Blue Moon Saloon Box Set 2

by Anna Lowe

  “Hey,” she whispered when she finally mustered enough control to pull back an inch. She meant to pull back a whole foot to a more chaste position, but that much control was a little too much to ask for just then.

  “Hey,” he whispered. A tiny smile played around his lips, but his eyes were worried. Why?

  “You good?” She tilted her head to one side, studying his face.

  He combed her hair back with his fingers. “Good.” He nodded. “But I need your help.”

  She bit her lip so it wouldn’t tremble and nodded. She knew enough about the Voss clan to know it was a rare moment, indeed, to have one of those proud men trust someone enough to ask for help.

  He held both her arms, and she wondered what he’d ask her to do. Jump off a cliff? Confront the ghosts of his past? Move to Montana and marry him? Whatever it was, she was all in.

  “There’s a hard part and an easy part,” he said, squeezing her hands tighter.

  “Anything,” she said.

  Anything? a little voice in her head asked.

  She thought it over briefly, then nodded to herself. Yes, she’d vowed not to be careless and lose her heart to a man again. But Todd wasn’t any man, so she could make an exception for him.

  “Anything,” she whispered.

  Slowly, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. His eyes flashed and sparked with a hundred secret wishes, and she wanted to make them all come true.

  “Okay, then,” he said, looking over her shoulder. “Can you come now?”

  “I have to ask Jess—” she started, then stopped, chagrined to see that Jessica had entered the kitchen.

  Jessica looked ridiculously pleased to see the two of them together. “Sure she can. Go.” She shooed them toward the door.

  Anna pulled her apron off and slid her fingers around his. “Okay, then. Where are we going?”

  “I need your advice on getting a few things,” he murmured, leading her to the car.

  He didn’t say much more than that, and though she was dying of curiosity, she held her tongue. Men like Todd were like the mountains in spring — they didn’t thaw overnight, and you sure couldn’t rush them. So she forced herself to be patient and relish the tiny little signals he gave off. His fingers played over hers as they drove, and when he peeked over from time to time, she caught his soft gaze lingering on her hair. Her eyes.

  And her lips. His eyes kept darting back to her lips, and even though it wasn’t a hungry, I-can’t-wait-another-minute look like the ones he’d given her the previous night, it still made her inner animal roar.

  She hid a grin. So much for men being the ones to obsess about sex. She was the dirty-minded one.

  Todd’s nostrils flared, and for a second, she wondered if she’d emitted some secret signal that gave her away. His hand flexed over hers and his lips moved, but he kept his cool.

  “The hardware store?” she asked as he motioned for her to pull the car they’d borrowed into a huge parking lot. Not Mike’s Hardware, but one of those huge megastores. He needed her help here?

  He nodded quietly but didn’t say a thing until they entered and wove their way to a section all the way at the back.

  “So, what do you think?” he murmured.

  His hands were stuck deep in his pockets, and the look on his face was that of a man preparing to slap down his life savings for the biggest purchase of his life. Yet he was pointing to…a kiddie pool?

  “It’s kind of small, but I think it would fit on the deck,” he said.

  She looked at the tiny blue basin with its starfish design. “I think it’s perfect. Like a tiny lake or something. A little piece of Montana brought right to the baby’s home.”

  His mouth fell open as if surprised to find her sharing his vision. But it was written all over his face. The Astroturf was more than an artificial version of grass; it represented a piece of his home. The pool represented the cool, clear creeks that babbled over boulders and rocks, and the awning he found next was the shade of the forest.

  “I know it’s not Montana,” he said a little sheepishly once they were back on the deck behind the saloon. It took them a few hours, but they got everything set up. “But it reminds me of home. And Arizona’s okay, but a bear—” he stuttered a little, correcting himself “—a baby needs other things, too.”

  He brought in a lounge chair and an end table and a bunch of leafy plants — tall, spiky yuccas and rich green plumeria that provided both shade and privacy, even if they had been a bitch to get up the stairs.

  “It’s beautiful. Teddy will have his own mountain meadow. His own summer creek…”

  “Now I just need to find a way to plant some berries so he can pick them in the fall,” Todd whispered, scanning their work with an inscrutable look.

  Something in her jumped at the echo of words she knew she’d heard before. Were they words she’d said before? She couldn’t remember — not with her mind busy picking through so many other memories. Like all the times she’d itched to set up her own backyard play area for a baby she never got to bring home.

  She ran a hand across her brow, wondering why it didn’t make her cry. She’d come close a few times already — when Todd adjusted the angle of the slide so it was just right, or when he murmured something about a baby that wasn’t her own.

  Much as her heart ached, though, it also rejoiced. All the loving things she’d never gotten to do for the babies she’d lost, she was getting to do now. And while part of her wanted to wail, it felt good at the same time. To finally face the loss. To work through it. To shape something for her own babies with her own hands, even though it was only symbolic. Her ex hadn’t been into decorating nurseries or picking out strollers, and after losing the first baby, she’d been so afraid to jinx things that she’d held back from the normal nesting rituals. The nursery remained an empty, white-walled room, the yard didn’t change from being a plain square of green, and the ache in her heart stayed locked away.

  But now, she slowly pushed that creaky door open and took a good look around.

  She blinked back the tears for a few minutes, then nodded to herself and shut that door again. She didn’t bother with the lock this time because she knew she’d be visiting that place again. No use in pretending the pain wasn’t there, because it was intertwined with love. And that, she didn’t want to lock away.

  Todd slung an arm over her shoulders and looked over the deck with her. He had a sad, faraway look in his eyes, but a weary kind of satisfaction, too. They’d set up the pool, a tiny little slide, and a wooden bench for Sarah or Soren to sit on while bouncing the baby in their arms. The awning had been the hardest part to install, but they’d managed to bolt in anchor points and stretch it overhead. They left the last bit of deck unshaded, though.

  “A place for the baby to look at the stars,” Todd had said when she asked why.

  She pictured him describing the constellations to little Teddy someday and sighed.

  “You’re the best uncle ever,” she said, making a last-minute word change. You’d make a great dad, too, had been on the tip of her tongue. But that was a dangerous place for a woman in her state of mind to venture, so she’d reeled the thoughts back.

  “Yeah, well.” Todd looked over the deck then nodded to himself. “That was the easy part.” He led her over to the bench and sank down on it, looking as if he’d aged a decade in the few seconds that had passed.

  She sat, trying not to fidget or stare as he worked his jaw. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his fingers flexed. If all that work was the easy part, what was the hard part?

  He leaned forward a little, still holding her hand, and whispered, “I need you to know something.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. God, he was so serious all of a sudden. What was wrong?

  “Teddy is Soren and Sarah’s, and he always will be. But he’s my son. My biological son,” he said quickly, stumbling over the words.

  She stared at him, grappling with an equation her mind
wasn’t ready to solve. How could Teddy be Todd’s son?

  “I slept with Sarah. Once.” He shook his hand. “Neither of us really understood why at the time. It just sort of…happened.” His nails scratched his jeans ferociously. Clearly, that explanation didn’t satisfy him.

  It didn’t satisfy her, either. He’d slept with her cousin? That was ridiculous. Sarah had always been devoted to Soren. It couldn’t be—

  She froze the thought there, remembering that the two had broken up for a time. Her heart thumped in her chest as she pictured it. Sarah had slept with Todd during that time?

  She gulped, wondering if it had been Todd who’d come on to Sarah or Sarah who’d come on to Todd. Wondering whether they’d lain side by side and looked at the stars. Jesus, had he showed her the constellations, too?

  Anna was sitting close enough to Todd for their legs to touch, but she pushed herself away, leaving a gap. A lump filled her throat, making her words an uneven squeak. “Did last night just happen, too?”

  “No!” He reached for her hand, but she snatched it back. “No, Anna. Last night was totally different. That’s why I’m telling you.”

  To torture her? Was that why he was telling her?

  “Please. Please listen,” he said, squatting down in front of her.

  There was no way past that bulk, so she sat perfectly still, arms crossed over her chest. The sound of a freight train roared in her ears, and her cheeks burned. Yes, she was mad. Smoking mad. But part of her was melting for him at the same time. If she took all the times in the past weeks that he’d looked mournful and multiplied it by ten, he still wouldn’t have looked as wounded as he did right now.

  His voice shook. His hands, too, telling her it wasn’t an act.

  “What happened with Sarah was a one-time thing. With you, it’s totally different. It’s my heart, not my…”

  Your body? she wanted to grunt, trying to banish the image of his hips pumping over Sarah’s. She buried her face in her hands. “Why are you telling me this? Why?”

  “Because I don’t want it coming between us. I don’t want anything coming between us. Ever. I never want to keep a secret from you.”

  “And how about Sarah’s secret?” she couldn’t help retorting.

  “It’s not a secret. Soren knows. He’s accepted it. He knew that…”

  When Todd trailed off, she wanted to scream. What could Soren possibly know about his cousin screwing hers that made it okay? What kind of twisted love triangle had it all been?

  “Look, Soren and Sarah belong together. I’d never come between them.”

  So why did you sleep with her? she wanted to yell.

  “I didn’t even know there was a baby, and they thought I was dead…”

  Now she was really confused. She’d spent the last months thinking Sarah was dead. Why would Sarah have thought Todd was dead?

  “I got here the day you did. Jesus, Anna. What we have is totally different.”

  She thought it was different, too. She’d felt it in her bones, in her heart. But what if she was wrong?

  “Anna.” A soft voice came from the door to the apartment, and her head snapped up. It was Sarah, holding the baby.

  Anna buried her face in her hands. God, she couldn’t face it. Her own cousin had slept with the man she wanted for herself? Rationally, she knew it shouldn’t matter. It had happened months before she’d even met Todd, so it was hardly a betrayal. But she couldn’t get past that being-late-to-the-party feeling. That gut-sinking feeling of everyone being in on a terrible secret except her.

  “Anna, I’m so sorry…” Sarah whispered.

  Todd was sorry. Sarah was sorry. Was she supposed to be sorry, too?

  “Let me explain…”

  She stood quickly. Maybe later, she could sit quietly and soak in an explanation. But right now, she couldn’t do it. Right now, all the demons of her past were welling up and taking over.

  “I gotta go,” she blurted, scurrying past Sarah’s outstretched arm.

  “Anna—” her cousin cried.

  “Anna—” Todd called, but she hurried through the door to the apartment and down the stairs.

  Regroup. She needed to regroup. She made a beeline for her car but pulled up short. It was blocked by Soren’s pickup, which was filled with yet another load of junk to give away.

  The deck overlooked the back lot, and the baby started crying.

  She cried, too. That was Todd’s baby. Todd’s son. With Sarah.

  God, she had to get away for a little while. She needed space to pry apart the emotions that were battling in her soul. Old ones, new ones. All her recent hopes lay shattered and sprinkled with pain.

  She jumped into the truck and gunned it to life. Soren wouldn’t mind. She’d driven a load to the salvage place earlier that week, so she knew the way. What better form of therapy could she find than throwing things? She could already hear the satisfying screech of metal against cement, the blast of shattered glass. A perfect substitute for screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Todd emerged from the building looking so hurt, so ragged, she nearly stopped. But she’d already started backing the truck out of its spot, and making the transition to forward and driving away was an instinctual thing. Before she even had time to think it over, she was halfway around the turn.

  When she glanced back, Todd was already out of sight.

  Concentrate on the road, damn it! She blinked the tears out of her eyes and clutched the wheel harder.

  Regroup. Just need a little time to regroup.

  But no matter how many times she told herself that, it still felt like a lie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Todd sprinted around the corner and down the street then slowed to a jog. He stood panting at the intersection of the alley and the main street, watching Anna leave while his bear ravaged and roared inside.

  Don’t stop! Get her! Don’t let her go!

  He didn’t want to let her go, but running after her wouldn’t help, either.

  Neither does standing here, scratching your head. Do something! his bear screamed.

  What could he do? Chase her down? Tie her up? Force her to listen to a truth that disgusted him as much as it disgusted her?

  He turned back for the saloon, kicking a trash can on the way. The metal lid clattered to the ground and the can tipped on its side, but he left it. And why not? Every time he tried to do the right thing, he screwed up. Why bother trying any more?

  Soren came prowling out of the alley, but Todd strode on. He was not backing down for anyone today.

  “Whoa,” Soren grunted as their shoulders collided. “Hey!”

  Todd ignored the thump and hammered on, heading down the alley. No way was he stopping to talk now.

  He forced his chin up and gauged the distance to the hills surrounding town. It wouldn’t take too long to get out there at this hammering trot of a walk. When he got there, he could disappear deep into the woods, shift into bear form, and maul a few trees. He’d walk as far as his legs could take him and then walk a little more. Maybe he’d walk all the way back to Montana. Starting tonight.

  Sick of this, he let himself rage. I’m so sick of this.

  He was sick of fate giving then taking away. It was turning into a cruel game, and he was tired of playing along. What purpose was there in being the good guy when it only got him screwed over and over again?

  Behind him, metal rattled against asphalt as Soren righted the trash can and hurried after him.

  Todd flicked his fingers, loosening his claws. Let Soren try to talk some sense into him now.

  “Todd,” Soren said, using his nice-guy voice instead of his alpha growl.

  Yeah, well, Todd wasn’t going to fall for that, either.

  “Todd,” Soren said, more sharply this time.

  He barreled on, intent on getting away.

  “Hey,” Soren said, grabbing his shoulder.

  Todd spun with a snarl — a real bear snarl, letting bear claws emerge from
his fingers to slice the air an inch in front of his cousin’s face.

  “Whoa.” Soren stopped and stuck his hands in the air.

  Todd was about to spin and resume his march to the hills when he caught sight of his claws. He froze, looking at them. Claws. All his claws were out. The ones on his injured hand, too.

  He flexed and straightened his fingers, suddenly distracted from the rage that had taken over his mind.

  Hey. They work! His bear cheered.

  A moment later, he retracted them and started walking again. So his hand had recovered slightly. So what? It wasn’t as if that would help him make up with Anna. It wouldn’t restore his hearing or turn back the clock on all the other regrets that loomed over him like a dark winter cloud.

  “You had to tell her,” Soren said, calling after him.

  Too bad that trash can was out of range. He’d have liked to give it a few more kicks.

  A car rumbled into gear behind them, and he turned to see Simon heading out in another vehicle.

  “I told him to follow her,” Soren said. “Just in case.”

  Todd cursed. God, how could he have let the rogue wolf slip his mind?

  “We still don’t know who it was,” Soren said, glaring at the traffic flashing across the intersection at the end of the alley. “Until we do, we have to keep every member of this clan safe.”

  Todd stared at his cousin. Had he just implied that Anna was a member of this clan?

  Soren shrugged, reading his mind. “She could be.”

  The words hung in the dry air, and for a second, Todd nearly let himself hope again. That Anna would forgive him and come back again. That she’d give him another chance and maybe even accept his bear. They could—

  “You know we’d welcome her,” Soren said, breaking the spell.

  He scuffed the asphalt with his boot. Crap. There he went, believing in the impossible again. Even if that happened, fate would find a way to screw things up for him again.

  “Listen,” Soren said, then stopped when the phone in his pocket rang. He pulled it out with a scowl and a curt, “Hello?”

  Todd thought about continuing his run-walk for the hills, but the look on Soren’s face stopped him.