No answer.
Maybe he was making it up.
Asher pushed the door open and shut it quickly with a curse when the light came on in the cab. He flicked the switch above his head back and forth, unsure of which way was off before trying the door again. The light stayed off. He glanced at her, but she didn’t stir. He sighed and latched the door gently behind him.
The crunch of gravel under his feet gave way to the silence of grass as he headed toward the front door. His skin pebbled with goosebumps even as the rest of him seemed to come alive in the cool, humid mountain air.
He slowed as his nose exploded with a scent of home: moss on wet rocks, leafy trees, and endless ferns, all anchored in soil teeming with life.
Memory slammed into him as if he’d started a film projector in his head, whipping through his childhood and the years lost as a wolf.
The beast flung himself at the bars of his cage.
You forgot this little detail,he thought as he braced.
He looked back at the truck, longing for Penn, but he couldn’t use her as his personal sanity shield. That wasn’t fair to her at all, so he clenched his teeth and clutched his paperclip as he took the first step onto the front porch, and the door opened.
“Holy shit, Ash?” Malcolm said, zeroing in on him even in the dark.
Asher let go of the paperclip, not wanting Malcolm to see that, though the move made it even more obvious what he was doing.
Malcolm’s eyes scanned the dark and landed on his truck.
“Who is that?”
Of course, Malcolm would see her. He would smell her all over him.
“A long story?” Asher said.
“Come in! Come in.”
Asher shook his head.
The older man flinched and tried to hide it with a pained smile. He never did have any kind of poker face.
Asher said, “She’s alone in a new place. I don’t wanna leave her out here.”
“She?” Malcolm asked, his smile transforming into a real one.
Malcolm spun in a circle and took a step to the left toward a new porch swing. The chains connecting it to the ceiling looked like they could haul cars. They would have to to seat a shifter.
Asher took a deep breath, told himself to stop panicking, not least because Malcolm would sense every little flick of emotion, and put his foot on the porch. It was surprisingly hard to walkthe ten feet to the swing, but he did it and sat gingerly next to his cousin. The swing groaned but held.
He examined his cousin in the spill of the porch light. The man was huge, taller than Asher and built like a tank with a well-trimmed beard. He was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt that said world’s best dad in glitter letters.
Malcolm caught his gaze, and Asher raised an eyebrow.
“Father’s Day present,” he said with a look of deep satisfaction.
Asher had never had much to do with the little eleven-year-old who had come to the land with Malcolm’s future mate. He tried to stay away from most children. That kept every parent’s blood pressure lowered. He smiled bitterly. Who wouldn’t want a long-time feral, suicidal wolf near their little pride and joy?
“Are you back?” Malcolm asked.
“Obviously,” Asher said.
He knew what Malcolm was asking.Are you back to stay?And he was, but why couldn’t he say it?
“I suppose that’s the only answer I’m gonna get?”
