Her Protective Mate (The Ward Wolf Pack Novella Series, Book 3), Theresa Hissong [i can read books TXT] 📗

at a lake not far from here,” he supplied. “How do you feel about heading out for a little hike?”

“Let’s go,” she beamed. “It’s been a while since I’ve fished.”

He told her to get her things together, and he left to gather two poles and a small tackle box. They’d fish for whatever they could find and have that for dinner. If they came back empty handed, he had some of the moose they’d harvested a few days earlier he could make a meal with to feed her before bed.

“The lake is full of fish,” he said as they walked. “It’s one of the reasons why I picked this land.”

“Why did you come out here?” she asked as they walked.

He knew the question would come up eventually, and he wasn’t going to lie to her. His decision to move to Alaska was to save his own life.

“I moved out here to get away from humans,” he admitted, chuckling when she paused in her steps. “Yes, Aspen. Much like you, I wanted to hide.”

“Where are you from?” she continued.

“I was born and raised in a bad part of Chicago. Most, if not all, of my immediate family were drug addicts, and by the time I was eighteen, I’d fallen into their footsteps. I didn’t want to live like that, and I just so happened to see a show on television about life in Alaska. There was no hesitation on my part. I put everything I could into a backpack and sold what little I had. I was able to get a bus ticket as far as Spokane, and that’s where I worked for two years to save up enough money to buy this land.”

“That was a lot of work to save up for land,” she mused.

He moved a limb out of the way and allowed her to pass ahead of him. “I bought a cheap car and lived in it the entire time.” He shrugged when she stopped to face him. “I didn’t have to pay for housing that way, and I saved almost everything I had earned doing construction work. Having that knowledge helped me when I moved out here and built my cabin.”

“That had to be awful for you…living in a car.” She shivered.

“It really wasn’t,” he promised. “It was a new experience, and it kept me out of trouble. I knew if I fucked up, I’d lose my car, and my car was my only way of getting from Washington to Alaska. I cherished everything I had, and I still do.”

They quieted as they walked, and even though he knew Aspen could hear an animal coming a mile away, Booker still watched his surroundings to keep her protected.

“Can you smell wild animals or hear them first?” he asked. There was so much he needed to learn about her, and he felt like there wasn’t enough time to get everything in one day.

“Usually, we hear them,” she admitted as they reached the lake. “Scent works on the wind, and if we are in the woods, sometimes it gets blocked by the forest. Natural animals give no care about making sounds, unlike a shifter. A shifter has the ability to be silent when they move around.”

“That’s not very different than when I’m hunting,” he added, setting the poles against a tree along the shoreline. He set his bag on the ground and squatted in front of it, removing a few lures for them to use to entice the fish to bite the hook.

“The senses are very important,” she added.

“You know?” He paused when he stood. “I’ve never told anyone about my past.”

“Your past is your business,” she replied. “Thank you for trusting me enough with it, and I respect your decision to move away. It had to be hard to make the first step of leaving your family.”

It felt good to tell her about his previous life, and his heart warmed a little from her acceptance.

“Let’s fish and find us a meal for the night,” he offered, changing the subject. He didn’t want to muddle their time with talk of the things he'd been through.

They spent the rest of the afternoon fishing and lounging by the lake. Aspen was very experienced with working her bait, catching and handling her catch. By the time they had enough for two meals, she stretched and hid a yawn behind her hand.

“You look like you could use a nap,” he announced. “We have enough for dinner. Why don’t we head back?”

“I could use a little rest,” she agreed. “Mind if I crash on the couch for about half an hour?”

“I’ll clean the fish while you sleep,” he replied with a smile. The thought of her being there, sleeping while he prepared food for her, just solidified his need to keep her with him for a lot longer than one day.

She would be leaving early the next morning, and he didn’t know when he’d see her again. If he had his way, he’d call her brothers and tell them he was falling in love with her and ask her to stay forever.

Chapter 7

She slept for longer than she’d wanted to that afternoon, but Booker didn’t seem to mind when she woke up and found him outside, splitting wood at the back of his immediate property.

Her eyes traced his body, and she liked what she saw. For a human male, he was built like a shifter, and without his shirt on, the sight of him raising the ax over his head, using his strength to break the wood into pieces, did something to her body, and her wolf was panting with need to just go over there and lick his hot skin.

She gritted her teeth to keep her canines from growing to show how much he affected her. As it was, she wanted