The You I've Come To Know (A Mother's Love Book 1) Read online

  “Actually, I never played soccer. But when I was eleven, I wanted it more than I wanted to breathe.”

  More than she wanted to breathe. The highway rolled by beneath his wheels and Joel wondered what soccer had to do with what Willa’d really wanted. “No cleats then I take it. Just ugly white ruffles.”

  “They weren’t that ugly. They just didn’t go well with skateboards and go-carts. Have you ever tried to get tire tread marks out of yellow dotted Swiss?”

  A tomboy. Not surprising. “No. But I know how hard it is to get blood out of a white velvet Easter dress. Jen used to pick on me like she was a starving dog and I was the only bone for miles around.”

  “And one day you picked back?”

  “Not picked. Punched. Or tried to. Mine landed short. Hers was right on the nose.”

  Willa grimaced. “Your nose?”

  “Yep. My nose. My blood. Her white dress.”

  “But you were the boy so the fight was your fault”

  “You got it. One size fits all, remember?” He glanced her way then back at the road. “Those frogs and snails and puppy dog tails chafe after a while.”

  “Touché.”

  Joel drifted to the right to give more clearance to a passing car. “Jen and I grew up more as friends than siblings. Which meant when we fought it was fast and furious but short-lived. The battles she waged with Carolyn seemed to last for years.”

  “I guess that’s not unusual for sisters.” She shrugged. “I had more male friends than female.”

  “It’s not too hard to figure out why.” He raised a brow at her questioning look. “Not if you made a habit of tossing bras into locker rooms.”

  She forced a shudder. “They say there are some experiences best lived through but once in a lifetime.”

  “Like an IRS audit?”

  “Ooh.” Turning her back to the passenger door, Willa propped her elbow on the top of the car seat that sat between them. “How bad was it?”

  Joel wondered if he could belt Leigh’s seat on the far right of the cab so Willa could sit closer. “Never had one. Never plan to.”

  “I don’t think they ask permission first.” She lifted one of Leigh’s curls, let the strands drift back to settle on top of the others. “But you go right ahead and dream.”

  It was really hard to keep both hands on the wheel. He wanted to touch Willa’s hair the way she was touching Leigh’s. He wanted to feel those wild strands spread over his bare chest.

  He shook his head. “Been there. Done that. My dream was to be a cop. And I got what I wanted.”

  “You don’t dream about anything else?”

  Her voice was soft, her words powerful. Kitten fur with a tiger’s bite. Joel felt the impact of both, the first on his senses, the second on his heart.

  He laughed off his reaction because it wasn’t real. His heart had nothing to do with this. This was all about enjoying Willa with his body and his mind.

  It certainly wasn’t about dreams he didn’t have.

  “Hey, whose interrogation is this anyway?” he groused.

  “I decided to take over since your concentration seems shot.”

  “How so?”

  “You just passed the turnoff for home.”

  Joel braked hard, then realized the effort was wasted. Like he was going to stop in the middle of the highway and back up? Criminy. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I need to make a run to the store if Scout here is going to have anything to eat this week. If you’ll push the basket while I hobble down the aisles, I won’t mention soccer again.”

  Willa couldn’t keep a straight face. “As long as I don’t mention dreams, you mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a Jimmy Cagney aside. “I’d tell you my dreams but—”

  “Then you’d have to kill me.” Willa interrupted, finishing his sentence.

  “Nah. Just kidnap you.”

  “I see,” she said and nodded as if she were thinking it over.

  He wanted her to think it over. And over. To consider the possibilities. To come up with ones he hadn’t thought of yet. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I’d have to keep you restrained, you know.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “With handcuffs.”

  “No doubt you keep several pairs on hand.”

  “Twelve.” He couldn’t help himself because just the idea was making him sweat.

  She squirmed in her seat. “You go through a pair a month, do you?”

  “When I’m lucky I go through two.”

  He arched a brow and glanced her direction. The color in her face was a dead giveaway. He had her where he wanted her. Almost

  She rolled her eyes and glanced at her watch, no-nonsense, black-banded, white-faced. He upped the ante because he wanted to see more of her. There was a lot of time left in the day and the games had just begun.

  “Okay. An offer you can’t refuse. A charcoal-grilled dinner of your choice.”

  He watched her mouth twitch and knew she was close. Also knew that what she was fighting, even more than time, was the very thing that assured him he would win this battle.

  He knew that by the look on her face when she turned her head, when she raised her lashes slowly, when he saw in her eyes a reflection of what he was feeling. The certainty that they were headed toward more than an afternoon spent shopping, an evening spent in front of the grill.

  “Well?” he prompted, because what had been anticipation was now alive and clawing a hole in his gut. He had to know.

  “It depends.”

  “On?” he prompted again.

  “On whether or not you’re planning for me to walk a mile for my supper.” She nodded toward his gas gauge. “You’re running on empty, Wolf Man.”

  Chapter Six

  JOEL BIT OFF A CURSE. “My schedule’s so out of whack I can’t even remember to fill up the damn truck.”

  It was hard for Willa to keep a straight face when she asked, “You schedule your fill-ups?”

  Joel frowned. “I don’t write ’em down on a calendar but, yeah. I gas up about the same time each week. Why?”

  “Same time, huh? Same station, too?” Willa’s eyebrows went up.

  Joel’s went further down. “Usually. Why?”

  “No reason, really. Just struck me as obsessive-compulsive. Or anal-retentive. Perhaps a combination of the two, though I suppose you could just be a creature of habit.” He was so incredibly easy to tease. Not to mention a good sport about her doing just that.

  “Trust me, Doctor. It’s really not that complicated. Just call it a rut and you’ll be battin’ a thousand.” He signaled a turn at the next intersection, pulling into the parking lot of a no-name convenience store that squatted like a small hut in a wooded clearing. As ramshackle as it appeared, she was surprised the pumps even worked. Or that Joel would trust the gas.

  The truck rolled to a stop beneath the pump island’s canopy and Joel killed the engine. He draped his arm over the seat and leaned back into his door. “How’s this for spur of the moment? Different bat time, different bat station, even.”

  “Such excitement. Do you think you can stand it?”

  “The experience will make a new man out of me.” He shot Willa a quick wink and climbed from the truck, adding, “Hold yourself back. If you can,” before slamming the door.

  “I’ll do my best,” Willa said and grinned.

  While Joel worked the nozzle into the tank with one, two, three hollow ringing whangs, she turned her attention to Leigh, giving the baby’s tummy a quick coochie-coo. “What a silly uncle you have. Don’t you think?”

  Leigh flung her head back and forth with exaggerated baby enthusiasm until even Willa grew dizzy. She laughed. “You’re right. Silly’s hardly the word. Now, sexy’s a good one.”

  Good, yes, but hardly enough. Willa glanced out the rear window at Joel. Sexy was too impersonal, too generic, too conveniently used. It didn’t take into consid
eration all that he was.

  Sexy had nothing to do with the way he looked at her, flirting shamelessly with eyes that teased so well, or tentatively tossing out less obvious glances. A few she caught. Others she purposefully chose to let fall in a wily female test of fertile ground.

  Sexy had nothing to do with the words he spoke, the come-ons aimed with a sniper’s accuracy, the sense of humor that tickled and taunted, the dropped bombs that landed with explosive intention and gave her thoughtful pause.

  Sexy had nothing to do with his heart, which was probably more vulnerable than suited a wolf’s sense of survival. He’d exposed the roots of his wariness, a telling weakness in an otherwise safeguarded den, where feelings for family huddled.

  No, sexy was not that all-encompassing, that comprehensive, that... complete or complex. Sexy was too shallow a description for a man like Joel Wolfsley... yet he was the absolute epitome of the word.

  I’ve lost my ever lovin’ mind. And it was all his sexy fault.

  Willa returned her attention to Leigh who bounced up and back against the seat restraints. Her chatter knob turned to full volume, the baby jabbered and pointed at the store window’s bright neon signs.

  “You like the scenery, do you? Well, it gets better, girlfriend.” Willa tickled Leigh’s soft neck and teased her with a kiss dropped on the tip of her nose “Just wait till you’re my age. By then you’ll have a true appreciation of the view.”

  And what a view it was. Joel had one big hand splayed on the face of the gas pump, the other squeezed the nozzle out of sight. That she couldn’t see those fingers didn’t matter because what she could see was telling enough—his biceps and his shoulders and the flex of muscles as he changed the pressure and position of his hold.

  And then his face, his focus, changed, too. Where before his gaze had moved from the pump gauge to the storefront to the highway traffic and back, it now narrowed and hardened and remained trained toward the neon lights that had so captivated Leigh’s attention.

  Even when he shut off the pump, reseated the nozzle, and capped his tank, he did it all by rote. His mind was elsewhere, beyond the moment and the task of pumping gas. He opened the driver’s side door then and reached for his cane.

  Willa wasn’t sure what was wrong, but it had to be big to set off the tic in his jaw, the pulsing vein at his temple. Maybe it was his leg? Or the aggravation of the card reader being out of order, though that hardly seemed like Joel... “Why don’t you let me go in and pay—”

  “No. I’ll do it.” His tone slapped her back in her seat. The wolf in his eyes kept her there.

  Now she was worried. “Joel?”

  Hackles raised, teeth bared, he raised a hand. “Hush, Willa. Just do what I say.”

  And now she was frightened. She gripped the padded edge of Leigh’s car seat with one hand, braced the other flat on the dash and nodded.

  “Good. Now, open the glove compartment and slide my gun across the seat. Slowly.”

  Gun? Oh, God. His gun? Her hand slid down the dash. She did what he asked, squeezing upward on the latch. The compartment door bounced on its hinges.

  “Slowly, Willa. That’s it,” he crooned when she pulled out the holstered semi-automatic. “Slide it across the seat like you’re passing me a love note in class.”

  Any other time, she would’ve smiled. The reality of the gun, however, had stolen her sense of humor. Holding her palm flat on the leather-wrapped package, she guided it beneath Leigh’s dangling feet until Joel’s hand covered hers.

  He felt like safety and security and, gun or no gun, she trusted him with her life.

  “Okay, Baby. I’m going in to pay for the gas.” He pulled the weapon from the holster, checked the cartridge, then tucked it into the small of his back beneath his shirt.

  “What do you want me to do?” Willa whispered.

  His mouth smiled, his eyes did not. “There’s a question you’re gonna have to ask me when I have the time to answer. For now...” Nodding more to himself than to her, he jerked his chin toward the air and water hoses that writhed like a nest of black snakes at the far edge of the lot. “Crawl across the seat here and back the truck up to the air pump. I think I’ve got a low tire.”

  His tire was about as low as Leigh’s sudden high-pitched squeal. Willa shushed the baby and reached for her door handle.

  “No,” Joel growled. “Don’t get out. Just climb over the screamer here and drive.”

  Willa did as she was told, banging her knee on the steering wheel before sliding her butt into the seat. She looked through the truck’s open window at Joel. His gaze shifted between the storefront and—oh, damn—the kid in the backward ball cap fidgeting near the bank of old pay phones near the edge of the building.

  “You’ve got your cell phone, right?” he asked, and she nodded, then whispered, “Yes.”

  Again his eyes darted from point A to point B. This time, though, he took in her face. “Back up the truck. Swing it around but don’t cut the engine. Then pop the hood. Whatever you do, don’t touch your phone until the hood’s up between you and the store. Then dial 911.”

  He slapped the truck door as he hobbled slowly away. Hobbled more now, in fact, than he had at any time during the day. Willa swallowed the anxiety that burned from the back of her throat to the center of her chest, then turned over the engine, and shifted into reverse.

  She angled the truck back, though not exactly as Joel had instructed, navigating with only half her attention and keeping him in sight as she braked to a stop and parked. The other half was caught between Joel and the lookout, which is what the kid had to be. She popped the hood, made the call, then peered around the hood’s edge at the store.

  Nervously, the killed pulled one hand from the deep pocket of his baggy low-riding jeans, scratched at the back of his neck, swiped at his nose, and watched Joel’s approach, hopping from one foot to the other like a drab flamingo with a nervous twitch.

  The closer Joel drew the more the kid hopped until he hopped right up to the glass storefront and rapped his knuckles on the window. Mission accomplished, he backed away and kept backing until he backed into a primered Camaro parked at a cockeyed slant and, judging by the smoky white exhaust, still running.

  A robbery. Joel was walking into a robbery. He was armed, yes, but not operating at full capacity. The extent of his limp drove that fact home. Drove home as well what felt like a branding iron searing a new taste of danger into Willa’s mouth.

  She ran her tongue over dry lips, wishing for water to wash away the hot metallic taste, wondering if fear had a smell as sharp and biting. God, what was Joel feeling? Anything like this? Did his heart pound? Did his palms sweat? Or were his wolf’s senses too keenly honed?

  He’d reached the sidewalk now and, leaning heavily on his cane, headed toward the lookout with the step/half step of his exaggerated limp. He gestured toward the Camaro with his free hand. The kid nodded, glanced at the car behind him, hopped forward, looking confused. His glance darted from Joel to the car to Joel to the storefront.

  That’s when the door shot open. Another kid, equally shaggy and baggy pushed through, a paper bag in one hand, a big lug of an antique pistol in the other. Willa gasped, her skin prickling, her blood rushing frantically through her veins. She reached for Leigh’s tiny arm and squeezed.

  Joel’s cane cut a hard upswing into the wrist of the thief’s gun-wielding hand. Gripping his injured wrist and the bulging bag, the kid never saw the downward blow to the back of his head that sent his face scraping the sidewalk and the bag splitting to spill green bills like celebratory confetti.

  The lookout saw it all; saw, too, his partner’s gun where it had finished its slide across the pavement at the Camaro’s front tire. He took one step forward then stopped in his tracks. The barrel of Joel’s gun directed him down to his knees then flat to his front, his hands laced behind his head.

  The store clerk stumbled out then, holding a wad of brown paper towels to his forehead. At Joel’s d
irection, the man kicked the would-be thief’s gun out of reach beneath the car then cut the Camaro’s engine, and handed Joel the keys.

  Lights flashed at the edge of Willa’s vision. Two county cruisers slid into the parking lot. Gravel spewed from beneath the four rear wheels. The cars squealed to a stop at either end of the Camaro, canceling the getaway car’s flight plan.

  Guns drawn, the sheriffs hit the ground and played out the cops and robbers scene with Hollywood precision. Willa found herself directing their moves; the call for Joel to back away, hands up, gun placed slowly on the ground.

  Willa couldn’t hear the verbal exchange, but Joel obviously preferred to compromise. He lifted his cast and cane from the bag man’s back, placed his gun on the ground at his feet, and produced the required ID. The exchange satisfied the sheriffs, one of whom cuffed the shaggy duo while the second questioned both Joel and the store clerk.

  Willa wanted nothing more than to get a closer look and listen—unless it was to get the hell out of there. Morbid fascination was a curious thing and kept her where she was. Besides, she’d just had her first glimpse of the Big Bad Wolf in action. And she was intrigued.

  She turned to Leigh whose earlier fidgeting had been quieted by the loud squealing of tires. “Well, Sweetie. What do you think of that? The Big Bad Wolf saved the day.”

  Half-asleep, Leigh gave a gurgling sigh.

  “Yeah,” Willa answered as overwhelming pride replaced her fear, as respect won out over worry, as admiration grew into more than an appreciation of wide shoulders and big broad hands. Still, she wanted to hit him for scaring the wits out of her. “He’s my hero, too.”

  A half hour later, her hero shook hands with the arresting officers and, sans limp, headed for the truck. Interesting that, Willa thought. The cunning way he’d taken advantage of an injury that wasn’t quite as debilitating as he’d allowed the bad guys to believe.

  Interesting too, how he’d first done his best to get her and Leigh out of harm’s way. Interesting most of all, was what she felt, watching him draw closer, reading his face for signs of his reaction now that the danger had passed.