Desert Fate (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 3) (6 page)

A backlog of grateful words built in her throat, but all that came out was a muffled whimper as she worked her lips against his. An open O, a mumble of an M, then a long lick of an L. She leaned back until she had the wall of the barn on one side and the wall of Kyle on the other. Heaven was the slot between those walls. Heaven was the heat of his body, the twitch in his jaw that begged for more.

Heaven was Arizona, with Kyle.

All the times they’d never kissed—never even thought of kissing—ran through her mind, starting with the shed in the back of the school grounds when she was twelve, all the way up to the drive to the ranch in his truck. How could she have missed those chances? Everything she’d been searching for in her life was in that kiss. Her heart was pounding half out of her chest, her hands tight on his shirt. That kiss was the only good thing that had happened to her in the past week. The best thing that had happened to her in a long, long time.

If her lips hadn’t been busy with his, she’d have cooed in delight.

Her hands were just sliding toward the curve of his ass, his fingers just finding the swell of her breasts, when the hum crackled. Kyle broke away with a faint gasp half a second before a shadow stepped around the corner.

“Lunchtime!”

It was Cody, cheery as a schoolboy on a Friday afternoon.

She whirled, letting go of Kyle’s hand in a motion akin to ripping a bandage from a raw wound. A wail went through her body even as her hands hurried to straighten her shirt.

Stef blinked. Where did the hum go?

“Cody…” Kyle growled.

Where was the certainty she’d felt only seconds before? Jesus, what had she done?

“Hungry?” Cody beckoned with a hand.

She ran a hand over her cheek, already feeling it flush, and wished she could melt right into the wall. Maybe if she became another shadow in that weathered surface, everyone would leave her alone. Everyone but Kyle.

“Everything all right?”

That was Tina, pushing past Cody. Her earth-black eyes tracked over Stefanie’s face, then over to Kyle, and finally narrowed on Cody.

“Men can be such idiots,” she sniffed, addressing no one in particular before pointing an accusing finger at Cody and Kyle in turn. “The last thing she needs is a dining room full of shifters.”

Stef’s mouth moved, wanting to jump to Kyle’s defense. But Tina was already leading her away with a gentle kind of insistence that didn’t broker a no.

“Come with me. We’ll have a nice, quiet lunch in a nice, quiet place.”

Stef glanced back and faltered. Kyle was so big, so sure, so…so unassailable, and yet there he was, looking as droopy and distraught as a chastised puppy. She wanted to rush back and tell him it was okay, everything was okay—just like she’d wanted to so many times in the past. But right now, those words—
it’s okay, everything is okay
—were coming from Tina, and Stef didn’t have a chance to pull away.

CHAPTER NINE

Tina led Stefanie down a meandering path in the shade of the cottonwoods to a tidy adobe bungalow with a lush green lawn. The place screamed
structure
and
order
from every manicured flower bed to every white-trimmed window.

“This is my place. Come on in.”

The inside was as neat as the outside: a study in single female habitation. Every cushy throw pillow, every diamond-patterned rug was perfect, yet something about the place wept. Stef found herself studying Tina as she bustled around a kitchen decorated with needlepoint designs with yearning messages like
Home Sweet Home.

“It’s very nice,” Stef said. “Have you seen Kyle’s place?”

She didn’t mean it as a test, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to know how intimate Tina was with Kyle’s home.

Then again, maybe it would hurt. Bad.

But Tina just laughed, and the envy sloughed away. “No, but I can imagine it. Chaos.”

“Chaos is close,” she smiled. “Oh, sorry. Can I help with lunch?”

“I’ve got it. You relax.”

Right, relax. The word was like a cue to let the tension roll back in. So Stef wandered a little, finding a thousand cryptic clues to her host’s existence in the room. The neatly stacked magazines, the self-help books. The refrigerator covered with photos and newspaper clippings.

She leaned in for a closer look. The clippings all came out of the sports pages: a season schedule for the San Diego Padres, a report on spring training. She looked at Tina then back at the clippings. “You like baseball?”

“No, not really,” Tina hummed absent-mindedly while washing lettuce at the sink.

Stef squinted at the other clippings. One player was setting new batting records, while another had been injured, it seemed. No, wait, the same player. She glanced at Tina. What was that all about?

But she had enough of her own mysteries to sort out, so she let her eyes wander over the photos instead. Her first reaction was relief: not one showed Tina in a tight embrace with Kyle. Actually, there wasn’t a single photo of Kyle. Most of the photos were of children. There was Cody, snuggling a pink-faced baby bundled in a pink blanket with a big black dog leaning over his shoulder for a peek. There was a striking, dark-haired man steadying a toddler with one massive hand. He looked all the world like Ty, except this version wore a soft expression and a fascinated smile. Farther along the same cluttered collage were shots of Tina holding the same youngsters in various poses, so close and so tight that Stef could feel the ache.

“That’s my niece, Tana,” Tina said over her shoulder, and Stef nearly jumped. The woman moved with the stealth of a cat.

“And my brother Cody’s daughters.” Her finger tapped the pictures.

Blond, sunny Cody, related to this dark raven? “He’s your brother?”

Tina laughed like it was an old joke. “Well, my half brother. Ty’s the oldest, and then me. Then Cody and Carly came along.”

Tina must have sensed Stef scraping her memory for faces that might be a sister to Cody, because she shook her head. “Carly lives in California with her mother.”

Tina tapped another picture, and another. Her finger wavered a moment over another image of the baseball player then skipped right over to the next one. “That’s my aunt Jean…”

Stef held her tongue. Any questions she asked would give Tina free rein to ask right back, and she wasn’t in the mood for another interrogation. Not unless it came from a tall, dark cop with short, spiky hair.

Tina motioned toward the table, piled with a mountain of food. “Eat. You look like a scarecrow.”

Stef squeezed her hands against her shirt in silent protest. This yellow T-shirt suited her just fine. Then her fingers found her waistband. Okay, maybe her shorts were a bit loose. As in, hanging off her hips. And yeah, there might have been a bit more rib showing than usual. The past couple of days had been filled with more running than eating—and not the kind of running that filled her with weary satisfaction.

While she dug in to lunch with a ravenous hunger that swept over her like a burst dam, Tina started an ode to the ranch and the seasons and the beauty of the desert. Her voice was just lulling Stef into thinking Twin Moon was paradise when a cat moved outside the window. It sat in the sun, casually cleaning itself by licking a paw then scrubbing its ears. Stef wondered if the cat could shift forms. A werecat?

She wouldn’t be surprised.

Nor was she surprised when Tina made a smooth segue into the ugly details of werewolfdom. When the subject turned to topics like shifting, pack structure, and mating, Stef put her fork down and twisted her hands under the table. No longer hungry, she eyed the door.

Escape. Her mind was crying for it. Soon, she feared, she’d be screaming it out loud.

The warnings uttered in the council house came back to her in a rush. She belonged to North Ridge. She belonged to Ron.

The need will start to pull you in after your first couple of changes,
Tina had said.

So how the hell do I keep him away?

She must have said it out loud because Tina answered. “We’ll think of something.”

Somehow, though, Tina didn’t sound so sure.

Maybe she could go to Oregon, where her mother’s relatives lived. Or Georgia, where her dad’s closest friends were. They were all tough army guys, so maybe…

But Tina shook her head sadly, like she’d been reading Stef’s mind. “A lone female wolf is an easy target.”

“But what about you?” Stef blurted. “You’re single, right?”

The light in Tina’s eyes faded, and her cheeks tightened just a pinch. “It’s hard not to be single when your father is—or was—the pack alpha and your brothers are ready to kick the ass of any man they don’t approve of right over the state line. All in the name of protecting my virtue, of course.” She said it lightly, but there was bitterness between the words.

Still, Stef couldn’t help sounding wistful. “Sounds good.” She’d had a loving dad and a protective older brother, once upon a time.

Tina just sighed. “Believe me, it has its disadvantages.”

Stef looked around the perfect, empty house and gave a little nod. “I guess it would.”

Tina studied her over her glass of juice and shook her head a little bit. “We’ll think of something. Somehow.”

Only
something
and
somehow
weren’t much of a comfort. Not right now.

Things were no different that night when Stef lay curled in a tight ball in bed in a small building Tina called the guest adobe. Another crazy concept, because what kind of guests would a ranch run by werewolves get? Vampires, maybe? Shapeshifting bears?

Or maybe just other wolves. Like herself.

She pulled the sheet from chin level to over her head, pretending she could escape her doubts. She’d been so naive in Colorado. Was she being too trusting now?

A wolf pack, not exactly known for good manners.

Technically, you belong to North Ridge.

What if all this was a ruse? Maybe these wolves were doing nothing more than keeping her busy until Ron could show up and claim his mate.

Images assaulted her mind: visions of her visits to a ranch much like this, where a beast disguised as a man sprouted fangs and forced her against a wall, then leaned in and bit deep. She remembered the struggle, the man’s crazed eyes. His shout of pain as she lashed out. No matter how tightly she clutched the sheets or squeezed her eyelids together, the images wouldn’t go away.

And it was only getting worse. The images were sharper and more urgent, hinting at something worse to come. Like Ron, coming to get her. Ron, pinning her against another wall. If he trapped her again, would she have the strength to resist?

The need will start to pull you in.

If Ron came for her, no one would care. No one would come to help her.

Kyle would come,
that inner voice said, so firm and sure that her heart beat faster.

But then the moon came out, nearly full, and her blood tingled the way it had right after the bite. As if Ron were calling to her from wherever he was, assuring her he was on his way.

Mate,
he said, his lips pulling back in greed.

Mine,
he insisted, leaning in close.

She let out a strangled cry and jerked right out of bed, poised to ward off her attacker. But she was alone, the nighttime silence broken only by the desperate gulping of her breath. She sank to the mattress a moment later, head in her trembling hands, and wondered what she’d lose first: her mind, her body, or her soul?

CHAPTER TEN

Don’t worry. The ranch is safe.

Chill out. She’ll be fine.

Kyle slammed a fist into the uneven wallboards of the old bunkhouse on the outskirts of the ranch, replaying Cody’s casual words. Like he could just go home and call it a night. Turn his back and walk away.

The thing was, he’d done that a thousand times on the job. So what was so different this time?

It’s completely different,
his wolf snarled.

This wasn’t a job. This was Stef.

It was bad enough he’d screwed everything up by bringing her to the dining hall then caught her off guard with that stolen kiss. There was no way he could just drive away after what that kiss did to him.

It had taken everything he had to give her some space that afternoon. That evening, too, while his wolf paced his insides to bits. Now, he was supposed to be settling in for the night in the old bunkhouse. Instead, he was tearing down the walls.

Chill out? Don’t worry?

Easy for Cody to say. He wasn’t the one with a…a… Kyle struggled to finish his own thought. How would he fill in that blank? A friend whose life was on the line?

Friend?
His wolf grunted.
What kind of pansy-ass word is that?

He pulled his fist back from the splintered hole he had just made, and a breath of night air filtered in, carrying the truth. Stefanie wasn’t just a friend. She’d always been more than that, and the grown-up version of the spunky adolescent stirred things in him that he could never associate with just a friend. The way he’d lost himself in her scent and in her kiss told him she was more than that. Much more.

Try mate.

And right on cue, it all came back: the flavor of her kiss, the texture of her skin. The trust in her eyes, giving his wolf all kinds of bad ideas—and his human side, too. He was breathing far too quickly just at the memory of it. He’d never had a kiss like that.

Mate. Mine!

Maybe the tingling had nothing to do with her being a Changeling, and everything to do with being his destined mate.

Destined mates were rare occurrences; the realization should have been a cause for celebration. But if Stef was his mate, destiny had a twisted sense of humor. She’d been brutally claimed by a rival male, and fighting for her would mean dragging his whole pack into trouble—maybe even war.

Christ, could she really be his destined mate?