Link gripped his cup harder.
“I didn’t find out about Buck until a month ago.”
“About his death?” Link asked, surprised.
“No, about his existence. My mom and dad—er, stepdad, who I thought all along was my real dad—just got divorced. I know it’s supposed to be easier if your parents split up when you’re an adult, but it kind of shattered my world for a while. It was an ugly divorce, and my mom was awful, just spewing hate all the time at my stepdad. She was the one who’d been unfaithful, and I was so angry at her for breaking up our family. She showed zero remorse, so I picked a side. I wanted to spend more time with my stepdad and make sure he was okay, you know? My sister and brother were doing the same thing, and he was receptive to their attention but, for some reason, he didn’t want me around. And when I showed up at his office one day to ask him to go to lunch with me, he told me.”
“Told you what?”
Her voice turned dark, her words jagged. “That I wasn’t his. That he didn’t want anything to do with me because I had been part of the problem with his and Mom’s marriage.”
Link shook his head and leaned back into the bench cushion. Naturally, he had a shit dad who’d been put down when he was too young to remember a single good memory about him. That’s just the way it was for McCalls, but the reality of his life had always been harsh. Link had no qualms about the way he was raised. It was the same for every McCall, but Nicole…she’d had a decent life and a decent family, and then they’d betrayed her. He didn’t know any differently, but she’d had a good life snatched away in a moment.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
Her full lips stretched up in a slow smile. “So here I am, searching for myself in a place I’ve never been.”
“That’s pretty brave. Alaska isn’t exactly a spring break beach trip.”
She laughed a pretty tinkling sound and grinned down at her steaming cup. “I admit I was completely unprepared for this place. I mean, we have snow down in Mission, but nothing like this.”
“The bone-deep cold is hard to get used to.”
“Yes! I don’t think I’ve been fully warm since I got here. And look.” She pulled her gloves off and rested her hands on the table, palms up. They were torn and blistered, and Link winced at how painful they looked.
“Chopping wood?”
“Trying to. I’m pretty shitty at it. I even read a book on it. I bought a chainsaw from Hardware Jack today.”
When a warning snarl left his throat at the mention of that prick, Nicole’s eyes went wide. “What was that?”
Link fingered the handle on his mug, unable to look at the horror that would be in her eyes. “I told you I was bad.” He tapped his temple. “Voices.”
“In your head?”
I’m here!
Link gave her an empty smile. “I should go.”
“I won’t mention that sound again,” she rushed out as he made to stand.
Link looked down in shock at where her fingertips rested on his knuckles. Where they connected, a sparking sensation shot up his arm in waves. What the hell?
She’s touching us. Us. She knows she’s ours. Wants us to stay.
Link relaxed slowly back into the chair.
“Is that why you live way out here?”
He nodded once.
“That makes sense to me. I was confused to why a man who looks like you settled way out here.”
“A man who looks like me?” he murmured, head canted in confusion.
Nicole pulled off her scarf completely and mirrored him, head cocked as she looked at him with such a strange expression. “I have a pet wolf.”
Link froze as if he’d been electrified.
She knows.
“I’ve named him Mr. Nibbles.”
“Ha!” Link barked out a laugh louder than he’d meant too, and inside Wolf snarled his discontent with the name.
“Don’t laugh. He is very nice and brings me dead things.”
“Well, he sounds very considerate, but please remember he’s a wild animal. Let him be.”
“A wolf killed Buck. My dad. I mean a wolf killed my real dad.”
Link leaned his elbows onto the table and felt like grit. This was the part they would never get past. They couldn’t. He was related to the man who murdered her father. He was here now because of a need to repay her as much as he could for what his cursed lineage had stolen from her. “I know.”
“Did you know my dad?”
Link swallowed hard and stared at the tiny bubbles in his mug of hot chocolate. “No, but I know of him. I went to his funeral.”
“You don’t know him, but you went to his funeral?” she asked in a confused tone.
“He was buried near his trap line, and I wanted to make sure someone was standing for him.”
Her breath came shallow as she stared at him, and those beautiful brown eyes of hers rimmed with moisture. “What was it like?”