She was learning that that was just how Ken was. She bet he’d joked around when he was overseas, in combat with other Marines, too. It was a way of letting out the tension that could hover thick in the air. Making it easier to breathe, easier to think clearly.
“Well, now you know.” He took her hand. She was already getting used to the feeling of his big, warm fingers engulfing hers. It was calming. “In the future, just remember: anytime you’re facing a den of wolves, I’m going to be right there by your side.”
She nodded. “No dens of wolves alone. Got it.”
“Good. Time to get going, then.”
“Yes.” She led the way out of her bedroom—with a sudden faint pang of regret for the lovely, sexy evening that they’d been about to have, that she’d been anticipating with her entire body when he kissed her.
But they’d have other evenings.
They took her car, because there wouldn’t be room in Ken’s truck for everyone. Lynn felt a little more secure as she pulled away, because at least she was doing something, even if it was only driving. Ken settled in next to her, looking alert, but not jittery or tense.
“You don’t seem worried,” she said to him after a few minutes, casting a look over at the passenger’s seat. “There’s going to be a whole group of wolves there. They might not care that Stella and Eva are leaving, but…they might.”
Ken nodded. “I get it. But I don’t think we’ll be in any danger. Most shifters will back down from a lion at first—even a whole pack of wolves is going to take a minute to regroup and figure out what they want to do, if I shift. And a minute is all we need, if we’re extracting your sister and her daughter and getting the hell out of there.”
Extracting. “You make it sound like a military operation.”
“There’s two responses to that.” Ken sounded surprisingly thoughtful. Lynn had expected him to either say that it was just like a military operation, or to laugh.
But instead, he was settling in to an explanation. “First, yeah, I was using a little bit of military language there. Just a little. And that’s just because I’ve had training for situations like this—removing civilians from a hostile environment. Which is good. I’m pretty sure I can help settle this whole thing without any real trouble, even if the wolves want to make some.”
“That’s good.” But there was still a kind of uncomfortable feeling in her stomach at the idea of Stella and Eva just being referred to as civilians in a hostile environment.
“On the other hand,” Ken was continuing, “this is nothing like a military operation, because you’re my mate, my family, and that means that those two women in there are my family too. And I want you to understand that, if I were in the military, I’d have orders and priorities and people I had to report to, and primary and secondary mission objectives, and a lot of bullshit flying around.”
“But?” she asked. Her mouth felt dry.
“But I’m not in the military. I have only one priority here, and that is you. You want your sister and your niece out of there, well, I’m getting them out of there. No question, no other focus, nothing but that.”
Lynn flushed, full of wonder at this idea. That someone’s priority could be her. It seemed like a silly thing to want, for a grown-up. Shouldn’t her own priorities be enough? But apparently they weren’t, because the idea felt like a kind of completion.
“Thank you,” she said finally, although it seemed inadequate.
He smiled warmly. “Believe me when I tell you that putting you first is my pleasure.”
She blushed. God, she’d blushed so much in the last couple of days, when normally she never, ever did.
“So tell me about your sister,” Ken said, as though sensing her embarrassment, responding with a change of subject. “We’ve got a long drive, so there’s plenty of time to catch me up on this new family. What was it like growing up together? I haven’t heard anything about her yet, not like your grandmother.”
Lynn sighed. “Well, there’s kind of a reason for that.”
“Oh?” She could hear the curiosity in his voice.
“Stella is…she’s a little flighty. She doesn’t like to be tied down, doesn’t want anyone to tell her what to do. But she doesn’t always plan very well for herself, so that can cause some problems with her life, when she doesn’t think about practicalities and then ends up in trouble.” L
ynn shook her head. “She’s always been like that, ever since we were kids. And I—well.”
“You’re not like that.” Ken was smiling, she could tell without looking.
“No,” she said on a let-out breath. “No, I’m not. I like to have a plan, I like to know what’s going to happen, and I like to be in control of a situation. So basically, that means that whenever Stella and I are together for too long, we start fighting. Because I see that she’s about to trainwreck and I try to stop it, but she doesn’t want to hear it, and if I tell her not to do something, that just guarantees she’s going to do it anyway. And then I’m angry she didn’t listen to me, and she’s angry that I wouldn’t trust her—even if it clearly wasn’t going to work out—” She made herself stop.
Ken was quiet for a minute, thinking. What he came up with, finally, was, “That sounds frustrating as hell for both of you.”
Lynn laughed humorlessly. “Yup. So we don’t spend a lot of time together. Unless,” she said pointedly, “she gets herself in trouble so bad that she needs my help to get out of it. Like tonight.”
“And you still drop everything and go running,” Ken said softly.