Rayne tuned in to her favorite Sirius XM station and adjusted the heat in her tidy little Jeep Wrangler. The vehicle was bright yellow and only a year old. She kept it as clean as an operating room. It was pretty easy to do since she was the only passenger. Ever.
The Jeep was fun and carefree, an impulse buy. It was the exact opposite of Rayne lately. She’d been buried in work at the hospital. Her boss and Packmate, Dr. David Evangelos, had just about ordered her to take the weekend off.
She bumped into him in the parking lot of the small grocery store that was near her apartment. It was quite the coincidence since she’d just run into his brother. Literally. Cael Evangelos was the Pack recluse now, but he still had a way of getting under her skin.
She’d first met him at the hospital where she worked. They dated a few times, and she had high hopes for the relationship, but it didn’t work out. He used to be a financial analyst for Macconwood Memorial. There was some kind of trouble with the funds for a pediatric oncology unit, and he’d been fired.
She knew instinctively that Cael was not the type of man to do anything underhanded, but there was nothing she could do about it. He was blamed for mishandling funds. They’d fired him, and he walked out of not just her life, but everyone’s. All her dreams for a future relationship with him were crushed.
That was thirteen months ago. She’d only run into him a handful of times since then, most recently at the christening of their Alpha’s triplets. Rayne had delivered the precious babies and was a guest of honor at the reception they’d held at Macconwood Manor.
She was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the house and lands. It had state of the art security, and guards posted. There were a few smaller guest homes that dotted the landscape just surrounding the big house. Tennis and basketball courts, and what she could only imagine was a gorgeous garden in the spring were visible on the drive up to the manor. When she went inside, she was delighted to find the estate was both majestic and homey at the same time.
Rayne was shocked to see Cael there. He looked as gorgeous as ever with a gray suit and his black hair combed back. He had a hint of shadow on his lean cheeks, and his green eyes looked more haunted than she remembered. She couldn’t help staring. He was gorgeous.
She’d looked for him on Pack runs, but he rarely showed up. No wonder either. The way he looked at her at the party, she would swear he hated her. His dark green eyes had glittered with feeling. And not the good kind.
Dr. Evangelos stopped her before she’d climbed into her vehicle. She’d been overwhelmed by her sense of loss when she looked at Cael. Her eyes had been swimming with unshed tears. Ugh, she hated when she got emotional.
So, what if that rude jerk left her talking to herself? She didn’t need him or any man for that matter! The little pep-talk she gave herself didn’t stop her heart from aching or her tears from falling. As always, Cael left her feeling flustered and restless. Maybe that was just her Wolf. The snow-white beast inside of her was pining away for the big man who’d walked out on the entire world.
She’d known from the first time she laid eyes on him that he was hers. Mine, her Wolf growled in her mind’s eye. Rayne had given her heart to him the first time they’d been introduced. It was beyond rationale and logic, it was all instinct and feeling. But her hopes and dreams for the future were destroyed with one nasty allegation.
Rayne wiped her eyes with the tissue David had offered her. The ER Chief had surprised her further by handing her a set of keys. He was handsome, like his brother when he smiled, though they were opposites in that David had blonde hair and brown eyes. He squeezed her shoulder and explained when she held up the keys dumbly.
“Those are for my hunting cabin. You’ve been working double shifts round the clock for a year now without taking one personal day. No arguments. I want you to go. Take the weekend. You hear me, Davis? Do not come in until Tuesday, and that’s an order.”
At first, she’d been reluctant to go. With his steady persuasion, she relented. Why the heck not? It’d been years since she went on vacation. A quiet weekend in the woods sounded great! Just what the doctor ordered!
She hurried to her small apartment, packed a small bag, and left with her destination already plugged into her GPS. If only it wasn’t so icy out. Like most Wolves, Rayne had excellent reflexes, but February was hell on New Jersey roads. Ice and salt eroded the asphalt and broke chunks out of streets that were fine just days ago. It was one of the reasons why the state had such a bad reputation for always being under construction.