Timber Valley Pack 3: Hard As Steele
Copyright 2014 by Georgette St. Clair
This book is intended for readers 18 and older only, due to adult content. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the imagination of the author. No shifters were harmed during the creation of this book.
License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Roxanne has suffered a concussion after a severe bump to the head, but that's okay - she's having the best hallucination ever. It involves being rescued by an incredibly handsome man who can turn into a wolf and lusts after her like no man ever has before. No, really - in her home town, plain, chubby Roxanne was lusted after by no-one. Her handsome shifter hallucination is so hot, she finds herself wishing she'd never recover.
Steele Battle, wolf shifter, Sheriff of Timber Valley, has met the love of his life - and he must leave her behind, with her memory erased, because she's human and can never know about the existence of his people. A year later, he's still mourning the loss of the woman who captured his heart - when she strolls in to the bar in his remote, out of the way town, which is not on any human map. How did she find him, and what does she want? To keep her safe, Steel has no choice but to hold her captive until the town's shaman returns to erase her memory for good - but will Steele be able to part with the love of his life a second time?
Thanks so much for buying “Hard As Steele”! If you’d like to be notified of future releases, freebies, contests and more, please sign up for my newsletter at http://mad.ly/signups/83835/join
This book can be read as a stand-alone, but it has continuing characters from the first two books in the series:
Timber Valley Pack 1, Bride Of The Alpha
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LUC227G/ref=s9_simh_gw_p351_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=011HWQC77VRNVSBTV39N&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846
and Timber Valley Pack 2, Purr For The Alpha
http://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Paranormal-Romance-Timber-Valley-ebook/dp/B00MD4TX68/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=04ZJ088VMF46S2G0H0YC
Chapter One
May 30, 2013
“Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic…okay, time to panic.”
Roxanne Weldon was fighting to keep all four tires on the snow-slick road, but it was a losing battle. She’d slowed down to a snail’s pace, but even so, her car’s tires had suddenly stopped listening to her steering wheel, and now she was headed towards the steep embankment at the edge of the road.
Damned Montana weather. It had been in the sixties yesterday, and now...a freak snow storm at the end of May. Wasn’t that just her luck? She pressed her foot down on the brakes with all her might, but her car kept sliding.
She frantically tried to remember what she was supposed to do when brakes fail. Steer into the skid? Pump her foot on the brakes? By the time she started pumping, the car had gone off the edge of the road and started rolling.
Then everything was a blur, and the car rolled over and over, finally settling on its roof with a thud. Everything went blank for a moment, and then came back into focus.
Roxanne’s head throbbed with pain, and she felt dizzy and sick. She was hanging upside down in her seatbelt, trapped like a fly in a spider web. Blindly, she felt around for the door. Her hands were shaking. She could already feel the cold seeping into the car. Her windows must have shattered. She was still dressed for the funeral she’d attended, wearing a long wool gray and black plaid skirt with tights and boots, and a black turtleneck. It wasn’t enough to keep her warm. When she’d gotten in her car, she’d taken off her puffy coat and tossed it in the back seat somewhere. It wasn’t helping her now.
She was in the middle of nowhere, and the world outside of the car had gone white as the snowstorm picked up in intensity. What were the odds anyone would come by and find her? For that matter, how would any passing cars see her? She had gone down an embankment. She was probably invisible to anybody driving by, assuming there was even anyone driving on this remote road in the middle of a blizzard.
Now she was truly starting to panic.
She flailed around, feeling for her purse, which contained her cell phone, but she couldn’t find it. Her cell phone wouldn’t get any reception out here anyway, she realized. There were no cell phone towers for many miles in any direction. She stopped flailing.
Her best friend Katherine had insisted that Roxanne call her when she’d arrived home. Roxanne wasn’t due home for another two hours – 6 p.m. How long would it take Katherine to start to worry? If Katherine called the police, what would they do? When would they start searching for Roxanne? Probably not until the next morning. By then, hypothermia would have set in, and…
She weakly fumbled for the seatbelt buckle. Her fingers were going numb. If she could get out, maybe she could get to the roadside and signal for help. The buckle wouldn’t budge, though.
“Are you all right?” a deep voice rumbled somewhere close to her right ear. She started. With the howling of the wind, she hadn’t heard anyone approach.
“Help me.” Her voice came out faint and weak.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. I got you.” Suddenly, she felt the car shift. How was the car moving? Could a tow truck have gotten there already?
Then she heard a sound like the tearing of metal. The Jaws of Life? A whoosh of cold air made her gasp. The door was gone now.
Then she felt someone tearing at her seatbelt, and she sagged into strong, muscular arms. She was pulled out of the car, and lifted up. A man was cradling her in his arms, holding her like a baby, and striding through the snow.
Sudden fear shot through her. There was absolutely no way somebody was carrying her that easily. She packed close to two hundred pounds on her five foot six figure. There was only one logical explanation – she was hallucinating. She was still in the car, and her head injury was clearly worse than she thought.
“This is a very vivid hallucination,” she said. Her head still throbbed, and the sting of the wind on her exposed skin was painful. The warmth of the man’s body felt good, though. She’d never hallucinated before; she was surprised that the physical sensations felt so real. She could even smell him; his cologne had earthy notes of cedar.
“What’s that you said?” The man shifted her in his arms, opened the door of a pickup truck and slid her inside.
Her vision started to clear. The warmth of the truck’s heater made her skin tingle.
He climbed in the driver’s side. He had a handful of snow. “Can you hold this against that bump on your head?” he asked her. “I need to drive so I can get you some help.”
He fished around in the glove compartment and pulled out a clean, folded white handkerchief. Then he wrapped the snow in the cloth and handed it to her. She pressed it against the bump on her forehead, wincing slightly. The cold felt good, and the throbbing started to recede.
“It’s a good sign that you’ve got a goose egg like that,” he told her. “If there was no bump, I’d be worried about internal bleeding.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. “Thank you.” He might be imaginary, but that was no reason to forget her manners.
He leaned across her and fastene
d her seatbelt for her, and then headed carefully into the blinding snowstorm.
The blurriness in her vision was gone. She turned to get a good look at him, and blinked hard.
He was stunning. Too good looking to be real. He had a strong jaw, broad cheekbones, and thick dark hair. His eyes were grayish blue and he had a piercing gaze that seemed to stare right into her soul. He was wearing a wool jacket, but it failed to hide his muscular build and a broad chest.
“Am I dying?” she asked him. “It doesn’t feel that bad.” She lightly touched her forehead and winced. “Except for the head injury.”
“Of course you’re not dying. You’ll be just fine.” His eyes were on the road ahead.
“Well, you’re a hallucination. Of course you’d say that. Maybe you’re an angel, trying to cheer me up as I’m dying. Not that I mind,” she added. This is one good looking angel, she thought to herself. Thanks, Supreme Being! I really appreciate it.
He seemed amused. “Why do you think I’m a hallucination?”
“There’s no way you could have carried me like that. I weigh like one ninety something, and you carried me like I was a feather pillow. Clearly I’m hallucinating. I must still be back in the car, freezing to death,” she said.
He gave her an odd look, and then turned back to concentrating on the road. “I work out,” he said. “I lift weights. Not that, uh, I’m comparing carrying you to lifting weights.”
There was a CB radio in the truck. As they drove, he grabbed the microphone and radioed someone whose handle was Red Dog, to let him know he’d be late. Her rescuer’s CB handle was apparently Mutton Jeff. So her imaginary man had a sense of humor.
Unfortunately, the news he got from Red Dog was not good. The storm apparently was even worse up ahead.
Dream-dude put the CB microphone back in its cradle with a frown. He shook his head regretfully. “With that bump on your head, I really want to take you to a hospital, but we’d be driving straight into the heart of the blizzard, and I can barely see where I’m going as it is. Some friends of mine own a cabin we can hole up in until this clears up. It’s a few miles off this road. Hopefully we’ll make it there.”
“That sounds perfect,” she said. Who was she to argue with a hallucination, especially such a pleasant one? There was nothing she could do to wake herself up, as far as she could tell, so she might as well just go along for the ride and see where it took her.
Fortunately, his truck clearly had some excellent snow tires, unlike her poor crushed Honda. Then again, it was going to be June in a day; why the heck should she have had snow tires on her car? She’d taken them off a month earlier. Freaking Montana.
With the wipers at full speed, they crawled along the road and then turned off to the left, going down a narrow rural road. Snow gusts blew past them as he inched and bumped along. She was warm and comfortable though, and the pain from her head was mostly gone.
Finally they reached their destination. He slowed to a stop, and in between gusts of wind-driven snow, she could see a small log cabin. “Stay here, I’ll carry you,” he said to her.
He walked around to her side of the pickup truck and pulled the passenger door open, scooping her up quickly and cradling her in his strong arms. Again, he carried her effortlessly. She was pretty sure that she was well enough to walk now, but she didn’t mind him carrying her. He smelled good, and he felt even better.
The inside of the cabin was cold and dark. She could make out one room that apparently served as kitchen, living room, and probably bedroom as well. There was a pot-bellied stove and a fireplace with wood stacked up next to it. There was also a door that likely led to a bathroom.
He slammed the door behind him and set her down on a sofa which faced a flagstone fireplace, and got her some more snow to hold against the bump on her head. He crouched down next to her and checked her pupils with a small pen light.
“Your pupils are even and reacting normally to light,” he said. “That’s a good sign. Just rest up while I build a fire.”
She was starting to shiver again, in the chill air. He grabbed a flannel blanket that had been draped across the back of the couch and spread it over her.
Next, he shed his jacket and worked quickly in the cold, stacking the firewood on the iron log holder in the fireplace and lighting the kindling underneath it. She leaned back in the couch and admired him as he worked. Snow glistened in his thick black hair, and he moved with the grace of a powerful animal. Something about him put her in mind of a wolf gliding through the forest, confident and fearless in his domain.
Was it wrong for her to be totally turned on by a hallucination? Roxanne wondered. She decided it wasn’t. After all, that was exactly what her fantasies about handsome, unattainable men were all about, weren’t they? Just images of good-looking guys who looked at her, at her soft belly and broad thighs and great big butt, and went wild with desire at the sight. Dreams that could never be true.
So she nestled in deeper to the sofa cushions and imagined all the things she’d love for him to do to her. His hands, his mouth, other parts of anatomy…
The fire blazed and crackled, yellow and red flames flickering above the cris-crossed logs, and the heavenly scent of wood smoke filled the cabin. He looked up at her and smiled.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “The color’s coming back to your face.”
“I feel much better now,” she said. “Thank you for everything.” She certainly did feel better. That warm smile of his heated her faster than the fire, and spread a delicious tingling sensation all over her body.
“Do you want me to make us some hot cocoa?” he said.
“That would be lovely, thanks,” she said. “Do you want me to help?”
“You just sit there and rest up. You can take the snow pack off for now.”
He moved over to the other side of the room and built a fire in the potbellied iron stove. There were bottles of water sitting on the counter by the small kitchen sink; he poured them in a kettle, set the kettle on the stove, and came back to sit down next to her. He sat down right next to her, bathing her in the warmth of that smile and she felt a little dizzy again.
Well, if she was going to dream-molest him with her mind, she should get to know his name first.
“You saved my life, and we haven’t been properly introduced,” she said. She reached out and shook his hand. “I’m Roxanne Weldon.”
He enclosed her hand in his. His grip was firm and lingered, as if he were reluctant to let go of her. “My name is Steele. Steele Battle.”
Yep, all of this was part of a dream. The guy was too handsome to be real, he was looking at her as if he wanted to strip her clothes off, and he even had a name like an action figure.
“So where were you going?” he asked her. “Are there people going to be worried about you?”
“My friend Katherine. I should call her.” Was this all part of the hallucination? Was this her way of saying goodbye to Katherine?
“There’s a telephone in the cabin, a landline phone that should be working,” he said. He stood up, and held out his hand to help her to her feet. “The phone’s over there.” He pointed to the kitchen wall, where the old fashioned phone was affixed.
“Whose cabin is this?”
“Friends of mine. Their family owns it, and they stay here during hunting season. They’re big deer hunters.” He nodded at a deer head mounted on a wooden plaque.
Roxanne went to use the phone while Steele poured them both cups of hot chocolate.
She knew that super practical, protective Katherine would freak out. She was right.
“How do you know he’s not a serial killer?” Katherine demanded. “He took you to a lonely cabin in the woods?”
“He had no choice. We seriously could not have driven another mile,” she said. “It was white out conditions. Besides, he was the one who suggested that I call you. Would a serial killer do that?” She saw Steele stifle a laugh behind his hand, and she shrugged apologetical
ly.
“Gosh, I don’t know. I’m trying to remember what I do when I’m serial-killing people,” Katherine said.
“Har de har. I’m fine. Thanks for caring, though.”
“This is what you get for driving in a snowstorm. Who does that?”
“You were the one who told me to go!” Roxanne protested indignantly. “When I left, there were just a few flakes sifting down.”
Katherine’s voice went all self-righteous and schoolmarmish. “Did you check the weather before you left? No, you don’t need to answer that. You did not.”
Katherine had been raised by an irresponsible, free-spirited mother, who smoked like a chimney, never went to the doctor for a checkup, never wore her seat-belt, and used to speed through their county like only the wife of the town’s mayor could. When Katherine was twelve, her mother went out for a drive and her car rounded a corner and ran into a giant moose.
Katherine had grown up the complete opposite of her mother; she believed that by taking every possible precaution, you could guarantee the safety of yourself and your loved ones. Roxanne loved Katherine, but it was hard to relax around someone who felt that sunbathing without sunblock should be added to the list of seven deadly sins.
Roxanne had seen both of her parents wither away from cancer, and she believed that you should enjoy every moment of life that you were given, and always expect the unexpected.
Like, say, a freak snowstorm that had sent her car off the side of the road and was probably killing her, and might already have killed her, which meant she was currently in some kind of very sexy purgatory.
Roxanne felt a sudden twinge of sorrow. She’d miss Katherine.
“I love you, no matter how much of an annoying naggy-pants you are,” she said. “I should let you go now.”
She set the phone back down in its cradle.
Steele was sitting on the couch with their two cups of hot chocolate resting on the table in front of him. It was made from a cross section slice of a tree, resting on a tangle of branches that had been finished and polished.
Hard As Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) Page 1
