by Bonnie Vanak
Molly remembered the pretty Elf who had fallen in love with the panther shifter who lived south of here. “Can you call her and ask her to investigate?”
“They’re in Oregon, visiting Sienna’s people. Won’t return for weeks.”
She looked around. “Where’s Robert?”
“Checking out the burn area, making sure everything is okay for the prescribed burn.” Jake braced his hands on his splayed knees. “What’s the deal, Molls? Are you taking that asshole as your mate?”
“Maybe.”
He dragged in a deep breath. “You deserve much better than Luke. You need a real male who will treat you right.”
The concern in his deep voice rattled her. “It’s for the best. Our union will unite the packs.”
His mouth twisted in a disapproving frown. Jake dusted off his hands. “Best for the pack, but what about your life? Why the hell couldn’t Robert and Silvern keep to the truce instead of putting you in this predicament?”
“If they didn’t break it, someone else would have. They’re so restless lately.” Troubled, she shook her head. Luke had nearly broken it last month by picking a fight with a member of her pack over game, but no point in relaying that information. Jake detested Luke enough.
“I’m sorry your hard work fell apart, Jake. I know you tried your best to negotiate peace for the good of both packs.”
His jaw tightened to stone. “I didn’t do it for the good of all, Molls. Did it for you so you’d be safe. I know how much the Silvern pack sees your pack as rivals.”
He stared into the distance and the same warm feeling ignited her body. Jake cared. Perhaps too much. But how could they ever be together? Jake would never join her pack. It hurt so bad it felt like a knife scraping along her heart.
She slid her small palm into his large, square one. Warmth radiated from him, and the flare of sexual arousal turned sharper, and much more dangerous.
“Don’t judge me harshly, Jake. I do what’s best for my people.”
He picked up their conjoined hands and brushed a soft kiss across her knuckles. “I’d never judge you. I understand, just wish you’d do what’s best for you.”
Molly’s body thrummed and yearned from that singular, sweet kiss. She leaned toward him, needing more, wanting more…
Jake’s eyes closed.
Crashing sounds came through the undergrowth. He pulled away, sharp disappointment flaring on his face. She felt equally crushed as her parents and William emerged from the distant scrub trail, followed by a sullen Luke. She still had a few minutes before they got to the picnic tables.
Jumping off the picnic table, Jake flicked them a desultory wave. He glanced at her, and she wondered if he could hear her rapid heartbeat, know how turned on he’d made her.
Judging by his flaring nostrils and darkened eyes, he knew. Jake’s expression tightened. “Damnit, I can’t take a mate.”
The harsh words hurt, but she didn’t draw back. This was Jake, her friend. “Why? Why do you refuse what comes naturally to Lupines? We weren’t meant to run alone. Everyone needs a mate for life.”
“We’ve talked about this before. You know I’m solitary.” His mouth thinned to a flat line. “I swore I’d never mate. It’s not for me.”
“What happened to you, Jake? Why are you so against pack, against finding love?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Have to get to work. See you around, Molls. You ever need me, call. You ever want to run in my park, you don’t need an invite.”
“I thought it wasn’t your park and you were only the caretaker,” she said in a quiet voice.
Jake’s jaw tensed again as he flicked his gaze toward the approaching Luke. “It’s my park when it comes to that dickwad.”
He headed for the ATV, his stride graceful and filled with purpose. The wolf even had a sexy walk.
“Bye,” she called out.
A deep melancholy stole over her as Jake mounted the ATV, his muscled limbs straddling the machine. She thought about him mounting her, taking her in the dark of night. Jake would be a skilled lover who would steal her breath away.
But Jake lived a solitary life. They couldn’t be anything more than friends, even if she decided against mating Luke.
Molly fought back the tears clogging her throat as she watched Jake drive off.
Chapter 4
Before he abandoned his pack in Montana, Jake used to enjoy dusk. Now, the encroaching darkness only amplified his loneliness. There was no light burning for him in the window when he returned home. Nothing but a damn empty trailer.
Well, it’s your fault. You wanted solitude after you left Montana. Did you think loneliness wasn’t part of the package deal?
Sitting on the front porch of his double-wide trailer, Jake drank a beer and strummed a song on his guitar. The haunting chords of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “From the Beginning” echoed off the trunks of slash pines and threaded through the sharp saw palmetto scrub. The Florida sunshine began to die as the sun set beyond the trees. The solitary life never got to him as much as it had since he’d heard Molly Monroe had been given a deadline to mate with Luke Silvern.
Jake focused on playing, trying to forget Molly. She was pack and had her loyalties. He had none.
He liked his living arrangements at the park. Plenty of room for his wolf to roam, and small game to feast upon. And no other Lupines asking how he was doing, reminding him of the enormous loss he’d suffered.
Here, no one even knew he’d had a woman.
Of course, none of his coworkers knew he was a werewolf. They thought he’d moved from Montana because he couldn’t stand the cold winters anymore.
He paused to take a pull from the longneck. Imported. Frou frou beer Darius had called it. He set down the bottle, feeling a pinch of nostalgia for the beta of his former pack. Darius had been an occasional drinking buddy and a friend when they’d gone into town. When Karlene had died, Darius was the one who’d insisted on taking Jake out to get roaring drunk. “Forget the beer, you need stronger stuff,” he’d said, shoving a glass of straight Kentucky bourbon at him.
Darius, more than any other male in the Mitchell pack, knew the pain Jake felt. He’d lost Sam, his beloved mate. Then he’d found her again, and now they were together at last, all was well, amen.
He raised the bottle in a silent salute to his former pack. Probably all of them had found mates by now.
He’d never mate. Not after losing Karlene. And Molly, pretty Molly with her lush curves and her delicious, wet mouth… She belonged to him. Every male instinct urged him to unleash the wolf and ravish her until she writhed naked beneath him, crying out her pleasure. Then he’d brush aside her silky red hair and sink his teeth into her neck as his cock pulsed inside her tight, wet center, sealing her to him for life.
Mated forever.
Not gonna happen, Jake. Not for him.
Jake stared at the forest, the pleasant buzz from the beer fading. He didn’t deserve a mate. The one woman who counted on him to protect her was dead because he’d failed her.
He leaned back, determined to shut out the past. Instead, he picked at his snack of crackers and cheese and tossed a few crumbs to squirrels looking for food.
One squirrel darted out from the undergrowth, darted up the stairs and snatched a cracker right from Jake’s plate on the table.
“Hey!” He started after the squirrel, caught a familiar scent. “Rodney, stop stealing my food.”
The squirrel sat on its haunches and grinned as it munched the cracker. Then it blinked and turned into a small man with short brown hair, dark eyes and a snaggle-toothed smile. One ear was slightly chewed at the tip, result of a fight with a cat.
“Put some clothes on.”
Rodney waved a hand and clothed himself by magick. He plopped into the chair beside Jake and helped himself to another cracker.
“Wolf, I don’t get you. You work here all day long, doing nothing but commune with the woods and you live here alone. Your only entertainment, far
as I know, is poker night with me and Martin. Don’t you ever get out? Or do you have some kind of disease that you don’t want the ladies to know about? There are treatments for that, you know.”
My disease has no treatment, no cure, Jake thought bitterly. “I like my privacy.”
The squirrel shifter waved a hand at the six-foot wood fence ringing Jake’s front and side yard, leaving the porch and backyard open to the woods. Crumbs flew in every direction with the gesture.
“You need to get laid,” Rodney advised.
Jake choked on a sip of beer. “What?”
“Go into town, find a bar and a lady and have sex. You’re much too uptight, even for a wolf.”
“Right. And then leave her the next day.” Because the only woman he really wanted these days had masses of red hair, a sweet, curvy body and a sparkle in her eyes.
“No promises, no regrets. Like me.” Rodney grinned. “I have lady friends in every tree who wait with bated breath to see if I’ll service them that night. No woman will ever get her hooks, or claws, into me.”
Bushes rustled. Jake watched a small raccoon emerge from the undergrowth. He raised his bottle. “Hello, Nessie.”
The raccoon ignored him and scurried toward the bowls of food he’d set out for her.
Rodney gave a disgusted snort. “See? Even your wolf side needs tending. What Lupine ever feeds prey?”
“The kind that doesn’t hunt a mother with young. Nessie had a litter recently and she’s nursing. There’s enough game in these woods to feed my wolf when I feel the need.”
“Don’t tell that to Luke Silvern. He’d chew you up and spit you out like a bad nut if he heard. Mean-ass shifter thinks everything in the forest is his prey.”
Jake’s hand tightened on the bottle. “He’s pissed one time too many times on my land, leaving his scent all over the place as if this is his territory. Next time I see him lifting his leg on a tree here, I’m kicking his ass all the way to Jacksonville.”
Rodney gave him a thoughtful look. “You could try, but his pack will back him. You’d have to fight all of them. Red wolves are smaller than you, but vicious fighters.”
The squirrel shifter finished the cracker, smacked his lips. “Besides, I heard Luke’s settling down to mate. Word is Molly Monroe will consent to the match.”
Jake stiffened. “She hasn’t said yes yet.”
A shrug from Rodney. “What does it matter? She will. Long as her parents, and her alpha, approve. The mating will take place soon as she agrees.”
Rodney elbowed him and gave a sly look. “Heard that Luke has been itching to get into Molly for a while now. Bet you a year’s worth of walnuts he fucks her like crazy on their mating night and gets her pregnant. He’ll be on her like a rutting beast, slamming into her like a pile driver. Luke’s a hard guy, if you get my drift.”
His temper surfaced. Jake gripped his beer bottle, wishing he could crack Luke over the head with it. Luke didn’t deserve Molly. She was so sweet and pretty, and had a spark that made a man wonder what kind of passion she’d display in bed, and then made him want to settle down and protect her, and raise a whole passel of adorable red-headed babies.
“And Luke is a tough guy. I heard he’s gotten fast with his fists lately.” Rodney dusted off his hands. “I hope he’s not into using them with Molly.”
Jake turned, his emotions lathered to a frenzy. “He’d better not mistreat her. Molly’s a gentle soul. She deserves…”
He fell silent. Deserved what? A gentle bedding from a shifter like him who walked alone?
“She deserves better,” he finally said.
But Rodney’s dark eyes were sharp. “You’re sweet on her. Knew it. All that time you’ve been seen with her in the park…”
Jake cut that rumor to the quick. “Seen with her and other volunteers clean away dead scrub and remove non-native trees. Trees, I might add, that you help to spread with your constant flinging away of seeds instead of proper disposal. Next time I catch you doing that, I’m caging you and transporting you to a park in Miami. One without trees.”
Ordinarily the threat made Rodney laugh, but the squirrel shifter’s expression grew serious. “Flinging around the seeds of exotic species is the least of your worries, wolf. Have you seen the riverbank lately near the amphitheater? And all those odd, black dandelion puffs floating on the air?”
Jake frowned. “There’s no such thing as black dandelion seeds.”
“Right. Not in the ordinary world. There’s talk of dark magick.”
He turned around. “Rumors or something else?”
“Could be rumors. You know how squirrels love to gossip. But there’s something strange in the air. Dark. Can’t place it. A heaviness.” Rodney shrugged. “Or it could be my imagination.”
“You have no imagination. But imagine what I will do to you if you and your squirrely friends are stirring things up to cover your nasty eating habits.”
That shut him up. Rodney scrambled to his feet. “Gotta go. Getting late and I have a hot date. New lady friend.” He shifted into his squirrel form and scampered off before Jake reminded him of other transgressions he’d overlooked. Like the time Rodney had run up a camper’s leg to look beneath her dress, sending the woman into hysterical fits and nearly earning Rodney a beating with an iron skillet from the woman’s infuriated husband.
Fortunately, the lady had been a forgiving white-tailed deer shifter enjoying the park with her extended family, not a Skin. Her mate had calmed after Jake gave them year-round free passes.
Passes Rodney paid for out of pocket.
Jake drained his beer and propped a hiking boot up on the railing, studying the sweep of trees and sawgrass palmetto. Molly Monroe. The pretty, shy red wolf shifter was too good for Luke. Luke would never shower her with true devotion, bring her wildflowers found growing in a batch of sunshine. Luke would never awaken her with gentle kisses and then roll over and cover her soft body with his, gently thrusting inside her, watching passion daze her eyes and coaxing a shy smile to her face.
No, Luke would be rough and careless.
But it was none of his business. He was a lone wolf without a pack. His pack was back in Montana at the Mitchell Ranch, a place he’d never call home again. Not after Karlene’s death. He could still smell the burning timbers, hear her screams…
Molly would mate Luke, and maybe the shifter would calm down and be decent to her.
With a snort of disgust, Jake picked up his plate and bottle, slung the guitar over one shoulder and headed into the cabin to finish paperwork. He’d vowed to never again get involved with anyone, or any pack, either back in Montana or here in Florida.
Because what was left of his shattered heart remained back in Montana, back with the pack he’d abandoned for the sake of keeping the peace, and buried in a grave with the one he’d intended to mate.
Chapter 5
These days, the only peace she ever found was in the park that Jake patrolled. In Jake’s territory, she felt safe.
In wolf form, Molly nosed through the scrub, knowing her uncle and Jake planned a prescribed burn here. Luke wouldn’t dare come here searching for her, for he feared Jake, and the Skins would keep him away from the burn area.
Luke never let her have a minute alone while she was at the nursery. He followed her everywhere, and last night…
Muscles ached as she loped along a narrow trail carved through the brush. She’d come here to escape from Luke, and heal. Lupines healed faster in wolf skin.
Neither Robert nor her parents realized what Luke had done to her during last night’s visit to her uncle’s nursery. Luke tried to pressure her into having sex with him and when she refused, he beat her in a violent rage, making sure to hurt her in places covered by clothing. She didn’t dare tell anyone out of fear her uncle would go ballistic.
Luke had never been violent before, but lately that had changed. Everything had changed.
Distracted, she watched Jake through the brush, her tail waggi
ng as she saw him talk with the others as they prepared to burn the area. Jake would never hurt her.
Seeing they were getting ready to set the fire, she silently slipped away, wishing Jake could be her intended mate.
Some days, being a wolf and a park ranger really sucked.
Today was going to be one of them.
Most days, he loved his job, with its 11,500 acres of pristine Florida wilderness. Visitors never ventured deep into the park where Jake preferred to hunt. He had a fierce dedication to protecting the land. With its sandy soil, towering pine scrub trees, brackish river water and sullen cypress sloughs, it proved a sharp contrast to the rolling green hills and jagged mountains and crystal clear rivers he’d left behind in Montana.
Nothing to remind him of what he’d lost.
A wolf never went hungry living here with plenty of small game. He’d once even chanced upon a black bear, who had stared for a minute, then quietly slunk back into the woods as if recognizing Jake as the larger predator.
His job kept him busy enough. From working at the ranger programs, taking visitors on tours to observe wildlife, to keeping up the maintenance of trails and removing exotic species.
Controlled burning was the only part he hated.
On those days, he’d arrive back at his trailer stinking of smoke and sweat, and shower for an hour, scrubbing himself free of the stench. Then he’d tumble into bed and fall into a nightmare. Always the same one. Flames licking the side of the cabin, Karlene’s screams piercing his eardrums like sharp claws. He’d awaken in a cold sweat, the sheets damp, tears wet upon his cheeks.
Fortunately, the controlled burns were not often.
The prescribed burns helped rangers manage the wildlife habitats and also reduced the risk of out-of-control wildfires. All it took was a lightning strike, or some fool camper to toss a match into the dry-as-dust scrub during the winter, and pow!
Jake understood the need. He just didn’t like fire. Others joked he was the only ranger they never had to worry about extinguishing his own campfire, because he never built one.
