“So are you going to Idaho, Mr. Hunter?”
“No, not anymore. I realized my life is here, with Rachel.” He reached over and laced his fingers through hers.
She adored Lionel and was incredibly touched that he’d come along to help facilitate the rescue. But she had so much to say to Jake that couldn’t be said. She’d have to wait until they were alone and hope she didn’t explode from frustration in the meantime.
The rest of the trip home was filled with a recap of the exciting chase and the satisfying ending. Lionel had obviously had the time of his life and could hardly wait to share his hero status with his friends and family.
Rachel blessed that urge, because when they pulled into the parking space near her cabin, Lionel was fidgeting in his eagerness to leave.
“I’m really glad you’re home safe, Miss M,” he said as he stood with his gadgets piled in his arms. Jake held his rifle for him.
“Lionel, I can’t ever thank you enough for coming to my rescue.”
He beamed at her. “You had to know I would. Jake and I, we knew we’d get you back. It was a given.”
“It was.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed Lionel on the cheek. “Now go party. You deserve it.”
He blushed. “Thanks.”
“Oh, and Lionel . . . do you happen to know any women who might be interested in Ted Haggerty?”
“Mr. Haggerty? He likes being single! He said so a bunch of times.”
“Well, he’s not quite as happy as he wants us to think.”
Lionel nodded. “All right, then. I’ll ask around. See you in the morning, okay?”
“You bet.” Rachel gazed at him with fondness. “By the way, is your carving in the woodshop?”
“Oh, yeah. I left it there. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
“I may pay it a visit before then.”
“Aw, you don’t have to do that, Miss M. You and Mr. Hunter probably need . . . well, you know.”
Jake wrapped an arm around Rachel. “We can take time to look at your art, Lionel.”
Rachel didn’t think she could love Jake any more, but that comment made her full to the bursting point.
“Well, see you two later.” Lionel dumped his gadgets in the passenger seat, took the rifle from Jake, and climbed into his truck. With a wave, he drove away.
Rachel sighed and leaned her head against Jake’s shoulder. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go see Lionel’s carving. If we don’t do it now, we’ll forget.”
Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. “Okay.” No one else had understood the dreams she had for Lionel, but Jake did. After a short walk through the midday sun, they stood in the workshop, arms wrapped around each other as they gazed at the piece of wood that she’d given Lionel to carve.
She’d wondered if Lionel would choose to carve wolves because she did. But no. He’d wisely decided to take a different path. In his carving, a majestic eagle soared over a rugged mountain range. The rush of freedom he’d caught in the eagle’s flight took her breath away.
“It’s good,” Jake said.
“It is.” She tightened her hold on him. “Very good. He’s going to make it as an artist.”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad I’ll be here to see it happen.”
She glanced up at him, so afraid that his choice would be painful for him, at least in the beginning. “Will you become a pariah because of me?”
His gaze was filled with love. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t give a damn. But I won’t. If there’s one thing werewolves understand, it’s the importance of finding a soul mate. I’ll have to eat some crow when I admit that my soul mate turned out to be you, a human female, and WARM will take a big hit.”
“I hate that. It was your baby.”
“I know, but thanks to this humbling experience with you, I realize the concept was too limiting. I have to expand my thinking, and there will be those who criticize me for changing my mind, but . . . it’s a small price to pay for being able to love you for the rest of my life.”
“What about the Hunters?”
A shadow crossed his features. “I’ll have to deal with them, no question. They’ve hooked up with some fringe group called the Consortium, and I’ll have to report that to the Were Council.”
“They don’t want me to live in your world.”
“No.” His jaw tightened. “But they’re renegades. I’ll protect you with my life, and so will those who support our nonviolent heritage, which is most of us. Don’t be afraid, Rachel. You’ll be safe from the likes of them.”
“But your life is more complicated because of me.”
He laughed in that low, intimate way she loved. “Of course it is. I’ll have hell to pay, and MacDowell will be insufferable. But you’re worth it.” Still holding her, he turned so that they were face-to-face. “I humbly ask you, Rachel Miller, if you will consent to be my mate.”
She looked into those green eyes, knowing that they were the eyes of a creature she only partly understood. But she knew his heart, and it belonged to her. She didn’t intend to give in quite that easily, however. After all, he had recently rejected her on the basis of her human genes. “It’s a thought. I’ve always wanted a wolf of my own.”
“You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She smiled up at him. “You spurned me before, so now you’ll have to work to win me over.”
“Rescuing you from the kidnappers wasn’t enough?”
She laughed. “It was a start.”
“My God, you’re issuing a challenge!”
“Are you up to it?”
He gave her a slow, easy smile filled with all the confidence of a sexy werewolf alpha. “Yes, my love, I am.”
Read on for a look at the next novel in
Vicki Lewis Thompson’s Wild About You series,
WEREWOLF IN LAS VEGAS
Available from Signet Eclipse in March 2014.
Everyone in Vegas who’d heard about tonight’s poker game said Luke Dalton was crazy. As he sat across the table from Benedict Cartwright in a staged venue that provided room for two hundred paid spectators, Luke briefly questioned his own sanity. But regardless of the game’s outcome, the status quo would change, and that was all he cared about.
He’d challenged Benedict to this winner-take-all poker game—the deed to Luke’s Silver Crescent Casino against the deed to Cartwright’s neighboring bar, Howlin’ at the Moon. The casino was worth twenty times more than the bar, but the Moon was a Cartwright family treasure, a Vegas landmark built thirty years ago by Harrison Cartwright, Benedict’s late father.
Luke lived in the Silver Crescent’s penthouse, which meant he had to lay eyes on that damned bar every single day and be reminded that Harrison Cartwright had driven Luke’s dad, Angus, to his grave. Angus had died just last Christmas Day, thrusting Luke abruptly into the position of CEO of Dalton Industries.
The feud between Angus and Harrison must have taken its toll on both men, because Harrison had died a week later, on New Year’s Eve. For three long months, Luke had struggled with the pain of living next to a Cartwright property. Tonight he’d either win it, and maybe even bulldoze the building, or he’d lose the Silver Crescent and change his place of residence. Either way worked for him, but he’d prefer to win.
They’d been at it for almost two hours, with the piles of chips shifting back and forth across the table. Cartwright, whose blond good looks made him a favorite with the ladies, had just won a hand that put him up a little. But he looked tired.
Luke experienced an unwelcome flash of empathy for a guy who’d also just lost his dad. Benedict’s twin brother, Vaughn, older by two minutes and a born leader, had inherited the bulk of the Cartwright holdings, which had surprised no one. Benedict, the happy-go-lucky brother, had been given the bar, which also had surprised no one.
Benedict was a natural at bar ownership and business was booming. But
he’d also eagerly accepted Luke’s challenge, which made Luke wonder if Benedict was sick of looking at the Silver Crescent and being reminded of the feud that had likely hastened his own father’s death.
It hadn’t always been this way between the two families. Angus Dalton and Harrison Cartwright had once been friendly competitors who’d enjoyed weekly poker games. Their fortunes had grown and so had the stakes. They’d started betting real estate.
They’d regularly traded Vegas properties and neither had seemed to worry about it much. The families had socialized. As a teenager, Luke had shot hoops with Benedict and Vaughn.
But one night, Angus and Harrison must have become bored with their usual wagers. That’s all anyone could figure, since Harrison had taken a dare and bet his premier holding, the Silver Crescent. He’d lost.
Harrison Cartwright had loved that casino more than any of his establishments except for Howlin’ at the Moon. For the first time in their long history, Harrison had accused Angus of cheating. Enraged by the accusation, Angus had vowed never to play with his old rival again, which meant Harrison couldn’t win back his beloved casino.
What followed had become Vegas legend. Harrison had tried every trick in the book to avoid turning over the deed. The legal battle had been long and costly on both sides. In the end, Angus had been awarded the casino and had asked the judge to throw in the bar, too, as compensation for his pain and suffering. The judge had refused.
As the dealer shuffled the cards in preparation for the next hand, Luke glanced toward the group of onlookers who supported him, which represented about half the crowd. His little sister, Cynthia, had shown up. Although he appreciated the support, he couldn’t look at his brilliant, beautiful sister without gnashing his teeth. She should be finishing her final semester at Yale right now.
He understood that grief over their dad’s death had sidelined her, but he couldn’t even get her to promise she’d go back in the fall. She was on track to graduate magna cum laude, for crying out loud.
Yet she was ready to abandon her studies and become a Vegas showgirl, instead. On top of that, for the past month she’d been hanging out with Bryce Landry, a high-stakes gambler from ’Frisco. Landry was with her now, in fact. Whenever Luke thought about his little sister throwing away a promising future, he felt sick to his stomach.
He had no clue how to convince her to finish school, either. His mother was no help. Her grief had been so profound she couldn’t bear to stay in Vegas, or even in the States, so she was currently living in Provence.
Taking a slow, even breath, he scooped up his hand and glanced at it. He kept his expression blank as the betting began. Nothing in his behavior indicated that he had aces over kings. Even better, the cards in his hand denied Cartwright the possibility of a royal flush.
He played the hand carefully, reeling it in slowly, and finally Luke shoved all his chips to the center of the table. “All in.” Benedict Cartwright was going down. The sharp pang of empathy struck again. He forced himself to ignore it.
Benedict’s brother, Vaughn, wasn’t part of the large crowd that had gathered for the match. The word on the street was that Vaughn had tried to talk Benedict out of accepting this challenge, even though on paper it was a chance worth taking.
Only a slight twitch in Benedict’s right eyelid betrayed his nervousness as he pushed his chips forward. “Call.” He laid out three queens and two kings. Not bad. He was right to play it. But it wasn’t enough. Howlin’ at the Moon now belonged to Luke Dalton. He laid his cards on the table.
For one long, agonizing moment, his gaze collided with Benedict’s. The shock and pain in his adversary’s eyes was tough to see, and Luke looked away again. He didn’t want to know how bad this was for the guy. But he was afraid that look of devastation would haunt him, at least for a while.
After a collective gasp from the crowd, the mood shifted. Some cheered, and others cursed and called for a rematch. Luke shook his head. He had what he wanted, a change in the status quo.
In the midst of the chaotic scene, he heard something odd—a distinct and very canine snarl. Maybe someone had brought a service dog into the room, but he couldn’t see an animal anywhere. Yeah, maybe he was going crazy, after all.
Read on for a look at the first novel
in the Perfect Man series by Vicki Lewis Thompson,
One Night with a Billionaire
Available now from InterMix in e-book.
I’m in Paris.
Melanie Shaw stared at the facade of Nôtre-Dame as the deep-throated bells counted down the hour. Ten o’clock in the morning. Instead of mucking out stalls or riding the fence line at her daddy’s ranch outside of Dallas, Texas, she was standing in front of frickin’ Nôtre-Dame. Amazing.
Her plane had landed two hours ago, and she still couldn’t believe she had both feet planted in Paris, France. Only one thing could have made this moment better—if her friends Val and Astrid could be here with her.
They’d become friends in college, and five years later, they were tighter than ever. A few months ago all the planets had been aligned for this trip. They’d found a killer plane fare and spontaneously booked it. Then Val had been unlucky enough to get caught in a mob scene when a fire had broken out during a concert. She’d suffered a broken arm and two broken ribs. Although those had healed, she avoided crowds and wouldn’t be traveling anytime soon.
Melanie had adjusted to having Val stay home. Astrid was a great traveling companion and they’d still have fun, even without Val. Then, a couple of weeks ago, one of Astrid’s clients developed a problem with a pregnant mare. With the mare’s life on the line, Astrid had reluctantly canceled her trip, too.
Melanie had almost given up once her friends had bailed. The hotel they’d booked was way too expensive for her to handle alone, so she’d canceled that reservation. But she’d held on to her airline ticket because she couldn’t bear to think of not going. An online search had yielded a cheaper hotel, although it was also far from the main attractions.
Her boyfriend, Jeff, had said she was crazy to consider traveling alone, but he wasn’t about to go with her to someplace where he didn’t speak the language. His provincial attitude had pounded the nail in the coffin, and she’d ended their relationship. It had been on the skids, anyway.
Now that she was actually here, though, she’d better get busy and take some pictures with her phone. She’d left her suitcase with the hotel desk clerk because she couldn’t check in until noon, but she had her backpack with all her sightseeing essentials crammed inside. Shrugging it off, she unzipped a side pocket and reached for her phone.
Without warning, the backpack was ripped from her hands. At the same moment, someone else shoved her from behind, knocking her to the ground with such force that the breath left her lungs.
“Hey!” A deep male voice from behind her issued a challenge.
She raised her head in time to glimpse a dark-haired man in jeans and a brown leather jacket dash after the thieves. Then folks who were obviously worried about her hurried over and blocked her view. An older gentleman helped her to her feet while two women clucked over her in what sounded like German.
She wasn’t hurt except for a couple of scrapes on the heels of both hands, but if the guy in the leather jacket didn’t catch the thieves, she was in deep shit. Her backpack held almost everything she had with her of value—her phone, both credit cards, and two hundred dollars’ worth of euros. Her passport, thank God, was tucked in a pouch under her shirt, but thinking that she might have lost everything else made her sick to her stomach.
Members of the German tour group patted her shoulder as she stood up and dusted off her clothes. They offered words of comfort she couldn’t understand but appreciated anyway. She made the effort to smile her thanks as she scanned the crowd for signs of a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a brown leather jacket. He’d looked athletic, so maybe he’d be able to tackle the guys who had taken her backpack.
On the other hand
, she didn’t want some stranger risking his safety for her. At least two people had been involved in the mugging, which meant the guy was outnumbered even if he should catch them. She crossed the fingers of both hands and waited, heart pounding from a delayed adrenaline rush.
At last she saw him coming toward her. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses, but his angry strides and the tight set of his mouth told her all she needed to know. Her hopes crumbled. The backpack was gone.
Despair engulfed her, but she was determined to thank him properly for trying. She hoped he spoke English. All she’d heard was his shout of Hey, which might be one of those universal expressions used by everyone. She hadn’t traveled enough to know if it was or not.
When he was about ten feet away, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. They got clean away from me.”
She gasped at the familiar accent. “Oh, my God! You’re from Texas.” Hearing a voice from home made her want to hug him. She restrained herself, but the world brightened considerably.
“Yes, ma’am.” He drew closer. “Are you all right?” He took off his sunglasses and gazed at her with eyes the color of bluebonnets.
“I’m fine.” He must have known taking off his sunglasses would help. Seeing the concern in his gaze, she didn’t feel quite so alone. “Thank you for chasing them. That was brave of you.”
He shrugged. “Not really. Anyone could see they were yellow-bellied cowards if they’d attack a woman. Speaking of that, they knocked you down. Are you sure you didn’t get scraped up?”
“Just a little.” She showed him her hands.
“Let’s take a look.” Tucking his sunglasses inside his jacket, he grasped her wrists and examined the heels of her hands. “Damn it. You should put something on that.”
Werewolf in Alaska: A Wild About You Novel Page 28
