The Snow Leopard's Heart (Glacier Leopards 4)

“Don’t tell anyone else about me,” she warned him. “Or I’m gone.” She was still afraid of this alpha he’d mentioned, this old, traditional man. What would he think about some young pack member inviting random girls to stay? That seemed like asking for trouble.

“I won’t,” Joel promised her. He paused for a long minute, like he was going to say something else, or do something else, and then he shook himself and headed for the door at speed—but still with that rangy grace Nina remembered from the night before.

She stared after him. What was happening? Who was he, that he wanted her around, wanted it badly enough to argue with her about it, when no one else ever had?

Nina could still feel the edge of panic in her body, the desire to run before she got hurt again. But even though she was about sixty percent sure the hurt was coming...she wanted to stay and see if she was wrong.

Forty percent hope was more than she’d had in a long, long time, anyway.

***

Joel felt almost weak with relief. And glad that he’d taken his lunch break to come out to the diner, because it was clear that Nina had been planning to get out of town as soon as possible—maybe she’d only come in to get her paycheck and leave.

He almost hadn’t convinced her. For a minute, he’d been certain that Nina was going to tell him to go screw himself and take off. She’d had a hard, suspicious glint in her eyes, like she’d been hurt before and she had good reason not to trust anyone telling her she was welcome.

He wondered what her story was. He badly wanted to know where she’d come from, how she’d ended up here at Glacier.

And especially why she was all alone, and hiding.

Joel had been lucky that when his parents died, he still had Zach to take care of him. Five years older, Zach had worked like a dog to make sure they had enough money while Joel went to high school, and then he’d come along with Joel to study to be a ranger.

If Joel hadn’t had Zach, his life would have looked very, very different. He’d have ended up in foster care at age thirteen. He wouldn’t have had any family at all. He might never have gotten together the money and the courage to go for his dream, to be a ranger.

He might’ve ended up all alone, with no friends or family, no idea where to find other shifters, and suspicious of the world. Like Nina seemed to be.

Joel looked over his shoulder at the diner one more time. What if she’d been lying, and she skipped out anyway? The thought made his leopard growl, his insides clench with the need to stop it from happening.

But he didn’t think she’d been lying. Something about her suggested truth—her voice, her eyes, her body language, something. She’d meant what she said.

Joel headed back to work, wishing the day was over already.

Of course, it stretched out forever. Joel thought about going to Cal and casually bringing up the idea of someone else joining the pack...but Cal would see through that. And Nina had been insistent about only talking to him, not to anybody else. He couldn’t betray the little bit of trust she was giving him.

So he kept quiet. He was out with Grey surveying campsites again, so there wasn’t much opportunity for chatter in any case.

When he got off work, he went home instead of to the cabin, just for the distraction. Zach and Teri were making dinner.

“He shows his face,” Zach said in mock-surprise when Joel came in.

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel grumbled, poking at a pot on the stove. Spaghetti sauce, it looked like.

Zach set down his spoon and caught Joel’s eye, turning serious. “What was that last night, Joel? You disappeared on us. Grey had to eat your burger.”

What to say? Why had he left? He’d been spooked by how strongly he’d reacted to Nina, but that was a pretty dumb reason for running out on Zach and the rest.

Now that he knew who she was, he could guess that he’d subconsciously recognized her as the strange leopard he’d been scenting, and it had unsettled his inner leopard to see her there in a restaurant serving drinks.

But he couldn’t say that to Zach.

He’d promised Nina, and if he explained, Zach would want to talk to Nina himself, and Teri would definitely want to come too, and they’d both want to tell Cal.

There was a smaller, stranger part of Joel that didn’t want to tell Zach because he wanted to be the one to talk to Nina. To convince her to stay. He didn’t want her to fall into the crowd of Zach-and-Teri, Grey-and-Alethia, and Jeff-and-Leah, while Joel stayed on the outside, surly and alone.

That was probably stupid. It sounded petty even in his own head. But it was true.

“I was about to get into it with one of those drunk assholes,” Joel said instead. “They were harassing the waitress. I got them to stop, but they were being aggressive and disrespectful and I decided to get out of there before I got into a fight.”

Zach frowned. “Joel, you know getting into fights is—”