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

and I can’t stop thinking about her.” Dalton leaned back on his locked arms and stretched his long legs down the stairs. “I also feel like her life would be exponentially better if I figured out a way to leave her alone.”
    “Why?” Nicole asked.
    “Because she’s Miller McCall’s ex-girlfriend. She’s been through enough without falling for another monster.”
    “Oh, damn,” Chance said.
    “Damn indeed.”
    “Does she like you?” Nicole asked softly.
    Dalton bit the side of his lip thoughtfully and dragged the heel of his boot over the snowy porch, creating an arc across the wood there. “She says I make her feel safe. She doesn’t sleep well, but with me…well…she did.”
    “Wow,” Nicole murmured. She was quiet for a long time before she asked, “Do you want my advice?”
    “No,” he teased.
    She elbowed him as he chuckled. “Feeling safe with Link was a really big deal for me. I don’t think you should push her away because of what you think is good for her. I think you should let her make her own decision.” Nicole shrugged out of her blanket and stood. Carefully, she made her way down to her snow machine, but before she drove away through the snowy woods that stood between this cabin and the one she shared with Link, she turned around on the seat and said, “You’re no Miller McCall. You’re better.”

Chapter Eight
     
    Kate shoved the covers off her legs, utterly frustrated with her inability to sleep. She’d even counted sheep in desperation, but as she’d almost drifted off, she imagined a wolf chasing the sheep and got upset all over again. She’d spent an hour with her watercolors painting, but that hadn’t even settled her enough.
    She’d never in her life had trouble sleeping until Miller McCall, and she was desperate to get back to that. She wanted it all—good dreams, that well-rested feeling in the morning, not dragging all day, and looking less exhausted. It had been two years since she’d seen Miller. Two years the man was dead, and she was still as pathetic as she was when he was around. She’d spent too many nights waiting for him to break into her place and hurt her, she supposed. Too many nights feeling like the world was suffocating her and she was alone with her fear, and now her body was trained to never rest.
    Dalton had changed that for a moment, and now she was downright desperate to have more of that warm, well-rested feeling.
    She almost wished she’d never met Dalton. One day of relief had made her insomnia unacceptable now.
    A soft knock sounded on the door, and she jumped. Fear dumped adrenaline into her system. Slowly, quietly, she opened the drawer to the bedside table and pulled out a machete she kept there. She slid the long blade from its nylon sheath and padded over the cold tile floors toward the door.
    “Who is it?” she asked.
    “It’s Dalton.”
    Kate lifted one of the blinds on the door window with the tip of the curved blade. “It’s late.”
    “I know.”
    “If this is some kind of booty call, I’m not interested.”
    Dalton locked his arms on the doorframe and frowned at the wall beside him. “I’m not here for that. I came to apologize.”
    “At four in the morning?”
    “Were you asleep?”
    Irritated, she sighed, flipped on the light, and opened the door. “No.”
    Dalton straightened up. “If I met you a month from now, things would be different. I would be different. Better. Easier. Not so…fucked up.”
    “Everyone is effed up, Dalton. At some point, you just have to find someone to share the baggage with.”
    He chuckled and scratched the side of his lip with his thumbnail, attention on the machete in her hands. “You would get along well with Nicole.”
    Jealousy snaked through her like a poisonous green fog. “Is she your ex?”
    His nostrils flared softly, and a smile stretched his lips. “Possessive,” he accused. “Two days with me and already—”
    “Stop it. Don’t joke right now. I was hurt