by Zoe Chant
"Yeah? Here, let me toss this down somewhere and I'll join you."
"You really don't have to," Axl grumbled, and Tara realized that he wanted to be alone with her as much as she wanted to be.
But Cody flung the saddle over a fence post and strode to the chicken pen alongside them. He was rangier than the muscular Tanner brothers, the very epitome of a wiry, loose-limbed cowboy. Tara could easily imagine him sitting on horseback, a lasso dangling from his hand and a cowboy hat tipped back on his head.
Except, if she thought about it, weren't cowboys supposed to be serious, craggy, stone-faced types? Like Clint Eastwood. Cody was more the Paul Newman type, handsome with deeply worn smile lines around his eyes and mouth, like he laughed a lot. He didn't exert the same powerful animal attraction on her as Axl did, but she liked him immediately.
"Here's the feed shed," Axl said, unlatching a metal door on loose hinges. There were several bins inside, along with stacks of big paper and plastic sacks, like dog food bags. Axl took down a plastic bucket that hung on a hook inside the door. He dipped it into one of the bins, then scooped from another one with a metal scoop, and shook it expertly to mix them. Then he handed it to Tara.
"What do I do? Just pour it in?"
"Scatter it. Here, I'll show you." He dipped a hand into the bucket and threw the handful of grain into the chickens' muddy pen. The hens flocked to it.
Tara threw out some handfuls herself. She grinned. It was more fun than she'd expected.
"You a city slicker, then?" Cody asked.
Tara couldn't help laughing. "Do you really say city slicker?"
He winked. "Only to city slickers."
Axl shoved a not-so-friendly elbow into his cousin's side. "Hey, cut out the flirting." It was almost a growl, like the noise a possessive bear might make.
"I'm not flirting, I'm being friendly." Cody smiled at her. "You ever been to a place like this before?"
Tara shook her head.
"So you probably have questions, and if I know this guy, he sucks at answering 'em. Luckily, I'm your man." He spread his arms wide. "Fire away."
"Let me think." Her gaze drifted to the cows scattered in little clumps over the hillside, and suddenly she did have a question. "How do you milk so many cows? Doesn't it take all day?"
Cody made a choking noise, like he was trying not to laugh. Axl, scowling, stomped on his foot.
"These are beef cattle," Axl said before Cody could get anything out. "Black Angus. We don't milk them, and the calves stay with their mothers."
"Oh." Her cheeks heated. Way to impress the hot rancher, Tara.
"We do have a cow for milk, though," Cody added. "Bossy. She's a Holstein—that's a different kind of cow, one that's known for good milk production. She's penned with the horses over there." He pointed to the corral.
"Why?" Tara asked. "Wouldn't she want to be with the other cows?"
"No, the nursing Angus calves would drink her milk. She has the horses to keep her company."
Axl glared at his cousin. "Speaking of horses, didn't you have a saddle to fix?"
Cody glanced between the two of them, and something changed in his eyes. His smile broadened. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do have a saddle to fix. Good meeting you, Tara. See you up at the house for dinner, huh?"
He moseyed off with that loose-limbed cowboy's stride.
"With two thousand acres of ranch to get lost in, you'd be surprised how hard it can be to get privacy around here," Axl muttered.
Her stomach flipped over, and suddenly she was very aware that he was standing so close their arms were nearly brushing. "And is privacy ... something we want?"
"I don't know," he murmured, looking down at her. "Do you?"
His lips were so close. So kissable. She opened her mouth slightly, stretching on tiptoe—
—and he seemed to come back to himself, as if he'd been caught up in a dream, and took a step back, moving out of reach. "We shouldn't," he said, sounding as if he was arguing with himself as much as her.
"Why not?" It had been a long time since she'd let herself have something that was just for her. For so long, she'd been caught up in working on her father's company, trying to earn his respect and prove to Dick Bannon that she was worthy of her father's trust. And then she'd been on the run. There hadn't been much room for love in any of that. Not much room for Tara Malloy, either.
Now here she was, on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, and in spite of the strangeness, she felt safe—for the first time since Dick sprung his trap on her.
Glancing around, she took a few steps backward, so the barn shielded them from the two ranch houses, and any prying eyes that might be watching from within.
Axl followed her, as she'd hoped he would. He grinned. "You sly little red fox."
"I'm not really a redhead," she confessed, reaching up to touch her dyed hair.
"I don't care. I like it on you." He touched the side of her head and undid the clasp she'd carefully tucked her hair into.
"Hey! What are you doing?" she demanded as a thick mass of red hair fell onto her right shoulder.
"I want to see you with it down." He pulled out a bobby pin on the left side, then another, and undid the other clasp. "I liked the way it shines when it's falling free over your shoulders."
"Matted into a tangle full of leaves and sticks, you mean."
Axl smiled and pulled the last pin free. She'd always had thick hair, a wavy mass that fell halfway down her back. She was proud of her hair. She hadn't been able to make herself cut it to disguise her appearance, so dying it was the best compromise she could come up with.
"Look at it," Axl breathed. "It's like living fire."
Really? She was new to this whole redhead thing, and she'd never paid attention to the way it looked in sunlight. She twisted around, trying to see her own hair falling over her shoulders. Which reminded her that she was wearing the borrowed plaid shirt. She'd buttoned it up over her chest, but her breasts were making it gap out a little between the buttons; it was tailored for guys, after all.
She could see this was getting Axl hot and bothered, too, especially with all the twisting around.
"So, you gonna kiss me, or just talk about my hair?"
He laughed and cupped her face in his hands. "Bossy little thing, aren't you?"
"Isn't Bossy the name of the cow?" she asked cheekily, and then his lips touched hers, and took her breath away.
She'd never known kissing could be like this. He took her mouth hungrily, sucking her lips, exploring with swipes of his tongue. One of his hands slid into her hair, the fingers spreading between the dyed red locks, while his other hand slipped down her shoulder and back to press her tightly against him. She brought up her arms to wrap around his narrow waist and broad chest, clinging as he kissed her until they were both out of breath. She could feel his erection pressing against her.
When the kiss broke, she was wobbly in the knees. "Wow," she gasped.
Axl looked just as dazed. "I knew as soon as I saw you—" he began, and then stopped. He shook his head. "Tara ... you're not a shifter, right? You're a regular human."
"Does it matter?" she asked. "Are your people prejudiced against mine, or something?"
"No, it's not that at all. It's just that I need to explain about—"
A voice interrupted them. "Hey, you two. Dinnertime."
Tara jumped. Alec was standing by the corner of the chicken pen, hands in his pockets, watching them with his piercing eyes.
How long had he been standing there?
Axl turned around, a growl bubbling up from his throat.
Tara moved quickly to defuse the gathering tension. "We'll be right there. Thank you for letting us know."
Alec looked at them both without speaking, turned and walked back toward the house.
"Okay, that does it," Axl growled. "My brother is being an ass. He can't treat you this way."
"No," Tara said. She put her hand on his arm. "He's right, Axl. That's what you we
re going to say before, isn't it?" She swallowed past a lump in her throat. "There's no future for us. I'm a fugitive, and you're the law here."
"Tara—"
"Come on, you heard what he said. Dinner's ready."
And she turned and marched toward the house before she could give in to her traitorous body's urge to fall into his arms.
Chapter Five: Axl
Damn it. He couldn't believe he'd let himself get out of control like that. It was just—her. The way she smelled, the way she looked. Those flirtatious little glances that drove him nuts.
But she was a human, one who self-admittedly had never been around shifters before. She didn't understand about mating, and the permanency of it.
He'd had flings before, but this wasn't that. Couldn't be that. If he made love to Tara Malloy, it was forever.
And he needed her to understand that, before they took this any further.
But it was a conversation he didn't want to have in front of his clan, and there was no chance for privacy at dinner. When he got back to the house, Cody was setting the table and Alec was carving the roast. Tara looked around for something to do, and Cody pointed her to the silverware drawer.
The house smelled wonderful. Fresh stovetop biscuits were just finishing up on top of the old iron cookstove.
"Is Remy joining us for dinner?" Axl asked.
"Nah, he had to run," Cody said. "Had a hot date in town, I heard."
Axl chuckled, forcing himself to a rough approximation of the easy humor he and his cousins usually shared. "What a playbear. That guy's never going to settle down."
Cody's sun-bleached eyebrows went up. "Seems like we always said the same thing about you."
Tara pointedly did not look at Axl.
I can't believe I messed it up already. But he just needed to get her alone, to explain.
Still, everyone relaxed a little once the food was passed around. Cody's good humor was infectious, and by the end of the meal, Alec and Tara even seemed a little more comfortable with each other. Axl had sketched in the basics of Tara's situation for his brother and cousins earlier, but none of them mentioned it, or the awkwardness in the yard. By unspoken consent, they kept to safer topics.
As the meal wound down, the roast demolished to nothing but a few scraps of fat, Tara stood up suddenly. "I have to call Sammie Jo. You said there's a phone here?"
There was an extension in the kitchen, but Axl pointed her into the living room so she'd have a little privacy. As soon as she was gone, Cody waggled his eyebrows at Axl. "I wasn't mistaking the looks you two were passing back and forth by the chicken coop, was I? She's your mate, isn't she?"
"Shhhh!" Axl hissed. "We haven't talked about it yet. She's a human. She doesn't even know what a mate is."
"You're forgetting something," Alec said quietly.
Axl looked at his older brother. Alec's face gave nothing away. "What am I forgetting, exactly?"
"That I'm your older brother, and the clan alpha. I'm the one with the final say on who any of you mate with."
Axl stared at him, while Cody looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here. Unlike their father, who had been boisterous and dominant in everything, Alec was so quiet that Axl often forgot his brother was the alpha. They made most of their decisions on the ranch by consensus, and in the years since their parents had passed away, Alec had never exerted his technical rights, as alpha, to dominate the others. At most, he'd occasionally intervened in disputes to keep them from getting out of hand. Usually he just stayed on the ranch, running things quietly from behind the scenes.
And now, Axl's bear was starting to get riled up, rising up inside him.
"Only because none of us ever challenged you for it," Axl said. He could feel his bear glinting in his eyes. "I never minded because I don't care about being alpha, but you picked a damn stupid time to finally start asserting your alpha rights."
"Stupid, is it?" Alec's eyes flashed. "Stupid is you having an entire county of eligible women to choose from, and picking someone who's just passing through with a whole passel of trouble behind her. From what you've said, this Tara woman has powerful enemies. This is the kind of thing that could completely blow up everything we've worked for here—"
"We?" Axl snarled. "Say what you mean, brother! You mean you. We've been living a bachelor lifestyle for a long time, and now that you've gotten used to the way things are, you don't like the idea of any of us getting mates. You don't want other people coming into our clan and changing the way we live."
"So what if I don't?" Alec bristled, literally—his shoulders seemed to grow slightly wider and more hunched. He wasn't quite shifting, not yet, but his bear was there just under his skin, and a frisson of challenge quivered on the charged air between the two brothers. "If you really have to take a mate, there are other women—"
Axl slammed a fist down on the table, curling his fingers as his claws tried to break through. "I don't want another woman! She's mine! My bear chose her. Just because it's never happened to you doesn't mean it isn't real. I can't turn it on and off. If you make me choose between her and the clan, I will challenge you." He bared his teeth. "Right here. Right now."
Alec pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. The kitchen was built by and for big bear shifters, but even so his head almost brushed the ceiling.
"Knock it off, you two." Cody was on his feet now, too, moving between them as they faced off against each other in the cramped space between the table and the cookstove. "What's the matter with you? If you're going to fight, take it outside. Better yet—don't."
"Nobody, alpha or not, brother or not, tells me who I can mate with," Axl growled.
"I can see I've let discipline get lax around here," Alec shot back, his eyes gleaming with the wild fury of his bear.
"If neither one of you cares about breaking things," Cody snapped, "then maybe you'll care about the fact that the woman you're fighting over, our guest, is listening to all of this."
Axl looked around in shock. Tara was standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at both of them, her face white.
Axl's bear backed down, flattening its ears.
"I ... think I'll be in the bedroom," Tara said faintly. She turned away, and her footsteps retreated rapidly.
"See?" Alec said. He'd backed down too, at least to the point where he was no longer on the cusp of shifting, but his bear still lurked near the surface. "She's not one of us. She can't handle what we are. If you're that horny for a mate, Axl, I can talk to some of the shifter clans over on Bald Mountain or further down the valley. We can find a bear shifter woman, someone who would fit with our lifestyle here. She might even be willing to take all of us as mates; it's been done before—"
"You don't get it, do you?" Axl demanded. "I don't want some sort of nineteenth-century arranged shifter marriage. I don't want to share my mate with anyone. I want you to butt out of my business, and if I have to challenge you for that, I will!"
Alec took a deep breath. His hands flexed as if he, too, was fighting back claws.
"One night," he said. "She can stay tonight, and tomorrow, we'll deal with this problem you've brought on us as a clan, the way it ought to be."
Axl's only answer was a snarl. He stomped out onto the porch before he really did destroy something—or let his raging grizzly out and attacked his brother.
Doing the evening chores in the gathering darkness calmed him. He gave the horses their measure of grain to supplement their grass, milked the cow, and checked to make sure the pump was keeping the water troughs full. Cody came out to join him while he was filling the calves' feed pen—a small corral only the young calves could get into, where grain was supplied to help them grow faster than they could on mother's milk and grass alone.
"You know, as much as I hate to say it, and as much as I agree he's being an asshole over this, you were out of line back there," Cody remarked as he slashed open a feed bag and emptied it into the calves' feed bin.
"You could have stopped wit
h 'He's being an asshole,'" Axl said through his teeth.
"He's the alpha, though. If you want to be alpha, then challenge him properly; if not, then abide by his decisions. That's how it's always been done."
"If we kept doing things 'how it's always been done'," Axl grunted, "then I wouldn't be sheriff and you wouldn't have that agribusiness degree. Actually, we'd probably still be living in the woods and wiping our asses with pine cones."
"So challenge him, then. Alec is a traditional bear in a lot of ways. If you win, I think he'll abide by it gracefully."
"Yeah, but I'm not sure if I could," Axl muttered.
He said good night to Cody, who went off across the yard to the smaller ranch house. Lamplight gleamed in the window of the big house. Axl came in cautiously, knocking mud off his boots. There was a light on upstairs—Alec was still up. But he didn't come down, so Axl went off to the guest room to see how upset Tara was.
He found her sitting on the bed. She was brushing her hair vigorously, making it gleam in the lamplight. He was struck all over again by its vividness and fire. She might not be a natural redhead, but the color suited her as if she'd been born to it.
"Hey," he said from the doorway.
She looked up at him. There was a frown on her pretty face. "What on earth was going on earlier? I'll have you know, Axl Tanner, I don't need you fighting over me like I'm some kind of prize to be won."
"It's not that," he tried to explain. "It's not that at all. This is another part of being a shifter, one I haven't talked about yet. Alec is my brother, but he's also my alpha."
Tara shook her head. "I don't know what that means."
"It means he's the boss of me, and everyone else in the clan. It's an instinctual thing. Can I come in?"
"It's your house."
"Yeah, but this room is your den right now."
She merely looked confused. "I'm not a bear."
"No, but you're a guest, which means you're an honorary bear."
This made her smile a little, which lifted his spirits. What was broken could be fixed. She waved a hand at him. "Fine, whatever, come in."