The whole idea put him in a bad mood. He growled.
Taylor looked up at him, amusement on her delicate features. “Did you just growl?”
He chuckled. “It kind of sounded like it, didn’t it?” He’d never done that before. Not as a human anyway. He ran a hand through his hair. Geez. What was wrong with him?
“What’s upstairs?” She asked.
“My office.” He said it automatically, before he even thought. He spent so much time up there, it was natural to blurt that out.
“Is this your house?”
Damn. Now that she’d asked him directly, he couldn’t deny it. He smiled sheepishly. “Yes.”
“Hm.” She looked at him sideways.
“What?”
Chapter 12
Taylor allowed that information to soak in for a minute. That Brayden lived here made a lot more sense.
If I’m going to be a real journalist, I need to learn to get to the bottom of the story.
“So, you live here full time?”
He nodded.
“It’s nice.”
“Can I get you something to drink?” He asked.
“Sure. Some water?” He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, and she was in no hurry for him to go.
He brought her a bottle of water from the kitchen, opened the top, and handed it to her. She’d had no idea she was so thirsty.
He sat next to her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Your hair is usually straight.” He commented.
“I have to straighten it.” She pulled her hair back, suddenly self-conscious.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” He asked.
“Okay.”
She watched him return to the kitchen, take two wine glasses from the cabinet, and pull a bottle of wine from another cabinet.
He came back to the sofa with two glasses of red wine and handed one to her.
Taylor didn’t normally drink wine. She was more of a cosmopolitan kind of girl, but the red wine was good. She told him so. “What is it?”
“It’s a pinot noir. My favorite.” Brayden leaned back, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles.
She liked that he was he was still here and realized that she didn’t want him to leave. “Just stay.” She said.
“What’s that?”
“Just stay. It’s your house. You don’t have to leave just because I’m here.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Tell me again what’s upstairs.”
“My office and another bedroom.”
“There. I can stay in the guest room. You’ll never know I’m even here.”
“I doubt that.” He murmured and took a drink.
She smiled to herself. “Did you decorate yourself?” She gazed at the abstract painting in shades of blue hanging over the fireplace.
“Along with my sister. My brother designed the building.”
“You have a talented family.” She smiled at him.
“Yeah. I’m fortunate.”
“Your parents?”
“Retired. Traveling. Always there to provide advice when needed. Besides, they can’t stay away too long, I have teenage brothers.”
“And you? What do you do?”
Chapter 13
Again, for reasons unclear to him, Brayden chose to hold his cards close to his chest. “I’m a horse riding guide.”
“You use your computer to map out trails.”
“Maybe.” A smile played about his lips. “And keep up with schedules.”
“Schedules.” She nodded. “And reservations?”
“Skylar does the reservations.”
“Your sister.”
He nodded.
“Hm.” She swirled the wine in her glass.
She was trying to figure him out. It was cute. She wouldn’t, of course. No one ever suspected that the fun-loving trail guide was the brains behind the family’s finances.
“How long have you lived here?”
“We finished the cabin a couple of years ago.”
She held his gaze. “But you’re older than that. So, you did something else before this.”
“I went to college.”
“Did you graduate?”
“I have a degree in finance.” He didn’t mind answering her questions, but she was getting somewhere. He could almost see her mind putting the pieces together.
She opened her phone. Her Internet would work here because he had a booster attached to the cabin, but she wouldn’t be able to make calls unless she had the local phone service.
“Silver Creek Lodge.” She typed, then looked up at him. “What’s your last name?”
“Hunter.”
“You said this was one of the lodge’s cabins?”
“It is.”
“You’re one of the owners.”
There. She had figured that part out. Much more quickly than he had expected. He was impressed. “Technically, the owner’s son.”
“Semantics.”
“See,” he said. “Whoever said you weren’t a real journalist?”
“You’d be surprised.” She closed her phone. “Seriously, I don’t want you to go. If upstairs is private, you can stay up there, and I’ll sleep down here.”
“I wouldn’t want to tarnish your reputation.”
“Why would you say something like that?” She twirled her wine glass, still three-fourths full.
“Because my reputation isn’t the best.”
She sipped her wine. “But who would know?”
Brayden liked Taylor Stone more by the minute.
“Now that you’ve gotten me figured out, let’s talk about you.”
“Okay.” She tucked her feet beneath her on the couch and grinned. “What do you want to know?”
Everything.
Chapter 14
Between the hot bath and wine, Taylor was feeling warm inside and out. The snow squall outside cocooned the two of them inside the cozy cabin with the warm heat from the crackling fire in the fireplace.
Not only that, but Taylor had a handsome man to talk with. He was not only handsome, he was interesting. She wanted to know more about him, but she was also willing to talk about herself.
“First of all,” Brayden said. “Why are you traipsing around in the woods?”
“I wasn’t traipsing. Maybe I was hiking.”
“Hiking my ass. Anyone who wears designer boots in the snow and a wool pea coat is traipsing.”
She chuckled. “Okay. I wasn’t hiking.”
“But you won’t admit to traipsing.”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“Fair enough. Let me ask you a different way. What were you doing walking around out there? And off the trail at that.”
“I was looking for shapeshifters.”
Brayden nearly strangled on the sip of wine he’d just taken.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“No. I’m serious.”
“You really thought you’d see a shapeshifter?”
“Well, no. Not really. I was going to, you know, kind of check it out and see if it looked possible, then come back with a camera crew.”
“A camera crew?”
“Yeah. I need a story. Something that’s real news.”
“Why?”
“Michael suggested the shapeshifters. He said there had been sightings around here.”
“No. Why do you need real news?” Brayden glanced at the clock, then clicked the remote to turn on the television. He muted it and turned back to face her. “But you do the weather.”
“Yeah, but nobody wants to make a career out of doing the weather.”
“Is that so?” He flipped to the Weather Channel.
Taylor winced. “Oh no. That doesn’t count.”
Taylor had applied to The Weather Channel, several times, in fact, but hadn’t gotten so much as an interview. Another confirmation that sh
e needed to make a change if she wanted to move ahead in her career.
Brayden flipped back to the local channel. Taylor watched as Becky Jackson, the girl filling in for her this week, predicted a sunny day tomorrow.
“Seriously?” Taylor looked at Brayden. “Sunshine tomorrow.”
“You disagree?”
“Don’t you?”
“When did you last look at a Doppler?”
“Hours ago, before I left to drive up here.”
“When do you think she last checked the Doppler?”
“She’s probably looking at it now.”
“Let’s make a bet.” He held up his glass. “If it’s still snowing tomorrow, you can declare yourself the best weather girl in the Colorado Rockies.”
Taylor laughed. It wouldn’t be a bad distinction to hold. Weather wasn’t the easiest thing to predict in the mountains. “Okay. Deal.” She sipped her wine.
And tried to remember when she’d had such an enjoyable afternoon.
Chapter 15
The next morning, as the sun was no more than a glow on the horizon, Brayden slipped out the back door of his cabin and shifted into a bear.
He needed to get over to the lodge to check on things and maybe see if he could fix the snowmobile. He didn’t like the idea of them and their guests being stranded here without a way out. It was always possible that someone could get sick or hurt and need a way to get to the hospital. Even with Doc Cooper here, things could happen.
He would be at the lodge in no time as a bear. The snow had slowed to light flurries. He hoped the sun didn’t come out today if only because he’d gotten behind Taylor and supported her prediction.
Taylor.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Before he’d left the cabin, he’d peeked in on her. She’d been sleeping peacefully, curled up under the blankets, her dark hair splayed across the white pillowcase. The instinct to join her – to climb into the bed and tuck her body against his had been strong. Brayden was certainly no saint. In fact, as he’d hinted to Taylor, he had a reputation for being a ladies’ man. He felt the title was unjustified. He’d just had his share of girlfriends.
But with Taylor, it was different. He didn’t want to scare her away, and he didn’t want her to see him that way. He wanted things to be perfect with her.
Contemplating this new protective sensation, he padded along the familiar path, the snow crunching beneath his paws. Though he was well-insulated in his fur, he could feel his heart rate slowing and the instinctual pull to curl up and go to sleep for a few weeks.
He kept his focus on getting to the lodge. He went first to the pool house, shifted back into his human form, and put on clothes that he and his brothers kept there.
When he came out of the pool house, the cold wind struck him in the face. He hurried to the back door, went inside, and, using the keypad, let himself into the private area of the lodge reserved for family.
He found his sister, Skylar, in the dining room eating oatmeal. She had the Weather Channel on.
“Hey. You walked,” she said, doubtlessly noticing that he wasn’t wearing a coat. “In the cold.” She didn’t bother to hide the disapproval in her voice. It was risky to be out like this in the cold, and his family knew this.
“Yeah. You the only one up?”
“Pretty much.” She picked up the remote and switched to the local channel. “When is the snow gonna clear?”
“I don’t know. Depends on which forecast you go with.”
“That’s the thing.” She glared at the television. “Where is Taylor Stone? She’s the only one that gets our weather right.”
He picked up a scone. Walking as a bear always worked up an appetite. “She said it’s going to keep snowing today.”
Skylar looked at him sideways. “Taylor hasn’t been on in two days.”
He shrugged. “Oh. Well, I’m sure someone said it at some point.”
“Hmm.” Skylar reached out and picked up a scone, tore off a bite, and chewed. “Brayden.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
He looked up and reluctantly met her gaze. His sister was relentless when she had the scent of something interesting. Being a mountain lion shifter, her human personality mirrored that of a mountain lion. And now that he’d slipped up, she knew it. “You don’t watch any other weather than Taylor.”
“Sometimes I do. I was watching the Weather Channel just yesterday.”
Skylar narrowed her eyes. “You just quoted Taylor’s forecast.”
“Maybe I got confused.” He finished his scone and washed it down with some orange juice.”
“You know where she is.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He kept his gaze toward the window away from his sister’s piercing stare.
“We found her car.”
Brayden turned and glared at her. “You did not. If you did, you’d have a search party out.”
“Too soon. No one’s reported her missing.”
“How do you know it’s her car?”
“Wyatt ran the plates.”
“Since when did Wyatt start running plates on guests’ cars?”
“Since we had a snowstorm, and there was a car stranded on the side of the road.”
“Sounds like an invasion of privacy to me.” My privacy. And Taylor’s.
“I think we should shift-up and go look for her.”
Brayden shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Ah ha.” Skylar grinned. “You do know where she is.”
Brayden took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. His sister was nothing if not persistent. She would gnaw on this until she found out anyway. “She’s safe.”
“You have her.”
“I wouldn’t say I have her. She’s staying in my cabin until the roads clear.”
“So… tell me about her.” Skylar leaned forward, her eyes bright.
Brayden turned toward the window. Shrugged. “She’s just a girl.”
“You like her.”
“She’s likable.”
“Is she your mate?”
“What?” Brayden turned back to face his sister. “I don’t have a mate.” But his gut twisted, and he felt the pieces of a puzzle shifting into place.
“Of course, you do. Everyone has a mate.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Seriously? How can you not know?”
“When you find a mate, I’ll ask you the same question.”
“Nope. When I find my mate. I’ll know. I have no doubt.”
“The optimism of youth.”
Skylar lifted her chin. “I’m twenty-one.”
“Youth.” Brayden persisted. Anything to get Skylar’s focus off of him. “How do you expect to find your mate? You never go anywhere.”
“I’ll find him. It works like that.”
“How? You’re going to let him put in all the work in finding you?”
“You’re a fine one to talk.” Her voice held an uncharacteristic defensiveness.
“You can’t say that I don’t get out.”
“Yes, you do. But you aren’t looking for a mate.”
“How do you know?”
She scrunched her face. “You’re just looking for pleasure.”
“Who isn’t?” he said absently. Maybe I don’t have to look anymore. The thought came unbidden. And was surprising. He heard his sister talking, but he didn’t hear what she was saying. Shaking off the odd sensation, he focused on Skylar. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I said I’m working on a plan. Why are you here anyway?”
“I came to fix the snowmobile.”
“I think Cooper’s working on it.”
“Doc? Guess he had the same concerns I have.”
She nodded. “Being stranded.”
“I’m going to see if he needs any help. Would you put together a bag of fruit for me?” He smiled as he felt her scowl at his back.
He went through the
crowded lobby. With the snow, only a few braved going outside this early. Most people were gathered inside either at the restaurant or around the fireplace. One couple was playing Scrabble.
He found Doc Cooper out in the garage tinkering with the snowmobile.
“I thought you all were going to order some more of these.” He said.
“I am.” Brayden decided then and there that he was going to take care of that himself. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know. I think it needs to go into the shop.”
“Or the junkyard.” Brayden suggested.
“Might be the best idea.”
“Let me take a look. I think it did this last year.” Brayden lifted the hood and checked the oil.
“I just checked the oil.”
“Okay. This thing’s funny.” He checked the spark plug wires. Jiggled one of them. Turned the key and it started.
“Is that all it took?”
“Yeah. I’m telling you, this thing is funny.”
“Damn. I should stick to working on people.”
Brayden laughed. “Why are you here anyway? It’s a perfect morning to stay inside with your mate.”
Cooper shrugged. “I don’t have a mate.”
“Victoria?” Cooper had been happily married for two years now. Surely being happily married meant he had a mate.
“She’s been with her mother in Denver for a week. I’m not so sure she’s coming back.”
“What the hell? Victoria’s your fated mate.”
Cooper shook his head and wiped his hands on a rag. “Apparently, she isn’t.”
“A false mate, then?”
“Looks like it.”
“How can you tell?”
Cooper scoffed. “It’s the damnedest thing.” He looked up and met Brayden’s gaze. “I don’t miss her.”
Chapter 16
Taylor woke slowly. She’d make a latte with her Verismo, then swing by Starbuck’s on the way to the station. Maybe she’d pick up a blueberry muffin.
She opened her eyes and stared out the window at the falling snow. Not her window. Her window looked out over the city from the fourth floor of her townhouse. This floor-to-ceiling window looked out over a snow-covered forest.
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