Hunting Her (The Keeping Her #6) (9 page)

"And
then?" his mate asked.  Her eyes so close to him were crystal bright. She
was waiting for him to exclude her, but promised pain with that look if he
dared.

He
smiled, his own eyes going cold with intent and gave her the answer she
wanted.  "Then we go hunting."

"That
we had better include me," she said mildly, her hands curling a bit at his
throat in a not so subtle warning. 

Logan
tipped his chin enough that he could run his nose over her cheek to her ear and
spoke.  "We, is you and me.  Bout time you understood that darlin'"

She blew
out a slow breath and he pulled back so he could look in her eyes.  Desire was
heating their depths and he could see her struggling with it.  She finally
spoke low, and for his ears alone.  "I'm getting there."

It was a
start, but he was way ahead, if she didn’t catch up soon he was going to lose
his mind.  If he hadn't already.  He nipped her bottom lip with his teeth
because he could, and had the satisfaction of watching her catch her breath. 
Seeing it, feeling her, he gave her a slow smile that always seemed to annoy
her and she narrowed her eyes and glared at him in warning.

"Can
I just say," Eli said with glee in his over loud voice.  "That I am
loving this."

***

Logan
stood looking down at Xena, leaning close against the doorjamb while she barred
him bodily from his regular room in the clubhouse at Lionsgate. 

"You
really want to sleep alone in my bed?"  He gave her his best grin. 
"Your Coyote won't like sleeping without its mate any more than my wolf
does."

"Aw,
sweetie," she patted him on the cheek. "It'll be enough to be able to
roll around naked, wallowing in the scent of you on the sheets.  Coyote will be
fine."

Logan
was so caught up in the picture she painted that the door had closed in his
face before he had finished growling at the thought.  He let his head fall
against that closed door with a thump, knowing the thought of her naked and
rolling around in his scent would haunt him all night. 

"That
is fucking cold, woman." He gritted out low, knowing she would hear him
even through the door.  Just like he heard her sultry chuckle in answer.  But
she didn't open the door.

He could
hear Ian laughing his ass of in his own room down the hall, and knew the man
had heard the whole sorry thing.  He was tempted to beat the shit out of the
panther to release a little frustration, but the cat was tougher than he looked,
and it was not the type of tussling he had in mind tonight.  Not with his dick
beating a staccato against the restriction of his jeans.  Logan headed for a
cold shower instead.  Vowing to himself that his solitary bed would soon be a
thing of the past.  Soon.

"We're
passing the boundaries of my land."  It was the first time Logan spoke
since they started out at 5am that morning from Lionsgate.  Xena had dozed on
and off as she watched the highways slip by out the dark Ford Explorer’s passenger
window.  Now she sat up straighter and really looked around.  Her curiosity
about Logan's home had grown with each mile they had driven.  Though she
figured it would be something along the lines of Lionsgate, with its casual
moneyed comfort.  At least she hoped that's what it looked like.  But they weren't
actually near the house, and she learned that when the winding gravel road kept
going through the trees with no end in sight.

Xena
rolled down the window to catch the cool morning scents on the wind.  She heard
water not too far off, smelled the coolness of it on the breeze.  She scented
deer, horses, cattle, and wild hare with just that one whiff.  It made her
stomach rumble, reminding her that they had skipped breakfast in Logan's desire
to get them here.  And still they kept driving.

"How
big is this place?"

"About
eight thousand acres give or take."  The sheer size of the place had her
blinking over at him.  His eyes were on the road, and he was still talking in
that matter of fact way.  "Some of that is taken up by the mountains, so
there's good hiking.  Briscoe Creek meanders through it, and there is a good
fishing spot not too far from the house.  Mostly its horse pasture."

Xena was
still absorbing his words when the trees opened up to a view of the valley
floor.  Backed up by mountains and rock cliffs in the distance, the sight of
the sprawling green land rolling out before them took her breath away.  She
raised her nose and caught as much of the rushing air in as she could.   She
turned and looked at Logan, finding his eyes on the same land, a glint of
satisfaction on his face and a gleam of pride in his eyes.

"You
live in paradise," she said.  Her eyes going from him, back to the land he
claimed as his own.

"Yeah,"
he agreed, taking a moment to smile at her, which took her breath away in a
different way.  It was a good smile.  "It floods sometimes in the spring
around the creek, and occasionally we get fires in the mountains up here, and
the house is old and needs work, but yeah, it's paradise."

Xena
turned to the view and the wild scents.  Tipping her head back, she breathed
deep.  When she was in the city places it was easy to keep a lid on her coyote,
but out here, it was coming alive, and she had a feeling the scent of her mate
was not helping that situation. 

"Can
we run?" she turned at looked at Logan again.  "As soon as we get
there?"

"I
have a human cow hand that comes to feed and water the animals while I'm gone,
but he knows we'll be here today so he would have come and gone early.  He
lives in town, so yeah, it's just us and the horses.  As long as we stay away
from the horse barn and the pastures we won't spook them.  We can run."

Xena
smiled, unaware that the brown of her eyes had taken on the gold of her
coyote.  But she could feel her beast all perked up inside her.  
Yeah, they
could definitely run.

Elk
Creek was a three-hour drive north of Napa.  So she had drifted off and got the
sleep, with her mate close beside her in the truck cab that she had missed,
tossing and turning without him the night before.  Ridiculous, to miss the feel
of a man that had never been beside her, but it had been happening since their
brief meeting in Rio, and was worse now that she had spent real time with him. 
So she needed the run as much as she had needed the nap in the truck.

All
thoughts of the beautiful country surrounding them screeched to a halt when
Xena caught her first sight of the house.  "The house is old and needs a
little work?" She asked, repeating his earlier words with a fair bite of
incredulity.  "Well, that's the honest truth cowboy."

Now she
didn't know anything about ranches, but 8000 acres sounded like a lot. And
considering the beauty of the land, she had expected something grand.  She
turned to look at Logan.  In the distance to the right of the house she could
see new horse fencing and a state of the art barn that was equal in size to the
monstrosity of a house, in a beautiful barn red.  Next to it, the house looked
old and faded.  Not that it was an ugly house; she got the feeling that when
the pony express delivered mail here it was a showplace.  Not so much now.

The
clapboard farmhouse had a wraparound porch that sagged in all the wrong places,
a whole bunch of boarded up windows that went up to the second story, and a
sagging roof.  The roof over the covered porch listed to one side, making the
view of the front door difficult, but it was the faded, grungy yellow, siding
that really ruined the view.

Xena sat
in the truck long after Logan had turned off the engine and studied the house
in front of her, just taking in the sheer ugliness of the thing.

"It's
a fixer upper," she heard Logan say in the silence of the truck cab.

She
snorted.  "No shit."

"I
have a plan," he finally said.  The humor in his voice making her aware
she stared with ill-concealed dislike at his home.

She
turned and looked at him doubtfully.  "Does it include demolition?"

He
chuckled.  "Some.  The shingles someone slapped over the old clapboard
contain asbestos, so they have to come off, and the porch is going to have to
be rebuilt in places, the roof has to be completely replaced, and the rest of
it needs all new electrical, plumbing and a gut job down to the studs." 
His eyes gleamed as if he was enjoying the thought of all that massive work
that needed to be done.  "And I need to replace all 56 windows and all the
doors need to be enlarged but most of the original wood floors are intact and
can be sanded down and re-stained, same with the crown molding and chair
rails." He shrugged.  "I've already had the foundation leveled and
reinforced, so the house only looks like it's going to fall over because the
porch is so bad.  It's at least clean, and the bed in the master bedroom is
new. The electricity is old but it still works; same with the plumbing,
mostly."  He shrugged.  "There's a refrigerator, and a camp stove.  A
crew I know and trust, out of Seattle, will do the majority of the work. 

The
Bruces’ are scheduled to come down in a few days and at least look the project
over, once their current project is completed.  It will still be a few months
more before they can begin the actual work.  In the meantime, I hope to do at
least some of the demo and wood work restoration myself."  He looked her
up and down.  "How do you feel about getting your hands dirty?"

Xena
opened her mouth and then closed it, having to think about the question.  The
thought of building things with her own hands was a foreign one.  She didn't
even know anyone who was handy with the kind of tools he was talking about, and
thinking back on her father’s family, she could not remember any of them
lifting so much as a hammer.  There was always someone else who took care of
those type of things.  Her mother and her grandma Fanny were like a lot of
southern women back a generation; they had worked in the garden and baked
bread, quilted and sewn, and once upon a time Xena had learned those things,
and enjoyed them a damn sight more than she enjoyed the things her father's
moneyed family had taught her.  The idea of getting back to that type of life
seemed foreign.  But strangely, not unwelcome, Xena was surprised to note. 

"I
could get dirty," she finally said with a shrug, her eyes on the big run
down house.  Not exactly where she had expected to ever end up, but she had
been in prettier places that had less going for them.

Logan
was silent for a minute and then he chuckled again, drawing her eyes away from
the monster of a farmhouse. 

"Why
is it?" he asked, his eyes glinting gold in the sun.  "That
everything sound so damn sexy when you say it?"

Xena
smiled slow and full of playfulness.  "Wait until you see me in jeans and
one of those fancy tool belts cowboy.  I will rock your world."

She
watched the smile fade on his lips, but the light in his eyes stayed diamond
bright and glittered.  "You already do."

The
words came out gritty and low, sending a pulse of desire through her entire
body; and Xena could not stop the involuntary shudder that shook under her skin,
or the catch of her breath.  Both of which Logan saw, if the ramping of heat in
his eyes was any indication.

 Before
she did something insane, like climb into Logan's big hard lap and ride him
like a bucking bronco, Xena opened the truck door and stepped out, sucking in
some much needed air.  Then she turned and looked over the hood of the black
truck and shook her head at the sight of him already out of the truck and
heading around the hood to come at her.  The look in his eyes promised all
kinds of dirty things when he reached her.  She held up a hand to stop him from
coming closer and laughed.  "Ease it back cowboy.  You promised me a
run."

She
watched him stop and then visibly struggle to press down his horny wolf.  She
could relate.  She was doing the same with her coyote.  The animal needed her
mate, or a run, and if she didn’t get one, she was going to take the other. 
Xena had confined her too long and there was always a consequence for doing it.

Logan
pulled his iron control back into place with an effort, and Xena had to admire
him for it when she could see how much it was costing him in the hard clenching
of his jaw, and the glitter bright wolf in his eyes.

"Alright
Darlin'," he finally ground out.  "Head north, you can go as far as
the lake without leaving my land.  If you turn east you'll eventually hit the
cliffs, and to the West you can go as far as you like until you hit the paved
two lane road, then you'll need to turn back."

Xena
blew out a breath.  "And where will you be?"

"Where
I've been since I met you darlin,” Logan gave her a half smile, but his eyes has
the promise of bite in them.  "Right on your heels.  I just figure I'll
get our bags and the groceries inside first.  Give you a head start since I
know the land and you don’t; you’re going to need all the help you can get. 
Not that it will help you all that much in the long run."

She
raised a brow at the dare in his voice.  "You think you can catch me?  I'm
pretty fast, even for a coyote.  And we are better than wolves over long
distances."

He
smiled again, that slow sexy smile that drove her crazy.  "Don't you worry
about me, Darlin'. I can go the distance."

This
time it was Xena who looked him up and down.  Today he had dawned his full
cowboy gear for his return home, and the jeans and boots were as sexy as the
little pearl snaps that held his shirt closed over solid chest and what she
knew to be six-pack abs.

"I
bet," she murmured, and didn’t expect the purr to come out in her voice,
but didn't regret it when his eyes lit up further.  "But suppose we have a
wager on it just the same."

He
cocked a brow and his head tilted in question, making him look very much the
wolf he was, in that moment.  "What did you have in mind?"

"A
wager," she said with her own cocky smile.  "If I manage to evade
you, you cook dinner, and I get the bed."

"And
if I catch you?"

"I'll
cook dinner and you can have the bed."

"You'll
cook dinner and we share the bed," he said smoothly, his diamond bright
eyes going wolf gold.  "What happens in it will of course be entirely up
to you."

Since
she liked that idea a little too much Xena hesitated.

"Though
I don't blame you if you decide you're too scared to chance it," he
taunted.  "I do have the advantage of knowing the territory."

Xena
gave him a smile with a lot of teeth.  "Don't put too many of your hopes
and dreams on the line over that one, Cowboy, I've evaded worse predators than
you over their own territory and laughed my ass off when they ended up chasing
their own tail.

"Then
what are you waiting for?"

"Fine,"
she finally said, tempted to roll her eyes at his childish taunts but it worked
so she let it go without comment.  "Deal."

Then he
smiled that damn slow smile at her again. "You want to strip first, or
shall I?"

Tricky
damn sexy alpha wolf.  It'll be a miracle if I don't jump him before the sun
sets tonight, the way he smiles like that at me.
 

"By
all means," she said, narrowing her eyes and reaching for the hem of her
sweater to lift it over her head.  "Allow me."

He lost
that suggestive teasing smile so fast he must have felt whiplash.  And Xena
smiled her satisfaction as she undressed.  Since he was still standing there,
watching her, instead of unloading the truck, it would give her even more
time.   More because he still had to unload the truck, and put away the
groceries even after her little strip tease was over.  Since it was his
territory, and he was Logan McCord, she knew she would need all the time she
could get.  When she was naked and standing unabashed before his gold blazing
wolf eyes, she shifted.