Page 89 of Big Bad Wolf

Ruby turned in her seat to stare at Rafe. “You want to know what I’m thinking about?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You got all quiet. And you keep sighing.” He shrugged again and Ruby bit her lip to keep from smiling. “Makes a guy wonder.”

“I was thinking about apple-picking and how we didn’t really do it anymore after my parents died.” Today would have been the perfect day for it, sunny and crisp.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But then I was also thinking about my aunt’s funny little tea sandwiches she used to make and how we used to dress up to eat them. Like a fancy tea party.” She would miss her parents always, but her aunt had made her childhood special in her own way.

Rafe chuckled. “I bet you were cute.”

“I was super cute. The cutest.” She smiled. “I used to set two extra spots for my parents. Lena hated it. She didn’t want to hear about ghosts. Or any of my other ridiculous ideas.”

“You’re not ridiculous. I never should have said that.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

Ruby sighed. “Well, you can add it to the running list of things you feel guilty about.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Theo mentioned Scarlet. Tell me about her. Please.”

Rafe let out a long breath, his hands clenching and unclenching around the steering wheel.

“She was sweet,” he said finally, his voice hoarse with emotion. “She worked at a convenience store in the town we were camped out near at the time.”

“Camped out?”

“We don’t really… We don’t really have a permanent place. The pack moves around, tries to stay … unnoticed.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was. Sometimes. We’ve lost a lot of land over the years. We’re running out of space.”

“What will you do if it’s all gone?”

Rafe’s brow furrowed. “Don’t know. We need it. We need to be wolves at least sometimes. We need to run and hunt. I don’t know what happens if we can’t do that anymore.”

She didn’t know what would happen either, but any thought of Rafe being in danger sent fear coursing through her. She shook her head. One problem at a time. Deforestation would have to wait.

“Tell me more about Scarlet.”

“Ruby…”

“I want to know, Rafe. I want to know about her.”

He sighed again. “She was in there working every time I’d make the trip into town for supplies. I started stopping in more often. Making more excuses to see her.

“She smelled like candy, like burnt sugar and sunshine. Her hair was dark like yours, but she had light eyes and she was always smiling. Seeing her … it was like for the first time I saw something outside of my own world. Something that wasn’t violent or cruel.” He paused, pushing his hair out of his face. Ruby didn’t dare move or speak, afraid he would stop talking and she would lose this glimpse of his life, of his heart.

“She looked at me like…” He swallowed hard. “She looked at me like I was something good. No one had ever looked at me like that before.” He cleared his throat and Ruby swiped the tears from her eyes. “It didn’t matter, though. In the end. She stopped looking at me like that once she found out what I was. What I am.”

“You told her?”

“Yeah, I thought…” He let out a harsh laugh. “I thought I could leave the pack and be with her. But she basically freaked out when I showed her what I was. Convinced herself I’d drugged her and she was hallucinating the whole thing.”