The Complete Series

by Elena Aitken

  “Before you say anything,” he cut her off before a word came out of her mouth. “I want to tell you something.”

  Chloe closed her mouth, and looked at him with an okay I’ll humor you for a moment look on her face. Her body tensed in his arms as if she was ready to run, but he wasn’t about to let her go. Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  “I know you don’t want this,” he started. “Or maybe I should say that you think you don’t want this.” Chloe opened her mouth again, but Luke silenced her with a gentle finger to her lips. “But you do. I can feel how much you want this.”

  Chloe laughed then, but it wasn’t a cute sound, or a happy noise. It was forced, tense, scared almost, as if she’d just discovered she’d left the house without pants.

  “I know you do, Chloe,” he continued, ignoring the noise. “I can feel it. I can sense it. Because it’s not just you. It’s me, too.” She squeezed her eyes and looked away, but Luke was not about to be deterred. “And don’t think for a second that falling for you was something I wanted either.”

  That got her attention. She whipped her head around. “Falling for me? You barely know me. You know—”

  “Everything I need to.” He stared into her eyes hard, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I know that you were made for me. When I’m with you, my bear is finally satiated, calm. When I’m inside you, well…we fit. And you know it.” She blinked hard but didn’t look away. “I know you feel it too, Chloe. I’ve tried to fight it. Hell, do you really think I want to mess up my life with a mate? I’ve been doing just fine without any—”

  “A mate?” Her eyebrows arched into dangerous peaks. “Who said anything about a mate?”

  “Don’t fight it.”

  She squirmed in his grasp. “I think I’ll do just that, thank you very much.”

  “You can’t.” Despite the fact that his mate was fighting him on every level, Luke had never felt calmer. He wasn’t worried. It might take a little convincing, but as soon as she let down her walls a little, he had no doubt she’d see what Luke already knew. They were fated.

  “Look, Chloe.” He tightened his grip on her, but used his thumbs to stroke soft circles on her upper arms. “It’s not what I had planned for myself either. I get it. But just like with Axel and Harper, it’s—”

  “It’s bullshit.”

  Chloe twisted hard to the left and escaped his hands, scooting herself out of reach. He could easily close the gap and hold her again, but he’d give her space. If she needed a bit of time to come to the same conclusion he had, that’s what she needed. He wasn’t worried.

  “You’re fairly sure of yourself.” Chloe adjusted her shirt but she wouldn’t meet his eye, which only affirmed exactly why he should be so sure of himself. “I told you, I’m not interested in anything. I shouldn’t even have done what...well, we shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh yes we should have.” Luke jumped over the rocks that separated them, and twined his arm around her waist, pointing into the stream below them as he did. “Just like those fish—once you cast with just the right fly, they have no choice but to take the bait.”

  Chloe made an adorable sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort but she covered her mouth so quickly, Luke was robbed of the chance to see her beautiful lips in a smile. “Did you just compare me to a trout?”

  “I did.”

  “And you think you’re going to be able to reel me in, do you?”

  He took another step closer and closed the gap. “I think I have just the bait you need.”

  There was no way he could stand so close to her, breathing in the fresh, rich scent of her and not pull her into his arms, so that’s just what he did. “You know we could save a whole lot more time if you didn’t keep running away from me.” Luke didn’t wait for a reply before he took that sexy mouth into a kiss, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind what exactly they could be doing with all that saved time.

  He was happy to take her right there next to his favorite fishing hole, under the pines in a bed of needles. In fact, he couldn’t think of a better place to finally make her his mate, not that she was ready to agree to that. Yet. When Chloe stiffened in his arms once more, it took all Luke’s self-control not to roar out in frustration. When she pulled away from his kiss, he had to swallow hard to keep his bear in check. He opened his eyes to see her staring over his shoulder at something behind him. Judging by the storm swirling in her blue depths, he wasn’t going to like what he saw when he turned around.

  “What the hell is that?” She left him standing behind her, ignoring the question on his lips, in his eyes. She needed space from him in order to think. She’d been clouded. Way too clouded. Luke had a way of getting up into her senses and distracting her from everything she needed to focus on.

  No more.

  Especially now.

  Chloe picked her way across the slick stones in the stream and climbed up the bank into the woods to investigate what had caught her eye.

  It hadn’t looked like much from the stream. But it had looked as if it might not belong in the forest. Chloe didn’t want it to be anything. She hoped it was nothing, but the closer she got to the flash of color that had caught her eye, the clearer it became that it was indeed something.

  Something that was definitely not going to be a good thing for Grizzly Ridge or Luke and his brothers.

  She kicked at the piece of green plastic that stuck out from the branches. Where it had been obviously covered up. And not well. Chloe grabbed a stick and used it to uncover the rest.

  Her heart skipped, and not in the good, heart fluttering way it had skipped earlier when she’d been in Luke’s arms. This was more of a crap-this-is going-to-change-everything and not in a good way type of flutter.

  “What the hell is that?” She didn’t turn around, but could feel Luke’s strong presence directly behind her. She hated to admit it, but her body thrilled with the proximity.

  She forced herself to focus. “It looks like garbage to me, Luke. An unlawful dumping ground if I ever saw one.” She pushed herself up, careful not to bump into Luke, who was still so close, and walked farther into the woods, following the trail that clearly looked as if it led to more garbage.

  “This is bullshit.” Luke followed her, kicking at the ground as he went. “This isn’t ours. We didn’t put it here.”

  Chloe ignored him and pulled her camera out of her side bag.

  “Don’t take pictures.” She dodged to the side as Luke lunged for her camera. “This is bullshit. I told you we didn’t put it here.”

  “Luke, I have to.” Chloe forced herself to stay calm in the face of Luke’s growing anger. “It’s my job.”

  “No.” His face was twisted in a snarl. “Your job is to investigate the truth.”

  She stood her ground, her chin lifted in the air, her hands firmly on her camera, her heart throbbing with loss.

  “Luke.” She spoke slowly but decisively so there would be no confusion. “The truth is, there is garbage here and it’s your land. My job is to investigate that connection.”

  “There’s no goddamn connection, Chloe. We didn’t put it here. It’s not ours.” His words were a snarl, and it wasn’t hard to see his animal was only just barely contained. She had plenty of experience with alpha types before, and Chloe knew enough to tread lightly. The only problem was knowing and doing were two very different things.

  “We’ll have to see,” she said.

  It was the wrong thing to say. Luke let out a roar that shook the trees around them and vibrated in her chest.

  Resolutely, she ignored him and once again pointed her camera at the evidence. She snapped a few pictures before he could try to grab her camera again and tucked it back in her bag. Chloe could hear him grumble and curse behind her, but she still didn’t turn to look at him. Nothing about what she was seeing made sense. Everything she’d already seen at Grizzly Ridge and with the Jackson brothers spoke to environmental consciousness of the highest level, but she couldn’t
ignore what she was seeing. She just couldn’t. It was her job to investigate, and that meant that whatever she felt for Luke had to be put aside. Especially considering she wasn’t even sure what she felt for Luke.

  First things first. Chloe crouched down in front of one of the mounds. Using her stick, she poked through the pile.

  “There’s nothing to see, Chloe.”

  She ignored him again.

  “Chloe.”

  Her heart ached as his voice twisted her name. It was only moments before he’d said her name with something akin to love in his voice. That was gone.

  She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Luke. I am. But—”

  “Then you’re on your own.”

  She turned around then, just in time to see him stalk off toward where they’d parked the Jeep. Her first instinct was to run after him. To stop him from leaving her in the forest. But there was no point. He needed space. He was clearly upset and she couldn’t blame him. She was just as upset, but she still had a job to do. And the reality was, Chloe knew all too well what could happen if she didn’t do it properly.

  Chapter Seven

  “Axel!” The heavy wooden door hit the wall behind it and Luke stormed into the Den. He should care about their guests hearing him. He should care about maintaining a sense of decorum. He should care about Chloe stranded in the woods.

  He didn’t.

  All he cared about was finding out who the hell was responsible for the garbage in the woods. In his woods.

  “Axel?” He bellowed again, and when the two ladies on the couch in front of the fireplace jumped up, Luke didn’t even flinch. His brother was either in his office or in the kitchen; either way, he’d better make his presence known, and soon.

  “Axel, where the hell—”

  The swinging door to the kitchen flew open; Kade stood there, a small white apron around his waist and a towel in his hand. “Luke? Why don’t you come in here?” He bit off each word as if it were jerky, leaving no room for question.

  Luke stalked past him into the kitchen. The moment the door shut behind him, he turned. “Where the hell is Axel? We need to talk. Now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Luke whirled to see Axel and Harper walk into the kitchen through the back door. They looked happy and glowing in that way they always seemed to be lately. That way that screamed of new love, or mated love, or whatever it was that Axel insisted it was. The fact that less than an hour ago Luke felt the exact same way about Chloe didn’t register. He had bigger things to worry about and maybe if Axel hadn’t been so damn preoccupied with a female, he wouldn’t have to be bringing it to his attention now. When it was probably too late.

  Luke flashed back to the image of Chloe crouched down in front of a pile of garbage on his land. By his favorite fishing hole, no less. The look on her face. The utter disgust that he could be part of something so dirty.

  He wasn’t.

  But someone was.

  He looked at both his brothers in turn. “Who dumped garbage by the stream?”

  “What?” Kade choked as he took a sip from a water bottle. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and put the bottle down. “What are you talking about?”

  “Garbage,” Luke said again. He looked to Axel this time, who watched Luke very carefully. He didn’t say a word to either confirm or deny anything, but his eyes narrowed as Luke continued. “Chloe and I were walking out by the ridge today. I took her by the stream. Showed her where I was going to lead some fishing groups and we—”

  “Chloe?”

  “Of course Chloe,” Luke spat at Harper. He immediately felt guilty, but he didn’t apologize. “She needed to see the land in order to complete her—”

  “Where is she now?”

  Harper glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest. She was definitely not a female to be messed with. She’d never accepted his attitude, and he couldn’t imagine she was about to start now.

  “Luke?” Axel said carefully. “Harper asked you where Chloe was.”

  He looked carefully between his brothers and Harper, meeting each of their eyes in turn. They clearly knew something was up, but they were missing the point completely. “She’s fine. You guys need to focus.” He tried to bring them back to the issue at hand. “There’s garbage on the ridge and I need to know who put it there.”

  “Right,” Axel said. “And since you’re not saying anything, I assume that’s where Chloe is.”

  “Dammit, Luke.” With a hard yank, Kade tugged his apron off and tossed it on the counter. “I’ll go get her.”

  “She’s fine.” The words came out as a growl. Both protective and threatening at the same time. The combination only confused him further. He was so angry with his mate for not believing him, for not giving him the benefit of the doubt, but at the end of the day, she was still that. His mate.

  “It’s going to get dark soon,” Axel said calmly and tossed Kade some keys. “Take the truck. It sounds like she’ll have something to bring back.”

  He wanted to stop his little brother, but even through his rage, Luke could see it was the right thing to do and let him go. He shouldn’t have left her there. And he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t known she’d be fine on her own. She was a bear, for God’s sake; the woman knew just as well as him how to survive on her own. And if anyone tried to sneak up on her or harm her, well…he felt sorry for whoever was stupid enough to do that. Especially because when Chloe was done with them, he’d have a turn as well. The fierce protectiveness reared up in him again. It was completely at odds with everything he felt for her and he shoved it aside to focus on the real issue.

  “I found garbage up by Cooper’s Creek. The hole where the bull trout are. Who put it there?”

  “Garbage?”

  “Garbage.” Luke’s patience was being stretched like a stale rubber band. If he didn’t get some answers soon it wasn’t going to be pretty. “It looked to be more than one pile, too. Like it had been dumped for a while.” Even as he explained it, something about it didn’t ring true.

  “Luke.” Harper stepped between the two brothers. “What makes you think for a second that we would know anything about any garbage anywhere on the ridge? Let alone by the creek? You can’t seriously be standing here thinking we know something about it?”

  He looked to his brother. No. Axel loved the ridge just as much as he did. Maybe more. And despite all his attitude lately, Kade did too. It wasn’t them. There was no way. But someone knew something. Someone was responsible for the garbage. And more importantly, someone was responsible for the way Chloe had looked at him. His eyes locked on Harper.

  She immediately recoiled at his glare and Axel wrapped his arm around her. No doubt less to defend her and more to protect Luke. “You can’t be serious?” She shook her head, not in anger but almost in pity, likely for the complete and total disaster of emotions he’d become in less than a week. “You know better, Luke.” She waited a beat. “You know better.”

  He shrugged and muttered an apology. He did know better.

  “Alright.” Axel moved across the large kitchen to the fridge and grabbed two beers from their private stock. He threw one to Luke, but before cracking his own, he quickly prepped a tray with a bottle of wine and a few glasses and handed it to Harper, who already seemed to know what his intentions were.

  “I’ll go make sure the guests weren’t too rattled by Luke’s outburst.” She shot Luke a look but softened it by blowing him a kiss before she pushed out into the main room to tend to their guests. The second she was gone, Axel started in on him.

  “Are you kidding me, Luke? What the hell was that all about? You really think you can stand here and accuse Harper or any of us, for that matter, of dumping garbage by the stream? Are you crazy? Or drunk? Or…never mind.”

  “What?” Luke took a deep drink of his beer. “What were you going to say?”

  Axel shook his head as if his little brother wasn’t worth whatever comment he was going to make, but
Luke wasn’t stupid; he knew exactly what he was going to say. It was the exact same thing he would have, and in fact, did say, to him not all that long ago when Axel’s head was muddled by the presence of his mate before he claimed her. His instincts were clouded because of Chloe. He knew it and it made him crazy. But there wasn’t anything he could do about that particular problem. At least not for now. He needed to focus.

  One thing at a time.

  And right now, the most important thing was to figure out who’d put the garbage on their land. Before Chloe did.

  “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” Luke waved away whatever Axel was going to say and finished the rest of his beer in one big swallow. “Right now there’s only one thing that matters. Who would have done this?”

  “It has to be someone with access to the ridge. If it’s by Cooper’s Creek, that’s not an easy place to get to, but—”

  “It’s a place that would be—”

  “Discovered.”

  They locked eyes and nodded. “Exactly,” Luke said. “But who would have a reason to—”

  “The wolves.”

  “Blackwood.”

  The brothers spoke at the same time. “Dammit.” Luke’s fist came down hard on the countertop, rattling the dishes. “I should have known. I should have known from the moment Chloe showed up here talking about environmental impact and all that bullshit. She’s working for the wolves.”

  “Whoa.” Axel got in front of him and placed both hands on his chest, stopping his pacing. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that. She said she was hired by an outside party. A concerned party. Who would that be? Who would really be so concerned about our business except for the only group who might have something to lose by it?”

  “The wolves don’t have a damn thing to lose by us being here. We’ve done nothing but work together with them. Our weakness is their strength and vice versa.”