I took a deep breath to cool my jets and introduced him around.
Only Lee met his eyes for longer than a moment, and at first I thought Adam was going to lose it.
He gave Lee a scary smile.
I was afraid of what he--either he--was going to say, so I grabbed Adam's arm and tugged him out the door.
If he'd wanted to, Adam could have shaken me off, but he went along with it.
I hadn't brought my car because the dojo was just a short hike across cheatgrass and down the railroad tracks from my shop.
Adam's SUV wasn't there either.
"Did you drive a different car?" I asked in the parking lot.
"No, I had Carlos drop me off after work so I could walk back with you to your shop." Carlos was one of his wolves, one of three or four who worked for him at his security business, but not one I knew well.
"I remember you told me you liked to cool down on the walk back." I'd told him that several years earlier.
He'd been waiting for me at my shop with a warning ...
I looked down at the asphalt and turned my head so he wouldn't see my smile.
It had been after I first hauled the old parts car out of my pole barn and stuck it in the middle of the field so Adam couldn't help but see it out of his window.
He'd been dispensing orders left and right and, knowing werewolves as I had, I hadn't dared to defy him outright.
Instead, knowing how organized and neat Adam was, I'd tortured him with the battered old Rabbit.
He'd stopped by the garage and found my car but not me.
He'd never said, but I thought he must have trailed me to the dojo--and instead of complaining about the junkmobile, he'd dressed me down about wandering around the Tri-Cities by myself at night.
Exasperated, I'd snarled right back at him.
I'd told him I used the not-very-long walk back to my shop as an after-workout cool off.
It had been after his divorce, but not by much.
Years ago.
He'd remembered all this time.
"What are you so smug about?" he asked me.
He'd remembered what I'd told him, as if I'd been important to him even then ...
but I could have described the exact shade of the tie that he had worn that day, the tone that worry had given his voice.
I hadn't wanted to admit I was attracted to him.
Not when he'd been married, and not when he'd been single.
I'd been raised by werewolves, had left them, and didn't want to find myself back in that claustrophobic, violent environment.
I especially had no desire to date an Alpha werewolf.
And yet here I was, walking with Adam, who was as Alpha as could be.