by Elena Aitken
“Do they see it that way?” Luke’s eyes challenged his brother and he held them until finally he saw the flicker of doubt reflected back at him. “Right,” he said. “I think it’s time to find out.”
Chloe should have been furious. She should have been out for blood. She should have been a lot of things when it came to Luke Jackson and the way he’d just abandoned her in the middle of the forest. But all she really was was sad.
Sure, she’d been fighting their attraction. But fighting it or not, she wasn’t blind. She wasn’t completely ignorant to the way her body thrilled when he was near. The way her bear came alive. The way everything suddenly felt so damn right.
But none of that mattered anymore. She could not ignore what she’d seen in the forest. She had to investigate whether Luke liked it or not, and judging by his reaction earlier, he wasn’t going to like it. Not at all.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. Something was going on at the ridge. Something that shouldn’t be.
It couldn’t be Luke.
The little voice in her head, the same little voice that had made itself known since she’d discovered the trash, spoke up again. It would not be quieted. Chloe shook her head, ignoring it. One thing at a time. The first thing she needed to do was sift through the garbage and see whether she could find some sort of indication of where it came from.
Kade had set her up in a sheltered picnic area behind the Den. It was open on one side, but the walls should protect from any breeze that might come up and the weather was forecasted to be okay for next few days. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.
Of course, as well as setting her up in the shed, Kade had also done quite a bit of apologizing for his brother abandoning her in the middle of the forest as he drove her back to the main building. She’d only shrugged and tried to pretend it didn’t bother her. But it did. Not because she couldn’t figure out how to get back; she was a bear, for God’s sake—of course she could figure out how to get back to the Den. No. It bothered her on a much deeper level.
He’d left her. Just when she was starting to believe that maybe, just maybe she could actually believe in the whole mated for life thing—and more importantly, that she could make it work, that she wanted to make it work—he went and left her. And didn’t that just affirm everything?
She’d definitely have to be more guarded from now on. If he was the type of man who would throw her aside because she had to do her job, Luke Jackson was definitely not the right man for her. Assuming she wanted a man at all.
She groaned out loud and wiped her hair off her forehead with the back of her gloved hand. “Focus, Chloe. The only thing you need to do right now is focus on this job. It’s important.”
“Is it?”
Chloe whirled around at the voice and scattered some of the garbage off the table. She left it for the moment because she couldn’t take her eyes off Luke’s. He looked pained, haunted, and something else. Something much more frightening.
“What?” Chloe stumbled over the word, unsure of what she was even asking.
Luke took a step closer to her. He didn’t look at the piles of garbage, the evidence that only hours ago had him roaring in anger. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on hers. Intense. Focused. A shiver ran through her, and she locked her arms around herself and squeezed to keep from trembling.
“Is it important?” he asked again as he took another step. “Is it really?”
She nodded and kept her chin set high. She would not let him get to her. She would not let him distract her from her job. “It is. It’s very important. Anytime the environment is threatened, we need to take it very seriously. It’s my job.”
“I understand that.” He was close now. Really close. Too close. “What I meant was, is it the garbage that’s really important or finding out who put it there what really matters?”
“Both.” Chloe took a step back and to the side, focusing on the pile in front of her. It was the perfect distraction from Luke and more specifically, how his presence made her entire body come alive. It was definitely best to put a table of trash between them. “By looking through the evidence, it should be pretty clear who dumped it and then from there we can move forward to discovering things like why and when. And once we’ve determined that…charges.”
“Charges?”
Chloe looked up. “Of course. There will definitely be charges laid. And they’re serious ones. People need to be held accountable for this type of behavior. The fines are steep and sometimes result in jail time, or at the very least will make a strong financial impact on the guilty party.”
“You make it sound serious.”
Her eyes narrowed and she had to bite back a response. She’d dealt with this type of attitude before. People didn’t think of environmental impact as serious. But it was. And monitoring it, and when necessary, stopping the damage could sometimes even be life-or-death. Jordan’s face flashed in her mind the way it always did when she was working a case. She may have let him down, but never again.
“Dumping is illegal,” she continued. “And while it looks like this particular site was fairly contained, it’s usually indicative of another site nearby. Typically, it’s not a one-time thing. Another site may have more toxicity or pollutants that could potentially damage the ecosystem further and in some cases, the water supply or the health of the residents.”
“There is no other site.”
She tipped her head and crossed her arms again, waiting for him to elaborate.
“It was the wolves.”
“The wolves?”
“They run Blackwood Ranch down in the valley.”
“And you think it was the Blackstones who dumped the garbage?” She refused to refer to them by anything but their last name.
“It had to be them. We wouldn’t have done it. We love our land too much. It’s everything to us, Chloe.” He locked eyes on hers again; his words implied more than he said. She got the message loud and clear: the land was everything to him. Not a woman, not a potential mate. Not her.
She cleared her throat and, using the tongs she’d borrowed from the kitchen, sifted through the first bag. “I guess the evidence will tell us what we need to know then.”
Chloe didn’t look up, but she knew he hadn’t left. She could sense him standing there, watching her. Resolutely, she ignored him and continued to work. Most of the first bag was kitchen garbage. She had to focus on breathing through her mouth, to keep from inhaling the putrid scent. Coffee grounds, egg shells, and potato peels. “At the very least, this person could learn how to compost,” she snorted under her breath.
“Kade started a composting bin this last summer. The plan is to use it for a garden in the spring. So there you go—it’s not us.”
Still, she didn’t look up. “It’s not that simple.” She swept the kitchen garbage aside and moved to the next bag. The moment she sliced through the plastic, she knew this bag would be more telling. It was full of paper. The first piece she picked up had a familiar blue logo on the top and the words, “Grizzly Ridge.”
She looked up slowly and shook her head. She didn’t want it to be true. She’d been holding out, assuming it wasn’t true. Assuming that there was no way Luke or his brothers could be part of something like garbage dumping. No way. It couldn’t be…
“What the hell?” Luke snatched the paper from her hands and she let him have it because there was more, a lot more in the bag that sat in front of her. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“It looks like your letterhead.” She couldn’t meet his eyes.
“I know what it looks like.” He shook the paper. “But it isn’t ours.”
Chloe shook her head and bent to the task in front of her. If she looked up, she knew exactly what she’d see and she couldn’t bear it.
“Don’t shake your head, Chloe. Don’t look like that.” His voice grew more panicked, frantic, heated, but still, she couldn’t look up. “Don’t you dare ignore me—and take that look of pity off yo
ur face! This isn’t us, Chloe.”
She did look up then. “Luke, I’m sorry.”
He moved so quickly, she didn’t have time to react. Luke was around the picnic table, his hands on her face in a tender cradle that belied the anger and frustration she could feel flowing through him. “Chloe.” Her name on his lips was heartbreaking as he pleaded for her to listen, to understand. But that was exactly what she was trying to do. “You can’t really believe this is us.” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “You can’t believe this is me.”
“I…I’m—”
He swallowed her words in a kiss unlike she’d ever had before. They’d shared passion, but this was different. It was heated. Packed with emotion. Infused with a different type of need.
Chloe groaned into his mouth as her body betrayed her and came alive. He walked backward with her and pressed her against the rough wooden wall, pinning her under him. She should put a stop to it. She should push him away and finish her work. But when his hands slipped down her body to her waist and the button on her pants, the ache that had been building inside her intensified. She shucked the gloves from her hands and captured his head in her hands, forcing him to look at her.
“I need you.” The words were rough, raw. And she knew exactly what he meant, because she, too, needed him in a way unlike any she’d ever felt before. He pushed her pants down, moving to his own belt buckle, all the while holding her with his dark eyes, an unasked question there.
She nodded, giving him the permission he was seeking. A low growl escaped him and she matched it with her own as he lifted her easily and entered her in one solid stroke. Chloe bit her bottom lip to control the emotion crashing through her.
There was no doubt in her mind that she was fated to Luke. He was her mate, he was her everything, and knowing that should have made everything better. It should have quelled the storm inside her, but it only added to the chaos in her heart. As they rode out their passion together in a hard, frenzied need, instead of feeling like home, it felt like good-bye. Because nothing could ever be the same again.
Chapter Eight
Dawn had barely broken over the ridge when Luke left his cabin and slammed the door behind him. The night had been long. Too long without Chloe by his side. But he couldn’t have her again. Not the way he needed her. Next to him, curled up into him, that soft, round ass pressed into his—
No. It was best to not even think about her. That was done. They’d said their good-bye in the shed, right there in front of the evidence that she planned to ruin him with. And she did plan on that; he knew it. He also knew she had a job to do and she thought she was doing it. Never mind that the garbage wasn’t theirs. It looked like theirs. He couldn’t blame her for that. He couldn’t stop her from doing her job.
No matter how much he wanted to.
It was too important to her. Heck, it was part of who she was. Part of the woman he loved.
And that’s why he’d said good-bye. Not in so many words, of course, but they both knew what that last coupling had meant. He’d felt the intensity from her just as surely as she’d felt it from him. They couldn’t happen. They couldn’t be. Fated mates or not, it wasn’t happening. And they both knew it.
Unless he could figure something else out. And that’s just what he planned to do.
He didn’t have proof yet, but in his heart, Luke knew that all of this had started with the wolves and by the time he was finished with them, it was going to end with the wolves.
No time for breakfast, or more importantly, having anyone stop him, Luke bypassed the Den and headed straight for his truck. Confronting the Blackwoods needed to be something he did on his own. It was true that they hadn’t been thrilled that Luke and his brothers had set up on the Ridge, positioning themselves as the first eco-tourism lodge in Montana, but the Jacksons weren’t competing for the Blackwoods’ business. They’d been a working ranch for decades and in the last ten years or so had added the tourism aspect and offered dude ranch experiences. That was not at all what the Jacksons were doing. They specialized in hikes and mountain biking, and soon…fishing. In fact, Luke often arranged trail rides for their guests down at Blackwood Ranch. They’d been nothing but reasonable. If the wolves had a problem with them, sabotage was definitely not the way to deal with it. That would become very clear. Very soon.
Once he was in the truck, he didn’t bother to be quiet as he roared out of the drive and down the gravel road. No doubt Axel had heard him fire up the engine and was probably pacing at that very moment. He’d know exactly what Luke was up to. Although his older brother would no doubt like to take a more diplomatic approach to things with their neighbors, Luke was pretty sure the time for that was over.
It was time for action.
Just as he’d expected it to be, the ranch was already awake. People moved about, mostly by the barns, getting the horses ready for the day’s events. But the barns weren’t where Luke was headed. Brian Blackwood was bound to be in his office, and that’s exactly where he was going. He parked the truck right out in front of the main building, not concerned whether anyone saw him or not, and stormed through the front doors.
Luke had only been in the main ranch building once or twice before, but it wasn’t hard to find the small hallway where the offices were located. Conveniently, Brian’s was marked by a slice of wood on the front. Forgoing the knock, Luke tried the handle.
“Blackwood. We need to talk.”
The other man looked up from his work and ran a hand through his shaggy head of hair. If he was surprised to see Luke, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled his wolfish grin and stood. He was shorter than Luke, but still a solid man. In a fistfight, it would be an evenly paired match. Despite his itch to hit something, or someone, Luke didn’t want it to come to blows.
“Luke.” He nodded. “What brings you to the ranch this morning? Looking for a trail ride? I have a nice calm mare that would be perfect for you. Real gentle.”
“Cut the shit, Blackwood. I’m not in the mood.”
The humor melted from the other man’s face and he straightened. “I see that. What’s up?”
“I thought we were good.” Luke waved a hand between them. “You and I,” he clarified. “I thought the Jacksons and the Blackwoods were working pretty well out here. No fights, no feuds. That changes. Today.”
Brian’s face changed instantly; any traces of laughter and teasing were gone, replaced only by confusion and a good dose of wariness. Even to a wolf, a bear throwing down a challenge was nothing to be messed with. “We are good,” he said. “Whatever you think is the problem is just that—you thinking it. We have no issue with you.”
“Really?” Luke could feel his bear roar inside him, eager to get out and run or fight. Whatever would take the edge off fastest. “Then explain the garbage,” he said. “And the woman.” He swallowed back the sour taste in his mouth, referring to Chloe so casually, but it wouldn’t do any good to let his potential enemy know that Chloe was his mate.
“You’re talking crazy.” Brian shook his head with a snort of laughter and moved to sit down again. “I don’t know anything about any garbage, and I know even less about a woman. Although, if you’re worked up about her, she’s probably worth—”
Luke moved around the desk so quickly, Brian didn’t see it coming. He slammed Brian up against the wall and pinned him with one hand on his shoulder, his other coiled in a fist. “Don’t say one more word.”
Anger flashed in Brian’s green eyes; his lips lifted to reveal his canines and a low growl started in his chest, but he made no move to get free. “So clearly she’s important to you,” he said simply. “But I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Now if you’re done with your caveman act for the moment, we can figure out exactly what the hell you’re talking about because I think it’s obvious it’s a problem.”
The other man’s calm tone soaked through Luke’s anger, and after another deep breath, he let go of Brian and backed off. “Sorry,”
he grumbled. They may not be best buddies, but even as clouded as his instincts were at the moment, even Luke could see Brian didn’t know anything. If he had, he would have fought back and neither of them would be standing there as whole as they were. “But someone knows something, and I need to—”
“You need to figure it out.” Brian straightened his shirt and gestured for Luke to take a seat before he pulled his own chair up to sit. “Tell me what’s going on and I’m sure if we work together, we can come to some sort of solution. What’s this about garbage?” Brian winked at him. “And more importantly, tell me about the woman.”
“You look like you could use some more coffee.”
Chloe looked up from the table where she’d been cradling her head and half sleeping, half thinking, but mostly just daydreaming and looked up at Harper. She gratefully took the fresh mug of coffee the other woman offered her, pushing aside the one already in front of her. The one that had grown cold because she’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself.
“Thank you.” She forced a smile, but there was no way it came close to reaching her eyes. Even if she had been able to get a solid night’s sleep, Chloe was pretty sure she couldn’t have found much to smile about.
“Wanna talk about it?” Harper slid into the seat across from her without waiting for an invitation.
Chloe blinked hard and took a sip of the hot coffee. This woman was so unwaveringly kind to her, and Chloe had been nothing but a bitch. She shook her head in response to her own thoughts, but Harper took it as an answer.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. But I do know that sometimes, it can really help. I mean, I don’t know everything that’s going on and something tells me it’s a lot more than even you know, but I do know about the whole mating part.”
Chloe shook her head, hard. And almost spat out her coffee. “Oh no. You’ve got it wrong. I’m not…we’re not…I mean, it’s not like that.”
