Free White Wolf 2: The Call of a Soul by Jianne Carlo Page A

hanging the rectangular piece of fabric on a hook, he sprinted to the shower and turned the spray on full blast. Five minutes under the frosty water didn’t faze his hopeful erection one iota.
    The stiff breeze dried his flesh before he retrieved his clothes and boots from the pickup’s bed. What was she thinking? He couldn’t believe she hadn’t known about the tribe rejecting him and Drake. How? Her father had been an elder. It didn’t make sense. Wait a minute, he’d been an elder in his old tribe. Did being an elder transfer?
    Buttoning his shirt, he wandered back to the cabin. The door stood half-open, and he glimpsed Melanie, fully dressed, coat belted, purse in hand, standing to the right of the kitchen table. Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, lips pursed like a Sunday school teacher, stubborn chin jutting, and eyes narrowed, she looked ready for battle. Time to throw her off-kilter again.
    “Drake called. I need to go back into town—”
    She cut his out-and-out lie off. “That’s fine. The bus stop’s not far from here—”
    “I’ll drop you there. It’s on the way out.” Mike forced back a snarl. She could only push him so far.
    She shuffled a couple of steps and avoided meeting his gaze. “Thank you.”
    Recognizing that he needed to choose his battles in order to win the war, Mike decided not to argue the point then. No matter what she said or did, he’d escort her home, one way or another. Wanting to muss her silly with one slamming orgasm after another until she wore that half-dazed, sexy bee-stung smile of earlier, he set his hand to the small of her back and told his dick to take a hike. “I hear Susie’s on the community college track team.”
    Melanie stumbled, and he slowed his pace to let her get steady. She shot him a wary look, brows raised, eyes wider than a startled doe’s. “How—Yes, she is.”
    “And Gray’s the starting quarterback for the Mackinac Warriors. Saw that he took a general business major in college.” Mike opened the passenger door, scooped Melanie up, and settled her in the seat. Her breathing hitched, and musky arousal, not the former acridity of her fright-tinged anger, flooded his nostrils. Small win.
    Ducking her chin, she fiddled with the cloth belt of her coat before addressing her reply to the dashboard. “He is and he did. Gray won a football scholarship and then got drafted to the Arena Football League. I didn’t even know what that was.”
    “You’re kidding? You didn’t know there was an indoor football league?”
    She pursed her lips. “I barely knew there was a National Football League.”
    “And, Susie, is she hoping to get a mature student scholarship to a four year college?”
    “Yes, and no one deserves to go more than her. She’d already be finished with her associate degree if, well, if Gramps and Papa hadn’t died and left us in a financial mess. I hated that she had to quit and work for so long. But things are back on track now.”
    Pride laced her soft pronouncement. She relaxed a tad, and a small smile played at her reddened and swollen mouth.
    “Have you had a chance to visit Lizzie in Ann Arbor?” Mike refrained from kissing the stuffing out of her only by grabbing the door handle.
    “No.” She’d gone into a turtle’s head retreat again. “I’m surprised you even remember my sister Lizzie. She was at college when we were in high school.”
    “She’d doing an MBA, right?”
    “Yeah. The company she works for is sponsoring her. I know she’s burning the candle at both ends. The last thing she needs is for us to visit.”
    He shut her in, stalked to the driver’s side, wrenched the door open, hopped into the oversize bucket seat, and started the truck. “Which stop do you want—the one on Route 7, or the one on Taquah Line?”
    “Route 7’s closest. That’s perfect.”
    Wasn’t she going to ask him a single question? Acknowledge what had happened?
    “The bus stop’s just around the next corner.”