“Let me get one thing out of my glove box.” Without waiting for a response, she went to her wrecked car, leaned in the busted-out passenger window and retrieved a box.
Silent, they both got in his truck and buckled their seat belts. He started the motor, debated questioning her again, and decided against it.
While he drove, he told himself this was for the better. He’d drop her off at her place and from then on, leave her alone.
He didn’t want a woman with secrets. Hell, he didn’t want a woman at all, especially this woman, with her own brand of trouble.
As he drove, aching to touch her, he wondered when he’d started lying to himself.
Unsmiling, Jewel watched Colton’s truck disappear around the corner, staring after him until long after he was gone.
Dragging herself to her front door, she let herself in and, once inside, began to pace. It was a good thing she’d sent Colton packing. Well-fed and restless, the wolf within lunged, tearing at her fragile control. She wanted out of the human-body cage.
Jewel knew it was time. She would have to attempt to change once more, even if the results were disastrous.
If only she had someone, another shifter, with her to help in case she failed. But, even back in New York, Leo had kept her isolated from the other women, claiming at first she was ill. Eventually, even her old friends had given up. For the entire five years of her marriage, she’d not been allowed a single female friend.
The one time she’d tried, Leo’d beaten her to within an inch of her life. She’d been lucky shifters healed fast. No one seeing her then would have questioned Leo’s story that she was seriously ill.
After that, she hadn’t tried again. She’d learned how to live alone, relying on herself. A Pack member who truly wasn’t permitted to be part of the Pack. Leo’d even left a guard watching her. After each visitor had been turned away time and time again, people had stopped trying.
She ought to be used to being alone, but God how she wanted a friend. That was why she’d toyed with the idea of telling Colton. Luckily, she’d come to her senses before she had. Foolishness like that could get her killed.
No, she was better off alone.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder how Colton would have reacted. He already half believed her a druggie—what would he think if she started babbling about being a werewolf?
The wolf within howled, making her shiver.
Once, she’d thought a wolf’s howl one of the loveliest sounds of nature. Now, the cry of the wolf within pointed out the bleakness of her current existence.
A shifter who couldn’t change. Worse than the constant fear, the inability to change chipped at the core of her being.
Of course she had to try again. She was a shifter, part wolf. Whatever Leo had done to her, given her, had to be wearing off by now. Had to be.
Time to set her wolf free.
Though the sun blazed high overhead, she stepped outside. The heat of the day hit her like an open oven, the humidity making it difficult to breathe. She walked to the edge of her lawn, enjoying the feel of the sun on her skin, dipping her toe into the tepid lake waters.
Moving into the slightly cooler shadows of the trees, Jewel took a deep breath, holding back the wolf with her last bit of strength.
Though her sundress would be ruined if she succeeded, she left it on, not wanting to be found naked and unconscious by some other man. Fingering her wolf necklace for luck, she muttered a quick prayer. She prayed this time the change would overcome her. That this time she’d be free to run and hunt as her lupine self.
Then, tears streaming down her cheeks, she crouched close to the ground, inhaling the moist scent of earth. Reaching deep within herself, she touched her wolf, awakening her sleeping other-self. Then, giving herself over to the change, she released the beast.
No matter where he went, Colton couldn’t escape Jewel. The entire town was talking about the accident and her subsequent self-discharge from the hospital.
Colton had already finished his piece for the paper and turned it in. Like any good reporter, he’d stuck to the facts, merely mentioning that Jewel’s injuries didn’t appear to be as severe as first believed.
Or as severe as the X-rays had indicated, according to the doctor. Colton had gone back to interview him after he’d left Jewel. “Something had to be wrong with your machine.”
“Maybe,” the doctor admitted. “But I don’t see how. Even if her bones weren’t broken, which they were, she had internal injuries. She shouldn’t have even been conscious, never mind walking.”
None of this made any sense.
“She mentioned she was ill.” Pen poised over paper, Colton watched the other man intently. “Do you happen to know what’s wrong with her?”
“Ill?” For the first time, Dr. Wilson appeared to realize who Colton was—or wasn’t. Pushing his glasses up his sharp nose, he glared. “I thought you were her husband or a family member. After all, you did help her leave the hospital.”
