Wolf Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 4) by T. S. Joyce

me.”
    “Tell you what?” Link asked softly. It wasn’t a denial.
    “I want to hear what you are…from your mouth.” Damn, her voice shook so hard now. She inhaled deeply. “I want you to admit it!”
    “I’m not allowed to tell people—”
    “Link, tell me! Please. Be someone in my life who doesn’t lie. Be that. Right now. Tell me.”
    The silence grew thick between them as he stared at her. At last, he dropped his gaze and nodded once. “I’m a werewolf. A shifter.”
    And now she needed one more question answered. If she didn’t hear it from his lips, she would never be able to let this go. She would never gain closure. “Did you kill him?”
    Link dropped his hands across his knees, then stood with a grace too lithe to be human. He approached slowly.
    “Don’t you take another step, or I’ll shoot.”
    “I can hear a lie.”
    “Link, don’t!” She lowered the barrel toward his belly, but he didn’t stop.
    Instead, he pulled the barrel to his forehead and whispered, “If you go after one of my kind, you aim here.” He lowered the barrel to his chest, right over his heart. “Or here. We can take a lot more damage than you’d guess. Do you understand?”
    “Answer me,” she choked out as a tear betrayed her and slid down her cheek. “Did you kill Buck? Did you kill my dad?”
    Link swallowed hard, but shook his head. “No.”
    “Do you know who did?” Her voice came out nothing but a squeak. She’d thought she wanted answers but, suddenly, she was scared to find out the truth.
    Link dipped his chin once. “The wolf who killed your father is dead.”
    “Who was he?”
    “My oldest brother.”
    The shotgun sagged in her arms. Her lungs weren’t working. It was as if the air was too cold and freezing her tissue until the organ was unusable. She grew light-headed and dizzy as she backed toward the truck.
    Link made a single clicking sound behind his teeth and twitched his head as he took a step toward her. “Don’t run. Not until you hear me out.”
    “You kissed me!”
    “And I’d do it again.”
    “You kissed me knowing your brother killed my dad, Link. Is that why you’ve been bringing me little dead bunnies? Fish? Is that why you fixed my generator and fixed the roof on Buck’s cabin?” She lifted her voice, steadily growing into her anger now. “Is it guilt that drew you to me?”
    “Yes. At first.”
    She huffed an angry breath in response to his bullshit and spun for her truck.
    “Nicole, wait! It’s not like that now. I care—fuck! Nicole just listen for five minutes, and then you can bolt. You can run back to your life in the lower forty-eight, and I’ll never bother you again, but you have to understand what happened. You should! If not to give me a chance to explain how fucked up my family is, then for you, so you can gain closure on your dad’s death. And I didn’t kiss you out of guilt!”
    The raw desperation in his voice halted her in her tracks. Slowly, she turned. His eyes were blazing almost white, and he dragged his hand through his dark hair, mussing it as a long, volatile snarl rattled his throat.
    “Why then, Link?”
    “Because you make me feel so damned good, Nicole.” His words broke on her name. “I don’t have much time left, but you calmed the wolf with a touch, and it meant the world. I kissed you because I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop coming up with ways to take care of you, and I know it’s so fucked up the way I do it. You aren’t Alaskan, and you don’t understand the value of those dead rabbits, the fish, or the fucking generator, but it’s all I have. It’s all Wolf knows how to give. I didn’t kiss you out of guilt, Nicole. I kissed you because you feel like mine.”
    His voice sounded so broken and honest, that she hesitated. She’d wanted nothing more than to drive away from him in a cloud of snow and exhaust, but her every instinct screamed he was telling the truth. Sagging against the back of the truck,