by Elena Aitken
Harper lifted her mug, but it didn’t hide her knowing smile. “Sure it’s not.”
“It’s not.” Chloe put the mug down with so much force, it sloshed over the side. “I mean, it’s really not. We fooled around, yes. But…” Why was she even telling Harper that? Not that it was a secret, but still. Some things should be private. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “It’s not like we’re mates. We’re not. It’s totally not like that.” She picked up her mug again, trying for cool, calm, and collected. All things she failed miserably at.
“I’m not going to push, Chloe. But I am going to tell you that I know what it’s like to feel like you’re out of control and that something is happening to you. That’s part of what this mating thing is all about. And think about it from my perspective for a minute. I didn’t even know I was a bear. Can you imagine? I thought I was just going crazy.” Harper laughed and the sound was so real and so genuine, it put her at ease.
“That would complicate things.” She rolled the mug between her hands, letting the warmth fill her. “I certainly don’t have to worry about that.”
“No.” Harper bent her head in an effort to catch Chloe’s eye. “But you do have to worry about other things. Like your job.”
Just the mention of it sent Chloe’s stomach roiling again.
“My point is, it never seems to be easy, Chloe. Why don’t you let me help you talk it out?”
This time it was an offer she couldn’t refuse, because what was the point? She took another sip of her coffee, letting the black liquid fortify her and told Harper her story, starting at the very beginning, with her childhood and her need for independence.
Harper listened in silence and when Chloe finally paused, she nodded thoughtfully. “So what makes you think you can’t have it all?”
It wasn’t the question Chloe expected. “Pardon?”
Harper shrugged casually. “Forgive me, but I don’t really see the problem. You’ve found your mate.” She held up a finger, stopping Chloe’s interruption. “Whether you want to admit it or not.” Chloe closed her mouth and let the other woman continue. “And you have a career you enjoy that fulfills you. Why can’t you have it all? It doesn’t have to be a choice.”
Chloe dropped her head in her hands and rubbed her temples for a moment before she answered. “Weren’t you listening? I’m investigating claims of environmental mistreatment up here at the Ridge.”
“I got that part.”
“And I just found evidence of that on the Ridge.”
Harper waved her hand in the air. “That’s just…whatever.”
“But that’s the thing,” Chloe insisted. “It’s not just whatever. It’s everything.”
“It’s nothing.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s not real, Chloe. You must see that.”
Chloe shook her head sadly. “What I see is the garbage that was dumped and it came from Grizzly Ridge. That’s evidence. Evidence against the Jacksons. Against Luke. It could mean a serious fine. It could mean jail time. It could mean…the end of the Ridge.”
Harper laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No.” Chloe stared at her until the laughter dried up. “It’s not, Harper. I have to report what I found and depending on how serious it’s determined to be, there are all kinds of consequences that could come from this. I don’t want there to be, but there are.”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, Harper took her time enjoying her coffee, blowing on it and sipping it carefully before she finally looked at Chloe again. “I guess that’s true,” she said simply. “Unless, of course, you do your job.”
Chloe recoiled as if she’d been slapped. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It is, Harper. My job is to investigate claims of environmental mistreatment.”
“And up until yesterday you found how many examples of that?”
“Well, none.”
“Right. And then you happened to stumble upon a few bags of garbage by Luke’s favorite fishing hole. Seems like a strange coincidence, don’t you think?”
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Then maybe that’s the problem.” Harper pushed her chair back and moved to stand. “If you don’t understand what I’m saying, then maybe it’s time you stopped thinking with your heart and started thinking with your head.”
Her head spun. She wasn’t thinking with her heart. That was the problem. She wanted to. She wanted to protect Luke, to keep him and his family from whatever trouble there was going to be because of what she’d discovered. She wanted to protect herself. And the love she’d just begun to convince herself could be real.
“The way I see it,” Harper continued, “you’re so worried about what this discovery is going to cost you—that’s why you’re thinking with your heart. But if you opened your eyes for a minute, and put your feelings away, you’d see that you’ve missed some very important details. Details that are way too coincidental, if you ask me.” She stood then and looked down at Chloe. “Put your feelings aside and figure out what’s really going on and you might just be able to have everything you want after all.”
When he finally calmed down long enough to talk to Brian Blackwood, it hadn’t taken longer than about ten minutes for Luke to get the story of the garbage and the environmental investigation out. It had taken a lot less than that to realize Brian had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
“You really didn’t know about it?”
Brian shook his head, and Luke could see in his eyes he was telling the truth. Also, it was at least the third time he’d asked the question. If Blackwood was lying, he would have sensed it, muddled instincts or not. Besides, wolves weren’t known for their dishonesty as a general rule, and the Jacksons had never had an issue with them before. Luke sat back in his chair.
“I believe you,” he said after a moment. “But if you didn’t know anything about it, or weren’t the source of the complaint that brought Chloe out here, then who was?”
“And who dropped the garbage?”
Luke sat up in his chair again. “Exactly. Because there’s no way in hell we did it.”
“Of course there’s not.” Brian lounged in his chair with his hands behind his head. “It doesn’t make any sense at all for you guys to dump trash on your own land. The land that’s your livelihood.”
“The land we love.”
“Right.”
“None of this adds up.” Luke couldn’t sit any longer. He’d been so sure that Brian would know something; the fact that he didn’t was both a relief and a letdown because he was no further ahead than when he’d left the ridge that morning. And definitely no closer to an answer to give Chloe. “I just don’t understand it,” he muttered as he paced the small office. “Chloe found our letterhead in the bags, which beyond the fact that we would never dump on our land, doesn’t make sense because we shred everything we have that uses our letterhead. It’s a privacy thing.”
Brian nodded.
“So who—”
“Hey boss, I wanted to talk to you about—Oh, I didn’t know you had company.” A man who looked like a younger, scrawnier version of Brian popped into the office, but the moment he saw Luke, his face hardened and his eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem?” He pointedly looked away from Luke and focused on Brian.
Brian took his time unfolding himself from his chair, but when he stood, Luke could much more clearly see both the similarities between the men as well as the differences. “Luke, this is Darryl Ackerman. My cousin from down south. Darryl, meet Luke Jackson, one of the brothers who runs Grizzly Ridge. The Jacksons are our neighbors.”
For at least the hundredth time, Luke wished his instincts weren’t still so muddled by his damn mate. Or lack of mating, whatever the case may be, because there was something off about this man. He just couldn’t pin it down. He offered Darryl his hand, but the younger man tucked
both of his in his back pockets and nodded.
“I know who you are.”
Instead of reprimanding his cousin, Brian simply raised his eyebrows slightly before his face returned to neutral, but Luke hadn’t missed either Darryl’s rudeness or Brian’s reaction.
“Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of you.” Luke crossed his arms over his chest. “What brings you to Blackwood Ranch?”
“Darryl was getting into a little trouble down in Wyoming, so I brought him up here to work for me for a bit. Thought a bit of hard work could sort him out.”
“Is that right?”
Brian nodded.
“And how’s that working out for you?”
“Let’s just say, Darryl’s going to learn a lot in his time here.”
The younger man shifted anxiously from foot to foot, and Luke’s instincts were on high alert. There was something shifty about this kid, and more than just the fact that he was a wolf. As a general rule, Luke didn’t have much time for wolves, but this one really rubbed him the wrong way.
“Right.” Darryl sidestepped his way to the door. “I’m sure I will. I should go.”
The second he was gone, Luke turned to Brian. “Your cousin has a lot to learn about manners.”
“He has a lot to learn, period. But he’s a good kid.”
Luke didn’t think so. “I’ll take your word for it, Blackwood. But only because you and me, we’re good.”
“We are good, Jackson. I don’t know what’s going on over there on the ridge, but you have my word, it’s not me or my guys.”
“Are you sure about that? How many men do you have working for you? How many cousins?”
“Tread carefully, Jackson. I don’t like what you’re implying.”
Luke held up his hands and stepped backward. “I’m not implying a thing. I’m just saying, something’s going on up on our ridge. Something that is beginning to look a lot like sabotage and there aren’t a lot of options to choose from here. That’s all I’m saying.”
Brian nodded and extended his hand, which Luke took. “I get it, Luke. I’d be the same way if it was happening on the ranch. I’ll keep my eyes open around here. You have my word.”
It was the best he could hope for.
Chapter Nine
“Think with your head, Chloe.” She repeated the words to herself. “Think with your head.” She’d lost count as to how many times she’d repeated the phrase. Since leaving the Den and her little chat with Harper, it had become her new mantra.
Think with your head.
It’s exactly what she’d thought she’d been doing, but it was easy to see now that she’d been working so hard to keep her feelings for Luke from clouding her judgment, she was doing the exact opposite. She so badly wanted what she found to not be connected with Luke and the Jacksons that she wasn’t allowing herself to look at it logically and impartially. It was kind of backward thinking, but she was still doing what she said she’d never do again: letting her emotions guide her work.
She’d sifted through the bags again. And separated everything she found into two piles.
There was the kitchen garbage. The organics.
And then there was the paper. Grizzly Ridge letterhead, with nothing written or typed. Just plain paper that had been crumpled into balls. That in itself was strange. Who threw away perfectly good letterhead? The other thing that was strange was…that was it for paper: no receipts, no evidence of shredding, no printed emails. Nothing.
When she looked at it logically, she had to admit, it looked strange. Very strange.
“Think with your head, Chloe.”
She moved away from the pile of paper and back to the organics pile. Everything in this bag looked as if it had come directly from the kitchen. And all of it was compostable. Luke had mentioned something about Kade starting a compost pile. She’d go check with him just as soon as she was done. But there had to be something else. Something she was missing.
She needed a break.
What she really needed was to let her bear out and go for a run in the forest to clear her head. But it wasn’t a good idea. After all, that’s what got her into this mess in the first place. Well, not really, but if she hadn’t been in her bear form playing in the woods that day when she’d come across Luke, would they still have the attraction to each other? Deep down she knew the answer was yes. She knew he was right. Harper was right. Dammit, everyone was right. They were fated mates. It wouldn’t have mattered whether they’d seen each other for the first time in a bar over drinks, or covered in manure in the back of a barn. The attraction would still be just as strong. There was no getting away from it.
With a sigh, she twisted the top off her water bottle and drank deeply. She needed to stop thinking about Luke. She needed to focus. Because the sooner she could solve this little mystery and file her report, the sooner she could get away from the Ridge and him. And that’s exactly what she needed to do. If this little incident had taught her anything, it had definitely taught her that she’d been right. A mate was nothing but trouble. She couldn’t think clearly, she couldn’t work, she couldn’t function. If that’s what it meant to have a man in her life, she didn’t want it.
Determined to get back on track, Chloe pulled out her notebook and read through the notes she’d made. Everything up until that point had pointed only to Grizzly Ridge being on the cutting edge of environmental concern. There had been no red flags. If anything, everything had pointed away from them. Which was why her garbage discovery didn’t make any sense. Her instinct said it was a setup, but she couldn’t file that in her report. Not without evidence. She needed evidence that it wasn’t the Jacksons; otherwise, she just couldn’t ignore it. She’d have to report it, even if it didn’t make sense.
And that would mean a consequence. Probably a fine, a big one, but maybe even jail time, depending on the prosecutor.
Footsteps approaching outside the shed alerted Chloe that she wasn’t alone. Her body reacted instantly to the idea that it might be Luke coming to find her again. But she knew better. He’d said his good-bye. And that’s what it was: a good-bye. It had felt so final in so many ways, her heart ached just thinking about their last time together. When Kade came around the corner, she was both relieved and disappointed that it wasn’t his older brother.
“Find anything?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.” She tossed her notebook on the table behind her and made room for Kade on the bench where she sat. He reached past her and grabbed the notebook, which had fallen open to the inside of the front cover. To the picture of little Jordan Adams.
“Who’s this?” Kade picked up the notebook before she could grab it back. “He yours?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “He wasn’t…I didn’t…” Chloe swallowed and let out a long sigh. “I didn’t even know him. He was a kid on a case I worked a few years ago.”
“You deal with a lot of kids in your line of work?”
Chloe shook her head. “Almost none.” She took the notebook back from him and stared at the picture. It had been a long time since she talked about Jordan Adams. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever actually talking about him. Mostly she’d just tucked away the memories. It was easier that way. She glanced at Kade out of the corner of her eye. He sat patiently, waiting for her to say more. Maybe it was time she did start talking? It couldn’t hurt.
“He was different.” Chloe ran her finger along the side of the picture the way she had a hundred, maybe a thousand times before. “He lived in the town where I was working on an investigation. My first one, actually.” She paused, but Kade didn’t push. After a moment, she continued. “I was with a team. We were hired by the town to test the water supply in their new spray park. I was pretty new so I got all the grunt jobs like actually collecting the samples. I knew right away there was something not right. The water…it didn’t look right and it had a smell to it on hot days.”
“And so you found something?”
Chloe shook h
er head slowly. “No. We didn’t. Or at least my team didn’t find anything.”
“But if you said the—”
“I know. I couldn’t figure it out. I ran the tests over and over. Even after hours, I’d go back and do it again. I was so certain there was something wrong with the water, but I was new and very green and…”
“Nobody would listen to you?”
“Exactly.” She nodded. “I couldn’t help but think that maybe if I looked a little harder, if I’d done my job better, I would have found something that would have been conclusive. But I didn’t.”
“And?”
“And we were wrong. The water was contaminated with bacteria. Ten kids got sick. Nine were lucky. Jordan Adams wasn’t.”
Luke should have headed straight up to the Den to find Axel and Kade and get to the bottom of what was going on. His meeting with Blackwood had done one thing, and that was concrete the idea in his head that even if Brian didn’t know exactly what was going on, something was definitely going on and it involved the Blackwood Ranch. The sooner they got to the bottom of what was going on, the better. Especially because as long as the Ridge was under suspicion, it made things way too complicated between him and Chloe, and that was one situation he was not willing to accept.
Despite his resolve to talk with his brothers, Luke found himself taking a left off the path that led to the Den, and instead, led directly to where he knew he would find Chloe. There were a million reasons he should stay away from her and keep his distance, not the least of which was the little coupling they’d shared the day before. That was supposed to be their good-bye. It had been their good-bye in so many ways. But not in the way that really counted. Because there was no good-bye that would ever be good enough, strong enough to make him stay away. He knew that now. Hell, he’d known that then. She was like a magnet that he couldn’t pull away from. It didn’t matter what she’d found in the woods, or what it could mean to Grizzly Ridge. None of that mattered, and not just because he knew they were innocent of any and all wrongdoing. No, it didn’t matter because now that he’d found her, there was no way he was going to let her walk away from him and out of her life. He was going to walk right into that shed, wrap her in his arms and—