by Dani April
“Breakfast is ready if you want to come inside,” he told her.
“All right. Thank you. That sounds good.” He put his hand on the small of her back and escorted her up the tall flight of front steps. Somehow it didn’t feel right for him to touch her yet. She wished he would stop and wondered what an entire day alone with him would mean for her. She had a sense that before this day was over, she would get to know the tall cowboy a lot better. She only hoped she still liked him then.
* * * *
The eggs were burnt and the bacon was underdone, more fat than meat. Arielle sat at the small table in the breakfast room and picked at her food. The kitchen was just off this room and when Kyle had finished the cleanup, he came out to sit with her.
“How’s breakfast?” he asked her.
She gave him a smile. “Would it be all right if I did the cooking while I’m here, Kyle?”
“I don’t want you to have to do anything while you’re here.”
“I really don’t mind. I like to cook.”
He scratched his head and looked down at her plate. She hadn’t touched much of it. “Be honest with me. I’m not a very good cook, am I?”
She laughed. “No, you’re not. But Jason seemed to like mine well enough when I cooked for him.”
“You still want to go out and see the ranch today?”
She thought about it for a moment. “That would be nice,” she said.
He took her out across the range in his four-wheel-drive truck. Dust flew around the windows as they drove. When they must have been right in the center of their land, he stopped the truck and they got out. Arielle was amazed at how it felt to be inside a true valley like this. It didn’t feel like there was much room because mountains walled them in on each side. She felt her voice would have carried up to the heights if she spoke too loud. The air was cool and fresh and a constant breeze played havoc on her hair. The atmosphere was lighter, and if she walked too fast she got dizzy.
“How high up are we?” she asked Kyle as they walked the range.
“Seven thousand feet.”
“That’s why it feels so strange.”
“Yes. All of western Wyoming is pretty well elevated, but we’re right in the mountains here.”
“I’m from St. Louis, where everything is nice and flat. I had never even seen a mountain before until I moved out here a year and a half ago.”
“Do you like it?”
“I was thinking of moving back,” she told him honestly. “That’s when I met Jason.”
“Do you have family in St. Louis?”
“My mom and dad, and my younger sister and her husband. My sister is expecting her first baby. It’s going to be a boy.”
“Family is important,” he said, but the wind blew and the sound of his voice became muffled.
She looked up at him. He was so tall she had to crane her neck. He wore a cowboy hat and looked handsome. “I guess family is important to you all?” she asked him. “I mean shape-shifters.”
“It’s the most important thing.” He took her by the arm and led her up to a fence and pointed. “Come on, I want to show you one of our herds.”
“I can already smell them,” Arielle said, and wrinkled her nose.
“That’s the worst part about living on a ranch,” he said, but laughed with her. “But I think you’re going to love everything else about living here.”
She wondered what he thought this situation might progress to. She wanted to be honest with him and let him know how she felt. Of course she still wasn’t for sure how she felt either, but the least she could do is try and explain herself to him. “Kyle, I don’t know if…” Her cell chimed in her pocket and interrupted her. She reached down to dig it out. It was Jason. “How’s it going?”
“I have a room at the Wolf Creek hospital. The doctor’s operating in the morning. He’s going to have to break my damn leg again to reset it.”
“But you’re going to be all right after the surgery?”
“Doctor said I’d be walking same as always in about six weeks.”
“Can I come by and see you?”
“Why don’t you come by tomorrow afternoon after I get out of surgery?”
She sighed. She wanted to see him today, but she bit her tongue and continued. “Okay. I’ll be there tomorrow. Kyle is taking me around the ranch. He’s right here with me. Do you want to speak to him?”
“No. That’s okay. See you tomorrow, baby.” He disconnected.
She put the phone away in her jeans and looked down the fence at Kyle. “Have you ever noticed that your brother is a control freak?” she asked him. She was frustrated with Jason, and her mood was serious.
Kyle stared at her for a second and then broke out in laughter. He laughed loud and long. Whatever she had said struck him as extremely funny. His laughter bent his long body over, and his boots kicked up dust as he stomped his feet. Finally he recovered.
“I am so glad you realize that about him,” Kyle said.
When Arielle saw the look on his face, she couldn’t help her reaction. She started to laugh, too. Her laughter infected Kyle, and he started to laugh uncontrollably once again.
“He is a control freak, you know. He wants to control everything, and he gets mad if he can’t,” Arielle said between peals of laughter.
“I know it. He’s been that way since we were kids. He carries the alpha male role too far. I’m just glad he didn’t frighten you off when you first met.”
“He almost did. The first time I met him I held a gun on him,” Arielle admitted and still laughed. It felt good to let it all out. The frustration she felt with Jason and the anger ebbed, and she just felt giddy. “But in spite of all your brother’s faults I really care about him.”
“I know you do. I can see it in your eyes when you look at him. That’s the only thing I’ve ever envied him for.”
They didn’t speak for a while. They didn’t need to after the laugh they had just shared. They walked in silence. The wind kept howling into their faces. Though they moved away from the herd, it still carried a whiff of the cattle in its flight.
Arielle thought maybe it was the high elevation. It made her mind work differently when she was up here. But she really did feel good. Everything was so beautiful and the valley so cozy and ideal. It was like she was much farther away than a mere hour from Wolf Creek. She felt as if she had been taken away to another land entirely. The sky looked so blue. She had never seen it look that blue before.
“Why are you here?” Kyle asked her as they walked.
“Good question,” she said. She was confused about her own motives. “I guess it’s for Jason. But more than just him. When I met him I was lonely. I didn’t like myself very much. I didn’t trust myself to do anything right. My fiancé in St. Louis cheated on me. I left him and moved out to Wolf Creek. But that wasn’t working out. I learned you can’t run away from life no matter how bad it hurts. Then I met Jason. Problem with that was I thought he was a wolf for the first month I knew him, so I still felt alone.”
“And now you’re here with us.”
“Yes. And now I’m here with you.”
“Do you like yourself any better now?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m just getting to know myself again.” She looked up at him. “I still make a lot of dumb decisions, Kyle.”
“Was coming here one of them?”
She stopped and paused for a moment. Kyle really knew how to ask questions. He should have been a therapist instead of a cowboy. When she saw his kind face under his cowboy hat, she smiled. She only had one answer for him.
“No. Coming here wasn’t a mistake.”
He walked on ahead of her a little ways. He pointed out some of the bluffs in the distance. He called each one by name. She had to crane her neck to see the top as they got closer to one of the big ones.
When she finally caught up with him, he turned to her. “We take the idea that you’re our mate seriously,” he told her, his voice simp
le and guileless. “Do you take it seriously?”
She started to reassure him. She would have said that of course she took it all seriously to make him feel better. But that isn’t what he wanted. He didn’t need to be reassured. He was a very secure man. What he needed from her was honesty. She hesitated and tried to rack her brain for the truth.
“I think shape-shifters basically live a simple, old-fashioned life,” she told him.
“You’re right about that. We do.”
“But I’m not a shifter. I wish my life was as simple as yours, but it’s pretty complicated, and meeting three men who all want to have sex with me has made it even more complicated.”
The wind drove her hair out of its tie and whipped it around her face. It covered her eyes. Kyle reached out a gentle hand and swept it back for her.
“It’s true, you know,” he said.
“What?”
“We do want to have sex with you.”
She smiled. Somehow when he said this now she didn’t feel embarrassed anymore. “I know, and I said you could.”
“You want to take that offer back?”
“No.” She was surprised that she answered him. She was even more surprised to find out that she told him the truth. “I came up here, didn’t I? And I’m still here.”
He stood near her. They were close enough to touch, but neither reached out. “I want you, Arielle. How does it make you feel when I say that?”
“I’m not for sure. You’re a real nice-looking guy, Kyle. I guess it makes me feel good to know that someone like you wants me. But you shifters are so direct about everything, it also makes me feel confused, too.”
“So we’d be good if it was just the sex part?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why, what else is there?”
“Mating isn’t just about sex. Sex isn’t too hard, and it’s kind of fun sometimes. But I don’t just want you as my sex partner. I want you as my life partner. That’s a lot harder than sex.”
“Tell me about it. I was engaged for three years. I lived with the guy the whole time. I thought he was my life partner until I found out I couldn’t trust him.”
He looked down, but still did not touch her. “I don’t just want a one-night stand, Arielle.”
“Good. Because I don’t either.”
“I want you as my life partner.”
“How do you know that after just meeting me?”
“Because I’m a shifter.”
“How does a shifter know about someone?”
“It’s hard to explain to a nonshifter. It’s a sixth sense we have. Ever since I’ve been a teenager and discovered girls, every time I looked at a female, I checked her out. Not just to see if she had a nice body or a pretty face, but to see if I got an impression back from her when I looked at her. To see if she was the one. I didn’t even know what it would be like until I met you. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like someone punched me in the gut, and also like I was waking up and opening my eyes for the first time and seeing all of the possibilities of the world.”
“You’re right. I don’t exactly understand that.”
“Just believe that as a shifter I have that sixth sense to know my mate when I’ve met her.”
Arielle looked down at the blue and yellow wild flowers that grew at her feet. They both stared down at the ground and watched the long-stemmed flowers blow in the breeze.
“You weren’t very nice to me the first time you met me,” she told him, and chanced a look up into his eyes.
“I knew Jason was inside your house. So did Luke. That’s another ability we have. We can scent each other out. We didn’t know what had happened to him. We would have broken down your door to get at him. But we backed off and left. I knew Jason had got there before me so you were in good hands. I knew he would bring you out here to me eventually. But I guess I was also kind of jealous of him in a way.”
“Give me some time, Kyle?” she asked him. “I’ll try and be the kind of mate you deserve.” She reached up. He was so tall she had to get on the toes of her boots. She placed a quick kiss on his cheek.
Chapter Ten
Kyle drove Arielle into the Wolf Creek hospital the next morning. They arrived before Jason was out of surgery and waited patiently for it to be over in the small visitor’s area. After about an hour’s wait, the doctor came out and told them everything was fine and Jason had been taken back to his room.
Jason looked strong. He already sat up in bed and didn’t look like a man who had just been wheeled from surgery. He pulled Arielle down on top of him and gave her a long kiss and embrace.
“The doctor said the vet that operated on the wolf’s leg probably saved my leg as a man,” Jason told her.
She flushed at his words and gave him a kiss.
“How are things back home?” he asked her.
“We’re fine. How are you?”
“Ready to get out of this place. But the doctor said I’ll have to stay here for the rest of the week.”
“Try and rest and do what they tell you to,” Arielle prompted him.
He gave a snort. “You know I’m not good at doing what other people tell me to do.”
“Just do it for me.”
“No, but I will make love to you when I get home.”
Arielle gave a smile, but it didn’t feel right for him to talk like this with Kyle in the room. Jason gave her a pat on the butt, and she knew this was her cue to leave.
“Let Kyle and I have a few minutes alone, baby,” Jason said to her. “We have sibling talk to take care of.”
She gave him another kiss and then excused herself from the room. She didn’t want to go far, and there wasn’t anyone else in the small hospital so she stood in front of the closed door of the room and waited.
Less than a minute passed before she heard raised voices in the room. The heavy door muffled the words, but she knew they were spoken in anger. First it was Jason who shouted. Then after a pause Kyle raised his voice just as loud and just as angry. Both brothers spoke at the same time, and their loud voices jarred the walls.
A nurse walked by and shot a suspicious look at the room and gave Arielle a frown. Arielle just looked down at the clean linoleum floor of the hospital corridor and shuddered inwardly at the argument between the two men. They were both such strong-principled men, and each was set in his ways. They were as immovable as the mountains that surrounded Wolf Creek. She had never imagined that the brothers would disagree. Family unity was so important, and trust ran so high with them they even wanted to share her. Now suddenly she had a new insight on the brothers as she listened to them scream at each other through the door.
Ten minutes passed, and Kyle came out of the room and slammed the door behind him. He gave her an apologetic look and headed for the exit. “I’ll be waiting in the truck,” he told her as he passed.
She summoned her courage and stepped back inside Jason’s room. He acted as if nothing had happened when she approached him. She sat down on the side of his bed.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re not going to tell me what you and Kyle were arguing about?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about. We’re brothers. We fight all the time.”
“I’ve had arguments with my sister before, but never like that.”
“That’s not the same. We’re different.”
“So you’re telling me I’ll have to get used to you guys if I want to have a relationship with you?”
“I’m telling you not to worry about it.”
She let the subject drop. She knew when Jason got like this she would never get anything more out of him. After another ten minutes, she gave him a kiss good-bye and left the hospital.
Kyle was silent on the ride back to Shifter Valley. His face was red and angry, and he honked at a slow car that got in his way on the road. Arielle believed these strong men had little vulnerability, but she watched a human side of Kyle as
he drove them back to the ranch in strained silence.
They were halfway back before either of them had the nerve to speak. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Arielle,” Kyle said.
“Will you tell me what you and Jason were arguing over?”
“I was being a jerk. I apologize.”
“I asked Jason. He didn’t seem to think it was important enough to tell me what it was about.”
“It wasn’t important. Not really.”
“And?” Arielle persisted.
Kyle combed his hair off his brow with his fingers and gave a sigh. “It was ranch business. It’s boring. The three of us are in business together, and sometimes we don’t agree.”
She put her hand on his shoulder as he drove and rubbed her fingers. “Look, Kyle,” she started. “If you want me as a life partner, you’re going to have to trust me enough to let me in on a few things.”
He took his eyes off the road and looked down at her. “You’re right,” he said. “We’re asking you to trust us with your life. I guess we could at least return the favor.”
She waited for him. She could tell it was hard for him to open up. These men kept their emotions guarded.
“I know how we can make money on the cattle futures market. Jason doesn’t trust me enough to let me have the money.”
“Your ranch looks like it’s doing very well to me.”
“We are doing well. But I want to expand our land. The south range is for sale. It belonged to a family who’s moving out of the valley.”
“Why not just finance it through the bank?”
“We could, but I know I’m right about the direction of the market. I could make all that money for us in two weeks, probably sooner.”
Arielle began to see where Kyle came from on this. “You want to prove you’re right to Jason?”
“I know I’m right.” He turned back to her with determination. “I’m thinking of taking the money anyway and investing it when Jason’s in the hospital. I don’t care if he approves of it or not. He’ll never know about it until after it’s over and a done deal. Then we’ll have the money to get the south ranch.”
