“I wasn’t scared, I was … startled. I’m sorry, Ridge. This is not a good time to talk.”
He maintained his position, keeping her from closing the door. “You scarred me, Abigail. To my core. And that scar has kept you in my mind.”
“Then why didn’t you come to me sooner? It’s been thirteen years, and all of a sudden you want to start things with me again?”
“I didn’t suggest that—”
“Does this have something to do with you taking over as principal of the Northern pack? Don’t tell me you need a wifey to—”
“You already are my wife, Abigail. And it’s not because of the pack.”
He stopped, not wanting to lie to her. Of course it was for the pack. His life revolved around trying to rescue the pitiful remnants of a pack he held in his charge.
“Could we please talk face-to-face? It’s below zero out here.”
“I understand wolves handle the cold well.”
They did, but that didn’t mean he didn’t prefer a warm living room. Did the woman not have a compassionate bone in her body?
“Did you bring along divorce papers?”
He tapped his coat pocket. “If I came at a bad time—”
Silence crackled like the ice lining the rain gutters overhead, crisp and foreboding.
“Doesn’t take more than a minute to sign some silly papers, does it?” She swung the door open. “Hurry. Get inside.”
Sensing an odd urgency about her, Ridge crossed the threshold and stomped his boots on the rug to shake off the snow from the treads, but he kept his senses dialed on high alert. The house was indeed cozy and warm.
The black cat sitting on the back of a blatantly pink sofa took one look at him, hissed and darted out of the room.
“Didn’t much care for you, either,” he commented, and followed Abigail through to the kitchen, where she grabbed a black leather purse to mine for a pen. “That your familiar?”
“What? Swell Cat? I don’t do familiars, nor do I summon demons. He’s just a regular, un-shifting mutt of a cat—who doesn’t like dogs.”
At the unsavory remark, his jaw tightened. Wolves did not like to be called dogs, or even hear finely veiled references. But he’d shackle his anger because he respected Abigail’s power and knew it took but a gesture from her to put out some kind of magic he didn’t know how to fight.
He scented a metallic, smoky flavor on the air and his eyes went straight to a blackened outlet that had soot streaks crawling out in all directions along the wall.
“Electrical problem?”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t in the mood to talk, rooting around in her purse to keep her eyes off him. Fine. He knew this wasn’t easy for either of them.
She was as gorgeous as he remembered her. But behind the alluringly cool beauty and sexy figure lurked a wicked maelstrom of magic.
He remained by the wall, not about to step too close to the witch, who paced back and forth before the counter as if she were looking for something, or had forgotten to pack something. Electrical problem? Yeah, right. There was something about Abigail and electricity—but he wasn’t sure how it worked.
“What is it?” he asked, sure her nervousness wasn’t simply from him being here. “You look like the devil Himself is arriving for a visit.”
“Don’t invoke that bastard.”
“Sorry.” Say the devil’s name three times, and—look out. “Something’s wrong, Abigail, and I’m getting the feeling it has nothing to do with your long-forgotten husband showing up on your doorstep.”
She flashed him a gaze that told him she would have never put such a label to him. Nor would he. Why had he said that? He shouldn’t claim a title he’d never earned.
Something about standing in her presence was loosening his resolve to get the divorce papers signed and get out of Dodge. Something that he saw reflected as sadness in her gorgeous eyes. He’d forgotten her beauty. Her compelling presence. Those sexy bow lips. He was a real pushover for women in distress, and had the scars to prove it.
“Can you tell me about it?”
“Something is wrong.” She pushed shaky fingers through the thick spill of hair that beamed blue within the black as the cruel winter sun shone through it. He’d not remembered its brilliance or that it looked so liquid, as if he could swim in it. “The worst wrong of all wrongs, that’s all.”
“Then this can wait.” He tapped his coat where he’d tucked the divorce papers.
“No, I …” She stopped before him, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her eyes unwilling to meet his. Everything about her was tense and wrapped up and not the normal Abigail that he barely knew.
Every instinctual alert inside him screamed that the woman was in trouble.
Then suddenly she locked onto his gaze. Her eyes twinkled, and an eyebrow lifted, as if a devious plot had just hatched. “You’re about the most honorable werewolf in the area. You’re strong and smart.”
“That remains to be seen. My pack is dwindling faster than you can howl at the moon. I wouldn’t say that makes me the smartest pack leader around.”
“You defended the vampires by taking out your own pack principal.”
He looked down and aside, his eyes tracking the water puddles from his boots. He didn’t need to be reminded of what he’d done to win his position, but no wolf in the area would let him forget it. Opinions on his honor and smartness varied wildly, from doing the right thing, to being a traitor to his breed.
He’d only done what was necessary.
“You’re like some kind of chivalrous knight or something,” she continued with the weird praise. “I’ve seen warriors like you in the sixteenth century. You ooze nobility and valor, Ridge. And damn, you are looking fine lately. You work out?”
The comments felt so wrong coming from a known sneaky witch who had taken joy in the painful act of shackling the magic of a vampire tribe leader not months ago. “What are you getting at?”
She pressed her fingers over his jacket. The papers beneath crinkled. Her pale pink lips parted. Sexy, thick lips that glinted with gloss. Had those delicious lips ever kissed him? His memory was a little fuzzy on all the details from Vegas.
Ridge hoped she couldn’t hear the pound of his heart over the crinkling of the paper, because right now it beat a thunderous pace at her closeness. He was two parts fearful of her power and two parts ready to shove her against the wall and kiss her in a way he’d never gotten to kiss her in Vegas.
Why were the details so lacking?
“You want me to sign the divorce papers?” she asked with a forced tone of sweetness. Ridge’s red alert prickled the hairs at the base of his neck. What was she playing at?
“That was my objective in setting foot on your property and risking further damage to my delicates.”
“Your delicates?”
“You put a damned spell on me that night in Vegas, Abigail. Because of it, I am now unable to have kids.”
She cast a wondering gaze over his face, not meeting his eyes. He wanted that connection, to look into her and read her sincerity, if it existed.
“I did no such thing. Not on purpose.” She looked aside, then as if an afterthought added, “Hell, I’m sorry. But you deserved it for freaking me like that.”
“I deserved emasculation?”
“I