Page 38 of Left Cold, Wolf Owned
"Yeah," I reply.
"What is this?" She says it simply, without performance, in the way she says true things. "I mean—I know what it isn't. I'm not asking you to define anything. I—" She pauses, working out the actual sentence. "You've given me more of yourself in a few days than most people do in years. And I don't know what to do with that."
Everything in me goes very still.
My wolf surges immediately with the particular insistence of an argument that has been building up for days and has immediately found its moment.Tell her. Tell her now. She's asking, and you could—
"I think—" I start.
I stop.
Because the full version is right there—the bond, the mate, the way my wolf knew the moment she looked at me in the doorway—and if I start pulling on that thread, I don't know where I stop, and she doesn't have the full picture yet. She has no inkling that I’m not necessarily human. The bond is something she would have never thought of. And the answer she deserves isn't one I can give her halfway.
I redirect.
"I think some people are worth giving more to," I tell her, evenly, carefully, and truly. "That's all."
She studies me for a while. Her face carries two things simultaneously—the knowledge that there's more to the answer than what I gave her and the decision not to push it tonight. That's the thing about Harper; she knows when she's found the edge of something and respects it.
"Okay," she replies quietly.
The moment sits between us, unresolved and present, and I pick up my phone. "I'm going to step outside," I tell her. "Check in with Mateo."
Harper nods. "Tell him I said the chair situation is unreasonable."
"I'll leave that part out," I reply and go.
The covered walkway outside is cold and empty; the rain is still coming down in the parking lot beyond the overhang, and I stand in it with my phone, finally breathing the night air properly.
Mateo picks up on the second ring.
"Where are you?" he opens, and something in his tone tells me he's been waiting for this call.
"Roadside motel on the backcountry route east. Storm closed the main highway. We're waiting it out overnight." I keep my voice low. "What's happening?"
"I was going to call you in the next hour." He pauses, and the pause itself is information—whatever comes next requires more care than usual. "I've been getting reports from a couple of the nearby towns. People asking questions—asking if anyone's seen a woman matching Harper's description. Brown hair, late twenties. No mention of a man, no mention of you." A pause. "It started this afternoon, working its way east from the base of the mountain."
I go still. "Dawson's people?"
"Has to be. The press wouldn't be working it this quietly and this specifically." He pauses. "And Logan, there was something posted online. From the diner you stopped at this morning. One of those women from the group of three you mentioned before, it looks like. Blurry photo, nothing definitive, but enough that someone who was looking would have a direction."
I press the heel of my hand against the wall and breathe through it. "How far east are they working?"
"Far enough that if you keep moving that direction, you're walking toward them." He pauses. "If you come back, you're behind it. On the ground, I can secure."
My eyes go to the rain. Think through it quickly and clearly, the way I think through problems on the territory—what I know, what I don't, and what the variables are.
"I'll need to convince her," I tell him. "She agreed to one more day before going back to her life. Going back to the mountain is going to look like?—"
"Like the smart call," Mateo cuts in. "Which it is." A beat. "How is she?"
"Good," I reply. "She's good." I pause and don't say the rest of it.
Mateo, because he is Mateo, hears it anyway. "I know," he says quietly. "Get some sleep if you can. Call me when you're back on the road."
"Thank you," I tell him.
"Logan." He pauses. "You're doing right by her. Keep doing that."
