“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” She touches my arm. “But Briar… don’t wait too long. He’s not a patient man. And from what I can read in his thread, he’s about three days from walking up to you and saying it himself.”
“Saying what?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Briar! Youknowwhat.”
She walks away. I stand at the fence with the mare in the morning sun. And I know that Willow is right and that three days is probably generous.
I turn my attention to keeping busy.
The afternoon is patrol time. I run the south ridge because the south ridge is the one that doesn’t take me past the barn. I run it twice because the first time, my wolf tries to detour east toward the cabin where Garrett is resting. I have to physically haul her back on course.
The second pass, I come off the ridge at sunset, and he’s on the porch of his cabin.
He’s sitting on the step, the rubber ball in his hand, turning it over in his fingers. He’s dressed now, in borrowed clothes that don’t quite fit, a shirt of Conner’s that’s tight across the shoulders because Garrett is built bigger than his brother. Hishair is damp. He’s washed. The last of the bruising is fading, the yellow-green going pale, and in the sunset light he looks—
I’m not going to finish that thought.
“Briar.” He’s seen me. Of course he has. His wolf tracks me the same way mine tracks him: constant, involuntary, the awareness of exactly where the other one is at all times.
I should keep walking. My cabin is fifty yards past his. I should nod, keep moving, close my door. Put a wall between us.
I sit on the step beside him.
I don’t know why. My legs make the decision, and my body follows. Then I’m next to him with six inches of space between us and the evening cooling around us.
He turns the ball in his fingers. Doesn’t look at me. “The chained man. The one we brought out. How is he?”
“Sable is working on him. He’s bad. Been in there a long time.”
“Will he make it?”
“Sable doesn’t lose patients.”
He nods and turns the ball.
“Can I ask you something?” he says.
“Depends.”
“The storage room. After we—” He stops. Chooses. “I touched your hip. Said something was different about you. You pushed my hand away.”
My body goes still.
“I’m asking now,” he says. “What’s different?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet meaning not ever?”
“Not yet meaning I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
He nods. Accepts it. And then he looks at me, and whatever patience he’s been wearing for three days slips. What’s underneath it is not patient at all.
“You came into a Syndicate facility for me.”