Beloved Wolf by Kasey Michaels Page A

by Joe and Meredith as a toddler. A cute baby, with bright red curls and a happy, smiling face. A giggle that had delighted everyone. It had been an eleven-year-old Emily who had been in the automobile accident with Meredith, and it was Emily who seemed the most affected by that accident. Not physically. No, she’d come out of the accident with only minor injuries.But something had happened that day. To Meredith. To Emily.
    The same something that had happened to all of the Colton family in the weeks and months and years after that accident, as Meredith changed, became distant, strange…and life on the ranch built for “joy” had gone dark and cold.
    Now Emily was all grown up, her fire-engine-red curls now a more subdued chestnut, thick and wavy as it fell down past her shoulders. She still had those same huge blue eyes, that same sweet and pretty face, those same dimples in her cheeks. But she was all grown up, and she had changed.
    â€œYes,” Emily said now, sitting down on the bottom of the bed, “I guess you did have a late night. I stopped by your room twice, and knocked, but you didn’t answer. I missed you at dinner. We all did.”
    â€œYou all did, Em? Now why do I doubt that? Why do I very seriously doubt that?”
    â€œMom,” Emily said, bowing her head. “You mean Mom, don’t you?”
    â€œCongratulations, Em, you made it past the preliminary round and into the finals. Now, would you like to see what’s behind door number two?” Sophie asked, then deliberately lifted her chin, pulled back her hair, and turned her left cheek toward Emily.
    Emily was all grown up in many ways, but she was still young, only nineteen, and she still had this way of often saying exactly what came into her head. “Oh, wow. He really got you, didn’t he?”
    Sophie let her hair fall back into place, wishing it longer, so that it could become a shoulder-length curtain covering the entire side of her face. “Yeah, Em. He really got me.”
    â€œDamn, Sophie, I’m so sorry,” Emily apologized quickly. “I didn’t mean that. It’s not bad, not bad at all. And Dad says you’ll be having plastic surgery soon. It’s just that I hadn’t expected it to be so long. I mean, that’s a big slice. You could have been killed. And you had to have been terrified.”
    â€œTo tell you the truth, Emily, I think I was too mad to be terrified. That took a little while, until after I was safe. Then, well, then I sort of fell apart. Into tiny, itty-bitty pieces, as a matter of fact.”
    Emily nodded. “You broke up with Chet. Yes, I heard. And took a leave of absence from your company. Well, you know, I think those were good things, Sophie.”
    Sophie smiled ruefully. “You’re glad I broke up with Chet? Really?”
    Emily was and always had been one of the most honest people Sophie had ever known, and she was sure she wouldn’t disappoint her now by hedging or saying something silly and meaningless. “Yes, Sophie, really. You’ll be much better off with River. Everyone knows that.”
    Okay, so Emily hadn’t disappointed her. She had, however, shocked her. “River? Everyone knows that?”
    Nodding, Emily continued, “Oh, sure. You should have seen him after you and Chet left after announcing your engagement during the Christmas holiday. Stomping around, kicking things, taking off into the hills for a week without telling anyone if or whenhe’d be back. Inez told me he’d been the same way when you first left for college. Mean and snarly and telling anyone who asked him what was wrong to just mind their own damn business.”
    Sophie shifted slightly on the mattress, moving so that she sat cross-legged, her hands on her ankles. “River doesn’t like to lose, that’s all. I think he much preferred to have me following him around, mooning over him like some lovesick calf.