“Tell me about you, Olivia. Where do you live?”
“ New York, I just moved there from Miami. I grew up all over the East Coast, though.”
“Your family moved a lot?” Maybe they had been Packless.
“I don’t have any family. My mother died shortly after I was born and my father when I was five. He’d been in the Army, like you, but died of a heart attack while in the service.” She shrugged, closing her eyes briefly then opening them to smile at him. “I got lucky. I didn’t stay in the foster care system for long. I was just in two homes before the Decaturs adopted me.”
Micah couldn’t believe her parents hadn’t left her in the care of other shifters. “Weren’t there family friends?”
She shook her head. “Who knows? When my father died, we were living in Korea. The Army couldn’t find any information on his family or my mother’s so I became a ward of the state. That’s where the Decaturs found me. They were one of the best things to happen to me really.” Her eyes softened in memory.
“There was no will? No next of kin?”
“Well, it wasn’t like they’d planned to die.” She shoved away from the table and Micah cursed himself under his breath. Perhaps she really didn’t know what she was? Could it be possible? Could her parents have truly left a shifter child alone in the world? Where were her godparents?
Shifters always provided for their children. There was always someone who knew what they were, how to contact relatives, friends. They always had someone who would take care of the children if anything happened to the parents. Micah himself was godfather to several shifter children, responsible for their care should their parents die or need his assistance in other ways. It was the closest thing to a sacred duty to him.
“I’m sorry, Olivia.” Micah moved closer to her, wanting to pull her into his arms but refraining. Instead, he closed the distance with only his hand to touch her hair gently, relishing the feel of the soft strands that tangled around his fingers. “Where are the Decaturs now?”
Fear crossed her face quickly replaced by sorrow. “They’re dead. They died in a car wreck when I was thirteen. But they’d left a will. I lived with my mother’s sister and her husband. My Aunt Jill and Uncle Neal were my guardians until I was in college.
“They loved me, but it wasn’t the same. My parents,” she hesitated. “The Decaturs ’ death really shook them. I shouldn’t have survived, but I did. My therapist thinks that’s why…” her voice trailed off quietly as she pulled away from his touch.
Chapter Four
She shook her head quickly then stepped to his side and turned to face him. “I’m sorry. I overreacted. I guess you’ve got a close family?”
Micah took a deep breath. Olivia’s scent carried guilt but he didn’t know why. Instead of asking any more questions about her family, he let her shift the focus to him. “We grew up close, but we’re fairly scattered now. I have a large family, that’s for sure.”
“How large?” She moved to sit at the table again and he followed slowly.
“I have my mother, eight siblings and at last count-twenty nieces and nephews. My father died when I was a teenager, but my paternal grandfather helped rear us.”
She simply stared at him. He wasn’t sure if it was in awe or utter shock. “You have thirty people in your immediate family?”
“At last count. I’m sure there are more nieces or nephews by now or on the way. My siblings seem to enjoy large families. Only two of us aren’t married and procreating just yet.”
“I see. Well, thank you for answering my questions and for the stew. I really should go transcribe these notes so I don’t wonder what I chicken-scratched later.”
She stood up, stretching as she did. Micah watched her lean form move under the shirt. Her breasts. His hands ached from not being able to touch her. Still, he had to wait for that first move. Her ass swayed delectably as she exited the room.
Micah cleared the table, glad the seeming crisis had been averted but determined to find out more about Olivia’s childhood. If in fact she didn’t know she was a shifter, if that was why she didn’t acknowledge that he was, it might be interesting to introduce her to their shared world. But it was going to be hell on his hormones if he couldn’t act on his need for that sexy she-wolf.
Olivia headed back to her room full of information but she really needed to process her own reaction to her dreamy host. When he’d reached out to stroke her hair, she’d had to fight leaning into him. It just seemed like the right thing to do but there was no way she could do that.
If she let him know how much she wanted him, she knew he would respond favorably. There was no mistaking the interest in his eyes. Olivia closed her eyes as she shut her door behind her. Sagging against the wood, she released a gust of air.
“Olivia. You know why you can not have sex with that man.” Scolding herself did not help. She sat down to type out her notes, but opened up a second document on her computer to journal a bit about her reaction to him. As the first man in a while who had seriously made her want to get naked, Micah Keeps Vigil would have to be processed.
As she wrote about him, the words turned from clinical to personal to sexual. Soon she typed out an erotic fantasy where she was on her hands and knees with him pounding his cock into her as he called out her name.
“Olivia?
This time he knocked too. Olivia jumped as she realized the knock and her name were real. Slamming the laptop closed, she shoved back from the desk. Where had the time gone? Her clock showed two hours later.
“Olivia?” Micah’s voice carried through the wood. “I thought you might like to take an afternoon walk with me. I have to check some of the property and you might see a different variety of wildlife at this time of day. Would you like to go?”
He stood with one hand on the doorframe, filling the space when she opened the door. Ducking his head, he stepped across the threshold when she waved him in.
“I’d love to, Micah. Let me grab a sweater and then we can layer up for the outside.”
His approving chuckle made her belly feel toasty and warm. Once they were rewrapped for the weather, Olivia followed Micah out again in the afternoon for another walk on the snowshoes. She’d gotten the hang of them though she wasn’t quite as graceful on them as she’d hoped she’d be. But now that she was focused less on her face not being planted in the snow, she had to acknowledge the frisson she felt around this man.
As they walked up to a lake, she imagined she would feel little arcs of electricity when he would stop to point out various animal burrows, squirrel nests and the mistletoe in the tops of some of the trees. She allowed herself a moment to daydream about him holding a sprig of mistletoe over her head as he lowered his mouth down to hers for a deep, seeking kiss.
Micah didn’t just show her the animals. He told her about them. It was as if he knew them intimately-almost as if he understood their very nature. Olivia paid close attention to his words and to the man himself. She watched the fluidity of his walk, even on the ungainly snowshoes. He was definitely the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life.
Her hands itched to roam all over his tall body. The thought of tracing his muscles had her biting the inside of her cheek. Not good to moan while hiking behind the man. She figured he had to weigh well over two hundred pounds, but she’d wager that not an ounce of it was fat.
She breathed deeply, the bite of the winter air causing her to cough. Micah glanced back at her, his concern fading to amusement. Olivia shook her head on a short laugh. “How cold do you think it is right now?”