that thing, I’ll have you know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Summer, did you think it was fake?”
“Well, I didn’t have time to see if it turned my finger green since you bit me a month later.” A growl rattled her throat. Hello, Wolf.
“Chickens!” she said, pointing out the window as they passed a little house with a pair of red hens pecking around the front yard. “Seeing chickens makes me feel hungry.” She ate another pork rind. God, she was so damn cute.
“Next subject.” He gripped the steering wheel tighter and said, “Gas stations.”
“Favorite memory of you at a gas station… Oh, I know this one. It’s easy. You were pumping gas into that old beater Chevy you used to drive, and the sensor wasn’t working. You got all caught up kissing me in the front seat, and the gas nozzle filled up the tank and then some.”
“Sprayed the whole damn spot with gas,” Wes muttered.
“You were so mad because gas got on your truck.”
“Old Faithful was my chariot!”
“It was a rust bucket, and it only took a few minutes to hose it off.”
“Not the point.”
“Well, would you change it if you had to go back? Would you kiss me less?”
Wes huffed a tiny laugh and shook his head. “I’m a wolf now, Summer. I can smell a trap from a mile away.”
Summer growled.
He shot her a look and got all caught up in her bi-colored eyes, all wild and beautiful. “Not necessarily.”
Her full lips curved up slowly into a smile that stopped his heart and stiffened his dick. God, she was stunning.
Her attention darted to the road in front of the windshield and, in a moment, her entire expression changed from pleasure to terror. “Wes, look out!” she screamed.
When Wes jerked his eyes to the road, Sam stood right there on the center line, head cocked, eyes glowing silver.
“Shit!” Wes yelled as he slammed on the brakes. He threw his hand in front of Summer as he jerked the wheel with his other hand to avoid Sam. The truck lurched sideways, barely missing his brother. They skidded left, then right, then swung around so fast his stomach dipped. Stay upright, stay upright!
The truck rocked to two wheels, but slammed back down to earth as they came to a stop facing Sam. He hadn’t moved a muscle.
Lungs burning from his heaving breath, Wes stared at his brother’s back through the windshield.
It was really him. It was really Sam. Slowly, Sam turned around. His eyes were filled with an emptiness Wes didn’t understand. Right now, he had a million thoughts and memories rattling through his mind. And above all, there was relief.
Sam was really alive.
“Wes,” Summer whispered. “Don’t move.”
“What?” Wes cast her a glance, but she was frozen in her seat, eyes on Sam, and she smelled of growing terror.
“It’s just Sam,” he assured her, but when he looked back at his brother, Sam was much closer. Wes tensed.
In the span of a moment, Sam had cut the distance between them in half. And now there was a smile curving Sam’s lips, but Wes didn’t recognize it. It drew chills up his arms.
“Stay here,” he told Summer.
“Wes, no!” she said, grabbing his arm. “There are things you don’t know. Things I didn’t tell you!”
“What? Stop, Summer!” he demanded, prying her hands off his arm. “It’s Sam. You know Sam.”
“No, it’s not, it’s not!” she said, scrabbling at his arm again, holding him in place.
Anger blazed up his spine. “Stop it, Summer!” he demanded. He yanked his arm out of her clawing grip. “Stay here,” he demanded, allowing his wolf to poison his words with an alpha order. Summer froze, her eyes wide and rimmed with fear.
He didn’t like when she was afraid. In a softer tone, he said, “I’ll be right back. Everything is okay.”
“He’s Bones now. He’s Bones.” Her voice was no better than a whisper and her lips barely moved. When a tear stained her cheek, he felt awful for giving her an order to stay in place. “That’s just Sam’s body, Wes. I should’ve told you. He—”
She was wrong. Wrong! Sam was right here. Close enough to touch. Closer even than he was before. How did he do that? Move without Wes seeing. One second he was up on the road, but now he was standing right in front of the nose of his pickup truck, smiling with that strange, empty expression.
But it was Sam. There were his scars from the night Leif had Turned them. That was his hair, the same