Free Dawson Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 5) by T. S. Joyce

tonight. Pushed aside. Pushed away. You kissed me and took me out and then kept me at a distance.”
    The smile faded from his face. “I know.”
    “Come inside so I can lay into you properly without letting all the heat out.”
    Dalton inhaled deeply and strode past her like he was headed for the chopping block. Dutifully, he sat on the couch, rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and waited.
    Kate tossed the machete onto the table, and it clattered over the stack of sketches and paintings she’d been working on. “I like you. A lot.”
    Dalton’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “This isn’t how I thought this would go.”
    “Shhh. I thought about you today to the point of distraction. I don’t know why. You look half out the door already, ready to run away at any moment. I know you don’t feel the same about me, but still, my stupid heart latched on.”
    “Is this the part where you tell me you hate me?” he asked, looking utterly baffled.
    “What? No. I would never say that. I’m trying to explain how much I disliked you bolting for your truck when we dipped into a serious conversation. Who said they hated you?”
    “Well…” He frowned. “My ex.”
    “Well, your ex sounds like a bit—” Kate stopped herself, swallowed the curse down, and sat in the chair across the coffee table from him. “She sounds like a bit of a handful.”
    Dalton canted his head like a curious animal. “Elyse is a friend, and Miller’s death wasn’t exactly handled by the police, if you catch my drift. You figured out where that scar on her face came from surprisingly easy, and it scared me.” He dipped his voice lower. “ You scare me.”
    She scared him? That was laughable. She was a buck-thirty of submissive human and he was a danged werewolf whose eyes had lightened to the color of caramel just now. She knew what kind of power he hid. Miller had been able to lift her off the ground by her throat like she weighed no more than air. “The feeling is mutual.”
    He watched her for so long she fidgeted and dropped her gaze. The air felt heavy around him now, making it hard to breath.
    “Kate, I…” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dipping to the neck of his white sweater.
    She waited for what seemed like hours as he struggled to say something. He scrubbed his hand down his dark stubble and sank back into the couch cushions. He was breathing too hard, looked panicked, so she stood, moved across the room, and sat next to him.
    She searched his stunning eyes for a few seconds before she relaxed against his side and slid her arms around his waist. Let me in.
    “I want to be a dad,” he whispered, his body rigid as an ice sculpture beside her. “I always did. I lost—” Dalton inhaled sharply as though he couldn’t breathe, so she loosened her embrace and rested her cheek on his chest. “I lost a baby. A girl. There’s something wrong…with me. I can’t make children right. The girls get sick. And I knew that going into the pregnancy with my ex. We got pregnant accidentally, but I was so fucking happy when she told me. She was scared, and I wasn’t scared enough. I was convinced it was a boy. That I couldn’t have a loss like that. Not me. I’d been a good person. I thought that was it, the family I always wanted. I wasn’t ready at all, didn’t even want an ultrasound to determine the sex because I was just that confident it was a boy. I was cocky. Or maybe deep down I was too scared to find out, I don’t know.” Dalton wrapped his arms around her, too tight, but she kept quiet. “The day she was born, I felt like someone had hit me in the middle with a hammer. We’d packed baby clothes to bring her home, but the second the doctor said it was a girl, my entire world burned. I knew we wouldn’t be taking her home. And my ex wasn’t bonding with her. She wasn’t looking at her. Wasn’t looking at me, like she knew I’d failed her and ruined our family. Or at least, that’s what I thought