Free Midsummer Heat by Mina Carter Page A

was obviously a man’s office. Here dark leather, heavy wood and clean lines ruled without compromise. She took a deep breath, rolling it over her tongue. Max spent a lot of time here; she could virtually taste him on the air.
    Wandering further in, mug in one hand, she stroked the fingers of the other over the leather jotter on the desk. Who used a jotter anymore? Her lips quirked as she noticed the slight marks on the desk where his laptop had rested, four small circles worn into the surface.
    She turned and blinked. On the wall behind her was a heavy, carved wood plaque. Max’s work, it had to be. He’d always been whittling away with that little pocket knife as far back as she could remember.
    It read simply ‘Sanctuary’.
    Breath stilled in her chest. Unable to resist, she approached it. Traced the letters he’d carved with a gentle finger. In between one heartbeat and the next she got it. This place, hidden up in the mountains away from the town and the rest of the pack, was Max’s sanctuary. The place he came to escape the daily rigors of running the pack. That one word, painstakingly carved into the wood, hauntingly beautiful in its simplicity, said everything. How alone and isolated he was. The pressures placed on him as Stratton Alpha. His need to escape, if only for a while from the responsibility that he’d taken on when little more than a teenager.
    Her heart ached as she dropped her hand. Her attention transferred to the pictures either side, flanking the carving like a couple of heavies. She frowned. One was a photo, an old one of a town picnic. It wasn’t one she’d seen before but she recognized everyone in it. A group of teenagers lounged on the grass, smiles on their lips and laughter in their eyes. A younger version of herself was at the front, twisted to the side and laughing up at the youth at her side.
    Drake Garrison. He and his family hadn’t lived in Stratton long, moving to a city up north before they’d graduated high school. She’d heard on the grapevine that he’d gone loco and slaughtered his entire family. She shuddered. There was only one punishment for such a heinous crime.
    The midnight run.
    They, his pack, would open a gate to the darkness between this world and the next, between here and the Faerylands, and shove him through. A similar gate nearby would be opened, just for twelve hours. If the condemned could run the plains and make it to the other door, he or she was free, their crimes considered punished. As far as she knew, only one wolf had ever made it alive. Ever. Normally the other gate only ever produced a corpse.
    The shudder of dread slithering down her spine, she put the thought from her mind and studied the picture again. Behind her and Drake sat a younger Max, but he wasn’t looking at the camera. Instead, he was looking at her, longing and possessiveness written on his face for anyone to see. As soon as she saw it, she knew who had taken the photo. His father, Bennett. He wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to see such a weakness.
    Was it love? Or was it because she’d said no to him? She took a sip from the mug and grimaced. Coffee was cold. Well, not cold, cold. But lukewarm, too cool to drink. Distracted as she swallowed, she moved to the other side of the plaque to look at the other picture and stopped dead.
    It wasn’t a photo. Instead the heavy wooden frame surrounded a drawing. Not a sketch or an artist’s impression that would have done the expensive frame justice. It was a child’s drawing, the lines shaking and the coloring had gaps where the crayon had missed. Two wolves under a full moon. She reached out to touch the glass that protected a moment out of childhood. Her childhood. His childhood. She’d drawn this for him when they were both kids, just after he and his family had moved here.
    He’d kept it. All these years, he’d kept it.
    Her heart swelled, unfolding like a flower under the sun. She loved him. Perhaps she always had, but