The Protector's Heart (Wilde Creek Three) (4 page)

Stomping off his boots on the front porch, he
opened the front door and said, “Hey Mia.”

“Hi Mal, I’m in the kitchen.”

He inhaled the scent of pot roast and his
mouth watered. Mia was a damn good cook, something she’d learned
from their mom. Their parents had lived in Wilde Creek until Acksel
had taken over as alpha a few years ago, and then they had decided
to leave the pack and join his dad’s brother’s pack. Malachi had
left with them, thinking he’d have a better chance of finding a
mate if he were away from Wilde Creek where he’d never even had a
passing thought of mating any of the she-wolves. Now Nila was here,
though, and she was his mate. He was glad he’d moved back.

After eating his sister’s amazing pot roast
and mashed potatoes, he moved the heavy mahogany desk from the
family room to the spare bedroom. She wiped the desk off with a
dust cloth and he moved the computer to the clean surface.
“Planning to write the great American novel?” He teased.

“No, I just want it out of the family room. I
keep banging my hip on the edge of the desk when I walk by. How’s
work going?”

“It’s not exactly hard to sit at the doctor’s
office and look at security footage all day.”

“I suppose not,” Mia said, smiling. “How long
are you going to have to sit with her?”

“I don’t know.” He frowned, leaning against
the wall.

“Well, don’t you think that you could just
drive her to work, look at the footage, and then leave? I don’t
know why you have to stay with her all day anymore.”

“Because Acksel said so.”

Mia hummed. “I’m sure it’s not a hardship
since you get to ogle the nurse, but really…it’s one thing to drive
her around, but it’s another to sit there all day. Don’t you have a
business to run?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I was
planning to talk to Acksel about it. I think you’re right. I could
still drive her everywhere, but I don’t need to sit there all day.”
Plus, he
did
need to focus on his business. L&M Security
wasn’t going to run itself, not with Lucian out of the country,
anyway.

As if hearing him think his partner’s name,
Mia said, “How’s Lucian, anyway?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Fine.”

He’d known for ages that his sister had a
crush on his human best friend, but Lucian had strict instructions
to steer clear of Mia. He didn’t give a damn how Mia felt. Lucian
was a great friend, but he led a dangerous life and it would be
just Mia’s luck to get caught in the crossfire, and that was
something Mal would never allow.

Mia rolled her eyes. “I was just asking.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right. How’s Reese?”

She looked startled. “Mated now, I guess. I
haven’t talked to him since I went through my heat cycle in the
fall.”

Mal mentally scrubbed that thought out of his
head. He didn’t want to think about his sister going through a heat
cycle every September. The boring-as-white-paper Reese had been a
safe bet for her to go through the cycle with because he was an
honorable guy. Mal flipped through the names of the single males in
the pack. “You ever thought about going out with Zander?”

Her brows rose. “No, why would you ask me
that?”

He shrugged. “He’s a good guy, he’s pack, and
his mom makes the best meatloaf in town.”

“Only you would think a potential mate’s
qualities should include a family member’s meatloaf.”

“I’m just saying…he’s pack.”

“You said that twice,” she said irritably. “I
get that you think I should be with a wolf, but my wolf isn’t
feeling that right now, okay? How about you take care of your own
love life and leave mine alone.”

Okay, he’d overstepped and pissed her off.
When they were kids, he’d always enjoyed making her mad, but as
adults he didn’t like her being angry with him. Closing the
distance between them, he hugged her and kissed the top of her
head. “I’m sorry. I just want what’s best for you.”

She hugged him back. “I know. Thanks.”

They walked back into the family room and he
grabbed his coat and shoved his feet into the boots that he’d left
near the front door. He opened the door and Mia whistled. “Wow,
it’s really coming down out there.”

“If this keeps up, no one will be going to
work tomorrow,” he said.

“You going to check out Nila’s house?”

He glanced over his shoulder as he stepped
out onto the porch. “What?”

“Don’t look coy, it’s me you’re talking to. I
know you’ve been shifting, I’ve seen your tracks in the woods. If
you’re going to go, you should do it now before it gets much worse
and you get stuck here. You know you’re welcome to stay, but if we
have a snow day tomorrow I’m planning to watch all six
Star
Wars
movies from the Blu-Ray collector’s set, including all the
extras.”

“No thanks.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m heading
home; it’s too late now anyway.”

Giving his sister a wave, he trudged through
the foot of snow on her steps and made his way to his SUV. He
looked at the woods. If he shifted and took a run by Nila’s house,
he’d have to stay at Mia’s, which he didn’t really want to do. What
he
could
do, though, was go to the grocery for Nila, since
she said she wasn’t going to be able to. He was pretty sure that
the doctors’ office would be closed in the morning and the thought
of her and Jack going without something they might need made his
wolf howl in worry.

Getting into the SUV, he left Mia’s and
called his mom.

“What kind of things would a
twenty-one-month-old baby like?”

There was a short pause, and then his mom
said, “Um, are you talking about your mate’s son?”

He’d told his parents about Nila when he
first met her. His mom was dying to meet them, but knew she needed
to keep her distance for now.

“Yeah. Nila said that she couldn’t go to the
grocery tonight because of the weather so I thought I’d stop myself
and take some things over. Unless you think that’s a dumb
idea?”

“It’s a great idea, honey. You’ll show her
that you were not only listening about her needs, but trying to
help.”

As she began to list things he should pick up
at the grocery, he made a mental list, hoping he got everything and
that Nila would accept his help. Maybe she wouldn’t, and it would
all be for nothing, but maybe she would and he’d be one step closer
to her seeing that he wasn’t anything like her ex.

Chapter 4

Nila looked out the front window but couldn’t
see much in the darkness. The power had gone out at 9:30 and hadn’t
come back on, so an hour later, she’d built a fire in the fireplace
and pulled Jack’s crib into the front room. He was sleeping soundly
in his footy pajamas, his favorite stuffed wolf tucked close.

Headlights flashed along the front of the
house as a big vehicle pulled into the driveway. Who was that? She
wasn’t expecting anyone. Immediately she wondered if Damien had
come for her and Jack. The alarm system wasn’t working because the
electricity was off, which made her wish she’d taken the security
company’s advice and installed a generator for just such an
emergency.

The SUV’s headlights blinded her for a
moment, but she blinked past the spots in her vision and watched
the driver’s door open and the interior light illuminate
Malachi.

What the hell?

She grabbed her coat and tucked her feet into
the boots at the front door, casting a glance at her sleeping son
before opening the front door, stepping out into the bitter cold,
and closing it behind her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Malachi
had superior hearing; he would be able to hear her even if she was
whispering.

He got out, shut the door, and opened the
passenger door, extracting two grocery sacks. He didn’t say
anything until he reached the bottom step of the porch.

“I remembered you saying you weren’t going to
get to the store because of the snow, so I stopped for you.”

He made no move to come up the steps, crowd
her, or push past her into the house, like her ex would have done.
Of course, her ex didn’t care if she had groceries or not, unless
he was asking her to make him something to eat.

Her mouth opened and closed, twice, before
she said, “What are you doing?”

With the SUV’s headlights illuminating him
from behind, he looked so much like a freaking angel she almost
forgot she was trying to keep him at arm’s length. He looked like a
guardian angel — arms full of groceries, a halo of light around
him, snow falling against his dark hair.

Without stopping his smile, he set the bags
down on the top of the porch and said, “I’ll get the others and
then I’ll take off.”

He made two more trips to the SUV. When he
was done, seven paper sacks were lined up on the porch. “I wasn’t
sure what kinds of things Jack would eat, so I called my mom.”

She forgot the cold and the snow. She forgot
everything but the man standing on the sidewalk in front of her
house, and the words he’d just spoken.

“You called your mom about Jack?”

He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I don’t
know a lot about kids, so I went to an expert. I didn’t think that
if I called you you’d tell me what you guys needed, anyway.”

She snorted, but inside she knew he was
right. If he’d called her and offered to bring groceries, she would
have been too proud to accept. He was being kind, and yeah, maybe
he was trying to show her that he was different from her ex, but at
the moment he wasn’t asking anything but for her to accept the
groceries.

Her mouth opened before she could stop it.
“Help me bring them in, but be quiet because Jack is sleeping.”

He smiled so broadly that he looked as if
someone had given him the best present ever. She picked up the
nearest bag and opened the front door, stepping in and holding it
while he picked up several bags and walked ahead of her. She
carried her bag to the kitchen and Malachi moved like a ninja,
silent and fast, bringing in the other bags and closing the front
door quietly.

The kitchen was through the family room, and
without the heat, it was cooling quickly. “It’s cold enough outside
to leave the milk and stuff on the back porch,” he said, shifting
some things into one sack and unlocking the door at the back of the
kitchen that led to the tiny concrete porch. She watched him put
the cold things – milk, eggs, packages of deli meat and cheese, and
an eight-pack of her favorite strawberry-banana yogurt – onto the
back patio and shut and lock the door.

He turned and said, “Take care, Nila.”

He made it halfway through the family room
before she managed to snap herself out of her stupor and race to
him. She put her hand on the front door, not that she could stop
him from opening it if he really wanted to.

“How did you know I like that yogurt?” she
whispered. She stared up at him, his beautiful blue eyes glinting
in the firelight.

He raised a brow. “I pay attention. You have
one every day during your break.”

She felt her insides tremble in excitement
and scowled internally at herself. She was not going to melt into a
puddle of goo because he happened to notice something that her ex,
who had lived with her, had never once noticed.

She blinked rapidly, unsure where the sudden
stinging tears were coming from, and whispered, “I thought I’d make
some hot chocolate, if you’d like to join me.”

“Marshmallows?” he asked hopefully.

She couldn’t help but smile. “Mini and
regular.”

* * * * *

Malachi knew the roads were getting
treacherous. He’d almost gotten stuck twice at the end of her
development on the way to bring her groceries. The plows were out
in force, but the snow was falling too fast for them to keep up.
The news on the radio said that they were headed for a state of
emergency in town, and that meant that soon no vehicles would be
allowed on the road. But damn if he could pass up hot chocolate
made by his mate. With marshmallows.

“Take off your shoes, you’ll get my carpets
all wet,” she said softly, smiling at him before toeing off her own
boots, dropping her coat over a chair, and walking back into the
kitchen. He glanced at the fireplace and thought it could use some
more wood, so after he divested himself of his coat and boots, he
added wood to the fire and then looked at the crib. Jack was
adorable. He’d seen him at Acksel and Brynn’s engagement party,
which seemed like an eternity ago. He looked just like Nila, but a
slow inhale told him that the young boy was more wolf than
human.

He joined Nila in the small kitchen. The tile
floor was old but clean, the curtains over the one large window in
front of the table were cheerful red gingham, and the scent of beef
stew lingered in the air.

He caught the scent of gas as she lit the
stove with a match and put a pan of milk on to heat. He sat on a
padded kitchen chair and took the opportunity of her distraction to
look at her in the glow from the electric candles on the counter.
She was wearing dark pink lounge pants decorated with penguins, and
a dark top under a thick sweater. Her long hair was tucked back
into a braid, and he wanted to undo it and run his fingers through
the strands.

“How long has the power been out?” he said in
a low voice.

“Since about nine-thirty. This house isn’t
really insulated well so it cooled down fast, hence the fire.”

“All the lights are out on this street, but
my sister’s house still has power. I texted her before I got out of
the SUV.”

After she put the cold items in a bag, he put
it out on the back porch for her, and then shut and locked the
door. He stared down at the two deadbolts, his gut telling him that
she’d put them in as a safety measure against her ex.

“I know they won’t stop him if he wants to
get in, but they’ll slow him down,” she said, her voice soft and
sad.