His face shadowed, regret dimming those gorgeous brown eyes.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m… damn. I just… I tell you I don’t want this, that I’m meeting a human woman this morning, Reyna, a human. I need a normal life, not one twisted up in some arbitrary force with a will of its own.”
“That’s what you think of us? Of Fate?” She shook her head. “Then, fuck you, Allan VonBrandt.” Turning on her boot heel, she strode away, leaving him tied up with his dick hanging out. Serves him right.
“Reyna.” His voice followed her out of the barn. “Reyna! Untie me. Reyna!”
Not in a million years. She’d tried everything to make him understand, but he was against her. Against being happy.
Finding a mate should be the most natural, amazing experience in a werewolf’s life. She’d seen it happen to her friends, one after the other. They embraced it. They fucked like bunnies, and most importantly, they weren’t alone. Wolves shared a soul when they mated and she wanted that connection more than anything else in the world. She loved her father, but he’d changed after the accident. He didn’t belong to her anymore and it left a hole in her heart that ached for the fulfillment only a mate could bring.
Was it too much to ask for the happiness Fate had dangled in front of her? From the second he’d walked her out of that honky-tonk bar, Reyna had thought he was going to be the best thing that ever happened to her.
Well, fuck that idea.
She walked up the stairs onto the porch of the house across the big driveway from the barn and rapped on the door.
It opened a few moments later, and she found herself staring up at Allan’s brother, Adam. They looked so similar, but she didn’t find herself drawn to Adam in the least.
“Your brother is stuck in the barn.” She thumbed to the right. His eyebrows rose and he turned his face toward the field. Allan’s voice cut through the quiet of dawn every few seconds—still yelling her name.
“Did you stick him there?”
She shrugged and clomped down the porch steps, leaving him staring. “Maybe,” she answered over her shoulder.
Chapter Eight
Allan counted to ten and breathed and all that shit. Nothing worked. Reyna didn’t come back, either. He’d seen that flash, like he’d slapped her.
But holy shit, woman…I’m the sheriff. He was a public figure in the human world. She had left him tied to a tractor with his pants open and his wet dick lying naked against the cold air.
This was the kind of stuff tabloid covers were made of. Allan could see it now.
Small Town Pervert Sheriff Arrested For Exposure… or Somewhere’s Sheriff: How Nasty Is He Really? Or some shit like that.
He kept tugging at the ropes. Eventually, he should be to be able to get them loose enough so he could escape. He couldn’t just wait for someone to come along. Who knew how long it would be? And he couldn’t reach his phone, so he couldn’t even call someone sympathetic. Although, who would be sympathetic to something like this?
He should’ve been able to will himself out of his desire for Reyna. If there had ever been a wolf who’d kept his shit together, sexually, it was Allan VonBrandt, and he was damn proud of it. This whole mate thing, it spun him.
“Allan?” a familiar deep voice called from outside the barn.
Every hair on his body stood on end, prey-to-predator adrenaline rushing through him. His fucking brother. Allan shifted his hips to hide his finally-flaccid dick and Adam came waltzing through the big barn doors.
He froze in front of the tractor and his jaw almost hit the hay. “Well, well. I thought she was kiddin’. But there’s no way you tied yourself to the tractor.”
“Stop.” Allan’s face heated and he ground his teeth together trying to hold back anything that could be used against him later. “Just untie me.”
“I’ll do you one better.” Adam pulled a pocketknife to full gleaming glory and smiled with just as much glee as a sparkle. “This’ll be quick and painless.”
Allan shut his eyes and turned his body so his hips were almost in the hay. His brother flicked the knife twice and he felt the tension release. He immediately turned all the way over and slipped his hands under himself. Allan tucked himself in, pulled up his boxers, zipped his pants, and stood. He’d worry about the itchy hay and the cleaning up later.
His brother clucked a disapproving tongue as he stood to recover himself. “That girl did a number on you.”
“Whatever.” Allan rolled up the blanket and grabbed his coat. “Thanks for the help.”
“She came and talked to me, y’know.” Adam’s voice had lost all its sarcasm.
“Obviously, or you wouldn’t have known I was here.”
“I mean, last night, after you were there.” Adam rested on the big tractor tire. “She interrupted my alone time and everything.”
“Well, good for you. You’ve now had the pleasure of meeting my mate, so you can all rub it in my face later.” He glanced back at his brother, and saw the sun peeking over the horizon behind Adam’s house, across the yard.
“We don’t want to rub it in your face, dude.”
“I’m not going to bond with a wolf.” He rounded on his brother. “I can’t.”
“Fine.” Adam shrugged. “I’m not worried about her. She’s pretty on-the-ball.”
“Well, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“You’re still planning to go through with this thing with Laurel?”
Allan shifted the blanket under his arm. “Why not? I’m the sheriff now. I need a wife. A human wife who can anchor me to that world so I can help. Why shouldn’t I go through with it?”
The look in Adam’s eyes flashed wolf for just a moment and Allan didn’t need his brother to answer in order to know what was coming next.
One of the horses nickered uneasily and Adam cooed at them, calling them by name, calming himself. He shifted his eyes back to Allan. “Oh, I don’t know… maybe because you found your mate? That doesn’t give you even a little pause?”
Allan turned and sagged against the other tire, giving in to the conversation that was inevitable. “So it was always theoretical before, that I might not have one, and now that I have one, I’m supposed to, what? Just throw aside all my plans.”
Adam pushed off the tire and stepped forward, leaning in, in case he’d missed the flash of anger before. “We. Are. Not. Human.”
“I’m not trying to be a human.”
“You sure as hell are. You live in town, you take human jobs—the most public profile human job you could take, by the way, outside of actually going to Hollywood and being on television. It was one thing when it was just you and yourself.” Adam pressed his lips together and shook his head. “You don’t mess with Fate.”
Allan let his breath slow and held himself still. He’d always had such a confidence that this was his path—he was made for it. His mother had told him stories about the first Moonbound man. Wolves, created for humans. Those witches had needed the strength and supernatural abilities of the wolf, but magick always exacted a price to even the score. So the men were forced into wolf form when the pull of the moon was too great.
He’d played out all his mother’s stories as a kid, with either himself or Aaron as the pretend marauder, out to kill the women who made the wolf race thousands of years ago. The other would play the role of the strong hybrid spirit—strength of ten men, supernatural healing and speed, senses that could be honed beyond what any human could ever imagine. The ability to tap in to a magick that flowed under the surface of the entire earth. All in order to protect the women who made them.
Destiny.
But Reyna and Adam ganged up on his certainty with all their don’t mess with Fate bullshit. Fate.
The horses started to move again and Adam backed off. He smacked his hand on top of the tire and scuffed his boot at the ground. “It’s dangerous, man. It would be one thing if it was just your future, but it’s not anymore. Reyna’s whole life is at stake, to
o.”
Allan fisted one hand under the blanket and rocked against the tire. A pressure spread across his chest on an inheld breath. “I’m not trying to hurt her.”
“But you’re going to anyway.”
“She just met me. It’s not like she’s in love with me.”
His brother grunted. “Of course, you’re not going to listen.” He threw the knife with his off-hand and it stuck in the hay in front of Allan’s feet, not far from the steel toe of his boot. “Cut yourself out of your own sex swing next time, jackass.”
Three hours, two showers, and a change and a half of clothes later, Allan was sparkly clean—white Stetson cocked precisely to one side of his head—and sitting in one of the low-backed wire chairs outside of the Wild Crumb Bakery in Old Town Somewhere. Of course Laurel would want to meet right across the street from the Wolf Den, where his sister Andrea would soon be opening her bar for the business day. Nowhere in town seemed to be safe from VonBrandt prying eyes.
He tried to focus, instead, on the green rise of the town square that was caddy-corner to him, and the giant statue of The Alamo Bagpiper himself, James McAdams. The statue hadn’t even attempted a nod at realism, making the big Highlander twelve feet tall with shoulders like a truck and a set of bagpipes the size of a cow.
A woman with a toddler walked past him and twinkled out a smile. She hurried away and went across the street halfway before looking back at him, turning around, and hustling for the crosswalk.
There was very little about this town Allan didn’t like, but one of the unfortunate perks of being the sheriff was being recognized. He would no more have arrested that woman for jaywalking than he would have shifted into a wolf and eaten her. He was off-duty, and he took that seriously.
“Sheriff VonBrandt?” came the silky voice of Laurel Lane. Allan tipped his hat against the sun and looked up. The woman was certainly a beauty. A good choice of career for her, matchmaking.
Allan stepped around the table and helped her into her seat. Like a lady, she accepted his hand on her arm, even though he could tell she wasn’t particularly happy with the touch of a stranger. He’d honed his heart-beat listening and scent-smelling skills so finely over years in law enforcement, he could practically read someone’s mind as they sat in front of him.
Well. Human minds. Wolves were…harder.
Laurel gave her order to the white-aproned waitress, and slid a file folder across the table. “I hope you don’t mind. I took the liberty of pulling a few clients for you.”
Allan put his hand on top of the thick, yellow folder. “Whatever you think is best.”
“I can tell you about them, or you can read their files, if you would prefer. I’m happy to sit and drink my coffee in peace if you want some time with the girls.” Laurel gave a wide smile to the waitress when she came back with a deep, blue cup full of some kind of liquid.
“How about you give me your read on them.” He tried to raise his eyebrows and do the things humans did to put each other at ease. He would’ve smiled, except the way he felt in that moment, he couldn’t have been genuine, and given what Laurel did for a living, she might pick up on that and feel uneasy.
He was already big and imposing, and he couldn’t help that. Plus, his natural wolf instincts made him half-predatory. It was best not to attempt smiling.
“Well, there are several I think you should try dating.” Laurel reached for the folder and flipped it open. On top was a picture of a blonde-haired, red-lipped young woman who looked like she was just out of college.
“Too young,” Allan said, flipping over the sheet and finding more information about the smiling co-ed. He glanced up at Laurel and saw a tightening of the corners of her mouth to accompany the intake of breath.
She was unhappy with him.
“Perhaps just a bit, for my tastes,” he recovered.
Her smile was automatic. “Of course, she’s only twenty-eight, so there’s only a few years’ difference.”
“Twenty-eight? Really?” Allan looked back at the picture. “She seems so much younger.”
Laurel’s head cocked to one side. “Great skin care, Mr. VonBrandt. It can do wonders.” She flipped over the pages until they came to another picture. “But I only chose women from the parameters you requested.”
Allan nodded and let the second girl’s features settle on him. Another blonde. Not quite as pink-cheeked-smiley as the last one. Pretty. Kind eyes. She was wearing a blue shirt that complemented her eyes.
“Is that a jean shirt?” Allan found himself saying aloud.
Her response was tight, controlled. “Yes. Faith is a country girl, like you asked for. Very much a cowgirl.”
He flipped to the next page without making another comment. Obviously, he was bad at this. What would his sister-in-law have said if she could have been sitting there? Tonya would probably have told him to relax, so he took a breath.
“She’s pretty,” he said first. It was the truth. She had soft brown eyes and a not-Farrah hairstyle, so that was already a step in the right direction. He couldn’t say any of this aloud, or Laurel might run for the hills.
Instead, he sipped his coffee. “It says she was married before.”
“Yes, is that a problem?” Laurel rounded one eyebrow.
“No. Just noticing.” Allan turned the page to find the rest of her details. If only Laurel understood that he read paperwork for a living. He was used to noticing everything and picking out only the pertinent things. Being divorced wasn’t a deal-breaker, but he’d need to know more about her ex.
“I just… I have a very public job. There’s a lot of scrutiny on me, and there will be a lot of scrutiny on my wife. I need to know about any skeletons before someone else digs around in her closet and finds them.”
He couldn’t say the rest. The fact that exes complicated relationships and made demands, and there would be whole nights that Allan would have to be gone and wouldn’t be able to protect her. Or that he needed her humanness to protect him, to make a presence in his home when he had to be running in the woods.
His wife needed to be reliable, safe, and human. There was no getting around it.
She nodded and turned another piece of paper. “Let’s put her on the back-burner, then. I’m not familiar enough with the situation to know for sure.”
The next girl had black hair and creamy skin and for a moment, Allan’s mind flashed to Reyna. Her hair across his lap…her eyes glazed over and looking up at him with his dick in her mouth…it had been mesmerizing.
But she was his mate. Of course he’d be mesmerized. That was the whole point of Fated mates.
“Ah, you like this one?” Laurel’s voice was buoyant and she scooted her chair just enough to be able to look at the girl in front of him.
“Sure.” He made himself nod. Truth was, he hadn’t really noticed anything about her, other than her resemblance to Reyna. For just the slightest moment, he smelled her familiar scent, and he rubbed his hands on his thighs. It was possible he hadn’t gotten all of her washed away. It had taken more showers than he thought before he stopped smelling her. And there was still some of her scent somewhere.
Laurel was still talking about the girl, pointing out how she fit right into what Allan wanted, but he’d lost track of her words. He kept nodding.
“So I should set up a date with the two of you?”
“Definitely.” He raised his brows and gave half a smile.
“There’s just one more.” Laurel turned a few pages and the final suggested human client smiled up at him from her picture. Another dark-haired beauty. She had a pie in one hand and was blowing a kiss at the camera.
It felt like an ad for some kind of fifties throw-back sitcom. The shoulders of her dress were split by a ruffled white apron, and she had on bright lipstick.
“She’s holding a pie,” Allan noted, not sure Laurel would want to hear the rest of his thoughts.
She stifled a laugh. “Yes. Chesa. She loves to bake.”
�
�Yeah. That’s a pie.”
The tilt of the girl’s head made him see Reyna again, standing in front of that mechanical bull, her eyes iced over with the heat of battle. He was seeing Reyna, smelling Reyna. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if he had half a hard-on, thinking about all that head.
Fuck. It’d been great head. She’d been great.
A dark part of him had even liked begging for it. The edge of that orgasm had almost been painful, but damn. That had been good pain.
“Ooooh,” Laurel squealed. “You like her, too. I can tell.”
“Uh. Sure.” He put his hands in his lap, tearing his napkin off the table and covering his crotch in case he was getting a hard-on. He didn’t even want to think about it.
Grandma. Babies. Puppies.
Fuck.
Reyna. What I want is… Reyna.
He shook his head and took his eyes off the picture, forcing them to the matchmaker’s smiling face. He had to stop seeing Reyna every time he looked at a picture of a girl. Especially one with a pie.
Maybe he was just hungry. For pie. He needed to get hungry for something that lined up with his goals more.
“What do you think?” Laurel leaned in just a touch, her heart-rate up in anticipation.
Allan was happy to oblige. “I’ll date them all.”
Reyna leaned against the outside wall of the Wild Crumb Bakery. A thousand pounds of bricks weighed on her chest. Her throat was tight. The bits and pieces of the conversation she’d overheard between Allan and the matchmaker ate a hole in her heart.
He wanted a blonde-big-haired-country-pie-cooking-wife.
Why the fuck had Fate shoved her at Allan VonBrandt? She loved being a wolf—the sensualness, the wildness, and the desire to run. All of it was the very core of her being. She wasn’t blonde and she didn’t dress western, but if that’s what it took to convince him they were meant to be…maybe she could. Fate had damn near knocked her over when Allan walked into that bar – now it threatened to steal everything away before she even had a chance.
To Catch A Mate: Somewhere, TX (VonBrandt Pack Book 5) Page 5
