Dawson Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 5) by T. S. Joyce Page B

did?”
    “I borrow my alph—” Dalton shook his head hard and let off a bitter laugh. “I use my friend’s snow machine when I visit, but I figured I’d go ahead and get my own ride. I don’t have a truck up where I work near Kodiak.”
    “Do you visit Galena often?”
    “Not as often as I should.”
    “Who is your friend? I bet I’ll know him. Everyone knows everyone around here.”
    Wariness slashed through Dalton’s dark eyes. “Lincoln McCall.”
    Kate squeezed her tortilla so hard the meat plopped out and onto the table. “Lincoln McCall is your friend?” she asked in a choked whisper.
    Dalton dipped his chin once in affirmation. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he gritted his teeth and took another bite of food instead. She hadn’t missed the slip-up, though. Alph? She’d bet her tits Lincoln McCall, Miller’s brother, was his alpha. She knew about wolves. She knew about dogs. She’d been raised around them for goodness sake and was well versed in the similar hierarchy of dog sled teams and wolf packs. She had only met Lincoln a few times. He’d been the quiet one, but still, his eyes had glowed just as terrifyingly as his brother’s.
    The food sat like a tasteless lump in her mouth, and she gulped it down. She wiped her hands slowly with a napkin, stalling. If she spoke too soon, her voice would shake and give away just how scared she was. He was in a pack with a freaking McCall werewolf.
    “You’re the one who’s freaking out now,” he said, scanning the filling tables around them.
    “I’m not freaking out.”
    “Well, before you go make a snap judgement, Link isn’t anything like his brothers. He isn’t anything like any of his family. He’s actually a good guy.”
    “What do you do out near Kodiak?” she asked, desperate to talk about anything else.
    Dalton narrowed his eyes like she wasn’t fooling anyone with her subject change, but being the smart man that he was, he dropped it. “I’m an outdoor guide at Silver Summit Outfitters.”
    “Do you guide hunts?”
    “Yeah. I’m good at tracking things. We do seasonal hunts depending on when each animal is legal to take, but I do a lot of camping, hiking, and fishing excursions, too. Right now is our slow season, but in the next couple of months, we have a lot of people from the lower forty-eight who have booked us.”
    “Who is us?”
    “My cousin, Chance, and my friend Jenner Silver.”
    “Hey, I know him! Jenner lives here now. He moved outside of Galena with his wife last year. They live up on Elyse and Ian’s homestead.”
    “You know Elyse?”
    “Yeah, I was her nurse when she got clawed by a bear last year and again when she fell on an ax a couple winters ago…” Kate gasped as something clicked firmly into place. “Elyse. She got cut by an ax across her face.”
    “I think it’s time to go,” Dalton said, standing with his empty basket. “You finished?”
    She was definitely finished. She stared at him so hard, her eyeballs were actually getting cold. “Elyse killed Miller, didn’t she?”
    Dalton looked around nervously and lowered down, arm locked on the table. Voice full of warning, he murmured, “Kate, stop. Stop picking at this one.”
    “But—”
    Dalton spun and disappeared around the Taco Trailer. A moment later, he strode off for his truck, hands empty of the baskets. The door slammed, and he floored it out of the parking spot, only to hit the brakes and slide to a stop an instant later.
    Through the front window, Dalton lifted his light gaze to her as he gripped the steering wheel.
    This was a man who had trained himself to run. Whatever had happened to make him this way, she didn’t know and would likely never find out. She’d done this before and didn’t want to feel like this again. Like she couldn’t ever really get to know the person she cared about. Like an outsider…always a guest in someone’s life, but never a main player.
    She swallowed the lump in her throat and dared