Hard As Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack)

by Georgette St. Clair

  For a shifter of any species to reveal their existence to humans was an instant death sentence. He wouldn’t have revealed his secret to her anyway – the safety of his species was far more important than the feelings of one man. The two of them could never be together.

  How had this even happened to him? At thirty years old, he’d begun to think that he’d never fall for anybody. He’d dated plenty, he’d had sex, he’d had one night stands and short lived affairs, but until he’d looked into Roxanne’s beautiful chocolate brown eyes, he’d never felt anything more than mild affection for the women he’d been with.

  One look at her, and he’d felt as if a thunderbolt had hit him. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on what it was about her – her laugh, her face, her sense of humor, her hot body, her cheerfulness…God only knew, but he was hooked.

  He had been weak to give in to that one night of passion, but he didn’t regret it. He’d known that it would be a night like he’d never experienced before, and he’d been right. He finally knew what it was like to really make love to a woman, not have sex with her. He knew what it felt like to plunge his body into the softest, sweetest body he’d ever felt before, and mingle his soul with her at the same time.

  Now, he suspected, he’d spend eternity replaying that night in his head again and again, because even in that brief time, she’d seeped into his heart and left no room for another.

  Glumly, he tossed some logs on and stoked the fire, then crouched before it, watching the flames leap.

  At least she hadn’t seen him shift. The full moon wreaked all kinds of havoc with shifters. Wolf shifters, in particular, were very sensitive to it. They tended to lose control and compulsively shift during a full moon, which is why he’d gone outside and dashed off into the woods. It just took an hour of running through the forest in his wolf form and he got it out of his system.

  That was one of the many reasons that shifters never lived in cities with humans. They frequently travelled through human country, they could visit, they could stay for short periods of time, but they could never stay for more than a few weeks or they risked exposing their secret.

  The problem was that they had to regularly shift, or it would happen spontaneously whether they wanted to shift or not, and the full moon had an especially strong effect on shifter wolves; it caused many involuntary cases of shifting. Shifters could be sitting around at the dinner table, or on the front porch, or hanging out in a bar, and they’d suddenly shift. Living in remote areas of the country, in tiny towns where no humans lived, they were safe from discovery.

  Wolf shifters could also only impregnate their mates on a full moon. Fortunately, she was human, so that was one thing he’d never have to worry about.

  Roxanne’s light, happy voice floated through the air. “Good morning, werewolf.”

  Shock rippled through his body. Please, tell me I didn’t hear that right, he thought to himself. She was asleep when I left her!

  He turned to look at her. “What’s that?”

  “I saw you turn into a wolf last night.” She let out a giggle. “My subconscious is really playing some amazing tricks on me.”

  “You saw me turn into a wolf?” he pretended polite disbelief as she wrapped the blanket around her luscious body.

  Damn it to hell. He’d been so sure she was asleep when he’d crept outside. He’d had no choice; the fur was rippling under his skin, snout thrusting forward, fangs itching under his gums. His wolf had hurled itself against the walls of his humanity, howling to be free. It was shift in the cabin, or shift out in the woods. No other option.

  He walked in to the kitchen and put on some water to boil for coffee. There was also a box of instant pancake mix, so he pulled out some bowls to make breakfast for her.

  “Yes, it’s funny. I had never actually known that I fantasized about werewolves, but apparently I do.”

  “Interesting.” He kept his tone calm and neutral. “Did I turn into any other animals?”

  “Nope. Just a wolf.” She let out a sigh as she rustled through the cabinets and pulled out a can of powdered coffee.

  “I’ll get the stove going so we can make breakfast,” he said, jarred out of his reverie.

  “I know all this sounds crazy. I’m just trying to figure out where I am exactly. Am I still back in the car, dying? If so, it’s sure taking a long time. Am I in limbo? Is this actually heaven?”

  “Good question. What about the possibility that you have a head injury and you just imagined that part, and everything else is real?” He watched her carefully. She just shrugged and shook her head as she walked to the kitchen, with the blanket draped over her body.

  No dice.

  She smiled wistfully at him. “I know it’s weird to talk about this with one of the inhabitants of my dream universe, but it’s just that…I don’t know. I feel as if I can tell you anything.”

  He felt overflowing warmth and affection when she said that, mingled with deep sorrow. He wished he could be the same with her, and pour out all his hopes and dreams and feelings, but he never could.

  “Of course you can.”

  “Well, right now I’m thinking that since I’m dead or dying, I am happy that I’ll get to see my parents again – uh, of course I would want to get dressed first – but I wish I’d had more time here on Earth. I never got to have children.” She looked sad. “I’ll miss my friend Katherine, and my other friends in Lonesome Pine. I mean, I know I wasn’t the belle of the ball or anything, but I did have friends.”

  Steele felt regret burning through him. There was no point in correcting her; she might as well think she was hallucinating. If she realized that she was trapped in a cabin with a wolf shifter, she might very well panic, and he didn’t want that.

  Someday, she probably would have children…with someone else. The thought stabbed through him, and made him feel ill. Fur rippled on the backs of his hands at the thought of another man being with his woman, and he stifled a growl.

  No. Not his woman. She could never be his woman.

  He forced the fur back down, stifling his wolf. He glanced out the window.

  “The snow has stopped,” he said. “I’m going to call my friends and check in with them.”

  “Sure thing,” she said.

  He called up the headquarters of the nearest pack, the Silver Forest shifters, and told them his location. He knew where all the packs lived; this pack was only about half an hour from the cabin.

  “I’ve got a new friend here with me, someone I met in my travels,” he said. That was universal shifter code meaning he was with a human. “Hey, by the way, I’m parched. Can you bring me a soda?” That was universal code among shifters for an incident of a human spotting a shifter, which was a level one emergency among their kind.

  “Sure thing. Everything going okay?” Joel, the wolf shifter who’d answered the phone, asked. The casual tone on the other end belied the seriousness of the situation.

  “Everything’s fine, no emergency. We’re just hanging out and enjoying the solitude.”

  “We’ll see you soon,”

  The Silver Forest Pack would send the pack’s Shaman, and he would erase her memory. That was one of the most important functions of a Shaman. They could reach into human minds and do what they called a mind-wipe, leaving a blank spot in their memories or even implanting new ones that would explain away the brief period of time during which the human had witnessed a shifter.

  In Roxanne’s case, it would be easy enough to have her believe that the bump on her head had caused her to have temporary amnesia surrounding the time of the car accident and the day after.

  She’d wake up next to her car, with the human police arriving – he’d make sure of that – and she’d think she’d forgotten an entire day of her life.

  It would be as if he’d never existed. As if he’d never loved her.

  Chapter Four

  February 2014, Lonesome Pine, Montana

  Katherine Bertelsen crouched behind the thi
ck underbrush, peering through her binoculars. Every breath sent puffs of white vapor into the air, and even through her thick wool gloves, her fingers felt numb. She wore winter camo from head to toe; it wouldn’t do to be seen.

  The sun overhead bathed the forest in a cold white light, but did little to warm the frigid winter air.

  The object of her scrutiny, Police Chief Jerrod Fennel, was standing in a small clearing among the towering Ponderosa pine trees, talking to four men in military uniform. She reached down and patted her 9 mm pistol for reassurance. She knew it wouldn’t help her if they spotted her. They were armed with M4 carbines with grenade launchers. Still, it made her feel better having some kind of weapon.

  “See anything interesting?” A low, masculine voice sounded directly behind her, and she whirled around, pointing her gun. She and her father had spent many a day at the range practicing her quick draw technique. She was also a pretty good shot.

  The masculine voice belonged to Edvin Gund. He was a couple of years older than her, a member of a large, reclusive clan who lived up in the hills. There were several families in the clan, all descended from families who’d come to mine for gold in the 1800s. They homeschooled their children and only rarely came into town. Her grandmother had told her strange stories about them – that some of them could turn into wolves. Supposedly it was the result of some Native American curse from when they’d first settled the area.

  “Are you fricking crazy, sneaking up on me like that?” she hissed. “I could have shot you! And there’s a bunch of soldiers out in the woods here, and they do not look friendly!”

  Edvin was wearing camo, just like her. He was a tall, rangy young man, somewhere in his early twenties, with thick wavy hair the color of wheat.

  “I know.” He spoke in a low voice. “You shouldn’t be out here, Katherine. It’s not safe. Why did you come?”

  He knew her name? Katherine felt an odd fluttering inside her at that. She quickly pushed it aside.

  “I’m keeping an eye on Chief Fennell. I don’t trust him,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t.” He looked at her curiously. “But why don’t you?”

  “Because my friend Roxanne disappeared a few days ago, on her way to the doctor, and he’s working really hard to make sure that nobody does anything about it. I think he’s behind it somehow, so I’m trying to figure out what he’s up to.”

  He settled down next to her.

  “He’s talking to four soldiers. Do you want to see? You can borrow my binoculars,” Katherine said.

  He shook his head. “I don’t need them.” Now what the heck did he mean by that?

  “Oh yeah?” she challenged. “How many men is Chief Fennell talking to?”

  “Four.” Had he sniffed the air a little bit before he said that? She seriously must be losing her mind.

  “Why don’t you trust him?” she asked.

  He glanced in the direction of the men. “He did the same thing when my cousin Axel disappeared two years ago.”

  “Axel disappeared? I never knew that.” Katherine was shocked.

  He nodded. “That’s because he took the report and buried it. We know someone in the police department; we found out that Chief Fennell never gave it to anyone to be investigated, and when some officers tried to look into it, he shut them down right away. What happened with your friend?”

  “She was on her way to a doctor’s appointment, but she never arrived. I went to her house that evening because she hadn’t answered any of my calls. My dad owns the house, and I have a key. The suitcase was missing from her closet, along with some clothes, and there was a typewritten letter lying out on the kitchen table, saying she was leaving town and wanted to make a fresh start. It wasn’t signed. She left behind a bunch of stuff that I know that she would have taken with her if she left. Sentimental stuff, like jewelry her parents had given her, pictures of them, that kind of thing.”

  She checked through her binoculars again. One of the men was handing the chief an envelope.

  “I think they’re giving Chief Fennell an envelope full of cash,” she said. “There’s no insignia on their uniforms. I can’t figure out where they’re from.”

  She scowled, shaking her head. “When I went to the police station to report that she’d never arrived at the doctor’s office, he made a big deal about how she was an adult and he couldn’t go looking for her until she’d been missing for 48 hours. He also asked me if she’d left any kind of note – when I hadn’t even mentioned that I’d been in her house. It was like he knew that I’d been there, and he knew about the note. So I looked him in the eye and told him no. I’d actually taken the note from the house, because I knew that she hadn’t written it. She would never just up and run off like that; I’ve known her my whole life.”

  She checked again. Now the soldiers were heading back into the woods, and the chief was walking towards the four wheeler he’d driven out there.

  “They’re leaving,” she said.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  Ok, not weird at all, she thought.

  “So anyway, I told my father, because I thought maybe she could have gotten in a car accident somewhere, and he organized a bunch of people to go looking for her. We were driving around town, checking all the roads. The police chief heard about it, and he got really angry and yelled at my father about wasting everyone’s time and getting them all worked up about nothing. The thing is, he’s a pretty new chief, and of course my family’s been here for generations, and most people sided with my father. Then that evening, I got an email that was supposedly from Roxanne, saying please don’t look for her, and she wouldn’t be coming back. In the email she said that she’d left behind a note explaining everything, but she wanted to make sure that I had gotten the message. It was like someone knew that we were looking for her, and wanted to make sure that we stopped. Then the next day the chief called me up and asked if I’d heard from Roxanne. Like he knew.”

  “So what did you tell him?” Dag asked.

  “I had to say yes; I was sure that he knew about the email, and if I lied, he’d have gotten a subpoena to go through my email account. When I mentioned the email, he sounded really smug, and insisted that I send him the email. Then when I did, he quizzed me about the note that she’d mentioned in the email, and accused me of tampering with evidence. He claimed that I’d been seen entering her house the night she disappeared, and said I must have taken it from the scene. Then he went on about how it wouldn’t help my father’s re-election chances if he had to arrest me for stealing evidence. I called my father, and my father yelled at him, but there’s nothing else happening right now. Everything about this is ridiculous. I know how Roxanne talks, and the email sounded nothing like her, but how would I prove that?”

  “So what are you going to do?” Edvin said.

  Katherine shook her head in frustration. “There’s nothing that I can do. I could call the state police, I guess, but then they’d talk to the police chief and he’d make them think that I’m crazy. Even my own father is questioning me right now. He’s sympathetic, and he’s mad at the police chief for the way he treated me, but he also thinks that Roxanne just wanted a change and headed out of town.”

  Katherine considered telling him what else she knew, but she couldn’t. She was holding on to that piece of information for now. It might come in handy one day. She didn’t know how, but it might. She also didn’t know Edvin well enough to know if she could trust him.

  “You should head back,” Edvin said. “I’m going to walk with you until you get to your car. You shouldn’t do this again, Katherine, it’s very dangerous. If those men spotted you, you would disappear and nobody would ever find you.”

  She knew that was true, and that was very disconcerting. That was the police chief he was talking about, and she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw a bull moose.

  “You came out here alone,” she pointed out.

  He smiled cryptically. “Did I?” He cupped his hand to
his mouth and made a series of cawing sounds that perfectly mimicked a crow.

  A moment later, she heard an answering series of caws.

  “Wow. That’s amazing,” she marveled, as he walked with her to the edge of the woods.

  “It comes in handy,” he said.

  They walked through the woods in silence until they came to the roadside where she’d parked her car. She thought he might ask for her phone number, but instead he just waved at her, and watched her walk to her car.

  It’s just as well, she told herself firmly. The Gund family had that reputation. She wouldn’t even have been interested in him if he’d asked her. Would she have? Anyway, she had more important things to worry about – like whether she’d ever see Roxanne again, and why the police chief was having creepy secret meetings in the woods.

  Chapter Five

  September 2014, Saturday afternoon, Timber Valley, Colorado…

  “Why, Isadora?” Steele shook his head reproachfully.

  They were standing in front of a coffee shop in the town center of Timber Valley. The town center consisted of a big circle of shops and restaurants on a road called Green Street. The sheriff’s office, a small brick building, was on the circle as well. In the middle of the circle was a park with a gazebo and fountains and play structures and picnic tables.

  He scowled at the slim, pretty lynx shifter standing in front of him. Tattoos, streaming black hair, blue eyes. She’d grown up in Crystal Falls, about an hour and a half away, or an hour if Isadora was driving. She was a poor little rich brat with social climber parents who were mortified by her existence. They preferred her sister Diana, and showered Isadora with money to ensure she kept out of their fur. She seemed to live her entire life in a deliberate attempt to shock and offend them. She was very good at it, too.

  “Why what?” she asked innocently.

  “Why have you decided to move to Timber Valley and serve as the bane of my existence? And more specifically, why did you break into the Elegant Apparel boutique a couple of nights ago, steal a bunch of their jewelry, and put it back last night?”