Yet it was she who held his heart.
Chapter 26
Sierra still couldn’t remember exactly how they’d ended up in his spare bedroom, but when she woke the following afternoon, she was lying in his bed all the same. She twisted about in the sheets, feeling the smooth coolness of the cotton rub against her still-tingling skin. She vaguely remembered him carrying her naked through the tunnels come morning, howling and yelling through a crack in the door that led to the rest of the apartment for all the remaining elite warriors to, in his words, get the hell out.
She hadn’t bothered to ask what the outcome of the evening had been in regard to their ally-turned-enemy, for Silas, but she was sure to find out in time, and at the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Reaching a lazy hand out beside her, she felt around on the bed for him, but the other side of the mattress remained empty. Pulling the sheet to her chest, she sat up, glancing around the spare room. A hint of sunlight streamed in through the still-cracked door, leading out into the rest of his apartment.
The door he’d told her never to go through.
Clearing her sleep-filled thoughts, she called out for him. “Maverick?”
When there was no initial answer, she tried again.
Silence answered her back, but he had to be nearby. She still smelled the delicious, masculine scent of him lingering in the air, or was that her scent mixed with his on her skin? She threw her legs over the edge of the bed, treading to the bathroom to relieve herself before splashing some water on her face. When she returned, she noticed a spare pair of her clothes and her boots, which he must have retrieved from her apartment, folded in a neat pile on the edge of the bed. Her wedding dress was likely still strewn across the floor of his office and would likely be encountered by Blaze when he went into the control room for the day. At least he could corroborate what had happened between them to the council.
Changing into the clothes, she called out into the silence once more. “Maverick?”
Still no answer.
She peeked through the crack of the still-open door into the hall, but no sign of him. She palmed the handle, uncertain whether she should go through it, even in search for him. He’d specifically asked her not to, but…
Judging by the late hour on the clock, they only had an hour or two to gather their things before they departed for the tour of the subpack lands. They were scheduled to arrive at their first stop in the rebuilt Missoula ranch by nightfall. And…well, to be honest, her curiosity didn’t help the matter.
She pushed open the door, walking out into the main living area. She wasn’t exactly certain what she’d expected.
But it hadn’t been this.
From where she stood, the whole of his apartment was the size of a large penthouse, a whole home tucked away beneath the heart and the center of Wolf Pack Run. She’d seen the foyer of course, once, years ago, and the guest bedroom and adjoining office more than once, but she’d expected the rest of his rooms to be immaculate, a home fit for a king.
Instead, the walls were bare, the bookshelves, the tables. Everything empty. It was as if no one lived here. What should have been the main living room, filled to the brim with books and soft comfortable furniture and pillows, was barren. She ran her hand over an empty bookshelf, and her fingers came back covered in dust. It looked as if no one had even been in here in…
Six years.
Her heart clenched.
Since Rose’s death.
As she tread carefully over the creaking wooden floors, Sierra’s heart only sank further. Though it had hurt her when he’d married Rose, she didn’t hold any ill feelings toward the other woman. Rose had seemed as shocked as they all had, and as Rose’s packmate, jealous or not, Sierra would never have wished such a dark fate upon her. She’d known that Maverick grieved deeply after her death, but from the looks of things, Rose’s death had not only broken him.
It’d shattered him completely.
Each room was like a ghost of what had once been, lingering and refusing to let go of the past. The walls, the fixtures, the flooring. Sierra’s heart broke a little more with each step.
He didn’t sleep in the master suite. She’d known that. She’d found him more than once over these past few weeks sleeping in the guest bedroom. She peeked through the open door to the master’s suite. The room was like a long-preserved homage to the woman who had once lived there. Sierra continued exploring. Finally climbing the stairs, she reached a room at the end of a short hall.
Gently, she eased the door open, and immediately, she regretted it.
He’d lost more than Rose that night…
She inhaled a sharp intake of breath, covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t heard him approach, hadn’t felt his eyes on her. But a deep, rumbling growl sounded from behind her, alerting her to his presence.
“Get out.” The words were flat, without emotion.
Immediately, she realized her mistake.
She startled, turning to find Maverick standing over her, his face twisted in a look of such deep agony that it bordered on anger.
Her mistake hadn’t been her curiosity, her invasion of his private space. No.
Her mistake had been thinking she could somehow heal him, bring back the man she’d loved when she was young by dragging him out of the darkness and into the light once more.
She ran past him, tears pouring down her cheeks as she left the packmaster, his past memories, and the ghost of an abandoned, unused nursery in her wake.
* * *
To Maverick’s frustration and disappointment, they still weren’t any further on determining who had set out to claim his life. Despite a lengthy stay in the pack’s cell, Silas continued to be tight-lipped on the matter, doing little more than repeatedly claiming his innocence. They were no closer to finding which of their allies was truly an enemy than they had been weeks before.
But there hadn’t been a repeat attack since they’d locked Silas away.
That didn’t mean Maverick had stopped searching…
The next few weeks followed exactly as he’d promised. During the day, he and Sierra toured the outer subpack lands, meeting with the packmembers there and forging relationships that Maverick would have never been able to accomplish from the refuge of Wolf Pack Run. Sierra was utter perfection at the whole ordeal of course, far better than he ever could have been.
She beguiled all the packmates the same way she had him, impressing them with her quick wit and honed skills as a warrior and endearing herself to them with her relatable embarrassing tales of the menagerie of animals she had in her care. He’d never known that the reason she cared for them, these animals that others would have deemed unworthy of love, was because as a girl, in the shadow of her brother becoming high commander and her father’s disapproval of her becoming a warrior, she’d once felt the same.
As if she were second choice, second fiddle.
Unworthy.
He’d never known that about her, but he learned, listening to her openly speak about her life, her doubts and fears with all the packmates. He’d even overheard her confide in one of the older male warriors, a wolf who’d served on the council but was so ancient that his time was well since past, that she’d been so lonely of late despite the bustle of the tour that she intended to adopt a three-legged kitten when they returned home.
The thought of her feeling alone when he wanted nothing more than to go to her made his chest ache.
Amid those shared moments at her side, playing newlyweds for all the eyes of the packmates, he could occasionally almost convince himself that everything was as it seemed—that they were lovers, mates, together, happy in their newfound marriage. No, they weren’t upset. They were both just a little bit homesick for the ranch and the sprawling mountains they called their own. But it was the nights that brought him back to the cruel truth of reality.
He spent each night alone. No matter what territory they chose to visit or the quality of their sleeping quarters, that was the one thing that remained.
The emptiness he felt without her lying by his side.
As promised, she hadn’t come to him since their wedding night. Not even once. In public, she was amiable, caring, if not a little slow to smile, but when they were alone, there was only silence if they even remained in the same room for more than a few moments.
He knew it was for the best, but that didn’t stop it from paining him. From eating away at that already dark hole in his chest where his grief resided. That hole only seemed to widen with each passing day.
By the time they returned to Wolf Pack Run several weeks later, the excitement of their marriage had almost been forgotten, considering Belle was overdue to give birth to her pup any day now, which had transformed into an auspicious prediction for the mated couples of the pack.
The sun went down early at this point in winter, and it was near nightfall when Maverick felt Sierra approach from behind him. He didn’t hear her or see her; he simply felt her presence lingering there in his shadow.
Like one did a destined mate.
Except their only destiny was to always have an entire pack of wolves forcing them apart.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she hissed.
Unlike their wedding night, the words were full of anger and rage. He’d known they were coming, but he hadn’t thought it was wise to warn her of it. It’d be easier this way. A clean break. Or at least that was what he kept telling himself.
When he didn’t answer or turn toward her, she clutched the sleeve of his leather jacket, using his shoulder to force him toward her. Her cheeks were flushed with color, whether from the cold wind or rage, he couldn’t be certain.
“When did you intend to tell me that the council revoked my warrior status?”
He tipped his Stetson lower from where a hard gust of wind had nearly blown it from his head moments prior. He leaned over the fence of the corral, watching Beast buck about in his pen. He still hadn’t even come close to training the bucking mustang, and if something drastic didn’t change in a few days’ time, he’d be forced to toss in the towel and request that Dean return the horse to the damn incompetent seller he came from.
Unfortunate, but that was life on a ranch.
He leaned harder on the paddock gate as he watched Beast, hoping she’d catch the hint that he wasn’t prepared to engage in this discussion. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be.
“Well?” she prompted.
He shrugged. “I’ve known for a few days, Sierra.”
“A few days?” she snapped. She brandished the rectangular letter at him, reminding him of the last time she’d come at him with an unfortunate piece of paper.
That fucking list of hers was still burning a hole in his damn pocket. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at it.
“If you’ve known, then you have to have talked to them? Did you tell them it wasn’t my fault that the ceremony didn’t prove as fruitful as we’d expected? That I wasn’t the one to cause the issue?” Her questions flew at him like knives, but he held little defense against them.
He had told them. He’d told them all that and more. He’d argued her case until he’d been blue in the goddamn face, but nothing he’d said had seemed to matter. He’d told them it was his fault, that he’d ended the genetic memory early and that the only hope they had of finding out the truth hinged upon data Blaze could potentially recover from her. He’d tried to explain to them that the whole mishap had nothing to do with the fact that she was female and had everything to do with the fact that he was wildly in love with her.
But it hadn’t mattered.
It’d circled back to being about her gender again, exactly as the council had intended it, about how a female couldn’t be an elite warrior. They’d gotten what they’d wanted after all, him mated, which would likely spark a trend of romance to follow among the packmates, and along with what they hoped would be Belle’s successful birth, a surge in the pack’s population numbers. The negotiation of the treaty with the Execution Underground had even gone through after a few additional concessions demanded on Quinn’s part, securing his place as Pact leader again, and thanks to Sierra’s charm, the members of the subpacks had never felt better about his leadership. According to the elders, having her by his side made him seem less intimidating, more human…in the loose sense of the word.
“It won’t change things, Sierra. They’ve made up their minds.”
“So that’s it then?” She bashed a clenched fist onto the rickety corral fencing, which caused Beast to rear up on his hind quarters with an angry whinny. “I give you everything you asked, everything you needed from me, and what do I get in return? For you to support the council’s change in decision?”
“It wasn’t my decision. It’s out of my hands.”
“Like hell it is.” She jabbed her finger, hand still clutching the letter into the center of his chest. “You’re packmaster of this godforsaken ranch, of this pack as you’ve felt the need to remind me so many times before. If you wanted, you could change any part of it, but instead you hide like a goddamn coward behind the pain of a woman, of a child”—her voice softened to a near whisper—“you lost six years ago. Do you think they would have wanted you to be miserable like this?”
He drew to his full height, looming over her, his voice dropping to a low growl. “No one calls me a coward. Not even you.” He stepped away from her, considering hopping over the fence into the pen to place the paddock gate between them. He’d rather be in a cage with his fucking brute of a horse than hear another diatribe about how she thought she could heal him. She was already years too late. “I fulfilled my end of the deal. Every fucking agonizing part of it.”
“Agonizing?” she asked. Her chin quivered slightly with hurt. Barely imperceptible, but he saw it there. He saw everything when it came to her.
But that didn’t stop him from lashing out. From pushing her away.
That was him after all.
Monster.
“Yes, agonizing,” he said, his words dripping venom. “I even allowed you to have your way with me so that you could take that knowledge and run off with some other man.”
“You’re a fool, Maverick. Stubborn as any damn mule on this ranch. There never was another man. You have to have realized that by now.”
Maverick’s breath rushed from his lungs. “What?”
“I never had any intention of another mate. I only said that to get you to realize you could lose me if you kept turning away.” She placed a hand on his chest, over his heart. “I love you. It’s always been you. I’ve only ever been in love with you, even when I thought you didn’t love me. The only mistake I made was being foolish enough to think that I could make you see it.”
He stepped out of her reach. “You lied to me?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No more than you did to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Failing to tell me that it was you who put my name forth? Not bothering to ever mention that you hadn’t chosen Rose of your own free will? Never telling me about the…the…” Her voice trailed off.
The baby. His child. The one that Rose had been carrying at the time that she’d died.
The yellow walls of that ghostly excuse for a nursery had been the unspoken tension between them for weeks now.
“That aside,” she said, “none of that matters. Your lie is more recent than that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He turned away from her.
“Don’t you?” She stepped back into his line of vision, refusing to let him turn away from her. “Throughout this whole thing, you’ve said over and over again that you couldn’t be with me because of your role, that you needed to distance
yourself to protect the pack.”
“That’s still true.”
“Don’t kid yourself.” She caught his shoulder as he tried to turn away again. “It was never about protecting the pack. It was about protecting yourself. If you don’t allow anyone close to you, you can’t possibly risk losing them again. So you use that stupid nickname—and now your father’s damaged reputation and the duty of your role as an excuse—to paint yourself like you’re some sort of monster. But you’re not a monster, Maverick Grey. You’re a man, albeit a broken and grief-ravaged soldier.”
She reached out and cupped his cheek in her hand. “I may not know everything that happened to you and Rose, but don’t speak to me about protecting the pack, because I do know this.” She stroked her thumb over the line of his chin, through the coarse hair of his beard. So tender it made his chest ache. “You’ve only been protecting yourself from the start.”
He cupped his hand over hers, holding it there. He wanted to lean into her touch, to gather her in his arms and never look back. But couldn’t she see?
He’d never be that man.
He couldn’t be…
He could never allow himself weakness, vulnerability.
Love.
Not without risking the very people they both held dear.
If Rose’s death had taught him anything, it was that he was stronger alone.
Even when that loneliness felt like more than he could bear.
Gently, he guided her hand away from his face. As he did, she dropped it to her side, her face and the hope in her eyes extinguishing along with it.
“I can’t,” he whispered.
But fuck, if he didn’t want to. She had to see that.
Sierra swallowed hard, clearly fighting back tears. She glanced toward the corral, refusing to let him see her pain, but her voice was rough as she spoke. “If you expect to get anywhere with that damn horse, you might start by giving him an inch of freedom instead of keeping him locked in a cage.”
“Packmaster.” Dean’s distant shout sounded from the distance, drawing both their attention. Dean pulled up in the truck, hanging halfway out the driver’s side window as he shouted at them. But they didn’t need to hear what he said as soon as the sound of the entire pack’s excited and worried howls echoed in the distance.
Fierce Cowboy Wolf Page 26