by Jane Jamison
No. It can’t be. This gorgeous hunk of a man has a twin? No way can there be two men this hot.
The replica of the sexy blond man standing in front of her pickup didn’t waste a moment getting over to them. He wore faded jeans, like the first man, with a simple white T-shirt that outlined the muscles in his chest and abdomen. His tanned arms made the shirt appear even whiter. Boots that had seen better days completed his modern-day cowboy look. But cowboy, as she was beginning to learn, was more a state of mind than just wearing boots. Both of these men were cowboys. It showed in their mannerisms, their sun-bronzed skin, and the easy way they fit into their surroundings.
The twin had the same striking blue eyes, the same flowing blond hair, and a body rivaling the other man’s. But even in the first few moments of sizing them up she could tell their personalities were miles apart. The silent one that had banged on the hood narrowed his eyes at her while the other one greeted her with a smile that would light up the darkest room. The friendly one stopped a few feet from the driver’s side, fisted his hands on his hips like Adonis looking down from Olympus, and broadened his electric grin.
“Hi. Looks like my brother couldn’t stand it any longer.” He came forward and leaned on the glass of the partially opened window. On closer inspection, his eyes were the same spectacular blue as his twin’s but a bit darker in shade. While his twin’s eyes could’ve launched heat-seeking missiles aimed to destroy her, his eyes sparkled with amusement rather than being clouded with suspicion.
“Your brother?” She closed her eyes, wincing at her stupidity. What else could they be but brothers? Clones?
His laugh was deep and throaty, filled with a richness that any woman would die for. “What else would he be? My clone?”
He laughed again, and she couldn’t help but smile. He was gregarious, the kind of person who could make others smile without trying. She glanced at the first Adonis. His brother, on the other hand, seemed guarded, even his smiles controlled. He’d kept his intense gaze on her the entire time, and it was starting to make her feel uneasy.
“Don’t let my little brother bother you. Reese is the brooding type. All bark with very little bite.” He stuck out his hand and added, “I’m Blane Rawlins.”
Little brother? There was nothing little about either one of them. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze slipped down from his belt before she realized she’d done it. No doubt there was nothing little about his cock, either.
She wrenched her attention away from Blane’s crotch. Ignoring his hand and keeping the window opened only half the way, she focused what other men had called her “stone-cold glare” at Reese and summoned the nerve to challenge him. “I’m sorry if my presence made you or anyone else uncomfortable, but I didn’t know it was against the law to sit in my pickup.”
“It’s not against the law. You can sit in your pickup ’til hell freezes over. It’s the watching part that’s got people upset.” Reese arched an imperious eyebrow at her.
He was egging her on. She knew it, and he knew she knew it. But should she take him up on it? He clenched his teeth, the muscle in his jaw working.
They were two sides of one coin. While Reese acted like he couldn’t stand the sight of her, Blane appeared to be more than interested. He’d taken a good hard look at her, whipping his gaze over her body several times. She could feel his scrutiny on her skin.
“Again. Don’t mind my brother. In fact, I’d be happy to show you around Forever.”
She needed to leave, but she just couldn’t bring herself to back the pickup out of the parking space. Something about Blane made her want to trust him. She gave him a genuine smile, rolled the window all the way down, and stuck her hand out. “Nice to meet you, Blane. I’m…Candy Cane.”
Reese’s laugh had heads turning to stare at them. “You can’t be serious. No one’s called Candy Cane. Come on. What’s your real name?”
She swallowed hard and faked a hurt expression. No way would she ever tell them that she and Shannon had spent many hours as teens coming up with wild-sounding names. The fact that Candy Cane sounded like a stripper’s name didn’t help. But she’d said the first name to come to her, and she couldn’t back out now. “What’s wrong with my name? Don’t you like it?”
“It’s a pretty name. Nice to meet you, Candy.” Blane took her hand and squeezed.
All at once, a surge of power, a rush of sexual energy zipped into her hand and up her arm. The electrifying sensation flowed into her, making her heart skip a beat then pick up speed as though she was running a marathon. The effect was invigorating, exciting and downright scary. She widened her eyes, then searched Blane’s and saw his widen, too.
“What the hell?” But she doubted either brother had heard her whisper.
She glanced toward Reese, who was staring at his brother. Reese may not have experienced the sensation, but he’d noticed his brother’s reaction.
She tugged her hand out of Blane’s, lessening the sizzle. “I need to get going.”
“Wait. How about grabbing a cup of coffee with my brother and me? Or even just me?”
She shook her head, turned the ignition, and threw the car in reverse. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Why not? What could happen over a cup of coffee?”
But she was already backing out of the parking space. She took one last look at them. Reese hadn’t moved, his eyes as intently set on her as they were before. Blane looked at her, a confused expression marring his masculine face, then lifted his hand to say good-bye.
She didn’t bother waving back. She didn’t trust herself not to jump out of the pickup and take Blane up on his offer of coffee. Yet she wasn’t sure that a cup of coffee wouldn’t turn into more. Instead, she pushed the lever into drive and stomped on the accelerator.
* * * *
“That went well.” Blane scowled at his brother. “Why the hell did you decide to confront her today? She’s been here a couple of days, and we’ve managed to keep track of her without her noticing us watching her.”
“You mean spying on her.” It was just like Blane to make it sound better than it was. Watching didn’t sound half as bad as spying.
“We’re just making sure she doesn’t do anything stupid before we can ease her into accepting us as her mates. Hell, Reese, everyone in Forever’s kept a wide berth for the Holms cousins’ sake as well as ours. Then you have to go and surprise her. Are you trying to get her to run off again?”
They’d watched her, trying to figure out what she was up to. Was she out to hurt her sister’s mates? Did she want to kidnap Shannon and force her to return to Boston? Or was she just making sure her sister was safe? Whatever the reason, Reese hated having to wait.
Reese shot a glare at his brother then pivoted and headed for his motorcycle. “I got tired of waiting. She’s our mate, so let’s just get on with it.”
“We’ve already talked about this. She’s going to need time. Time to get used to the idea that her sister’s a werewolf first. After that, we can tell her about us.”
“Bullshit. We should’ve taken her the first time she was in town.” Reese slung his leg over his Harley but didn’t make a move to start the motor.
Blane scratched the stubble on his jaw. Unlike Reese, his brother liked to keep his face shaved most of the time, but handling a problem at The Moonstone Bar had taken up most of his day. As part owner along with Anderson Holms, Blane tried to do his part in handling the staff. Having both humans and werewolves working at the bar meant conflict every so often, but that’s the choice Anderson and Blane had made when they’d decided to mix the two. Blane was even talking about hiring a vampire bartender, but Reese thought that would just add fuel to an already-smoldering fire. Still, he made it a point to stay out of his brother’s business.
“Sometimes I wish we’d taken her, too, but Anderson asked us to back off, and we agreed. They had enough trouble dealing with their mate, Shannon, wanting to stake Deacon. Besides, by the time we’d sensed that Charlie
was our future mate, she’d already plugged Daniel with a bullet.”
Reese chuckled, a rarity for him. “Can’t say I blamed her. She walked into a vampire’s house and found her sister with two werewolves. I’d say she showed a lot of guts going in there. She just needs to improve her aim.”
Daniel Holms had gotten lucky that day. Lucky that Charlie’s aim wasn’t great and lucky that she hadn’t loaded the rifle with silver bullets. “Don’t go letting Daniel hear you talk that way.”
Reese had to hand it to his brother. Blane was the even-tempered one and always strived to find a compromise. Reese was the hot head and the one most likely to go off half-cocked, barging into a situation without thinking first.
“She’s hotter than I remember.”
“Damn right she is. But we didn’t really get a good look at her the first time.” Taking their cue from the Holms cousins, they’d stayed out of the trouble Shannon was causing and had only gotten a quick glimpse of Charlie as she’d lit out of town like a cat with a dog nipping at its tail.
Their mate was smokin’. No doubt about it. From her long reddish-brown hair to her full chest and curvy body, she was the kind of woman a man liked to look at in men’s magazines. Yet even wearing a simple pale-yellow T-shirt and jeans, she was sexier than the naked girls in those magazines. He hadn’t seen her standing up yet, since she’d always stayed in her pickup, but he knew her legs would run from Texas to the Canadian border. Her brown eyes, even clouded with wariness, had grabbed him and held him in a vise of desire. He longed to see what her eyes would look like when he plunged his cock into her and made her scream his name.
He’d gotten a good whiff of her, too. He’d smelled the alarm wafting off her, but it had gotten mixed with a heavy dose of pussy heat. She’d liked what she’d seen as much as he had. If she listened to her libido, getting her into bed wouldn’t take much doing. Too bad she seemed to have an attitude, but he’d adjust that soon enough. Not to the point of breaking her, but just enough for her to realize who was really in charge, in and out of bed.
She was more than just a pretty face. He’d done some research on her since her first visit and had found out she was a big deal in the business world. She’d jumped into her family’s business and had not only handled the company well but had managed to increase their profits in a time when most businesses were struggling to stay alive.
“She’s smart, too. She came prepared this trip. I could smell gunpowder behind the seats as well as the scent of steel.”
Reese didn’t like to think of his mate carrying a rifle. If she tried to shoot one of the Holms boys again, they might have no choice but to fight back. “We have to keep her from doing anything that’ll get her into trouble.”
“We warned Daniel and Anderson that she was back in town. They’re laying low and having Shannon do the same. The only contact Shannon’s had is a couple of texts since Charlie left Boston. She thinks her sister may be trying a sneak attack to try to force Shannon to go home.”
Blane tracked his hand through his hair. Reese recognized his brother’s telltale signal that he was trying to come up with a solution and getting nowhere fast.
He decided to let him off the hook—for now. “Fine. I’ll back off, but not for long. If I get wind that she’s planning on hightailing it out of here, I’m grabbing her and hauling her back to the ranch.”
Blane grinned, and Reese could sense his relief. “Good. Just hang in there, bro, and keep out of sight. Our mate’s come back. The rest of it will go as planned.”
Reese swallowed the retort that sprang to his lips. No need to make Blane upset. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep an eye on Charlie Newman.
Chapter Two
Charlie kicked the wheel of the pickup and let fly with several curse words that would’ve made her mother drop dead in a faint. She’d gotten about halfway back to the rental home when smoke came pouring out from under the hood. The truck had sputtered then died as soon as she’d managed to pull it onto the side of the road.
“Damn and double damn!”
She took off the baseball cap and flung it into the pickup. So far she’d managed to get the hood up, but that was as far as her knowledge of cars went. Growing up with a chauffeur as well as a personal mechanic meant she’d never given a thought to what went on under the hood.
She stared at the jumbled mess of wires and machinery. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
Glancing both ways down the road, she knew she wouldn’t get any help from passing motorists. She rarely saw another vehicle when she drove down the one-lane road and had liked the remoteness of the house. Now she wished she’d stayed somewhere closer to Shatland.
She had no other choice. She was going to have to walk home. Grabbing her cap, she pulled it down over her face and glanced at her tiny arsenal in the space behind the seat. Should she take the rifle or, if anyone did happen by, would they think it strange to see an armed woman hiking down the road? But she didn’t like the idea of leaving the gun with the pickup either.
Then there was the matter of the stakes she’d stuffed under the seat. She glanced at the sun high in the sky and tried to calculate the time it would take for her to get home. If she made it back to the rental house before dark, she wouldn’t need to take the stakes. It was better to leave them where they were.
The last option was to call Shannon for help. She had no doubt her sister would pick her up. But would Shannon come alone even if she asked her to? Or would she have the two werewolf men along for the ride?
In the end, she stuffed her phone into her back pocket, checked the rifle to see if it was loaded, then held it in the crook of her right arm. She grabbed the water bottle that was only half-full, took one last look back the way she’d come, and started walking.
Texas could get hot year round. She’d known that from her research. Yet living with air conditioning and getting out for only brief periods of time hadn’t let her experience just how scorching the sun could be. Within a few minutes, sweat trickled down her spine and dotted her forehead. But she kept walking.
She trudged on, tormented on one side from the relentless sun and on the other from the heat filtering up from the black pavement. Her feet ached and her arm hurt from carrying the gun. Passing by cattle, horses, and crops she didn’t know the name of, she trudged on, muttering to herself to sue the rental company for renting her a broken-down wreck of a pickup.
She was squinting at a cow in the pasture next to the road and not paying attention to where she was going when she stumbled into a small pothole and fell. She landed flat on her face and cussed her head off.
“Shit! I swear, if I ever get out of this hellhole of a state, I’m going back to Boston and staying in civilization forever. No more cowboys, no more pickups, and no more walking.”
She pushed up then checked her hands and arms for scrapes. Although her hands had taken the brunt of the fall, they weren’t too bad. Still, she wouldn’t have sneered at a little antiseptic and water, but at least she’d had the gun’s safety on. Taking off her cap, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and saw it.
Like a mirage in the middle of the desert, the manmade pond glistened under the sunlight, beckoning her to scale the fence and dive into it. She let out a breath then pushed the gun and her now-empty water bottle under the lowest rung of the fence. She was up and over the fence in three quick moves. Snatching up the bottle and rifle, she hurried to the edge of the pond.
She stared at the water and frowned. Although she’d known not to expect the ocean-blue water of the Caribbean where a person could see fish swimming by just under the surface, the pond water was anything but inviting up close.
“Eck. I guess it’s true what they say about the red dirt coloring the water.”
She could see a fish or two if she looked really hard, but the murkiness obscured everything else. But water was water and, hopefully, it was cool. She laid her rifle on the ground and inched closer to the edge. Squatting d
own, she dragged the bottle through the murky liquid then held it up and examined the contents.
“No way am I drinking that stuff.” She shook the bottle as though that would clear out the bits and pieces of whatever-the-gunk-was. She poured a little over her hand, and, although it wasn’t very cool, she judged it good enough to ease a little of the heat suffocating her.
She checked around her, saw that she was still the only one around, and pulled off her cap and tossed it on the ground next to her rifle. She tugged off her T-shirt, leaving on only her lacy bra, then pulled the scrunchie off her ponytail. Shaking her hair free, she dumped the contents of the bottle over her head and tried not to think about the gunk.
Relief swamped her. The water was far from appealing, but it did cool her off. She dipped the bottle again and, once more, dumped the water over her head.
“That was good even if it is dirty.”
She studied the muck again and decided it was worth whatever she might encounter. Toeing off her shoes, she shucked off her jeans, leaving her skimpy lace panties on, then stepped into the water. Mud squirmed between her toes, but she ignored it and focused on the coolness flowing around her bare legs. Sticks and small stones dug into the bottoms of her feet, but she didn’t care. It felt too good to leave. She was up to her waist before she knew it.
Did she dare dunk her head? She nibbled at her lower lip and considered it. Maybe if she did it really fast and held her nose, it’d be all right.
Pinching her nose to keep out the water, she took a big breath and went under the surface. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see whatever might float by her face. Standing up, she broke the surface and pushed her hair away from her face. The murky water revitalized her and, for the first time since she’d started walking, she felt like her old self.
“Need someone to wash your back?”
Charlie whirled to face the sound of the deep, masculine voice. “What the hell are you doing here?” Had he followed her?
