She glanced down at the wrinkled card in her palm.
Gabriel Albertson, M.D.
The Gabriel Albertson? The elusive son of the owners of this sprawling property where the gathering of all North American wolves was held every two years?
She’d heard of him. She’d just never met him.
A chill sent a shiver down her back. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she hurried down the hall to find her sister and parents before Marcus could get the better of her.
Chapter Two
Gabe leaned his head against the back of the door and took deep breaths.
Fuck.
His world just turned upside down in less than one second.
Kathleen Davis . . . The spunky girl with huge brown eyes and glorious long brown curls had slipped into the den and sucked the life out of him.
At thirty years old, Gabe thought all likelihood of finding a true mate was a thing of the past. In fact, after years of schooling and residency and working his ass off to get where he was today, he’d assumed it might finally be safe to reenter the social norms of the wolf community. He’d been sitting in the dark, drinking a glass of Merlot, and fortifying himself to join the weekend festivities.
This gathering of wolf shifters took place every other year, and his parents had hosted it in rural Oklahoma for two decades. Most of that time, Gabe had been in school. This year he’d taken a two-week vacation to spend time with his family, and he’d even allowed it to coincide with the gathering.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want a mate. Truth was, he’d grown rather lonely in the last ten years. However, he’d known since childhood his life ambition was in medicine, and he’d immersed himself in the human world after high school to ensure he met his goals without running into his mate.
Apparently all that hiding had been unnecessary, seeing as the pixie he’d just met surely hadn’t been out of diapers when he’d left for college.
Gabe groaned and wandered back across the room. He grabbed his wineglass, chugged the rest of it, and flopped back onto the leather couch.
He’d intended to join the ranks tonight and see if any woman caught his fancy. That no longer seemed necessary.
Kathleen Davis was his. Now all he had to do was wait for her to grow up. With her pastel sundress, her flat dainty sandals, and her makeup-free face, her innocence oozed out of her. She couldn’t be more than sixteen years old. And absolutely nothing like any woman he’d ever dated.
He groaned again.
And who the hell was this Marcus character who’d accosted her in the hall?
Gabe might not be able to claim his mate for several years, but he could at least look out for her and find out what the hell was up with the kid who’d tried to take her as his, even though she clearly wouldn’t be a match for Marcus.
Suddenly, Gabe’s pondering was disrupted when the door to the room flung open again. He straightened himself from his slouch and twisted his neck to see who’d entered. Had she returned?
The poised woman in the long flowing gown that fit her like a glove was most definitely not Kathleen. It was his mother, Caroline Albertson. “Gabriel, what are you still doing in here? I thought you were going to join us for the evening.”
Gabe stood. He had no intention of telling his parents about Kathleen just yet. The thought of them gushing over the far-off-in-the-distance arrangements would make him vomit. But he did want to know about Marcus.
“I’m coming. I was just enjoying a glass of wine. I don’t get to do that very often.” He smiled at her and hoped it looked sincere.
“I guess not. You’re on call way too many hours, Gabriel. I hope now that you’re joining a private practice, you can cut back a little and have a few days off now and then. You need to loosen up. You work too hard.” Caroline Albertson glided over to her son’s side and reached up to adjust his tie. “You’re all rumpled.” She smiled up at him.
“I’m thirty, Mom. I think I can dress myself.”
“Of course you can. I’m just so happy to see you. You haven’t been home for even a visit in two years.” She patted his shoulder and stepped back.
She was right. He called as often as possible, but his life had been a whirlwind of craziness for as long as he could remember. He’d left home at eighteen to attend Texas A&M for undergrad and then headed straight into the medical program at Baylor in Houston. The medical center in downtown Houston was world renowned, and he’d grown to love the city and its people. He’d never left, completing his residency there in pediatrics and then taking a job at Texas Children’s Hospital.
This was the first time he’d ever taken two straight weeks of vacation and he intended to spend most of it roaming free on his parent’s property in wolf form. His opportunities to shift and run in the last decade had been few and far between.