no sign of the coyote at all. It was absurd to think that a wild animal had made it all the way downtown without being run over or spotted by the people walking on the sidewalk. And people kept walking, right where it had been. I shook my head and turned around. I must have imagined it. It was just a hallucination, a trick of the mind. Maybe it was just a dog or a really big rat.
I was still a little preoccupied as Henry parked the car and led the way into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant crammed to the gills with people looking for a late lunch. I didn’t even mind that his hand rested at the small of my back to guide me through the crowd to a pair of free stools at the end of a long counter. The familiar touch, easy and casual, sparked warmth in my cheeks, though I would have blamed it on the crowd around us if anyone had asked.
Some balance had shifted between us, and I couldn’t tell what it was. It made me deeply uneasy, or at least it should have. Instead, it was like Henry had relaxed and realigned himself, and my nerves eased in response. I didn’t mind leaning against his side as we squeezed onto the stools at the counter; he let me sit between the wall and him, while he was shoulder-to-shoulder with a burly construction worker. The noise was another excuse to lean close, until my head practically rested on his shoulder, and Henry adjusted so his arm went around my back in an easy half-embrace.
He laughed though, and looked just a bit self-conscious. “I’m not putting the moves on you, I promise. I just don’t want to elbow you by accident.”
“I’ll elbow you back if you get too fresh,” I said, and tried out a smile. He was so free with his expressions, like he had plenty of smiles to share and didn’t fear running out of the happiness that made them.
Henry shouted an order to the harried waitress who finally braved our end of the counter, then ducked his head to mutter, “I ordered some of everything. You have to move fast here or you’ll never eat, and looking at a menu is a sign of weakness. Whatever you like, we can get more of.”
It was a relief to not make a decision or have to offer an opinion. Not that I wanted to admit that to him. I’d had choice taken away from me before and railed against it, fought tooth and nail to get my independence back—so admitting I just wanted him to order so I didn’t have to think felt like too much of a failure. A betrayal of myself.
Henry turned to face me, shielding me from the rest of the crowd, and with his body blocking everyone else out, it suddenly felt like we were the only two people in the whole restaurant. His pale gaze searched my face, and I knew something was bothering him by the wrinkle in his forehead, just between his eyebrows. “I really am sorry about…this morning. Pretending that we’re together just to get rid of Nola. I hope you don’t mind going along with it for a little while longer?”
“It’s fine,” I said. My knee bumped his as I moved on the stool, wanting to get a little closer to the warmth of his body. “I don’t mind. It should make dinner interesting. Do you think she’ll actually leave?”
He grunted, glancing away. “I don’t know. With my luck, she’ll probably want to stick around for the rest of her life.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. She’d been fairly unpleasant, but it felt like there were deeper emotional currents moving around them. His aura was stirred up and hers had been tangled and knotted with anxiety and fear. “So what was she talking about, that you’re supposed to be in charge? How did that happen?”
Henry hesitated for so long I started to think I’d trespassed on a topic that the wolves didn’t discuss, and braced myself for a rebuke or an abrupt change of topic. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced around, then lowered his voice. He even leaned a little closer, until it was an intimate conversation instead of a stolen moment in the middle of a crowd.
“My father was the alpha, long ago, although he died when I was young. My family comes from a tradition where leadership stays