by Scarlett Ray
“Please,” she rolled her eyes. “People exaggerate. Hell, Noah’s family owns more of the land around here than mine does, by far.” She flashed me a smile, making my heart jolt a little.
“Oh. Do you have a large family, Noah?” Will asked, shooting me a cool look of his own. What, was he irritated that he didn’t have Dani’s full, undivided attention?
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she answered for me. “A couple thousand, at least, and that’s just the ones here in town.” I didn’t miss the slight frown on Will’s face as she explained. He had every reason to be intimidated by our numbers. All the more reason to leave as soon as possible.
“She’s not kidding,” I agreed. “Including all the distant cousins and such, we make up a pretty good chunk of the town.”
“It must be nice having so much family in one place. My relatives have always been sort of distant. Of course, they’re quick to come running if my father calls them—”
“Your father?” I repeated.
“Our de facto patriarch.” Their alpha, then. So he was a sort of second-in-command like Luke? That would make getting rid of him by force a little more complicated, since their pack was a lot more likely to take offense to their ‘prince’ getting attacked. I would have to double down on my efforts to make him leave by choice. “Not that I blame them for following him. He’s definitely a born leader. But he treats the family like he treats his businesses, which rubs some people the wrong way.”
“My dad was exactly the opposite,” Dani laughed. She started to tell a story, but I was distracted by another sound, a small, distressed voice crying out in the distance.
“Did you hear that?” I asked with a frown. Will raised his head, likely hearing it too, and we drew the horses to a stop to listen.
Without the steady beat of hooves to distract us, I could definitely hear sobbing, the kind of open, drawn-out, wailing cry you only hear from young kids. Before I could say that out loud, Dani spurred Whiskey off in the direction of the sound, forcing us to chase after her. We had to move through the trees to follow the voice, slowing the horses down significantly, but we made it up the hill and onto a different trail. I recognized it as the same one I’d run into Dani on when I first got back, and the crying was coming from the top of the same rock wall I had found her scaling.
There were two young teenagers, a boy and a girl, standing at the bottom, anxiously looking up and trying to call to whoever was stuck up there. “Ceci, just climb back down!” the girl, a twiggy, dark-skinned brunette, was saying. “Come on, you can do it!”
“What’s going on?” Dani asked, easily hopping down from Whiskey’s back. The kids flinched like they were in trouble. Not that I blamed them; Dani’s frown was a lot to handle.
“My little sister’s stuck up there,” the girl explained, fidgeting with her shining black braid. “She climbed up and got scared and now she won’t come back down.”
Dani frowned and looked up toward the tall cliff face, where we could still hear the little girl crying from, “How old is she? What’s her name?”
“Five. And her name’s Cecília. We call her Ceci. I didn’t think she’d actually get up there…”
“You told her to climb it?” I asked as I dismounted to help however I could.
“We dared her,” the boy mumbled, digging the toe of his sneaker into the dirt.
“I didn’t think she’d do it!”
“Should we call someone?” Will suggested, but I could already tell from the look on Dani’s face that she wasn’t about to let a little girl sit up there in the sun, crying, while we waited for help.
“I’m going up there to get her,” she said decisively, already starting toward the wall.
“What?” Will managed to scramble off Julep’s back and strode over to take Dani’s arm. “Hang on, this is dangerous. You could kill yourself if you fall from up there!”
“And you think that baby would do any better on her own?” Shrugging his hand off, she added, “I know what I’m doing. Just wait here.” And she started climbing without leaving any room for argument.
Watching her, I was the only one on the ground who wasn’t tense and nervous. This was a long-standing hobby of hers, and she knew practically every inch of the preserve like the back of her hand. She was right: she knew what she was doing. As she was getting toward the top, one of her feet slipped briefly, and she cussed but quickly found her footing again.
Will flinched, staring up at her with one hand shielding his eyes, “How can you let her do this?” It took me a second to realize that he was talking to me, not the kids. He kept right on going, “You just stood there and let her go. What were you thinking?”
“I ‘let’ her?” I almost laughed at the thought. “If you think I have any power to tell that woman what she can or can’t do—if you think any man other than her daddy has that power - you’re out of your damn mind.”
“You could have tried. What happens if she gets hurt?”
“Why are you assuming she can’t handle this? She wouldn’t have volunteered if she couldn’t do it. Look at her,” I gestured upward. As Dani reached the top of the wall, the little girl’s crying abruptly stopped, but I couldn’t hear the two of them talking. “She’s fine. Dani’s not the kind of person who stands around waiting on someone else to do things for her. If it bothers you so much, you’re welcome to leave whenever you want.” I held eye contact with him as I said it, and his lip curled, but he quickly forced his attention back onto Dani.
She was starting to climb down now, and as she got closer, I could see a little girl, a tiny thing clinging to Dani with both arms and legs. “Noah,” she called, a little breathless. “Can you help me with her?” Glad to be the one she called on for help, I stepped forward, past Will, to meet her. Still hanging onto the wall, she opened her arms so I could pry the girl off of her and set her back on the ground. Her eyes were still red, her face streaky with tears, but she wasn’t crying anymore. Her sister immediately ran forward to scoop her up.
“Y’all go find your parents,” Dani ordered, “and don’t run off on your own again.”
“We won’t. Thank you, miss.” Still appropriately ashamed, the older kids walked off with Ceci in tow.
Dani’s shoulders relaxed, and she hopped down to the ground—only for her knees to buckle immediately. My reflexes were fast enough that I could catch her before she hit the ground, holding her up against me while she was trying to catch her breath.
“That little thing was heavier than she looked,” she laughed, leaning against me, her hands on my arms. When she looked up at me, smiling, eyes half-open, lips parted and panting, I was struck with an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her. “Hm. We have to stop meeting like this, cowboy.”
“Who says?” I leaned in a little without meaning to. Then Will ruined it by clearing his throat, and Dani pushed away from me to stand on her own, looking a little embarrassed.
“Are you all right?” Will asked as he rested a hand on her back and shot me a discreet glare.
“I’m fine. I told you I would be.”
“Those maternal instincts really don’t discriminate, do they?” I asked.
“Apparently not.” She was still shaking a little as she made her way back over to Whiskey and leaned against his saddle to support herself. “Sorry about the detour, boys. I’ll get us back on track.”
By the time Will could ask if she needed any help, probably just looking for an excuse to touch her, she had already swung herself back up and into the saddle. So he went back to Julep, who snorted her protest at his nearness again but stood still while he got mounted anyway.
The conversation took a turn for the more personal after that as we found our way back onto the main trail. Will wanted to know more about Nicky, and as much as I hated having anything in common with him, I felt the same way. Of course, Dani had no end of good things to say about him, how he was so smart, so friendly, so helpful, just a regular little ray of sunshine.
&nb
sp; “Not that he doesn’t have his moments, mind you,” she went on. “It doesn’t happen often, but when he gets worked up enough, he can throw a tantrum that’ll make your head spin.”
“Well, no one can be an angel all the time,” Will said. As we came across the woven hurdle fence that separated the visitors’ area from the private section of the preserve, he went on, “Not to interrupt, but what’s this? We can’t be at the far end already.”
“We’re as far as this tour is going. That area’s off-limits for visitors. We don’t even send rangers in there often,” she explained. “We’re trying to keep it as organic as possible, keep from disturbing it in any way so whatever’s wild in there can stay wild.”
“You can admit you’re talking about the wolves, you know,” I told her.
“Not just them. But yes, they’re included.”
“There are wolves? On the preserve?” Will managed to put a nervous quaver in his voice. He was a good actor, I had to give him that. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Only if you try to take something that’s theirs. I hear they’re pretty territorial,” I couldn’t resist interjecting. I saw his eyes shift over to Dani, and I wanted to growl a warning, to let him know as clearly as possible what I was saying. But he already knew, I was sure. He was a wolf himself, so he must have known all about our habits. He knew exactly why I didn’t want him near Dani and exactly what he was doing by pursuing her anyway.
“They never leave this section,” Dani added, gesturing to the fence as we passed it. “In fact, people hardly see them at all. Some folks don’t even believe they’re really in there, since they haven’t seen them for themselves. But I’m not about to send in a camera crew just to prove something to a bunch of skeptics.”
When we reached one of the ponds toward the back of the preserve, she suggested we stop and let the horses rest for a few minutes while we explored a little on foot. She slid to the ground as gracefully as ever and led Whiskey over to the water’s edge so he could drink. I had to suppress a snort of laughter when Will nearly fell out of the saddle trying to dismount.
“You know, we probably had a stepladder in the trailer we could’ve brought,” I snickered. He ignored me, red-faced.
“Noah,” Dani said, looking at me coolly. “We have three perfectly good horses right here; we don’t need an ass too.” Any other time, I might’ve thought she was just being playful, but the look in her eyes said she was genuinely irritated. So much for whatever advantage I’d earned earlier. With a smile, she told Will, “Come on, I want to show you something.”
I jumped down from Fuego’s saddle and started to follow, but she called back, “Can you keep an eye on the horses, Noah?” She was already leading her guest away into the trees, so I didn’t have much choice.
“Yes, ma’am,” I grumbled reluctantly. As they were leaving, Will glanced at me over his shoulder and gave me a cocky smirk. Asshole.
Chapter Eleven: Dani
“I’m sorry about him,” I said, shaking my head as I led Will off the beaten path and up one of the wooded hills.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not really paying him much attention. Do you have any idea why he dislikes me so much?”
I could only think of one reason, “Noah and I have some history.” Probably best not to mention just how recent some of that “history” was. “He’s my friend, don’t get me wrong, but things are sort of complicated between us. That’s putting it lightly, in fact.”
“Is there…still something between the two of you?”
I tried to keep the sadness out of my voice as I answered, “No.” Not that there was ever anything between us to begin with. Even though I was still trying to shake the feeling of being in his arms, I had to remind myself that he only wanted me physically, and I wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship. Even with him.
“Good.”
Shooting Will a look, I raised an eyebrow at him, “Good?”
“Ahem. Well, I might have been jealous otherwise,” again, he got a little bashful, avoiding my eyes. He was such a change from the men I usually dealt with, the ones who were straightforward to the point of bluntness and needed to be set straight now and again. None of them were cautious and unassuming like him. Clearing his throat, he asked, “So, where are you taking me? You said you wanted to show me something?”
“There’s a nice view from the top of this hill. It was one of my mom’s favorite spots. She and my dad would bring me out when I was younger—on the same horse I’m riding today, in fact, Whiskey—and we’d have picnics up here.” Realizing I had gotten a little personal and probably sounded childish, I shook my head and went on, “It’s just one of the places I have memorized as my favorites.”
“Then I appreciate you sharing it with me,” he said with a smile. “I’d like to see all of them if I could.”
“Mm, we might be out here for a while.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” Will Hawthorne was a tough one to read, I’d give him that. One minute he was nervous, then the next he was pretty clearly flirting, and it was impossible to tell which you would get whenever he opened his mouth. But I kind of liked both. The kind of playful flirting he did wasn’t really something you got much of from the men in Palo Verde; if you were interested in someone, you said it plain and asked for an answer. That was easier in some ways, but his version was sweet too. And it was definitely nicer than getting jumped without any explanation before or after—
I frowned and mentally ordered myself to stop comparing him to Noah. Whatever had happened with Noah, it wasn’t any way to have a relationship, and it wasn’t going to happen again. I could enjoy Will’s comments on their own merit without thinking about him.
“I guess I should’ve warned you,” I said as we got to the top of the hill and I squinted up at the old ranger lookout that was our actual destination. It was sort of like an extra-tall hunting blind, maybe fifty feet off the ground, a relic from back before we put up proper fire lookout towers. But it was still perfectly stable and in good shape; I’d gone up it not a week ago, so I knew it was safe, “You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”
“I think I’ll be okay,” he said, shaking his head. “Ladies first?”
“Uh-huh. Make sure you keep a close eye on me so I don’t fall,” I said with a knowing smirk. I was sure he would be watching closely whether I asked him to or not.
“Oh, I wanted to say I’m sorry about earlier. I think I sort of overreacted about the rock-climbing thing.”
“It’s fine. I’m not holding it against you. You do trust me to take care of myself, though, don’t you?” I glanced back down and caught his eyes lingering on my ass before snapping up to look at me.
“Of course I do. My first instinct was to call someone better qualified—but I guess there was no need, since you were right there. You’re obviously not the kind of person who waits around for someone else to do things for you.”
“That is a very good observation, Mr. Hawthorne,” I told him with a grin, continuing up the ladder all the way to the trapdoor that led inside the tower. The room, if you could even call it that, was just a simple wooden box with the top half of the walls cut out, the roof supported by beams on each corner. It was just big enough for a family of three to spread a blanket on the ground and eat a lunch of homemade tamales.
Will came up soon after me, and I dropped the trapdoor back into place.
“Wow,” he said quietly, resting his hands on one of the low walls and taking in the view. You could see for miles from where we stood, just a rolling ocean of green lined with sheer walls of red stone. “This is amazing.”
“Not something you see often in Detroit?” I teased.
“You can say that again. I mean, I can see a good amount of the city from my office, but it’s a completely different setting—like a different world, almost. It’s crazy. And you see this sort of thing every single day, huh?”
“I don’t know about every day, but pretty o
ften. This is where I live,” I reminded him, spreading my arms to indicate the preserve. “I’m sure I would be just as amazed by the views you get at home.”
“Come visit sometime and we’ll see,” he said with a smile.
“You keep saying things like that and I’m liable to start taking you seriously, Mr. Hawthorne,” I warned.
“Who says I’m not serious?” he asked, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.”
“You aren’t. But I don’t get it,” I told him plainly. “What did I do? What possible reason could you have to be interested in me?” I could already see him starting to blush a little—or maybe that was from the heat. Didn’t have that in Michigan, either.
“Are there usually concrete reasons for that sort of thing? You meet someone and it just happens, doesn’t it?”
“Nope. That’s not good enough,” I said, crossing my arms. “We just met. We don’t have a single thing in common. You just think I’m cute, is that it?”
“No! I mean, yes, I do think you’re…gorgeous, but that’s not all. I don’t know, you’re just different from what I expected,” he was avoiding my eyes. “Different from what I’m used to. You’re honest. And that might not sound like anything extraordinary to you, but when ninety percent of your interactions come from corporate ladder-climbers, you find out pretty quickly that honesty is hard to come by.”
Thinking about the experience I’d had with “corporate ladder-climbers” so far, all the weasels and snakes who wanted to buy the preserve and turn it into a million strip malls, I could believe that.
“If you want me to keep it more professional, I understand. But I guess I assumed you would prefer that I be the same way. Honest, I mean,” his green eyes flickered down my body and quickly back up, bringing a smile to my lips.
“No call to hold back on my account. I’ve been enjoying your approach so far.”
“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Uhhmm, we should probably head back. I don’t want to keep you away from your work for too long.”
