The Protector's Heart (Wilde Creek Three) (3 page)

She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was
being watched. She wished she had super hearing or super sight like
wolves did, so she could tell. Fear had made Nila its bitch, and
she wasn’t happy about it.

Quickly walking to her car, which she parked
as close to the entrance as she could, she unlocked the back door
of her old sedan and set Jack in the car seat, buckling him in
swiftly before shutting the door. She turned and scanned the
parking lot. Not seeing anything — although she couldn’t see much
of anything past the snow that was swiftly falling — she opened the
driver’s door and sat down behind the wheel. Pushing the door lock
and then starting the engine, she rubbed her hands together and
pressed the button for the window defroster.

“Did you have a good day, kiddo?” she asked,
looking at Jack in the rear view.

“Carrot.”

She smiled at one of his favorite words,
which he said somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred times a
day, backed out of the parking space, and headed for home.

She lived in a small house in Wilde Creek, at
the end of a cul-de-sac. When she first came to Wilde Creek after
leaving Damien, she had been desperate for a place to live. She’d
just left Damien for good, taking Jack away in the middle of the
night, and for a few days she had stayed with Diane, one of her
aunt’s best friends, who happened to live in Wilde Creek. Within a
week, Nila had moved into the rental and accepted a job at the
clinic, and she’d been there for the last nine months.

Parking in front of the house, she got out
and unhooked Jack from the car seat. Jack clutched a lock of her
hair as she walked up the steps to the front door and unlocked it.
Once inside, she pushed the door shut and flipped the security bar
and two dead bolts. The familiar sound of the door locking made
some of her anxiety leak away.

After divesting her and Jack of their winter
things, she carried him into the kitchen and put him in his high
chair. “Are you hungry, little man?”

He banged his fists on the tray and grinned.
It took only a few minutes for her to put his dinner together, and
then she turned to the fridge for her own meal. Pulling out a tub
of beef stew she’d made over the weekend, she poured some into a
bowl and put it in the microwave to heat up. As the bowl rotated,
she watched Jack as he gripped his plastic spoon and shoveled
applesauce into his mouth.

The hours passed so quickly. Dinner, then
bath, then bedtime. She laid him down in the crib in the bedroom.
The house was supposed to be a two-bedroom, but the second bedroom
was where the laundry hookups were, so if she wanted clean clothes,
she had to take up half the room with the washer and dryer. She
didn’t want Jack in that room, so she’d given him the bigger
bedroom and put a twin bed in the laundry room. Ever since Damien
had attacked the teacher in an attempt to take Jack back several
weeks ago, she’d been sleeping in the front room on the couch. She
felt like she was being a better protector if she was sleeping
closer to the bedroom, which was just off the front room.

When she first moved into the house, Damien
had shown up and tried to get in. She’d called the police and he
scattered quickly, and she’d called a locksmith the next morning
and had him install the extra deadbolts. A few weeks had passed and
she wondered if Damien had gotten the hint that things between them
were done, but he had shown up the night of the full moon in his
wolf form with some of his buddies and they stalked around the
house the entire night, howling and snarling, randomly throwing
themselves at the doors. She’d been terrified. It seemed to go that
way with him. He’d leave her alone for a little while and then he’d
start up again, sending her threatening emails and leaving nasty
voice mails, always threatening to get her back
someday
,
calling her his property, issuing thinly veiled threats toward
Jack. She was in a vicious cycle with a dangerous male, and she
didn’t know what to do.

Changing into pajamas, she settled onto the
couch and listened to Jack settling down to sleep in his crib. The
cul-de-sac was quiet at night. Her neighbors were older and there
were no young kids on the street. Behind the house lay woods that
separated her development from another one. She’d seen Damien in
the woods before, him and his buddies. Watching. Waiting.

She forced herself to stop thinking of her ex
and get to sleep, but she couldn’t settle her thoughts, until she
started thinking of Malachi. She was actually jealous of Brynn. Her
mate didn’t treat her like shit. He cared about her. Made sure she
was well protected with personal guards when he wasn’t around.

Closing her eyes, she shoved those thoughts
away, too. Thinking about the sexy blue-eyed wolf wasn’t helping
her rest, it was amping her up. She wanted to call Brynn and ask
for Malachi’s phone number. Then she wanted to call him and…well,
she didn’t know
what
exactly, but the fantasy that streaked
through her mind as she wiggled on the couch to get comfortable was
of Malachi and her in the storeroom at work. But this time she
wouldn’t freak out about him being a wolf; she’d settle into his
arms and inhale that gorgeous spicy scent and give him the kissing
of a lifetime.

Groaning, Nila threw her arm over her eyes
and thought about bunnies, and rainbows, and paying the bills.
She’d never get to sleep if she thought about Malachi. Like all
wolves, he was a dead end, and she needed to remember that. He was
nice now, but Damien had been that way in the beginning, too.

Bunnies. She was going to think about
bunnies.

Chapter 3

Malachi couldn’t stop his body from reacting
to Nila as she sat in the second row of his SUV with Brynn on the
way to lunch on Tuesday. He was glad that his coat was long enough
to cover his waist when he stood up, or everyone in the restaurant
was going to get an eyeful of the erection that was pressing
painfully against the front of his jeans.

Brynn said something that made Nila laugh,
and Malachi stifled a growl. He wanted to make her laugh and be on
the receiving end of one of her killer smiles. Right now, Nila was
treating him more like furniture than a person. The day before when
he’d talked to her in the breakroom, it had been the first
conversation they’d had since the day he found her in the storage
room. She’d warmed up to him, and then just as quickly, she turned
to ice and rebuffed him. He could admit to himself that it hurt his
pride. He wanted her to want to be with him, to like being around
him.

He pulled into the parking lot of Luna’s and
turned off the engine. Jumping out, he opened Brynn’s door and held
out his hand for her.

“You’re such a gentleman, Mal,” Brynn said
with a chuckle.

“Are you kidding me? The parking lot is icy
and Acksel would have my head if you slipped and got hurt.”

Nila stared at him from where she sat,
fiddling with the seatbelt. He held out his hand for her. “I won’t
bite, Nila.”

He bit back the mildly sarcastic comment
floating around in his head,
unless you ask me to
, and
waited, trying to make himself appear harmless. Well, he knew he
looked anything but harmless. He was too tall and muscular for
that. But he could look genial, maybe. Friendly, even.

She really seemed to be wrestling with
herself, and then Brynn said, “Nila, I’m freezing my butt off.
Would you let him help you out of the SUV so we can eat? I’m
feeling like hamburgers.”

Nila seemed to startle slightly, and then she
scooted toward him, giving him a wary look that reminded him of a
doe about to bolt. Her gloved hand grasped his and he wished there
wasn’t any fabric separating their skin. Lending her his strength,
he made sure she didn’t fall as she slipped from the seat and her
booted feet hit the pavement. For just a moment, she squeezed his
hand tighter and looked up at him, brown eyes searching his…for
what, he didn’t know. Just as quickly as they had connected, she
released his hand and stepped away, a blast of icy wind separating
them as easily as the distance she created herself.

Shutting the door, he growled at himself. He
was supposed to be watching over Brynn, not ogling his sexy mate.
Which made him wonder what the hell he’d do when he did manage to
convince Nila to give him the time of day. How could he be Brynn’s
personal guard and also take care of Nila and Jack?

Shit. He’d have to talk to Acksel. That was a
conversation for later, though, since Nila seemed bound and
determined to keep Malachi at arm’s length.

He took Nila and Brynn’s coats and hung them
up on the hooks inside the front door of the restaurant, and then
followed them to Brynn’s private table. A small placard sat on top
of the small round table that read, ‘Reserved for the Alpha.’
Malachi took up his place against the nearest wall and scanned the
restaurant. Luna’s was run by Quentin and Paula Smythe, who were
pack members. Malachi considered it a safe place, but when Brynn
and Acksel first got together, she was pestered by some of the
female pack members who thought she wasn’t a good choice for alpha
female. Acksel had made changes to pack law to protect the female
mates of pack members if they were human, but Brynn had needed to
stand up for herself and prove that she could be a leader. Which
she’d done quite well.

His phone buzzed. He pulled it from his
pocket and saw a text from his younger sister, Mia.

“Dinner tonight? I’m making pot roast.”

“Sure,” he typed back.

“I also need you to help me move the
desk.”

He snorted. “Of course you do.” She never
invited him over to dinner unless she had an ulterior motive, like
needing him to move furniture.

“Don’t get snippy, I’m feeding you.”

“See you at six,” he answered and slipped the
phone back into his pocket.

He scanned the restaurant again, nodded at
Zander, a protector and the son of the owners, who was bussing a
table, and tried not to appear as if he were eavesdropping on Brynn
and Nila’s conversation.

“I don’t know,” Nila said softly as she
pushed a French fry through ketchup. “If he shows up at the daycare
again and makes trouble, they’re not going to let Jack come back
and then I’ll be up the creek.”

“Hopefully he won’t, though. The cops told
him to stay away, right?”

Nila shook her head. “When the cops showed
up, one of his cronies took the blame and said he was the one who
beat up the teacher, not Damien. The teacher was so frazzled that
she couldn’t identify Damien from a lineup and they took his pal’s
confession. When the police went to arrest him, he’d
disappeared.”

“Disappeared how?”

“Who knows? Damien’s dad has a lot of
friends, he probably just sent him out of state to another pack, a
thank-you for taking the fall for Damien.”

“I don’t understand why he won’t leave you
alone. You left him, you gave him divorce papers.”

Nila looked so sad right then that it took
everything in his power not to go to her and comfort her. “I don’t
know why, either. Falling for his charms was one of the worst
things I ever did. I don’t regret Jack, but I regret ever meeting
him or his pack.”

Malachi hated hearing how much she despised
wolves, even though she clearly had good reason for her
feelings.

When lunch was over, he wasn’t any closer to
figuring out how to talk to Nila. By the time the work day done,
and Brynn was closing down the computer, Malachi felt as
tongue-tied as ever when it came to the pretty blonde. Nila,
wrapped up in a dark wool coat, a white fuzzy hat covering her
hair, looked out the glass door and frowned. “It’s really coming
down out there.”

“Do you want to ride with us? We can pick up
Jack and take you home, even come get you in the morning,” Brynn
offered.

Malachi’s heart jumped into his throat and
his wolf whined pitifully in his head, wanting desperately to have
her in the SUV with them.

Nila swallowed audibly and looked over her
shoulder. “Thanks, but no, I’ll be fine. I guess my plans to go to
the grocery are out, though.”

She met his eyes for only a heartbeat, and
then she pushed the door open and disappeared into the falling
snow.

“Damn she’s stubborn,” Brynn said as she
wrapped a scarf around her neck and tugged on gloves.

“That’s the pot calling the kettle
black.”

“Hey, we’re talking about two entirely
different situations here. You didn’t knock her up and ignore her
like a certain alpha male we both know.”

“I thought you forgave him for that.”

“I did, but I reserved the right to throw it
in his face anytime I want. Nila’s stubborn in a different way. I
wish she could see how sweet you are.”

“Oh, I’m blushing here,” Malachi said.

Brynn slugged him on the arm. “You’re sweet
but you’re also kind of an ass.”

He opened the door for her, bracing himself
against the cold as he took her elbow and guided her safely to the
SUV. He looked at the tracks that Nila’s sedan had made in the
parking lot, wishing that she’d taken Brynn up on her offer. He
would’ve loved to drive to the daycare and pick up Jack with her
and then take them both home. It was important to him that she was
watched over. He had driven by her home more than once, even
shifting and scouting the woods around her home. Her house was
secure enough — dead bolts on the front and back doors, an alarm
system — but she’d be safer in his house, that was just a fact.

After dropping Brynn off, he drove to the
home that Mia rented in the development behind Nila’s. A small
section of woods separated the two streets, and it was easy enough
for Mal to shift in Mia’s backyard and trot across the woods to
watch Nila’s house, which he did from time to time. He’d smelled
other wolves in the woods, but the scents weren’t fresh so he knew
that no one had been sniffing around Nila’s house in a couple of
weeks.