Read Online Dawson Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 5) by T. S. Joyce - Free Book Online

to hold his gaze as she walked up to his truck, then past it to the tailgate, which she lowered.
    “What are you doing?” he asked, by her side too fast. She would’ve startled, but she’d seen speed like his before.
    “I think you have too many secrets, and I think you’re a runner. I already told you I’ve done this before. I want more. I don’t want to be afraid that you’ll bolt when things get hard.” She pulled the ramps from between her ATV’s tires, rested them at an angle on the tailgate, climbed up into the truck and over the seat of her ride, and turned it on.
    Dalton looked ill as he watched her back it down out of his truck, but he didn’t stop her. Instead, he stood there with his hands linked behind his head. As she drove away, she looked back once when the word “shit” echoed down the street. He flung his hands forward, his eyes reflecting strangely in the red glow of her taillights. With Miller, that would’ve scared her, but with Dalton, it filled her with immense sadness.
    His wolf intrigued her, but his wolf had pushed her away.
    Regrets, regrets, regrets. Dalton Dawson had been broken, too, and though she hurt for him, he wasn’t in the same spot she was. She was finally hopeful and wanted something meaningful with someone she cared about. Dalton had started that change in her, but he wasn’t capable of seeing it through. There was tragedy in that.
    Dalton was a tornado, and he would sweep her into oblivion if she let him.

Chapter Seven
     
    He was such an idiot. When Dalton pulled over the last crest of a snowy ridge, his headlights arched over Link’s cabin. The lights were on inside, which meant Chance was still awake.
    Great.
    He cut the engine, got out, and slammed the door. God, why was he like this now? He’d been normal once. Well, as normal as a werewolf could be. But now, every April, he turned into a volatile asshole. Oh, he’d read between the lines of Kate’s last words. She’d done it before and wanted more, AKA she deserved better. And yeah, he’d known that, but this was all he had to give right now. One minute he felt confident, like he couldn’t wait to see her, and then when he actually talked to her, he ducked and dodged any serious conversation that pulled her too close to his life. Too close to the real him.
    And what had she done? She’d shared her mistakes with Miller. She’d shown him that damned wedding invite, which had probably caused her bone-deep pain, and he’d given her nothing in return.
    What had he hoped for? That their conversations would stay shallow and never go past flirting?
    Dalton paced in front of Link’s old cabin, wearing a trail in the snow.
    He wanted something real.
    But his biggest fear was getting something real, and ruining it.
    Dalton squatted down and gripped his head as his wolf pushed to escape his skin. His inner animal was clawing and howling to go back to her.
    Say sorry. Shelby loved when it you said sorry.
    Shelby? Dalton retched in the snow at the pain in his middle. It should’ve been a woman like Kate holding his baby. He’d picked wrong, and now he was unfixable because of that decision. It had damaged something inside of him to mourn the loss of Amelia alone.
    The door to the cabin opened, but Dalton couldn’t pull his gaze from the dead grass that poked up from the trail he’d stomped into the snow. He retched again as he tried desperately to keep his human skin.
    Nicole’s scent hit his nose, and he swallowed hard, dragging his attention up to the top porch stair where she sat down, wrapped in a blanket with a sad look in her dark eyes.
    “Dalton,” she whispered, sympathy tainting the sound.
    “I missed dinner,” he said, feeling like shit.
    “It’s okay.”
    “No.” He settled in the snow, legs folded beneath him. “It’s not. Nothing is okay.”
    Her eyes rimmed with tears. “Link told me about April First. I didn’t know.”
    “I don’t like talking about it.”
    “Dalton, I’ve been so