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blushed.
    Now she wished she’d had the photo in her pants pocket, although with sitting, she probably would have wrinkled it. Even wet, it might be ruined. That would be a disappointment. Using his picture for visual stimulation would help her to write his description as her next hero.
    â€œWhat of your pack?” Ian asked Julia out of nowhere.
    She waited a heartbeat, expecting, hoping that Maria would answer by filling him in on her pack—large, with complicated dynamics, just like a real wolf pack often was—so Julia didn’t have to talk about her own. But this time Maria said nothing. With Ian running a clan and a pack, Julia imagined he had a large number of people to supervise. She figured he’d think her family insignificant, unworthy of being called a pack.
    â€œIt’s just my father and grandfather and me,” Julia said, brushing her hands down her wet pants legs in a nervous little gesture.
    Ian frowned.
    She let out her breath. This is why she hated mentioning it to anyone—well, of their wolf kind. “My mother and my paternal grandmother died when I was little. My father and his father never remated. My mother’s parents died much earlier on. I had no siblings.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear about your losses. I lost my da and grandparents some years ago. Your grandfather is the pack leader? Or has he stepped down?”
    â€œNeither. We don’t…” She cleared her throat. Others didn’t understand their pack dynamics. It wasn’t really a pack, in truth, but a family. They helped each other, giving advice to each other. Sometimes her father was in charge, sometimes her grandfather, and sometimes even Julia—usually when her father and grandfather were feeling under the weather and she was there to help them get well. It was their way. No jostling to be the alpha leader. Each had his or her own job to do. They were all headstrong alphas so they just lived as a family. Although she had a place of her own. “We are a family.”
    â€œFamily.” He stroked his chin a couple of times and then leaned back against the seat. “No pack.” He said the words to himself, making her think he had come to a conclusion about her family but wasn’t letting her in on it. “I’m sorry I’m taking up so much room in the backseat,” Ian remarked, stretching and pressing further against her leg, muscled, hard, and hot.
    She thought this time he rubbed against her because he was feeling cramped, but the heat still sizzled between them. She should have watched the scenery, gathering notes for her story, but his leg pressed against hers thoroughly distracted her. She assumed the reason he hadn’t sat up front where he would have had more leg room was he was as intrigued with her as she was with him. If she’d been perfectly human, he might have taken her to his castle for a little fun, if she’d been willing.
    Duncan glanced up at the rearview mirror again. Julia’s cheeks were flushed with heat, and she said to Ian, attempting to pretend she wasn’t enjoying his touch as much as she was, “It won’t be much farther, will it?”
    Ian raised his brows almost imperceptibly, a movement as barely noticeable as the smile on his lips. “Not much farther, but with the fog…” His words trailed off, and she swore Duncan took his foot off the gas and slowed down a bit more.
    The brothers were in collusion, which warned her that pack ties were a real force to be reckoned with.
    When Duncan parked at the cottage nestled in the woods a few minutes later, Julia sighed with relief, feeling an overwhelming need to get away from the man who could uncover her secrets. The cottage was small and cheery with a stone chimney clinging to one outside wall and a burgundy-red door inviting them in, a small window on either side of it covered in lace curtains.
    Usually totally independent, Julia intended to