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

hurt that you didn’t want to be around us. I was mad at you. Mad that you barely look at Fina. Mad that you won’t hold her and bond with her. I thought I was to blame somehow. Like you didn’t want to be in a pack with me, which now I know is stupid, and I shouldn’t have made it about myself. I just didn’t understand.”
    Dalton stood and climbed the stairs, then sat shoulder to shoulder with her, watching the green northern lights in the distance.
    Nicole leaned her head on his arm. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how painful it must be for you to lose your little girl and then have to be around a baby girl who survived.”
    Dalton sighed a frozen breath. “I’m kind of messed up right now. The rest of the year, I’m okay. Or at least, I can put on the show, right? But you’re catching me when I screw up the most. I like to hide out during April. I hurt less people that way, you know? But now Chance, Link, you, and…”
    Nicole eased off his shoulder and offered him a confused look. “And who?”
    “And this girl I met. There is a hundred percent chance I will let everyone down right now. It’s like I can’t think straight. I make the wrong decisions. Everything is cloudy, and I don’t have much control over my animal or my moods. I should’ve done my hiding somewhere more remote, but this year, this place seemed…important.”
    “This place or your pack?”
    Dalton shrugged. “Maybe both. I don’t know. I’ve never been in a pack before. It’s always just been me and Chance, and we were never officially a pack, you know? And then Link came along and bound us, and now I don’t really know how to navigate anything.”
    “Link and Chance love you.”
    “Strongly like you when you aren’t being a twat,” Chance corrected from inside.
    “And you’re very important to me, too,” Nicole said without missing a beat. “When you’re ready, you can lean on us. I don’t know how packs work either, but to me, you feel like family. Everything feels better when you and Chance visit. Link is happier. I’m happier. I don’t know how it is for you, but when you and Chance are close, it’s like my two brothers are in town.”
    Dalton looked down at Nicole. Her large birthmark, the color of red wine, was stark on her pale cheek. He understood her need for a makeshift family. Hers hadn’t been awesome, and her real dad had died the year before she found out he even existed. She’d come here searching for a place to belong, and instead of him being a positive part of her journey, he’d failed her. He’d failed everyone.
    “I’ll try harder,” he promised.
    Nicole sniffed and shook her head. “Do things in your own time, Dalton. I understand your reservations now. Link and I will hold. We’ll be here for whatever you want this pack to be.”
    Dalton wiped off the snowy porch floorboard beside him in an effort to avoid her eyes when he asked nonchalantly, “When you found out what Link was, did you freak out?”
    “I nearly shot him,” she said.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?” Chance asked from where he suddenly shadowed the open doorway. The eavesdropper came to sit on Dalton’s other side.
    “Yeah, I figured out what he was before he told me, and I came to this place, guns blazing. I thought he was the wolf who killed my father. Turns out Link was only trying to make up for his family’s shortcomings. Cole was actually the one who killed my dad.” She slid him a glance, then snuggled more deeply into her blanket. “Dalton, you’re allowed by shifter law to tell your mate what you are. Clayton can’t give a kill order for exposing the wolf to your woman.”
    Chance snorted. “He couldn’t bring himself to tell the mother of his child. He’s not telling this one.”
    There was challenge in his voice, and Dalton growled. He didn’t like being baited. “I haven’t known her long enough.”
    “What do you feel?”
    “I feel like she’s amazing, but complicated,