PRINCE OF WOLVES By Susan Krinard

Joey did not have to hear more. A shiver passed through her, beyond her physical control just as the dreams were beyond the authority of her rational mind.

“All I have to do,” she said softly, “is play his game. Convince him I’ll give him whatever he wants—in exchange for what I need.”

There was a long silence.

“It sounds pretty awful, put that way,” Maggie admitted at last. “I’m sorry I mentioned it. Bad idea.” She hesitated. “Stringing him along like that—” She shook her head. “Frankly you don’t strike me as the type. And I don’t think I’d feel very safe trying that with him.”

Lost in her own thoughts, Joey was hardly aware of Maggie’s retreat. The idea had shocked her at first. But suddenly it seemed not only reasonable, but the answer to all her problems.

She could get Luke Gévaudan to guide her. She could use his pursuit of her and turn it around to get what she wanted. And in doing so, she could end this futile struggle against her own obsession with him. It all worked out very neatly.

Joey liked neat answers. The fact that playing this sort of game with Gévaudan might burn her didn’t matter, her priorities were set. She was willing to use any reasonable means to reach her goal, and now that a real chance had been handed to her, she wasn’t about to pass it up. Gévaudan wanted her, she would make him believe she was willing to give herself to him—for a price. He could stand to be taken down a peg or two, and in the end she’d repay him for his trouble, if not in the highly intimate way he expected.

Sometimes you had to play games to get what you wanted out of life. So she told herself, again and again until she began to believe it.

When she turned to Maggie once more, the redhead was busy rearranging bottles behind the bar. Joey slid off the stool and leaned over the counter. “Thanks, Maggie I think you’ve solved my problems.”

Brushing hair out of her eyes, Maggie straightened “I did?” Her hazel eyes searched Joey’s face and narrowed. “No. You’re going to do it? I’m not so sure it was such a hot idea after all, Joey. Really. You know, there still may be another way…”

“Maggie,” Joey smiled with a calm she didn’t feel, “I’ve already made up my mind. You were right—I should have thought of it before. It’s going to take care of everything.”

“Now wait a minute.” Maggie nearly frowned “You don’t know anything about this guy. I don’t, either. No one does, really. You’d be alone with him, Joey, and you don’t know what you’d be getting into.”

“Don’t worry about me, Maggie. I know what I’m doing. And this is something I’ve just got to do—one way or another. And as for the mysterious, persistent Mr Gévaudan… ” She allowed herself a tight grin. “Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s getting into.”

She slid off the stool and slapped two bills on the countertop. “I really can take care of myself, Maggie. Don’t worry, all right?” She started for the door, pausing to smile over her shoulder at the other woman. “And thanks, for everything.”

“Me and my bright ideas,” Maggie muttered just loud enough for Joey to hear. “You’d damn well better take care of yourself, kid, or you’ll have me to answer to. Okay?”

“Okay,” Joey replied, brushing by a rowdy band of drinkers as she left the tavern. Maggie’s woeful expression seemed to chase after her as the door closed. She banished it, along with her own lingering doubts. She knew what she had to do, and once she’d made a plan, she stuck to it.

Joey’s heart was pounding with anticipation as she set about putting her new plan into action. She did not attempt to examine that anticipation too closely. As she crossed the street and made for the lodge, she glanced up at the mountain peaks basking in the late-afternoon sun.

Soon, she promised them. Soon.

As Joey Randall emerged from the lodge into the crisp morning air, Luke could see immediately that something had changed.

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