Fixing up the old cabin had been her contribution to the pack—a place to retreat when needed. Somewhere for souls who craved quiet to find it, only a short distance from Whitehorse.
It was her time to take advantage of the isolation.
Evan stood on the path and took a deep breath, eyes closed as he enjoyed the fresh air and wildness of the place. His bag in one hand, coat in the other, he was this living statue right where she didn’t want him. Right where she had to deal with him, whether she wanted to or not.
There was no retreat for her.
Chapter Six
Bumping too close as they entered the front door only made her wolf more antsy. “Please, keep your distance.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder,” she snapped. Drat. Amy took a deep breath to regain control. “Leave your things at the door for now. You want juice, or something stronger?”
Evan dropped his bag to the floor, set his coat over top, then stepped into the cabin, looking up at the open rafter system. “No alcohol. I want a level head for this conversation.”
Amy paused in the middle of pulling open the refrigerator door to examine his expression. It was far more solemn than usual. Arms folded over his chest, feet spread wide. Another rush of attraction hit, and this time she admitted he was exactly her type. Dark, muscular. Sexual overtures in his every move.
Except for the fact she hated his guts.
She ignored everything but the mundane for the next two minutes. Poured drinks, brought them to the living room. She slowed to a stop in the middle of the room as she debated where she wanted to sit while they did this. Put the kitchen table between them as a barrier? Sit in the easy chairs that looked over the valley? She certainly couldn’t pick the couch or the loveseat where the buttery-soft leather was all about comfort and decadence.
Stupid things to be worrying about when her brother was dead, her world had been torn apart, and the man responsible for everything stood less than five feet away.
“You look as if you’re holding a bomb in each hand.” Evan pulled one glass from her and gestured to the table. “Come. We may as well start at the beginning. This isn’t going to work like any conversation you’ve had before, so don’t bother trying to anticipate.”
“I don’t like surprises.” Only she obediently dropped into the chair he pulled out for her.
“Seriously. Wait until I tell you about my night.”
There was another secret that would soon be out—that she was the organizer of most of his surprises.
One step at time. She wouldn’t rush. Just do what had to be done and evaluate each move.
Evan eased his chair back, one arm resting on the table, his strong fingers wrapped around his glass. “You want to explain what you meant back there? About your brother?”
That block of ice was back, the one encasing her heart. “You’ve killed so many people you don’t know who I’m talking about?”
His eyes went cold. “I’ve killed a few wolves and a few humans. I never did it impulsively, maliciously or without a great deal of thought. That doesn’t make me a cold-blooded murderer, and it doesn’t answer the question. Who was your brother?”
Amy linked her fingers in front of her, staring at her hands for strength before lifting her gaze to pin Evan in place as she spoke. “Philip de Lorne. Hudson Bay pack.”
The colour drained from Evan’s face, and his jaw tightened. A furrow appeared between his brows as he looked her over more carefully than before. “I don’t remember you.”
“I was too young to be on your radar. I was eight when it happened. You were one of the up-and-coming youth. Seventeen, like my brother.” As she thought back, the knot in her throat only grew bigger. “You remember Philip, though?”
A slow nod. “He was a good friend.”
His words hit like a knife strike to the heart. “Right.”
“I’m serious. I mean, he was very private about his family. I never went to his home, which is probably why I don’t remember you and I meeting. But Phil and I did things together with the youth all the time.” Evan shot to his feet, dragging a hand through his hair as he paced away. A sound of frustration and anguish escaped. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his wolf as he twisted his back toward her, shoulders rigid. “I… It’s complicated.”
Amy stiffened her resolve. “I know what happened. I looked into it, a few years back. What I want to know is why.”
Evan rotated slowly. “You looked into what? The human media reports of the accident? Newspaper accounts?”
“Deeper. I know computers, and I know pack. I found trails…and they led to information that the shifter community had buried deep. The media got the whitewashed story about a mine collapse that killed nearly twenty men. But that wasn’t the whole truth, because it wasn’t a mine that collapsed and trapped them underground. It was an explosion, wasn’t it? An explosion you caused.”
The hard lines of his face and body could have been etched from granite. “I did.”
The icy sensation in her veins returned in a rush. The one she got whenever she’d planned another moment of her revenge, only this wasn’t how the confrontation was supposed to go. Her wolf moved restlessly, uneasy with her inner stillness. Would Evan deny it? “Philip died in the accident you were responsible for.”
Evan nodded. “You’re right.”
The light faded from the innermost part of her that had hoped she’d made a mistake somewhere along the way. “Then there’s nothing more to discuss.”
“Wait.” He crossed the room and knelt beside her chair. His nearness like a cage closing around her. His power, his presence. His wolf. “We’re not done, because while I understand what you must think, you don’t know the full truth.”
Amy hesitated. This was the only reason she’d agreed to meet with him alone. “Tell me.”
He was staring. Not at her face, but her hands. “Two weeks ago. A security tape at my hotel caught video footage of a hooded person with your hands snooping around in the kitchen while no one else was there. That was you, wasn’t it? What were you doing there?”
He’d find out soon enough. “It’s…complicated.”
Evan lifted smoky eyes to hers. The dark centers matching his pupils. “Hudson Bay pack went bad from the leadership down. It was a slow growing rot. As soon as I sensed what was happening, I tried to make a change. The first time I challenged the Alpha, Kirk Gatlann broke my arm. The second time he didn’t even try to fight fair, he simply set his Betas on me. I ran out of time before I could make a third attempt, and it came down to triggering the explosion that killed him or watching him systematically destroy the pack I was desperate to protect.”
She listened, she really did, but it didn’t matter that his words were logical, they weren’t enough.
“I was eight. I have few childish memories of the pack, and none of the Alpha.” Amy wasn’t ignoring what he’d shared, but her reality had been completely different. “All I know is that one day Philip didn’t come home, and neither did my parents.”
“What? That’s impossible.” Evan’s shock punched forward, heavy and weighted like a falling anvil.
She was too numb to do anything but continue. “Is it? You know everything that happened during the chaos caused by the explosion, and the shifter cover-up that followed?” She stared out the window, over his shoulder. “One moment my family was there, the next my brother was gone and so were my parents. They were never very attentive—Philip was more of a caregiver to me than they were. I don’t know if they went feral, or had some other reason they bolted, but I was abandoned. I rambled around in our house in the bush for two weeks until social services finally came by and picked me up.”