He flung his forearm over his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. And then he felt a tentative touch on his chest. He moved his arm and looked down, and in the dim light, saw Violet snuggling up to him. Her palm pressed more firmly on him, right over his heart. And her cheek pressed against his shoulder.
He froze there like that. And the beast in him growled.
But he didn’t move away.
Then she kissed him. Right there on his chest. And a soft sigh escaped her lips.
She was sleeping within a few minutes, and Wolf had a feeling sleep wasn’t going to come for him for a long time.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
VIOLETFELTTENDERthe next day. And she wasn’t really enjoying being alone with her thoughts. Wolf went out and worked all day, and she toiled away in the tiny cabin, trying to find things to do.
Really, she should get some books and lie around.
She was supposed to be on some kind of vacation figuring herself out. And really, she did need to figure herself out. That was the bottom line. But after last night she was even less certain of what she wanted.
No. She knew what she wanted. She wanted both her and Wolf to magically be undamaged so they could figure out a way to be together. To be wildly...happy. She wanted to be with him. But she wanted to figure out a way to make it easier. Knowing that he was in love with somebody else—a girl who had died tragically in her teens—she didn’t know what to do with that. Because she couldn’t compete with it. She couldn’t possibly compete with some idealized lost teenage love. And maybe it had been amazing.
Maybe it had been deep, true love.
She didn’t know.
She didn’t have a great love in her past.
She had him.
And it made her feel lonely and isolated to realize that. That there was somebody in his heart and there was no one but him in hers.
She let out a growl of frustration that echoed around the cabin. Because she was truly driving herself crazy.
Her phone buzzed on the counter, and she saw that it was Clara. “Hello?”
“You are a really annoying friend, do you know that? I can’t believe how little you’ve been in touch with me. You don’t even answer my texts.”
Violet winced. “Well, I’m going through stuff.”
“That is literally what friends are for. To go through stuff with you.” And Violet knew she didn’t really have a great excuse for that. Because yeah, she had been kind of sticking to this idea that she wanted some time to herself, that she wanted to be alone, but then she found herself rattling around the cabin driving herself crazy with nothing to do.
“I’m sorry,” Violet said. “I’m bad at this. I am good at living my normal, sedate life in Copper Ridge and having nothing going on, and hanging out with you and eating cookies. I am not good at big changes and figuring out how to sort them out, and looping people in my life in on them.”
“I know he came to ask your dad if he could marry you.”
“Yeah. He did do that.”
“So...” Clara let the first word linger. “You want to marry him?”
She didn’t even have to think about that. “Yes,” she said.
“What are you doing today?”
“Laying around the cabin feeling sorry for myself?”
“Excellent. Sounds like the perfect thing to do to celebrate your engagement. I’m on my way to Pyrite Falls.”
“You cannot be on your way to Pyrite Falls,” Violet said, shocked.
“But I am. I want to see you. It’s only a two and a half hour drive. I’m about an hour and a half away. Give me directions or I’m going to end up somewhere in the middle of the woods. Probably eaten by a pack of rabid voles.”