Page 89 of The Cowboy and the Stray

He nodded.

“Midge?” I asked weakly. She was his grandmother, of course she was a wolf, too.

He shrugged again. His version of a smile. “All of us.”

I stared at my hands, which were shaking a little. “You going to tell me how it works, or just let me stew in my own dumb guesses?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” he said.

He let me sit there and think for a second. It was bright out, midmorning by the look of it. The light burned hot through the thin curtains. I could hear the buzz of cicadas. I wondered how many people were up already, how many had heard about the pig, how many knew what I’d seen.

Probably all of them.

Calder watched me process. When I didn’t speak, he did. “You’re not scared,” he said. Not a question.

I looked him dead in the eye. “I’m always scared. I’ve just gotten used to it.”

He nodded like he’d already guessed as much.

“My mom told me never to trust men who had to be the loudest in the room,” I said. “But she also told me never to trust anything that moved faster than I could see. So you’ve really made my day.”

He leaned back and stretched his neck. “We’re not monsters.”

“I know. I saw the monster. It had tusks and an attitude problem.”

His mouth twitched again. “It’s not like the movies.”

I shot him a look. He was telling me stuff that was obvious. “I got that part.”

He shifted in the chair. “You’re hurt. We should get you looked at.”

“It’s just a sprain. I’ve had worse.”

He grunted. “You can’t walk.”

“Then I’ll crawl.” I flexed my ankle. “I can probably walk today.”

He made a face, then got up, all six-and-a-half feet of him. “I’ll help.”

I braced for the pain, but instead he leaned down and scooped me up, no warning. He did it like it was nothing, which kind of pissed me off but also kind of didn’t. I hung on, trying not to show how much it helped. My face was about level with his shoulder. He smelled like hay and soap, but there was something else, something wild underneath. Not bad, just different. Geez, was it wolf? Probably I was imagining it.

He carried me down the stairs like I weighed less than a sack of feed. Nobody was around. I didn’t know if that was on purpose or just lucky.

We made it to the kitchen, where Midge waited with a pot of coffee and a look that could start fires. She poured me a cup, dumped half a cup of sugar in it, and shoved it into my hands. She didn’t ask questions, just nodded at Calder, who set me down in the chair at the head of the table.

Midge poured herself a mug and then vanished. Calder sat across from me, arms crossed, not blinking.

I sipped the coffee. It was black and bitter and perfect.

“So,” I said, “are we going to have The Talk? Or are you just going to sit there and stare until I break?”

He shrugged. “You already know the important part.”

I rolled my eyes. “Indulge me.”

He didn’t sigh, but he wanted to. “We’ve always been here,” he said. “Before the state lines, before the barbed wire, before the roads. Wolves, not werewolves. People like me, people like Buck and Jace. We keep to ourselves. We don’t bother anyone. We work the land, we pay our taxes. When we shift, it’s not because of the moon or some curse. It’s just what we do. What we are. Who we are.”

I watched him closely. His hands were steady. He didn’t fidget or look away.