Page 65 of Wolf's Providence

“Your future.”

His gaze softened. “This doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. I’m just trying to figure out how to make this work, with us being…us.”

“I know,” I murmured. I wanted to move away, but I also wanted to press closer. “I think we’ve both been guilty of forgetting everything that has happened to us over the past few days.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, his lips pressing into a thin line, then turning to a quick smile. “Not that I’m complaining,” he added. “But I’ve been ignoring the threat to you. You have people targeting you, and I need to find out who.”

His words dropped between us, heavy. He was right; reality was knocking on the door, even as we tried to pretend nothing could affect us in this bubble.

It was time to face it head-on.

Moving out of the comfort of his arm, I leaned against the counter, tracing the rim of my coffee mug. “I take it you have a plan?”

His jaw tightened, not liking that I’d moved, but he accepted it. “I’ve marked boundaries out around the town, marking territory, making it clear I’m ready to defend what’s mine.”

What did that mean? I had a sudden image of him as a wolf marking his territory. Caleb saw my eyes widen and rolled his in reply.

“You went there, didn’t you?” he asked with a shake of his head.

“You peeing in a straight line around the town?” I asked bashfully. “Yeah, I did…sorry.”

He muttered something that sounded a lot likejuvenile, but I wasn’t certain. I studied him, seeing the fierceness in his expression that I hadn’t seen since he came back. This was the side of Caleb I sometimes didn’t feel comfortable with, but it was the side I knew best. This was the fighter in him, finding a purpose in protecting something—and someone—he cared about.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, already dreading the answer. “What’s the plan?”

His gaze was soft. A warmth filled my belly as he looked at me, and I felt a sense of relief when I saw a shadow of a smile touch his lips. “Putting ‘low-key dinners’ on the backburner for a while.” His smile grew when he heard my chuckle. “As much as I enjoyed it, let’s focus on what’s important.”

“They’ll be devastated at the thought of missing out on your smooth-flowing conversation,” I teased, feeling a bit of the tension ease.

“Yeah, I’ll do better,” he promised, looking slightly abashed. “But first,” he said, growing serious, “I want to get to the bottom of who’s using you to get to me.”

For a long moment, neither of us spoke, letting the threat settle between us. It wasn’t going to be easy, but no part of me wanted to back down.

I wanted Caleb to know I was as willing to fight for him as he was for me. “What are you thinking?” I took a drink of my coffee.

“I want to draw them out,” he told me, his gaze steady and clear.

That sounded doable. “Okay, how?”

A determined glint was in his eyes, and I suddenly felt wary.

“How do you feel about being bait?”

TWENTY

Caleb

Willow’s eyebrowsdisappeared into her hairline at my suggestion, a flicker of doubt in her expression. I saw her reservations, and I braced myself for the argument, but to my surprise, she gave a slow, careful nod.

“Bait, huh?” she repeated, her teeth worrying her bottom lip, but there was something steely in her gaze—the kind of courage I’d seen before in her but never truly appreciated. This woman would walk into danger head-on if she thought it would help, and that worried me more than I cared to admit.

“You’re not freaking out?” I asked, reaching for her hand. “They’ve been quiet, but does that mean they’ve gone away? I don’t think so, and we can’t afford to wait around, hoping we’ll be ready for their next move.”

Willow looked down at our entwined fingers and then glanced back up, searching my face. “So…your idea to counter that is you want me to be bait?” She obviously wasn’t liking the idea, but she hadn’t said no.

“It’s not about making you a target,” I assured her, though the irony wasn’t lost on me. “It’s about controlling the situation. If I set this up right, we lure them out, onmyterms.”

I could see the gears turning behind her eyes as she studied me, her lips pressed in a thin line as she weighed every risk, every possibility. I knew that, more than anything, she wanted to face this down and reclaim her life. Willow didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder, and that was why I thought she was considering it. But she also didn’t want to act recklessly.

---