Read Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 for Free Online Page B

didn’t know it had progressed to her sneaking off the farm.”
    Perhaps it hadn’t, until a Memphis refugee had died in the backyard. “It isn’t like that. She probably just needed him last night, that’s all.”
    “I suppose,” he replied, his hand hovering over the key in the ignition. “Do you want to talk to her?”
    “No.” Lorelei turned away from the window. “It’s none of my business.”
    “She’s pack.”
    No, he didn’t know either of them, couldn’t possibly understand the truth. “Kaley is pack,” she echoed. “But, above all else, she’s Zack’s. He pulled her away from us when he left, because part of her had to go with him.”
    He steered the car toward the exit on the opposite side of the parking lot. “I thought they were never an actual thing.”
    She glanced at his profile. “What qualifies as an actual thing?”
    “I don’t know.” His pose was relaxed, with one hand resting lightly atop the steering wheel, but his voice held tension. “I’d say consummation counts.”
    Lorelei had been in Zack’s bed once or twice over the years, but she’d never once considered it a thing , and neither had he. “I don’t think they ever were, then. By your definition.”
    “It’s not a perfect one.” He ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. “There’s wanting and needing and taking…and that’s just the human half of it. The complicated half, maybe, but the less dangerous half.”
    “Is it?”
    “Always seemed like it to me. Not a lot of room for civilized discussion once the wolf is riled.”
    “No.” She sipped her coffee to occupy herself, but soon the silence in the car grew to deafening levels. “Do you want your breakfast now or later?”
    He stole a look at her, a sympathetic one that made her think an apology hovered on the tip of his tongue, but after a moment he returned his attention to the road. “The muffins smell good.”
    She dug one out of the bag and passed it to him, along with a napkin. “I know the right people to talk to in Memphis, ones who’ll definitely know what’s going on, but it might take us a few days to track them down.”
    “Track them down, huh?” He glanced at her again. “Can you tell me anything about them?”
    If he was half the information guy Shane and Jay made him out to be, he already knew the answers. “They don’t exactly have addresses.”
    “Not where they are. Who they are.”
    “Wolves who stay off the radar.” She hesitated. “They know what happens when you run afoul of someone like Christian Peters.”
    He nodded. “And staying off the radar means knowing what’s going on around you. My best contacts are like that.”
    “We should be able to find out quickly who’s taken Christian’s place and what they might want from Jay.”
    “It’s a place to start.” He demolished the muffin in three hungry bites and gestured to the bag. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
    The thought of trying to force food into her roiling stomach had Lorelei shaking her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”
    Colin reached for her hand, brushing his fingers over the back of it. This time his power was a softer caress, just a hint of the wolf. “I know you didn’t eat before we left.”
    He saw too much. She wanted to pull away from the comforting touch, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. “I’ll be all right.”
    “Yeah, you will.” His hand dropped over hers. He didn’t curl his fingers or grip her, just let the weight of his palm press down and bring reassuring magic with it. “Nothing in Memphis will get past me.”
    He’d never believe that there was nothing left in Memphis that scared her, nothing that would hurt. “You do this a lot, don’t you? Put out fires.”
    “It’s pretty much all I do. All I did, anyway, until last month.”
    Until coming to Green Pines. Did he really feel like he belonged there, like he’d said, or was he covering for the fact that he felt like a glorified bodyguard?