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

deepest.
    And he’d let her. Chance was right. He’d opened himself up and allowed it.
    “I feel so stupid,” he murmured, linking his hands behind his head.
    “Nah, you aren’t. You would’ve dealt with it differently if you hadn’t lost Amelia. If she’d never been pregnant, you would’ve left her. You bonded with that little baby in her tummy, not Shelby. It got you all mixed up.”
    In a flash of anger, Dalton stood and yanked the frame off the table, then strode for the front door and chucked the picture as far into the woods as he could. A part of him felt liberated, but a bigger part of him felt shame for allowing Shelby to taint his April First. That had been the day Amelia had died. Female werewolves hadn’t been able to survive before Vera cured Link’s little girl. She’d passed at the beginning of April, the day after she was born, and Shelby had ended their relationship then, too.
    He’d lost everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d fought for, in one day.
    Chest heaving, he scanned Link’s winter white woods as his throat tightened up.
    “What’s her name?” Chance asked softly from behind him.
    “Who?”
    “You know who. The one who made you ready to hear what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
    “Kate.” Dalton rolled his eyes closed and inhaled deeply, imagining the scent of honey. It calmed him little by little until his breath came steady. “Kate Hawke.”

Chapter Six
     
    Kate smiled politely at Dr. Vega and waved goodnight. He’d been in a beast of a mood tonight and yelled at her twice for no good reason, but she forgave him. His brother had been sick for a long time, and he was open with his worry for his family, but Dr. Vega tended to take out his frustrations on the clinic staff when he was at work.
    He jerked his chin as a goodbye and lowered his attention back to the paperwork on the nurse station countertop. She didn’t wait around for an apology. That man didn’t give them. Really, no men gave apologies. They took what they wanted, drained the women around them, then moved on. Or died, apparently.
    She shook her head hard to punish thoughts of Miller out of her mind. He had been terrifying in the end of their relationship, or whatever it was they were doing, but in the beginning, he’d pretended to be nice. It was those few days of the pretend caring that had gotten her all jumbled up with the news of his death. She felt guilty for being sad. There. There it was. He deserved to be in the ground, but she was still sad at the loss of a life she’d known once.
    The snow was falling in thick sheets, and she high-kneed it through the deepest parts on the way to an awning that protected her four-wheeler from the Alaskan weather. There were a couple of other ATVs sitting under there with hers. She owned a truck, but it liked to fishtail in weather like this, so on the snowiest days, she used her little off-roader to make her way through town. It wasn’t like Galena was huge. The only reason they could afford a police station and medical center was because this was prime real estate right off the Yukon where boaters were frequent in the warm months. This was the place where all the tiny towns in the surrounding area could load up on supplies. There were a couple of bush pilots who lived here that kept this place stocked as long as the weather was flyable.
    She loved it here. Or she had before Miller. Before the video that kept her in shame. Everyone in this town had probably seen it. Oh sure, she kept her head up, but the whispers of a small town were hard even on the toughest souls, and she was quite meek.
    A black Chevy truck with fat tires and chains on the wheels came to a stop behind her, blocking her from backing out. In an instant, fear pummeled her heart. Was it Darren, back to finish what he’d started? But the truck was older, and not the right model.
    When the window rolled down, she froze. Dalton’s eyes danced, but for a few moments, neither one of them