by Zoe Chant
A bear shifter! She knew about shifters, of course, but she had never met one. There were few of them in the city. She'd heard they preferred rural places. She'd certainly never thought she'd meet one.
Or that she would feel such an intense and immediate attraction. She had to fight to keep her mind from drifting to thoughts of how Axl's strong, capable hands had tended her leg. How many other things could those hands do ...?
Axl accelerated up a hill so steep that the Chevy's tires slid in the mud, and for a terrifying moment, Tara was afraid they were going to tip over backwards.
And then the hill leveled off, and they drove through an open gate in a pole fence, into a vast cleared area. Tara looked around, astonished at how suddenly the woods they'd been driving through had changed to rolling green pasture. She also hadn't realized they'd come so close to the mountains. No wonder the road had been so rough; they'd been driving up the foothills! Now, without dense trees to block the view, she discovered that the Tanner ranch was set on the lower slopes of the nearest mountain itself. Pasture spread wide to either side of them, and went up steeply in front, with only a few scattered clumps of pine trees to break the winds that must sweep down from those heights in the winter.
She ought to have found it desolate, but instead she was caught off guard by the wild beautiful of the place. It made her feel the same sort of awe at its breathtaking grandeur that she sometimes got when she walked through Grand Central Station, or looked up at the towering buildings of Manhattan or the beautiful cathedrals of Paris.
It was clear, also, that this was a working ranch, not a place for show. Clumps of black-colored cows turned their heads to watch the Chevy drive by. Axl was driving toward a group of buildings that obviously made up the nerve center of the ranch.
Tara had imagined a picturesque ranch house, like something out of a movie, sitting all alone with maybe a couple of oak trees to shade it. She was surprised by how many buildings there were, sprawling in a loose and spread-out horseshoe around a muddy central yard. There was a chickenhouse with chickens pecking in a wire pen in front of it, and two big shapeless buildings with metal roofs, one with a long pole-fence corral where a couple of horses were drinking from a water trough. And there were also several nondescript sheds that seemed to contain farm equipment—lots of it. How many tractors did one farm need?
Axl parked beside a motorcycle and two other trucks, one attached to a large trailer with hay scattered in the bottom, in front of what she assumed was the actual house. At least, it was a low rambling structure that looked like a house, and it had a little vegetable garden with a fence around it. But there was a smaller house near one of the barns, which also had smoke curling from the chimney.
"Looks like Alec and the Hayes brothers are here," Axl said, with a cursory glance at the vehicles. "Or on the property, at least. They're probably out mending fences or checking on the herd."
"How many people live here?" Tara asked in amazement. "It looks like there's enough room for half the town!"
Axl laughed. "Well, it takes hard work to run a ranch. Hard work and lots of hands to pitch in. Me and my brother Alec own the place. Then there's our cousins, Cody and Remy Hayes. Cody lives and works on the ranch, and Remy is .... well ... Remy. Ranching isn't really his gig, but he's up here a lot and pitches in when we need him. If you thought driving up here in the patrol cruiser was a little hair-raising, you should see Remy do it on his motorcycle. And there's a hired man, Gannon, but he lives up in the cabin."
"Cabin?"
"You can't see it from here. It's the original cabin my great-grandparents built when they bought this place."
There was pride in his words. Tara recognized it. It was the same kind of pride she heard in her father's voice when he spoke of the company he'd built up with his own hands.
The company that Dick Bannon wanted to take away from him.
Axl slapped his hand on his thigh, making her jump. "Well, let's not sit here jawing, as my granddad used to say. Let me show you around and get you comfortable. And then we can start talking about plans."
He opened his door and stepped out. Tara cautiously followed suit. It was shockingly quiet. There were no sounds except the lowing of cows, the soft whisper of wind in the grass, and the distant white noise of rushing water, probably the same river they'd followed as they drove up here. There was also an odd, repetitive squeaking that she couldn't immediately identify. Eventually she traced it up to a windmill on the hill above the house, built entirely out of weathered wood, and spinning in a lazy sort of way. She would have to get a better look at it later.
Then her skirt distracted her by trying to fall off her hips. She caught it, holding it up with a fistful of fabric.
"Oh, damn it—Sammie Jo! I meant to stop by and tell her I'm okay. And I have a few things at the diner that I need to pick up."
"You can call her from here," Axl said. "No cell service out here, but there's a phone in the house. I can get your things in the morning, or have one of the guys do it." He took in her situation, holding up the skirt with her hand. The safety pin had not materialized when they'd retrieved the skirt itself from the brambles. "Do you have anything else to wear?"
"Nothing clean. Being on the run doesn't encourage a lot of luggage."
"Most of what we have here are guy clothes, for big guys." He appraised her with his eyes, a brisk up-and-down. She resisted the urge to spin in place and treat him to a show—partly because she wasn't sure if she could do it and continue to hold the skirt up, and she didn't know if she wanted to give him that much of a show. "I'll look around and see if I can find something for you. We might still have some of Ma's old things."
This reminded her that he'd mentioned it was his family's ranch. "Are they still here? Your parents?"
Axl shook his head. "They've passed on."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"You said you lost your mom, so I guess you can relate. It's one of those things you never really get over, but life goes on, I suppose."
She nodded and followed him up the steps to the porch of the ranch house, holding her skirt with one hand. "All those people you mentioned—do they live in this house? Together? Except for the guy in the cabin, I guess."
"No, it's just me and Alec in the main house. Cody is right across the yard in what used to be my aunt and uncle's house, where the cousins grew up. Remy has a place in town, but he spends the night in the little house sometimes, too."
That must be the house with the thin wisp of smoke coming from the chimney. "And are they all ..." She hesitated. She didn't want to be rude, and she wasn't sure if it was impolite to ask about it, but she was very curious. "Are all of you bear shifters?"
"Yep. Including Gannon, although he's not related by blood to the rest of us." Axl smiled proudly as he switched on the light, then held the door for them. "They're my clan, and I couldn't ask for a better one."
Dad was her clan, she supposed. With Mom gone, he was all that she had.
"There's more than enough space for you to have all the privacy you like," Axl said. "You can use the guest room downstairs. I'll put clean sheets on the bed—they aren't dirty, but they might be a bit dusty since it doesn't get used much. And I'll go look around for something you can wear."
The inside of the house matched the outside, a little plain, but homey. The furniture was large and heavy, and a lot of it looked handmade; colorful hooked rugs covered the wood floors. Axl led her to a small bedroom off the living room, and pulled the sheets off the bed. "I'll be back with clean stuff for you in a minute," he said, and left with the bundle of sheets.
Tara was left standing in the middle of the floor, holding her skirt up with her hand. After a moment, she unfroze and wandered to the window. It was an old-fashioned kind that she'd only seen in movies, with white-painted sashes dividing the window up into nine small panes. The little panes broke up the view outside into small squares like calendar pictures.
This place looked like a picture from a
calendar, she thought—the vivid green of the sweeping pastures, the weathered wood barns and sheds. After running for so long, it felt like an oasis of peace. They were miles and miles from the nearest town. If anyone came here, they'd have to drive up the same winding road she and Axl had just navigated. And Axl, she was confident, would stand between her and anyone who came after her.
It had been a long time since she'd felt this ... safe.
But it was only temporary safety, she reminded herself. She was still a fugitive, from the law as well as from Dick Bannon's hired killers.
And even if Axl believed her, and wanted to help, she wasn't sure if he really could. All she could do, if she stayed, was bring disaster on him and the ranch he loved so dearly.
She was jolted from her gloomy thoughts by Axl's return, carrying an armload of sheets with a wad of plaid and flannel on top.
"I couldn't find anything of Mom's for you," he said, dumping the heap onto the bare mattress. "The best I could do was some things from when me and Alec were boys."
In spite of her misery, she couldn't help laughing. "You brought me kids' clothes to wear?"
"I'm six four and I'm the runt of the family," Axl shot back, with a sly grin that melted her midsection. "I think the only things around here that'll come even close to fitting you are from before we hit our last growth spurt."
Tara picked up a plaid shirt and shook it out. "Farm chic."
"You'll be the envy of all the models on the catwalk."
He said it flippantly, but the way he looked at her made her think he actually meant it. He looked as if he thought she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
Which was ridiculous. Her hair was a mess and she was holding up a skirt that was at least six sizes too big.
"Well," Axl said, breaking eye contact hastily. "I ought to give you privacy to get dressed."
Actually, you could stay. The words hovered on the tip of her tongue, but he'd already left before she could say them.
***
Tara felt silly trying on plaid shirts and boys' sweatpants, but she did eventually find a pair of pants that fit her if she rolled up the cuffs, and the plaid shirt was probably more practical for a ranch than the white satin blouse she'd been wearing. She found a hairbrush in the bathroom and enough pins and clips remaining in her tangled mass of hair to get it fastened up in some semblance of order.
She was a natural brunette, and had gone with the red dye because it changed her appearance strikingly, as well as being noticeable enough that most people looked at, and remembered, the red hair rather than her face. But she had found that she really liked it. Her coloring suited it well, and the fact that Axl seemed to like it was an unexpected bonus.
Why do I care what he likes?
But she did. And she suddenly felt shy about how he'd react to seeing her in the borrowed boys' clothes.
She went ahead and fixed the bed to be a good guest. While she worked on it, the door slammed and she heard voices elsewhere in the house. Axl and his brother and cousins? Well, at least they would be prepared for her. She wondered how much of her story Axl had decided to share.
At last she couldn't put it off any longer. She was hungry, anyway, and had started to notice cooking smells seeping into the bedroom. She tucked up a last straggling wisp of hair, and marched out into the main part of the house.
Axl was in the kitchen, doing something at the stove. He'd changed out of his uniform pants and coffee-stained T-shirt into jeans and an open-necked polo shirt. A dark-haired man was sitting at the kitchen table in mud-splattered work pants and heavy work boots. The family resemblance was noticeable. Even though one was light and the other dark, they both had the same chiseled cheekbones and broad-shouldered physique.
They stopped talking when she came in. The dark-haired guy gave her a look that was not especially friendly.
Axl turned around from the stove, wearing an oven mitt. Something about the sight of her arrested him. His mouth opened slightly, and then he cleared his throat.
"Uh, yeah—Tara. You look—wow. Ahem." He cleared his throat, and gestured with the oven-mitted hand. "Tara, this is my brother Alec."
Alec grunted. He put down his cup of coffee and left the kitchen without saying anything. Creaking footsteps went upstairs.
Tara looked after him anxiously. "Did I do something?"
"That's just Alec," Axl said, but he looked unhappy. "He spends a lot of time out here alone and isn't that good with strangers. He's a great guy when he warms up to you."
Tara didn't really see a whole lot of warming up on the horizon, from the way he'd acted. "Did you tell him about me?"
"I didn't tell him everything, but the basic stuff, yeah. I'm not gonna lie to my family."
She told herself it was Axl's choice. She'd made the decision to trust him; now she needed to go ahead and follow through on that. "Something smells great," she said, intentionally changing the subject.
"There's a pot roast in the oven, made from a hundred percent home-grown Tanner beef, and I just put the biscuits on," Axl said. He pulled off the oven mitt. "Now it's just a matter of waiting for everything to cook."
He's gorgeous and he cooks, too. Wow.
"You didn't have to go to so much trouble," she said, flattered.
"It's no trouble. It's my night to cook, and we Tanner boys like our home cooking around here." He cranked a timer on the stove, and when it started ticking, stepped away and flashed her one of those panty-melting smiles. "So, while we're waiting, you want to see the ranch?"
"I would love to see the ranch." Especially if you're the one showing it to me.
Axl smiled. He put a big hand in the small of her back and steered her toward the door.
God, the touch of his hand made her ache. She'd never wanted anyone like this. Even when he was chasing her through the woods, there had been a part of her that just wanted to get caught.
And now, here she was. She didn't quite know how to make the next move, though. Especially knowing there was a good likelihood she'd have to leave soon. Axl didn't seem like a slam, bam, thank you ma'am kind of guy. He was more the type who got attached. In contrast, she was the type who might have to run suddenly in the middle of the night.
Not a good combination.
But, damn, what she wouldn't give to find out what else those deft, strong hands could do ... and, especially, what they could do to her.
When they stepped out onto the porch, she was struck all over again by how quiet it was here. The loudest sounds were the cheerful babbling of the chickens in their pen near the corral and the distant squeaking of the windmill. A bird trilled somewhere out of sight.
"Well, let's see, where to start," Axl said, looking around. "Anything you want to know about?"
"I've never been on a ranch before. Hmmm." Tara pointed to the two big outbuildings she guessed were barns. They looked nothing at all like the red barns she'd seen in pictures, though, more like overgrown sheds made of weathered gray wood with sloping metal roofs. "Are those for the cows?"
"Sort of. That one is the calving shed." He pointed to the larger of the two. "Calving season is between February and April, and we can get some nasty storms during that time. So the cows need extra protection when their babies are newborn."
Axl turned and pointed to the other barn, the one with the corral attached. "And that's the horse barn, and over there is the machine shop, where we fix equipment around the ranch. Something's always breaking on a place like this."
Tara nodded along and tried not to look like her eyes were glazing over. Seeing her expression, Axl grinned and smoothly changed gears. "Have you ever fed chickens?"
"No," she said. "What do you feed them?"
"Corn and laying pellets, mostly. C'mon, I'll go show you. Watch your step; we've been getting a lot of rain lately. It's good for the pasture, but the place is a mess."
They crossed the wide, muddy yard toward the chicken pen. Two dogs came running to meet them, a black lab and some
sort of spotted dog with blue eyes.
"Hey, Beau, Chex," Axl greeted them.
Tara drew back. She wasn't used to dogs; she'd never had one growing up, and all the ones she'd met lately were strays who wanted to chase her.
"Let them sniff your hands. They're friendly. They just need to get to know you."
Cautiously she held out her hands. The dogs pressed their cold, wet noses into her palms. She ended up with hands that were muddy and swiped with dog slobber, but both dogs wagged their tails.
"See? You're friends already. Now go bother someone else, you spoiled mutts."
The dogs ignored the order and trailed behind them. It wasn't until then that Tara noticed the spotted dog was limping. No—more than just limping—
"That dog has only three legs!" Tara said in amazement. It had been running just as fast as the other one, and she hadn't even been able to tell.
"Yeah, Chex got tangled up in some old barbed wire when she was a puppy. She used to belong to a neighbor who was going to put her down, but we said we'd take her, and she healed up great."
"Why do you call her Chex?"
Axl grinned. "Short for Chex Mix. Because she's a certified mutt. Part Australian shepherd, part who knows what."
As they approached the chickenhouse, the dogs went streaking off, and Tara saw that she and Axl weren't the only people around. A tall guy with long, sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a ponytail had just come out of the smaller barn, carrying a horse saddle. The dogs greeted him happily.
"Hey, Cody!" Axl called. "Last I heard, those things work better with a horse under 'em. Unless you're volunteering for the job."
"You're a real comedian. And if you want to mend this broken strap, be my guest." Cody broke into a grin and draped the saddle over his shoulder like it weighed nothing, freeing up a hand to shake Tara's. "Hey, you must be Miss Malloy. Cousin here said he'd brought a guest back."
"That's me." She wasn't sure what to say next. Alec knew the truth about her, but how much did the cousins know? She settled for the safest topic she could think of. "Axl was just going to show me how to feed the chickens."