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My heart hammers in my chest.
She’s frolicking. Free. Brave.
My eyes flood.
Everything I’m not.
Blinking back tears, I stare up at the vastness of the gray Montana sky. Overwhelming hopelessness creeps over me. I try to suck in air, but I can’t.
Oh god. My lungs are swampy. Like there’s too much oxygen. Like there’s not enough.
The world spins. Tunnels.
Ruby’s hand leaves mine. She calls for someone, her voice crawling beneath my skin.
I see the cowboy hat, the mirage of a man, a marine, striding my way.
My legs give out, but I don’t fall.
“I got you,” rumbles Davis’s deep voice.
And then I’m in his arms, against his solid chest and being carried. My eyes fall closed and I hold on to him. He smells so damn good. Of earth and coffee and wood. Like a cowboy. Like heaven.
“Talk to me, Koty.” The crunch of snow and leaves beneath his boots. His voice sounds urgent.
“I’m okay.”
“Need more than that, Cupcake.”
“There was a wolf.”
“Yeah.” Unnaturally quiet. “There was a wolf, Dakota.”
“You won’t kill her, will you?”
“How do you know it’s a female?”
“I just know.”
“No,” he says finally. “We won’t hurt her.”
“Good,” I whisper, tipping my forehead to his chest.
Then we’re in the lodge. Davis sets me on the couch and crouches in front of me. He tips my chin and clocks my pupils. I lean into his touch, but just as I do, he stands.
I frown. “What’re you doing?”
“Food,” he says, stomping across the room. I swear the man’s all broody angst and muscles.
He enters the kitchen, and I sigh, following him. “I have to get ready for my shift.”
“You have to eat,” he snaps, grabbing a bowl of eggs from the fridge. He sounds exasperated. “Low blood sugar, remember? You aren’t taking care of yourself. You’re goddamn pregnant, Dakota.”
I huff a dry laugh. How is it he remembers things about my pregnancy even I don’t? Warmth curls in my core as he stands at the kitchen counter with the tight sleeves of his jacket shoved upto expose massive forearms. The thick veins in his hands are like a road map for my lust.
I watch as Davis reaches into the basket of eggs, a deep furrow of a frown on his face. His big fingers clumsily smash eggs against the side of a bowl. Shards of shell scatter across the counter.
I can’t take the massacre of the eggs anymore.
