Free Werewolf in Alaska: A Wild About You Novel by VickiLewis Thompson

fell.
    “Careful!”
    Embarrassed, he straightened and kept going. He really was weak, damn it. He needed that steak to boost his energy level. After ducking around the corner of the cabin to find privacy for the task at hand, he returned to the steps.
    Climbing them winded him, which was alarming. If he couldn’t navigate three steps without panting, what chance did he have of making it home safely? He’d always counted on stealth and speed, and he had neither.
    The steak might revive him, though. He’d carry it into a secluded part of the woods, eat it, and then maybe rest a little. If he found a good enough hiding place, he’d wait until dusk to finish the trip.
    Both the screen door and the storm door were still open, as promised. Rachel stood five or six feet back from the door, and she lowered the platter so he could see the meat. “Come and get your reward, wolf.”
    He edged toward the door and stopped short of the threshold.
Come toward me, Rachel. Tempt me with that steak.
    As he’d hoped, she came closer. “You can smell it, can’t you? I see your nose twitching. Lucky I didn’t hurt your nose last night. I feel guilty about that.”
    He had far more reasons to feel guilty about last night than she did. He put one paw into the room. As long as the door stayed open behind him, he could get away. She couldn’t close it from where she stood holding the platter.
    Once he realized that, he grew bolder. He might not have his old speed for long, but he could manage it for a few seconds. Stepping cautiously toward the platter, he gathered himself. Grab the steak and run. That’s all he had to do. She couldn’t get to the door fast enough.
    Seizing the meat in his jaws, he whirled at the same moment the screen door slammed shut. What the hell? The steak dangling from his jaws, he turned toward her in confusion.
How did you do that?
    “Sorry, wolf.” She held up a narrow spool of fishing line. A nearly invisible filament stretched from the cardboard spool in her hand to the handle on the screen door. “It’s for your own good.”
    She’d outsmarted him.
Damn it.
Humiliating though that was, he couldn’t help admiring her ingenuity. Apparently he wouldn’t be escaping today.
    As that truth settled over him, he waited for anger and frustration to heat his blood. Instead he felt a far more dangerous emotion.
Relief
.
    It seemed that he wasn’t all that eager to leave after all.

Chapter 5
    When Lionel drove up around ten that morning, Rachel heard his truck and closed her bedroom door before going out to meet him. She’d debated whether to tell him about the wolf at all, but she trusted him completely, and discussing the odd situation with someone else would help ease her mind.
    Lionel climbed out of his old blue Dodge with a smile on his broad face, as always. He was built like a linebacker, which made him very handy to have around when she had to wrestle large pieces of wood into submission. She didn’t have a little brother, but she would have wanted him to be sweet and funny like Lionel.
    He wore his dark hair down past his collar, and he shoved it away from his forehead as he walked toward her. She smiled at the unconscious gesture. When she’d hired him two years ago, he’d been less sure of his place in the world. Today he carried himself with the loose-hipped, casual stride of a nineteen-year-old who had decided he was someone of value after all.
    Part of that confidence might come from the totem on a silk cord around his neck. She’d carved the small wolf for him last year, and it had become his badge of honor. It signaled to everyone in Polecat that she thought enough of him to give him a job
and
one of her carvings. She was grateful for the impulse that had prompted her to do both of those things.
    “How’s it going, Miss M?” He’d come up with that nickname on his own. His grandmother was a Bette Midler fan and he’d grown up hearing about
The Divine Miss M.
Because he hadn’t felt