Timberwolf (Elements of Danger Romance Book 3) Read online

  Timberwolf

  Elements of Danger

  Willa Brooks

  Copyright © 2022 by Willa Brooks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Ms. Judged

  Afterword

  Also by Willa Brooks

  Chapter 1

  One week after Ray Stevenson's funeral

  Someone knocked on my bedroom door while I slumped at my desk, scrolling through Chirp Vox headlines on my laptop. I got up and answered the door in my red pajamas with tiny Christmas trees printed on them–my feeble attempt at Christmas cheer.

  "Merry Christmas, Chica," cheered Marisol Rodriguez, my roommate, wearing a white tank and gray sweatpants. Her arm extended, holding a red envelope. Her vivid hazel eyes were set off by caramel skin and matching tight, wild, corkscrew curls.

  Marisol's doll-like appearance was a few inches shorter than my 5'6. Her petite frame made me feel like the Hulk in comparison. I was what some would consider voluptuous, but I felt dumpy most of the time.

  I arranged my lips in a smile and hoped it didn't look like a grimace, then said, "Merry Christmas to you too." I took her Yuletide offering, went over to my desk, and rifled through a stack of unopened Christmas cards to locate hers in the letter basket where my mail was stashed.

  "You planning on doing anything for today?" Marisol asked. Her eyes roamed to my tinsel-less walls in my jam-packed bedroom—contrasting her festive one. She knew I wasn't filled with cheer because she walked in on me crying over my boss, Mr. Stevenson's death last week, and helped me when Charlie showed up at our door. Since then, I didn't have the strength for much. The fact that I wore my Christmas pajamas demonstrated effort.

  I grabbed her envelope and handed it to her. "Probably going to phone my mom and watch TV all day," I answered.

  She tilted her head and said, "¡Oye! You can come with me to my friend Carlotta's. She cooks un desayuno auténtico de Puerto Rico." Authentic Puerto Rican breakfast.

  "Sounds delicious, but I don't feel like going out right now. Thanks for the offer, though."

  She pinched her lips, and her gaze traveled down to my pajamas. "But I leave in an hour if you change your mind, okay?" Her accent was heavy, but her English was coming along. She'd been living here for five years and had taught me a good deal of Spanish as well.

  "Okay, gracias."

  The honest grin that spread across her lovely face, lifted my mood a smidge. She did that when I attempted to speak Spanish. If it made her happy, then why not?

  After she left, I closed the door and turned the lock. It took only a few steps to cross the room. I nabbed a hair tie from a small mess of them on the tray on my dresser and slipped it around my wrist. Then I gathered the greasy tendrils of my ruby-red hair into a bun. I neglected washing it since the morning of Mr. Stevenson's funeral. Thank God for dry shampoo.

  Just thinking about that shitty day made me want to go to bed, pull the blanket over my head and sleep my stress away.

  Not only had Mr. Stevenson died, but that funeral reception was God awful. I had been concerned for Charlie's well-being since the night he showed up at the door in tears after his dad was shot.

  Marisol and I plied him with drinks and sent him home in an Uber because we didn't have a couch, and I sure as hell didn't want him in my bedroom.

  How he knew where I lived, I'll never know. Over the duration of our relationship, he'd never come over or had spoken to me that much.

  Seeing how we looked after him, only for him to treat me like trash at the reception, sent me down for the count. It was a betrayal, plain and simple, and every time it came to mind, I felt rage and despair in equal measure. Any positive feelings left towards Charlie, had vanished from the moment he basically told me to shove off in front of a crowd.

  Why this kind of stuff happened to me, I never understood. It was like I wore a sign over my head that said it was okay to treat me like shit.

  Luckily, I'll be on vacation next week, which was a relief because I could barely pull myself out of bed. One strategy that I implemented was turning up the volume on the alarm clock real high and placing it across the room so that I had to crawl out of bed to shut it off. Mom taught me to do that during my high school years when I was perpetually late making it to my first class, and the school phoned her while she was at work.

  Sitting down in the office chair, I ripped open Marisol's envelope and pulled out a Christmas card. It had a silhouette of Santa and his reindeer flying in front of the moon over snowy rooftops. Inside the card had a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate to Hidden Féminin, a lingerie shop. She received the same thing from me because it was our standing gift exchange agreement.

  I grabbed the envelope from the letter basket with the familiar Oregon address, tore it open, and pulled out the card. The picture on the front had a Santa and Mr. Clause sitting on a beach, holding a glass and sipping from a straw. Inside the card was a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Wonder Grill Steaks. It read:

  Merry Christmas, baby girl.

  Love,

  Mom.

  I pressed the card to my chest, then stood them up in the center of the dresser along with Marisol's card making them my sole Christmas decoration.

  My phone rang with a new text notification. The time on the digital clock read 8:57 a.m, which meant that it was 5:57 a.m. back home, and Mom wouldn't call that early, even though we hadn't spoken in a while.

  I went to the side table by my bed, picked up my phone, and Troy's name was on the notification.

  My stomach bottomed out.

  After punching in my code, his message appeared on the screen.

  Troy Hanes: Miss you. Miss those giant tits of yours. Call me.

  Just like that, I felt like someone spat on me. I turned off the phone as unease slithered up my spine. Since the funeral, he sent similar texts. My plan was to ignore him and hope he lost interest. I had no desire to be the side chick to a married man, especially to one as mean as Troy.

  In Charlie's case, we were seeing each other before he dated Carol Lynne, but he wanted to keep it a secret.

  Why?

  No clue.

  At first, I thought he was trying to role-play because we met in his office every Friday for a hookup, but he dismissed me after we were done. I hoped something more grew from it when we kept seeing each other, but it didn't. Eventually, he met C
arol Lynne and ignored me altogether.

  Another layer of weirdness was Troy. We had stopped speaking except at work when he asked for his messages in the morning. It was creepy how he followed me around during the funeral reception, even while his pregnant wife, Brianne, was there.

  The thing was, Troy and I had a legitimate relationship where we lived together before he left me for the Park Avenue princess. They were expecting a baby, for Pete's sake. Why would he risk ruining that by contacting me?

  Men. I'll never understand them.

  Setting the phone down, I took the small pot from the coffee maker sitting on my dresser. I went out to the kitchen, filled it with some water from the sink, and then returned to my room. Pouring it into the reservoir, and started making coffee.

  I pulled open the dresser drawer and took out a green mug Mom had sent for my birthday last month. It had a white outline of a wolf surrounded by pine trees and the words Davidson Sawmill printed on the bottom. The sawmill was a company my mother inherited after Uncle Russ passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack about ten years ago.

  Marisol and I stored food in mini-fridges in our bedrooms because the kitchen didn't have one. That meant the space was super tight, and I'd been forced to find versatile ways of using storage. We'd used the kitchen to heat something on the stove or in the microwave.

  After stirring the hazelnut creamer into my coffee, I returned it to the fridge. Holding my coffee cup, I grabbed the TV remote off the nightstand and flipped through a few channels of the overhead-mounted screen until it was filled with giant floats and college bands playing a merry ruckus of holiday music. Then, I settled on my bed, next to the stuffed lama Mom had sent for my birthday last year.

  While I sipped on the creamy goodness, Marisol knocked and shouted from the other side of the closed door, "Chica, I'm leaving. You coming?"

  "No thanks, I'll just stay in today," I raised my voice.

  She acknowledged with a quick "Okay," and left.

  I got out of bed and set down the mug on the nightstand. Then I opened a cupboard mounted on the wall by the foot of my bed, and took a box of pancake mix and spray oil. I took the rest of the stuff from my mini-fridge beside my desk and headed to the kitchen. Finally, I fell into the practice of making my special occasions breakfast, eating it in the sparse living room, which only had a dining room table and some chairs.

  After making my second cup of coffee, I sat by the desk, chatting with strangers on social media, when my phone rang. The screen read Geraldine Davidson Calling. My chest lifted as I swiped the green button.

  "Merry Christmas, Mom," I greeted as soon as I put the phone to my ear.

  Mom's deep, husky voice rasped, "Merry Christmas, baby girl." She quit smoking years ago, but it left a scar on her vocal cords. Call me crazy, but I loved its sound because it reminded me of a mamma bear.

  "How are you? How's everybody back home?" I asked.

  There was a pause, then she said, "Things are down because we had lost a chokerman last month, and everything was in chaos since Jax needed time off to deal with his death. That left Craig as my only feller."

  Lost meant that someone died. The choker guy hung around on the ground while the fellers chopped down the tree. So the chokerman she was talking about was probably crushed to death, and the Jax guy was the feller responsible—that was if I read between the lines correctly.

  "Oh, sorry to hear that. When did it happen?" I asked.

  "Early last month, so Thanksgiving was depressing," she answered.

  People were dying left and right. What was going on in the world? Did we enter some kind of shitty twilight zone?

  After no response came from me, she prompted, "Hello? You there?"

  "Yeah, sorry. Mr. Stevenson died last month, so I'm still reeling from that. Too many deaths," I said in the familiar sad tone that had become my regular way of speaking lately.

  "Your boss? You're kidding. How come? Heart attack?" she asked.

  "No, a home intruder shot him at his son's girlfriend's house."

  Mom's sharp inhale sounded in my ear. "Amberly, I swear, that place is more of a wild west than anything we have here. I wish you'd give some thought about moving back."

  I took in my cramped, shoebox-sized room. You could rent an entire house back home with the same money it took to rent an apartment here.

  "I'll think about it, Mom. It's just that I don't want to leave things as chaotic as they are at work and run off. I'm staying out of respect for Mr. Stevenson. It won't take too long. Just until they get back on their feet."

  Pain burned my throat, but I continued, "Besides, if I moved, where would I stay? I love you, but I don't want to live on your couch. And you just converted my old bedroom into your painting studio."

  "I could move all my stuff out," she said with hope in her voice. "I can move the cot out of the garage into your room, and we could get a dresser—"

  "Then I'll be exchanging my life here for the same one there."

  Mom said, "Well—"

  I could almost hear the cogs in her brain turning.

  "How about I help you find a place to live? An apartment all your own. It would be much safer than living in New York, and you won't have to hide in your bedroom all the time. And of course, you will always have a job at the sawmill."

  I took in my jam-packed bedroom. There was no space to move around because I stuffed everything needed to occupy an entire apartment into this space. The apartment didn't even have a TV in the living room. We paid for our own cable service hooked up in our bedrooms. How awesome would it be if I could hang out in the living room at night?

  "I'd like that. I'll give it serious thought," I said.

  "Okay, baby girl," she said with a smile in her voice. That was the first time she really made headway in convincing me to move back home. Besides, it wasn't like I'd ever run into him. He avoided me like the plague, and if we saw each other, he might pretend to not notice me. That's the way he wanted it.

  I tipped back my mug and swallowed the dregs of coffee to soothe my tight throat, then asked, "What else is going on? What kind of stuff have you been painting?"

  "Mt. Hood. I'm concentrating on learning how to paint mountains before tackling flowers," she said.

  "Sounds like a good plan. You know which show you should watch?"

  "Don't say it! Everyone says it!" she said, making me crack up.

  We spoke for a little while longer, then hung up. My heart weighed less than it had in weeks. But sad too because I missed home. I'd probably be over at her house if I were there.

  Since things didn't turn out how I'd hoped, maybe I should just move back. It wasn't like I gained anything by living here.

  My phone buzzed with a text notification.

  Troy Hanes: I called you and got a busy signal. Who were you talking to?

  Troy Hanes: You move on fast, don't you?

  Troy Hanes: From me to Charlie.

  Troy Hanes:Will you ping pong back to me again?

  Troy Hanes: Or are you sucking someone else's dick?

  What. The. Actual. Fuck!

  Amberly Davidson: What the fuck is your problem, man? Go back to your pregnant wife. Be a man, look after her and leave me alone!

  Troy Hanes: :-)

  God, he was getting creepier. Should I report this? But to who? My boss was now Charlie, Troy's brother-in-law, and at the moment, he was grieving. He wouldn't be able to help.

  I tried to ignore the message and the creeped-out feeling for the rest of the day. The one good thing was that I was on vacation for the rest of the week, so I didn't have to decide now. Maybe things will cool down after the holidays.

  Looking back on how Troy nearly killed me later that week, I should have listened to my mother and left immediately.

  Chapter 2

  My wet hair was in a towel, and I donned my bathrobe. Steam wafted up from my green coffee mug, filtering the bustling traffic from the street below.

  I was relieved that I was
on vacation and wasn't a part of that crowd.

  Marisol was at work, so I had the apartment to myself yesterday, which hadn't happened in ages. I usually cooked food on the hot plate in my room. It was speedier than lugging pots, utensils, and ingredients back and forth from my room to the kitchen. During those moments, fantasies of having an entire apartment to myself filled my mind.

  The phone buzzed in my room. I placed the mug on the dining room table next to my empty breakfast plate and hurried into the bedroom.

  The display read Stevenson Law Firm. Dread filled my gut as I tapped the green button.

  "Hello." Hesitation filled my voice.

  "Hi Amberly, this is Renee Guzman from HR."

  Shit. What the hell did HR want?

  "I called to ask if you can come in. Things have been crazy at the reception since news broke out of Mr. Stevenson's passing. Also, Charles hasn't been in, so the rest of the lawyers are taking on his workload. If you come, you'll receive time and a half in your next pay."

  Extra money would cover moving expenses. But damn, I was enjoying my vacation.

  I closed my eyes and said, "Okay, Renee, I'll get dressed and come in right away."

  She thanked me, and we ended the call.

  I suited up in a well-rehearsed routine that took fifteen minutes. Slipping the gift cards into my wallet, I'd locked up, and left.