Lake Tattler?” She whipped out her notepad to make it look official.
“Hell no. I ain’t talking to no one but Kare11 News. I called ’em. I thought you were it, but apparently not.” He pushed the door closed, but Daisy wedged a shoulder against it and shoved inward. “Nobody but the big news,” he reiterated, and this time managed to shut the door completely.
Daisy stepped back and stared at the door. Kare11 was the most-watched news channel in Minneapolis.
“Shoot. I should have gotten here sooner. He must have called the station as they were driving back. Couldn’t have been that scared if he was thinking about his fifteen minutes of fame.”
Daisy wandered down the path back to her car just as the Kare11 News van pulled up. She recognized the blonde reporter who got out and directed her cameraman toward the house.
The woman rushed over to Daisy and shoved a microphone in her face. “Are you related to Red MacPherson?”
Daisy shook her head. “I’m with the Tangle Lake Tattler.”
The reporter lowered the microphone. “Red didn’t give you the scoop, did he? I told him this was my story.”
“He didn’t. But I had to try.”
The woman sucked in a perfectly highlighted and blushed cheek and sneered. “Tough luck.” She spun about and marched across the shoveled sidewalk in her high heels.
Who wore high heels and a business skirt at eleven o’clock at night in the middle of January? Daisy sighed. A reporter who was always prepared to get her story, she decided. There was a lot she had to learn about the business of journalism.
But she did have one thing that might scoop them all.
Rushing back to her car, Daisy pulled away with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching her camera.
* * *
The following afternoon, Daisy opened her front door to find Beckett Severo standing there, smiling sheepishly. The frustration that had been building all day as she’d tried to understand the Photoshop program to enhance her photos slipped away. A more intriguing distraction had arrived.
And a sexy distraction, as well.
“Beck.” She shoved a hand over her hair. Hadn’t looked at it since stepping out of the shower this morning. Yeesh. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again after, well, you know.”
“Do you want to see me?” He remained behind the threshold, hands shoved in his front pockets. “I mean, should I be here?”
“Yes.” She took his hand and tugged him inside. “I didn’t want to influence you one way or the other so I didn’t make the first move. Also, I don’t have your phone number.”
He tugged out his cell phone and pressed a few buttons, then handed it to her. “Let’s remedy that right now. Type in your number. If you give me yours, I’ll do the same.”
She grabbed her phone from the counter and handed it to him. Typing in her digits, she entered simply Daisy Blu, and not her last name. She didn’t want anything in there to remind him of her father.
“I don’t want to disrespect your father,” he said, handing her back her phone and reclaiming his. “But I couldn’t stay away.”
“Why is that?”
“That I don’t mean any disrespect to a pack principal?”
“No, I understand that completely. And I have to say I’m glad that humiliating episode did not keep you away. It must have been my hot chocolate that lured you back, right?”
“While I admit that wicked brew could certainly provide a strong lure toward you, that’s not the reason. How can a guy walk away from pink hair and fluttery lashes like yours? And you’re not like most women. You’re smart, and you have interests in things beyond shoes and celebrities.”
“I don’t know what torture king expects us to walk in those wobbly high-heeled shoes.”
“I like you in pack boots and your kitty hat. Can I, uh...” His eyes danced over her face nervously. Then he splayed out his hands. “We never got to finish that kiss before your father showed up.”
Indeed not. The man had an excellent memory, and thank the goddess for that.
Daisy stepped up to him and tilted back her head because he was tall, and she wanted to stare into his eyes all day. Until such a view didn’t matter, and she closed her eyes and tipped forward onto her tiptoes.
He met her mouth with his. A warm, sure kiss that belonged nowhere but now. She gripped the front of his sweater, beneath the open coat, and when he spread a hand up her back she leaned into him. He was so warm, and strong. The muscles beneath her hands were hard as rock, and she curled her fingers against the curve of his pecs. Yet at her mouth, everything was not hard but eager and searching. Inviting and exploratory.
He smelled like caramel and coffee. Whatever he’d had to drink before coming here, it was delicious. Beck moaned into her mouth and lifted her by the hips. Daisy wrapped her legs about his waist without breaking the kiss. He dipped his head to deepen their connection, dashing his tongue along hers. The taste of him ignited her desires. Her skin prickled, and her nipples tightened. She almost grinded her mons against his stomach but stopped herself. This was only their second kiss. And actually, it was just finishing the first kiss.
“You do that very well,” she said against his mouth. “You said something about our kiss never ending?”
“I could keep this up for years.” He kissed her eyelid, then tilted his forehead against hers. “You do things to me, Daisy Blu.”
“Good things?”
“Good. Bewitching. You make the wolf inside me want to howl.”
At that moment a wolf howled on the television turned to low volume before the couch.
Daisy laughed. “Appropriate timing.”
“You watching a nature show?”
“No, I’ve had the news on while I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a computer program pair up with my camera.”
Behind them the news anchor reported on last night’s encounter between two hunters and the ghost wolf.
“Kare11 can suck it,” Daisy said. She slid out of Beck’s grasp and picked up the TV remote and clicked it off. “I almost had an interview with one of those hunters last night. I should have told him I was with Kare11. He’d only speak to them. How’s that for sucky?”
“Last night? You were out looking for interviews? How quickly does word get around when something like a white wolf stalking hunters happens?”
“Pretty fast. But even faster when it’s witnessed firsthand. I was there.” She spun, and her enthusiasm over what she’d witnessed last night made her bounce on her toes. “In the forest. I got a few shots of the hunters running in fear from the ghost wolf, and—you’ll never believe this—I actually photographed the ghost wolf.
