by Anna Lowe
Not the good old days any more, Sarah, she reminded herself, rocking back.
Soren’s jaw hardened. A muscle in his cheek twitched, and she could swear he was reminding himself of the same thing.
She closed her eyes for a minute, fighting a losing battle to sweet memories of mornings not too different than this. Summer mornings when she woke slowly in his arms, feeling warm and secure. Memories of Soren nuzzling her, all along one side of her neck and face, then all the way down the other. Of weaving her fingers in and out of his huge, callused hands. Of Soren looking at her with the kind of wonder usually reserved for the most stunning sunrises and sunsets.
She gulped away the lump in her throat and forced her chin up. “Sorry.”
He smelled of pine and fresh air, like he’d been out all night. And if she felt refreshed after a solid night’s sleep, he had dark circles under his eyes and a haggard expression on his face. An expression that asked, Why did I ever let you go?
She stared at him. His face held a trace of anger and bitterness, too, but neither was aimed at her. For a split second, she wondered if something had forced him to let her go.
Soren nodded slowly and relaxed his firm grip, though his thumbs stroked her skin one more time before releasing her.
“No problem,” he said, all low and husky now.
His eyes were as mournful as a basset hound’s, and she was sure they followed her all the way down the steps. Three strides later, she made it out the back door and stood panting for a minute. Which was crazy — it wasn’t as if she’d nearly been hit by a truck. All she’d done was touch Soren.
But for a brief instant within that touch, he’d been hers, and when they slipped apart, it was like losing him all over again. Just like that day almost a year ago when he’d told her it was over, right before he left Montana. Just like when he lit up all over upon seeing her the day before, only to storm out the second he’d noticed the baby bump.
She ran both hands over her stomach. Yes, it was over, all right.
A good thing Jessica pushed the adjoining back door to the café open, waved her in, and put her to work.
“You’re our cashier. Okay?” Jessica speed-walked through a kitchen thick with the tempting scent of berries, cream, and vanilla. Racks and racks of muffins stood steaming on the counters, and a timer dinged.
“Wow. What time did you get up?” Sarah asked as Jessica led her to the front room.
“Four,” Jessica said without a hint of complaint in her voice. If anything, she seemed elated. Excited. Ready for the big day, as Janna had said. “You should have heard Simon grumble about it.”
Sarah let a smile slip out. Soren was exactly the same way.
“Not morning people, those bear—” Jessica stuttered then hurried on. “Those brothers.” She patted the cushion on a tall stool by the register. “If you need a break, just let me know, and we’ll cover for you.”
Sarah nearly laughed. Sitting on a stool was a lot better than some of the jobs she’d worked in the past few months to scrape together a few dollars.
“I’ll make sandwiches, Janna will work the tables, and Emma will help you at the counter.”
“Emma?”
“Another wol—” Jessica coughed, then barked out the next word. “Woman. Another woman we know.”
The bell over the front door chimed, and a young woman with a long, dark braid stepped in. “Hope I’m not late.”
“Emma, meet Sarah. Sarah, meet Emma.”
It was about as much of an introduction as they had time for, because Jessica flipped the Closed sign to Welcome, stuck a wedge under the front door to keep it propped open, and greeted the customers who’d been waiting outside by name.
“Mike! Pete! So sweet of you to come to the opening!”
“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” one said.
“Kyle!” Jessica shook hands with the customer right behind them.
“Mike owns Mike’s Hardware, three doors down,” Janna whispered in Sarah’s ear. “Pete’s a carpenter who stops at Mike’s every day, and Kyle’s the hot cop with the spiky hair.”
Mike was sweet and friendly. Pete sniffed his coffee and gave a hearty thumbs-up. And Kyle… Yep, the cop was hot, if not quite on par with Soren. But then again, no man ever was. Not a one.
Sarah’s mind started wandering over to the biggest mistake of her life, but she dragged it away again. The baby wasn’t a mistake, and she had work to do.
Luckily, there was enough work to pull her mind away from several lifetimes’ worth of mistakes. Within seconds, she was ringing up coffees and muffins and sandwiches to go. It was a pleasant kind of rush in which the customers bantered with each other and with the staff. A lot like the store she’d been slowly taking over from her aging parents back home, in fact. Everyone knew everyone, and they all faced their daily routines with smiles instead of complaints.
It was nine-thirty before the steady stream of locals started to peter out, which was just when the tourist crowd started to trickle in, spending twice as much money and time as the previous crowd.
“The saloon next door has delicious barbecued spare ribs,” Janna said when they asked about other places in town. “You should try it for dinner. Twenty-five beers on tap, and a kids’ menu, too!”
Janna was a born hustler, but she was more than that. She practically glowed with pride when she talked about the saloon, and her words came from the heart. She plugged Mike’s Hardware, too, along with a few other places around town.
“Lazy Q stables has great trail rides…” Janna would tell tourists looking for something to do.
The stable, from what Sarah gathered, was just outside town, and Emma lived in an apartment above the barn. Sarah’s mind ran over everyone she’d met, practicing their names. Emma had taken an apartment over from Cole when he moved in with Janna. Janna was Jessica’s sister, and Jessica was Simon’s girlfriend. It was like one big, happy family, and part of Sarah wished she belonged, too. Her hand slid to her belly, and she could barely hold back a wistful sigh.
“A tuna wrap and a soda to go, please.”
She stuck on a smile and rang up the next customer. And the next, and the next, until at some point the door jingled and she looked up. It wasn’t a customer coming in, but Jessica, flipping the sign back to Closed and turning around with a triumphant whoop.
“We did it!”
Sarah smiled the first genuine smile she had all day and tapped the side of the register. “A pretty successful day, I’d say.”
The four women who’d worked their tails off all morning — Jessica, Sarah, Janna, and Emma — traded high fives, toasted each other with smoothies, and sat back for the first time in hours, enjoying the cool whir of the ceiling fan.
“We did it,” Jessica said again.
“You did it,” Sarah pointed out.
Jessica shook her head. “I couldn’t have done it without you three. We did it.”
We. Sarah let the word burn itself into her memory as she looked around the café. It felt good to be part of a we, and for a brief time, her hopes soared. Maybe everything really would work out. Maybe she’d found a place to stay.
But then her gaze wandered to the wall separating the café from the saloon, where Soren was probably just getting ready to open for the afternoon, and her heart sank. How could she possibly stay?
Chapter Seven
Soren slid behind the wheel of his pickup and slammed the door so hard, it bounced back on its hinges. The birds roosting in the nearest tree fluttered away in panic. He slammed the door again, cranked the engine on, and took off down the street. Not too fast, not too slow, trying not to beep at every asshole on four wheels, though the streets seemed full of them this morning. They weren’t responsible for the crap hand he’d been dealt, after all.
He pulled onto the highway and headed east, keeping the windows down so he could feel the endless, open space. His bear demanded that he sniff and not just look at the ridge of purple-hued mountains ri
sing above the line of dusty hills to his left. He caught a hint of silverberry and a whiff of honeysuckle among pines that gradually gave way to scrubby pinyons as the highway dropped to lower altitude ranchlands. The wind whipped through the cab, pulling at his hair. A loose scrap of paper flapped wildly around behind the seat — a little like his heart had done when he’d bumped into Sarah on the stairs.
Sarah. Sarah Boone.
Mate, his bear sighed. Mate.
He shook his head at himself. How long would it take him to crawl out of that weird no-man’s-land he was stuck in — somewhere between sheer joy and utter dejection?
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. A hell of a lot longer than the forty-five-minute drive to Twin Moon Ranch, that was for sure.
It was crazy, the way fate worked. Not long after Sarah had set his soul on fire with that brief touch on the stairs, he’d been called to a meeting with Ty Hawthorne, alpha of the local wolf pack that controlled a vast section of central Arizona. And thank God for that, because another five minutes of inhaling Sarah’s huckleberry scent and he would have gone out of his mind. His bear was so sure she was his, who knew what the beast might have done?
She’s ours. Our mate.
He stared at the open highway ahead. Typical Arizona — long and empty and lonely, just like life without a mate would be. He ducked to look at the sky, wishing it were nighttime so he could see the stars. The constellations always made him feel as if he still had a group of clan elders to go to for advice. Not that they ever said much, but they’d be there. The Great Bear, representing all the generations past. Orion, the hunter, giving him strength. Sirius, the dog, sniffing out the way.
Scorpio, the poison-bearer, lurking, waiting for his chance to bite.
Soren had studied the sky every night he’d been out on the East Coast, where the stars were all hung a little bit differently, and he had tried to figure out a way to make things work with Sarah. Sometimes, he’d look up and dream of her. He’d dreamed a little too much, like when he pictured holding her. Kissing her. Touching her. It had seemed so unbelievably real, as if he’d wished himself right back home.
He snapped his attention back to the empty road and shook his head. No stars. Just the blazing Arizona sun and a pale blue sky that didn’t seem to have a beginning or an end.
He clenched his teeth and remembered his resolution. Sarah might or might not love him, but he’d never stopped loving her, so he’d do everything he could to make sure she was okay. Her and her baby.
Some other guy’s baby. He ran a hand through his hair and tried not to wonder who it might be.
He made the turn where the road intersected the interstate, drove a few miles north, then slowed to follow an unmarked dirt road west. Four bumpy miles later, he crossed a bridge over a dry creekbed, cruised under the gateway hung with the ranch brand — two overlapping circles, the symbol of Twin Moon Ranch — and parked in the shade of a majestic cottonwood.
He slid out of the truck and tipped his head back, sniffing deeply. There was something inherently calming about Twin Moon Ranch. Something peaceful, even if the troubles of the world were never really far away.
A door rasped open, and he turned toward the sound. Ty Hawthorne nodded as he emerged onto the porch of the slope-roofed building they called the council house. The wolf pack alpha even went so far as to descend the first of the three steps of the porch to shake Soren’s hand.
Now that was something. The reigning alpha didn’t come down to ground level for anyone but the most esteemed guests. It was a hierarchy thing, and wolves, like all shifters, were big on hierarchy. The first time Soren had come to the ranch, Ty had just watched and waited cooly from the porch.
“Hello,” Ty grunted, gripping his hand hard.
Soren tightened his fingers in automatic response and tried not to let his inner bear turn a simple handshake into a wrestling match.
“Hi,” he murmured, looking Ty straight in the eyes. No easy task, given the man’s laser gaze, but then again, the wolf wasn’t the only powerful alpha in town. He might own more property and rule a bigger pack than Soren — a much, much bigger pack — but Soren was starting from scratch, while Ty had the luxury of building on a strong foundation.
They kept right on shaking hands, harder and harder, and stubborn stares might have turned into glares if it hadn’t been for the woman who appeared at the council house door.
“Ahem.”
Ty Hawthorne — big, bad Ty Hawthorne — whipped around as quickly as a kid caught with grass stains on his Sunday pants and dropped his eyes.
“Hi, Soren,” the woman said brightly, motioning them in.
“Hi, Lana.” He nodded, hiding a smile. Leave it to the alpha wolf’s mate to keep him in check.
Lana smoothed a hand over Ty’s arm, and the tension in the air dropped slightly in response.
Soren took a deep breath instead of letting out his bear’s sad sigh. Our mate used to do that for us.
He let out a slow lungful of air. Yes, that was the way it used to be. One look, one touch from Sarah was all it had taken to settle his soul. They said the more powerful the alpha, the harder it was to find a mate, so he’d always counted himself lucky, finding Sarah so early on. Little had he known that fate had been planning to take her away.
“How did the café opening go?” Lana asked as another car pulled in. Ty’s sister Tina and her mate, Rick, stepped out.
“Um…” Soren started.
“Interesting,” Tina murmured, coming up the porch stairs.
Soren tried not to grimace. Interesting was one word for it, he supposed.
When they had all filed inside, Ty led them over to a table covered in maps and got straight to business, much to Soren’s relief. That was something he and Ty had in common — chitchat was not high on his list.
“We got word of another Blue Blood attack. Happened last night,” Ty said.
The room went deathly quiet, and the hairs on the nape of Soren’s neck rose. Blue Bloods. He could kill each and every one.
“They attacked a cougar-wolf pair this time,” Lana said sadly.
Soren’s teeth ached where they threatened to pop out of his gums. The Blue Bloods not only preached racial purity for shifters — they reinforced the message through vigilante attacks on any shifters who dared mix with other species.
“Not far outside Yuma.” Ty pointed to the southwest corner of the Arizona map.
“Which might mean they’re moving west,” Lana said.
“They’ll never move far enough,” Soren growled.
“Either way, that’s no solution,” Tina said. “They’ll just go on to terrorize someone else.”
Soren met Ty’s gaze again, and this time, they nodded in agreement.
Kill the fuckers, Ty’s eyes blazed.
Kill every last one, Soren agreed.
The Blue Bloods had attacked Soren’s clanmates twice in recent months — and since the saloon lay within Twin Moon property, those attacks affected the wolf pack, too. Ty Hawthorne was pure wolf, as was his mate, but Tina’s partner was a human turned wolf, as were several other members of the pack. There was even a boar shifter living among the wolves of Twin Moon Ranch, so an attack on any mixed pairings was an indirect attack on their way of life.
“Killing isn’t the answer,” Tina insisted.
“No,” Rick agreed, “But it’s not like they’ll respond if we go ask nicely for them to cease and desist.”
“The underlying problem,” Lana said, “is pack structure. Or lack of structure, I suppose. The more old-fashioned packs there are out there, chasing out any young males who might threaten the alpha’s reign, the more the Blue Bloods find fresh recruits ready to fight for their cause. For any cause, really.”
Much as Soren preferred the kill-them-all approach, Lana was right. Too many wolf packs — and even some bear clans — were ruled by alphas with iron fists. Twin Moon pack taught its next generation to respect, not resent the alpha, and th
e leaders made every effort to ensure that young males grew into fulfilling roles that contributed to the group. But that wasn’t the case in every pack. More often than not, promising young males were chased away and forced to wander on their own.
Tina nodded. “The same kind of young wolves we’ve found to work honest jobs…”
Soren looked at the floor. When he and Simon had first wandered into Arizona, they hadn’t been much different from rogues. But Tina had set them up with the Blue Moon Saloon and gotten them back on their feet. They owed her everything.
“…but rogue bands like the Blue Bloods seem to recruit them faster,” Tina sighed.
He drew a foot across the worn floorboards. At least there’d been no danger of him and Simon wandering down that path.
“That’s the thing — getting these guys before they’re too far gone,” Rick added.
Soren looked at Rick, owner of the ranch that bordered on Twin Moon property. He and Rick shared the same chronic problem — finding enough shifters to run their businesses properly. Hiring humans brought too many problems.
And shit, Soren had hired a human just that morning. Sarah.
Sarah’s different, his bear said. Sarah is special.
Of course, Sarah was special. She’d always felt half shifter to him, with her love of the outdoors. And she’d always had a thing for bears that went beyond little-girl, teddy-bear stuff. They’d run across bears lots of times in their wanderings together, and there hadn’t been a single time Sarah looked scared. On the contrary, the sight of bears seemed to fill her with wonder every time.
So why hadn’t he ever told her who he truly was? Why hadn’t he mated with her years ago?
“We’re doubling the number of guys we send over to keep an eye on things in town,” Ty said, interrupting his thoughts.
Rick nodded his assent; Seymour Ranch was providing back up, too.
Soren wished the saloon and café didn’t need their protection. But it sure didn’t hurt to have a couple of Twin Moon wolves hanging around, just in case. Janna and Jess were tough, but another ambush could come any time. And Sarah — Jesus, with Sarah around, the stakes got that much higher.