Daughter on the Run (Sons of Gulielmus Book 2) Read online

  He couldn’t like anything about her. Him being disgusted by her was critical to her ongoing wellbeing and his damned morals. No way in hell was he going to get her tangled up with a freak like him.

  “I’m not used to having so many options, is all,” she said in a gentle tone. “I’ll have what you’re having, I suppose.”

  “It’s eleven in the morning. Good girls aren’t supposed to hit the sauce before noon.”

  “Hey, look over there,” the wolf in him taunted, and Calvin did, because he was tired and weak, and that canine part of him had grabbed the upper hand.

  Very slowly, red bloomed across her face and down her neck, and he grinned in spite of himself, devouring the spectacle. It wasn’t so easy to make women blush anymore. They were all so jaded, and who could blame them?

  He liked that pink on her lips and the pink on her cheeks even more, but he squared up quick and slammed down that gate in his head between his good sense and his wolf sense. He’d already decided how he was going to let the werewolf bullshit play out, and it wasn’t going to be by exposing innocents to it.

  “I’m just playing with you,” he ground out, raking a hand forcefully through his disheveled hair. “Coffee? It’s cold out.”

  “I’ve never had it, but I’ll try it.” Her chin jutted with determination, and his “Say what, now?” eyebrow flew up.

  Perhaps he hadn’t heard her right.

  “You’ve never had coffee?” he asked to confirm.

  She shook her head hard.

  “On purpose?”

  “Not exactly. It just wasn’t available.”

  “Where’d you grow up, Utah?”

  The red flooded back to her cheeks, and her shy gaze descended to the floor. “Close.”

  “Asshole,” the wolf in him shouted under the flimsy mental barrier. “Look what you’ve done. She’s upset now. Move. I’ll fix it.”

  “The hell you will,” Calvin muttered. He put both hands into his hair and paced by the counter.

  She was going to have to go. He didn’t care how far she’d driven, but there wasn’t going to be any interview. What the agency was thinking sending someone as fragile and soft out to him, he couldn’t even begin to guess. They were probably fucking with him again, annoying him on purpose in retaliation for never giving anyone a chance.

  But what did they expect? He was the kind of man who stayed up until three a.m., watching Van Damme movies wearing only his boxer briefs while sucking down a case of Natty Light, and she didn’t even drink coffee? They had to know that wasn’t going to fly.

  “Well, don’t let me corrupt you,” he growled.

  He couldn’t fathom why that made her smile.

  For the wolf in him, her smile may as well have been a French kiss. That little bend of her lips put a squeeze on his chest he’d never felt the likes of before.

  She should have been afraid of him—his surliness, his snapping, his growling.

  But she was sitting there all prim and proper like he wasn’t doing shit but putting on a show for her and that everything would be fine.

  It wouldn’t be, though, especially if she didn’t leave.

  “I’d like to try coffee,” she said. “My brothers were trying to talk me into it. I told them no because I didn’t see the point of it, but I think they’ve worn me down enough now.” Her laugh was a gentle, warm caress. Soft as cashmere and just as decadent to his ears.

  More fodder for the wild wolf, he realized with a groan. His observational instincts were in overdrive and he was sucking in even the most trifling bits of information at an incredible pace: the subtle shifts of her scent, the slight erraticness of her breathing, and the way her pupils dilated in those clear blue eyes as he moved closer or away.

  Her heart was pounding.

  So was his.

  Move, asshole. Just keep moving.

  He didn’t want to know that much about her. He needed to keep himself busy until she left, which would be soon if the Fates gave a shit about him at all.

  “In that case, I’ve got just the thing.” He opened the cabinet over the coffee maker, glad to have the distraction from her remarkable face. He plucked out a chocolate hazelnut coffee pod and popped it into the machine. He never drank those fussy flavors, but his momma insisted on buying them anyway, and he figured Swiss Miss sitting at his table would probably appreciate the upgrade.

  “So, what’s your name?” he asked as he filled the water container. “That’s probably something I should know.”

  “Julia. Julia Tate.”

  Julia.

  A perfectly elegant name for a well-mannered lady. But a woman under his employ needed a name like “Mary Francis” or “Edna” or “Switchblade” if she really wanted to keep him on his toes.

  The lady was piling up the strikes against her with every sweet sentence she uttered.

  All the more reason to send her back to where she’d come from.

  “Well,” he said on a groan, “nice to meet you, Julia. I am, obviously, Calvin Wolff.” He bumped the coffeemaker lid closed and pressed the power button.

  “Calvin.” She massaged the name in her mouth as though it were foreign to her—as though she’d never heard it before.

  That was impossible. Everyone around those parts knew who Calvin Wolff was.

  Or so he’d thought.

  “Say,” he said, turning, “what kind of information did the agency give you about me before they sent you out here? Long drive from Asheville.”

  “Oh. Well…none?” She squirmed in her seat.

  Fucking agency.

  “Not even my name?” he asked.

  She gave her head a slight shake.

  “Huh.” He turned to the cabinet again, this time pulling out a mug. He set it beneath the dispenser and pushed a few buttons and the stream of hot coffee poured down. “It’s like they’re asking to be fired. They’re hardly doing any work. Why should I keep them on, right?”

  “Probably a good thing she doesn’t know shit,” the wolf in him supposed.

  Most people knew too much of the wrong stuff, and having to constantly reeducate them was wearying as hell. It certainly cut into his hermiting time, anyway.

  “Okay.” He leaned his rear end against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Stop me if you’ve heard any of this already. I pitched pro baseball for five years. Led my team to four consecutive World Series, and we won the last two of those. I quit while I was at my peak. Immediately after I retired, I walked away from a small plane crash with only minor bruises, and now people think I’m some kind of magical golden boy.”

  Bright blue eyes widened. “Are you?”

  Grunting, he set the coffee mug onto the table and nudged the sugar container toward her. As long as she kept speaking in that bedroom voice, she could ask him anything she wanted. He’d tell her all his stats, and even his date of birth and social security number if she needed them.

  Dangerous.

  He scoffed and ground his fists against his eyes.

  “Magic?” he snapped. “No, I don’t have any of that. Wish I did, sometimes.” He moved to the front of the refrigerator and rested a hand on the handle.

  If there were magic in play, he wouldn’t have been born cursed. That’s what it was: a curse. His parents called his affliction genetics, but he’d always called a spade a spade. He was a born werewolf. What was so fucking magical about that? He couldn’t go out in public without snapping at people, thinking they were all out to steal his kibble. And he had to defend his territory, right? Didn’t matter if it was just a corner table at Starbucks. He liked that table. It was his.

  His momma had caught him baring his teeth at this one sommelier who’d turned his pointy Learjet of a nose up at Calvin because he hadn’t liked the brand of beer he’d ordered.

  Momma had kicked Calvin’s shin under the table and hissed, “Keep it up, and the county’s going to send an ambulance out to collect you by force. Take a mate! You’re going to choke to dea
th on your own testosterone.”

  He’d growled at her, and she opened her menu, pushed up her reading glasses, and said in a little singsong voice, “Can’t wait to say I told you so.”

  Well, he didn’t want to find a mate. Mates meant little wolfie babies, and to hell with that. Alpha or not, he’d never condemn another generation to that curse.

  He’d been left with few options. Since he didn’t want to court a Wolf, and as he was forbidden to share that part of himself with a human, he’d had no choice but to quit baseball and hole up until the season of mate imprinting lapsed.

  The way he figured it, he only had twenty or so years left in solitary confinement. It would be a piece of cake.

  He laughed at the thought. He hadn’t even been holed up for a year yet, and he was already losing his grip. He was already thinking about throwing up his hands and announcing to the Fates, “Well, you sent her here, so I guess she’ll do. Are you happy now? It’ll be all your fault if she’s miserable.”

  At least then, he could be just like his momma and say, “I told you so” to someone.

  He doubted it’d make him feel better, though.

  That line of thinking, and that curious, wary stare Julia was giving him had him wondering.

  The fact that she was even there didn’t make a lick of sense to him.

  “Hey.”

  Her eyes widened again. “Yes?”

  “Does your boyfriend know you’re interviewing with The Wolff? The last thing I need is some knuckle-dragging yokel coming out to my woodland sanctuary and…” Words fled, and Calvin scrubbed a hand down the stubble on his jaw to help himself think.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what some guy would do. The situation wasn’t exactly normal. They’d ask him for an autograph, probably. He was Calvin Fucking Wolff—the hottest player in a generation.

  That’s what sports media said, anyway. He didn’t make that shit up on his own. Who would go around spouting that kind of nonsense?

  “Boyfriend?” she intoned. Again, she spoke like the word was foreign and difficult to pronounce.

  He shrugged. “Or girlfriend. Whatever floats your boat. Got hot plans for Valentine’s Day?”

  Part of him hoped she’d say yes so the wolf in him could back off and chill the hell out for a little while. Not even the feral asshole part of him would pursue a taken woman.

  The other part of him, though, hoped she’d say no.

  It hoped she didn’t have anyone because then he could tell himself that he had a shot in hell at making it onto her “maybe” list, at the very least.

  Not that he’d pursue her. He couldn’t.

  He just wanted to be wanted.

  She didn’t immediately respond.

  He watched her count one, two, and then three teaspoons of sugar into her coffee.

  Finally, she looked at him and asked, “Is Valentine’s Day today?”

  A laugh fell out of him before he could tamp it back down to the instigating pit of hell it’d come from. “Next week, honey.” He grabbed the creamer from the fridge and wondered if she’d be as generous with it as she’d been with the sugar. “Lady like you doesn’t have a valentine? I don’t believe it.”

  “I’ve never had one. Where I come from, they don’t really do holidays, so this is all new to me.” She accepted the creamer with both hands, and her fingers skimmed his on the pass-off.

  Soft hands.

  He imagined them pressed against his chest, and her on his lap with that skirt hiked up…

  He shuddered and backed the hell away.

  I said no, wolf.

  “As if I care what you want.”

  And that’s the problem with you, Calvin thought at his other half, gritting his teeth. You’re irrational.

  “Surviving is irrational?”

  The human part of Calvin didn’t have a good retort for that. Thinking used to be so much easier before that wolf part had moved in after puberty and asserted itself. He hadn’t been such a prick until it became exceedingly clear that Man-Calvin wasn’t going to snatch them a mate.

  “Are you cold, too?” Julia cocked her head to the side in that charming way again.

  He was shaking like a leaf and not because he was cold.

  He squared up fast. He stood up straight, cleared his throat, and psychically forced that wild wolf half into the naughty corner in his mind.

  He’d never paid much attention to women’s little tics and habits before. With Julia, though, he felt like he was desperately scrambling to glean whatever he could about her. He was Calvin Wolff. He didn’t usually have to work so hard.

  “No, I’m not cold.” He added in a murmur, “Not actually capable of it.”

  Shifters ran hot-blooded as a matter of course. It’d take hours of exposure for snow to bother him, even a little bit.

  He suddenly realized what she’d said and what it may have meant. “Wait. Are you?”

  “Stupid question,” the wolf in him sniped. “Of course she’s cold. She was out in the rain without a coat.”

  And Calvin had the thermostat set at sixty.

  He could tell she didn’t want to say yes—like she didn’t want to inconvenience him.

  She looked away the moment he asked and was staring into her coffee mug as though the contents were far more interesting than they actually were.

  “You may as well speak up, honey. Everyone else around here does.” Especially the Wolf women. They were an opinionated group and they never let him forget it.

  He draped his flannel overshirt over her shoulders and took brisk steps to the thermostat. Took him a couple of minutes to figure out how to work the damned thing. He hadn’t adjusted the temperature since late November.

  When he finally returned to the kitchen, Julia had her hands wrapped around the mug and was staring at his paper-strewn counters.

  Naturally, he stared, too. He hadn’t paid much attention to them before. With him there alone, he hadn’t cared much if the place was picked up. The tiniest bolt of shame shot through him as he took in the full picture. He was turning into one of those eccentric Wolf slobs he and the other boys had made fun of as kids.

  “How do you find anything in here?” she asked in a tone of wonderment. “How do you cook?”

  “Well, that’s easy,” he groused as he eased into the chair beside her. Counting off on his fingers, he informed, “I don’t look, and I don’t cook.”

  “So, that’s why you called the agency?”

  Sounded like she was judging him a little bit, but he shrugged, anyway. His capacity for domesticity had always been low. As kids, his roles and his sister’s had been clearly defined. As an adult, Sweetie was more than capable of doing all the “male” stuff. She could chop down a tree without breaking a sweat and swap out a car tire without putting down her cell phone. Tasked with traditional household chores, Calvin simply didn’t know where to start. He had no idea how anyone could stay on top of that never-ending chore list. His manager called that “executive dysfunction.”

  “As of right now,” he confessed, “the Schwan’s delivery guy keeps me fed, and I’d rather buy more clothes than do laundry.”

  Her eyes went round once more.

  He sighed and whisked a hand through his hair again in frustration. “Yep.”

  She didn’t need to say it.

  He already knew what she was thinking—that he was that rich.

  As it turned out, good-looking baseball players got endorsement deals. That was a simple truth. Well, his momma said he was good-looking, anyway. She might have been a tad bit biased.

  Pretty boy or not, though, he was smart enough to know he wouldn’t stay rich if he kept living the way he did. His accountant had run the numbers. It would be cheaper to hire live-in help than to outsource everything. Calvin had expected the agency to send him a Mr. Belvedere or a Mrs. Garrett—some no-nonsense professional who wouldn’t agitate his dingbat of a wolf. Someone plain named “Switchblade” and not someone pretty who wore floral pr
ints.

  “Maybe I need to get organized a little.” Calvin let his breath out in a sputter and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t want to hear that fuckin’ yap-yap-yap from my accountant again this year. He doesn’t like it when I claim big deductions and don’t have the receipts to back ’em up.”

  “What else do you need help with?”

  “Funny that you should ask…” the wolf part thought.

  Once more, Calvin gritted his teeth and managed to avoid making a retort out loud. “Well, Julia, you tell me what you can do, and I’ll tell you if it needs to be done.”

  “Oh!” She set the mug down gently and knitted her brows industriously. “Well. Let me think.”

  Vaguely, he caught words like “baking” and “gardening” coming out of her mouth, but he wasn’t truly listening—not the man part nor the wolf. He watched her lips move.

  In that moment, he didn’t care about the house or what needed to be done in it. The only thing that needed critical “doing” was him.

  Nooooooooooope, he thought, even as he rested the side of his face against his fist and stared at her mouth.

  At some point, she stopped talking and silence stretched between the two of them.

  He cleared his throat, raked a hand through his uncombed hair again, and murmured a conciliatory, “Interesting. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’m a quick study if there’s anything else.”

  He could think of a few things, none of which were legal to pay her for.

  Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.

  She stirred yet another spoonful of sugar into her mug. She was taking her coffee the wrong way. If she added much more of the white stuff, she was going to make candy. Normally, he would have been disgusted by the excess. He’d never had much of a sweet tooth. At that moment, though, he thought that was the cutest thing he’d seen since the baby elephants at the zoo in Asheboro. His wolf wanted to curl around her and keep her safe from the world, and that was a problem.

  His wolf had never asked—hey, how ’bout that one?—about any specific woman before, and Calvin had a sinking feeling that if he said no, the wolf wouldn’t take that for an answer.