Page 33 of Song Bird Hearts (Green River Hearts #4)

Wolf

S he smells like pine and vanilla today. The vanilla from her shampoo, the pine from Knox’s cologne. I don’t hate the smell.

I watch her from the porch, a mug of Earl Grey tea in my hand, the steam curling up like a ghost from between my fingers.

Valerie Decatur is twenty feet away, barefoot in the dewy grass, her flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows as she carries a basket of eggs up the steps like they’re made of glass.

I should be doing something, maybe pretending to join in the domestic activities that everyone else is.

Hell, I could probably go help Gilden wrangle that godforsaken llama that keeps spitting on him.

Just yesterday the brown and white beast waited until Gilden wasn’t paying attention to come up and spit on the back of his head.

Now they’re in a literal war for dominance.

Speaking of the devils, Gilden comes running up on the porch, the llama not far behind.

“Back off, Sir Spits-a-Lot!” Gilden snarls. When I raise my brow at him, he adds, “Yeah, I knighted him with my dignity when he hawked in my face.”

“It’s just a llama,” I point out, entertained.

“Don’t let the fluff fool you,” he growls. “He’s got evil in his bones and a complex the size of Texas for a beast who can’t even clear a fence.”

Sir Spits-a-lot tries to get him, but Gilden smacks him away playfully. “Begone, foul beast!”

Valerie giggles from the kitchen as she witnesses the tail end of the conversation after placing the basket inside, her eyes bright as she comes out and takes in the scene. “I think you made a best friend, Gilden.”

“A friend would never treat me like this drama cow does,” Gilden says, but there’s laughter in his voice, belying his clear affection for the creature.

Instead of butting in or helping, I just watch Valerie.

I’m always watching her.

Because obsession isn’t about staring; it’s about knowing. How her laugh always comes with a shoulder twitch. How she bites her lip when she’s thinking too hard. How she keeps reaching for her phone even though she’d turned it off to avoid checking all the notifications constantly.

I’ve memorized her, and I don’t want to share her. Not with the world. Not even with them.

But I will. Because I’d rather slice open my own throat than lose what I’ve found here.

The ranch feels like a fever dream.

Knox is sharpening his pocketknife under the awning, his muscles coiled like fire.

His eyes trail over to Valerie while he sharpens it, as if he’s thinking about ways to use it on her.

Gilden has straw in his hair and is loudly arguing with Sir Spits-a-Lot who responds by spitting in his face. Again.

“I swear on my mother’s pearl-handled-pistol,” Gilden hisses. “I will spit back, you evil cow!”

Kevin oinks in lazy protest nearby, belly-up to the sun. He’s an easy pet, one who’s happy for some bites of food and a bit of attention before sleeping the rest of the time.

It’s. . . normal. Domestic, even. And it guts me.

Because this —this fragile, fractured family—they haven’t just let me in. They’ve welcomed me in now. They feed me. They trust me. And it’s me who’s going to throw the match on the gasoline.

I should’ve left days ago.

But how do you leave something you’ve already claimed?

I don’t just love her. I need her.

Like a wolf needs the moon.

* * *

Sometime after noon, I’d offered to help Knox fix a fence post out at the gate someone had accidently backed into.

I haven’t been able to shake the feeling of foreboding that’s been crashing over me since this morning, and when the low growl of an unfamiliar engine hits the gravel drive, I tense.

A black SUV pulls into the drive, no dust on the tires, a license plate with very few letters and numbers stamped into it.

Clearly government issued.

Even the windows are tinted so dark, no light could penetrate it.

Knox is already moving, his hand to his holster, his eyes hard.

When the door opens, my gut twists.

“Get your gun out,” Knox barks at me, ever the leader.

“I don’t need it,” I mutter, but my voice comes out too wrong, too low.

Too late.

The man who gets out of the SUV is as familiar to me as Valerie is, but for different reasons.

I’d learned everything about him out of necessity and survival.

When I see him, I know I’ve fucked up, that I waited too long, but for just a while, I wanted to pretend like I belong here, like this can be my new reality.

Valerie comes striding down the porch, Gilden at her side like a dog who’d given his loyalty from a shelter, as they take in the man wearing a pressed black suit in front of us.

“What is this? Men in Black?” Gilden asks, narrowing his eyes on the man even as his gun hovers at his side. “You got aliens hidin’ in there?”

“You can put your guns down,” the man says, pulling out a wallet and opening it to flash the badge inside. “I’m not the Foundation. I’m the Feds.”

“How do we know they aren’t one and the same?” Knox barks.

The man grins. “You’re not wrong to question it. Many government officials are in their pockets. It makes sense they’d have a hand in my organization, too. Rest assured though, that doesn’t include me.”

No one lowers their gun. As expected.

“What do you want?” Valerie asks him.

“You’re stirring up quite the shit show, Valerie Decatur.

Honestly, when I saw that first livestream, I thought you were a goner.

Yet here you are, alive and well, with a whole town to back you.

” He looks around appreciatively at the scene of the mountains.

“My higher ups are interested in helping as we’re able to.

” He grins. “Off record, of course. The 27 Foundation has long been a stain on this world’s soul, so, I thought I’d warn you that not everyone on your side is who they say they are. ”

Valerie tenses the same time I stop breathing. “What does that mean?”

“Oh geez. How do I put this in a way you’ll understand?” the man says, all good golly and innocent charm. “There’s a snake in your grass? There’s an enemy in your midst?”

Her eyes flick from the man to Knox, as if seeing if he knows what the man is talking about. Knox only shakes his head, just as confused.

The man’s eyes find mine where I stand silently and he grins wide. “Hey there, Wolf! Long time no see.” He winks at me. “Didn’t think I’d see you again after the Denver op.”

My name hits like a gunshot as everyone turns to look at me. Val’s eyes widen, her whole body going still. It hasn’t been confirmed, of course. Not yet, but it’s coming, because the man keeps talking.

And every word cracks the world open a little wider.

“He didn’t tell you?” the man asks, casual like a Sunday barbeque. “Wolf here works for the Foundation you’re fighting. Always has.”

Valerie’s shoulders tense so hard, it has to hurt.

She drops the dish towel she’d been holding, her eyes hard on where I stand next to Knox.

Knox, to his credit, doesn’t turn the gun to me.

He’d have every right to. But he doesn’t trust the man in the car just as much, and right now, he’s winning out.

It’s a bad call. I’m the bigger threat.

“Tell me he’s lying,” Knox snaps at me.

I don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t blink.

“Tell me he’s fuckin’ lyin’, Wolf!”

Taking a deep breath, I set the tool I’d been holding down. “He’s not,” I finally say quietly.

Valerie just looks at me. There’s no rage in her eyes, no accusation. She’s just silent.

It’s worse than a scream.

“You’re in the Foundation?” she asks, her voice steady despite what she’d just learned.

“Was. Am,” I admit. “Depending on who you ask.”

Knox’s bad decision to aim at the man in the SUV changes. He lunges toward me, and his fist connects with my jaw. I don’t try to dodge his strike. I deserve everything they give me. I don’t even flinch. I can’t. Not when she’s still looking at me.

The look she wears is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

“They approached me a few years ago, and because I was bored with life and mediocracy, I accepted,” I explain as I rub my jaw.

“I’ve never misled you to think I’m a good person.

” I jerk my thumb at the man grinning wide by his car.

“This guy really is part of the feds. I’ve had run ins with him over the years and that’s how he knows me.

I’ve done bad things. I’m not the good guy in any story.

I’ve had to kill to grow power, and money never comes without blood.

I’ve kept some people alive though. I kept you alive.

” I take a step toward her and she tenses, but I don’t stop.

“It started as a way to fight boredom, but then I saw you. Really saw you. And I realized you don’t just need protection.

You need people who would burn the world down for you. ”

“And you think you’re one of them?” Knox spits, angry. Now his gun points at me like it should.

“I know I am,” I say, my eyes locked on Valerie. “You know how I feel about you. You’ve tasted my loyalty.”

“And yet you never told me you were in the very organization trying to kill me,” she states.

Her voice still doesn’t shake, but I see it in her eyes now. Something has cracked. I did that.

“If I told you, you would’ve run,” I say, and it sounds pathetic now. I’m no better than the people who wilted her flowers to begin with. But I refuse to leave. I’ll be the stray dog that hides under the porch if that’s what it takes.

“Maybe,” she says. “But at least it would’ve been my choice.”

I reach for her when I’m close enough, but she takes a step back and Gilden steps forward to block my access to her. That step back breaks something deep inside me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, my voice hoarse.

“That’s not where my heart lies. It’s here.

With you. With this. I’ll bring you what you need if I’m able to.

Their operations, names, and funding. I’ll dismantle it from the inside.

It won’t be easy to get it. I’ll have to bleed. But I’ll bleed for you.”

Her eyes flicker, her bottom lip trembling. “I. . . I don’t want you to go,” she admits.

“I have to,” I tell her. “They’ll never trust me again otherwise.

You won’t.” I lean in close enough to breathe her in one more time, in case it’s the last time.

She’s wildflowers and whiskey and warm sin.

“I know what I am,” I whisper. “But I also know what I want. And it’s you. It’s this. Let me prove it.”

And then I turn and walk toward the black SUV, the asshole standing in front of it grinning ear to ear. He’s getting exactly what he wants if I succeed: Incriminating information about the Foundation.

For the first time in years, my hands are empty.

Because obsession can make you possess something, can make you hold it tightly in your hands.

But love?

Love makes you leave it behind, and pray it’ll still be waiting for you when you come back.