Then he got down on one knee beside her chair; Tara’s breath caught in her throat and she could feel the prickle of tears behind her eyes while a wide grin spread across her face. He pulled a black velvet box from his pocket and opened it to display a gorgeous princess cut diamond in white gold. He held it out to her and asked the question she’d been waiting for, “Will you marry me, Tara?”
Tara threw her arms around him and practically knocked him on the floor. She covered his face in kisses and he chuckled as she said “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES! I love you, Riley. I love you so much. I never knew how empty my life was until I met you. You’re part of me, Riley, you make me whole.”
He kissed her deeply and then held the ring out. “Let’s see how it fits, sweetheart. I tied a string around your finger this morning while you were sleeping so I hope it worked.” He slid it over her finger and it fit perfectly. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I love you so much, sweetheart.”
Tara turned at the sound of clapping and a few whistles to find that several of the restaurant staff as well as all of the patrons were watching them with big smiles. She blushed and laughed before pulling out her cell phone. “We need to commemorate this moment.” She said, and then looked at the face of her phone. “Hey, look! I actually have service here.” She chuckled before she held the phone up in front of them, leaned her head against Riley’s and said “Smile, sweetheart.” She took the picture.
On the drive back Tara knew she was chattering a mile a minute but she couldn’t seem to stop herself, she was just too excited. She told Riley how Addie had never been able to plan a fancy wedding for her son so she’d like to do something special that Addie could help with, but she didn’t want a long engagement, she wanted to be his wife too badly for that, but Addie was a mastermind so that shouldn’t be a problem. Since they both had houses so close, did he have thoughts on where they should live? He suggested her house was bigger and would be better for when they started their family but they both agreed they’d get a hot tub for the deck just like his. She rambled on about colors and dresses and cakes and oh, wouldn’t a fall wedding be lovely with the colorful leaves? Riley would just shake his head and chuckle and say “I love you, sweetheart, the sooner you’re Mrs. Riley Cooper the happier I’ll be. You tell me what you need and where to be and I’m there.”
“Mrs. Riley Cooper,” she repeated with a sigh and flashed Riley a huge smile. “I can’t wait.”
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to his side, keeping his attention on the road while he tipped his head slightly to kiss the top of hers. “I can’t either, sweetheart.”
When they got to her house, Tara went straight to the kitchen to put her roses in water and set them in the center of the table. She sensed Riley behind her and smiled. “Do you remember that night I almost shot you?” She asked.
Riley wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. “No, but I do remember the night you brutally murdered the ceiling.” He chuckled. “Speaking of that, I think you should bring your gun tomorrow on the hike. I want to see you shoot to make sure you can actually hit what you’re aiming for.”
Tara laughed “I think you’ll be impressed, I’m a damn fine shot.”
Riley ran his hands up under her top to cup her breasts through her bra. “What I remember about that night was this gorgeous body of yours completely bare.”
Tara pushed her backside tighter to Riley’s obvious arousal and rubbed. “I wanted you to kiss me so badly. Even though you scared me and irritated me, I wanted you right here on this kitchen floor.”
Riley growled low. “And I wanted nothing more than to take you right then, sweetheart. You have no idea how hard it was for me to resist. I thought I was going to bust the zipper on my pants.” He said with a chuckle.
Tara laughed too and turned her face to look at him. “How about we recreate the moment but without weapons this time?”
Riley smiled. “You’re overdressed.” He said, “Let me fix that.”
Within moments Riley had stripped her bare and she was on the floor of the kitchen with his wonderful weight pressing down on her. She grabbed him by the back of the head, her hands tangling in his hair and she lifted her face to kiss him, her legs wrapping around his waist and her bare toes running up and down his denim clad thighs. She broke the kiss to murmur against his mouth “I love you, Riley.”
Riley groaned. “God, I love you. I think this first round is going to be a quick one, sweetheart.”
Tara kissed his jaw and his throat, one of her hands moving between them to unfasten his pants. “That’s fine with me, we have all night.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Riley nudged Tara awake and she groaned. “It can’t be morning yet; five more minutes.” She grumbled.
He laughed. “Come on, sweetheart, daylight’s wasting; or is it that you’re afraid to show me you don’t really know how to use that gun?”
She raised an eyebrow, “I’m just trying to spare your pride, Riley Cooper, when you realize I’m a better shot than you.”
He threw back his head and hooted with laughter. His mate amused him so much; he didn’t think he’d ever laughed as much as he did with her. She was good for him. He rubbed her leg through the covers. “Come on, we’re more likely to find Sebastian closer to his territory in the morning, otherwise we probably won’t see him until after dark.”
“What does he do all day?” Tara asked as she threw the covers off and headed for the bathroom.
Riley leaned just outside the door while she tended to her needs. “He doesn’t go to grocery stores like we do, he lives pretty primitive. He catches fish, gathers berries, hunts, that sort of thing. Hell, I don’t think his cabin even has a bathroom, he probably just has some furs on the floor to sleep on and a fire to keep him warm and cook his food.”
“You’ve never been inside?” She asked.
Riley shrugged despite the fact that he knew she couldn’t see him. “He’s not exactly the type to invite someone in for tea, sweetheart. He doesn’t do small talk. He comes outside, listens to whatever you need to say and that’s about it. He’s really not social at all.”
He heard Tara turn on the shower and then she said around what sounded like a mouth full of toothbrush. “I can’t imagine someone choosing to live like that. Do you know why he does?”
Riley raised his voice so she could hear him over the water. “He had a falling out of some sort with his sleuth. He doesn’t talk much about it, and I don’t press him for details.”
“Sleuth? Isn’t that a detective?”
“It’s also what you call a group of bears. Wolves are in a pack, bears in a sleuth.”
She mumbled “Learn something new every day.” But with his keen ears he had no problem hearing her. He smiled.
A few minutes later, she came out of the shower dressed in jeans, hiking boots and T-shirt; she was braiding her wet hair. “It’s a bit chilly this morning, so you may want to grab a sweatshirt.”
She nodded and took out a big gray sweatshirt from her dresser that said NYU on the chest. She pulled it over her head and then tugged her long tail of hair out. The sweatshirt reminded him of her work. “Have you heard anything back on your submission?”
She shook her head as she went to her nightstand and pulled her gun out of the drawer. She checked it and then tucked it in the waistband of her pants before pulling the sweatshirt down over her backside. He was disappointed it hid her lovely ass from his view.
“I had just sent it right before Mom passed, so it actually hasn’t been that long, these things take time.”
“What’s this one about?” He asked and she seemed pleased by his interest.
“This one’s a bit different from my usual work, it’s about a woman who is constantly complaining about her life and her inability to find love so an angel appears to her and offers her a mirror so that she can see how things would have turned out if she had made different decisions during key momen
ts in her life. What is so different from her current life is that in each of those alternate time lines her Mister Right is there. So she uses clues from what the mirror showed her to track him down in this reality and change her life, of course, hilarity ensues.”
Riley nodded chuckling. “It all sounds good to me, sweetheart.”
Her look grew thoughtful. “Hard to believe in such a short time my life has changed so drastically. You’d think at least a year had gone by, but it hasn’t even been a month.”
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “Does that bother you?”
She shook her head, “With the exception of my mother passing, all of the changes have been wonderful. I mean I found you, I found my family, this town. Hell, I found myself.” She smiled up at him. “All good things.”
He nodded and kissed her nose before he let her go. “Good. Are you ready? We need to stop at Sherry’s office and the diner to get our food.”
They stopped at the diner first and ordered sandwiches, chips, a couple of bottled waters and two pies to be packed up in a picnic basket Tara had found at her place, and had breakfast and coffee while they waited. Sherry’s office was a lot quicker. As soon as Riley came through the door, Sherry’s assistant Malcolm handed him the letter.
“She’s on the phone right now, Coop, but she’ll be so happy to know that you’re getting this off her desk.” Malcolm said and then lowered his voice to a whisper. “She doesn’t like anyone knowing she’s scared of anything, but she is definitely scared of him.”
Riley nodded and then looked down at the envelope in his hand. The preprinted return address had an image of a bear followed by Fuller, Keaton & Wade, Attorneys at Law, Mariposa, CA. Riley frowned, folded the letter and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans. If Sebastian had travelled all the way from California he’d sure put some distance between him and his people – an entire country in fact.
They headed out of the center of town and Riley pulled his truck off at the path that led out toward Sebastian’s territory. He helped Tara out and grabbed the basket to hook over his arm. When they reached the stream, he helped Tara across and she said “This is the way Jacob and I came that day we ran into the cat shifter. He wants to teach me how to fish.” Then she frowned. “What happened with that guy – the cat? I know he wasn’t doing well, did he die?”
Riley nodded, “The next night. The council contacted his pride in Florida to tell them that he had been killed by a bear; they left the females out of it. His people were surprised to discover he was so far north and had no idea why he was there, so that’s good news for the ladies. We had his body and his personal effects shipped back to them.”
Suddenly, the report of a gunshot cracked through the air setting off a cacophony of birds. Riley and Tara both froze. He looked around and then grabbed Tara’s arm to quickly pull her back toward the stream and some of the large boulders. He pushed her down behind one and set the basket down next to her. “I want you to stay here, sweetheart. The boulders should provide cover if we have hunters. Keep your eyes and ears open. I need to go check that out. It sounded like it came from Sebastian’s territory.”
“Maybe he’s hunting?” She asked, looking hopeful. Riley shook his head. “He doesn’t hunt with a rifle and bear season just started. My guess is poachers.”
She stood up and grabbed him to kiss him. “Be careful.” She said, and crouched back down behind the rock.
He gave a quick nod and took off toward Sebastian’s at a run. Before he got to the clearing he could smell them, two hunters, Sebastian, and the acrid scent of spent gunpowder.
Then he could hear them “We got us a big one, Sam.” A grunt, “Christ, how much do you think this son of a bitch weighs?” followed by “Just get him tied up and we’ll drag him to the truck.”
Both hunters had their backs to him as he approached and both were armed with rifles. Riley was close enough now to make his presence known. “You men need to drop your weapons and step away from that bear.”
Both of them spun, their rifles in hand and he saw the younger one raise his rifle just slightly and he knew the boy was going to shoot, Riley discharged his own weapon but he felt something impact high on his chest before he even heard the report. He saw the boy fall, saw the look of shock on the other hunter’s face as Riley started to fall but his last thought was of Tara; she was waiting for him, he needed to protect her, before everything went black.
Tara tried to do what Riley had told her. She tapped her thigh. She had always been one of those people when she was watching a movie and the woman didn’t do what she was told to scream at the screen Just do what you were told! You wouldn’t be in this mess if you had just listened! She never thought she would be in the situation where someone might be screaming the same at her if her story were on the screen. She groaned, covered her face for a moment but then carefully looked around the boulder. If there were hunters with guns in the woods then Riley may need her, or at least another gun. She took a deep breath and followed him.
She had barely taken twenty steps when she heard two gunshots almost simultaneously. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest and her stomach rolled. She ran, not caring as tree branches scratched at her face and snagged at her clothing, her only thought was reaching Riley, yet scared at what she would find.
When she reached the clearing the first thing she saw was Riley on the ground, unmoving. One hunter was also on the ground, a bloom of blood easy to see on his chest. Sebastian was in shift, also on the ground with ropes around him and one hunter was standing with a rifle in his hand. Tara snarled. She felt her eyes and teeth shift, but stopped short of shifting fully. The hunter was armed and as a wolf her chances were pretty high she’d be shot.
Think, Tara, use your head. You need to be smart about this.
She pulled her gun and crept closer to ensure accuracy before shooting the hand that held the rifle. He screamed, the rifle falling to the ground as he clutched his bloody hand.
The hunter turned his head to look at her with disbelieving eyes. “You fucking shot me, you bitch!”
“The next one is to your fucking head if you so much as breathe wrong.” She growled. She approached him, her gun pointed at his head, watching him closely. When she got to him, she kicked his rifle away, turned her gun and just like the cat shifter had done to Jacob and her, she wacked him across the head with the butt.
As soon as the hunter hit the ground she went to Riley. She hadn’t been able to see it from a distance with his black sweatshirt, but this close she could see the blood all over his chest. “No, no, no, no, no! NO, Riley!” She grabbed hold of his sweatshirt and with strength she didn’t know she possessed, ripped it open to see the damage. The hole was high on his chest, close to his collar bone but it was bleeding badly. She yanked her sweatshirt off, pressed it to the wound and checked his pulse. He still had one but it was weak. “Don’t you do this to me, Riley! Don’t you dare leave me! Do you hear me? Wake up, Riley, please, please wake up!”
She heard a groan and a mutter and she spun, her gun raised thinking one of the hunters had come around only to find Sebastian, still lying on the ground, had shifted back to skin and was working his way jerkily out of the now loose ropes, blood covering his mid-section. “Radio” he gasped.
She gaped at him and he glared. “Radio, in my cabin” he tried again. “Get help.” And then he roared “RUN!”
Tara got up and ran as fast as she could for Sebastian’s cabin. His disjointed speech finally penetrated the panic induced fog in her brain. He had a radio in his cabin and she could call for help.
When she burst through the doors of the old wooden structure it took her moment to adjust to the dim interior. She shifted her eyes to reduce the glare and spotted the radio immediately sitting up on a shelf with some books. She turned it on and immediately started saying “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? I need help, please!”
A male voice on the other end said, “This is Malsum Pass, what’s your emergenc
y?”
Tara nearly cried with relief. “This is Tara Mason; I’m out at Sebastian Black’s cabin. Sebastian and Riley have both been shot by hunters.”
“We’re on our way, Tara; can you stay on the line with me until help arrives?”
Tara choked on a sob. “No, I need to be with Riley, he’s dying, please come quick.”
She dropped the handset and ran out of the cabin and back to Riley. She saw that Sebastian had grabbed a cloth from somewhere, possibly the hunters and was pressing it to his own wound. But she couldn’t help him right now, all her focus was on Riley. She pushed down on her sweatshirt that covered his chest and checked his pulse. The stain of red on her sweatshirt was spreading, he was bleeding out and she felt absolutely helpless. She put her cheek close to his lips to feel his breath and then she whispered in his ear. “I love you, Riley Cooper. You promised me forever so you can’t leave me. Do you understand? Can you hear me, Riley? I won’t let you out of your promise that easy. We have babies to make, and a house to fill; we have runs to go on, and hot tubs to soak in. We’re more than a handful of days, Riley.” She was sobbing now, “Please don’t leave me. I just found you, and I don’t think I can do this without you.”
Tara heard Sebastian rumble “They come” mere seconds before she heard the ATV’s. She felt someone try to pull her away from Riley and she reacted out of instinct, she snarled viciously and covered him with her body. She felt arms wrap around her from behind and her father’s voice finally penetrated her brain. “Calm, baby girl, they need to be able to get to him to help him. The helicopter will be here soon. We need to get him prepped and he’ll be airlifted out of here to a trauma center, sweetheart. Do you understand? Are you calm?”
Malsum Pass Page 19
