“Maggie,” he whispered, and my heart thundered in my ears. When his fingertips grazed the hollow of my throat, I jumped, my own fingertips digging into the rear of Nick’s sweats. I felt papery bandages crinkle underneath the cotton. Nick yelped. My eyes went wide. I remembered with a flush of guilt that I’d been the one to hurt him. As a wolf. While he was investigating us. And all of the reasons not to be anywhere near Nick came crashing down on me again.
Shit.
I gasped and scrambled back.
“What?” he asked. “It’s not that bad. We can work around it.”
“I’ve got to go,” I said, leaping off of the couch and backing down the hall.
“Maggie, wait,” he called as I stumbled out the front door. I got two steps to my truck before I realized I’d left my keys on Nick’s table. I glanced back to the door, where Nick was limping into the frame.
“Oh, screw it,” I grunted, and took off running down the driveway.
“Maggie!” he yelled, but I was already on the highway, sprinting toward home.
I was running at my top human speed, having put a couple of miles between Nick’s driveway and my feet. A light rain had started to fall, misting over my damp cheeks. Running in my human shape felt right, as if I was bleeding poison from the ragged human wound in my chest with every step. I needed to go through this as a woman, not a wolf. Obviously, my more animal instincts weren’t leading me in the right direction.
I couldn’t put my whole pack—hell, my whole species—in jeopardy because a man happened to curl my toes and give me arm tingles.
My hair clung in damp ropes to my cheeks as my feet ate through the intense climb up the winding mountain road to the valley. It was late September, and the sharp bite of the air was leeching the warmth from my bones, leaving me shivering in my soaked jacket and jeans. The raindrops grew bigger, splashing into my eyes, making me wish for my hat. I would have phased and run the rest of the way, but these were my favorite boots, soggy as they were, and it was a bitch to keep replacing my clothes.
I had to find the positive. I needed this. I needed to feel foolish and humiliated and crazy. It was like cauterizing a wound. The next time I thought about throwing myself at Nick Thatcher, I would remember this feeling, and it would turn me off faster than Lee bragging about his nunchuck collection.
I doubted Nick would want to see me again for a while anyway, I told myself. He probably thought I was nuts. Normal girls didn’t respond to delicious, earth-shattering kisses by running away down an Alaskan highway. Maybe I was nuts. This was like some episode of not-so-temporary insanity. Even if he was this decade’s answer to Fox Mulder, I couldn’t afford to throw myself at good-looking humans just because I got tingles in special places. I needed someone like Clay, someone who understood all the weird drama that came with being a wolf, who could help me continue the line. Nick needed. . .
I slowed my pace to what a human runner would consider jogging. Thinking of the kind of woman Nick needed and deserved put that hole back in my chest. I rubbed a hand over my aching breastbone, feeling suddenly out of breath. A man like Nick deserved a woman who was smart. A woman who would be nice to him, all the time, who would be pretty and soft and sweet. Who didn’t wolf out and bite him on the ass.
I’d never had a crisis of self-esteem. I’d never minded not going to college. I’d never minded not having a skill set, as Mo did with her cooking. All I knew was the pack, and so far, it had worked out for me. Some people would find that depressing, limiting. But I thought it was a nice way of simplifying my life. And now it felt as if it might not be enough, and that was terrifying.
Behind me, I heard my truck’s engine rumbling. Shit. I wiped at my eyes. Considering his butt-cheek injuries, I hadn’t expected Nick to come after me. I’d expected to have to call Cooper to pick up my truck.
“Maggie, stop!” he yelled out of the driver’s-side window. I slowed to a crawl, for me, and eyed him warily through the window.
I could just keep running. Hell, part of me wanted to phase right there and make tracks for Canada. But Grahams didn’t shirk away from problems. We didn’t run. Well, Cooper did, that once, for a few years. But he eventually came back.
None of this inner coaching was helping, as Nick was still staring at me through the rain.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I’m fine!” I told him. “I’m halfway home. Just leave me alone.”
“Are you crazy?” he yelled. “It’s pouring. It’s going to be dark soon. Get in the truck!”
I tipped my head back, blinking as I watched the dark clouds swirling overhead. The rain wouldn’t be letting up anytime soon. And I didn’t relish the idea of jogging all the way home with Nick trailing me at idling speed, yelling through my window.
“Damn it,” I grumbled, stomping toward the truck. He leaned over and popped the passenger door open, wincing in discomfort.
“Oh, you must be kidding. This is my truck. Scoot over,” I told him, opening the driver’s door. He carefully moved over to the passenger seat. I watched him settle against the bench, his face contorting, and I felt that twinge of guilt again.
“Why in the hell did you take off like that?” he yelled, pulling me close. My clothes slapped wetly against his, and he dug his hands into my snaggled hair. “What the hell was that? If I move too fast, you tell me. You don’t run off.”
I frowned. I’d been yelled at before. And I’d been hugged, but not at the same time. Weird.
“And how did you get so far?” he asked, pointing the truck’s heat vents toward me and cranking up the thermostat. “What are you, a champion sprinter?”
“Well, you gave me a pretty good head start,” I told him.
“Yeah, I couldn’t get your truck started,” he mumbled. “And it’s hard to steer . . . and slow down. Your brakes are making really weird noises.”
“The clutch is kind of tricky,” I confessed as he pulled at the sleeves of my wet jacket and made me shrug out of it before I slipped the truck into gear. “I think Cooper and Sam rebuilt the transmission a few too many times.”
“Why not just get a new truck?” he asked.
“It was my dad’s,” I said as I pulled a careful U-turn and pointed the truck downhill toward Nick’s place. “He died when I was really little. I barely knew him. And I just like the idea of having something that used to be his.”
The rain was pouring now, sheeting down the window in rippling waves. We rarely had what you’d call heavy rainfall, so the roads were slick with a layer of newly rehydrated oil and dust. I could hardly see through the windshield for the rain flowing down the glass, but I could tell that the landscape was moving by faster than it should be. I tapped the brake, but the truck didn’t respond. It rolled along faster, building speed.
Nick cleared his throat. “OK, Maggie, I know you want to get home, but you need to slow down.”
I pushed the brake with more force. “I’m trying.”
“If you were trying, the truck would be going slower,” he insisted.
I pressed my foot down harder, but the truck kept coasting along. The tires squealed slightly as I rounded a corner. “Hey, Nick,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Did you notice anything weird about the brakes on the way out here?”
He shook his head. “Besides the noise? They were a little sluggish, but it was uphill most of the way. I didn’t use them much.”
I grunted as the end of the truck bed swiped an outcropping of rock while I took a curve. Nick’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Nick, I need you to pull up the emergency brake. Hard. I’d do it, but I think I need to keep my hands on the wheel.”
Nick nodded and scooted toward me. As he wrapped his hands around the brake lever, I braced myself for the jolt of the wheels stopping.
“This isn’t bad,” Nick assured me as I eased around a minor curve. “I once drove a Jeep down the Yungas Road in Bolivia; it’s the most dangerous road in the world. I came around a corner, and there was a logging truck stalled out—”
“Would you please shut the fuck up and pull the fucking brake!” I yelled.
“I am pulling it!” he exclaimed, tugging the brake arm up. Nothing happened. We locked eyes. Nick’s gaze flashed toward the road. “Look, just anticipate the turns; we should slow down enough to come to a stop.”
