by Jan Irving
A Total-E-Bound Publication
www.total-e-bound.com
A Cowboy in Ravenna
ISBN #978-0-85715-884-0
©Copyright Jan Irving 2012
Cover Art by April Martinez ©Copyright January 2012
Edited by Sue Swift
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2012 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Total-e-burning and a sexometer of 2.
This story contains 101 pages, additionally there is also a free excerpt at the end of the book containing 8 pages.
Uncommon Cowboys
A COWBOY IN RAVENNA
Jan Irving
Book six in the Uncommon Cowboys Series
Ranch foreman Trinity March has always protected the boss’s son, innocent young human Chace Davidson, but can Trin keep the dark creature inside him from finally claiming Chace?
Foreman Trinity March has always taken care of the boss’s son, impulsive, passionate Chace Davidson. He knew Chace was his mate the moment he taught him to ride but he figures he’s not good enough for the innocent young human.
Chace aches for Trin but when he runs off to Italy to lose his embarrassing virginity, Trin follows, just like always, under orders from Chace’s father to ‘straighten’ Chace out. Good luck, since wolf shifter Trin just might take what he has always wanted.
Dedication
In Memory of the real Sahara Blue, my fishy companion.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
501: Levi Strauss and Co.
BlackBerry: Research In Motion
BMW3-Series: Bayerische Motoren Werke
Moretti: Heineken International
Popsicle: Unilever
Tylenol: The Tylenol Company
Vespa: Piaggio & C.S.p.a
Indiana Jones: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Mercedes: Daimler AG
Prologue
Shatter me and fling me across the fabric of space and time.
Make me nothing. From nothing make me everything again.
—Rumi
Trinity March’s heart slammed against his ribs. He sat up on his sofa bed. He should have been deeply asleep, but the argument at the pack gathering had nagged at him all night.
Trin had brought Calhoun to the meeting, argued they hire him to help protect their women and children. Their alpha had scoffed. So what if one of the villages had been attacked by rogue shifters, with warriors killed, women and children enslaved? They’d been weak. The tribe Trinity had served as shaman was three times as large. They didn’t need an enforcer like Calhoun.
Calhoun’s attitude hadn’t helped. His chilling appearance in black leather and mirrored shades had matched his reputation as he’d leaned against his motorcycle, his scarred face impassive. He hadn’t seemed to care if the pack hired him or not.
Trin shoved hair out of his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep with worry eating his gut. He’d felt this way for months.
He looked out the window and through the yellowed lace curtains he glimpsed a light on in the cabin of his elderly human neighbour, Mr Jenkins. The old man had been limping when they’d both visited their mail boxes yesterday. Trin needed to mix up a remedy, use it as an excuse so he could put a hand on the man’s shoulder, touch him, heal him, if only temporarily.
Thinking of healing eased the tension, brought back normality. He would get up and grind some herbs fresh from the garden out back. Then he’d find a way to convince his alpha to see Calhoun, to speak to him alone.
Outside, that light from Mr Jenkins’ cabin flickered as a shadow moved, fluid as dark liquid.
A wolf.
Trin’s enhanced eyesight caught the turn of the knob on his cabin door. It opened softly, admitting the breath of the night.
The scent he caught was unwashed skin, motor oil and stale beer.
It did not belong to any of his pack mates.
The cabin only possessed two rooms, the great room where he was lying on his sofa bed, and his son Sage’s room. Listening to the drum of his heart, Trin eased the covers off, hyper aware of the too-loud rustle of his bedding.
He rolled off the bed and onto the floor, snaking to the ground.
Bang! His pillow exploded.
“Dad!” Sage screamed.
“Get the kid!” a harsh voice ordered. “And for Christ’s sake don’t hurt him like you did the other kids. This one has power, thanks to his papa. I want him undamaged for our buyer.”
Trin recognized that voice. Dempsy, leader of the rogue shifters.
Trin flung himself at the men, his needle claws spearing into someone’s gut, shredding internal organs. He yanked them free, watched the burly man with long, unwashed hair drop his pistol. “Huh?” The stranger touched his unravelling intestines before he fell on them.
Trin’s rep was as a gentle, solitary healer. These rogue shifters had assumed he wasn’t a warrior. They probably thought he wouldn’t fight to protect what was his.
They were wrong.
“Fuck! Kill him!” Dempsy shouted, stepping back as the lamp swung in an arc above, highlighting the pool of blood on Trin’s hardwood floor.
Trin fell to his knees, taking punch after punch, his face splitting. The pain—
Couldn’t shift.
Hands ripped at his clothing. They were going to play with him before they killed him.
“No!” He grabbed Dempsy by the balls, twisting his grip, fired by hate. Dempsy screamed, grabbing his crotch as he crumpled to the floor.
Free, Trin crawled, body blazing pain like ugly neon.
He had to… He had to shift. No matter what, he had to shift! Something stirred inside him. A huge shadow, a claw of death. He would rip him up, comin’ out. Rip him to shit. His wolf, but not his wolf. He shook his head, disoriented.
He staggered to Sage’s room, leaving a bloody handprint on the door as he shoved it open. A spark of agony chewed skin off his shoulder as a bullet thudded into the wall beside him. Hurry, hurry. Dammit, I have to hurry.
Time seemed to slow… He could see each freckle on Sage’s pale face standing like stars on a milky background. Sage, eight years old, wearing his favourite blue pyjamas, huge eyes fixed on his face, looking for direction, for reassurance.
Sage.
Trin scooped up his son, shouldering the door shut behind him. It boomed and trembled. A kick?
They’re coming.
He dropped Sage back on his feet and shoved the chest of drawers they’d painted sky blue in front of the door.
Sage opened his mouth.
Trin covered it, making a ‘shhh
’ gesture with his finger to his lips.
He herded Sage to the window, opened it, sweat stinging his skin. The dresser scraped across the floor behind them.
They’re coming.
“No matter what, you don’t come back here,” he told his son. “You run. Run like never before, you hear me, little robin?”
“But I want to stay with you!” Sage whispered. “I can shift, I can fight!”
“No.” God, he hadn’t had time to prepare Sage, to tell him of their special legacy. “Daddy won’t be safe. You need to run. Promise me.”
He didn’t have time to kiss his son, to pull him close. His heart ached with love, with words, useless now. Sage’s eyes, the shape of his face, the sturdy little shoulders.
Trin shoved Sage out the window, saw him look back one last time, saw him running for the trees.
Trin swung around, blades erupting from his fingers, his hair rippling in a rage down his back as his coat grew.
A great grey wolf sprang for the men who had come for his son.
“He’s shifting!” he heard one of the rogue shifters yell. “Shoot him! Shoot the fucker!”
Bullets hit him, blood erupting from his body, hurting, left leg giving out. Couldn’t fall. Not yet, not yet. Trin had to protect his son. Protect. All he was, all he would ever be, a father in his heart, his gut, lit him.
His shadow elongated, distorted like a nightmare smeared across the wall.
Growing, tearing flesh and bone. He screamed… The thing would kill him as it was born.
Shifting again. Becoming.
“Shit! Shadow shifter!”
He was towering death.
They fired, bullets pinging, chewing off wood chips, blood.
Massive claws flashed.
Chapter One
Eleven years later
“I told the old man!” Chace Davidson burst out as if to punctuate the slapping of the screen door behind him. On the mark, like a runner about to bolt for the finish line, Chace absorbed the absolute quiet of Trinity March’s spartan kitchen.
The only sounds were the tick of the yellowed plastic clock sitting on the dusty river rock hearth and the unsatisfied swish of the wind outside the cabin windows. The only signs of spring this April were the strong winds that whipped up cold front after cold front.
Trin was sitting at his battered maple table, his big capable hands spreading out the morning paper along with the monthly ranchers’ newsletter. He stared at Chace through cool, smoky quartz eyes, a stillness about him that was predatory.
Chace swallowed, his body quivering with the aftermath of rage from this latest fight with his father, his heart thundering like a stampeding herd of buffalo. In contrast, the kitchen held the hushed quality of a church. Chace was reminded of the jokes some of the hands of the Lazy L made about Trin—that he was so solemn, so reserved and so damn sad he might as well be a monk, especially since the mysterious disappearance of his son.
His son.
Shit.
Chace remembered today’s date before he saw, not coffee sitting on the table in front of Trin, but a juice glass half filled with amber liquid.
He sat, subdued, and couldn’t help but reach out to touch Trin’s hand. At the last moment he stopped himself. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He couldn’t touch Trin freely, as if it didn’t mean something.
“I’m sorry about…” He couldn’t finish. What could he say about Trin’s son? Chace had never met the kid. His disappearance had happened before Trin had come to work on the Lazy L as foreman and Trin never spoke of it. Never. “I’m sorry.”
Trin reached out without expression, picked up his whisky and sipped. A lock of black hair streaked with a single shot of grey fell into one eye. “I know you are.” His face was as unrevealing as a card shark’s, but his voice was kind, like he was squeezing Chace’s shoulder.
Trin had a way about him. Folks from all over brought him their sick horses and he helped them. Even Adrian, the local vet, marvelled at Trin’s gift of healing.
But Trin seemed to lack the ability to heal himself, spending most of his time alone.
“Just what did you tell your father this time?” he asked, probably wondering if he’d have to pull another thorn out of Chace’s paw.
Chace coloured. Damn it, he had to pick today of all days to come tromping in on Trin with more of his shit.
Trin took another drink of his whisky, honouring his lost boy in his own quiet way. The silence of the kitchen again struck Chace. Monk. Yeah, he could see why the nickname, even though this man being a monk was a shame.
Trinity was… Breath escaped Chace’s lungs in a rush as he held Trin’s gaze. Trinity March had a certain something extra, a wildness under the skin.
But Trin wasn’t remotely handsome. Though his dark hair would probably feel like heaven, his face was more craggy than good-looking and he was twenty years older than Chace’s nineteen. But his silent energy hummed, like a powerful engine waiting to power up. And when they touched lately…
Chace was careful not to touch Trin.
Studying Chace, Trin’s expression softened. “You’re stirred up like the weather outside.”
Chace swallowed. Trin had no idea why and Chace hoped to God he never would. Chace couldn’t lose Trin. He thought he’d die if he couldn’t come to Trin, just be close to him. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I guess bein’ an artist, you need a bigger canvas than the rest of us.” About the only colour in Trin’s serviceable cabin came from the glow of Chace’s paintings, landscapes of the ranch or portraits of Trinity. Chace’s favourite was one showing Trinity gentling a sick horse. Everyone had figured that mustang was a goner, but Trin had brought it back, never losing hope or patience when the animal wouldn’t eat.
But Trin had helped more than that horse. He’d been the first to recognise Chace’s yearning to hold a paintbrush. Trin had arranged for secret art lessons in his house on weeknights from a local high school teacher. Chace’s father had other plans for his son, plans that did not include Chace becoming an artist.
Chace swallowed. “I shouldn’t have come this morning. I’m sorry. I know you have your way of remembering Sage.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Trin said, voice husky. “It’s a day for family.”
Chace pulled a small watercolour free from under the newspaper. He’d done it a few years ago after asking Trin about what his son had looked like. Lacking any photographs, Chace had based it on Trin’s looks. Trin hadn’t commented on it, just rolled it up and stuffed it in a drawer but sometimes when Chace walked into the kitchen, he found Trin holding the portrait, studying it. Trin always put it away without saying anything.
Now Chace studied the shining green eyes of the boy in the portrait. “Did I get Sage right?” he asked, very softly.
Trin wouldn’t meet his gaze. He nodded. “I gave it to Calhoun. It might help find him.”
Chace swallowed. Most of Trin’s money and any holidays he had were always put into looking for his lost son, even after all these years. But Trin didn’t have it in him to give up.
Chace reached out and squeezed Trin’s arm. The small contact shocked. Chace flushed again, feeling stupid. He couldn’t touch Trin lately without making an idiot of himself.
But Trin covered Chace’s hand and, to his surprise, lifted it and put it against his forehead, closing his eyes, breathing deeply. “Christ. I’m glad you’re here, Chace. You’re the only thing… You bein’ on this ranch is what keeps me going.”
“Trin.”
Chace caught a strange image of high stone walls made of yellowish chipped rock like the kind up in the foothills. They surrounded a barren space where nothing moved but tall dead grass. He sensed that dead ground was how Trinity saw himself. He sensed the images were somehow transmitted from…Trin. “No, that’s not you,” he murmured. “I won’t ever let that be you.”
Trin’s eyes widened, his pupils huge like those of a hunting owl. “You can…see me, can’t you?”
He didn’t seem to find the idea freaky and impossible. “Of course you can, because you’re my…” He laughed softly. “I’m sorry, that’s not for you to see.”
He began to pull away but Chace gave into his impulsive nature and the knot of empathy in his chest. His chair scraped, loud in the hush of the room. He knelt beside Trin’s chair.
Trin watched him, his lips parted, colour touching his cheeks. “Chace…” His name sounded different, rough and sexy. Trin had never said it in quite that tone before. But lately Chace had caught Trin looking at him in a new way, a way that always made his heart pound.
“I’m sorry you’re alone. You need…” But he couldn’t give those bullshit suggestions that Trinity needed to start dating again. Some of the well-meaning women in their community had set him up a few times and Chace had died every time Trin had escorted some woman to a rodeo or to the movies.
Ever since Trinity had come to work here for his father, Chace had felt as if the older man belonged to him, which was crazy.
Chace searched his heart for what Trin needed, but the first answer that popped into his head was me. Yeah, right, he thought ruefully. Not very fucking helpful.
After a million years, Trin reached out and pushed the hair off Chace’s forehead. “Chace.”
He had to clear his throat. “Yeah?”
But Trin just compressed his lips, as if sealing his words inside, keeping them safe. Or was that keeping Chace safe? A trickle of apprehension feathered down his spine even as he touched Trinity’s wrist, curious if he’d see more of the strange images.
“Chace, no!” Trin gasped.
Chace was looking down at his own body, lying on the kitchen table, his hair tangled, his neck arched, his hands digging fistfuls of Trin’s plaid shirt. Trin was fully dressed but Chace was naked. Trin was standing between his spread legs. His big callused hand cupped Chace’s balls, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure.
