by Anna Lowe
Janna let out the breath she’d been holding. Whew. The only other shifters were the four guys in the corner, strapping young wolves from Twin Moon Ranch, and they were too busy talking shop to pick up on the inner dialogue of a love-sick she-wolf.
“Draft?” She held up a glass.
“Mine,” one of the ranch hands lifted a finger.
“Wild Turkey?”
“Over here,” a second said.
“Jim Beam?”
“Mine,” the third man said.
Her gaze wandered across the saloon to Cole, and her wolf growled.
Mine.
She ground her teeth together behind the smile she plastered on top. “Anything else I can get you?”
“That’s it, thanks.”
She dropped off another couple of drinks at table four, checked in on the neighboring group, and cleared plates from table seven. Cole’s storm-cloud eyes tracked her the whole time. His gaze pressed on her like a physical thing. Like a blanket, thrown over her shoulders on a winter’s night in Montana.
Except she wasn’t in Montana anymore, and it sure as hell wasn’t winter.
Told you. He’s our mate.
She shook her head. How could the beast be so sure? God knew she’d gotten love and lust mixed up in the past. But this felt different. Spine-tingling different. Lightning-sparks-in-the-veins different.
My destined mate, her wolf growled.
It sure felt like it. But one thing didn’t fit. Destined mates were supposed to recognize each other on first sight. And she’d gone two whole weeks simply liking Cole. Okay, really liking Cole. Badly-wanting-to-tango-on-the-nearest-horizontal-surface kind of liking Cole. But there hadn’t been that instant connection of souls. That, Bang! Your life will never be the same revelation that mated shifters talked about.
Her attraction to him snuck up on her steadily ever since…since…well, since some point she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and then — whoosh! Her vague crush on Cole went to all-out desire. A day and night craving. A need that scared her.
Mate. My destined mate, her wolf cooed.
But wolves, as every female shifter knew, were not to be trusted. Not in matters of the heart.
Probably she was just crushing on Cole. Really, really badly. The man was hot as sin and an amazing dancer to boot. A charmer with a crooked, boyish grin. A man she could talk to every night for hours about the same thing and never get tired of what he had to say, or how he said it.
Yep. Just a crush. She’d get over it in, um—
Another two or three hundred years? her wolf snorted.
She was so wrapped up in arguing with her wolf that she worked on autopilot — and whoops, without even realizing it, she had headed his way with a plate of key lime pie she was supposed to be delivering to another customer. God, what was she doing?
“Got just what you need.” She smiled and set the plate in front of him.
Her heart beat a little faster, seeing the little-boy grin spread on his face. One of the many Cole quirks she’d fallen in love with over the past couple of weeks. One second, he’d be all broody warrior, harboring some deep, dark wound she was dying to heal. But just as quickly, the lines around his mouth would fall away and he’d be a kid again, all twinkling eyes and aw-shucks country charm.
“My favorite,” he murmured, as he did with anything she brought him.
His scrappy blond hair curled just below his ears. Fine, golden strands that waved this way and that. So, so tempting to run her fingers through. His full lips quivered the slightest bit, and she had to bite her own to resist reaching for his.
Mate, her wolf sighed.
She forced herself not to bat her eyelashes or pucker her lips. Not to do anything that gave her — lust? love? — away. But her nipples kept standing up, and the scent wafting off her shoulders was the sticky-sweet fragrance of arousal.
Janna.
Her head whipped around, and the goofy love music playing in her mind broke off with the screech of a needle ripping across an old-fashioned LP.
Soren was calling to her from over by the bar. The bigger of the two bear brothers stood with his beefy arms folded over his chest, glowering. The very picture of a clan alpha. A none-too-pleased clan alpha, nodding her toward the back of the saloon.
Shit, shit, shit. Someone had noticed her fawning over Cole, after all.
Cole’s eyes followed hers, and she darted into his line of sight, because the last thing she needed was for a headstrong cowboy to get into a glaring contest with her two-hundred-pounds-of-solid-muscle boss. Cole might be made of the roughest, toughest stuff, but he was still human, despite the growl building in his throat.
Wait, a growl? Her head whipped back to Cole.
She smoothed a hand over his chest without thinking, and the noise stopped. Everything stopped for a moment, and the whole world ceased to exist. Zoomed a million miles away, in fact, until all that remained was the sensation of little licking flames passing between their bodies. Telling her to step closer. Closer…
She tilted her head and focused on those incredibly kissable lips. Sniffed his cool, clean scent. Rose to the balls of her feet—
Janna! Soren barked, and the world came crashing back. Glass clinked against glass. The bassline of a Johnny Cash song thumped from the jukebox. A dozen voices chattered. Soren glared.
She broke away from Cole, blinking. “Gotta get to work.”
Mate! her wolf wailed as she forced one foot in front of another and followed Soren to the back room of the saloon. Away from Cole. Away from the cheery action. Away from the crowd.
Shit, shit, shit.
Soren stomped into the dim back room and loomed over her.
“Janna.”
“Soren.” She stuck her chin up and crossed her arms much as he’d just done. Two could play at that game. His big, bad alpha act wasn’t all act, but Soren was more of an older brother to her than boss.
“A human?” Soren’s eyebrows were darker than his sandy brown hair, and when he lifted the one on the right…
“You look just like your grandfather when you do that,” she said, catching him off guard. Catching herself off guard, too, because the gesture had snapped her back in time, to when she was a young member of the wolfpack and neighbor to his bear clan in Montana. Soren was a good ten years older than her, the man being groomed to take over the clan one day.
“I mean, a younger version of your grandfather,” she squeaked.
He grimaced, but a shine of pride lit his eyes. The two of them didn’t have much in common, but they both shared that soft spot for memories of home and the loved ones they’d lost.
Soren’s gaze went from sentimental to distant and even bitter, so she put a hand on his arm.
“It was good that you weren’t in Montana when it happened,” she whispered.
He growled at the floorboards, but his shoulders sagged at the mention of it – the attack that had annihilated both their packs.
About the only thing that could defeat a man like Soren was that feeling of failure. That alpha pride, that I should have been there to defend my clan loyalty. It would haunt him for the rest of his life.
A roar of laughter sounded from the saloon, and Soren’s growl went back to one of displeasure.
“You know better than to mess with a human,” he said.
She clenched her fists and beat back her wolf before it started crowing about mates and love and forever. Cole was just a crush, right?
An all-consuming, all-encompassing crush.
Soren looked toward the front room. “Simon and Jess, they need to be together. Destiny wants that.” His expression went from glad for his brother to mournful. Soren had had a destined mate, too, but she’d been murdered in the rogue attack along with everyone else. “But we have to watch out.”
Her chin snapped up. “You think they’ll be back?”
They, of course, were the rogues who’d ambushed her and Jess a few weeks ago. The same rogues who had wi
ped out her pack and Soren’s bear clan months ago in a surprise attack.
“Fucking purists,” Soren spat one of his rare curses. The rogues were part of a movement that called for racial purity among shifters. No wolves mixing with bears, and certainly no mixing with humans. The hard-liners exercised their own brand of terror and vigilante justice.
Janna shivered, thinking of the inferno Jess had pulled her from in Montana, and more recently, the half-dozen rogues who’d appeared in the saloon.
“If we give them reason to come back…” Soren’s eyes traveled toward the front room, and the message was clear. Janna flirting with a human could attract another rogue ambush. The rogues would plan their attack more carefully next time, but they’d be back.
Her wolf snarled inside. No one will keep me from my mate!
Not my mate, she insisted. Just a whole lot of trouble.
Mate! Her wolf chanted. Mate!
“Look, Cole is a good guy, but he’s not one of us,” Soren said. “We have to protect what we have here. What we’re building here.”
She could see it in his eyes: the vision of a new clan. A fair and stable clan — or pack or whatever they decided to call their unusual mishmash of bears and wolves. A clan risen from the ashes of what they’d lost in Montana. One in which it didn’t matter what type of shifter you were as long as you worked hard and played by the rules.
Rules that said you had to be a shifter and not human. Janna hung her head. He was right.
Soren gave her a last stern look, then tilted his head toward the door in a weary gesture.
“Back to work,” he murmured, then gave her a tired smile. “Both of us.”
She studied him for a moment, wondering why she felt pity for the mighty bear.
Mighty, but broken, like Simon once was, her wolf decided.
No wonder she felt pity. Simon and Jess had found their happiness, and she had her whole life ahead of her, too. But Soren faced a long and lonely existence without his destined mate.
A whole life ahead of us, her wolf agreed, conjuring up an image of Cole.
She strode back into the saloon faster than she’d intended, and her head went right to Cole’s spot at the end of the bar. Now more than ever, she needed the reassurance that he was there. Just one look, one strand of hope. One moment of connection.
She craned her neck past customers, then took another step. Cole’s chair was empty. Her heart stuttered when she saw the saloon doors swinging on their hinges.
He’d left? Already?
Her nostrils flared, tracking his scent. And just like that, her wolf took over and made her race out the door.
Mate! Don’t go!
It was all she could do not to blurt it out loud as she scanned the sidewalk to her left and right. Quiet. Deserted, except for a couple walking across the street.
That way! Her wolf pushed her to the left, following his scent. She ran down the sidewalk, turned a sharp corner, and spotted a tall figure approaching a pickup.
“Cole!” That time, she did say it out loud. When he spun around, her whole soul sang. Mine! Mate!
“Cole,” she panted, catching up at last. All but plowing him over in her haste to…to…to what, exactly, she had no clue. Only that she wasn’t ready to let him go. Not so soon, and not without a word, a parting touch.
His arms came up just as hers did, and they stood there for a second, gripping each other by the forearms like a couple of trapeze artists getting ready to jump. His dark eyes were lit with pinpoints of light, a universe that sucked her right in on a magical ride.
“Um…uh…” she mumbled, lost for words.
“You okay?”
His voice was shaky, so she boomeranged the question back. “Yeah. You?”
He nodded, and a tiny grin opened on his face. He didn’t seem okay, not by a long shot, but he was glad to see her. As glad as she was to see him, it seemed.
She slid her arms up to his shoulders — ridiculously boxy shoulders she could barely get a grip on — and grinned right back. “Leaving already?”
He pinched his lips together for a moment and closed his eyes. “Don’t want to go, but…”
She searched his face. But, what? What exactly was wrong?
His cheek twitched, and when he opened his eyes, he scanned the sky before looking at her.
“I have to. I have to go.”
She wanted to shake him and ask why, but his eyes begged her not to.
“Cole…” She ran her thumb along his collarbone, wishing she could ease whatever weighed so heavily on his mind. But Cole was like the Voss brothers in many ways; talking would only make him as grumbly as a bear.
“Gotta go.” He whispered, and his voice cracked as if he really, really didn’t want any such thing.
Must help our mate! her wolf whimpered inside.
Easier said than done, because how could she help a man who refused any help?
Her father had been like that, too. A pack alpha who tried to solve every problem on his own. But her mother had found a remedy for that. She’d countered darkness with light. With hope. With love.
Her wolf wagged its tail. Love. Hope. Light.
She leaned in to Cole, not just touching him but warming him with her body. Smiling at him, because nothing was more important than finding something to smile about in life. She slid her arms behind his shoulders and tipped her chin up, just as she had when he’d first walked into the saloon.
“Can’t have you leave without saying goodbye,” she murmured, then eased into a kiss. Slowly, carefully, in case he decided to bolt. Stroking his back gently, willing the tension away.
His lips met hers eagerly. Tenderly, as if he were afraid of hurting her. His chest rose and fell on a silent sigh, and she smiled against his lips. Yep, a kiss was just what her brooding cowboy needed tonight. Her delicious, quivering cowboy, who smelled of pine and mountain air and mustang, wild and free.
Her wolf was all for diving deeper into that kiss, but she fought back the urge. He didn’t need fire and passion right now. He needed an anchor. A light to guide him through whatever thorny maze he’d lost himself in.
So she packed light and hope and happiness into her kiss, communicating in tiny lifts and pulls of her lips. The night was cool and fresh. The streets quiet, the stars bright. She had her man, her mate. She could make this minute last forever if she believed in it hard enough.
Forever, her wolf hummed deep inside.
She coaxed the tension out of him, one strand of muscle at a time. Her hands warmed his neck, then rubbed his shoulders. Stroked his back the way she might stroke a dog still bristling after a fight. Pressed her chest against his and counted heavy heartbeats. Counted double sometimes, because hers got mixed up with his.
They might have gone hours pressed together like that, all through the night and halfway through the sunrise that was sure to come galloping in on its heels, but a car drove down a side street with the radio thumping loud.
She broke off the kiss but not the contact. Turning her ear to his shoulder, she rested her head, listening to the tune fade down the street.
“We really need to go dancing again sometime, cowboy,” she sighed. Her body tingled just remembering the moves he’d swept her through, the way he’d whispered in her ear.
His arms tightened around her, and he nodded into her hair.
“That, we do.”
“Promise?” Her voice rose in hope.
“Promise,” he rumbled, and his low tone vibrated through her chest, warming her another couple of degrees.
They stood for another minute like that, and she fantasized about hanging on even longer. But before some other reminder of the outside world slammed into their bubble of perfection, she eased away, letting the magic seal around Cole. Let him hang on to that serenity as long as he could. Let him drive home and sleep well and rest his weary soul.
“See you tomorrow?” she asked, sliding her hands back to his forearms. Back to that feeling of a trapeze art
ist — this time, coming to rest after an amazing feat.
And it was amazing, because Cole smiled, and the stars showered her with silent applause. She’d done it.
“See you tomorrow.” He nodded, locking his eyes on hers.
“Promise?” she added, teasing a little now.
“Promise.”
Chapter Three
Cole put his pickup in gear and drove off, still savoring her kiss, still tingling from her touch. His eyes were tempted to stray to the rearview mirror, but he forced them to stay on the road. He clenched his hands around the steering wheel and told himself it was better not to look. Janna had pulled him back from the edge of a cliff with her taste of heaven, and now it was time to go.
He half expected the inner voice to pipe up, screaming something like, Go back! Take her with us! But it was mercifully silent for a change. Well, not entirely silent, because if he really listened, he could hear a sleepy, satisfied purr.
He threw the pickup into another gear and stepped on the gas. God, he really was going nuts. The mood swings had been getting worse and worse. He’d gone from flying high when he’d first seen Janna in the saloon to choking on jealousy when Soren had called her to the back room. The second she was out of sight, a fever had started up. An uncontrollable fury and possessiveness.
Get her back! She’s ours! Ours!
He’d been that close to following them, because it was all too reminiscent of the day she’d been attacked. The day some sixth sense had told him to stop by the saloon after hours, just in case. To follow the angry voices coming from the back room where he’d found Janna and her sister cornered by five big guys. One of the sisters had been holding a stool up in self-defense, the other, a broken-off bottle. Both of them looking more defiant than scared and absolutely ready to fight.
The room had practically been humming with some kind of weird static electricity, too. Something angry and animalistic, like a bull waiting to be released from a pen. The second he’d walked in, he knew he’d be in for a hell of a fight.
That was weeks ago. Tonight, every inner alarm in his body rang when Janna followed Soren out of sight. Which made no sense. Soren was a good man who’d never hurt her. Janna shared the apartment above the saloon with him and their siblings, for Christ’s sake!