Wild at Heart (Wild, #2)

by K.A. Tucker

“I can’t believe you’re here.” Suddenly, spending our first Christmas together at the dead-animal hotel doesn’t seem so appalling. “Of course, I’m here. As if I was gonna let you get stuck, alone, on Christmas.”

“Look at me,” he demands softly. After a moment of reluctance, I do. His blue eyes are severe as they pin me down. “I can’t remember what it feels like not being in love with you, Calla.”

He cups my chin with his palms. “You were made for me. I am madly in love with you, Calla Fletcher.”

“Okay. So, two more weeks. That’s nothing.” “And then I’m officially unemployed.” “Join the club. On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”

“I’ll have the bison burger and the pale ale on tap.” Jonah folds the lodge’s menu and hands it back to Chris. “And Calla will have a steak knife to drag across my jugular.”

I plaster on an innocent smile and pat the extra-large yellow rubber gloves on the counter. “Because these are for you, to scrub the drunk-man pee off that bathroom floor up there.” He slips my glass from my hand and scoops me into his arms. “Told you, Calla, I don’t care. I have you and my planes, we have this place …” His eyes are bright and wistful as they roam the beams in the pitched ceiling. “We have it all.”

“Don’t get too close for the sake of a picture,” Mom warns. “Even a moose can turn on you.” “I don’t think that’s something we need to worry about with Calla,” Simon says dryly.

“They can have bunk beds.” “That’d work for two of them. What about the other six?” he says with a solemn tone, his brow furrowed intently on the picture of him and my father on the About page I built for The Yeti website. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the animal you’re breeding with. Maybe she has a den somewhere that can fit them all in.”

“You know better than to change plans without calling it in!” He said as much, that day we left the safety cabin and went on a run to find the missing hikers. He knew my father and Agnes would be unhappy with him, but he did it anyway. Now, as the person sitting by the phone, waiting for news from him—as the only person keeping track of his comings and goings—I appreciate what an asshole he is when he does it.