Single Wolf Female (Midnight Liaisons) Read Online Free Page A

it served a better purpose – protection. I faced the truck, my manner unwelcoming as I mentally steeled myself for the worst. What if this guy was mean? Bad tempered? Worse than Roscoe?
    Was there even such a thing?
    Before I could continue down that path, the man raised a hand in greeting and moved forward, shutting the truck door behind him and stepping closer to where I stood, body clenched, by the fire.
    The breath rushed out of my throat.
    When he hadn’t included a photo of himself on the dating website, I’d expected him to be ugly. Maybe short. Maybe fat. All of the above.
    I hadn’t expected him to be tanned, lean, with sandy brown hair, broad shoulders and narrow waist. He looked to be a few years older than me, though it was hard to judge. His features had a very boyish cast to them. Half a foot taller than me. Fit. Amazing.
    He smiled, sizing me up, and his entire face transformed. From smooth and prettily-boyish, he became stunningly beautiful. The smile took over his entire face, flashing white, and displaying the most heart-breaking set of dimples I’d ever seen.
    Holy crap. I’d been hoping for mediocre at best. I’d gotten a male god.
    Immediately I suspected a trick. I studied his face again, but I didn’t see anything that called out ‘alpha’ to me. He had heavy eyebrows over light-colored eyes, and a blunt nose and tapered chin. My father had been craggy and fierce, my brother a massive hulk of a man. The man moving toward me was tall, but the cheerful cast to his features was throwing me off.
    My hand clutched the shovel a little closer and my greeting snapped shut in my mouth. Was this some joke on Roscoe’s behalf? Was I the victim of a prank?
    He didn’t seem overly alpha, I thought. Sure, he was scrutinizing me, but his manner was open, friendly, positive. My brother and father – both alphas – had been surly and foul-tempered, and their method of greeting a stranger usually involved a fist. It was a bizarre change.
    “Are you…” He glanced down, pulled out a folded piece of paper and read it, then looked up again. “Alice Savage?”
    Instead of replying, I held my free hand out, the other clutching the shovel close. “Can I see some ID?”
    “I need to see the same,” he said to me and extended his hand. His nostrils flared slightly, and I knew he was sensing his surroundings, prepared. The same way I was. His gaze settled on me, and I felt it.
    Strength of will. The need to obey and please him. It was some innate sort of sense that came with alphas - natural leadership, a human would call it. Except I wasn’t human.
    This guy was definitely an alpha. He didn’t need to swagger – he just needed to show me he was competent. Alert. Ready to defend his surroundings. I recognized the other alpha from posture and manner and sensed he was who he claimed to be.
    But I still wanted to see ID.
    To my surprise, he held out his entire wallet. I gave him another skeptical look before reaching out to take it, and then flipped it open. His driver’s license stared up at me, very serious. And the man in the picture looked…different. The name was the same – Jackson Wilder. I stared down, then back up at him again, suspicious. “That’s not you.”
    “I get that a lot,” he explained in a mild voice. And broke into another smile, studying me. His dimples flashed again. “When I smile, I look different.”
    As if to demonstrate, he assumed a serious face, and looked like the photo once more.
    Me, I was still mesmerized by the dimples.
    He pointed at his wallet. “My pack ID is in there. Behind the license.”
    Digging for it meant I’d have to drop my shovel. I gave him one last skeptical look and then propped it against the metal barrel as the fire crackled and popped behind us. The fact that he knew that he had to have a pack ID was a good thing.
    Sure enough, I pulled out the card and ran my fingers over it. Pack Ids were cheap things, mocked up to look like a social security