Dawson Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 5) (3 page)

“You’re not a vampire,” she joked, but heat burned her cheeks when she realized how close she’d gotten to exposing just how much she knew about wolf-people like him.

“No, but you’ll fuss over me all night if I don’t come in. I won’t hurt you. I’ll watch over you tonight, then be out of your life tomorrow.”

“I have a couch.”

“I’ll keep you safe.”

Kate let off a long, shaky sigh. Safe. That sounded nice after everything that had happened over the last few years. “Swear.”

“I swear,” he said, void of hesitation.

She looked back to her partially open door, considering his offer. She didn’t feel safe when she slept, and now she was inviting a stranger into her home. Sure, he’d protected her from Darren and he was sitting in the freezing cold now watching over her, but still.

“I’m not like that video,” she said, giving him a harsh look. “If that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t find it here. That wasn’t just some one-night stand. I was in a relationship with that man.”

“A relationship with Miller McCall?” he asked, looking surprised.

“You know him?”

“Knew him. He’s dead.”

Kate gripped the slick stair railing. She’d suspected that he was dead but hadn’t known for sure. Not until now. She should feel something. Sadness, or regret, perhaps, but she didn’t feel anything but shameful relief.

Dalton watched her face, and as if he could read her every thought, he said, “He won’t hurt you ever again.”

A wave of anger washed through her. “You don’t know me. He didn’t hurt me.”

“I can hear a lie.”

He shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t hint that he was more than human. He shouldn’t have shown his strength like that in the yard either. He was going to make it impossible for her to hide that she knew what he was.

“You can sleep on my couch for one night. I have a big knife under my pillow.”

“Noted,” he said, standing too smoothly, as if he hadn’t even stiffened up in the cold. He wasn’t a careful werewolf. He should be more cautious. People in town were already suspicious. The McCalls didn’t hide well enough. They just got angry if someone figured them out. Miller hurt people who got too close to the truth.

“One night, and you have to get out of here when I leave for work in the morning.”

“Will do,” he said as he jogged down the slick steps with the balance of a mountain goat.

“And if you steal anything from me, I’ll call the police.”

“I’m not a McCall,” he said darkly as he shrugged out of his jacket.

She’d noticed in the bar how well-built he was in a gray sweater that clung to his defined chest like a second skin. That was part of the reason she’d been so mortified he’d been watching her video. He was intimidatingly handsome, and he’d been looking at her naked body, listening to her—oh, gosh.

“I have an extra toothbrush,” she blurted out to stop her descent into embarrassment again. “Not because I have people over like this, but because I just bought a new one for myself. It’s purple with sparkles.”

“That’ll do.” He strode into her small bathroom like he knew his way around the apartment, and while he was in there, she rushed around and tidied up her small apartment. Mr. Harris used most of the storage off the main room, so things tended to get cluttered in her living space.

Kate smoothed her messy bun before she spread the red blanket over the couch and pulled a pillow off her bed in the corner, then put that onto his make-shift sleeping place, too.

Dalton didn’t miss a beat when he came out of the restroom. He took one look at the couch, then lifted the pillow to his nose. “Smells like you. Honey.”

She smelled like honey? “I eat it on my oatmeal in the mornings.”

Dalton didn’t respond, only kicked out of his boots and peeled off his sweater. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head, and she couldn’t pull her gaze away from his muscular back if she tried. Partly, she was attracted to his smooth skin and rippling muscles as he moved, but also, she was hypnotized by the massive tattoo. It was a black ink rendering of a masculine phoenix that snaked this way and that across his back. It looked fearsome, mid-scream, talons outstretched, dots and drips of ink around it as if the bird had been painted on his back like a messy watercolor on paper. The thick, black flaming tail feathers ended just above his low slung jeans.

Her fingers itched to touch it. To trace the harsh lines and brush her fingertips down the etched feathers. It was beautiful and terrifying and sexy all at once.

Dalton froze, his pants mid-zip in his hands. Slowly, he turned and looked at her over his shoulder.

“I like your tattoo,” she said on a breath. Scrunching up her face, she murmured, “Sorry. I should give you privacy.”

She busied herself with turning off the light, and then she carefully made her way around the coffee table to her bed.

“I got the tattoo a couple years ago,” Dalton said in the dark.

“What does it mean?”

“Lots of things.” He went quiet, and the sound of fabric rustling filled the air, as if he were getting more comfortable on the couch.

With a sigh, Kate pulled the comforter up to her chin and rolled onto her side, facing him. She couldn’t see worth crap in the dark, but giving a werewolf her back just didn’t feel right.

“I lost someone,” he murmured. “Two someones. The tattoo was a way to focus on coming out of it.”

“Rising from the ashes like a phoenix.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

His admission he’d lost someone hit her hard, right in the middle. She curled around the pain. She hadn’t lost anyone to death yet. Miller had been in and out of her life like a bitterly cold wind. He didn’t count. But she’d lost people in her life to other stuff. Betrayal was a big one, and for a couple of them, it felt like they’d died instead of just exited her life.

In an attempt at levity, she admitted, “I have a tattoo, too.”

“Yeah?” Dalton sounded interested, and the covers rustled again.

She squinted in the dark, and it looked like he was sitting up on the couch now.

“It’s little.”

“What is it?”

“An evergreen tree.”

“Where?”

“On my ribcage.”

More rustling, and now he was lying down again. “Sounds hot.”

She laughed. “Oh yes, that’s me,” she muttered sarcastically. “I’ve always been known as the hot one.”

“Okay, what were you known as then?”

“The responsible one.” And the one time she hadn’t been, she’d fallen for an undeserving werewolf. Determined not to let her mind or this conversation wander there, she said, “Goodnight.”

There was a beat of silence before Dalton murmured, “’Night.”

As she stared at the dark lump on the couch, she was appalled at herself all over again because she’d thought she learned her lesson after Miller, but here she was with a man just as dangerous.

And because of her broken instincts, stupidly, she felt safe.

She would probably never get to sleep.

A scratching sound woke Kate from the deep, dark folds of slumber. Holy moly, it was hard to force her eyes open. Had she been drugged at the bar last night? No, she hadn’t even had a drink. She’d only bought a flask of whiskey and then…Dalton!

Kate sat up in bed. Somehow, she was on the very edge, and when she looked in horror at the other side of the bed, it was rumpled and the pillow dented, as if someone had been lying beside her.

Dalton sat on the couch with a cup of steaming coffee he’d apparently made from her coffee maker. He had been in the middle of scribbling something onto a piece of computer paper, but now sat frozen, staring at her.

“Good morning,” he said with a smirk.

“Did we…” She looked pointedly at the rumpled side of the bed. “Did we…you know?”

“Sleep together?”

With a gulp, she nodded.

“Your hair looks awesome in the mornings. Like a lion’s mane. Fierce and messy and—”

“Did we sleep together?”

“You don’t remember asking me to sleep beside you?”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head in denial.

“You definitely did. I told you ‘no,’ but you tried to shove yourself onto this tiny-ass couch with me. We didn’t fit.”

“You cuss a lot.”

“You don’t cuss enough,” he countered, one dark eyebrow jacked up in a challenge.

“I don’t remember any of that. But…admittedly, I also don’t remember sleeping that soundly in…well…a couple years. What are you writing?”

“Nothing,” he said with a frown at the paper he was crumpling up in his hands.

“Let me see it.”

“It was just a goodbye note. Doesn’t matter. Now I can tell you goodbye myself. So, goodbye.” He stood, abandoning his coffee.

He couldn’t leave! Not after last night. Not like this. She didn’t know his number, or where he lived. “I have to get another night’s sleep like that!” she blurted out, tripping over the crumpled comforter that had ensnared her legs like an anaconda. With a yelp, she went down hard, nostrils first. But just before she hit the ground, Dalton was there, yanking her up from a painful fate.

“Dammit, Kate, wait until your legs are working, woman.”

“You blurred.” Shoot, she hadn’t meant to say that. “You’re fast. Really fast. Were you in track in high school?”
Good cover, now laugh at your joke.
She let off an insane giggle as he stared down at her like she’d lost her mind. This was going awesome. “Can you spend the night tonight?” She groaned and clamped her hands over her mouth.

Dalton released his grip on her shoulders and patted her wild hair carefully, his face stoic. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because you snore like a freight train.”

An offended sound worked its way up her throat. “I do not.”

“No, you don’t,” he admitted through a grin.

“It’s just…” She took a steadying breath and blinked her eyes slowly, making them nice and round like her sister did when she wanted to get her way. Dalton didn’t look impressed so she stopped with the owl eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. Double shoot, she definitely wasn’t wearing a bra. Clearing her throat primly, she muttered, “I don’t sleep well.”

“I have my own cabin to sleep at while I’m in town, Kate, and trust me when I say, it’s safer for both of us if we say goodbye here and forget about each other.”

There was warning in his voice, so she dared a glance up at his face, then back down his taut chest and flexing abs. Her thoughts muddied.

“Kate.”

“Hmmm?”

“To have a conversation, you have to actually respond.”

She crossed her arms tighter over her free-jiggling boobs. “Well then put on a darned shirt.”

Dalton snorted and shook his head as he turned for his sweater that was draped over the back of the old ladder-back chair by the front door. “I don’t know why me not having a shirt on bothers you now. You were petting me like a housecat all damned night.”

“Language!”

“You language! The word
darned
offends me.” His eyes sparked with amusement when he glanced back at her angry face, the oaf.

“I was not petting you. Right?” She stared at the rumpled comforter on the bed, trying to remember, but all she could recall was blissful sleep. She should sniff his pillow. It probably smelled like him. Yummy.

“You definitely were petting me, and it was hard to sleep.”

“Men like petting.”

“Men don’t like lying there trying to be good and respectful with a raging boner, lady.”

She gasped. “Dalton!”

“Look,” he muttered, pulling his sweater down to cover his abs. “I’m not good for you or anyone else. A man like me doesn’t pair up well.”

“I’m not asking you to pair up with me, just sleep with me! No, that’s not what I mean. Just sleep
with
me. You know. Beside me? As two separate beings, just sleeping. Together. In the same general vicinity. On the same bed. Or in the same apartment, which ever works best for you.”

He had hooked his hands on his hips and stared at her as she fumbled along. “I’m sorry about your sleeping problems but—”

“I’ll pay you! I’ll hire you. You’re like this security blanket, and I know it sounds stupid but I’m desperate for sleep. I can’t even remember the last time I hit REM, and I work a stressful job at the medical center and I’ve been walking around in a haze for the last two years, hoping for a few hours of chopped-up sleep a night. I feel safe with you.”

Dalton looked shocked for the span of two breaths before he scanned her tiny apartment pointedly. “Lady, your instincts are broken. And even if they weren’t, I have a job. I don’t need your money and, anyway, I’m not going to be in Galena for long.”

Her acute disappointment was so heavy she dropped her arms and slumped her shoulders. Trying not to pout too obviously, she sat on the edge of the mattress and sighed. “When do you leave?”

“When I want. My boss gives me this time of year off.”

“Why?” she asked, frowning up at him.

Dalton shifted his weight and stared off into the kitchen as seconds of silence ticked by. “Because of my losses.”

She straightened her spine. “Is it the anniversary?”

He still wouldn’t look at her, but he dipped his chin once.

Oh, she felt like dirt. Less than dirt. She felt like the bacteria on the dirt that earthworms ate and then pooped out. Here she was begging for him to alleviate her insomnia problems, and he was clearly dealing with something incredibly painful of his own. “I’m sorry.”

Dalton arched his dark, sexy gaze to her. “You’re a nurse, right?”

“Yes.” Her voice cracked on the word, so she cleared her throat and said it stronger. “Yes, I am.”

“Then you can afford a place bigger than this, right?”

She crossed her arms again and tried to glare, but couldn’t hold his gaze. His eyes were lightening by the second and were now the color of milk chocolate instead of dark. “I could, but Mr. Harris is my landlord, and he’s really nice. My rent money has him so close to paying off his mortgage, and besides, I’m saving up.”

“To float the entire town with your good deeds?”

“No.” Rude. “For a cabin of my own. I want land and a place outside of town.”

Dalton looked shocked. “You’re going to be a homesteader?”

“What? No! I just want land for…stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Geez, you’re nosy.”

“Not nosey. Just curious.”

“I like dogs.”

Dalton’s face hardened in an instant. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she rushed out, “I want to breed sled dogs for the Iditarod someday. I love nursing, but Galena is population five hundred, and most days at the medical center are really slow. I get several days off in a row each week, and I want to manage and sell sled dogs as a hobby, then eventually full time. It’s what my parents did before they moved to Anchorage and retired. My sister and her husband do the same over near Kaltag, right off the Yukon. My family has a reputation for good dogs.”

Dalton reared back as recognition flickered across his face. “Hawke Huskies?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” He actually looked impressed. “And you turned out to be a nurse? You’re a complicated woman, Kate.”

“Not complicated, just the responsible one, remember? Getting a successful dog breeding business off the ground isn’t easy, family name or no.”

“I’d argue nursing isn’t easy either.”

She gave a surprised laugh. “You’d be right.”

When she dropped her gaze from his striking face, she got all caught up on his erection, pressing against the front of his jeans. Dalton followed her look down and frowned. “I should go.” He turned and pulled his jacket off the arm of the couch, then pulled it on and zipped it up. He was really going to leave.

She swallowed down the urge to throw a ridiculous amount of money at him if he would only sleep here a few hours a night. Clearly, he had enough going on with his personal life without her complicating his sleeping arrangements. Still, she didn’t want him to go. She wanted to learn more about him. She even wanted to know more about why he was different from Miller and his brothers. Why Dalton was nice and protective where the McCalls had been harsh and out of control. She wanted to know where he lived, and why he was leaving so soon, where he worked, and how he’d learned to fight like he’d done with Darren. She wanted to know why he’d given in and slept beside her last night. And most importantly, she wanted to know why she felt so safe around him.

All these questions built up in her throat until she couldn’t do more than make a little questioning whimper as he opened the front door, allowing the frigid, late season breeze to swirl around her little apartment.

“What about your coffee?” she asked in desperation as he topped the stairs above her.

“You can have it.” He turned and cast her a thoughtful look. She would give her femur bone to know what he was thinking right now with his eyes blazing like they were. “Don’t engage with Darren anymore.”

“Are you worried?”
Then perhaps you should spend nights with me!

“You’re not mine to worry over, Kate,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear him over the early morning wind.

Without another word, he turned and walked away, his boots crunching in the snowy yard until she couldn’t see or hear him anymore.

The ease with which he left her was telling enough. She might have all these questions about him, but he had no interest in her.

You’re not mine to worry over.
For some reason those words hurt more than was reasonable.

He was a complete stranger, and she wasn’t his problem.