by Diana Downey
“Motive for murder.” Maybe they only wanted the ring and couldn’t find it, and that’s why they took the sneakers.
“Is there a life insurance policy on you?” I ask.
“A small one to cover funeral expenses, maybe ten grand.”
“Did your mom leave you any money?”
“She left each of us a part of the estate, and since we were underage, Dad controls Willa’s and mine. He still does. Other than the land, Fay put hers in a trust. If I die though, she gains control of the ranch.”
“I can’t see her trying to kill you.” Given her dad is handling the finances, what would his motive be? He could’ve taken the money and left years ago.
“Fay hates me.”
Red said murder wasn’t the plan, but that’s changed with Loki killing Blake. “We should keep moving.”
“When’s lunch?” She pulls out an energy bar. How much food did she pack?
I don’t want to stop because it’ll only remind me of how much I’d like to wrap her into my arms.
“This isn’t the same river we were on originally, is it?” She looks nervously around.
Maybe we should head back to Fairbanks while we still have the chance. That would throw them off but take us longer. “No. It’s another tributary.”
She limps along until she stops beside the rushing water. Her boots must be bothering her—that could stop us dead in our tracks.
A nervous tick develops in her brow while she studies the opposite bank. “If you’re supposed to be hunting, why haven’t you shot that bear? Is it because it’s across the river and we can’t get to it?”
What the hell? “What bear?” I scan across the river, and sure enough, a grizzly is watching us. I pull out my binoculars. “How long has it been following us?”
She sits on a rock. “About two miles. I thought you knew, being the great hunter and all.” Sarcasm laces her words, and I’m not in the mood for it.
I narrow my eyes at her. Has Cyn’s problem messed up my thinking that much? No. It’s the thought of facing Red. No. It’s her siren song. With my head not in the game, we’re in deep shit.
I study the bear. From its blond shaggy coat and massive head, he’s the one I’ve been hunting for many years. “It’s hunting us.”
Her hands slightly tremble as she tears off a bite from her energy bar. “It can’t get us. Can it?”
“If it swims across the water.”
“You’d shoot it though?” Nerves quake in her voice.
“As long as it doesn’t sneak up on us.” It’s unusual for a bear to track a human but not unheard of. “Bears sometimes will track hunters to steal their prey.”
“Pretty smart.” She opens her pack and pulls out a collapsible fishing pole.
“Why don’t you shoot it now?” she asks.
“I don’t want to lug it for seventy miles. Its den is close to Tonakwa on the other side of those mountains.” I point at the range northwest of us.
She rigs her pole. “I guess that makes sense.”
Her handling a rod I find interesting, alluring, and damn sexy. “You still fish?”
She rigs a fly onto the hook. “Not much anymore.”
As sexy as it is to watch her cast, we can’t hang out here too long. “We should keep moving. I’d like to get in fifteen miles today.” I need to check her feet though first.
“We need to take a break and eat lunch. I’m buying.” She casts far into the river, and the fly dances across the swirling water.
“I’m impressed, Princess.”
She smiles, and my mind dives into the gutter because I’d like nothing better than to strip her down to her sexy underwear. “You should be.”
Behind us, a deep, guttural growl joins several others. Pulling the 10mm from its holster, I slowly turn around to see the black wolf and his pack staring us down from the edge of the trees.
Chapter Fifteen
Cyn
A good-sized trout jumps and thrashes above the water, fighting the line. “I got one,” I say, squealing with delight and leaping up, which only reminds me of the sores blistering my feet from my new boots. That’s when I hear the snarling. Eight wolves of various colors from pewter to black, that froth at the mouth and gnash their teeth, narrow their eyes and lower their heads. I think that’s a bad sign.
The black one weighs easily over a hundred pounds. None of them are sickly or ill, and the closest pewter one is only twenty feet away. I squeeze close to Shane, scooting behind him. He’s a solid block of stone, so it’s easy to hide in his shadow.
With our backs against the river, the wolves circle and pace, drooling from their fanged, powerful jaws. “Should we run?” I ask, swallowing down a lump of fear.
Shane holds my arm to keep me still. Since the wolves reared him, he is the one man I know I can trust in this harsh environment.
“No,” Shane says.
“When will they attack us?” I say in a low voice to his massive shoulder, and he shivers. I’m not cold with all this gear on. He should be because he’s wearing a tee shirt.
“They’re toying with us. I need to send them a strong message.” He aims the gun at the pewter wolf boldly venturing nearer.
I grab his arm, and he trembles again. What’s up with that? “Don’t kill it.”
“You’d rather it was us?” His deep whiskey voice works under my skin.
“Not particularly.”
The large grey male lunges at us. I scream and clamp harder onto Shane, wrapping my arms around his neck.
He shoots the wolf lunging at us, hitting its foreleg. It stumbles and collapses onto the sodden earth. The black one doesn’t flinch but intently watches us. The other wolves take refuge in the woods while the bear across the river sits on its haunches and watches. I used to love the outdoors, but this is…I won’t cry.
“Cyn, you made me miss it, and now the damn thing is wounded instead of dead.”
“Sorry.” I hold back tears for the animal writhing in pain while the black wolf trots back into the forest and the rest soon follow. “Why would you kill it?”
“Once an animal comes after a human, it has to be put down.” Shane pulls me up by my pack. “Let’s fish farther down, and we’ll take a rest for a half hour. That’s it.” He stabs his finger at me.
Why does he hate me? We used to be friends, and he should’ve dated me.
The wounded wolf tries to scramble to its massive paws but crumples to the ground, whimpering. Poor thing. I hold in my tears.
Shane strides over to it, and when he shoots the wolf in the head, I jump. When it goes still, a few tears escape. If I stayed at the cabins, that could be me, like my dead husband. Blake told me to run and that he was sorry. Maybe he didn’t know.
“Get the rest of your stuff,” Shane says.
I reel in the fish still fighting my line, then Shane unhooks the trout. Holding the rod, I readjust my pack and hobble after Shane through dense brush and over rocks. I don’t tell him that my new boots have rubbed my big toes raw. My feet hurt so bad I stumble along after Shane.
He finally stops at a clearing over a quarter-mile down. The bear crosses the stream to gnaw on the dead wolf—the food chain at work. I know I’m at the bottom of it.
After we stop, Shane digs a pit for a fire because the day has grown colder. “We’ll eat here.” He attaches another fly onto my line and recasts.
We’re closer to the woods here, so terror works hard knots into my shoulders and glues my feet to the rocky shore. “What about the wolves?”
He hands me my rod. “They won’t come back for a while.”
I hate that he’s so calm, like this is some everyday occurrence. It probably is for him.
I pry a twig from my tangled mess of hair loosely tied back. It doesn’t help that stray wisps trap falling debris like a spider web. A bug climbs on the twig I pulled from my hair, so I scream.
Shane brushes back my hair. I won’t cry. We have a long way to go. “It’s okay, Cyn.”
I flick the bug and twig away. “I should be sipping a Mai Tai on some exotic beach, having suntan oil rubbed all over my body instead of being in this horrible place.” Tears prick my eyes. I’m widowed at twenty-one by a bisexual man that Shane forewarned me about. My mom tried to warn me too—to choose a good man, not a pretty one. If only she were here.
While standing, Shane plays with the line, so the fly dances on the river’s surface. “But you’re not on some beach, and I should be hunting without the added babysitting of a princess.”
I’m not going to say he doesn’t have to because I don’t want him to dump me here and leave me to die. “Why do you hate me?”
He laughs. “I don’t. You just piss me off.”
I should ignore him.
Glancing up at the grey sky, I imagine a bed swaddled in fresh white linens in a thatched hut on the cerulean waters of Bora Bora. “My husband should be pleasing me, giving me my wedding present. What I’ve waited for my entire adult life…an orgasm,” I mutter angrily under my breath while I clean the trout I caught.
“He can’t help you now.” Shane stops and jerks around. “No way. Did you just say orgasm?” He drops to his knees, holding his six-pack, laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding. You mean you’ve never had one?”
When he grins, the scar on his chin reaches his full bottom lip, which looks sort of sexy on him. “You must’ve dated some real winners. How many lucky guys have disappointed you?”
“Not many,” I defend my lack of honor and chastity.
Chuckling, Shane gets up, playing with my fishing rod. “I’m waiting, Princess.”
Why should I tell him? Because I want to know what he’s done. It’ll pass the time in this unforgiving land. “Only ten,” I lie, “and two don’t count. They couldn’t get it up. I suppose you’ve satisfied hundreds of conquests.”
“You forget that I’ve known you for some time, and you don’t have to lie about all the men you’ve had.” He laughs again.
Over the past three years, he’s seen me out with probably a hundred guys, and that doesn’t include my high school failures. “Well, I’m waiting.” I impatiently tap my injured foot.
“I satisfied every last one of them, and I’ve only slept with a handful of women.”
“Only a handful? I guess that doesn’t surprise me with all that charm you exude.”
He gives me that cocky grin. “I don’t have to spread myself around. I’m into quality, not quantity. I’m guessing around thirty or forty women.”
Honestly, it’s not fair that he gets off his women while I’ve been left hanging for years. “Those women were probably faking it.”
What appear to be fond memories wash over his expression. “I know Lindsey wasn’t.”
“Who’s Lindsey?” I fold my arms across my chest, thinking she’s another satisfied woman. “Oh come on. How can you be sure?”
Shane looks at me with a warm smile that chokes my breath and forces heat to creep up my neck. It’s just his masculinity. It’s certainly not his lack of charisma, but all this talk of sex has me squeezing my thighs together, and this rugged man has caught me at a moment of utter weakness.
“We were both virgins, trying to figure it all out,” he says, smiling, not taking those green eyes off me. “I got her off the second time after a lot of work and a lot of coaching on her part.”
“Oh.” How sweet. “Mine wasn’t that special. It hurt like a mother, and poof, it was over in a flash.”
Sympathy briefly flashes in his eyes. “As I recall you lost your virginity the day I met you.”
It’s embarrassing, but he told me his first time. “Yes, but he wasn’t a virgin.” I wish I’d spoken more to Mom about sex before she was taken from me. She and Dad had quite the torrid romance.
His hand cups my knee, which unfortunately shoots straight up between my thighs. “Cyn, there’s nothing wrong with you. You need to sleep with someone who cares about you and will put up with you,” he says with a teasing smile.
I don’t dare return his touch unless I’m prepared to go further. The current flowing between us is enough to fuel a fire. “Where is Lindsey now?” I ask.
He snorts out a laugh. “Tonakwa. Divorced with a kid.”
“Why did you let her get away?”
The slightest hint of sadness shines in his eyes. “I went off to school. She wasn’t interested in waiting.”
Gosh, I’m nosy. “Do you miss her?”
“No,” he says curtly.
I envy his ex-girlfriends, especially right now. Even though my thoughts should concern surviving, part of me yearns for my honeymoon. I needed this vacation, and now look at me. I’m scared out of mind about what will happen when we meet up with Loki and Red and my husband’s lover, not to mention the predators stalking us.
“Why did you let those guys just use you?” he asks bitterly.
How dare he suggest I’m easy? “It’s not like someone like you could do any better.”
Shane spins around to face me, and my breath hitches—the gleam in his eyes, feral and uncontrollable. As I take a step back, stumbling over a branch, he catches me from falling, picks me up, and presses my back against a thick tree. My gaze rakes over the bulge in his pants that grows exponentially, and the Secretariat reference comes to mind.
His hands cup both my butt cheeks while my legs clamp around his body so that I don’t fall. His erection rubs hard against my mound. Wow. Why can’t we be on a beach at this moment instead of this hellhole?
He kisses me with all the fury of a wild animal, his beard scratching my face, his lips rough and chapped against mine, his tongue thrusting into my mouth. My inner thighs quiver with lust, my excitement wetting my thong. His coarse and passionate kisses leave me breathless.
My arms wrap around his neck. No man has ever kissed me like he does, and he’s so not Prince Charming. Why couldn’t humans have raised him?
He lets me up for air, his green eyes penetrating me. “You should be kissed often by someone who knows what the hell he’s doing.” His gruff voice burrows into my neck, before his tongue reaches my lips and forces my mouth open.
I scoff while gulping in air, my sex throbbing with greedy desire. “And you think you’re the one.”
“I’m up to the challenge, Princess. Are you?”
I squirm while my body caves to his demanding mouth, his cock grinding against my sex that would love for us to be naked.
“Well…I…I.” I so want to drag him down onto the forest floor and make him fulfill that erotic offer, but why would I? He turned me down, but just maybe he could sate my needs.
“Good. This must mean you’ll be quiet for a while. I got something out of this besides a hard-on.” Shane unceremoniously lets go of me, leaving me panting and shaking, the tree holding me upright.
Jerk. Gets me all excited then leaves me hanging. He’s no different than the other guys I’ve dated, except they had money and manners.
Still trembling with need and from shock, I pick up my rod carelessly thrown to the ground by Shane where a fish tugs on the other end.
Shane pulls out his pole, the fishing one that is. Now I’ll never stop thinking about him and Mr. Sex on a rod. I reel in the fish and throw it up on shore. It keeps my mind off Red, Loki, and Julian hunting me but not Shane. The muscles on his shoulders and neck tense under his shell, but he shakes off his excitement while mine is still ramping up.
The old Shane suddenly returns, controlled and calm. “By the way, Princess, your fishing skills are good.”
“Thank you. That means so much to me,” I say sarcastically.
He chuckles. “I still can’t believe you’ve never had an orgasm.”
I close my eyes to erase my life. “You’re not helping matters.”
“No, I’m not.” A fish jumps out of the water at the end of his line. “I should be here with Niki, getting laid every night while you should be on your honeymoon…with your gay husband.” He laughs harder.
I drop my pole and pummel him with my fists. This is more for me than him. It’s like hitting the granite rocks my butt was sitting on. Shane’s laughter fills the small canyon created by the towering pines and rocky gorge.
“You have to admit it’s funny,” he says. “You girls are always looking for some fuck machine and to top it off women want to be spanked. Trust me, Princess. There have been many times I wanted to take you over my knees.”
Would I like that? “Do you read my romance novels?” He must.
“I’ve stolen a few, trying to figure out what the hell you want.” He’s still laughing at me. “I know in reality that guys don’t need to fantasize about the girl he’s with. We’re simple. Feed us and put us to bed. No man can live up to the standards of those novels. Those violent stalkers would be in jail and have multiple restraining orders. If you look at the photos of the world’s top billionaires, they aren’t built like Navy Seals. Most are old and have bad comb overs.”
“They’re just fiction,” I defend. When his legs brush against mine, hot wetness pools in my VS cheekinis. “So you expect women to wait on you?”
“No, but it’s nice when they do.”
I don’t know if I should ask him. “How come you never chased after me? Why Nikita?” She’s blonde.
He cocks his head, grinning. He licks his chapped lips. How can I possibly find that seductive, but I do? “That dress—the way your perky tits pressed against the sheer fabric. I had you naked and in my bed the moment I saw you…until you told me you were sixteen.”
“You turned me down.”
One of his massive paws rests on my knee. “Cyn, you know why I couldn’t.”
“Then you asked out the blonde boobs.” I sound petty.
“She told me she loved Alaska and wanted to go to school here. I believed her.”
It makes sense now. “She spent hours at the library researching wealthy men. She told me it was for a project.” I can feel myself digging a deeper hole. Shane doesn’t need to hear this.
When his scarred-rough hand cups my cheek, I lower my gaze.
“I like your smile,” he says.
Oh my God, that’s lame. “That’s it?”