DuBois, Edith - Rugged Glimpse [Rugged Savage Valley, Colorado 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Edith DuBois

  “That cough sounds like it’s getting worse. Have you been to see Dr. Ashley yet?”

  “Naw. I’ll be fine.”

  “You know he wouldn’t charge you for a checkup. You’ve helped us out plenty of times when we needed it.” Letty owned the Savage Valley honky-tonk, Catdaddy’s, which was conveniently located on the outskirts of town. Not too many tourists were known to frequent that part of town. It didn’t have the best reputation. And while the bear-shifters didn’t usually like to stray too far into mountain lion territory, the honky-tonk was the only place in town where a good drink, good company, and occasionally a good fight could be found. In a tight squeeze, Letty had been known to help a few bear-shifters locate some clothes when they showed up naked on her back porch after a night of drinking and carousing.

  Because alcohol did a funny thing to shifters. Just like in the average human, it lowered their inhibitions. Only thing was, as a shifter, lowered inhibitions meant that the animal that was always trying to break free from inside—whether bear or lion—took full advantage of the lack in concentration. Thus, a wild night at Letty’s usually led to passed-out, naked men on her porch in the morning. Letty had come to accept this fact without question.

  “Thank you, sheriff. I’ll think about it. But you should know…”

  “Yes?”

  “Jessup never found the dog. But he did find some tracks and some signs of a scuffle. Looks like a mountain lion got ahold of it.” Letty coughed again.

  “Shit,” Joseph cursed under his breath. This wasn’t going to sit well with the citizens of Savage Valley, not well at all.

  “Yep, and you should probably have either Roarke or that stuck-up brother of his come take a look, too.”

  “All right, I’ll try to find one of them. We’ll be over in my cruiser in a couple minutes. Thanks for calling, Letty.”

  “Not a problem. See you soon.”

  Joseph shook his head as he hung up the phone. Oliver wouldn’t be happy about this either. The town’s damn slogan was No animal attacks since 1846! People who had been living in Savage Valley for many years, who had generations of family from Savage Valley got used to seeing lions and bears every once in a while. The shifters tried to stay out of town, but things happened. There were sightings. But none of the shifters, none of them, ever hunted anywhere near town, especially not the lions. It was much too dangerous.

  If people’s pets were disappearing, though, the townsfolk would get nervous about that.

  The strange thing was, though, that if it was a lion, it had to have been a wild lion, not one of the shifters. If that was the case, Oliver and his pack should have let Joseph know that they were nearby. It wasn’t a law or anything, but it was common courtesy between the shifters to let each other know things like that. It was how they’d managed to keep the town free of animal attacks for so long. Although the lions and the bears didn’t always get along, they did know how to communicate and work together when the need arose.

  Joseph tried calling Caleb to let him know what was going on, but his brother didn’t answer. He grabbed the keys to the cruiser and headed for the front door. Before he could reach it, though, Caleb and Elena came through. Elena’s nose was puffy. Her eyes were red-rimmed. When she caught sight of him, she ran to him and wrapped her tiny arms around his waist.

  “Well, hello, little darlin’. I missed you, too.” He stroked her soft hair and ran his hands over her shoulders in a comforting gesture. “Everything all right?”

  She took a deep breath. “I can never get enough of the way you smell.” She took another deep breath, and keeping her face buried in his chest, said, “It’s been a rough day.”

  Caleb met his eyes over Elena’s head, and Joseph noted the tightness in his brother’s expression. “What happened?”

  They told him about the elk, and Elena showed him only a few of the pictures to illustrate Caleb’s hypothesis that it wasn’t actually an animal that had attacked them. Joseph frowned.

  “This is too much of a coincidence. I get the feeling that both of these attacks were deliberate and that they are somehow connected.”

  “Attacks?” Caleb immediately picked up on the plural, and Joseph told them about Letty’s call.

  “I’m headed out there now. Let’s meet at the diner later tonight. I’ll see if Oliver and Roarke and maybe a few more of his…” He shot a glance at Elena, realizing she didn’t know about the lions yet. “…friends can come by as well, see if they know anything about this.”

  Elena shot him an inquisitive look at his awkward pause, but he planted one hot kiss on her lips and then hurried away before she could question him. She wasn’t ready for lion-shifters.

  Hell, who was he kidding?

  He wasn’t ready for her to be ready for lion-shifters. He did not look forward to the day when he would have to inform her that not only one group of shape-shifters lived in this town but two. So, in other words, not only one group of men in this town walked around on the brink of exploding into wild, ferocious animals but two.

  Nope. He wasn’t looking forward to that at all.

  * * * *

  Elena awoke and suffered a brief moment of fear. For a moment, she forgot where she was. She forgot that Peter was gone. That he couldn’t hurt her anymore. She was through with him. She was safe.

  She took a deep breath and relaxed, realizing her mind must have snagged on some small thread of a dream as she’d moved into wakefulness.

  It was the morning of the Honey Harvest Hoedown in Savage Valley, and she was between two of the most gorgeous men ever to have—

  She flopped her hands across the bed, not opening her eyes, searching for the warm bodies she’d become accustomed to waking beside.

  Her arms met nothing but empty bed and cold sheets.

  She shot up, looking frantically around at her surroundings. For the past two nights she’d slept at their house. It amazed her how quickly she’d grown used to the feel of their warm bodies next to her. It was a bit unnatural. She’d never taken to a man so quickly, much less two. It had only been about three weeks since she’d first made love to Joseph and then to Caleb, but in that short amount of time, she no longer felt lost or wayward or adrift. She felt settled. Like somehow she’d come home instead of leaving it.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said to herself, throwing the covers off her body. The chilly air in her room at the Woodland Den washed over the bare skin of her legs and arms, sending ripples across her flesh. Since the brothers were going to be up early and working all day, busy with organizing and running the hoedown, Elena had slept at the lodge, opting for a lazy morning instead of her usual hike through the woods.

  She did not like the odd feeling she had in the pit of her stomach. She’d only been away from Joseph and Caleb for less than twelve hours. There was absolutely no reason for her to miss them as much as she did. With a groan, she hauled herself out of the bed, studied the mirror across from the foot of her bed, and gave her reflection a firm look. “You are not bound to this land by magic, so you can just get over it.”

  In a huff, she marched to the bathroom and turned on the shower. A few hours later, after a hearty breakfast at the Woodland Kitchen of pancakes, sausage, eggs, and a lot of coffee and then working on her photos, she headed into town. It was a bit of a walk, but her morning hikes had gotten her in shape.

  Caleb and Joseph had been more than a little excited about the hoedown all week, and they couldn’t help themselves from telling her all about what went on, so she knew that the real festivities wouldn’t begin until a little before sundown. At that time, Bohagande, as the current shaman of the local Shoshone tribe, would pray to the sun and to the sky and to the land for health and fertility. There would be a bee dance, although Elena had no idea what a bee dance necessarily entailed, and then the hoedown would begin.

  She walked through the lobby of the lodge, almost running into another woman on her way out.

  “Oh, excuse me,” the woman said, a little flus
tered.

  “No, excuse me.” Elena smiled, letting the woman go out the door ahead of her. When the woman stepped into the sunlight, she took a deep, refreshing breath, as if it filled her with calm and well-being. Her hair shimmered and glistened like ruby flames, and Elena stared in awe but didn’t say anything.

  They walked along the road together. Elena kept glancing over at her, feeling weird because their pace seemed to be so evenly matched and they were both headed in the same direction. After about ten minutes of walking awkwardly next to the woman, Elena noticed the other woman fanning herself and wiping some sweat off her forehead.

  “I thought that Colorado was supposed to begin cooling off in September.” Elena repeatedly pulled her shirt away from her chest and then released it, letting the air pump against her sweat-drenched skin.

  “It’s got to be this drought. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  “Oh, are you from Savage Valley?”

  “No, well, yes…I mean now I am, but…” The woman eyed Elena and took a breath. “Yes. I am from Savage Valley.” Elena smiled to herself, knowing that feeling exactly. “But this is a relatively new development,” the woman finished.

  “Ah, I see. Well, I’ve heard a rumor that some sort of ceremony is going to be happening to bring all sorts of good stuff to Savage Valley. Hopefully, rain is included on that list of good stuff.”

  The redheaded woman smiled. “Oh, at the Honey Harvest Hoedown?”

  “Yes, are you going?”

  “I am. My…umm…well, my friends have insisted that I go.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve been coerced as well.”

  The woman laughed. “If your friends are two overly large yet ridiculously good-looking men who roam around town like they own the place, then I’ll start to get worried.”

  Elena was taken aback. “Wait. Who are your friends?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you just described my…umm…well, my friends.” Elena felt a little uncomfortable. Surely there was some sort of mix-up.

  The woman’s cheeks flared up with color. “I was talking about Oliver and Roarke Cash.”

  “Oh!” Elena let out a sigh of relief and then laughed outright. “You’re friends with the Mayor and his brother? Nice.” Elena slipped a hint of innuendo into that last word and grinned to herself when the woman’s cheeks grew red again. It was beginning to look like the one-woman-two-men combo was a popular choice in Savage Valley.

  “I’m Chelsea by the way.” The woman held out her hand.

  “Elena. Nice to meet you.”

  “So who did you think I was referring to?”

  “Oh…um…” Now Elena’s cheeks felt a little warm. “Do you know Sheriff Kinman or his brother?”

  “I know of them.” The woman smirked at Elena. “Nice.”

  After sharing another laugh, they chatted amicably the rest of the way into town. Elena spotted Joseph bossing people around near the courthouse and turned to say good-bye to Chelsea, but she had already caught a glimpse of one of the Cash brothers and was heading in his direction, a look of carnal hunger written clearly across her features.

  Elena laughed and then made her way slowly over to Joseph. A lot of booths had already been set up along Main Street and around the courthouse. Each of them had homemade banners and signs boasting the delectable, interesting contents inside—Helga’s Honey-soaked Fruit Jars, Chip’s Chocolate Honey Butter, Nadeen’s Nuts and Honey. The booths went on and on. Savage Hunger, the diner, had a double-wide booth where Elena saw things like Phil’s honey-fried pheasant, venison burgers, and honey home brew ale on the menu. Hundreds of tourists and townsfolk milled about, stopping in at the booths. Savage Hunger already had a line about six people deep snaking out from the booth like the tail end of a kite. Elena figured it would only get longer as the night progressed.

  “Elena!” Joseph called out to her with a wave. Despite the heat, she couldn’t stop herself from skipping over to him. She had to check herself before she completely launched into his arms. She needed to pull herself together. Just because she hadn’t seen him all morning didn’t mean she got to fall into his arms like some wilting-flower wisp of a woman.

  Just then he grinned at her, though, and his smile was the slightest bit crooked. His black eyes gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, and his tan skin looked so perfect and touchable. She really couldn’t help herself. When she reached him, his arms came around her, and he planted a thorough kiss upon her neglected lips.

  “I missed you, little darlin’,” he whispered into her hair. Elena felt it wash through her again, that sense of being home. Away from the solitude of her room at the lodge and in his arms, with his scent that so called to her, she felt no panic. She could never feel panic at the thought that his arms were home to her.

  Elena heard some commotion behind her, and Joseph’s arms stiffened. Elena turned around to see what it was, and as she did, she heard the revving of a loud, roaring engine as a bright red truck went tearing down Main Street. One man drove the truck while another rode in the back, hollering with wild glee at all the frightened passersby scrambling to get out of their way.

  “Those damn Strongs.” Joseph’s voice was tight and low as he released her.

  “They better not damage our barrier. They’ll be paying for that shit if they do.” Caleb approached Elena, looking as angry as Joseph. When he saw her, though, his features brightened, and he kissed her hot and hard and then, with a melodramatic sigh, let her go.

  Joseph’s irritated voice broke up their moment. “Let’s hop in the cruiser and tell those little shits to cool their jets before someone gets hurt.”

  “The Strongs?” Elena asked. “Aren’t they…” She leaned in close and lowered her voice. “Aren’t they like you?”

  “Yes and no, little darlin’. Yes, they can shift like us. But no. They are always fucking rabble-rousing, keeping me from doing my damn job like a couple of redneck idjits.” Joseph had gotten himself worked up. “If they do anything to mess up Bo’s hoedown, I swear I will take them out to Brown Trout Lake and pummel some manners into their thick skulls. As if these damned animal attacks weren’t enough to worry about…”

  “Okay,” Elena said as Joseph stalked off. “I’ll let you two take care of that.”

  Caleb smiled ruefully down at her. “He gets real uptight when it comes to the hoedown.”

  “I’m starting to gather as much. Have you any more leads on those deer found out on Kwitakusix?”

  His eyes tightened, and he shook his head. Elena knew the most recent string of attacks caused them more worry than they let on, but they tried not to talk about it too much around her, not wanting to stir up her still-raw emotions regarding the elk. “We’ll see you in a little while, okay?” He paused, growing thoughtful. “As always, you look beautiful.” He kissed the tip of her nose and then followed his brother through the growing crowd.

  Only moments after they vanished from her sight, she felt that hollow, gaping feeling begin to reemerge within herself. Trying to shake it off, she began moving, letting her feet take her anywhere. There was plenty to explore.

  After grabbing a hoedown map from the Savage Valley Hives booth and info center located directly across the stage directly in the middle of the festivities, she decided to visit Jim Bob Pritchett and his friends from Savage Convenience that she’d met on her first day in Savage Valley. According to the map, he had a demonstration going on in front of Savage Valley Bank until right before Bo’s presentation on the main stage.

  As she meandered up to the bank, she had to weave through the thick crowd to see what was happening near the front. Jim Bob Pritchett was talking with a group of young boys all crowded around a bright blue 1950s Ford F-100 pickup truck. Jim Bob had the driver’s side door open and was pointing out some knobs and features of the cab. There was a bright red Ford convertible in the grass next to the truck that people were using for a photo op. Jim Bob’s friends, Larry and Bobby, were lounging in the sh
ade in a couple of plastic lawn chairs.

  They saw Elena and waved her over.

  “Beautiful Elena!” Bobby called out to her in his flirtatious tones, waving. She waved back and joined them under the shade.

  “What’s Jim Bob up to?” Elena asked.

  “This is our annual Savage Valley Auto display.”

  “And this ain’t even our best year. Last year we had this beautiful—I mean the sweetest, slickest, little black Aston Martin—I think a fellow up near Cheyenne lent it to us.”

  “Oh, and it was a beaut. Yep, only a handful of those were ever made. This one was on tour. We got it here through our very special VIP connections. You know how it goes.” Bobby winked at her, and the two men heehawed together, elbowing and slapping each other on the back. Elena couldn’t help but to join in the laughter.

  A woman with an elegant-looking silver bun atop her head approached with a sassy look across her features. “Are these two monkey-shiners bothering you?” The woman placed a hand on her hip and glared at Bobby and Larry.

  “Aww, come off it, Agnes. Miss Elena don’t want to listen to your yapping. Why don’t you go bother Jim Bob?”

  “Yeah, bring him a sweet lemonade to cool him off in this hot drought,” Bobby offered with a hint of suggestion, all the while chuckling under his breath.

  “Probably more sour than sweet, though,” Larry said under his breath, and then the brothers broke out laughing.

  The woman shook her head in exasperation and then turned her blue eyes toward Elena. “Hello. You must be Elena.” She offered her hand. “I’m Agnes Bird. I’m across the street from these two at Savage Valley’s one and only beauty salon, Haven Salon. Hop on over if you ever need a trim. Or maybe something a little more adventurous.”

  “Come on, Agnes. Now ain’t the time for soliciting. Leave the poor girl alone. Let her enjoy the hoedown.”

  Agnes whipped around to Larry. “And that coming from the man who isn’t even running his own display. Instead, he’s sitting in the shade, drinking iced tea in a lawn chair while his friend does all the work, in the hot sun, no less.”