by Holley Trent
“By default. I did my last two years of college there.”
“Isn’t Hannah a Tar Heel?”
“Yep. Forty percent of our fights are about NCAA athletics. I don’t think she cares as much as she makes out, but it’s one of those rivalries you can’t help but to run your mouth about at any given opportunity.”
“We should get together and watch some games this fall.”
“Yeah. The more the merrier, with anyone except my brothers, because goddamn, those assholes act like the stakes are life or death.”
“If you live as long as I have, very little seems all that important.”
Belle brazenly retook her spot against Steven’s front and, rolling a daring look up to his face, decided to steal little indulgences while she could. The warmth of Steven’s body, the comforting rhythm of his heart, and the relaxing timbre of his voice so near her ear. His proximity both soothed and titillated, and although that suited the cat part of her just fine, the part of her that was woman didn’t know what it meant.
She couldn’t let herself cling to him. Actually, she had to do everything in her power not to. He was a short-term visitor, and she ... she had to go.
Reluctantly, she pulled her hands out of the back of Steven’s pants again and turned to Claude.
“Make up your mind, sugar,” Steven said. “I’m getting dizzy.”
“I just did.” To Claude, she said, “Okay. Tell me what I have to do.”
Claude’s smile was weak. “Just stay nearby in case I have questions. I’ll explain to my wife what we’re doing.”
Belle let out a breath and shifted her weight. “I can’t just hang out here in the barn. Folks are going to see my car and will want to know why I’m here. They’re going to think I made a run for the hellmouth again.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Steven said. “I have a knack for making folks forget the things they want to ask. Cop thing.”
Must have been true. His magic had certainly worked against her on the basketball court that day.
He held out his elbow and gestured to it.
With her hand halfway to him, she froze and rolled her gaze back up to his face.
“Belle?”
She shook her head. “I’m okay. It’s me. I just…shouldn’t touch you again. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m not quite right at the moment, and I don’t want you to think I’m being a tease on purpose.”
The truth was that she wasn’t teasing, and that was a problem. She liked the guy, and the odds of reciprocation weren’t in her favor.
“Don’t sweat it.” He shrugged and gestured toward the barn doors. They followed Claude toward the house, and Claude tapped a message into his phone as he led, probably warning Gail of their approach.
Steven bumped her shoulder with the side of his arm. “How is it that you and your brothers grew up on a ranch and don’t know anything about ranching?”
“Oh, don’t pin that on me. That’s just the guys. Back when my father was alive, my parents kept the two business ventures separate so that if one tanked badly—like Foye Woodworks did for a while—the other would still have a fighting chance. Mom knows ranching. Her family had been ranching on this land since the early eighteen hundreds. Dad’s family lived nearby. Mom actually left the ranch for a while after Dad snatched her up.”
“What do you mean, snatched her up? Did he pull a Foye and kidnap her like your brothers did to their mates?”
Belle laughed and made a diversion toward a paddock containing a couple of older horses Mom spoiled way too much. It was a stalling tactic meant to keep them out of the house a little while longer, but she didn’t care if she was being obvious.
“It didn’t happen quite the same way it did with my brothers. Dad wasn’t up against a curse. He just wanted Mom. Probably always had. One day, he took her.”
“Took her?”
“Yep.” Belle leaned against the fence railing, and the tan horse named Mudslide sidled over. “No apples for you today, old lady.”
The horse stayed anyway.
“She wasn’t afraid of him. She knew him. It wasn’t weird that he’d visited. I’m sure she had quite a fright, though, when he whisked her away and wouldn’t let her come back.”
“I’m guessing she either accepted him or he just wore her down.”
“Probably a little of both. I know they loved each other. That was obvious just from watching the two of them together. They were good for each other, and there’s this old saying among Cougars that if a snatched lady stays, it’s because she really doesn’t want to go home anyway.”
“Is that true?”
“Well, it was true for Ellery, Miles, and Hannah. I guess it was true for Mom, too. She and Dad’s mom fought like cats and dogs at first. It took a while, but tensions cooled and Mom didn’t really want to come back to the ranch by then. It was so crowded here with all her siblings, and she was just one more mouth for her parents to feed.”
“But she came back.”
“Yeah. She and Dad had a chance to buy out the ranch, and I guess Mom didn’t want to see it fall by the wayside. The herd was smaller back then, and they weren’t making very much money off the endeavor. They could barely keep up with the hay they had to buy to supplement the bit they’d managed to farm. Mom and Dad said they’d give it a few years and try to turn it around. So, while Mom worked on ranch stuff, Dad kept working wood full time and pitched in with the ranch stuff as he could.”
“I guess when your brothers came along, they were free labor.”
“Right. For Foye Woodworks, though—not the ranch. Mom probably could have used them, but she had other help. Not so hard to find down-on-their-luck cowboys who’ll work hard for next to no pay if you keep them fed and sheltered.” She chuckled. “We still have a few of those. The Cougar Darnell, for one. That guy had a long learning curve. Anyway, when I got old enough, I helped out a lot with the horses.”
“Yeah? The horses aren’t sensitive to you all being a little ...” He made a weak meowing sound.
Belle laughed and gave the side of his arm a poke. “Shut up. And it depends on the horse. I imagine that if someone like Mason were to try to step into this paddock, these horses would buck. His energy is too imposing. They don’t mind me so much, though.”
She rubbed Mudslide’s nose, and Mudslide in turn gave Belle a gentle nudge to the side of her face. Closest thing to a kiss a horse could give without tongue, probably.
“Hmm,” Steven said. “Jill said your energy is soothing.”
“She did?”
“Yeah.”
“Interesting.”
Mudslide ambled away. She didn’t get far, though. She paused to nip a probable bite to her foreleg, and apparently, that was a good enough place to graze, because she did that, too.
“How is that interesting?” he asked.
Belle shrugged. “It’s usually the opposite during times like right now.”
“You mean with you being in heat?”
She shrugged again.
“You’re open about that.”
She rested her chin atop her forearms on the fence slat and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. “There’s no good reason to hide it. Most Cougars would figure it out on their own, so being up front about it is a good way to manage the fallout.”
“So, you behave differently when you’re in heat? You’re not ... always so ...”
“Go on and spit it out, Steven.”
“Hey, I’m trying to be delicate, snowflake.”
“No need. No one else is. I think the word you were looking for was cranky. I’m always cranky. I’m simply more intolerant right now, is all. The condition can be a little embarrassing for some Cougars, especially if they’re the more reserved type. The behavior changes can take a rational person down a few pegs. There’s this biological imperative, and you can’t really buck it. It gets worse with each heat.”
“A biological imperative to procreate, you mean?”
“So, you’re saying not everyone holds out for the perfect someone.”
She scoffed. “No freakin’ way. Just like with plain-old humans, we look for good enough. Not everyone has a perfect mate. And if you happen to have one, you’re lucky if you even find him or her. If men are really desperate, they’ll ask Lola to send them on a mate quest, but she doesn’t always comply, and when she does, she does it at a price.”
“The curse.”
“Yeah.”
“No such device for the ladies, huh?” Steven asked.
“Nah. Logistically, it just doesn’t work because we can’t exactly toss guys over our shoulders and run with them. Besides, the curse was originally established because Lola’s ex screwed her over. It’s a curse for the men, and not even Tito is excused from it. As far as I know, though, Lola hasn’t sent him out to hunt.”
If Belle had to guess, she’d say the goddess was probably extraordinarily picky when it came to her only son. Belle couldn’t blame her. If Belle were a goddess, she’d be very concerned about the quality of her descendants. Lola’s siblings were far less hands-on with their children, and they suffered for it. She’d recently had to banish her nephew and his pack of fellow shifters through the hellmouth.
“So I’m curious now.” Steven lifted his faded cap and scraped his hair beneath it. He’d been wearing that hat for weeks, and it’d taken her that long to notice it had a flying, lipstick-wearing pig on the front.
She choked back a laugh. The mixed idioms almost broke her muddled brain.
“Has any woman ever asked Lola to send her on a quest?”
Belle furrowed her brow and fixed her gaze on some movement near the hellmouth. People, not spirits. She could see their colorful shirts way out in the desert, but from that distance, she couldn’t tell who they were. Claude had said the place was teeming with folks, so it could have been some of the local witches on standby ready to give a hand. It could have been her brothers with their mates. It may have been the fallen angel contingency that was supposed to seal the thing up. Belle hadn’t seen any of them yet, and Ellery had warned her to not have any particular expectations about what they looked like. “They’re normal guys,” she’d said. “Just ... bigger.”
Steven tickled the side of Belle’s neck and made her yip. “Quit it, ass.” She swatted at his encroaching hand.
“Just checking. You went quiet. Wanted to make sure your ghostly hitchhiker hadn’t stowed away again.”
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?” That hand came at her again, and she tossed herself back from the fence, swatting at him.
“Stop it. I hate being tickled. I bet the first circle of hell is filled with ticklers.”
“Then pay attention to me. And there are no circles of hell, according to Ellery. Just a lot of illusions.” He advanced on Belle, and she moved a little faster—backward, so she could keep her eyes on him and his damned fingers.
“I am paying attention! And I swear to any god who’s listening that if you tickle me, I will shift and maul you, and when I slice you up, I’m going to do it someplace you don’t want me anywhere near.”
“Ooh, you are cruel.”
Fast as she was, he somehow managed to confuse her, faking left and right, and grabbing her around the waist.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
“Gonna put you where you can’t scratch me,” he rasped against her ear. His voice was breathy, and her breath was ...
Well, she didn’t have any. She was afraid to tax her lungs with an inhalation, because certainly, they’d pop if she drew in a breath.
She stood very still, her body tensed and ready to pounce, eyes wide and pulse loud in her ears.
His hands tracked up her arms, and he laced his fingers in front of her chest, his weight heavy against her back. “I asked you a question.”
He smelled so good. Felt so good. That cat inside of her—that untrustworthy ditz—didn’t want to put up a fight. “A ... a question?”
“Mm-hmm. Has any lady ever asked Lola?”
“N-not to my knowledge.” Belle dragged her tongue over dry lips and sucked in some air. Need to move. Just move. Left foot, right foot, go go go.
She found her cheek pressed to his forearm, rubbing it. Marking it.
Fuck you, Fates.
“Do you have a horse here?” he asked.
“Huh?” She stopped rubbing and tried to turn around in his arms, but he tightened his grip and pulled her closer. If she concentrated, she could probably itemize every single bump on him. That rigid thing against her shoulder was probably a pec. A belt buckle against the small of her back, and the fastener of his jeans a little lower.
And she didn’t want to think beyond that, because if she did, she was going to get herself into the kind of trouble that came with nudity and regrets, and she had no use for regrets. She couldn’t spend them, couldn’t trade them in, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could learn from them.
“A horse,” he repeated. “Do you ride?”
“Um. Haven’t in a while, but yes. I still have a horse here.”
“Easy to get to?”
“Should be.”
“Why don’t you show me? Maybe it’ll distract me from how freakin’ hungry I am since you didn’t let me eat.”
“You could have eaten.”
“I didn’t want to eat that.”
“What did you want?”
“Nothing on the menu, probably. Where’s the horse?”
Belle cleared her throat and lifted an arm to point. “Down the path toward the bunkhouses.”
“Walkable?”
“Faster if we drive.”
“Let’s go. Maybe you can find some creature willing to let me mount.”
Well, if that was what he wanted, he didn’t have to look so far. There was one right in front of him.
Gods.
She cleared her throat yet again and nodded. “They’re trained well. I’m pretty sure we can find something that’ll suit you. Have you ... ridden before?”
“Of course. I like riding.”
And being ridden, too, I bet.
“I’ve ridden plenty,” he added. “Just not recently.”
“How long has it been?”
“A while. Not for lack of opportunity.” He loosened his grip on her and dropped his arms.
She turned and faced him. “You didn’t want to ... go riding?”
She had no damn business asking. His sex life was none of her concern. If he gave her the wrong answer, she’d get angry, and she had no right to be. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was just the guy who’d stood too close too often and who’d made the mistake of being too nice to her.
He shook his head. “No. Didn’t want to.”
“Why not?” Shut. Up.
“Lots of reasons, sunshine. Suffice it to say that although I wasn’t driven before, I’m certainly interested now.”
Belle bit her lip to still her tongue. She wasn’t usually the kind of woman who’d hold back her words, but she wasn’t going to ask outright if he was offering to put her out of her misery. If he did, she wouldn’t say no. She’d just pounce, and then they would have a world of problems.
He would go away, and she’d be angry for a few weeks. Maybe longer. She’d get over it eventually, but the next time she went into heat—then what?
Would she go back to avoiding men altogether or relent and call up Steven for a pity fuck?
She’d probably call him.
Lather, rinse, and repeat until he’d had enough.
Cougar history said that wouldn’t take long at all. Lola’s lover hadn’t even stuck around, and she was a goddess. Be
lle had no hopes that she’d do any better.
CHAPTER EIGHT
No one had ever accused Steven of being subtle, but unlike some old dogs, he could learn new tricks. He could adapt. And maybe it was self-serving, but the way he saw it, he was chewing on a win-win situation.
Belle gave him an inscrutable look as she led a red-brown horse out of its stall. The horse was giving him a look, too, but it was less of the shrewish Were-cougar thing and more so the “You look heavy, dude,” kind of glare.
She groaned as he took the reins. “What exactly are you proposing?”
“We’ll get to that eventually. There’s no hurry. Why don’t you tell me the horse’s name first, and we’ll go from there.”
“Idiot.”
“The horse’s name is Idiot?”
She hissed.
Cute.
“The horse is Mousse, and you need to be sweet to her, or she’ll try to bite your shoes.”
“I’m always sweet.”
Belle made some sound that was neither hiss nor growl but some garbled mixed of the two. Didn’t seem to bother Mousse, but it certainly made Steven sigh.
“Hold on to that horse.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He held the reins and rubbed Mousse’s shoulder, returning the same narrow-eyed look she was giving him. “How ’bout we have a little agreement? You don’t throw me off, and I won’t keep heeling you if you stop to piss one too many times.”
Mousse made a chuffing sound and knocked off Steven’s cap.
“Everyone’s a critic.”
Belle led a somewhat darker horse out of the stables and climbed onto the saddle without a word.
She was good at that—no hesitation, no flinching as her ass hit the seat. Just confident, knowledgeable, and sexy as hell.
“This is Roast,” she said, giving the horse’s long neck a pat. “Roast can usually tell if something’s wrong with me, so if I start handling him oddly, he’ll ignore me and bring me home.”
“What happened the last time you were behaving oddly?”
“I stopped pulling the reins. Like I said. Sometimes my blood pressure drops when I’m ...”
“In heat.”
“Yeah.”
He put his foot into the stirrup and heaved himself on, discreetly adjusting his junk as he sat. He’d learned that lesson the hard way the first time he got on a horse. “Are you going to trot me off to my doom?” he asked as he got his feet settled and adjusted where his stirrups fell. The last person who’d used that saddle had obviously been a little shorter.
