Page 99 of Knot What I Expected

I want to know where we’ll be next Christmas.

Next summer.

Next year.

I want to stop running.

But I am not going to let some foul-mouthed, Viking-looking Wolf Shifter make me forget exactly what I'm fighting for. Or who I'm running from.

I need to be more careful now. Not less.

Especially because Havoc makes me want things. Dangerous things.

Like when no one is looking, I catch myself wanting things I have no business wanting.

Wanting to trust him.

Wanting to touch him.

Wanting to know what that hard, growling mouth would feel like against mine.

Wanting to believe him when he looked at me in that park like I was more than some passing attraction and growled, "You feel like more than that to me, Gabby.”

My stomach flips.

“Stop.”

“Stop what, Mommy?”

I jump.

Matteo stands in the doorway, wearing his backpack.

“Nothing!”

He gives me the kind of look only a child can give an adult who is obviously full of shit.

“I’m ready.”

“Okay, baby. Come on.”

Mrs. Donnelly lives right next door, but I hold Matteo’s hand the entire way.

Because apparently I’m insane.

We walk up her front steps, and the second she opens the door, Matteo gasps.

Her entire living room has been transformed into an archaeological dig.

Brown paper covers part of the floor. Plastic dinosaur bones stick out of fake sand pits. Little brushes and excavation tools are scattered around, and a huge banner reads: DIGGING INTO SEVEN!

Okay. That's just adorable.

“Whoa!”

Matteo forgets I exist.

There are five other little boys already inside, and one of them yells his name.