Read Online A Werewolf's Valentine: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant - Free Book Online Page B

if it would be better to take off now or wait until he’s gotten used to having me around. This is new territory for me.”
    “I think it’s safe to say it is for everybody in the family,” she said, breathing past the sudden ball of pain inside at the idea of West taking off. “Look, I know what we agreed about expectations and the rest of it, but . . . this is Saturday, so Rolf is home and my dad and uncle are off today. I’ll bet you they’re all over there in a cat huddle, trying to figure out what to do next. They might want to talk to an actual wolf. Or is that an intimidating thought?”
    “Family talk is new territory, too,” he said. “As for wolf talk, pretty much all I know I picked up as a loner on the road.”
    The ball of pain turned into something she didn’t recognize, except as a different sort of pain, only felt on his behalf, and not on her own. It curled her cat up into a tiny ball right under her heart. “How young were you? Was foster care that horrible?”
    “Some were, some weren’t,” he said, shrugging. “The only consistent thing was, the best ones turned out to be in large cities. I kept trying to stay human. When I couldn’t fight off the need to shift, there was nowhere to run except as far outside the city as I could get. And of course I was always looking for my pack. Whenever I did a run like that I got caught pretty much soon as I found open land. Never dared tell anyone I was a shifter, so I got written off as an incorrigible runaway.” He lifted his shoulder. “They began putting me in stricter situations. You can imagine how successful that was when I got to my teens. Finally ran for good after six really bad places in a row.”
    He flexed his hands, his long eyelashes sweeping his lean cheek as he looked down at one of the older scars on his arm. “Anyway, I’m here now, and I want to do right by the cub. But I’m not sure where to go from here.”
    She touched his hand. “How about deciding after breakfast? I made scones. They should be about perfect right now.”
    His face lit up as if she’d handed him a gift of gold.
    A few minutes later they sat together at her table, he wearing her robe. He’d given her that special smile when she’d told him his clothes were drying. “I suppose they were pretty ripe,” he said.
    “Smelled great to me,” she said, and gave him a cat growl in the back of her throat. “But who likes the feeling of gritty jeans? And I have some stuff I got for my favorite purse, that’s great for cleaning leather. I’d love to furbish up that awesome coat. Where did you get it, anyway? It has to have cost a fortune.”
    “It might have, but someone gave it to me after I filled in for a band member who took off, one autumn when I found myself in Kodak, Tennessee. There was this bluegrass festival.” He took her hands. “I can’t read music, but they had me come in to jam with their fiddler. He was an old timer whose music came to him pretty much the same way mine does. I appreciate all this, but you didn’t have to.”
    “I wanted to,” she said, thinking, I’d do anything for another of those smiles .
    And inside, her cat gave a small but definite, purr.
    She served up a plate of scones, set out some of her mom’s good honey from her beekeeper cousin, and while he devoured those, whipped up some eggs and bacon. While she did these things that she never did for her . . . pick-ups . . . dates . . . she balked at both those words, as he was more than a pick-up, but they hadn’t really dated. Lover?
    Don’t jinx this by putting a label on it , she told herself, and set plates before them both.
    They talked about food as they ate breakfast, and music, and their favorite seasons. All easy stuff.
    She whipped up a second batch of scones while West took a shower. The clothes had finished, and he was drying off when the door banged open, and Rolf appeared.
    McKenzi paused in the middle of dishing out hot scones, and sighed. “Rolf,