Just After Midnight: Historical Romance Read Online Free Page B

lieutenant’s got a reputation around here for being as cold and hard as ice in January. Those blue eyes are like to give me the shivers.”
    Megan continued to stare out the door through which Alex Carson had disappeared. What an infuriating, confusing man.
    She was not used to confusion. Especially where men were concerned. The life she’d lived had given her a knowledge of men’s ways. They might come in all shapes, colors, and sizes, but a man was a man was a man. Smart women steered clear of the entire species. The only man she had ever had the slightest use for was her father, and he had been as dependable as a gold mine.
    Thoughts of her father brought tears, and Megan swallowed over a thick knot in her throat. Without saying good night to anyone, she fled up the stairs.
    Slamming the door of her room behind her, Megan leaned against the heavy oak. How was she ever going to go on without her father? He hadn’t been dependable, but she’d always known there was someone in the world who needed her, who loved her. She had made herself into the kind of daughter he would always want at his side, but she had never considered he might die and leave her alone forever. The desolation and fear she had felt as a thirteen-year-old girl, left with a woman she barely knew as she watched her last surviving parent walk away, rose up in a wave of sadness. With determination born through years of practice, she pushed away the pain and the loneliness, vowing to pour all her love into the business her father had left in her care.

 
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    Megan stood at the back door of The Celebration and cast her gaze over the dance hall. One week after her arrival . . . and the place became emptier every night. The girls’ glares had graduated from annoyed to hostile. She would be out several dancers if business didn’t improve soon; then Ian McMurphy would be able to take The Celebration without any fight, and she would be out on the street with nowhere to go in the world. If she weren’t careful, she could end up selling herself to stay alive. Then all of Alex Carson’s dire predictions would come true.
    Megan opened the back door and stepped into the heat and sunshine of a Yukon evening in July. She found it hard to believe summer temperatures could reach 120 degrees when 70 degrees below zero was common during the nine-month winter. She lifted her face to the sun, leaned against the side of the building and closed her eyes. Just when she was beginning to relax, something cold and wet pushed against her hand, startling her. Megan’s eyes flicked open and she glanced down. The scream stuck in her throat.
    Standing at her feet was the largest wolf she had ever seen—pure black and sleek, his head tilted to the side as he studied her. Megan held her breath while the huge animal leaned over to sniff her skirt. Seeming to recognize her, he wagged his tail and again pushed his nose into her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Megan tentatively patted the animal’s large head. The wolf rubbed against her good-naturedly.
    “I wonder where you came from, boy?”
    As if in answer, the wolf s hackles rose and a low rumble issued from his throat. Megan jumped, yanked her hand out of harm’s way as her heart thumped hard and fast. The animal had seemed so friendly. Then she saw he stared past her and toward the door.
    “What’re you doin’ out here, Lovey? The show’s about to start.” As usual, the volume of Queen’s voice would have startled the dead. Her eyes went to the wolf and she gasped. “Damon! Where did he come from?”
    “You know him?”
    “I should say I do. That’s your father’s wolf— well, part dog, too, he thought. Brian took the animal with him wherever he went, and we all thought it was killed with Brian in the avalanche. Guess we were wrong.” Queen eyed the animal warily. “Too damned bad.”
    “Don’t you like him?” The wolf now stood pressed against Megan’s knee, though he continued to