submissive, and she’d always presented him with a challenge. She didn’t give smiles as easily as other people, but she was giving him one now. A feeling of triumph slowly unfurled in his chest.
“Your dad would be so disappointed in the three of you,” she teased. “All he ever talked about was fishing on that damn river.”
“Please, he would be disappointed in Asher, not me and Gentry. Gentry was his favorite son, and he never gave two shits about me. No feelings, no disappointment. But Asher broke the urn on a tree. I’m pretty sure we were supposed to…I don’t know…keep that as a memento or something.”
“Your dad cared about you,” Mila said, her pretty face scrunching up in a frown. “Noah talked about all three of you, all the time. There wasn’t a single pack meeting where you three weren’t brought up. Not just Gentry, not just Asher. He always talked about how you worked your way up a construction crew faster than anyone he’d ever heard of, and how you were always so good at fixing anything.”
Roman laughed unsurely. “You’re making this up.”
“No, I’m not.” She gave a quick shrug. “He even had your pictures hanging in Winter’s Edge until…”
Roman narrowed his eyes. “Until what?”
Mila froze, her eyes big like a deer in headlights. The smell of her fear ripped a snarl out of his throat. The aggression wasn’t directed at her. Instead, it was a protective instinct to murder whatever had scared her. But at the sound in his throat, she whimpered and shrank back into her seat. Roman then realized what had scared her…was him.
She knew things. She knew about the mysteries he and his brothers had been trying to unravel since the day they had come back into town, but Mila had a loyalty problem. She was pledged to the Bone-Rippers, and apparently bound by black magic to Rangeley. Roman was an outsider, one she didn’t trust. But he wanted to change that. And not just because he wanted to fuck with the pack anymore. It genuinely bothered him that Mila still couldn’t relax around him. It wasn’t like they’d just met. They’d grown up together. He wanted her trust. Wanted to earn it, wanted her to give it.
Dad was standing across the bar. He wasn’t being normal ghost Dad either. He was standing half in the wall, right under a pair of deer antlers, staring…still staring. He’d kept pictures of Roman in Winter’s Edge. Did you, Dad? Did you secretly care?
Mila slid her legs forward under the table and rested her ankles against his. Shocked, he jerked his attention to her, but she didn’t look scared anymore. Her eyes were soft. He wished he could say something witty and make her smile again. Her legs felt good against his. It had been a long time since someone touched him on purpose.