Wild Invitation

He swallowed, the strong muscles of his throat moving. “My mom kissed me good-bye while I was still in bed. And my dad rubbed the top of my head in that way dads do.”
    She could almost see him, a juvenile young and lanky, his eyes sleepy as he said good-bye to his parents.
    “Then they were gone.” The words sounded terribly final. “I got a message from Mom around ten Sunday morning saying they were on their way. When they didn’t arrive by seven p.m. as planned, I didn’t worry. I figured they’d taken a detour that looked interesting. We always did that even when we wentrunning in wolf form.” A shuddering breath. “But when they weren’t home by nine and hadn’t called, I started to call them. Over and over.
    “I told myself I was being stupid to be so worried, but there was this stone in my stomach that kept getting heavier. I’d contacted the seniors in the pack and they tried, too, even got in touch with Enforcement to see if my folks’ car had been logged passing a tolling station, but…nothing.”
    Grace’s heart ached for the frightened boy he’d been.
    “I stayed up all night, waiting by the den entrance in wolf form as the pack rang friends, hospitals, restaurants, and diners along the way. It was raining and every time a vehicle appeared, I’d run out to see if it was them. It never was.” His voice broke. “We managed to track them to a restaurant halfway home, but then it was as if they’d vanished. Eighteen hours.” Stone-rough words. “That’s how long I waited for them to come home before their vehicle was found at the bottom of a ravine.”
    Tears rolling down her cheeks, Grace hugged him tight. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Cooper.” She understood what it was to lose her parents, understood what it was to wake up and not have them be there.
    Damp against her neck, one of his hands fisted in her hair. “They’d taken that detour, along a rural road with hardly any traffic. Their car was up to safety specs, had all the anti-skid, anti-collision technology, but something made them swerve into the barrier—maybe an animal—and their car, it exploded as it hit the bottom of the ravine.
It shouldn’t have.
A freak accident, the authorities said. They told me my parents must’ve died on impact, but I could see they couldn’t be certain. The fire…”
    “I know it hurts.” She stroked her hand down his nape. “I know.”
    Cooper lifted his head, held her gaze with eyes gone night-glow. “I’m getting you a sat phone, and if you
ever
forget it, I will never forgive you.”
    “I won’t forget, I promise.”
    For the first time, he was the one who broke the piercing eye contact. “No. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this—I don’t want to control you, Grace.” He brushed his thumb across her cheeks, wiping away the remnants of her tears. “I know theproblem is mine, so if you want to take off and leave the phone behind, or if you’re pissed at me and don’t want to talk, I’ll deal.”
    She heard the taut thread in his voice, knew what her silence would cost him, knew, too that he’d never blame her for it. “It doesn’t bother me, Cooper.” Honest in her choice, she kissed him, his shoulders hot silk under her hands. “I like being cared for, like knowing that you watch out for me.”
    It made her wolf feel secure on the innermost level, and she had no quarrel with who she was, what made her happy—and one of those things was giving her man what he needed to feel the same. “Even if we’re fighting, I’ll send you bad-tempered text messages now and then. My way of caring for you.” As integral to her personality as protecting her was to his. “Let me, okay? Don’t do the proud dominant thing and get mad at me for it.”
    God, Cooper thought, she was beautiful. Taking something that had almost crushed him, threatened to shred his pride, and turning it around so that he was the one giving her a gift. “How did you get so strong, Grace?” Strong enough to not care about being perceived as weak by those who didn’t know better, didn’t understand the beauty of her spirit.
    Her smile was slow and just for him. “I have to be—I plan to play bad-girl games with a lieutenant.”
    In her thrall, he ran his fingers under the edge of her T-shirt, touched soft, silky skin, the contact easing the agony of memory. “Any particular lieutenant?”
    “Oh…I was thinking Matthias is quite a hun— Eek!” She landed on her back on the bed, with