by Anna Lowe
See you soon. How soon?
His fingers tapped together as he walked, calculating how many of his twenty days he had left.
He turned on his heel and headed inside the Seymour homestead. Stopped in the doorway before going in, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light until he could make out the hands of the grandfather clock and the lines on the black-and-white artwork on the wall. A Picasso print—the one Mrs. Seymour told him about when he was a kid. The wobbly stick figure was Don Quixote, who chased after windmills and did all kinds of other crazy things.
Chasing after windmills, old Henry would chime in. Like us running this ranch.
They’d laugh at that, the Seymours, and smile at each other and carry on. They never gave up, not in tough years, not through the droughts, not when outsiders came along with offers that were too good to be true. And he’d do the same. The ranch had a lot of potential. He knew he could get it back on its feet—without resorting to crazy plans like selling water rights or any such nonsense. Why would Tina’s brother think he’d ever do such a thing?
The wind breezed down the empty hallway, prompting a sigh. The only souls left on the ranch were him, old Dale in the bunkhouse, and a couple of ranch hands who came and went. Yesterday, with Tina here, the whole place seemed to have perked up, but today, it was as tired and worn and empty as it had been before.
He turned the corner for the office and came to an abrupt halt.
The door was open, and Dale sat reclined in the chair with his dirty boots propped on Henry Seymour’s oak desk.
“Dale,” Rick gritted out. The soaring updraft that he’d been gliding on suddenly petered out and dropped him in a dusty heap.
Dale barely looked up. Barely acknowledged him there. Lazily turned a page of a ledger before stabbing his cigarette out on a saucer over by the lamp. The delicate saucer that was part of Lucy Seymour’s china set, painted with a pheasant and flowers and grass. There was nothing delicate about the stale smell of tobacco, though, or the stale smell of the ranch foreman.
Rick counted slowly to ten.
“Have a nice sleep-in, boss?” Dale said, tossing him one of those crocodile smiles.
The man might as well have said, Blowing off work again?
Rick scowled. “Get your feet off Henry’s desk.”
Dale shifted his feet into a more comfortable position. “Your desk, you mean. Boss.” He added the final word a split second after the rest. Trying to push Rick’s buttons, as usual, though it would never work.
“Henry’s desk,” Rick growled back.
“Not sayin’ a man doesn’t deserve a little lie-in, not with company like that.” Dale faked nonchalance, tilting his head in the direction Tina had gone.
That button worked. Rick thumped both hands on the desk and all but roared in Dale’s face. “Get. Out. Of. This. House.”
That got Dale moving. Faster than he’d ever seen the man move, as a matter of fact. Rick kept his hands on the desk lest they throttle Dale as he scrambled past. One more comment, one more hint, and he’d kill the man with his bare hands.
He stood there a long time afterward, fighting to settle his nerves. Yeah, Tina definitely had a way of bringing out the animal in a man.
Chapter Eighteen
“Carly!” Tina waved, spotting her sister at last. She’d pushed the speed limit and run more than her share of yellow lights to get to the airport in time, but she’d made it.
“Tina!” Carly strode over from the security checkpoint.
A dozen heads turned, as they did wherever Carly went. Her long blond hair flowed like she’d just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. Mile-long legs stuck out in the ample space between her ultrashort cutoff jeans and ultrahigh cowgirl boots, showing a golden tan. The pink tank top she wore hugged her trim figure so tightly, Tina could make out the ring Carly wore in her pierced navel.
Carly shook off three would-be suitors like flies just in the course of covering those thirty feet. Walked right past them, exuding that I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-think attitude she’d been born with. She strode across the tired carpet of the airport and stepped casually into Tina’s hug.
“Hey, baby sis,” Tina murmured. Even with Carly being Carly, it was good to see her again.
“Hi, old lady,” Carly shot back. She patted Tina on the back, then froze. Sniffed. Pulled back to study Tina’s face.
Oh, shit. Tina cringed. Here it comes.
“Yum,” Carly announced, loud enough for half the crowd to hear. She leaned in for another sniff. “He smells good.”
Shit, shit, double shit. Her sister’s keen shifter nose had zoned right in on Rick’s scent. God, what had she been thinking last night, rubbing up and down Rick like that?
We were thinking mate. Remember? her wolf chimed in.
Tina grabbed her sister’s arm and hauled her down the concourse. “Shh!”
“It’s not like these people know you!” Carly laughed, tossing her golden hair.
Four different men tripped over their own feet just watching her, and even the priest standing beside a newsstand looked ready to break his vows. Carly-traffic, as Cody called it. The woman created gridlock everywhere she went.
Tina dragged her along by the elbow as two men bumped into each other. “Next time, I’ll let Cody pick you up.”
“Next time, I ride my Harley. I hate flying.” Carly sniffed.
Every inner alarm in Tina clanged as she stopped in her tracks. “Wait a minute.” She took Carly by both shoulders. “You didn’t crash another motorcycle, did you?”
Carly rolled her eyes. “No, Mom. I’m just here for three days this time, so I decided to fly.”
Tina studied every inch of her sister’s lithe frame for fresh scars. Shifters healed quickly, but if you looked hard enough… The faint scratches across one shoulder were from the time Carly totaled her last bike in an accident that would have killed any human. The jagged line across her right forearm from one of her rock climbing falls was still there, too.
“Good.” Tina finally nodded. “Flying is safer.” Anything where Carly wasn’t at the controls was safer.
Her sister flashed a wicked smile as her eyes took on that wild look. “Maybe next time I will ride the bike. Really let that puppy fly…”
“Don’t even joke about it,” Tina barked, towing her down the hallway again.
Her heart was thumping now, because yes, as older sister and sole Hawthorne female at the ranch, her motherly instincts were always hard at work. And they worked double time whenever her daredevil sister was around.
Daredevil? Death wish is more like it, the ranch women used to mutter. Tina had always shushed them, because you never knew. Carly might try living up to those words just to prove that she could.
“Ha!” Carly pointed at the luggage belt. “Mine’s the first one out!”
That was the thing about Carly; she had a lucky streak a mile wide. A good thing, too.
“Buckle up,” Tina reminded her the minute they slid into the car.
“Sure thing.” Carly buckled it behind her back so the alarm would stop dinging. She leaned back and rested her feet on the dashboard.
“What if we get rear-ended? What if an eighteen-wheeler wipes us out?”
Carly yawned. “We’re shifters. We’ll heal.”
“One of these days…” Tina was afraid to say the rest. That shifters were still mortal, and a bad enough accident on an unlucky day…
Carly cranked up the air conditioning and changed the subject. “How do people live in this climate? I swear it’s a hundred and twenty.”
“A hundred and seventeen,” Tina murmured, merging onto the highway. “Here in Phoenix. But up at the ranch—”
Carly took over from there. “At the ranch, it’s a perfect eighty-nine. At the ranch, everything is perfect. You sound like Dad.”
Tina scrunched her lips together, but Carly just laughed. “Now you even look like Dad.”
Which was easy for her to say, because Ca
rly, like Cody, was lucky enough to take after her mother: free-spirited, gorgeous, outgoing. Tina and Ty, on the other hand, had been cursed with their father’s genes. Striking dark looks were one thing, but she could have done without that leaden mantle of duty, the excruciating attention to detail that made her nearly as hard to please as her father.
“So, is old man Atsa still going on about this hellhound?” Carly asked.
Tina tsked. “It’s a legitimate concern, Carly.”
“Is it? Anything new?”
She had Tina there. A week had gone by since Atsa’s warning, and they had no concrete evidence that the Navajo shaman hadn’t raised another false alarm. The constant vigilance was wearing everyone down, and to be honest, they’d all eased off a bit. Patrols still scoured the countryside and the neighboring packs communicated regularly, but none had found any sign of a demon.
“Cody called this morning and said he was checking on the latest report, but he didn’t sound too convinced.”
“Wait, Cody called you to say this?” Carly eyed her closely, then cracked into a grin. “Oh, I get it. You were with Cowboy Delicious, so you weren’t at home.” Her face lit up with mischief. “So, okay, tell me about him. I want details.” Carly rubbed her hands together. “Gory, orgasmic details.”
Tina rolled down the window for some fresh air. Maybe trying to clear a little of Rick’s lingering scent, too. A futile attempt, because she’d rubbed him hard enough to make his skin shine, but it was worth a try. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Why not?” It was a challenge, not a question. Almost a dare.
“Carly,” she ground out. “Do. Not. Tell. Anyone.”
“Why not? You have a right to screw any cowboy you want, Tina. To hell with what Dad says.”
Easy for her sister to say. Tina kept her eyes steadfastly on the highway ahead. It was easy for Carly to be Carly. Independent. Reckless. Unafraid. Carly hadn’t grown up as the oldest daughter of the ruling alpha. She didn’t manage a ranch and concern herself with things like her reputation, because she didn’t carry a mile-high stack of expectations or have a hundred invisible judges studying every move she made, every day.
“He sure smells good.” Carly leaned in closer, sniffing.
Tina leaned away and rolled the window open a bit more.
“Man, that scent is strong. Did you shag him all morning and most of the night?”
She must have blushed, because Carly broke out in a huge grin and smacked her on the shoulder.
“You did shag him all morning and most of the night! Way to go, girl!”
“It’s not like that,” Tina tried.
“No? Then what was it like?”
Like magic. Like heaven. Like the best parts of every sweet dream rolled into one night.
Tina squeezed her lips together and looked straight ahead. Carly would never understand. Thank goodness Carly hadn’t spent enough time in Arizona to remember Rick’s scent, because the only thing worse than her sister knowing about Rick was her sister realizing who Rick was. She could hear the screech now.
Rick Rivera, the star hitter? You fucked Rick Rivera?
If she hadn’t been driving, she would have buried her face in both hands.
Carly chuckled. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”
Every muscle in Tina’s body tensed. “What do you know about love?”
“I’ve fallen in love!”
Tina arched an eyebrow at her sister.
“I have!” Carly waited a beat, then waved vaguely. “So, okay, I fell back out…”
“Then it wasn’t love.”
Carly snorted. “What is love anyway? I mean, true love.”
Tina opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “True love is…is…” She was a little short on words, but images flooded her mind. Rick, pulling out the chair for her at lunch. Rick, his jaw tight as he said he understood about her not wanting to leave Arizona with him. Rick, gazing into her eyes like they were a wishing well and he was down to his last penny.
Carly took in her silence with a weighty nod. “Wow. You really are in love.”
Tina wanted to cry, to kick, to scream. She’d been in love with Rick all her life, but no one ever asked. Ever suspected. Ever cared. Not about Good Old Tina.
“You’re actually serious about this guy?”
“How can I not be serious? He’s my destined mate.” She blurted it out before thinking, then slapped a hand over her mouth.
Carly was too busy shaking her head to notice, thank God. “There is no such thing as a destined mate. You of all people should know that.”
“There is,” Tina said fiercely. “There is!”
“Is not,” Carly retorted. “Just regular old love, just like any human.”
Tina’s wolf started growling inside.
Carly galloped off on one of her tirades. “Look, am I glad the right woman came along and knocked some sense into Ty’s head? Of course I am. Am I glad Heather got Cody to grow up? Hallelujah, I say! Good for her. But it’s not destiny.” Her finger stabbed the air. “It’s just love. Shifters fall in love, just like people do, and they make the same mistakes. And after a while, it all breaks down. Disagreements turn into fights. Small concessions become huge compromises. Dreams get thrown away. Look at my mom, or yours, with Dad, for goodness’ sake. Look what a mess he made of their lives.”
The mess he made of all of our lives, she might as well have added.
“Neither one of our moms was his destined mate,” Tina insisted.
“No, they were just a couple of women hopelessly in love. Blind until it was too late.” Carly’s voice was laced with bitterness. Disappointment. Determination not to make the same mistake. “Look, guys can be a lot of fun. But destined mates are a myth. Old-fashioned bullshit used to keep women in their place.” She crossed her arms in silent defiance.
“No one’s saying you have to mate,” Tina murmured.
She snorted. “A damn good thing, too. I don’t want a man. Don’t need a man.”
Well, I do. Tina needed a man, or she’d go insane. Correction—a man of her own. Not her two brothers, not the dozen well-meaning other males in her pack. Her own man.
Rick.
“I really don’t see why any woman would want to mate.”
“Well, I can’t mate with him, so it’s all academic anyway,” Tina snapped.
“Why is it…” Carly trailed off. “Wait. Is Dad pulling one of his bullshit moves and trying to set you up with someone else?”
She snorted. Given her age, her dad would probably be happy to see her mated to just about any man in any pack. He’d certainly made his fair share of suggestions—often bluntly and in the most mortifying public situations—on suitable mates. He’d probably accept just about any he-wolf for her. But a human? Never.
Lately, though, her father had done an about-face, apparently having decided there were advantages to having a spinster daughter, married to ranch duties instead of a man.
She shook her head, avoiding Carly’s gaze. “My mate…” She had to stop there, because her heart ached just from hearing the words uttered aloud for the first time. My mate. Her wolf purred, but her human side wailed. How could destiny be so cruel? “He’s human. I can’t.”
They drove on in silence, climbing higher and higher through the desert. Too high for the scarecrow-shaped saguaro cactus that dotted the city and its surroundings. High-altitude ranch country stretched uninterrupted in both directions, on and on to the purple-blue line of mountains beyond. There were days when the desert seemed chock-full of hidden gems, just waiting to be discovered. Other times it just looked barren. Empty. Hopeless.
“I don’t get it.” Carly gestured. “You believe in destined mates, but you won’t mate him. Some logic.”
“He’s human. A mating bite could kill him.”
“Heather is human. She didn’t die.”
“Heather’s a woman.”
“So?”
“It’s different.�
�
“Bullshit.”
“It isn’t!” Tina thumped the steering wheel. “Men fight the change more. They hardly ever survive. You know what they say. The stronger the man, the more his body will resist.”
Carly waved an unimpressed hand. “Old wives’ tales.”
“It’s a fact. A fact, Carly!” She was almost yelling now, but she didn’t care. “Kyle nearly died from the change. His body fought it that hard. And my mate…” There it was again, the hitch in her voice when she said it. My mate. “He’s strong. Maybe even stronger than Kyle. He wouldn’t make it.”
“If destiny wanted him to be yours,” Carly argued, “he ought to be fine, right?”
“And if destiny is just messing around?”
A long silence stretched while they avoided each other’s eyes. When Carly finally whispered, her face was turned to the open plains.
“Then he’ll die.”
Chapter Nineteen
Rick turned the shower head to cold and let that pound his body for a little while. He needed it, bad. Not just to cleanse the layers of sweat stuck to his skin at the end of a hard working day, but to settle down that hard-on he got just thinking about Tina.
“So you’ll come?” he’d asked—just about begged—into the phone.
“Rick…” Tina’s voice wavered. So full of want, so full of frustration.
“Come. Please.” He’d have gotten down on his knees if it would have helped. “Please come.”
He had to strain to hear her answer. But even as a whisper, it made his heart soar. “I’ll come.”
Finally, finally, he’d get to see her again. The day had seemed as torturously long as the last seven years, and spending last night with her had only doubled his need for her.
About an hour after he called her, he’d been checking the roof tiles on the Seymours’ house when his phone beeped with a text from Tina, and even that made his heart beat faster. Yes, he brought his phone up there with him, just in case she called.
