“I see you two know each other.” Maeve chuckled.
Belle nodded but didn’t elaborate. Maeve would likely think she’d met Silver when Colt saved her during the Missoula Massacre. It kept in line with their story.
As Belle showered Silver with the affection he craved, she glanced into the next stall. Inside, the horse stood cockeyed. Belle watched it with careful, assessing eyes as it lay down in the hay, favoring its front right leg.
“He’s gone lame,” a feminine voice said from behind them.
Belle twisted toward the sound. A dark-skinned woman, around these parts likely Native American, stood with her hands on her hips, watching them. She wore cowgirl boots and a Stetson, and if the dirt and hay on her clothes were any indication, she’d been working out here or in the pasture for the better part of the day.
“Elizabeth, this is Naomi,” Maeve said, introducing the woman. “Naomi, this is Elizabeth. She’s new here.”
Naomi reached out a hand to shake hers. “Pleasure.”
Belle took it. The other woman’s grip was strong, yet not like the strength of a…
“You’re a human.” The words fell from Belle’s lips before she could stop them. She hadn’t caught the woman’s scent before, thanks to the smell of hay and freshly mucked manure permeating the air of the stables, but now that she’d caught it, she couldn’t mistake it.
“The only one you’ll find on this ranch,” Naomi answered.
“And you’re here willingly?” Belle’s eyes grew wide.
Naomi nodded.
Belle eyed the woman, flabbergasted. “That’s a story I’m interested to hear.”
Maeve took that as her cue to pipe in on the introductions. “Naomi’s engaged to the Grey Wolf second-in-command. They’re getting married tomorrow.” She let out a small, enthused squeak and clapped her hands.
Belle hadn’t heard the Grey Wolves had appointed a new second-in-command. Their previous second, Bo, had been killed in battle roughly six months earlier. The rumors of it had spread through their world like wildfire, even among Rogues, who, sporting a natural pack mentality, were the worst kinds of gossips.
“Congratulations,” Belle said.
“Thanks. I think Maeve’s more excited than I am.” Naomi laughed. “My future husband and I are already mated.” She shrugged.
Mated? How could a human and a werewolf mate? Belle shook her head. She didn’t want to pry, but from the look of pure happiness in the human woman’s eyes, Belle had no doubt it was true.
Maeve rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “It’s not every day one of our elite warriors walks down the aisle, and I actually get to be in the wedding and wear a gorgeous dress to boot. The last time that happened, I was a teenager and they made me the flower girl. Can you believe that? Fifteen and a flower girl. You should have seen that poufy monstrosity.” She shuddered. “Thanks to Naomi, I get to wear a dress that makes me look like I have a hint of curves this time.” She gestured to her boyish figure. “It’s going to be a huge occasion.” Maeve’s eyes took on a dreamy quality. Whether the wedding was the occasion she referred to or the chance to have a womanly look to her figure, Belle wasn’t certain.
Not a princess. Sure.
Belle followed Naomi’s gaze back to the ill horse.
“He’s favoring his front right leg a lot,” she offered.
Naomi nodded. “I’d noticed.”
“Likely an abscess under his hoof. It’s a pocket of infection in the lamina. Usually, it starts with a small puncture wound, maybe a misplaced shoe nail or something sharp he stepped on, and it progresses from there. The hole allows the bacteria in, and bacteria love dark, damp places like that.”
“I called Austin—he’s our farrier and takes care of all the medical husbandry around here—but he’s still out at the Missoula ranch, so I’ll have to call someone else soon. He’s also the Grey Wolves’ main medic and a soldier to boot. The man’s so overworked, it’s not even funny,” Naomi said.
Belle gestured to the stall. “I’m a physician, but I have a fair amount of animal husbandry experience. I grew up on a ranch. I can handle removing a shoe and draining the abscess.”
Hell, she’d performed surgeries that repaired fragile human bones from shattered, fragmented pieces. She was more than confident she could handle this.
“You grew up on a ranch, huh?” Naomi smiled. “That makes two of us. If you’re confident you can do this, I’m more than happy to let you try.”
Together, the three women led the stumbling horse from his stall, careful he didn’t topple over and crush any of them with his weight. When they had him secured, Belle instructed the other women on the tools she’d need.
Once everything was sanitized and she’d donned gloves, Belle made quick work of paring away the shoe on the affected hoof. She balanced the horse’s leg in a bucket of ice to lessen the bruising and slow the rapid blood flow. Removing the shoe confirmed her diagnosis. The area beneath the horse’s hoof was tender and causing him clear pain. Belle drained the abscess, being as gentle with the beast as she could.
When she was finished, she stood. “Try to keep the area clean to avoid reinfection. Let’s soak his hoof in Epsom salts and warm water, and that will help draw the rest of the infection out. Once we do that, we’ll bandage him up, but you’ll need to repeat the process for a few days while it heals. You may want to give him an anti-inflammatory shot to keep him out of pain.”
She glanced up at her companions, who were looking at her with identical smiles on their faces. She could have sworn she heard one of them whisper Colt’s name, but she was likely just being paranoid.
“What?” she asked.
Maeve grinned. “So you and Colt met on the Missoula ranch, huh?” she asked. The question seemed to hold more meaning than Maeve was letting on.
Belle gave a stiff nod, as Maeve and Naomi exchanged knowing glances. It was a clear look of Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Naomi was nodding as she gave an assessing look to Belle’s curvaceous figure. “Sierra’s lean, but all muscle. I bet you could let it out in the right places, and it would be perfect,” Naomi said to Maeve. “Then Sierra gets her way and doesn’t have to wear a dress, and she could be free to move around while doing the photos.”
Belle raised a brow. “What are you two talking about it?”
The mischievous grin across Maeve’s face widened. “Elizabeth, how do you feel about satin?”
Belle eyed the other women warily. She could see some sort of plan forming, and despite her dread at that thought, for a moment, Belle almost forgot that these budding friendships were temporary.
Chapter 13
“You look like a Hells Angel wearing a tux.” Colt yanked at the satin material of Wes’s tie, straightening it for the umpteenth time. He wrinkled his nose in disdain as he examined his friend and fellow packmate standing before him. Wes Calhoun looked about as right in a suit and tie as a pig did in a tutu, and thanks to Maeve’s latest pet antics—a “teacup pig” she’d affectionately taken in and named Tucker—it hadn’t been that long since Colt had seen such a sight.
Wes grumbled as Colt straightened his collar. “Coming from you, that’s rich.”
Colt knew he wasn’t much cut out for the suit-and-tie business either. He was far more at home in his old ranch jeans and a T-shirt, or on the occasion he was feeling fancy, a button-down or a flannel. At least the bride had allowed them to don dress Stetsons, though the groom’s appeared to be MIA at the moment, revealing a mop of messy blond locks.
“At least my hair looks like I run a comb through it,” Colt shot back.
Wes’s hair nearly reached his chin, and comb or no comb, he never looked freshly groomed. Wild was more like it.
“Naomi says it’s sexy bed head.” Wes grinned.
Colt rolled his eyes. “Of course, she does.�
�� He reached for the nearby plastic container that housed the groom’s boutonniere and accompanying pins. “I’m sure that’s why she insisted on the dress Stetson to match the suit.”
A wry grin crossed Wes’s lips. “She may have mentioned I needed to tame it for the ceremony, but she was sure singing a different tune last night.”
Colt shook his head. “Say no more. You’re supposed to be a gentleman today. I know you don’t know the meaning of the word, but rule number one is gentlemen don’t kiss and tell.”
“And you know about being a gentleman, Commander Casanova?”
Colt grunted. “Not you, too.”
Wes shrugged. “Wolves talk.”
Colt worked the pin through the back side of the small flower arrangement. Yellow gerbera daisy. Every bit as charming and country chic as the bride herself. “Don’t humans think it’s bad luck to see the bride the night before the big day?”
“It’s on the wedding day that’s bad luck, and I’m no gentleman, nor a sucker for tradition.” Wes chuckled. “Which means up until midnight last night, we were—”
The door to Wes’s apartment burst open, saving Colt from the mental image of Wes rolling in the hay with his human bride-to-be—literally in the hay, based on what the stable hands had told him. It’d been less than twenty-four hours since a certain viper-tongued she-wolf had arrived at the pack, and he’d been considering doing the same. Probably best that she’d been doing an excellent job of lying low. He hadn’t seen her since, though somehow Silver had. He knew because the horse had been in a considerably better mood. It was better this way, not seeing her. It meant Colt hadn’t had the chance to defy his own rules.
He had a feeling he was starting not to like rules. At least when it came to her.
At the sudden intrusion, Colt’s hand slipped, missing the mark with the pin so he jabbed his finger instead.
“Shit,” he swore, bringing the digit to his mouth. But once his eyes turned to the door, he didn’t have much time to bitch about the unexpected arrival. What stood in the doorframe was… Well, Colt wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing.
“What in the blazing fuck is that?” Wes sneered, his gaze raking up and down their fellow packmate’s attire as his nose wrinkled in disgust.
Blaze-ing fuck being about right. Blaze, the Grey Wolf chief of intelligence and tech expert, stood in the doorway. The fuchsia-pink suit he wore was covered in small, black silhouettes of palm trees, accompanied by a dressy white undershirt and a tie that matched the suit. When Colt squinted the right way, Blaze looked like a muscular hot-pink flamingo. Aside from palm trees, considering flamingoes were another common motif in Blaze’s outrageous clothing choices, that aesthetic might have been what he was shooting for.
Blaze sauntered into the room, looking every bit at home in the ridiculous getup. “You like it?” He smoothed a hand down his lapel.
He knew perfectly well that Colt and Wes would likely burn the garment in one of the ranch’s late-night campfires as soon as they had the chance.
“What are you doing here, Blaze?” Colt grumbled at their packmate. If Blaze wanted to look like a pink peacock, so be it, but on Wes’s wedding day, Colt knew the other wolf was doing it to rile Wes. Not that pissing off the Grey Wolf second-in-command was very difficult. He wasn’t known for having a calm temper.
But as best man, it was Colt’s job to get Wes to the altar in one piece, and considering the way Wes looked as if he was ready to throttle Blaze, that challenge was proving increasingly difficult.
“I came to congratulate Wes,” Blaze answered.
Wes snarled.
Colt shot Wes a hard stare that may as well have said Don’t take this idiot’s bait. “That’s all fine and dandy, but what are you doing in”—Colt wasn’t quite sure what to call it—“that suit,” he finally managed. He said suit as if it were a dirty word. Even to Colt, who didn’t give two licks about fashion sense, calling such an atrocity a suit seemed plain wrong. It was unsuitable in every way possible.
“How often do I get the occasion for formal wear?” Blaze shrugged.
“You call that formal wear?” Wes growled.
Colt was shaking his head. “You’re not even in the wedding party, Blaze.”
Wes’s bride-to-be, a true cowgirl at heart, hadn’t wanted her wedding day to be a tux and gown affair, so only the wedding party and Maverick, who was conducting the ceremony, would be in semiformal attire. Even the bride herself planned to sport a pair of bright-red leather cowgirl boots beneath her short, white wedding gown. It was intended to be a fun western-themed occasion, and considering the happy couple were getting officially married—official by human standards—in a traditional ceremony with only Naomi, her future husband, her brother, Jacob, and her fellow tribal members at the Crow tribe res in a few days’ time, dressing up hadn’t been the highest priority.
Blaze flashed Wes a playful grin. “Your future wife gave it the okay.”
“My wife has a soft spot for kitschy things,” Wes snarled. “But I don’t.”
With that, Wes turned back toward Colt, gesturing at the boutonniere.
Wes didn’t have two legs to stand on when it came to making Blaze take the suit off. Wes may have been one of the fiercest wolves among these mountains, but even he was an occasional pushover when it came to butting heads with his gorgeous bride.
If you asked Colt, seeing Wes put in his place was a refreshing change of pace.
“Why do you feel the need to tie the knot anyway? You’re already mated,” Blaze asked.
As Wes told it, they had been since the night Naomi had become their most recent—and only human—packmember.
“Congratulations, huh?” Colt gave Blaze the side-eye as he finally pinned the daisy to Wes’s suit.
“She’s human. It is important to her,” Wes added.
Colt brushed off Wes’s collar. “There. That’s about as decent as you’ll ever look. Minus the hat.”
Wes retrieved his dress Stetson from a nearby hook and tipped it onto his head. “It better be. She deserves more than decent.”
Blaze made a fake gagging noise. “Oh, good Lord. Save it until the honeymoon.”
As Blaze gave another pretend retch in the corner, Maverick strode into the room. The packmaster in formal wear looked even more out of place than Colt and Wes did. Several of his midnight-black ceremonial tattoos—which covered the majority of his tanned torso, all the way from his wrists to the line of his neck—peeked from beneath his suit coat.
Wes chuckled. “And you said I looked like a Hells Angel.”
Maverick shot Wes an impatient glare. “I’m only doing this at your wife’s request.”
“Future wife,” Blaze corrected.
Maverick’s gaze fell to Blaze, and the packmaster’s usually unreadable demeanor twisted in a look of obvious distaste. “Take that thing off.” It was the tone he reserved for direct orders. Like Colt, Maverick rarely made requests.
“I won’t,” Blaze quipped.
Amid grumbles of protest about wardrobe policing being a blatant abuse of power, Blaze sulked from Wes’s apartment, closing the door behind him as a satisfied grin crossed Wes’s lips. A moment later, the door flew open again, revealing Maeve in her bridesmaid’s gown, cradling a squalling bundle of pink flesh that, upon quick glance, might have been a swaddled baby nursing from a bottle, but on closer inspection was none other than Tucker the teacup pig.
“Doesn’t anyone knock around here?” Colt questioned.
Maeve stormed into the room like a force of nature, despite being barely half the size of every other person present and carrying an animal that belonged among the ranch’s livestock. Sierra, Maeve’s best friend and Colt’s younger sister, trailed behind Maeve. Sierra clutched a seriously expensive professional camera in her hands. Colt noted she wore a dressy blue pants suit and flats rather than
the spring-yellow bridesmaid’s gown and heels she was supposed to be wearing.
“The bride’s almost ready,” Maeve announced to the three of them, as if this were unexpected, joyous news. Considering the ceremony was scheduled to start in approximately fifteen minutes and Naomi’s two overly enthusiastic bridesmaids were likely to fuss over her so much they’d make the bride fashionably late rather than on time, it was surprising.
“We still need to go over what I’ve written,” Maverick said.
Maeve looked at Maverick as if he’d grown two heads, and Sierra immediately defaulted to the glare she reserved solely for Maverick. Despite having followed him around like a lovesick puppy for most of her girlhood, as soon as Sierra had reached her late teens, her obvious feelings for Maverick had taken a sudden and abrupt turn. Nowadays, Colt was certain there wasn’t a man on this green earth who Sierra hated more.
“The bride waits for no one,” she said. Coming from Sierra, it was far more threatening than from Maeve.
Maverick growled in response. Sierra was lucky she was Colt’s sister. From anyone else, he wouldn’t have accepted such disrespect.
Without giving the packmaster a second glance, Sierra made her way toward Colt. “You don’t clean up half-bad, brother.” She slugged him in the shoulder in a manner that was far more cowgirl than ladylike.
Colt grunted as he fought not to wince. Sierra’s strength was in part a gift of James and Sonya’s pure Grey Wolf genetics—the previous commander’s bloodline was among the purest of their kind, except only for the Grey family themselves—but Colt supposed he was in part to blame for honing her fighting skills. With his training, Sierra had become the pack’s finest female warrior, able to hold her own even among the most elite alpha males of the pack.
Meanwhile, Maeve rounded on Maverick, laying into him as only she could. Their bickering quickly deteriorated into background noise.
“Not even Naomi and Maeve could manage to get you into a dress and heels, huh?” Colt asked Sierra. He wasn’t the least bit surprised.
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