Annie And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 3) (71 page)

A wild bear and a philosopher,
she chuckled while analyzing her partner.
And he is all mine.
The area between her legs started leaking at the very thought of the things he did to her, of the things he
will
do to her once he gets back. The village she was from was full of virile young men, but Yegor was on a whole other level. The endurance, the power, the raw sexual appetite of that wild beast… it was all overwhelming, but in the best possible way.

There was also something else, Anya knew. A different kind of urge started growing inside of her, something similar to what she called her hunter’s instinct, but stronger and less rational. It was pure in a way, encouraging the actions that helped her survive, while discouraging those that were unnecessary. Along with all the skills she acquired earlier in life, it made hunting her prey laughably easy.

With it, however, came a whole new set of complications. More and more often, the girl found herself waking in the middle of the night, restless and in need of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A long and hard pounding from Yegor would relieve that pressure, but it would always surface again, stronger and more persistent than before.

It was only last night that the man who called himself the Great Bear Spirit decided to talk to her about it, having seen her bring down a brown bear with a well-executed combination of traps and spear thrusts.

“I think you and I need to have a talk, he opened up the conversation the very second she showed up at the entrance, dragging her kill along on an improvised set of sleds. It always amazed her how well he could see from this high up, although she has been getting progressively better at it herself.

“By all means, lover,” Anya responded with a smile, proudly displaying her bloodstained hands for the bear-man to see.

Lured by the sight and smell of blood, the man approached her almost instantly, pressing his body to hers the way he always did when they met after a hunt. Even through the thick furs she wore outside, the girl could feel the bulging erection that he pressed against her body. That sensation always evoked a smile, and today was not any different in that regard.

Knowing what to expect, Anya planted a passionate kiss onto Yegor’s lips, signaling that it was time for a different kind of main course. His reaction, however, was something she did not expect. Slowly, the man distanced himself from her, giving her a clear but perplexing signal to follow him to the main room. Very confused, she cooperated, still not sure what it was that she did wrong.

A bit less than a minute later, the pair was seated on their large, furry rug, facing and holding each other’s hands.

“You are changing, Anya,” Yegor spoke, almost immediately after they took their positions.

What the…? Is he growing bored of me?

“Not in a bad way, mind you,” the silver-haired man replied before she had the chance to voice her protest, as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. “I’ve seen what’s happening to you, and this is the only answer that makes sense. You are becoming like me. It is only a matter of time before you change.”

Now more confused than worried, Anya merely stared into his eyes in disbelief, before finally collecting herself enough to form a coherent question. “Wait a minute, Yegor. Didn’t you say it was hereditary? We’re not related, are we?”

“I don’t think so, my love,” slowly, he separated one of his hands from her own in order to run his fingers through her hair, before laying it back where it originally was. “Remember, the shifters that came here interbred with your ancestors. Not all of those Gifted people were related. It stands to reason that you descend from some of them. And now that you’re back in touch with your nature, your blood is pushing the change on you.”

Anya was silent. Deep inside, she knew that he was telling her the truth.

“But don’t worry,” Yegor interrupted her silence, “the first change is a marvelous thing. A whole new world opens up for you after you shift for the first time.” Now grabbing her hands tighter, the man practically exploded with joy “Love of my life, how happy you’ve made me!”

It was nice,
Anya mused, having mentally returned to her spot in the main room of the palace.
Making him feel like that, giving him the hope of getting the kind of companionship he desired.
Raising a child is one thing, she knew, but having a life partner who shares the same unique gift and curse that you do is probably an incredible feeling.
I’ll have plenty of time to put that claim to the test,
she told herself, barely able to contain her smile, but there was no need to rush toward anything. The change might come soon, or it might arrive later. It made no difference to her.

Why strive for change when what you’ve got already feels perfect?
The answer eluded her, but she did not care.

THE END

WESTERN/MAIL ORDER BRIDE BOOKS

Forever With A Cowboy

Mail Order Bride

By: Avril Adams

Forever With A Cowboy

Lucy Granger, age five, smoothed down her best dress and watched with glee as Uncle Harlan married Aunt Daisy. To Lucy, there was nothing as fascinating as a wedding, and she thought that they had taken an extremely long time to get around to doing it.

              Everyone told her that she looked just like her father, which made her confused given the fact that she was a girl, but she never asked for an explanation. Sure, she had his hair, which often turned yellow in the sun, and his nose, if anyone paid attention to that, but she had her mother’s eyes, the same shade of green, so she thought that maybe her mommy should have some of the credit too.

Mommy had told her that Uncle Harlan had used the newspaper to find Daisy, and they had spent a long time writing letters back and forth before they had decided to meet. Lucy thought that it was romantic, even if she didn’t really understand what romantic meant.

She sat on her father’s shoulder during the ceremony and cheered happily when Uncle Harlan and Aunt Daisy kissed, and was finally quiet when her mother shushed her.

Afterwards there was cake and dancing, and Lucy had all the cake she wanted, and danced happily with her father, mother, and of course Uncle Harlan and Aunt Daisy. Her eyes grew heavy as she allowed herself to be carried by her father; she rested her head on his shoulder and listened to the sound of the fiddle in the background, whilst the laughter of the bride and groom made her smile. Aunt Daisy had looked beautiful in her white dress, and it was then that Lucy made up her mind.

“Mommy, Daddy,” she told them solemnly as they walked back to the newly constructed house on ranch property. “I think I’m going to find my husband in the newspaper, just like you did.”

Lilah and Kyle exchanged looks. “Well, sweetheart, we didn’t exactly find each other in the newspaper,” Kyle said.

“Although I do admit if it weren’t for the newspaper, we never would have met.”

The two of them exchanged looks that made Lucy want to stick out her tongue at all the mushy feelings.

“I don’t care, Mommy, Uncle Harlan did it to find Aunt Daisy, you found Daddy, and I’m going to find my husband.”

She grinned at the idea of it. “I’m going to find
so many
husbands!”

Kyle sighed as they entered their house, turning back to look at the festivities going on in the distance. He looked at Lilah who was trying very hard not to laugh.

“She’s certainly going to be a handful when she gets older,” he said.

“Yes I am!” Lucy replied.

****Thirteen Years Later****

              There were few things of which Lucy Granger was completely certain. One: her parents loved each other more than anything in the world. Two: her parents had met thanks to her mother answering a newspaper classified ad looking for a bride, and three: if she was going to find a love like theirs, the best way to do it would be to try her own advertisement.

              Her mother was not very enthusiastic about it.

              “You’re being ridiculous,” she told Lucy, who was perched on the edge of her kitchen chair, leaning over the morning paper with a pen in her hand and a look of determination on her face. She was eighteen then, old enough to be seriously searching for her husband, at least in her opinion.

              Lucy’s mother put her hands on her hips and frowned about the entire situation. Lucy personally didn’t understand why it bothered her so much, given that was how she had met Lucy’s father.

              “It wasn’t exactly like that,” Lucy’s mother would always insist. She wasn’t listening, however, instead she turned to her best friend, Mary Gibson. When her parents and her had moved to town several years earlier, Lucy had been devastated to leave the ranch where she had been born and raised, but the hustle and bustle of the town had been so exciting for a girl of seven, that she realized that she deserved to live in a town such as this. She deserved the excitement.

              Moving to the town also gave Lucy the opportunity to go to college, something that she had never actually considered; she had always taken the fact that her mother would teach her for granted. The idea of schooling terrified her, that is, until she walked to the small schoolhouse and took the only empty seat available: the one next to Mary. They had been best friends ever since.

              Lucy’s mother lingered in the kitchen while Lucy and Mary poured over the classified section, looking seriously for the man that she was going to stay with for the rest of her life. Mary, of course, was not so secretly of the same opinion as Lucy’s mother, but being Lucy’s best friend also meant taking Lucy seriously in matters of the heart, so she was along for the ride for better or for worse.

              Mary was lucky; of course she was already practically married to Jed Bunting, the son of a rancher several miles out of town. They made a handsome couple with Mary’s strawberry blonde hair, clear blue eyes, and Jed’s all-American handsome blond looks. They were the couple that everyone wanted to be and because of that, Lucy knew that Mary would never understand. Mary was clearly in love so how could she know what it was like to be Lucy, a girl who was already eighteen years old and had never kissed a boy? She had seen Mary and Jed holding hands and taking long strolls just outside of town. She had seen Mary’s face when Jed would leave to go back to the ranch, the longing that was there. Everyone was expecting a wedding before the end of the summer, and in spite of her on-going loneliness, Lucy was happy for her friend.

              She, of course, had given it a fighting chance when she was younger; trying to dance with boys at holiday socials, but had never found a single one that she would have liked to kiss. It just didn’t seem to be working out for her very well. She liked to blame her parents for this, their obvious happiness had always cast a shadow over her potential romances, and often bitterly wished that her parents hadn’t lived such a fairy tale.

              It was not that she didn’t appreciate the love that her parents, she just wished it were a little easier to come by.

              With renewed vigor, she focused hard on the paper in front of her. Mary pointed at a classified ad in the paper and grinned.

              “What about him? He seems nice.”

              Lucy studied words of the advertisement and then turned to her friend.             

              “Are you kidding? He’s old! He has children!”

              Lucy’s mother looked up from the bread she was baking with a stern expression.

              “There’s nothing wrong with a man with children, Lucy. It means he’s a good provider who wants to find a mother figure for his children.”

              Lucy stared at her mother in disbelief. “You think I would be a good mother for children?”

              Her mother laughed. “I suppose we’d see when you’re older.”

              Well, for Lucy, she didn’t like that at all. How could she be a mother when she was still a child herself? She didn’t want some older man who had already experienced love and marriage; but wanted a nice man, closer to her age, willing to experience everything new.

              “I don’t want someone’s already had a whole life without me,” Lucy said stubbornly. “I want someone new.”

              “Then you’re not going to get many options…” Lucy’s mother said. “When I answered, I wasn’t really looking for true love.”

              “But you found it,” Lucy said stubbornly. “So I know it’s possible.”

              She angrily glanced down at the paper once more.

              Lucy’s mother frowned causing her temple to crinkle, unsure of what to do with her daughter’s obsession at finding a man this way. She could remember herself at this age, how impulsive she had been, how she had gone across the country in order to find love. That was something she admired about her daughter, she seemed willing to do the same.

              “Oh, how about this one!” Mary nearly pressed her face to the page, picking up the paper and staring intently at it. Another part of the paper slid down and Lucy grabbed it, trying desperately to ignore her friend as she picked what would most likely be another dud for Lucy to reject.

              Mary paced up and down the kitchen, her excited eyes reading.

              “
Up and coming rancher looks for girl who knows how to ride
... you know how to ride, Lucy!”

              “Who doesn’t know how to ride, Mary? We’re a
horse town
.”

              “
Must be able to think for herself, enjoy adventures and challenges, and bake a mean peach pie!
”

              “That’s silly,” Lucy said, but even then she didn’t sound as turned off as she had been before. “Does he list his name?”

              “Chance Delacour...ooh!” Mary looked up excitedly. “I bet he’s handsome.”

              “With a name like Chance, he’d have to be,” Lucy’s mother mumbled. Lucy tossed a glare at her mother and nodded.

              “Yes, he’s a good one, but how about this?
‘Cowboy looking for a nice girl to settle down and start a life with. Must be kind, sweet, and gentle. Let’s start our life!’
Oh his name is Jake McGraw…”

              “McGraw?” Lucy’s mother looked up from her bread making with a look of surprise. “The McGraw family?”

              “You know them?” Lucy asked, her mother nodded.

              “Of course, your Uncle Harlan and Papa used to buy horses from them. They have a boy around your age, I think,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe a little older.”

              “Perfect!” Lucy held the newspaper close to her, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “I’m going to write to him!”

              “Not Chance?” Mary looked disappointed. “He seems like a lot of fun.”

              “Don’t be silly, Mary, I can’t write to
both
.”

              “Who says?” An idea was dawning in Mary’s eyes and Lucy wasn’t fully sure if she liked it, but she was willing to hear what her friend had to say regardless. “Why not? Writing to one of them isn’t a guarantee of anything and if you write to both of them, you’ll have options, and options are good!”

              “Says the girl that’s going to marry the first boy she ever kissed,” Lucy said with a grin.

              “Well, that’s because the first boy I ever kissed ended up being Jed, and since you didn’t have the luck to meet him first, you’ll have to settle for the next best thing, and you think he might be somewhere in there...so why not try a few?”

              Lucy stared at her best friend as though seeing her with new eyes. It wasn’t a terrible idea, in fact, it seemed pretty brilliant to Lucy all things considered. Sure, Jake McGraw seemed like an obvious bet, but there was something about the name of Chance Delacour that gave Lucy a little thrill. It was such a silly thing; she didn’t even know what he looked like! It didn’t seem to matter, Lucy was going to attempt to contact
two
boys from the classifieds, and who knew what would happen?

              Under her mother’s wary glance, she grinned broadly. “Get me some paper and ink, Mary, we have some letters to write!”

              Three months later, Lucy found herself in a bit of a pickle.

              “I haven’t been able to narrow it down yet!” she declared in a quick and nervous voice to Mary, who was busy finishing the hem of her wedding dress. Merely a week after Lucy had first written to Chance and Jake, Jed had finally asked Mary for her hand in marriage. Mary was thrilled, of course, and Lucy was happy for her.

It was so much easier now, of course, given the fact that she was having sparkling conversation with not one, but two fine gentlemen through letters. She had yet to invite either of them. Indeed, Lucy found herself to be a lot shyer than she had anticipated when it came to their attentions, pushing back their future meeting until, in a fit of excitement, she had done the unthinkable.

“I may have invited both of them to the wedding,” Lucy confessed. Mary gasped.

“You didn’t!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Lucy replied, trying to keep her voice very calm so as not to seem hysterical. “It just happened! I was so wrapped up in the excitement of having an excuse to finally meet them I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

Mary stopped her sewing in a fit of exasperation. “Well, you should have narrowed it down by now! It’s been god knows how long and you’re still talking to both of them?”

Lucy didn’t know what to say, since Mary was right. She had yet to decide between Jake and Chance, since both of them seemed so incredibly nice, and so completely different from each other.

When Jake first wrote back to him, he expressed an excitement that she was Kyle Granger’s daughter, even admitting that they might have played together as small children back before Lucy moved into town. Lucy could vaguely remember playing with a sandy haired little boy so long ago, and it excited her to know that she had some prior contact with this potential suitor. She loved how prompt his letters were, his eloquent speech. When he described how the mountains by his father’s ranch looked at sunset, Lucy almost thought she was reading fine poetry. He was clearly very taken with her, but there was something about it all that made Lucy worried. While his words were romantic and warmed her heart, she wasn’t sure they were passionate. Where was the fire in his words?