by S. A. Ravel
“Dirk, your mother won’t speak to me, Marlow Tenwick is demanding your official proposal to his daughter, and there’s reports of a rogue in the area. This is not the time for one of your tantrums!” With each word Cyrus raised the volume of his voice, so that by the end, Dirk had to pull the receiver away from his ear. If they’d been in the same room the weight of Cyrus’s dominance would have crushed Dirk, but it didn’t work as well over the phone.
“A rogue?” If a rogue shifter wandered into the area, Dirk had even less time. Unprotected, Dirk was a sure target. That meant Rachel was too, as long as she was with him.
“I sent a tracker up to the lake to find you. They found Cass Tenwick instead. A rogue must’ve gotten him. Ripped the poor bastard’s throat out.”
Dirk kept his breathing even, but the grizzly inside him growled in warning. “Probably figured he’d make a name for himself by taking out an Alpha’s son. Nothing new about that.”
“Nothing new at all. By the way, they brought your car home.”
Dirk sat down on the bed near the curve of Rachel’s legs. He’d known someone would find Cass’s body, but he’d counted on it being a random tracker or one of Tenwick’s boys. And he hadn’t counted on them finding his car. It was a stupid mistake, and too much leverage to give Cyrus. “What do you want?”
The polite pretense fell away from Cyrus’s voice. “I’m having dinner with Marlow Tenwick. What I tell him at dinner is up to you.”
“Another damned ultimatum?”
“You seem to need help making the right decisions. I want you home, by sunset,” he said. “And bring the caterer with you.”
“She’s got nothing to do with this.” Dirk looked at Rachel, still asleep and unaware that their time was almost up.
“Normally, I would agree with you, but there’s the picture she sent your mother. And you certainly didn’t walk to that motel. Bring her. When I’m satisfied she will follow the rules, she can go. And good riddance.
Dirk laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You must need that marriage to go through pretty bad.”
“I might not have before your stunt at the lake. You’re a Greenwood, and a Greenwood always faces the consequences of their actions, once they’ve decided the best consequences to take.”
Dirk looked at Rachel. If he ran, Cyrus might not follow. If he was lucky, Cyrus would let Marlow Tenwick believe that a rogue shifter killed his only son, and that Dirk had barely escaped. But Dirk had never been lucky, and if his luck ran out, it could mean more than his life. It could mean Rachel’s.
“By sunset.” He clenched his fist, ignoring the sting as his nails bit into the flesh of his palm. Dirk tossed the phone onto the bed and raked his fingers through his hair. He couldn’t run. He needed to fight, but he didn’t know how to fight his father’s schemes. He’d beaten one rage-blind shifter on familiar ground, the Alpha was different. Even if he wanted to challenge Cyrus, that right belonged to his brother. Wherever he was.
He reached over and stroked Rachel’s shoulder. She moaned in her sleep, but this time the sound was like a punch in his gut. “Rachel?”
She turned toward him and rubbed her eyes with her hands. He almost hated to spoil the adorable moment with his news. “Hm?”
“Cyrus called,” he said. “He gave me until sunset to go home. And he wants you to come too.”
She brushed her tousled dark hair away from her eyes and rubbed them again, as if the gesture could will the fatigue from her mind. “He knows?”
Dirk nodded. “His trackers found Cass half an hour ago.”
Rachel tossed the blanket aside and climbed to her feet. “How bad is it?” She tugged on her jeans.
Dirk stroked one of her cheeks with his thumb. “I promise you, everything will be okay.”
Somehow, he would make everything okay. And he only had until sunset to figure out how.
Rachel clicked off the motel television and tossed the remote aside. Nothing was interesting enough to distract her from her racing thoughts. Cyrus’s call obliterated the timeline Rachel worked out for them. He must have called in another hunter as soon as she left the building. She’d known Cyrus wouldn’t hold up his end of the deal, but she’d underestimated how quickly he’d act. That was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. Not now.
Dirk swore that she wasn’t in danger, but she couldn’t shake their earlier conversation. Humans weren’t meant to know about shifters. Now she was on the radar of a man with nothing to lose and too much leverage over her already. If she and Dirk didn’t play carefully, it could cost Rachel her life.
She heard the telltale whirl of a keycard in the lock and looked up as Dirk walked into the room, his arms full of fast-food bags.
“I hope you’re hungry. I’m starving,” he said as he set the bags on the small plastic table.
“Not really, but I’ll eat anyway,” she said. His lips curved that lopsided smile she loved as he walked to her. He leaned down and scooped her into his arms.
“Hey! It’s two feet. I can walk.” Rachel squirmed in his hands, but his grip on her was iron-tight.
“I’m not so sure about that. I haven’t forgotten the woods.” He grinned as he crossed the room in two steps and set her down in the armchair.
“It was dark. And you knew I was going in the wrong direction!” She rapped him on the chest with her knuckles, but the strong muscles there barely moved.
Dirk leaned down and brushed the curve of her neck with his lips. A shiver of pleasure ran through her. “That was mean, I admit it. Forgive me?”
She pretended to think about it for a few seconds before smiling and turning her head to catch his lips. “Forgiven.” She glanced up into his eyes. Twelve hours ago those eyes held nothing but suspicion. Now they gazed down at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world.
He stole another quick kiss, then sat in the metal desk chair. He reached into one of the bags and pulled out a plastic-topped tray and a carton of orange juice.
“You found breakfast in the middle of the afternoon?”
Dirk shrugged as he continued unpacking the food. “Wasn’t hard. Everybody wants breakfast all the time now. There’s nothing but fast food around here. I hope you like it,” he said as he set a box of juice and plastic platter of food in front of her.
“I bet you’re used to thick-cut bacon, fresh pancakes, and vegetable juice prepared by a personal chef,” she teased.
“Pfft. Pancakes, no. Bacon and juice, yes. Ana’s a genius at flavor combinations.” He tore open his carton of orange juice and drained the entire thing in one gulp. “This stuff is just sugar water.” He tossed the offending container into the trash.
“Are you serious? You actually have a chef?”
“Technically she’s the housekeeper. Mama cooks most of the meals. Ana just handles breakfast.”
“Must be nice.” Rachel speared a hunk of eggs with her fork and slid the mass into her mouth.
“Not really. Ana comes with the house. The house comes with my father.” He snatched a thin, limp piece of bacon between his fingers and shook it back and forth. “Then again this hardly qualifies as bacon.”
Rachel giggled. “Ah well, you could learn to cook and save yourself an eternity of soggy bacon.”
“I know how to cook.”
“I didn’t think Cyrus would approve. You know, his big, strong bear of a son knowing how to cook.”
“Hell, no. He hates it, but Mama insisted. She didn’t want her sons to rely on other people for a decent meal.” Dirk’s brow furrowed as he slid the floppy piece of bacon into his mouth. “I cook okay, but Maddock was always better at it. Flavors are intuitive, and my brother is all about intuition.”
He was quiet for a while. Rachel realized that he hadn’t mentioned his brother much at all, and only once by name. “Tell me about him.”
“Maddock? He’s a good man. Funny as hell. Arrogant, but a good man. Hates our father. Hated him even before Cyrus exiled him.” Dirk set h
is plastic fork onto the tray and tossed the entire thing into the nearby trashcan.
Rachel nodded. Cyrus Greenwood was easy to hate; she knew that well enough. “Do you hear from him?”
Dirk shook his head, his eyes on the far wall of the room and his hands balled into fists. “He deserved better than to be sent off to die alone.”
She swallowed hard. Until that moment, she’d let the death sentence hanging over their heads slip from her mind. She glanced at the clock. Six p.m. Time was slipping away, and they were no closer to a plan. She set her fork down on the table. Suddenly, she wasn’t hungry either.
“What about your family?” he asked. “Mother, father, two-point-five kids?”
Rachel shook her head, but did her best to smile. At least they could enjoy the time they had left. “Mom and Dad. I’m number two of three. Everybody’s still in Seattle. All bail bondsmen. Well, really my sister just keeps the office running.” She reached across the table and stroked Dirk’s hand.
“Ah, that explains the handcuffs. That was a dirty trick, by the way.” The lopsided smile returned to his face.
“You have long legs and you know the area. I’d do it again.”
“That’s my girl,” he said. The words gave Rachel a strange surge of pride. “Why didn’t you follow the others into the business?”
Rachel drained the last of her orange juice. Nobody outside of her family had ever asked her why. Why did she walk away from her family business? Why had she picked up and moved two states away? Of all the stories she had, that one she disliked the most. But she didn’t want to hide any part of herself from him.
“I started doing paperwork for my dad right after high school. My brother was already a bondsman by then. This woman came in one day to get a bond for her husband. She was beat up. Black eye. Swollen lip.”
“He sounds like a prince,” Dirk said.
“Yeah, he beat the hell out of her, and then she put up their house as collateral to get him out. She was actually freaking out because the state was going to press charges. I wrote up the paperwork. The police were back at that house before the month was out.”
“Did she ever leave?”
Rachel shook her head. “She never got the chance. I talked to her sister after. He’d been beating her for years. Her body just finally gave out.”
Dirk reached for her cheek and wiped away a tear near the corner of her eye. “You couldn’t have stopped that.”
“I know. It’s just… you go into that business thinking you’ll help people. I had these visions of little old ladies bailing their orphaned grandsons out of jail for some stupid prank. And I thought, ‘This will be the thing that sets him on the right path,’ but it’s never like that. It’s just bad guys and the people who hope to hell for a happy ending that never comes. And me in the middle taking a cut of their misfortune.” Rachel wiped her nose with one of the paper napkins. “After that I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“That’s when you moved to LA?”
“And became a caterer.” She laughed softly. “At least that way no third parties get hurt. Unless I over-salt something.” The joke sounded weak to her ears, but she’d learned long ago to cover pain with a joke. It took some of the sting away, and she had a feeling there was a lot of pain waiting for them at that house.
He chewed his lip for a moment. “Rachel, do you regret helping me last night?”
“No,” she whispered. “You’re a good guy.”
He slid from his chair and knelt in front of her. “I’ll make this right. Trust me.”
Rachel nodded. “With my life.”
9
Rachel folded the checkout receipt and stuffed it into her pocket as she stepped outside. It was already getting dark, though they still had an hour to get back to Crestline, and Rachel’s stomach roiled in the residual heat of the day.
Dirk slouched against a grungy stucco wall of the motel. He smiled when he saw Rachel, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Nervous?”
“Not at all,” she said. Maybe if she pretended to be brave, she would be. “You can smell fear, can’t you?”
Dirk laughed. Rachel loved that sound and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“I don’t need to smell it, love. I can see it.” He stroked her arm and pulled her closer. “He’ll just want you to agree not to tell anyone. He may even throw in some extra money. As long as you agree, he won’t do anything to hurt you.”
She smiled and looped her arms around his neck. “Determined to calm me down?”
He laughed. “That and I really don’t want you to puke on my shoes.”
Dirk’s body tensed and he sniffed the air. A slight tremble moved through him, so slight that Rachel might have mistaken it for a shiver, if the warmth radiating from the parking lot black top didn’t already have beads of sweat gathering at his brow.
She looked around the nearly vacant parking lot. Nothing had changed that she could see. “What is it?”
“A shifter. Get to the van. Lock yourself in.” Dirk’s tone left no room for argument. Then again, what could she really do against a man who could turn into a eight-hundred-pound bear? She ran for the van and locked herself in. Her heart pounded as she looked on. She had no idea how many shifters there were, but she didn’t want to bet on coincidence. And the last shifter she’d encountered tried to kill her.
Across the parking lot, Rachel saw Dirk raise his chin and sniff the air again. He stepped back from the staircase as a man came down. The man was a few inches taller and broader than Dirk, so that his leatherjacket stretched tight across his shoulders. Even from far away, Rachel could see the muscles of his thighs bulge under his jeans. What kind of monster would he turn into?
Dirk turned to face the man, and Rachel lost sight of his face. They exchanged words, but Rachel couldn’t hear from so far away. Maybe he was giving Dirk a chance to come peacefully.
Rachel leaned forward and gripped the door handle. She couldn’t fight. Not a bear or a man that big. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to sit there and watch while Dirk fought for her. As she reached to unlock the door, the leather-clad man smiled and pulled Dirk into a hug.
She pushed the van door open and climbed out just as Dirk motioned for her to come over.
Rachel went to Dirk’s side, but stayed an arm’s length away from the muscular man. Up close the man was younger than he looked from far away. About Dirk’s age with hazel eyes that trended more toward green than brown. “Friend of yours?”
Dirk nodded, the lopsided smile back on his face. She could feel the excitement radiating off of him. “Maddock, this is Rachel. Rachel, this is Maddock, my brother.”
Maddock looked from Rachel to Dirk and back, then grinned and extended his hand to her. “Nice to meet you, Rachel. I’ll be damned. Little brother found his mate. Does Cyrus know?”
“Not yet,” Dirk said. His arm protectively snaked around Rachel’s waist. “But if you can smell it, he definitely will.”
“Smell what?” Rachel asked.
Maddock winked at her, a huge grin spreading over his face. “It’s a bear thing.” He laughed. “Oh, man! He’s gonna shit himself.”
Rachel’s hands trembled. Dirk kept her thoughts focused on Cyrus’s reaction to her learning about shifters. It hadn’t occurred to her that meant they couldn’t be together either. She stuffed her hands into her jeans so the two men couldn’t see them shaking.
Dirk pulled her closer, though Rachel couldn’t say if he’d seen her shaking or could still smell her nerves again. Damned bears and their supernatural sense of smell. “Thanks, Maddock. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I came for the party, bro! What better way to piss Cyrus off than crash his damned masquerade?”
Dirk blinked in surprise. “Maddock…the ball was yesterday.”
“Yeah well, you know me and schedules.” Maddock waved a hand dismissively.
Dirk wasn’t having it. “I do
, but why are you really here?”
“All in due time, little brother. Right now I’ve got a date at the compound. Where’re you two lovebirds headed?”
“To the compound,” Rachel said.
The ever-present grin fell away from Maddock’s face. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t have a choice. We’ve been summoned. Both of us.”
Maddock took a deep breath and scrubbed at the stubble on his face with his hands. “Then let’s get this show on the road.” Maddock clapped Dirk on the shoulder and sauntered toward a black luxury car parked at the far end of the lot.
Dirk pulled Rachel into his arms again and held her tight. Every part of her wanted to melt in those strong arms. To listen to the rhythm of his heart until it lulled her to sleep. In sleep everything might be okay. There wouldn’t be animal men that wanted to kill her or rip away the only person she’d cared for in a long time.
He buried his nose against her hair. “What did I tell you, Rachel?”
“Trust you.”
“Then trust me,” he whispered against her lips. “Whatever happens. Trust me.”
The trees were prettier in the daylight than Rachel had expected them to be. There was nature in Los Angeles, but never so close. In a way, the towering pines reminded her of home. And they provided a welcome distraction as the van lurched closer to the Greenwood family home.
Dirk didn’t say much on the ride north. Neither did she. It was enough that they were close to one another. They exchanged glances now and then. One would reach and stroke the other’s thigh. But the touches were hesitant, as if each feared the other might disappear.
“This is it,” he said as he turned the van onto another hill.
The house that came into view as they reached the top of the hill wasn’t what Rachel expected. She’d expected something called the “compound” to be surrounded by ivy-covered brick walls and towering iron fences. The house itself would be a giant throwback to East Coast architecture with a mishmash of Spanish and Roman influences thrown in, like every other mansion in LA. Instead, the house was all honey-colored wood and clear glass so that it appeared to be bathed in the light of an autumn sunset, though the sun wasn’t quite low enough yet.
