A Mate's Healing Touch (Black Hills Wolves #36)

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Smashwords Edition

A Mate’s Healing Touch

Copyright  2015 by Merryn Dexter

ISBN: 978-1-61333-929-9

Cover art by Fiona Jayde

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

Look for us online at:

www.decadentpublishing.com

Dear Reader

Thank you so much for joining me on my first adventure into the publishing world. I couldn’t have been gifted with a better place to start than amongst my wonderful pack-mates who are the authors of the Black Hills Wolves Series. Their friendship and support is a gift I will treasure always.

I hope you enjoyed reading Hannah and Caleb’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Family plays a big part in their tale and proves the family you choose to make can be stronger than the one you are born into. I can’t wait to share more about this family as I work on Caitlyn’s story and then Connor’s. They have both been clamouring to tell me their Happy Ever Afters so keep an eye out for more from me in the coming months.

As a military spouse it can be hard to maintain contact and I have found that the friendships that endure are the ones that don’t keep score. They don’t care if you spoke to each other yesterday or last year. They open their arms, their homes, their hearts whenever you need them. I strive hard to be this type of friend.

I’d love to hear what you think of the book so please drop me a line at merryn.dexter@yahoo.com or find me on Facebook or Twitter @merryndexter. I also have a blog merryn.dexter@blogspot.com where I talk about my work, my life and my love of travel.

Thanks again for reading!

Love,

Merryn x

Black Hills Wolves Stories

Wolf’s Return

What a Wolf Wants

Black Hills Desperado

Wolf’s Song

Claiming His Mate

When Hell Freezes

Portrait of a Lone Wolf

Alpha in Disguise

A Wolf’s Promise

Reluctant Mate

Diamond Moon

Wolf on a Leash

Tempting the Wolf

Naming His Mate

A Wolf Awakens

The Wolf and the Butterfly

Infiltrating Her Pack

Omega’s Heart

Rebel’s Claw

Claiming the She-Wolf

Worth Fighting For

Dangerous

Uncaged

Promiscuous Wolf

Disquieted Souls

A Cougar Among Wolves

Long Road Home

A Mate’s Healing Touch

Winter Solstice Run

Wolf’s Holiday

Winter Magic

Winter Secrets

Winter Solstice Ménage

Wolf in Winter Clothing

A Mate’s Healing Touch

She has a secret the wrong people know…

Hannah Fuentes has graduated Magna Cum Laude from the School of Hard Knocks. Beaten, pregnant, and betrayed at seventeen, she has slowly built a life for herself and her daughter Jessie in the small town of Hennessey, South Dakota.

He faces a future he doesn’t want…

Caleb Burrows is leaving town. His parents long to return to Los Lobos and pack life, lured by the promise of change under the new Alpha, Drew Tao. The most vivid memories that Caleb and his twin siblings have of pack life are ones of betrayal, pain, and horror. They do not remember a time when the pack was at peace.

A chance meeting…

Caleb has one final job to complete for the family construction business – the refurbishment of the local diner in Hennessey. He gets more than he bargained for, however. One look, one scent tells him that Hannah, the 'pocket rocket' waitress, is his mate. Caleb is determined that nothing will stop him from claiming her as his own.

The first touch...

An explosive encounter lays bare the secrets they have both fought so hard to keep hidden. Caleb must prove he can protect Hannah and her adorable little girl who steals his heart with one look. Can he persuade her to give up the safe life she has worked so hard for? Her burgeoning relationship with Caleb shows there are untold wonders to be explored in the hands of a man who understands her true worth.

The past will test them...

When Hannah’s past rears its ugly head, they must face it side by side. Only united can they save what is most precious to them. Together they will learn that family comes in many guises and there is nothing they won’t sacrifice when one of their own is threatened.

Dedication

To Rebecca and Heather for creating this fantastic world and letting me play in it.

A Mate’s Healing Touch

A Black Hills Wolves Story

By

Merryn Dexter

Chapter One

Hannah Fuentes checked her watch and shifted in the hard plastic chair outside the principal’s office. The terse call at lunchtime had insisted she be available for an urgent meeting at 2:30 p.m., and she had dropped everything to make sure she was on time. It was now edging toward 2:45 p.m., and her anxiety about her daughter, Jessie’s, welfare was marching steadily toward anger. The cause of the summons perched next to her, feet swinging as she colored in her favorite fairy picture book. After her storm of tears had passed, she’d blurted out what happened. Hannah had reassured her she was not angry. Not angry with her daughter, anyway.

She checked the time again, and her foot started to tap as her irritation built. Will and Bridie had enough on their plate without her being absent from the diner when the early dinner crowd started. Five more minutes, she promised herself, and then she was leaving.

A little hand patted her thigh in a comforting gesture belying her daughter’s tender years. An old soul, Bridie called her, and she had to agree. Her daughter had inherited more than the thick black curls, brown eyes, and tan complexion of the Mexican half of her bloodline. She picked up her daughter’s little hand and fluttered her lashes across the back of it in a burst of butterfly kisses. The resultant giggles lifted her heart. Regardless of the traumatic circumstances six years before, which had left Hannah beaten, pregnant, and homeless, her little girl was the absolute center of her world.

The office door swung open and a sharp frown of disapproval creased the overly made-up face of Ms. Brackley, Jessie’s first grade teacher, as she regarded the interaction between mother and child. Hannah pressed another kiss to her baby’s hand before rising to face her nemesis. Although they’d gone to school together, they’d never been friends. Carla had been a member of the popular crowd circling Robert McKinley, son of the local preacher and undisputed golden boy of Hennessey High.

Half-breed Hannah—one of the nicer monikers she’d been stuck with—never ran with the so-called cool kids. More, she was a reluctant member of the congregation, an outsider who arrived in Hennessey at the age of fifteen when her aunt had taken her in following the death of her parents. Her lack of popularity hadn’t stopped Robert from befriending and eventually seducing her, although she was sure she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who knew he was Jessie’s father.

Carla smoothed her impeccable blonde bob as she sneered down her nose before turning abruptly and stepping back into the principal’s office. Hannah rolled her eyes and refused to check the hasty ponytail containing her thick, wild curls. With a quick instruction to her daughter to stay in her seat, she straightened her skirt and followed, closing the door behind her with a bang.

Daniel Smith, the unctuous principal, remained seated behind his desk, tapping a pencil, as Carla crossed the room to take the chair beside him. A hard chair, a twin to the one in the corridor, stood isolated in front of his oversize oak desk, and Hannah dumped her purse onto it. She folded her arms and remained standing. The chair was lower than the desk, and she was only five foot three. She would not submit to the deliberate insult of allowing the likes of Daniel Smith to look down upon her. Not anymore than he already did.

Daniel, what’s this about? she said, allowing her irritation to shade her tone.

The principal raised his brows before dropping the pencil