it might be to let her witness his transformation so soon. He hadn’t even won over her heart yet. Was it wise to risk scaring her into running from him?
“I’m a big girl. I won’t freak out. Promise.”
“For someone who thinks it’s odd that I can scent all kinds of things, you do realize you read me pretty damn well, too, don’t you?”
She shrugged. Damn cute. “Your expressions are pretty obvious sometimes.”
He hesitated. “You sure you want to watch me shift already?”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
“No. Unless I scare the hell out of you causing you to leave town and never come back.”
She giggled. “I promise not to leave town. Not until the end of the week at least.”
He lifted a brow. “I thought you were considering two weeks.”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Hey, I need those two weeks.” He prayed he wouldn’t need all of fourteen days to convince her she was his. His cock wouldn’t be able to take that.
“Semantics.”
“Don’t joke about something like time. You’ll give me a heart attack.”
She rolled those darn sexy brown eyes again. “Take me to your den. Show me where you sleep for the winter.”
He laughed harder now. “I’m not a bear, baby. I’m a wolf. And I’ve told you I don’t have a den. I have a regular house like anyone else.”
“Again, semantics.” She jerked free of him and stumbled backward, bumping into a stack of boxes and causing the top one to tumble to the floor.
Caleb expected the sound of something fragile to shatter. When it didn’t, he blew out her breath and leaned over to pick up the box where it landed on its side. The lid had popped open, and what looked like stacks of envelopes threatened to fall out.
Elena bent down next to him and picked up a bundle of letters, a rubber band around the stack. “Wow. Marge really was a hoarder. She even kept old letters.”
Caleb leaned closer and pointed at the address on the top one. “This one was to your grandmother.”
Elena gasped, twisting her head to look more closely. “That’s my grandmother’s address,” she murmured before flipping through the stack. They were all to that same address. And written to the side of every one was “return to sender.”
“My God,” Elena whispered. “Marge wrote to my grandmother, and Mabel returned every single one.”
“Looks like it.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Very.” Caleb opened the flap on the box farther to reveal dozens of letters. “Let’s take these downstairs with us.”
Elena nodded. “Do you think I should read them? That seems so…personal.”
Caleb smiled at her. “You’re a journalist. Don’t tell me you aren’t curious.”
“Yeah, but these letters weren’t written to a stranger. They were written to my own grandmother from the aunt I never met.”
“We’ll take them with us. If you feel like reading them later, you can.”
Caleb grabbed Elena’s hand and helped her to standing. Next, he lifted the box of letters and stacked the box of scarves on top before he headed for the stairs.
Elena giggled. “We’re taking the scarves too, huh?”
“Yep.” He spun around to climb down them in front of her. When he hit the second floor, he drew in a breath and realized they weren’t alone in the house. “Hunter and Layla must have come inside. They’re downstairs now.” He set the boxes on the floor.
“How the hell do you know exactly where Hunter and Layla are located? I can’t hear anything.”
Caleb glanced up at her ass as she came down the ladder behind him. He loved that ass so much it took every ounce of his control to keep from grabbing it, stripping off her shorts, and feasting his eyes on her naked skin.
She jumped down the last wrung and turned to face him. “Caleb?”
“Oh, right. You asked me a question.” He smirked.
She rolled her eyes.
“I got distracted.” He pulled her front against his and kissed her nose. “I can smell them, baby.”
“Right.” She drew in a breath. “You know that’s weird, don’t you?”
“Nope. It’s totally normal for me. And it’s not as if I can tell exactly where they are, but they’re in the house, far enough away that I’d say perhaps the basement.”
“Can you smell more specific things?” she asked with hesitation and a slight wince.
“Yes.”
She cringed now. “Which means Hunter can also smell me.”
“Yes. Maybe that sounds strange to you, but it’s normal for us. We can scent people’s arousal anywhere we go. Or their fear or even sorrow. Sometimes it can be helpful. Other times it’s annoying.”
She chewed on her