Dallas Caldwell had an ego the size of Texas. He watched the Cowboys play every Sunday like it was a religion, shouting plays from beside a grill loaded up with enough meat to feed an army of werewolves. He’d swear until he was blue in the face that jeans and ratty flip flops were okay to wear to the grocery store or to church, and no way in hell did I believe he wasn’t the one who’d replaced all the takeout menus in my kitchen drawer with fakes so that every time I tried to order my favorite spicy chicken wings, I got a male escort service instead.
Which, okay, was some epic level pranking.
I thought back to that day I’d pictured a future for us, one where a tow-headed boy and an impish girl with my gray eyes licked chocolate icing from a sticky pair of spoons. Humid summer nights spent making homemade ice cream on a wide back porch. A midnight-black cat that stalked fireflies through the dewy grass. A barefoot and grinning Dallas blowing a raspberry on the girl’s cheek while she shrieked and clutched a football, the boy trying to climb him like a tree. Me, snapping pictures on my phone as the brilliant Texas sun shone overhead.
Our family. Our future. No regrets.
And I hoped I wasn’t too late to tell him.
I poured everything I had through the link between our wolves, no more reservations, no holding back. He had to survive because I wasn’t ever letting him get away again.
Dallas’s eyelids fluttered.
West pocketed his cell. “That was August. The evac team is four minutes out.”
Naomi injected something into Dallas’s IV line. “Okay. Let’s get him ready to move.”
I blinked back tears. Dallas was going to be okay. Had to be—
A hand clawed for my wrist. I jumped. Eyes the clear cerulean blue of the last days of summer pierced mine.
“Dallas,” I gasped, bending to kiss his forehead, his eyebrows, the freckled spot at the tip of his left ear, anywhere and everywhere I could reach.
Voices sounded from somewhere out in the trees. I looked up in time to see two pack medics, a volunteer firefighter and Brody’s partner down at the sheriff’s department, carrying in a stretcher.
Dallas’s fingers twined weakly in my hair. Beneath the oxygen mask, I swore I saw his lips part.
“Don’t try to talk,” I whispered.
He did anyway, forming the words in a mental caress.
Love you.
Tears blurred my vision. As the first responders rolled him onto a stretcher and Naomi moved me aside to go with the transport team, I thought my heart would explode.
“Come back to me.”
And then, just like that night ten years before, Dallas Caldwell was gone.
* * *
Being a shifter meant you couldn’t just walk into your local human hospital or urgent care with a gunshot wound, get prepped for surgery, then bite everyone in the recovery room when your doctors freaked out over the fact that their incisions were already starting to close. And just like in the human medical system, the large urban packs had most of the doctors and all the state-of-the-art surgical centers. The good news? The Council had mandated they had to accept all patients from the rural packs, regardless of whether or not we were currently leaving flaming bags of dog poop outside each other’s pack houses. The bad? They could be as witchy as they wanted about it. As in, the North Austin pack took Dallas, and wouldn’t let any of us into their compound with him.
The next twenty-four hours crawled by. Texas being Texas, the weather warmed up the following morning, melting away our brief encounter with snow. I scrubbed my hair with vanilla-coconut shampoo until it no longer smelled of scorched Christmas trees and the undead. Grabbing a lint roller and Dallas’s vacuum, I proceeded to perform an exorcism of his living room, finding three Junior Mints, a hair tie and the lost remote in my search of the sofa cushions. Godiva’s food disappeared every time I left the room. Wondering whether I should call my mother, I instead typed in searches for cat alien abduction, giant cat magnet, and—
Seriously. I was so ordering that.
Me: Have we heard anything? My stress baking has reached epic proportions. *cat emoji*
West: Am an ass for mansplaining, but as I am the dark furry one’s favorite uncle and you potentially have pregnancy brain, I’m just going to come out and say it. Do not bake your cat.
Me: Don’t make me cut off your cupcake supply.
West: Cupcakes, you say? I can come over there and wait with you—
Gravel crunched as someone pulled into the drive. I leaped off the couch, flying for the front door. The first thing I saw was the way Dallas’s shoulders flexed as he unfolded himself from the back of a sleek black Audi. Then the gun show, because of course he was wearing a white cotton tee like it was the middle of June instead of forty-five degrees out. He reached in to grab a plastic grocery bag of what looked to be clothes, and the afternoon sun cast his hair pale as late summer wheat, just like it had the first day we met.
“Hey, man. Thanks for the lift. Call me next time you’re in town. Ribs are on me.” Rapping the roof of the Audi, he shut the door a second before I launched myself at him.
Dallas made a little oof sound and staggered back, arms coming up to encircle me. The sack of clothes landed somewhere off in the grass. “Damn, sweetheart. You trying to kill me?”
I growled. “Not. Funny.”
Laughing, Dallas let me slide down his body. He waved to the werewolf pulling out of the drive. I frowned. Was that—?
Seeing me, Simon, from the North Austin pack, offered a hesitant wave. After a second, I lifted my hand.
Dallas kissed the tip of my nose. “He was the one who performed my surgery. Totally saved my ass. Says to tell you hello, by the way. I hung out with a couple other guys from their pack while I was in recovery. They were cool. It’s their Alpha and senior leadership who are the problem.”
I rolled my eyes. Because of course Dallas Caldwell would make friends with the jerks who’d kept him in lockdown for the past twenty-four hours. Knowing him, they’d probably gone out to Torchy’s for tacos, then played a round of frisbee golf. I pulled him to a stop as we neared the front porch, burying my face in his neck. Dallas bent down to fold me into a tight hug, rocking me slowly back and forth, our bodies pressed close together so that I could feel his heart thrumming strong and sure beneath my ear.
“I’ve never been so scared. You were bleeding out into the snow and I was sure I’d lost you. All I could think was how we’d wasted so much time, and how there were so many things I would never get the chance to say to you if you never opened your eyes.”
His hands came up to cup my face, thumbs smoothing across my cheekbones. “So say them now.”
I released a breathy laugh, suddenly nervous. “You can kick my ass making a chocolate soufflé, which kind of makes me want to either burn down your kitchen or jump you.”
“Damn. Strong start.” He bit his bottom lip, fighting not to smile. “I’m listening.”
“I never know when I show up to work whether I’ll flip on the lights and discover rubber centipedes spilling out of the air ducts. Which, by the way, is every girl’s fantasy.”
“To be fair, the last time, they were all bearing valentines addressed to you.”
“Not. Helping.”
That cocky grin again. “Remind me after dinner I need to delete an order.”