Free Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) by Jacqueline Rhoades Page A

ladies of the pack. If he was to live among them, Mr. McCall would have to learn the rules. She folded her hands and awaited his return.
    Her wolf, silent for so long, suddenly decided to voice an opinion. It yipped and spun inside her, laughing at her timidity in the face of a mere dog. It snorted with wolfish glee.
    " You? Bite McCall ?" it laughed at Rachel's intended reprimand of the newcomer. " He'll bite back! "
    "Go back to sleep," Rachel muttered, remembering why she'd banished her wolf in the first place.
    "Did you say something?" McCall asked, entering the kitchen with the washer chug-chugging in the room behind him.
    "Mr. McCall! Where are your shoes?" His feet were long and broad like his hands and she wondered curiously if his whole form would match the structure of those hands and feet or did the drape of his clothes hide skinny…. She blushed at where the thought took her.
    Fortunately, McCall missed her blush. He looked down at his bare feet and wiggled his toes. "Guess I didn't think I needed them."
    "You really should be wearing shoes, Mr. McCall."
    "I'll try to remember that the next time I rescue you. Do you require a jacket and tie, too?"
    "I didn't mean it that way," she said and she didn’t, but something about it bothered her. "I'm sorry. I must be over tired and, as you say, shaken."
    "Probably, but you won't be able to sleep if you don't relax. Glasses?" he asked.
    "Oh, I'm sorry. I'll get them." Rachel started to rise and the dog issued a low growl. She pointed to the cupboard beside the sink as she sat back down.
    McCall set two glasses on the table. "Down," he said to the dog and the dog immediately lay at Rachel's feet, inching forward until it could lay its nose on her shoe. McCall laughed and told her, "He likes you."
    "Does he always snarl at people he likes?" she asked and tried to shift her foot away from the dog. It did no good. For every inch her foot moved, the dog moved two until its head covered her shoe.
    "You mean outside?" he asked as he poured a little of the amber liquid into each glass. "That was a first. I didn't tell him to do it. Maybe he thought you needed protecting or maybe he thought he was protecting me. You swing a mean basket, you know." He pushed one of the glasses toward her. "Drink up."
    "I am sorry about that, too," she said of the basket and raised her palm to the offered glass. "No, thank you. I should have said something. I don't drink. Well, a little sherry, now and again, and Bertie fixed me a hot toddy once with lots of sugar and lemon when I had a cold." It was nervous chatter and so unlike her, she clamped her mouth shut.
    He smiled. "Purely medicinal, then. Sip it. It will help you relax."
    Rachel looked at the glass and then at McCall, who nodded.
    "I really shouldn't," she said, but she'd always wondered what her father's attraction was to whiskey.
    The first sip was like swallowing fire, but at McCall's laughing insistence, she took another. That one went down much easier and the third tasted quite nice.
    He lifted the towel covering the extra plate of food. "You saving this for someone?"
    "It was supposed to be yours. You get two meals a day with your board, but it's been sitting out a while. Let me get you something else."
    He sniffed at the plate. "It's fine. Stay where you are," he said and began to eat. "It's good. Dog and me get a little tired of my cooking and fast food gets… well, it's fast food." He shrugged as if she knew what he meant and went back to eating.
    "I've never had fast food," she told him.
    "You're not missing much." He winked, but it was friendly and not at all like Mr. Coogan's. "Nice place you've got here. I feel like I'm living in the lap of luxury compared to my last place."
    "It's hardly luxurious, Mr. McCall." Rachel took another sip and if it hadn't been for her corset holding her firmly upright, she would have slumped back in her chair.
    "Eyes of the beholder, Miss Kincaid. I'm happy with clean sheets and a pillow that