Wild Enough For Willa

Take an animal—perhaps a dog—

To help them.

The life within the animal

Will give them strength in turn.

For equality

Gives strength in all things

And at all times.

—Meister Eckhart (1260–1329)

(Author’s note: As a cat lover, I change dog to cat. When I go alone into my imagination to write, Kanka, my cat, goes with me to help by sitting on my manuscript.)

Contents

Book One (#u3052dc2c-d737-56d6-94a8-caf485abd1e5)

Chapter 1 (#uedc6f58e-33c0-56e1-ac88-13a5611419a2)

Chapter 2 (#u45e0cd5c-66da-5d35-b9a8-791be136fb0b)

Chapter 3 (#u5ef689cb-2f40-5351-8ccf-903026d835b6)

Chapter 4 (#u271c2cbf-143e-5c6b-8dd2-c71cdbc61502)

Chapter 5 (#ucf5613eb-ff34-56c6-b191-d6846cbdba8f)

Chapter 6 (#ub3ea31ff-babc-5fa5-8fc4-c3228e6190b2)

Chapter 7 (#u6f4177fe-2fa1-5b3b-98fc-1cb5d9c08578)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Book Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Book Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Book Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Book One

“What we call the ending is usually the beginning.”

1

Marcie, his gentle, beautiful wife…Dead?

And it was all his fault.

Luke McKade sat alone in his vast penthouse office in southwest Austin. He willed the silence and the dark of his new gorgeous, empty building—the building that Marcie had helped design and decorate—to devour him.

Driven, he always worked later than his employees. Not that tonight was about work.

“Sa-a-ve the baby,” Marcie had whispered in her pronounced Texas drawl with its elongated vowels. She’d gripped him fiercely when he’d knelt over her bed. Her final, hoarse cry was swallowed, strangled. Then she’d died in his arms.

His mind had raced. His heart had thundered. What baby? What baby?

“A son,” the white-coated doctor had confirmed after the autopsy.

Luke wearily massaged the back of his neck. Restless by nature, always on the move, he rarely sat behind his desk this long—and never to reflect on his own shortcomings.