Page 26

I turn a page. The chapter is about scent communication.

I immediately close the book. “This is getting weird.”

I glance toward the kitchen window. Number twelve is dark. Hewit has been gone most of the afternoon. His truck wasn’t there when I got home from town earlier.

The fern he carried home for me last week is now sitting in the corner of the living room.

I’ve settled into my new job surprisingly well too. Working mostly from home means my commute consists of carrying my laptop from the kitchen table to the sofa, although I’ve already learned that the nonprofit’s director considers quick question an acceptable subject line for emails containing seventeen separate questions.

I make dinner, answer the last two work emails I promised myself I wouldn’t look at until tomorrow, and spend twenty minutes trying to hang the kitchen curtain rail I’ve been battling with since I arrived. Hewit would probably fix it in thirty seconds, which is irritating enough that I refuse to ask. I’m perfectly capable of doing it.

In theory.

In practice, I drill the first hole too wide, drop one of the screws behind the radiator, and discover that finding a wall stud is considerably harder than the internet led me to believe.

After the third attempt, I put the drill down. “Tomorrow.”

The curtain hangs crookedly from one bracket.

I make tea and carry it into the living room. Rain has started outside, soft against the windows, and the forest behind the cottages is disappearing into dusk.

It’s beautiful here at this hour. The last of the light catches along the trunks and turns the wet leaves almost black. Mist hangs low between the trees, thin enough to move whenever the wind shifts. Every so often, something rustles beyond the garden fence, but I no longer jump at every sound.

I feel safe here. Safer than I expected to.

I curl one leg beneath me on the sofa and reach for the wolf book again.

Then I freeze as something moves at the edge of the trees. At first, I think it’s a deer, but it’s too large. Much too large.

I set my tea down slowly as the animal steps forward, its white fur rippling as it moves closer.

My breath leaves me. The wolf is enormous. Not Newfoundland or Great Dane enormous. Bigger than any wolf I’ve ever seen.

He’s almost unreal.

Broad through the shoulders, long-legged, heavily built, with a thick white coat darkened by rain along his back. Pale scars cross one flank and disappear beneath the fur at his shoulder. His head is massive, his ears upright, his entire body held perfectly still just beyond the line of my garden fence.

He’s watching the cottage. No, he’s watching me. The thought should frighten me. Instead, a strange calm moves through me.

The wolf doesn’t move as I stand. For several seconds, the window is the only thing between us. Then he lifts his head slightly, and his eyes catch the light.

Amber.

My pulse stutters. “Hewit.”

The wolf’s ears twitch. No mistaking that response.

I take one step closer to the window. He stays where he is.

So this is him. I tried to picture it after Alice gave me the book. Something leaner, maybe. More recognizably wolf-shaped.

This is different. There’s something ancient about him. Not monstrous. That word feels wrong the instant it enters my head. Powerful, yes. Dangerous, certainly, if he wanted to be. But nothing about him feels threatening. If anything, he looks uncertain.

Which is ridiculous. A wolf that size should not be capable of uncertainty. But I know Hewit now, at least a little. I know the way he stands half a step back when he thinks he’s been noticed. I know how he hides behind a sarcastic remark whenever I get too close. I know the exact look he gives me when he wants to help and resents being caught doing it.

The wolf is doing the same thing. Watching. Waiting. Ready to leave if I move the wrong way.

I smile, and his ears angle back. “Oh, don’t do that.”