Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 19932 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19932 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
That didn’t stop me from stacking wood along the side of the cabin until it almost reached the roof, though. Neither did the fact that I’d never get through even a fraction of the wood I’d split since I was leaving next week. I got so much satisfaction from chopping it that I was planning to look into what it would take to have a wood-burning stove installed at my place in Timber Ridge when I got back to civilization.
After sticking the blade of my ax in the chopping block, I wiped my brow with my forearm and heaved a deep sigh. Even though it was below freezing outside, I’d worked up a hell of a sweat. It felt damn good, and the only reason I’d stopped was because I heard footsteps coming close. Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted Keane, the grizzly who was alpha of the small pack I’d been staying with. Giving him a chin lift, I said, “Hey.”
“If you want to keep going, feel free to drop some logs off at my place.” He jerked his thumb toward my stack of wood. “Since you’ve already run out of room.”
I grinned and chuckled softly. “That’s very generous of you.”
Keane shrugged his broad shoulders and grinned. “What can I say? I’m good like that.”
“Yeah, because you’re known for being such a nice guy.” Grizzly shifters didn’t have a reputation for being soft and cuddly. More like being antisocial dickheads who had short tempers. But all joking aside, Keane had done me a solid when he’d offered me a place to stay when I needed to get away from home for a while. As thrilled as I was that my brother had found his fated mate, it wasn’t easy being surrounded by happy couples. Not when I felt deep down in my soul that I’d spend the rest of my days alone. The males in my family hadn’t had much luck finding their fated mates over the years. There were only a few rare exceptions—none of which had happened twice in the same generation. Damon mating Trinity meant I wasn’t going to be the lucky one for ours.
My wolf felt the lack of a mate, too. He’d been difficult to control over the past couple of months, and it had only gotten worse the further along my sister-in-law had gotten in her pregnancy. As her belly grew with the babies that would always hold a special piece of my heart, I struggled with the knowledge that I’d never have pups of my own. I’d needed space to come to terms with my future, and that hadn’t been possible in Timber Ridge. When one of my former packmates, Booker, had come back to visit his parents, he’d seen how much I was struggling and suggested that I come to stay with his pack for a little while. I’d leaped at the chance to get away from it all so I could try to get my head on straight and left for the wilderness with him a few days later.
“You want to throw on a jacket and take a walk with me?”
The question pulled me out of my thoughts. Heading into the woods with a grizzly usually wasn’t a smart call, but I didn’t need to worry about Keane mauling me and leaving my body to be scavenged by wild animals. Or at least I hoped not since I said, “Sure.”
He grabbed the last few logs that I’d chopped and carried them with us after I grabbed my jacket. As we walked past his cabin, he tossed them near the small pile haphazardly stacked near the front door. When I chuckled, he tilted his head slightly to the side. “Like I said, if you want to stock me up before you head back to Timber Ridge for the restaurant opening, I’ll take as many logs as you want to give me.”
“Feel free to grab as many as you want.” The offer wasn’t really necessary since the cabin I’d been staying in belonged to his pack. “It’s not as though I’m going to need them when I’m back home.”
Keane grunted and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
My brows drew together as I asked, “Me leaving?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed with a nod. “Are you sure you want to go?”
I considered my answer, thinking about how content my wolf had been in the time that I’d been here. “A big part of me doesn’t want to leave, but I’m not sure if staying in the wilderness is the right call for me. Besides, the bottom line is that what I want doesn’t really matter since I told Damon I’d come back for the opening of Trinity’s restaurant.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep your promise to your brother.” Keane paused to look at the scratch marks my wolf had left on the trunk of one of the trees lining the path we were taking into the woods. “But nothing is stopping you from using this trip back to Timber Ridge as an opportunity to pack up your stuff and bring it back here.”