Chapter 17: The Loft

Willa's POV

At noon the hall was full, and Bram stood on the porch steps with eight boxes at his feet.

He didn't smile.

"These are the pack's books for six years," he said. "Her hand is in every one."

"I put my name on the reports. I never put hers."

"I'm giving them to her, with a signed page that cancels the form I made her sign."

He held it out.

I came down the steps and took it, and then the first box.

I did not take his hand.

"Thank you," I said. "It changes nothing."

"I know," Bram said, and he stood there until I turned my back.

That night, the ranch was dark and the stars were hard and white over the barn.

Hanna had Mabel in the kitchen.

She had also told me that afternoon, in a flat voice, that I was fully healed.

I climbed the ladder to the loft above the tack room.

Cade was there, lighting the stove, and he looked up when the boards creaked.

"Hanna cleared me," I said.

He put down the match.

"Come here," he said, roughly.

I crossed the floor, and he caught my face in both hands and kissed me.

It wasn't the clumsy kiss in the truck.

It was slow and deep, and his mouth was hot, and I opened mine and heard myself make a sound I had forgotten I could make.

I pulled his coat off his shoulders and went at his shirt buttons.

He backed me against the post, and his hands pushed up under my sweater, rough and warm on my ribs.

"Off," he said against my neck.

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