The next few hours had felt as excruciatingly slow as pouring cold molasses out of a jar. Helena had literally bumped into Lee, one of the VonBrandt enforcers. Nothing. Not even a hint of a spark. He’d looked her up and down like he was more than willing to explore possibilities, but she’d blurted out an excuse and run to a nearby bathroom to hide for a few minutes.

Something was wrong with her.

A little later she’d found herself next to Beau Travis, which had also been awkward. What was she supposed to say? Hey, can I touch you really quick just to test and see if we’re Fated mates? Nope. So not happening. She’d crossed the redneck brother off her list and slunk from the room like the crazy person she was. Who walked around with a list of the eligible men and tried to touch them to see if Fate sparked?

This whole mate-hunting thing wasn’t going well. Not to mention the fact that as hot as these single guys were, she didn’t find any of them even half as attractive as Ash. Kate had abandoned her ages ago, disappearing into the ether, probably to follow that hot hunk she was eyeing in the kitchen. Something was going on there, but Kate hadn’t shared and Helena wouldn’t pry. When her cousin was ready, she’d tell her everything.

She made her way out the front door and headed to the field full of cars. Kate had left her keys tucked into the visor. None of the other guys on her list seemed to be around, so if she wasn’t going to be able to cross them off, she might as well go back to the cabin and close out all the work she’d been in the middle of. She couldn’t leave anything half-done.

None of the guys from the ranch would dream of working while they were here, so no one had been in her business yet. She could still close it out. Heck, her dad was still probably dealing with the vet back at home, but she hadn’t heard from him again. She shuddered to think of the build up there’d been in the hours since she’d last touched her work.

People milled all over the big house. More were outside, but no one paid her any mind. She climbed into Kate’s car and steered down the dirt road to the enormous guest cabin. The VonBrandts called it a cabin, but the thing had a full kitchen, a living room, a dining room, four bedrooms downstairs, four bedrooms upstairs, and a huge loft full of bunk beds. From what she’d heard, the guys’ cabin, a half mile away, was built the same way. Apparently they were used to hosting out-of-towners who came to Somewhere for the wolf moons.

She parked the car next to a small red SUV and sighed. Back to work.

Such was her life. The burden of always being the responsible one. Well, always except for last night.

“Hey, who’d you steal that shirt from?”

Helena looked up into the big blue eyes of Adam VonBrandt, sitting in the saddle on top of a big horse. He was adorable with his dimples and his ruffled brown hair. The wide smile on his face should’ve melted her into a puddle on the floor, instead she prickled and stiffened. “I borrowed it.”

“Sure you did.” He dismounted from the bay horse he was riding and laughed, quickly closing the gap between them. “You know McAdams is the college here, right?”

“It’s a local shirt?”

He nodded, still wearing a shit-eating grin. “So who let you borrow it?”

Helena squirmed. It was Ash’s shirt. She hadn’t realized she was wearing a neon sign that screamed, Hey, look at me, I slept with a local.

“None of your business.” She reached in the passenger’s seat for her traveler’s notebook and it tumbled to the ground with a devastating thud. Of course it had to land open to the page that said “eligible males.” Damn her lists. She couldn’t function without them though.

Adam bent to pick up the book and handed it back to her. “Looking for a mate? My name’s not crossed off your list yet.”

Heat flared up her neck and covered her face like she was standing in front of an open oven. “I—you—weren’t at the house.”

He raised his eyebrows and sidled even closer. “We could test our compatibility right now.”

Helena narrowed her gaze and squinted up at the mischievous face. Seriously, she should be panting right about now from the adorableness overload…yet her only reaction was mild amusement. Even her wolf was ignoring Adam’s presence. “What do you propose?” She might as well. It would make her feel the tiniest bit better to cross off another name.

He closed the last gap of space between them, putting his face inches away from hers. One of his hands slid down her hip and cupped her ass, while his other wandering limb anchored itself to one of her boobs.

“Ummm…” Helena squirmed. It wasn’t that she was super uncomfortable, but she didn’t feel aroused either. Failure to launch. She released a small frustrated sigh. There was something wrong with her. There had to be.

“Wait for it. Just see if Fate will spark.”

* * *

Ash woke out of a dead snore, feeling something pressing on his ass. Almost like a hand. He tore the bedding off and found nothing. Am I still dreaming?

More pressure on his chest followed. And a squeeze. He jumped out of the bed like a ghost was inside it, and landed on his bad foot. Pain shot through his leg like red-hot fire, and he collapsed to the floor, grabbing the hamper as he did. Dirty clothes flew all around him, and he rolled to get away.

His leg throbbed, and he put his hands on his naked chest. There were no hands there. The pressure had stopped. The hand was gone.

What the actual fuck is going on here?

* * *

“Owww,” Helena cried out and grabbed for her ankle as she crumpled to the ground. Adam caught her around the waist before she fell all the way.

“I didn’t mean to grab you that hard. Gods, I’m sorry,” Adam sputtered. “What happened?”

Helena moaned again and rubbed her ankle. What the hell? Had something hit her? Bitten her? It didn’t make sense. “I’d don’t know. My ankle just hurts.”

“Let me see your leg. Lean on me,” he said, bending to reach for her throbbing ankle. He pulled up the pant leg and slid his hand down her ankle into her cowboy boot. “Anything? Does it hurt when I touch it?” he asked, glancing up at her.

“No. There’s no pain from your touch, but it’s like I can feel the ache inside me. It’s so strange.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a mate bond?” he asked, his forehead furrowing. “It sounds like an echo of someone else’s pain.”

No. No. No. She shook her head and gasped in a breath.

“I saw that look. You thought of something.”

She continued to shake her head. “No.”

He pulled her jean leg back down, stood, and snapped the fabric of the T-shirt she was wearing. “Who’d’ya sleep with last night?”

Her chest tightened, pressing down on her lungs like she’d been caught in a vise. A vise that would crush and destroy her. Ash couldn’t be her Fated mate. She’d spent her life watching a human-wolf bond destroy her parents. Watching the pack ostracize them. “No. No. No.” She pulled at the T-shirt and sobbed.

“Hey, he couldn’t have been that bad.” Adam put a soft hand on her shoulder. “Your pack will understand. Fate sometimes throws curveballs. Which one of my cousins was it?” Adam cupped her chin and lifted it so she had to focus on him.

“He’s human.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “A townie?”

Her entire body shivered, but she managed a slight nod.

“You need to talk to your alpha.”

“I can’t. I can’t be with a human. Grandpa will hate me. He’ll…I don’t know, but it will be bad. He might even hurt Ash.” Tears poured down her cheeks. “I have to make it stop. How do I stop it? Help me,” she begged, staring up at his face shadowed by the brim of a wide, pale cowboy hat. His expression changed from pity to worry in an instant.

“Shit.” He rubbed his hand over his stubbly jaw and frowned. “Come on. We need to talk to my brother.”

* * *

Somewhere in Ash’s periphery, he could smell Helena. That sweet, pungent citrus scent he’d been dreaming about all night. He rolled around on the floor and came down face-first on her black tank-top.

The strange cop-a-feel dream forgotten, he readjusted so he was on his back on the bedroom floor. The throb in his ankle started to subside, and he held Helena’s shirt to his face, inhaling a long, beautiful noseful of her.

Her face floated behind his closed eyes. Her cute button nose. The wide-eyed-innocent look she’d given him as she swallowed him down her throat.

Dammit. Here comes the boner train.

Sure enough, his blood started to flow south and his body started to tingle again. He had known this would happen. That she would become the only thing he could see behind his eyes. It was like having her inside his skin.

Ash opened his eyes and stared up at the black shirt. A white tag hung just in his vision, and there was something squiggly on it.

Writing.

He pulled the shirt back and held the tag. On the bottom of the white square, written in Sharpie over the size, was a ten-digit number. Written above it was, Call if found.

Holy.

Damn.

Shit.

Helena’s phone number. It has to be. He crawled toward his bed, careful not to put any pressure on his foot. No use seeing stars if he didn’t have to.

Ash grabbed for his phone and pressed the numbers into his Message app. He couldn’t help the little smile that quirked his lips. What kind of person writes their phone number in their clothing? Did her clothes frequently go missing?

Hell. All the better for him.

He typed in, Helena? This is Ash. Text me back if this is you. Or call me.

Part of him wanted to call her, but he’d play it cool. Wait and see if she’d call or text back, first. Before he did something desperate like leave a voicemail.

But, damn, he was desperate. He needed to see her again.

The front door closed and Ash froze, listening for footsteps. It was probably too much to hope that it would be Helena. When his sister stuck her head through his door, he rolled his eyes. Dammit, he’d been asleep for such a long time.

“What the hell happened in here?” Lisa ran across the room and bent down, pulling him up into the bed. He managed to keep his foot in the air so it wouldn’t hurt again.

“I forgot about the ankle,” he said, pointing at the stupid thing. “Stepped on it and I went down.”

“And you exploded the hamper on your way down?”

“I grabbed it, yeah.”

Lisa walked around, picking up the clothes and returning them to the hamper. She positioned it next to the door and rolled her eyes, hard. “You can’t do anything the easy way, can you, Ash?”

He smirked, pulling himself down to the edge of the bed. “Do you see my boot?”

His sister walked around the room, looking for it, and finally found it on the other side of the bed. He couldn’t remember what he’d done for it to get over there, but the previous night had been hot and heavy, and he didn’t trust himself as far as he could throw… a Mac truck.

She went into the bathroom, turned on the tap, and emerged with a wet wash cloth. “What are you gonna do today?”

“I figured I’d try to meet up with the guys. They’re leaving tomorrow.”

“You’re not gonna call Helena?” Lisa walked out of the bathroom and put the warm, wet cloth on his foot. What a different experience from the last time he’d had a wash cloth on him…

He started to wipe his foot down and Lisa threw him a fresh sock from his closet, keeping her back to him.

“What’s wrong, Lis?” She was clearly pissed about something.

“Same as always.” She leaned back against the closet door and it leaned along with her. “I want to know if you’re staying.”

“You need to tell your friend at the bakery?”

She pulled on the end of her ponytail. “Sure.”

“Can you give me a deadline?” He tugged at the hair on the back of his neck. Would he even have considered staying in one place before Helena? No. He still felt bad about admitting that, but he couldn’t help it.

“Until the end of the month,” she said, not looking at him. There were still a couple of weeks before the end of November.

His phone buzzed and he reached for it, heart in his throat.

Not Helena. The text was from JT, Johnny Walker.

Tyson said you wanted Kate’s number. I didn’t get it. The message wasn’t encouraging, but he hadn’t expected much. Besides, now he had Helena’s number…or at least he thought he did.

He texted back, Thanks anyway. And then, Did she tell you where they’re staying?

Lisa snorted at him from the door to his bedroom. “Text with your girlfriend, big brother. I’ll make you a late lunch, since I’d bet by the smell of this room that you haven’t been out of it since I left.”

Ash snorted back. “Be nicer to me, or I’ll never stay.”

“You’ll never stay anyway,” she mumbled, and those words were like an arrow right into his heart.

Was it really time for him to hang up the traveling shoes? Helena, or no Helena…

No.

For some reason, he couldn’t imagine No-Helena.

But he needed to make this decision for Lisa. For himself. It was time to stop trying to reclaim something he felt he’d lost. Time to be a man.