Running Free (Woodland Creek)(31)

There’s more going on than meets the eye in this Podunk town and I’ll be damned if I’m not the one who will blow the lid off the whole thing.





Frankie

“You’re going to school. End of discussion.”

Suzie pouts out her bottom lip and from the corner of my eye, I see Otis faltering. Damn weak old man’s about to cave and undermine my authority. Before he can start in on his homeschool bullshit, I cut him off with a wave.

“Suz, I know you don’t want to go to school. But you’ll do well to play with other kids,” I chide in a soft tone.

I know it’s hard, but she needs to be around other children. Now that she can control her shifting, it’s important that she has the most normal life she can have.

“What if they’re mean to me, Frankie?” Her chin quivers and I’m close to caving myself. Damn adorable little girl.

“Then I give you permission to bite them for being little shits.”

Her eyes widen and she bursts into a fit of giggles while Otis groans from beside me. I toss him a look that says, what. With a roll of his eyes, he shakes his head and leaves me to dealing with the child on my own.

“Fine, I’ll go if you let me come with you again to see Gun,” she concedes.

My belly flops at the mention of his name and my heart clenches in my chest. There’s no telling what he thinks about me. I ache knowing he believes it’s because he thought he did something wrong. Truth was, it was me who’d done something wrong. It was the full moon and I should have known that it would have been more difficult to control my shifting. For two years now, every full moon, I’ve been able to keep from involuntarily morphing into my Doberman form. But last night?

Last night, I was in heat. And overcome with hormones. So when midnight rolled around, I could feel myself changing — the darkness overwhelming me — and there was nothing I was going to be able to do to stop it. All I could do was haul ass away from him and stay away.

If only I could manage to stay away from him forever. He deserves some nice human girl like Casey. Someone who isn’t going to turn into a damn dog when he f*cks her.

“Fine,” I lie to Suzie, “we’ll see him soon.” More like never.

She squeals and runs off to go back to her artwork, leaving me in a big pile of guilty goo. The poor girl took to him the moment he picked her up at the animal shelter. Just remembering his sweet grin as he held her, negotiating information before handing her to me, has a smile playing at my lips.

Shit.

I miss him already and it’s only been a matter of no more than twelve hours. This shitty life I was given is unfair. Why couldn’t I have been a simple human like Gun?

A knock at the door has my heart thundering with a thousand emotions — all which revolve around the man who clutches my heart so delicately. I try to wash away the way he permeates every one of my senses even when I’m no longer around him. His sexy chuckle is a perfect memory in my mind. If I close my eyes, I can see his adorable lopsided grin. And if I sniff the air, I can almost smell his unique, clean scent.

When I open the door, I’m not surprised to see Luca. Even though I wanted it to be Gun, I knew it wouldn’t be. I’d called Luca earlier to get me the documents I’d need for Suzie to enroll in school.

“Hey, Frankie,” he says in the gruff voice that used to turn me on and now only warms me like reuniting with an old friend would.

“Hey, Luca. Did you get my stuff?”

He tugs some folded papers out of his back pocket and hands them to me. When I open it and read it, I groan.

“Suzie Aleen. My daughter. Really, Luca?”

His chuckle annoys me but I’m not angry with him. In fact, I allow myself a moment to pretend that she is my daughter.

“You just said get you some papers. You didn’t specify what they needed to say. I used my creative liberty to make up the rest. You’re welcome, babe.”

I wave him inside. “Want to come in? Hang out for a while?”

He shrugs his shoulders and smiles almost in a shy way at me. “Nah, actually, I have a date.”

Luca.

Date.

Ha!

I burst into hysterical laughter but when he doesn’t smile back, I realize he’s serious. “Shit, you’re kidding, right? You don’t date, Luca. I’m the closest thing you dated and by dated, I mean, you took me to your place and f*cked me until I couldn’t walk.”

He frowns and his eyes flicker with frustration. “Sure, make me feel like an *. I know I did you wrong, Frankie. I’m sorry. I’ll always be sorry. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to become a better person. Besides, Casey drives me f*cking crazy being all perfect and shit. She deserves a man who’s better than I am. So, I’ll try and be that man because dammit, I want her.”

The smile on my lips falls. “Just because you want her, doesn’t mean you should have her. She’s an innocent human woman. I’m sure some human man will—”

He cuts me off with a growl at the mention of another man. “There will never be any other man.”

I narrow my eyes at him. Despite his furious glare, something dances behind his eyes. I know the expression because I’ve seen it in my own eyes.

“Noooo… ” I gasp out.

He shakes his head and another shy smile is on his lips. The look is so unlike Luca but it’s adorable.