Linda Johnston - Canadian Wolf

“In the dark and in tonight’s chilly air? No way.”

He couldn’t help but appreciate her offer, though. She didn’t automatically consider him and the CAs her inferiors, who were required to take good care of her in exchange for teaching them.

“All right.” She sounded relieved. He liked that, too. He figured she had made the offer because she believed it to be convenient for him, even though she’d hoped he’d refuse it.

They walked back to his SUV in the Yukon Bar’s gravel parking lot, and without thinking, he took Selena’s arm and helped her into the passenger seat.

Despite the sweater she wore that kept him from touching her skin, he was highly conscious of her warmth. She, too, appeared to notice the contact, since her head turned quickly and her amber eyes captured his for just an instant. “Thank you,” she said. He shut the door, then went around to the driver’s seat and started off.

He had anticipated struggling to find a neutral topic of conversation on the short drive back to the enclave when he realized he wanted to know everything about this woman—including more of what she really thought about being a shapeshifter. But he didn’t really want to bring that up. Not now.

He was relieved when she started the conversation. She sat in shadows in the seat beside him, but the lights outside the vehicle illuminated her enough that he could see her lovely face—and the fact that she was smiling as she watched the scenery while he drove.

First, she commented on the bars they’d visited. “I liked the Yukon best, but I can see why our gang likes the Wonderbar. There’s more action there, for one thing.”

“True. But I was with them once at the Yukon and they really got into talking about...what they were. Quietly, and using euphemisms, in case anyone was listening.”

“Euphemisms like what? Although I might have heard them all. Used them all at different times.”

He told her Andrea’s description of what they all had in common as being windows through which illumination fell—like the full moon that changed them, he assumed. Did Selena still identify with that? He knew that shifters in her Alpha Force didn’t need to wait for the right phase of the moon. He had even seen it, sort of.

His new unit members were also students, ready to learn all they could about the universe. They were animal lovers. And more. And with each description, Owen heard Selena draw in her breath and giggle.

He liked that he could please her like that.

“You enjoyed that conversation, too, didn’t you?” she asked, facing him as he waited at a traffic light.

“I liked her ingenuity,” he admitted.

“Did you ever think, when you decided to join the RCMP, that you’d find yourself in such an unusual situation?”

He hadn’t. Not really. But he had previously become aware that shapeshifters existed, and the experience he’d had suggested that illegal, even violent, situations could result from contact with them.

“No,” he said curtly as the light changed and he stepped too quickly on the gas.

He glimpsed Selena’s movement beside him, as she was jolted back into her seat.

“Sorry,” he added, but didn’t explain his discomfort.

“You had a bad experience with shapeshifters, didn’t you?” she asked quietly.

Damn, but the woman was perceptive. He would have to watch himself around her.

“No,” he said only somewhat truthfully. He realized then that this might be a good time to tell her—and vent a little. “Not me personally. But a short while after I joined the RCMP I had a couple of family members killed in the States—in Minnesota—and others there asked me to come and talk to the local authorities and try to make sense of what had happened. I traveled there, and that’s when I learned that one of those killed had been a distant family member by marriage who’d been a wolf shifter. He was shot with a silver bullet while shifted, after he’d killed my blood relative, a third cousin. Despite attempting to dredge out the details and help, I didn’t get a lot of information on motive or anything else, other than that it was a family tragedy, and I never did make any sense of it. The cousin who was killed was apparently a prominent business owner in the area, and the details were hushed up so the shop he owned would survive. His wife and kids still own it and we stay in touch at the holidays.”

It was something he almost never talked about, and neither did anyone else in the family, except maybe those in Minnesota. But letting Selena know that he genuinely believed in shapeshifters—and why—had seemed appropriate.

“Look, Owen, I understand that it’s a difficult topic to discuss, but—”

“Glad you recognize that.” He realized he sounded curt, but she apparently got the message and didn’t push. In fact, they didn’t say much as he continued onward until he reached the houses. She might not be satisfied with his silence, but that was the way he wanted it.

He pulled his car in front of the larger house, where she and Rainey would spend this night and should be joined by the rest of her Alpha Force team tomorrow. They had left the lights on, and the two homes were illuminated.

He saw a half-moon off to the east. Not a full moon. It nevertheless seemed symbolic of what was to occur here.

As he parked, Selena opened her own door. He quickly exited the SUV and hurried around to hold it for her and to reach out for her hand as if to steady her.

“I’m really okay,” she said, not touching him and giving him a stubborn look. Her full bottom lip stuck out obstinately. Sexily. “But—”

“You definitely are okay,” he said. And then, as if he had planned it—maybe to keep her quiet—he bent down, put his arms around her curvaceous, struggling body and put his lips on hers.

Struggling? No. Maybe for a moment, but then she reacted. Positively. Hotly. She leaned in and placed her hands on his chest, and he relished the feel of her so close, her warmth.

The kiss went on for hours, or was it only seconds?

Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter that it was inappropriate, or that his body was reacting in a way that made him both uncomfortable and eager all at the same time.

She wasn’t the one to pull away. He was, and he regretted it.

“Rainey could get back here anytime,” he said breathlessly, looking down into Selena’s face.

She looked bemused. And hot. And even inviting.

He declined the invitation. “Let me walk you up to the door,” he said, taking her arm once more.

She seemed to realize who and where she was at that instant. Her expression hardened; her cheeks reddened in the pale light.

“No need,” she said, pulling away, and he watched as she ran up the porch steps and used her key to enter the house.

Chapter 5

Lupe greeted her enthusiastically, whining as Selena walked into the house and jumping up and down in the kitchen behind the chair Selena had set up as a gate.

The wolflike dog had been alone for a while and needed to go outside for a walk.

Selena needed to go outside, too, to cool off in the Canadian breeze after that kiss. That hot, suggestive, sexy kiss that made her insides so aware that Owen felt like a lot more than a professional contact.

She also wanted to ponder some more, on her own, Owen’s brief tale of how he had learned of shapeshifters—and his reason for not thinking much of them. Could she get him to discuss it further with her? He hadn’t seemed inclined to do so. And she certainly couldn’t fix the situation.

After Selena released Lupe from the kitchen, she cautiously opened the front door and looked outside to make sure Owen was gone.

But his vehicle was still there, parked on the pavement linking the two houses.