Blue Moon Saloon Box Set 1

by Anna Lowe

  Not worth my time, she said and loped off behind the bears.

  Help me! He wanted to scream to them. Don’t give up on me!

  “Give up…” he yelped into the darkness, jolting upright in a cold sweat. The arm he threw out knocked the light off the bedside table, and glass shattered across the floor. The shards glimmered eerily in the moonlight seeping through the curtain.

  He panted into the sheets for a while, then stumbled to the bathroom to splash water over his face. He scrubbed his eyes and stared in the mirror, scared as hell at what he might do next. Put his fist through a wall? Howl at the moon?

  Find her. Find my mate, the voice growled inside.

  He backed away from the mirror. Locked the door he never bothered locking and put a chair in front of it — not to keep anyone out, but to keep himself in, because the images that came with the voice were ugly. He saw Janna, screaming frantically. Fighting off insistent hands that grabbed at places no man had a right to touch, not when a woman didn’t want him to.

  Janna, fighting him madly. It was him in that vision, forcing her.

  “No!” He yelled it out loud, and the vision wavered.

  He shook his head, swearing he’d never, ever hurt her. That wouldn’t, couldn’t ever be him.

  Just a dream, just a dream…

  But, shit. What were those crazy ideas doing in his head, anyway? If he was capable of imagining such things, maybe he was capable of doing them, too.

  “Never,” he grunted at the ceiling. “Never.”

  He said it a hundred times, then another hundred, and another. Eventually, he drifted through an uneasy half slumber until he blinked at a shaft of sunlight knifing through the room. Tilted his head at the sound of a rooster crowing outside.

  He glanced at the clock. Almost six a.m. Sunrise.

  The rooster crowed again. Get moving, you ass!

  He rolled out of bed and crunched right past the shattered glass of the lamp in bare feet. He paid the little cuts and spikes of pain no heed as he stared into the bathroom mirror. The face he found there was a stranger who looked a lot like him, but not like the him he remembered. This one was darker. Messier. Crazier. He could see it in the eyes.

  Jesus, man, he wanted to say. Who are you?

  Not the Cole Harper he used to be. The one who could smile and flirt and joke. The one who could focus on anything he wanted and go after it with single-minded determination. The one who wasn’t scared of anything. Not bucking broncs or the bulls he’d ridden or the ones he’d faced down when he went from bull riding to bullfighting — not clowning, some called it, though saving the life of a fallen rider was anything but — because that gave him an even bigger high. Real bullfighting — not that gory stuff they did in Spain with capes and who knew what. Bullfighting, as in rodeo bullfighting — going face-to-face with raging beasts looking to trample the cowboys they’d just bucked off. That’s what he used to do — save those men’s lives.

  And nothing had ever stopped him. Nothing ever made him give up. Until…

  Until one day that started perfectly and quickly went to hell in a real-life nightmare that was worse than anything his imagination could conjure up.

  He splashed again and watched the water trickle slowly down his face.

  Crap, was he messed up.

  So get yourself back together, the growl in his head said. Win my mate!

  If the voice had come with a face, he’d have punched it out the window of his apartment and right into the water trough downstairs. What the hell was that voice?

  He stood in the shower, trying to figure it out. Maybe the pain killers he’d tried taking for a while were mixing with the alcohol he’d been drowning himself in over the past couple of months. Some kind of delayed reaction that was messing with his mind.

  Except the voice has been getting worse, asshole, he told himself. Even though you’ve been drinking less.

  He paused on that thought. He had been drinking less ever since he’d met Janna. Didn’t have much choice, what with her sneaky tricks.

  “Your whiskey.” She’d wink and set down a glass filled with Coke. Then she’d smile at him with eyes so full of hope and innocence and belief — belief, damn it, like she was so sure of him — that he’d had no choice but to gulp the Coke down. Gulp it and smack his lips and joke to the burly bartender that the saloon really ought to stock stronger stuff.

  Simon would roll his eyes at Janna’s misplaced crusade and go right back to watching her sister’s every move with his love-struck, faithful eyes.

  Cole thought back in time. Thought forward. Tried to match things up. The inner voice started after he’d slowed the drinking down. Sometime after he’d been knocked out in that fight at the saloon, that time he’d walked in on the men who’d cornered Janna and Jess.

  Maybe that was it. His brain had gotten rattled when he’d been thrown against the wall. The guy he’d been grappling with seemed to possess superhuman strength. But shit, he’d had a couple of other falls in his life that had knocked him cold, and none of them left him imagining voices in his head.

  Christ, maybe he ought to go back to drinking again.

  No way, the voice shot back. Must please our mate, and she doesn’t like it.

  He got out of the shower, finger-combed his hair, and risked another glance in the mirror. He looked gloomy. And tired. So, so tired.

  He made himself the world’s strongest coffee and a burned piece of toast then headed down the creaky outside stairs to the barn. Slowly, to soak in the sunlight, which reminded him of Janna and everything good.

  “Heya, Pip.” He tossed his toast crust to the one-eyed Chihuahua-pit bull mix that came running up to him with its tail wagging as it did every day.

  The dog scrambled to a halt, though, then backed away.

  “Hey!” he protested, stepping closer.

  Pip skittered back, showing his teeth.

  “Hey, what did I do?” he called after the dog. Then he kicked the dirt. “Great.” The only two souls in the world who looked at him without judgment were Pip and Janna, and now Pip hated him.

  Which only left Janna. And Christ, how long would it be before she gave up on him, too?

  “Bad night, Cole?” Rosalind called to him from a few stalls down.

  Ros was old enough to be his grandmother and fussed over him like one, too. The indomitable Annie Oakley-type owned Lazy Q Stables and pretty much ran the place on her own, but she said she liked having a man around. Still, Cole suspected the job was more about her taking care of him than him taking care of the horses. She tut-tutted over how much or how little he ate, drank, and slept, as if she’d lost track of how many sons she’d given birth to and had taken Cole under her wing. Him and Pip and half a dozen horses everyone else had given up on as too old or too creaky or too jittery to be of much use.

  No wonder he’d always felt at home in this place.

  “Morning, Ros,” he sighed, grabbing a saddle. “How many today?”

  The trail ride business in this part of Arizona had more downs than ups, but Rosalind usually managed to rustle up just enough customers to pay the bills.

  “Eight riders,” she said, filling a bucket with oats. “You can start with Dakota, then saddle up Rye…”

  He set the saddle along a rail and strode into Dakota’s stall, thankful for this bit of normalcy. Having grown up on a ranch, he could do this job in his sleep. Saddle a couple of horses, clean the stalls. A dead-end job he’d have scoffed at a year ago, but hell, it worked for him now. It earned him a bit of cash and came with the two-room apartment above the stables. Perfect for a not-too-picky wash-up of a cowboy trying to escape the ghosts of his past.

  The job had also come without any questions asked about why a guy in his prime would want an end-of-the-road job at a dusty stable that barely made ends meet, as long as he knew horses. And he knew horses, all right. Horses and bulls.

  “Morning, Dakota,” he murmured, stepping inside the stall.

  The
pinto nickered once in greeting, but then her ears went from flopping drowsily to folded back in alarm, and she sidestepped away.

  “Whoa, there,” he tried, keeping his voice low.

  The horse huffed. Her pink nostrils opened wide, testing the air. She pawed at the hay under her feet.

  “Come on, just a little trail ride.” He clipped the lead on to her halter on the third try. God, why was the horse so jittery?

  She pranced around as he led her out and tossed her head restlessly the whole time he saddled her. The mare only really settled down once he’d led her outside and left her tied to a post, ready to ride.

  Damn horse. Maybe she’d had a bad night, too.

  But horse after horse acted the same way, and even Rosalind shook her head at him.

  “What’s with you, boy?”

  Shit. He wished he knew.

  “Whatever it is that’s eating at you, keep it out of the barn. Last thing I need is jittery horses with guests who can barely tell a horse’s head from its ass.” She stepped closer and took his chin in her hand. Turned his head right, then left, the way she studied sick horses and cows. “That girl of yours turn you down?”

  “Girl?” How would Rosalind know about Janna? And Janna hadn’t turned him down. Not yet, anyway.

  She chuckled. “Whatever poor girl who’s been working so hard at cleaning you up.”

  He stepped back, running a hand over his chin. The stubble felt strange, because he usually shaved. Well, over the past couple of weeks, at least, so Janna wouldn’t think he was a complete bum.

  Rosalind smacked him on the shoulder. “Seems like a girl worth keeping, if you ask me.”

  He hadn’t, but that wouldn’t stop Ros.

  “A girl worth trying a little harder for,” she went on, looking at him with that Son, I expect better from you look.

  A girl worth dying for, the voice in his head added with a growl.

  “Um…” he tried. What exactly did a man say to that? A girl who deserves better than me?

  Ros smacked his other shoulder, hard enough to make him shuffle. “Back to work. Quit upsetting the horses. And tonight…” Her wrinkled face took on a mischievous glow. “Tonight, you get some flowers and bring them to her, and…” She winked, then cleared her throat. “And I’m sure you can figure it out from there.”

  Cole leaned against the barn door, watching Rosalind breeze outside like a whirling dervish honing in on a new target. He wanted to protest because he hadn’t done anything to piss Janna off.

  Haven’t done anything to earn her, either, a grouchy voice said.

  He considered that. Wondered what to do. Wondered if he trusted himself to do it. His eyes drifted over the pine-dotted hills, then stopped at the crest of the ridge. The pale moon was just starting to slide behind it, setting in the morning light. Wouldn’t be long until the moon would be full, rising and setting opposite the sun.

  Need her, the voice inside him turned grave. Need her to survive the Change…

  He fought off a shiver that had no right shaking anyone’s shoulders on a warm Arizona day and headed back into the barn.

  Chapter Four

  Janna rubbed her eyes and yawned as she padded down the stairs to the saloon, wishing she’d had the kind of night she’d dreamed about — up close and personal with Cole Harper — instead of just another lonely night alone.

  “Morning,” Soren grumbled from the tiny office off the back room of the saloon.

  Bears were about as enthusiastic about mornings as she was. The only one of the shifters living above the Blue Moon Saloon who didn’t mind waking before ten was her sister, Jessica. The proof was in the smell of fresh muffins wafting over from the little café next door.

  “Muffin?” she asked, starting toward the back door.

  Soren nodded. “Coffee?”

  It had become an amiable ritual between them: he’d get the coffee, she’d get the muffins, and they’d both get on with whatever business there was to be done that day before opening the saloon.

  She walked outside and looped from the rear door of the saloon to the back door of the café.

  “Morning!” Jessica practically sang when Janna came in.

  “Morning,” she mumbled back, suppressing a sigh. Her sister had always been a morning person, but the joyous glow she’d taken on recently made it that much harder to bear.

  Jessica held up a rack of steaming muffins. “Blackberry-currant. You think Simon will like them?”

  Simon’s deep voice rumbled from the open door. “I like everything you make.” He stood in the doorway, rubbing a shoulder against the frame, marking his turf.

  Jessica turned an even happier shade of pink and rushed into his hug.

  Janna looked at the floor. Sighed. Grabbed three muffins — one for her, two for Soren — and headed past the happy lovers. She was glad for her sister and Simon, but there was only so much cooing and hand-feeding of muffins an innocent bystander could take.

  “Muffin,” she sighed, plonking the plate in front of Soren.

  “Coffee,” he yawned, handing her a mug.

  They stood there sipping for a second, listening to the giggling next door, staring off into space. Janna had never been big on the concept of destined mates, figuring she could damn well choose her own partner if she ever decided she wanted one. But seeing Simon and Jess made her think twice. And ever since she’d met Cole…

  Mate. Her wolf nodded happily. Mine.

  Soren took a bear-sized bite of muffin then sighed at the papers littering his desk. The guy loved woodwork, spare ribs, and rooting around in the outdoors. A bear doing office work, well, it just wasn’t natural.

  Janna took hold of the back of his chair and spun him around. “How about you go for a morning walk. I’ll take care of the bills.”

  His listless eyes lit up a little and turned toward the hills. A hint of oaky bear scent wafted off him, just from the thought of shifting.

  “Um… well…”

  “Just go.” She jerked her thumb at the door. “I got this.”

  “Maybe just a short walk…”

  She pushed him toward the door. Well, she shoved at his broad back, because bears didn’t budge unless they damn well wanted to. Obviously, his bear was all for it, because he was out the door, in his pickup, and off on the ten-minute drive to the national forest before she could say boo.

  “Boo,” she whispered, looking at the sea of paperwork. She took one more sip of coffee and dug into the bills piled up on the desk.

  Power, water, deliveries. She slit open envelopes, wrote checks, and made notes in the old-fashioned ledger that was Soren’s attempt at office organization.

  Rent. She signed that check with a happy face in the memo line, because Tina Hawthorne-Rivera would be the one cashing it. If it weren’t for Tina, Simon and Soren might not have managed to rent the saloon from the wolves of Twin Moon Ranch. If it weren’t for Tina, Janna might still be on the run with Jessica, working temporary jobs with one eye over her shoulder and one eye on the road. If it weren’t for Tina, a lot of good things might never have come to pass.

  Like her job here at the saloon. Her cozy room upstairs. Like meeting Cole.

  It wasn’t Tina, a little voice in the back of her mind said. It was destiny.

  She mulled that one over as she checked the next envelope. No return address, no logo. Her heart beat a little faster, and she cast a furtive glance at the door.

  Probably it’s from the new microbrewery in Flagstaff, she told herself, trying not to tremble as she opened it up. Or maybe an appeal for a local charity. Or maybe—

  She pulled the letter out and stared at the three lines of text.

  Purity! Purity! the top line proclaimed in bold.

  Tainted shifters shall pay with their lives came under that, and at the bottom…

  Her stomach lurched.

  You will pay with your lives.

  The you was underlined four times, as it always was.

  She crum
pled the letter and threw it in the trash. Brushed her hands like she’d just handled a dead rat, then reached into the trash and pushed the letter even deeper. She glanced at the door, making sure no one was there to see. Then she forced herself to reach for the next bill and open it as if nothing had happened. As if the evil that hunted her was watching for her reaction on a hidden camera.

  She sat ramrod straight and went through another three bills, pretending to be cool and calm. But inside, her gut churned.

  The Blue Bloods hadn’t given up their hateful campaign. She was still a target. She and Jess both, plus Simon and Soren. All because their wolf and bear packs had mingled too closely for the shifter extremists who valued racial purity above all else. The Blue Bloods had ambushed the bear clan, then attacked her pack.

  She stared into empty space and remembered the flames. The screams. Remembered Jessica yelling at her to run for her life. They’d gotten away, the sole survivors of that awful night.

  Survivors of another awful night, too, not too long ago. The Blue Bloods had hunted her and Jessica right to the Blue Moon Saloon, and if it hadn’t been for Cole stepping in, then Simon and Soren arriving just when she’d given up hope, she would have been dead.

  We’ll be back…

  She could hear the taunting cry of Victor Whyte, the leader of the Blue Blood rogues as he escaped out the back door of the saloon.

  She glanced at the trash can. Were the letters a precursor to more trouble, or were the Blue Bloods all bark and no bite?

  “Gotcha, baby.” Simon’s teasing voice meandered in from next door as he flirted with his mate.

  Janna rolled her shoulders and told herself to relax. There was no need to worry. She had two bears around, plus the protection of the Twin Moon wolves — the most powerful pack in the Southwest. The Blue Bloods wouldn’t dare stage another attack on the saloon. Would they?

  She shook her head vehemently. There was no point living in fear, just like there was no point constantly mourning everything she’d lost in Montana. She was an upbeat, glass half-full type. She had to be because, otherwise, she might just grow old and bitter and spend her days sighing over a long list of regrets.