Page 42 of Big Bad Wolf

What the hell kind of terrifying text is that?!

Sorry. Just don’t. I’ll explain later.

I’m not home anyway. I’m at Callie’s.

You are?

Yeah, she’s helping me fill out some applications for jobs I can do from home.

Like selling essential oils?

Ha. Ha. No, like medical coding and billing.

Ooo fancy.

I’m trying to help, Ruby.

I know. I love you. Stay with Callie until I get off work.

You’re freaking me out.

Good.

Ruby felt a little bad about scaring her sister, but it was necessary. She felt better knowing she was with Callie and not at their own cottage. Even if Wyatt went there now, he wouldn’t find her.

At least that was something.

Chapter Eighteen

Rafe was spending another night with his new best friend Dolores, washing his whites at the Suds and Spin. After dropping Ruby off, it had seemed like a good use of his time. Better than what he’d done the first few times, which was to pace up and down the street and surrounding blocks. One of the neighbors had called the cops, and he’d had a very hard time explaining himself to Sheriff Mike.

“You’ve got to be at least, what? Six-two? Six-three?” Dolores was saying as she pulled her delicates out of the washer. Rafe tried not to notice the fact that she had a lot of lacy underpants. Like, an alarming amount.

“I’m six-five.”

Dolores snorted. “I don’t know about that. You men, you’re always overestimating inches. You do it with the fish you catch, your height, the size of your⁠—”

“I’m not overestimating.” He cut her off before she could continue with that disturbing sentence.

She cackled. “Next time I’ll bring a tape measure and we’ll know for sure.” She winked at him and Rafe was suddenly regretting his decision to have clean clothes.

He regretted a lot of his recent choices.

He regretted letting Ruby see his wolf form. He regretted being so honest with her. He regretted passing out hard after that fight. If he hadn’t, he could have slunk off before Ruby ever woke up, but healing always had that effect on him.

He’d made so many mistakes with her already, and he couldn’t afford to. He knew where those mistakes would lead. It had been a long time since he’d let himself get this close to a human. There was only one other time, and he’d been young and stupid, barely twenty when he’d spotted Scarlet on one of their rare trips into town.

He should have stayed away, but he couldn’t help himself. His world had been so bleak then, so dark, filled with his father’s demands, endless fighting with his brothers. And Scarlet seemed like a bright spot in all of that. Like a reprieve.

He shook his head at the memory.

He couldn’t keep Scarlet safe then and, if he wasn’t careful, he wouldn’t be able to keep Ruby safe now. The thought made him sick.

An image from the other night roared through his head.

Ruby was on the ground. She must have been knocked over when he’d ran past her. Her eyes were huge. Huge and terrified. She’d scurried away from the fight like a crab on the shore, her legs already covered in dirt from her earlier fall. But it was her eyes that had stopped him. She was looking at him like he was a monster. Like the monster he was. He hadn’t wanted anyone to look at him like that again. Especially not her.

He sat down abruptly on one of the plastic orange chairs lining the wall. Dolores looked up in concern.