Alaskan Sanctuary by Teri Wilson Page A

along with that little girl. He didn’t have to pretend that he was okay. Because he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be okay ever again.
    Alone, he’d disappeared into the void. Unmoved. Unfeeling. Unbelieving.
    Then this morning he’d seen that can of paint in Piper’s shed, and he’d almost believed something other than mere chance had put it in his path. Maybe he did believe. Either way, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it.
    Still, he knew he had to tell her what the graffiti had said. He had no right to keep it from her.
    Killers.
    He took too long cleaning the paintbrush while she stood over him, watching, waiting. Too long to brush the snow off the lid of the paint can. When he finally ran out of tasks to prolong the inevitable, he stood and faced her, fully intending to do the right thing.
    But the Piper he found looking back at him wasn’t one he recognized. The Piper he’d come to know in the past few days was fearless, as much wolf as woman. The Piper standing in front of him here, now, didn’t look quite so bold. With her arms wrapped around herself, her fingertips peeking out from behind her fuzzy fingerless gloves, she had a suddenly gentle quality that made Ethan’s chest ache.
    Tell her.
    She blinked up at him through the softly falling snow—snow that felt like a prologue to something bigger. The promise of a coming storm. Looking into her eyes, he saw a world of untold stories, stories he wanted to hear her spin in a cozy cottage, with a fire in the hearth while snow beat against the windows.
    He inhaled a ragged breath and told himself these sudden feelings didn’t mean anything. He only wanted to protect her, to shield her from hurt and harm. Susan had called it his “superhero complex.” After the bear attack, he’d become obsessed. Or so she’d said. Always looking for someone to save, as if that could make amends for the one girl he hadn’t.
    His ex-wife couldn’t have been more wrong. Ethan knew with painful clarity that he was no hero. He couldn’t save the girl. He couldn’t even save himself. Just as he couldn’t be the one to save Piper Quinn.
    Tell her. She deserves to know what was written on her cabin.
    He opened his mouth, fully intent on confessing the last bit of information he’d withheld. But then he saw the slightest quiver in Piper’s lower lip. It was the tiniest of tremors, yet somehow it sent shock waves through Ethan’s soul. And he did the one thing he’d sworn to himself he would not do, despite the fact that it was all he could seem to think about since the moment she’d so gingerly touched his face. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
    He was unprepared for the way she felt in his arms. It was like holding the most beautiful of wild things. The brightest of butterflies. A bird of paradise. She was exquisite lightness and delicacy, and beneath her tenderness and her vulnerability beat the intensity of a hummingbird heart.
    Piper was no ordinary woman. And this was no ordinary embrace. Something about this was different. This wasn’t the product of a superhero complex. This was something else. Something warm and soft. Something that made Ethan’s heartbeat pulse loudly in his ears. Something that made him feel.
    For the first time in so many years, the numbness that had settled over him seemed to be melting away. He felt himself drowning in the scents of pine and peppermint. He felt the icicle bite of the wind in his hair. He felt the gentle kiss of wonderland snowflakes. He actually felt something.
    Something for the woman in his arms.
    No.
    No, no, no.
    He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to feel again, certainly not if those feelings had anything to do with a woman who made her home among wolves. And yet when she stiffened in his embrace, a surge of disappointment shot like an arrow to the center of his once-frozen heart.
    He released her and took a backward step. His arms felt strangely useless all of a sudden. Empty.
    Tell her. Do it