"Shut the door," Samuel snapped, without looking up. "Damn it, Mercy, you should have set the break before you threw him in the car and drove all day-you of all people know how fast we heal. I'll have to rebreak his leg."

Samuel had never yelled at me before. He was the least volatile male werewolf I'd ever met.

"I don't know how to set bones," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. But he was right. I knew werewolves heal incredibly fast-I just hadn't thought about what that meant as far as broken bones were concerned. I hadn't even known his leg was broken. I'd been stupid. I should have just called Darryl.

"How much training does it take to set a leg?" Samuel continued with barely a pause. "All you have to do is pull it straight." His hands were gentle as they stretched out Adam's leg. "He'd have had someone with medic training in his pack. You could have called for help if you didn't have the guts for it yourself." Then to Adam he said, "Brace yourself." From my position by the door, I couldn't see what he did, but I heard a bone snap, and Adam jerked and made a noise I never want to hear again.

"I was worried that someone from his pack was involved in the attack," I whispered. "Adam was unconscious. I couldn't ask him. And they don't have anyone strong enough to control Adam's wolf."

Samuel glanced back at me, then swore. "If all you can do is snivel, then get the hell out of here."

Despite his condition, Adam growled, swiveling his head to look at Samuel.

"I'm sorry," I said, and left, closing the door tightly behind me.

I'd spent twenty minutes staring at the first page of the mystery when someone knocked on the door. My nose told me it was Samuel, so I didn't answer right away.

"Mercy?" His voice was soft, just as I remembered it, with just a touch of Celt.

If I left early in the morning, I could get a head start on looking for Jesse, I thought, staring at the door. Someone else could take Adam back when he was ready to travel. If I left early enough, I could avoid talking to Samuel altogether.

"Mercy. I know you're listening to me."

I stared at the door, but didn't say anything. I didn't want to talk to him. He'd been right. I had been useless-subjecting Adam to a six-hour drive because of a chance remark of Darryl's, a remark that I was beginning to think meant nothing. Of course, as I'd told Samuel earlier, the pack would have had to bring Adam to Montana or at least send for a dominant until Adam could control himself-but they would have set his broken leg immediately. Darryl and the pack could be out looking for Jesse with Adam safely on the road to recovery if I hadn't been so stupid.

In my own world of engines and CV joints, I'd grown used to being competent. If Adam had been a car, I'd have known what to do. But in Aspen Creek, I'd always been not quite good enough-some things, it seemed, hadn't changed.

"Mercy, look, I'm sorry. If you didn't know first aid, and you couldn't trust his pack, there's nothing else you could have done."

His voice was soft and sweet as molasses; but my mother once told me that you had to trust that the first thing out of a person's mouth was truth. After they have a chance to think about it, they'll change what they say to be more socially acceptable, something they think you'll be happier with, something that will get the results they want. I knew what he wanted, what he had always wanted from me, even if-while he had been working on Adam's injuries-Samuel, himself, had forgotten.

"Adam tore a strip off me for being so hard on you," he said, his voice coaxing. "He was right. I was mad because I don't like hurting someone unnecessarily, and I took it out on you. Can I come in and talk to you instead of the door?"

I rubbed my face tiredly. I wasn't sixteen anymore, to run away from difficult things, no matter how attractive that option was. There were, I thought reluctantly, things I needed to say to him as well.

"All right," he said. "All right, Mercy. I'll see you in the morning."

He had turned around and was already walking away when I opened the door.

"Come in," I said and shivered when the wind blew through my shirt. "But you'd better hurry. It's colder than a witch's britches out there."

He came back and stomped his feet hard on the mat, leaving behind clumps of snow before stepping inside my room. He took off his coat and set it on the table near the door, and I saw he'd found a shirt somewhere. They kept stashes of clothes around town, in case someone needed to dress quickly; unisex things mostly, like jeans, T-shirts, and sweats. The T-shirt he wore was a little small and clung to him like a second skin. If he'd had an extra ounce of fat or a little less muscle, it would have looked stupid, but he was built like a Chippendales' dancer.

His body was lovely, but I don't know if anyone else would have called him handsome. He certainly didn't have Adam's strikingly beautiful features. Sam's eyes were deeply set, his nose was too long, his mouth too wide. His coloring in human form was much less striking than his wolf: light blue-gray eyes and brown hair, streaked just a bit from the sun.

Looking at his face, I wasn't objective enough to decide how attractive he was: he was just Sam who had been my friend, my defender, and my sweetheart.

I glanced away from his face, dropping my own so that he couldn't read my anger-and whatever other emotion was hammering at me-until I'd gotten it under control. If he read the wrong thing into it, that wasn't my fault. I hadn't let him in to argue with him.

"I didn't think you were going to talk to me," he said, with a shadow of his usual warm smile in his voice.

"Me either," I agreed grimly to my shoes-I wasn't going to get through this if I had to look at him. "But I owe you an apology, too."