by Kimber White
“You wanna go?” Rick said it.
He staggered forward. Someone had shoved him from the back. I kept my fists clenched and tried to control my breathing.
“I’ve got no beef with any of you,” I said, my tone still measured. It wouldn’t last. “You’ve made your point. I said I didn’t come here looking for a mate. I just wanna do my job and get paid same as the rest of you. When the season’s over, I’m heading home. That’s all.”
A fist came at me. I didn’t see who threw it. I didn’t care. I acted on instinct, raising a hand, I curled it around hard knuckles and shoved the man back. It was a young kid named Hal. The others were loudmouths, but Hal never said a damn word. I don’t think I’d ever talked to him before except to say hello or pass him on the road down to the plant. But, Rick’s words and Kincaid’s threat had been enough to stir this man’s animal. I saw the black bear in his eyes. Hungry. Feral.
With one swift move, I had him on his back. I hovered over him, fist curled. Hal’s eyes had gone midnight black. Fur sprouted on the backs of his hands. His fingernails turned to claws.
“Enough!”
Ash’s voice cut through. She’d jumped into a small four-wheeler and torn straight up the hill. The mining inspector sat beside her, his eyes blazing. He was human. Who knew if he understood what we all were. This was nothing. This was shifters. In another minute, it would have all been over and we’d be back at work. But, to a regular guy, this had to seem like chaos.
“We good?” Ash shouted. She stared straight through me. From where she sat, I probably looked like the first aggressor. Hal tried to buck my foot in his chest.
“Let him up!” Ash said.
I blinked hard, then straightened, lifting my foot from Hal’s chest. To his credit, he stayed down for a moment longer as his bear eyes dimmed then turned their normal hazel again. Kincaid held a hand out to him. Hal shook it off and got to his feet. He had the decency to hang his head. Ash and the inspector may not have seen what started all this, but Hal knew.
“Just a minor misunderstanding,” I said.
“Right,” the inspector said. He looked the part with wispy red hair, glasses perched at the end of his nose, and an actual pocket protector in his short-sleeved dress shirt. He wrote some notes on a clipboard and slid out of the four-wheeler.
“Go ahead and look around,” Ash said, forcing a smile. “You know where to find me if you have any questions.”
She glared at me. Heat thundered through me. Her scent hit me full on. I couldn’t act quickly enough. Stinky, Kincaid, Rick, Hal, and all the other men saw exactly what Ash’s presence did to me.
“Let’s take a ride,” Ash said.
I took a breath and climbed into the four-wheeler beside her. She whipped the wheel around hard enough I had to grab the frame to keep from tumbling out. Then, she tore down the hill toward my trailer.
As soon as we were clear of the sightline of the rest of the crew, she slammed on the brakes and jumped out. She headed right for the trailer and slammed the door behind her. I took a beat, then followed her in.
Ash whirled on me. “Is there some problem I should know about?”
“Me? Are you kidding? You think I…”
“Look,” she said, pacing. “I like you, Loch. I think you’re a hard worker. I think you could be a real asset to the crew if you can figure out how to fit in. I don’t know what that was about up there, and I don’t really care. But, that inspector could shut me down with the stroke of a pen. I’m pretty sure he’s thinking about it.”
“I know that,” I said. “And that was nothing. That was just Hal dealing with a little testosterone poisoning.”
“And you saw fit to help him?”
“Uh, he put a hand on me. I wasn’t going to…”
She put her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose. “Things aren’t good for me right now, Loch. I suppose I should have told you that straight off. But, I need harmony at this jobsite. Whether it’s your fault or not, having you here has caused some...issues...with the other men that I hadn’t anticipated.”
What happened next took me completely by surprise. It was just the tiniest thing. As Ash held her hand to her face, I noticed a tiny cut near her wrist. It was just a scrape, really. There were a thousand things you could hurt yourself on in a place like this. She might have done it getting out of the damn ATV, even. But, the sight of her blood set off a chain reaction in me.
I went off like a shot, pulling her to me.
“What the…”
“Your arm,” I said, holding it up to the light. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m what?” Ash tried to pull her arm back, but I held her firm. I could see that it really was nothing. It barely needed a dressing, but once my fire ignited, there was no stopping it.
The room went bright white as my eyes flashed. She saw it. I couldn’t contain it. Her touch, the nearness of her… She undid me.
The urge to kiss her, to have her press her body against mine nearly drove me to my knees. I focused on a tiny pulse in her neck. I felt the warmth of her blood. I think she felt the fire in mine. Ash’s lips parted, ever so slightly. She cocked her head back. Her breath touched me.
Oh, God.
“Loch?” she said, breathless.
I tried to get a hold of myself. I brought her to the tiny sink at the front of the trailer and grabbed a paper towel. I ran the water and got some soap. Ash seemed as thunderstruck as I was. She stood mute as I cleaned her wound and pressed the cloth to her.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “But a cut like that could get infected easily in a place like this.
She reached for me, fueled by a fire of her own. Before either of us knew what was happening, she laid a light hand against my face, cupping my jaw.
“Your eyes,” she said.
“You should get back to your inspector,” I said. “I got your message. Loud and clear. I’ll try not to stir up the guys out there. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Your eyes,” she said again.
Shit. I didn’t need a mirror to know she could see the fire behind them. It would be unlike anything she’d ever witnessed. They weren’t silver like most wolves. Not gold like her tiger father. Not deepest black like the bears she knew.
I was an idiot for letting her get this close to me. But, with each breath I took, I felt her pulse begin to match my own. It meant… No. It couldn’t. She was… I was…
“Loch,” she said, breathless.
A beat passed. Then another. She had me transfixed. Ash stayed rooted in her spot, her hand against my skin. I turned my head. I kissed her palm. I felt her melt.
“I know you,” she whispered, even though I knew she couldn’t.
I might have kissed her. I might have slid my arm around her waist and never let her go.
I never got the chance. The door to the trailer flew open and my blood turned to molten lava. Ash felt it. She drew her hand away. I gripped the countertop so hard, the wood cracked. Ash jumped.
“Ash!” A deep, booming voice cut the air. For a second, I expected to see Clint Yeager burst in. Instead, it was another Alpha tiger, huge, filled with fury, his eyes blazing gold and black.
“Will!” Ash said, dropping back. The column of her throat twitched as she swallowed hard.
Will Yeager, Alpha tiger, Ash’s brother held the trailer door open and beckoned his sister to join him.
Chapter Six
Ash
I felt like my heart wasn’t mine. Like it was beating out of my body. Loch’s touch. Loch’s heat. Loch’s eyes.
Those eyes.
He tried to hide them. I realized he’d been doing that since the first second I met him. He looked to the side, downward. Shifters do that sometimes, but not usually around me. And Loch’s eyes were…
I’d seen them before. Somewhere. But, he was like no shifter I’d ever met. If anything, he seemed even more powerful.
And all of that was exactly why I needed to get the h
ell out of that trailer. Even before my brother showed up, his own animal stirred.
“We’ll finish this later,” I said to Loch, not sure what I even meant by that. I was pretty damn sure that if Will hadn’t charged in, I would have planted a kiss right on Loch’s luscious lips.
Shit.
I tossed the towel Loch had given me on the kitchen counter and headed for the front door. Loch stood still as a statue, those eyes of his glinting with what looked like real fire.
Will’s truck was parked at an angle in front of the trailer, his engine still running. “Will,” I said. “I can’t just take off. Just meet me at my trailer. I’ve still got a mining inspector crawling around out there.”
“He just left,” Will said. “I caught him up by the wash plant.”
“You caught him? What did you say?”
“I took care of it,” Will said, his nostrils flaring. God, my brother was the spitting image of my father. He was all tiger with his sandy blond hair, tanned skin, and muscled forearms.
“I didn’t ask you to take care of it,” I said, brushing past him. Still, relief flooded through me. If the inspector left, it meant he hadn’t seen anything worth investigating further. At least not today. I just didn’t like the idea that Will had stormed through here. It sent a confusing message to the crew. When was I going to get the men of my family to understand that?
I climbed into the truck cab. Will got in and slammed his door. His tires spun in the dirt as he pulled around. From the side mirror, I could see Loch standing in the doorway of his trailer. His eyes were still glinting. I prayed Will hadn’t seen them and wondered why. What was I trying to hide?
Will took to the dirt roads, maneuvering his truck with ease. It was just a short distance up to my father’s main office at the north end of our land. As Will made the final turn, I saw Dad’s truck parked outside. My mother was standing in the doorway. She gave us a bright smile and waved as Will parked.
My mother was a stunning woman. She stood well over six feet tall and had a mass of dark hair with striking white stripes that ran from her temples. She refused to dye it. She pulled me into a hug as I came up the steps. Not before I saw her wolf eyes flash at Will. Of course she could sense the tension in him.
Dad was waiting for all of us in his office, poring over the survey map on a new claim he wanted to buy. It weighed on him. We needed to find new virgin ground if we wanted to keep the business going into the next decade. We were just a couple years from mining out what we had.
“So, what’s the trouble?” he said, not even looking up from the maps.
I looked back at Will. He stood with his arms tightly crossed, filling the entire doorframe. My mother scooted around him. She took the seat in front of my father’s desk and put her feet up, obstructing his view of the map. He grunted and she gave him an impish smile that melted him like always. Over thirty years together, and my parents were still deeply in love. Most days, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Fated mates. My parents had the rarest of loves that only came for Alphas. When I was little, I’d made her tell me the story of their meeting hundreds of times. To me, it always sounded like a fairytale. My father emerged out of the woods on her father’s land. A trespasser. A tiger. And she knew in an instant that he was meant for her. He fought for her. Nearly died for her. And they rode off together to build a life of their own.
Fated mates. The phrase pulsed through me. She said her heart started beating with my father’s from the first moment they touched.
Loch’s fiery eyes appeared in my mind. Heat coiled through me. My heart… No. Dammit. No. He was some kind of shifter. I knew it. It made him the last thing I wanted in my life. I was up to my damn neck in shifters and had been since the day I was born. No, thanks. I wanted a nice, normal, human guy if I ever wanted one at all.
“There’s no trouble,” I said.
Dad sat back. Will came fully into the room and took a seat in the corner. “Erickson still out there?” Dad asked, meaning the mining inspector. Jake Erickson had pretty much inherited the gig from his father and his grandfather before that.
“He’s gone,” Will answered before I could. “But the crew’s on edge.”
“What?” I said. “Will…” I wanted to throat punch him. This felt less like a family meeting and more like me getting called on the carpet for God knows what.
“Yeah,” Dad said. The two of them started to talk like I wasn’t even there. “Rick wasn’t too thrilled about this Branson guy. Alecia, I’ve been looking into it. The guy’s a drifter. Nobody’s heard of him.”
“You’re looking into it?” I said. “And who cares if he’s a drifter? Blackfoot was founded by drifters. He’s doing a solid day’s work for me.”
“He’s stirring shit up,” Will said. “I’m sorry, Sis, but it’s true. Rick and Danny are having a hell of a time keeping everybody in line. It came to blows today.”
“What? It did not…” I stopped, took a breath. “You’re blowing it out of proportion. Nobody came to blows. I’ve got a crew full of shifters and Branson’s the new guy. They’re hazing him. He’s standing up to it all right. Meanwhile, he’s turning out to be the most capable driver I’ve got out there. Did Rick or Danny bother to mention that?”
My brother at least had the decency to look sheepish. He had no comeback because he knew it was true. It just galled me that I couldn’t take a damn breath in Blackfoot without it getting back to my brother or father. It had been like that forever. It would never change.
Dad looked to Will for an answer. He wore a pair of reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose.
“Erickson said he was concerned,” Will said. “You’d know that if you hadn’t been…” Will stopped himself. Lucky thing, because I was about to throw a stapler right at his head.
“I don’t know how many times I can keep having this conversation with the both of you,” I said, vaulting out of my seat. “Every time, you promise me you’ll back off and let me run my operation my way. Firing those three guys was the right thing to do. My crew is figuring themselves out. The plant’s running smoothly. You want to tell me your crews don’t throw down every once in a while? Because I’ve seen it. Shit. You remember when Lenny put Bobby Dawes in the hospital for a week when he thought he saw Bobby looking at his mate?”
My mother hooked her hands behind her head and smiled.
My father slid his glasses off and let out a sigh. “I know. It’s just…”
“Just what?” I said. I didn’t like the look passing between my brother and father.
“What’s Rick saying, really?” Dad asked.
Will straightened. “It’s just talk so far. But, they’re on edge. They feel like Branson’s hiding something. They don’t like the smell of him.”
“They don’t like his smell? Seriously? But they’re okay with Stinky Hoffman?”
This got a genuine laugh out of my father. “Fucking badgers,” he muttered.
“Language,” Mom said. “Look, you two have had your fun. You’ve had a go at Ash. You’ve said your piece. Seems to me there’s only one thing that counts. What do you always say, Clint?”
My father turned almost green. My mother had circled to the point I planned to make. It was better coming from her though.
“The proof is in the cleanup.” Dad almost whispered it.
“I’m sorry?” Mom cupped her hand to her ear. She did it for show. She could hear miles away with those keen wolf ears of hers. I never grew tired of watching her shift. With her, it was a seamless, almost balletic maneuver. In my brother and Dad, it was a brutal, jarring crunch of bones and sinew.
“The proof is in the cleanup,” Dad growled it that time. His tiger eyes flashed and I saw the hint of a black tiger stripe swim across his arm. Gross. He was getting turned on by her. I meant it that they could still barely keep their hands off each other.
“Right,” I said. “It’s Thursday. We clean the gold on Sunday. Always. If I meet my qu
ota, then will you both shut up and back off?”
Dad and Will gave each other that infuriating, purely tiger look. It was enough of an answer, but I felt like I was on a roll.
“Want to put a little wager behind it?” I said to Will. “Drinks at the Dead End for the whole crew and weekly bragging rights. If my cleanup is bigger than yours, you buy. If yours is bigger, I buy.”
“That’s my girl,” Mom said, laughing. Lucia Yeager loved herself a good bet.
“Fine,” Will said. “But I’m right about Branson.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “Are we done here? I’ve got a mine to run.” I leaned over and hugged my mother. She kissed my cheek. I did the same to my dad. A low rumble went through him, but he was sated for now. I turned and stuck a hand out, ready to shake my brother’s. Begrudgingly, he complied.
The matter over, my father went back to studying his maps. My mother came around the desk and slid her arms over his shoulders. She purred in his ear. Gross. It was time for Will and me to leave them to it.
“Come on,” I said. “You owe me a ride back.”
Will followed, locking the door behind him. I climbed into the truck. When Will got behind the wheel, with one look in his eyes, I knew this wasn’t as over as I thought.
“Ash…”
“God, will you just drop it? I mean it. You of all people should understand. How many years did you balk at Dad breathing down your neck when you started running Big Brother? Huh?”
Will gripped the steering wheel. “This isn’t the same thing.”
“The hell it’s not. Drive. I’ve been away from the site long enough.”
He didn’t turn the key, but looked at me. “This guy, Ash, I really don’t like what I’m hearing. And I sure as hell didn’t like what I walked in on. I cut you a break. I should have said something to Dad. I still might.”
My blood boiled. “About what?”
