by Kati Wilde
“It was no trouble,” I tell her, because it wasn’t. And maybe for the best, since I was still reeling from the discovery of Jonas’s lack of scent. Hell, I’m still reeling from it. But at least now I’ve had time to think a bit more about my next steps. “Though you ought to tell Carrie that someone might need to check up on one of the senior citizens who got a delivery. Because I’m pretty damn sure he didn’t have any pets, and he said something to the effect that if you cook meat long enough, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been laying around.”
Makena laughs. “Oh, god. Was that Frank Stout?”
“That sounds right.”
“Then that’s no surprise at all. Kyle says that every time someone calls in reporting some roadkill on the county roads, they get out there to find Frank scraping it up for his freezer.”
“I suppose that explains the skunk smell coming from his kitchen, then.”
Laughing again, Makena shakes her head. “We probably should have made him sign a liability release before we handed over that meat. Speaking of—I hope you don’t mind doing some paperwork before dinner.”
“I don’t mind. But I guess that means I got the all-clear?”
“You did.” She climbs up the back steps ahead of me, and my gaze is fixed on her sweet ass as she says, “Kyle called about an hour ago. He got a chance to talk to Sam and Larry and to look at that security footage. Plus we Googled you.”
A hint of apology enters her tone at the last but there’s no apology needed. “And you talked it over with your uncle? I don’t want to cause any trouble between you.”
“You won’t. He knows how it all went down and that I talked to Bill Weathering, so that’s good enough for both of us.” She pauses in a mud room to yank off her boots and heads into the kitchen barefoot. Following her lead, I toe off my own boots, glad I’d thought to pull on my last pair of clean socks.
When I enter the kitchen, Thelma and Alf immediately scrabble their way over to me. Jonas is standing at the sink, elbow deep in soapy water. “Dinner will be ready in ten,” he announces.
Makena makes a face. “Please tell me it isn’t beef. Not today.”
“It’s not beef.” He eyes the dogs as they lick my hands and dance around my feet. “Beer’s in the fridge. Help yourself if you’re thirsty.”
“Or better yet, help yourself to some milk,” Makena adds. “Because the two of us cannot keep up with the dairy cow. And I hope you like homemade cheese and yogurt, too, because we’ve got tons of it to use up.”
“I can help you with that.”
“Have a seat, then.” She pulls a glass gallon jug out of the fridge and sets it on the table, along with a tall glass. “I’ll go get those forms.”
Since it doesn’t mean turning my back on Jonas, I sit where she tells me to. The kitchen’s a good size, with a large window overlooking the yard that likely lets in plenty of light during the day. Although it’s dark outside now, it still seems bright and cozy, with an unlit brick fireplace behind me. Across the room, a long workbench against the wall is topped with baskets of produce that are giving off ripe, mouthwatering scents. The dining table where I’m seated is on the tall side, made of heavy unfinished wood, giving it all a lived-in rustic feel. I’m guessing a good amount of time is spent in this room.
The drain slurps when Jonas pulls the plug. He faces me, drying his hands on a towel. “I hear you nearly got yourself into trouble by helping Makena and putting yourself in the sheriff’s sights.”
“I got out of those sights, so it all turned out all right.”
“So it did. But I appreciate you being here. I hear you lost your kin, and that’s what brought you to Fortune City?”
Everything within me goes quiet, still. Kin. It’s a common word, especially in rural areas. Still, his use of it has me searching his face, looking for some indication that kin is loaded with more meaning than it usually has.
This sure would be a lot easier if he had a scent to go along with that face, because I can’t read shit in his expression. “That’s right. My mother, father, and brother.”
“That’s rough. I don’t know what I’d do without Makena. Unless she was hurt. Then I’d dedicate my life to hunting down whoever did it.”
There’s a warning if I ever heard one. But it’s a sentiment I understand all too well, because it’s exactly what I’m doing to the people who hurt my family. And it tells me something more about Jonas Laine. He appears placid and easygoing. But there’s a strong, violent current running beneath those still waters.
I’ve got plenty to conceal, too. But not this. “I’ve got no intention of hurting her.”
He nods, then his gaze shifts toward the quick pad of her bare feet down the hall. A faint smile twitches on his lips. “She’s so strong-willed, it’ll probably be the other way around, anyway.”
With me being hurt. But whether he’s saying that because he knows damn well that she’s the kind of woman who can steal a man’s heart or whether he suspects how hard I’ve been drawn to her, I don’t know. Or maybe, like usual, I haven’t been able to conceal my feelings. If so, he knows damn well how fucked I am.
“Here you go.” She comes in on a wave of her sweet scent, slapping down a collection of papers and a pen in front of me. “Tax forms, workers’ comp, and the rental agreement here is mostly just for insurance reasons—”
“He’s done this plenty of times, Makena,” Jonas interrupts her, swinging around to open up a cupboard. “Why don’t you go wash up while I set the table.”
She frowns at him. “You’re cooking, so it’s my night to set it.”
“And you’ve had a hell of a day, so I’ll do it. Go on. I’ll let you do cleaning up afterward.”
“Oh yay,” she says dryly and heads off.
I have filled out these forms plenty of times. Still, having to put even a tiny bit of focus on what I’m supposed to be writing means my attention on Jonas isn’t one hundred percent, and him walking around the kitchen collecting plates and utensils puts me on a razor’s edge. The dogs seem to sense it, laying curled up together nose-to-rump and softly whimpering now and then, their eyes roaming back and forth between the two of us as he lays out the dinnerware.
I figured they were Makena’s dogs, and they sure do love her. But clearly it’s Jonas they’re devoted to, instead. From what I heard today, he’s got a way with animals.
But his way with them isn’t what I think about now. Instead it’s how he comes by those animals.
Considering that I’m tense as hell, I don’t know how conversational my voice is, but at least it doesn’t come out as a growl. “I heard some of the townsfolk say that you’re a horse whisperer of some sort.”
Jonas snorts derisively. “That’s just bullshit they say. But I do have a reputation for finishing up horses that don’t take to training easily.”
“That’s what those two new fillies are for? You finish ’em up, send ’em back to the owners?”
“Those, I will.” He opens the oven, peeks in through a cloud of steam, closes it again. “Other times I buy difficult horses for cheap and sell them after. It gives us a bit of a cushion.”
Another source of income. Just about every small spread has to vary it up a bit. Selling beef is rarely enough to keep a place in the black, so it means getting an outside job or finding another way to bring in money.
“How long you been doing it? Must be a while, if you’ve built up a reputation.”
“Almost thirty years now.”
“So you get called up, then head out and pick up the horses. Does that happen often?”
“Often enough.” With two big oven mitts on his hands, he fixes a hard look on me. “You wondering if I’ll leave Makena here alone again before this business with MDC is done?”
I wasn’t. I was wondering if maybe his business took him up to the Kootenai forest around eleven years ago. Because I don’t much give a shit if he’s gone. I can look after Makena just fine—and she sure as hell won’t be alon
e if he leaves.
But it’s as good a question as any. “Are you?”
“No. I expect to work on these fillies for two or three months, at least.” Opening the oven again, he pulls out a big dish and adds, “Maybe longer, if they keep acting up like they did today.”
After I spooked them. But once again, I can’t tell if there’s something more pointed to what he’s saying, and whether he knows what the real cause of their panic was. Then I hear Makena’s feet on the stairs and my attention diverts in that direction.
“Oh my god, that smells good,” she says, and I’m thinking the same, but it isn’t about a chicken pie. She’s changed out of her jeans and into a pair of denim shorts that show off the long, sleek lengths of her legs, and traded in the T-shirt she wore all day for a tank top that clings to every inch of her tits and waist.
“It still needs to cool a bit,” Jonas tells her. “So don’t go sticking your fingers in like last time and burning them.”
She blows a raspberry at him and heads across the kitchen, picking up a flat of strawberries from the long workbench near the back wall. “Hand me that big bowl and a knife? I was supposed to make these into jam today, but… Well. I guess I’ll do that tomorrow.”
Jonas passes the bowl over while she settles into the seat beside me, curling one of those long legs up beneath her. She picks up one of the forms I’ve finished and put aside, scanning the entries.
Her brows arch high. “Your emergency contact is 9-1-1?”
“I figure if there’s any emergency that’s bad enough to contact anyone, the first call you make ought to be them.”
Which isn’t quite true. If anything happens to me, there’s only two outcomes: I’ll be fine, or I’m dead. Neither paramedics nor police are much use either way.
She laughs. “Trust me—if it’s that bad, I’ll definitely call 9-1-1.” Then her voice softens, and a burst of strawberry joins her scent when she slices off a stem and drops the berry into the bowl. “You don’t have anyone else?”
“No.” It’s almost a growl. Good Christ, I can barely fucking think. Not with those scents mixing and her sitting so close, with all that smooth skin on display and her voice so warm and caring.
Then she pops one of those strawberries into her mouth, and the next question she asks is with that juice on her breath—and sweet torture to my senses. Because there’s not just strawberry and Makena now, but something more mixing in. The faint, spicy scent of feminine arousal. As if her body’s reacting to me sitting so near, too.
“What about the sheriff up in Kalispell?”
I can’t tear my eyes away from those lips. So goddamn gorgeous and darkened with juice. And I figure this is the reason I’m colorblind. It’s the only way for me to survive. Because if I could see how that red truly looks on her skin, I suspect I’d be a dead man. “Who?”
“The one who sends you clues about who killed your family.”
I force my brain to work, which isn’t easy since all the blood in my body is rushing into my dick. “He doesn’t send clues. Just…points me toward similar murders.”
She frowns and beheads another berry. “Did he send you our way?”
“No. That was me taking a stab in the dark.”
“Your family wasn’t mauled by bears, though.”
“No,” I rasp my reply, struggling through a fog of hot need. On the seat across from me, Jonas sets down a basket of parsnips.
“Slide that over here?” He points to a knife sitting near my plate.
Makena snorts as I reach for it. “That fancy thing won’t peel—”
Agony rips up the length of my arm the second I touch it, instantly searing every nerve with white-hot pain. Wood shrieks over linoleum as Jonas lunges from his chair. Then the whole goddamn world spins, my only anchor Makena’s scent and her cry of surprise. I turn toward her but I’m knocked the other way. Makena shouts her uncle’s name. Pain explodes through my head as he slams my face into the table, then all at once yanks me back by my hair. A burning slice crosses the side of my neck—the silver. I try to push his wrist away and get nowhere, I’m so fucking weak. Makena’s pulling at his opposite arm, her voice frantic as she pleads with him to stop, her terror mixing with the perfume of strawberries.
Jonas angles the silver blade against my throat and I go utterly still. “You just stay nice and quiet. I keep this blade sharp, so any sudden moves on your part might end up slicing through your skin. And if this silver comes in contact with your blood, you’ll know what real hurt is.”
I believe him. And he could have already killed me, but I’m not dead yet. Which says he maybe doesn’t intend to kill me. I clench my jaw against the pain and wait for him to say what he does intend.
But I can’t stop my gaze from going to Makena. If these are my last moments on Earth, I want them to be filled with the sight of her. I just wish they weren’t moments when she was so damn terrified and confused, as if still trying to comprehend that her uncle attacked me, as if thinking there’s something going on here that must be a joke. But she’s pulled back, no longer yanking on his arm—as if afraid that jostling him might slice through my throat.
“Now you tell me: Are you here for Makena?” His voice is as sharp as the blade against my skin. “She didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with what happened to the berserkers who killed Halima and Mikael. So if you’re here to avenge them, you look to me. Not her.”
Makena pulls in a strangled gasp and stares at her uncle in stunned horror. “Uncle Jonas? What are you talking about?”
He seems to flinch, but his grip doesn’t ease and his gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “Are you here to kill me and get your revenge?”
Forcing out a reply adds another layer of agony. “Did you kill my family?”
“Were they the bears who killed my brother and his wife?”
“No.”
“Then I didn’t touch any of your kin.”
“So we’ve got no argument between us,” I grate out through clenched teeth.
That answer doesn’t satisfy him. “Then why are you here?” He doesn’t wait for me to reply but sharply asks Makena, “Do you have a gold chain on you anywhere? One that only you can see?”
“A gold chain?” She shakes her head, as if in disbelief. “Are you serious? No. Uncle Jonas, this is crazy. Let him go!”
He doesn’t, though the pressure of the blade eases. “Are you cursed or were you born?”
Astonishment rips through the agony. He knows this, too? Then he might be wondering if I’ll lose my shit come the next full moon.
“I was born,” I tell him through the pain that turns that simple answer into a snarl.
“Then what brought you out here last night? Makena says you didn’t know who she was when you came out in this direction. You want me to believe it was just chance that you drove up our road?”
I grit my teeth, reluctant to tell him why Makena’s affecting me, but lies won’t satisfy her uncle. Not when he’s got more answers than I do. “It was her scent,” I admit on a growl. “It drew me in.”
“My what?” Now she’s staring at us like we’re both crazy.
Jonas’s eyes narrow, as if he’s weighing my answer. “But you aren’t cursed?”
“No.”
“And you’re a wolf—not a bear?” And my nod, he adds, “You going to hurt her?”
“I’d die first.” It’s pure truth.
He studies my face for a long moment before finally nodding. “All right, then.”
He pulls the knife away from my neck. The agony vanishes. Driven by instinct, I spin around and knock that knife from his hand, sending it flying. I reach for my warrior’s skin but that part of me is still weak and cowering like a pup.
But that doesn’t fucking matter. A weak wolfkin can still lift a murdering human off the floor with one hand around his neck, my claws digging into his throat. I snarl into Jonas’s face, baring elongated teeth.
Makena’s terrified scream stops me cold. Sh
e’s staring at me, her face bloodless and her scent awash with horror.
My heart clenches. “Don’t be afraid, Makena. Don’t be—”
On another scream, this one of anger, she launches herself forward and crashes into me, her hands pulling at my wrist as if trying to make me let go of her uncle. Agony rips through me again, stealing my strength. I drop him and she shoves me away, her terror filling my lungs. Pain and instinct take over in a blur of motion. I catch her up against my chest and head for a corner of the kitchen, where she’ll have two solid walls protecting her back and me protecting the rest of her.
Snarling against the pain, I plead with her again. “Don’t be afraid.”
But she’s fucking terrified, whimpering and shivering in a ball on the floor right in front of me. I’m crouching over her, shielding her with my body but my wolfskin is still struggling. I’ve got my fangs and claws but the rest of me is still too weak to completely transform. I can’t protect her fully, though her uncle’s at my back and must have had time to get that knife again.
“Don’t be afraid,” I growl against her hair but she flinches away from me, tighter into the corner. “I’ll protect you.”
Her only response is more terror, her heart racing and her breath coming in strangled wheezes.
“It’s all right, girl,” her uncle says from behind me in a soothing tone. “You’re okay, Makena. You’re probably safer now than you’ve ever been. But, Grimmson, you’ve got to ease up. She’s doesn’t do well in tight spaces and you’ve got her surrounded.”
His voice penetrates the fog of instinct. She’s terrified, so I tried to protect her from whatever was making her afraid. But that thing is me. So my instincts and her fear just kept ratcheting up.
With effort, I fight that instinct…and force myself to back away from her. My heart squeezes in tight. She’s curled up in a ball, quavering in that corner. Because she saw me.
Part of me.
And everything that I did to protect her must have seemed like an attack.
