move in with you before my heat night?”
“Sure,” he said. An apologetic smile settled on his face. “Listen, I’m sorry we’re having to deal with this bullshit. I wish we hadn’t been the ones to go up there. Sometimes, I wish I weren’t the alpha prince of Colorado. It would be nice to be a normal wolf with normal problems that my dad would judge on a fair basis, not because I’m his son. If this were happening to any other couple, it wouldn’t even be a question of who he’d side with.”
When they reached his house they parted with another hug. As she watched Rafe walk away, she remembered his proposal in the high school gymnasium, just two weeks after Myrna died as if he couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone in this world again like she was when they first met. He really was her best friend, and she couldn’t lose him, which meant she had to get rid of the maybe-Viking, whatever it took. The consequences of not doing so were just too scary to even think about. She didn’t know if she could mentally survive being a lone wolf again.
CHAPTER FIVE
“YOU’VE got to kidding me,” Chloe all but yelled into her cell phone the next day.
“Listen, kid, my nurse is off on full moon days and the guy smells like animal blood. He’s stinking up the entire clinic, and he needs a sponge bath.”
“Then why can’t you do it?” Chloe asked.
“Because I’m on the road to Denver to pick up my professor friend, who doesn’t drive. And also, because he’s your fated mate.”
Chloe gritted her teeth. “He’s not my anything. I am one hundred percent with Rafe.”
“Okay, well then because he’s the werewolf who came over one thousand years into the future just to find you. Is that any better?”
“No,” she grumbled.
“Well, here’s the deal, kid. You and Rafe asked me to keep this situation under wraps, so unless you want me to ask your fiancé to do it, I suggest you get down here and clean this guy up. And get him some new clothes while you’re at it.”
And that was how Chloe ended up abandoning her preparations for her chicken and fennel episode of Black Mountain Woman , and running to the local general store to pick up a pair of extra-large basketball shorts, men’s underwear, and a Wolf Springs T-shirt for the man who had turned her life upside down in less than twelve hours.
Doc Fischer was right about being able to smell him as soon as you walked in the door, but it was Chloe’s opinion he had exaggerated how bad it was. He did smell of some animal whose scent she didn’t recognize off the top of her head, but it didn’t overwhelm his real smell, which she actually found quite pleasant. It was a mixture of smoke, evergreens, ocean, wind, and mountain that made her think of outdoor barbecues and ski vacations.
In any case, she was happy he was still out cold when she arrived in his room with the clothes and a basin, which she filled with warm water. She washed his face first, running the warm cloth over it and wondering what he looked like under his thick beard. She already knew his eyes were light gray and she could see his nose was long and straight, but the red beard and his tangled lion’s mane of a hair-do pretty much hid every other feature.
Next she added soap to the water in the basin, before dipping the towel in again and running it over his chest, doing her best not to admire the hard muscles she felt underneath her cloth. Whatever this guy did for a living wherever he was from, it had gifted him with a beautiful body. She had to put some effort into lifting his arms, which were so thick with muscle that getting underneath them in order to wash his arm pits was a bit of a challenge.
Somewhat out of breath, she emptied out the water and refilled it with a fresh batch of warm, soapy water. Now she had to do his bottom half.
Once again she had to put a lot of effort into getting him clean. First she had to tug off his pants, which didn’t have any fasteners on