by Dani April
“How is he doing?” Mrs. McLaughlin asked with an unconcerned smile.
“I don’t know.” Morgan had a hard time keeping it together here, but she knew she would. It seemed so surreal to discuss Nathan like this. It was almost as if he was dead already. Morgan had to hold back her tears. “Mrs. McLaughlin, he shifted into his wolf two months ago. He’s been one ever since. He either won’t or can’t come back as a man. I am terribly worried about him.”
“You aren’t a shifter, dear.” Again there was an insincere smile on Mrs. McLaughlin’s face. “You wouldn’t understand our ways.”
Morgan sighed and decided on a different tack with the older lady. “Mrs. McLaughlin, I love your son, and he loves me. I would do anything in the world to help him get better. But it’s hell for me right now because I don’t know what to do for him.”
“You’ll never understand shifters, dear.”
“I think that may be true,” Morgan admitted. “But I want to understand Nathan.”
“You really came to ask me what the best thing you can do for yourself is. Isn’t that right?” Mrs. McLaughlin was like ice, and she was talking about her own son, too. Morgan couldn’t imagine the lack of emotion on the woman’s part.
“No,” Morgan corrected her but remained polite. “What I really came to ask is if you knew what’s wrong with Nathan and what caused him to shift and then not be able to come back to me?”
Mrs. McLaughlin smiled and drank her tea. “You want to know when he’s coming back to you, or if he’s coming back at all.”
“Yes I do.” Morgan sighed. Talking with this woman was every bit as hard as she knew it would be. “Do you know the answers, Mrs. McLaughlin?”
“I don’t know when my Nathan is coming back,” Mrs. McLaughlin answered. Now she seemed a bit sad or perhaps even worried about her son. “But I know he will be back. However, when he does come back, I’m not sure he’s going to return to you, dear.”
“Tell me what’s wrong with him.” Morgan was desperate. This was the question she needed an answer to.
“I’m surprised Nathan didn’t tell you himself before he shifted.”
“I don’t think he wanted to worry me. Nathan is very protective of me, and he didn’t tell me what’s wrong. But I know he had seen the doctor in Wolf Creek. My fear is that he’s sick. If he is, then I think he needs help.” Morgan looked Mrs. McLaughlin straight in the eye. “Since Nathan and I love each other, I think I’m the best one to help him.”
“Well, if Nathan didn’t trust you enough to tell you, then I’m not going to break a confidence of my son.”
Morgan sat on the edge of her chair. Her nerves stood on end. “Will you at least let me know if he’s sick or if there’s anything I can do for him?”
Mrs. McLaughlin sat her teacup aside and regarded Morgan. “I have some advice for you, dear,” she told her. “Go back to the big city and leave Wolf Creek and my son. You don’t belong out here on the land. You never did. You’re a city person.” Then she gave her another wintery smile. “You never belonged with my son, either.”
Morgan bowed her head. She felt defeated. “Maybe you’re right, Mrs. McLaughlin,” she replied and kept her voice as neutral as she could. “I’m sorry to have taken up your time this morning. I won’t be bothering you anymore.”
“No trouble at all, my dear.” Mrs. McLaughlin got up to see Morgan to the front door.
Just before she left, Morgan stopped and turned back to her. “Be honest with me about one thing, Mrs. McLaughlin,” she said. “Are you worried about Nathan?”
This caught the older lady off guard, and she had to think about it for a moment. Her eyes turned serious when she answered. “Yes, dear, I am terrified for my son right now.”
An ice-cold terror gripped Morgan’s heart.
Chapter Six
Morgan was on her computer in her bedroom. Well, it was really hers and Nathan’s, but now it was just hers.
She was going over her bank account online. Things did not look good. She was running out of money to pay the bills. Even if she got the farm aspect of their land going, and she wasn’t doing a very good job of it at the moment, it would be months before she could sell any produce at market. Before that time, she would run out of money.
Of course, Nathan had a lot of money in his account, and Morgan had only brought a small savings out here to Wyoming with her when she’d moved. But she couldn’t get access to Nathan’s money at the bank and wouldn’t have wanted any of it even if she could.
Morgan thought about her dad. They hadn’t been close after her mom died. But he was still there for her and had told her as much every time she spoke with him. Perhaps he could help her now.
Morgan hated to ask someone for money. She had even hated to ask the bank for student loans when she was in college. Now she dreaded making a phone call to her dad, even though he would definitely give her whatever she asked for.
“Hey, Pop!” she greeted him when he answered on the second tone.
“Morgan!” he was happy to hear her voice. “It’s been a while, honey. How are you guys doing out there in Wyoming?”
Morgan groaned inwardly. Things were terrible right now, but she would never admit that to her dad. “Nathan is sick,” she told him.
“Is it serious?”
“I don’t know yet.” Morgan wanted to tell him that she didn’t have a clue as to what was wrong with her boyfriend. Maybe he was dying, and maybe he just would rather run through the forest as a wolf than be with her. “Nathan isn’t here right now, and I’m staying by myself.”
“Is he in the hospital?” her dad asked. He didn’t know Nathan was a shape-shifter. No one in Chicago would have believed it even if she had told them, so Morgan had never told anyone about the special talents of her boyfriend.
“No, he isn’t in the hospital,” Morgan explained. At the moment she didn’t know where Nathan might be. Probably out in the foothills of the mountains as a wolf. “He’s just not here,” she said to her father, although it was a lame excuse.
“You sound kind of down, honey.” Her father was concerned.
“I don’t want you to worry about me, Dad. Really, I’m okay.” She would just have to tell him a few small untruths so he would be okay with her present situation. “So tell me how you’re doing?” she asked, changing the conversation.
Her father sighed on the other end. He had some news of his own. “I didn’t want you to worry, honey. But they closed the plant last week. I’m officially on unemployment now.”
This was a shock to Morgan. Her dad had worked at an auto parts factory for twenty years. “I’m really sorry, Dad.” She didn’t know what else to say. It was bad news. Her world seemed to be filled with bad news now every place she looked.
“Nope!” Her father had a way of waving away bad things and paying them no attention. “I’m not worried in the least. I’ve wanted to sit back and take it easy in my old age. Now here’s my chance. Besides, there’s talk they’ll reopen the plant in another six months. I think of this as just a long vacation.”
Morgan laughed and smiled at all the memories she had of her dad before he divorced her mom. “You never did let anything get you down, did you?” she asked him.
“That isn’t in my nature, and I hope we raised you to be the same.”
“You sure did.” She gave another smile into the phone.
She spent the next hour catching up with her dad. It felt good. At the end of the call, they said their good-byes, and she told him she loved him and would write him a letter soon. What she had not done was ask him for any money. There was no way she could do that now, not after what he had just told her. He would still have given her any amount she asked for, but he was dealing with enough in his life without her unloading more problems on his doorstep.
No, Morgan decided, her dad was not the right person to turn to for help.
He had asked her when she was coming back to Chicago. He had meant just for a visit, but she want
ed to tell him she was leaving first thing in the morning and not returning. However, that was the coward’s way out. Now she was more determined than ever to stay out here in Wyoming and see this thing through.
If Nathan came back as a man and told her he didn’t want her anymore, she would leave. She would be heartbroken, but then she could leave with a clear conscience, knowing she had done her part. But she couldn’t just run away with things up in the air like this.
However, she didn’t know what she would do. She was exhausted from all the work around the place and almost flat broke.
When she put her computer away, she looked overhead at the bedroom ceiling. It was raining outside that night. A leak had developed in one of the ceiling panels. The carpet was already getting soaked. There was another piece of work that needed doing. It was also another expense to add to her growing list.
* * * *
Drake and Hunter owned a sawmill and lumberyard on the outskirts of Wolf Creek. They also owned a private forest they used for logging. They were not only an effective team at seducing women into their bed. Together they had pretty much cornered the lumber industry in this part of the state.
Hunter had been out in the yards working with some of their men. He was shirtless and sweaty and toweled himself off as he entered the trailer his office was located in with Drake.
Drake was seated at his desk, going over some reports. Hunter took a seat in front of him and put his boots up on the desk, leaning back in his chair to rest.
“I’ve got more information on Morgan Richards and Nathan McLaughlin,” Hunter told Drake.
Drake looked up over his reports. Hunter knew he had his friend’s attention. Drake was better at disguising his lust for a beautiful woman than Hunter was, but Hunter knew he felt it passionately all the same. Morgan Richards was one beautiful woman they had both set their sights on.
“I got it out of old Doc Hughes,” Hunter began. “He was at my card game in the bar last night. I spotted him a hundred bucks for the information he had on McLaughlin’s case.”
Drake laughed. “I hope you had a hand to back it up, my friend.”
Hunter knew he was a wicked card player. He never cheated. He was just always lucky. His card playing was much like his relationships with women. Winning came easy to Hunter. At that moment, his bad-boy smile had never been darker as he thought about Morgan Richards.
“I had a flush,” he announced. His victory in cards over the old country doctor already behind him, he was ready to move onto other challenges, namely the seduction of Morgan Richards.
“So what did Doc Hughes tell you about McLaughlin?”
“He’s sick—real sick.”
“And?” Drake probed him for more.
“He’s got a shifter disease. It’s a rare one, from what I understand. He’s dying as a man. The doc told him he had to shift back into his wolf and stay. If he didn’t, he was going to die.”
Drake raised his eyebrows. “So the man is dying and the wolf is not.”
“Exactly.”
“Will he be stuck as the wolf for the rest of his life?”
“The doc doesn’t know. He gave him a fifty-fifty chance of returning at some point in the distant future. But at the moment, he isn’t even able to shift back into a man.”
Hunter watched his friend get up from his desk and walk across the trailer. Drake always was more sensitive about things like this than Hunter was. Hunter just wanted to take what he wanted. The consequences never bothered him. But Drake was different. Hunter was always telling him he had too big of a heart. Hunter thought that big heart would probably get his friend in trouble someday if he wasn’t careful.
“Doesn’t it bother you we’re thinking about taking advantage of another man’s misfortune?” Drake asked him. “McLaughlin is a shifter just like we are. If fate had fallen a different way, that could have been one of us stuck out there in those woods as a wolf.”
“Not me, man,” Hunter said. Hunter knew he was being callous about the whole situation, but the fire in him Morgan Richards had set was burning too hot for him to care. “If I had a woman who looked that good, I would never leave her alone.”
“From what you just told me, McLaughlin didn’t have any choice.”
Hunter gave a shrug. These were too many details for him. He just wanted to get into the action. “I’d find a way to stay with the pretty lady. I wouldn’t let a little thing like dying keep me out of her bed at night.”
“The more I think about this, I don’t really know if it helps us any,” Drake said. Hunter could see his friend’s excessively calculating brain working overtime, while all Hunter wanted to do was get out there to Morgan Richards and start the seduction.
“She’s out at McLaughlin’s house all alone, just waiting for a couple cowboys like us to come along and rescue her,” Hunter reminded Drake.
“McLaughlin’s wolf is also out there. He might not take kindly to us moving in on his woman.”
“That’d be a pretty badass wolf to tangle with,” Hunter admitted, but he still was not about to be deterred. “But if Nathan McLaughlin is any kind of self-respecting shifter, he won’t want his lady to be left all alone. He might even want us to take care of her while he’s away.”
“You could be right about that.” Drake’s mind was still working hard. “If we go out there and take care of her, she’ll still be around when he gets back—if he gets back.”
“That’s right. We’d be doing him a favor.” Hunter kicked back from the desk. He was ready to drive out to see Morgan Richards right then and there. “This might be the perfect relationship. We can take care of her, enjoy her, and let her enjoy us. Between the two of us, we certainly ought to be able to bring that little lady a whole heap of pleasure. But ultimately, there’re no strings attached. When McLaughlin comes back home in a few months or a few years, the two of us can move on to more challenges in the land of beautiful women, and we’ll have done a good deed in the process.”
Drake laughed at him. “You’re starting to think too much,” he told Hunter. “But this time I like the way you’re thinking.”
Drake went back around his desk and pulled up his monthly schedule on his computer screen. “I can move things around for the next few weeks and cancel what can’t be moved. What about you?”
“I’ve already cleared my schedule for the rest of the summer,” Hunter said, his lust driving all his actions now. “Let’s go out to the McLaughlin place tomorrow morning bright and early and get us Morgan Richards.”
Chapter Seven
Morgan was up before dawn the next morning. She had very little appetite for breakfast, and after her shower she headed straight down to the chicken pen. The chickens needed to be fed. They would be angry at her if she was late.
She had to step over mud puddles on her way. The rain had been heavy last night. The ground was soggy to walk over, and her sneakers were just about ruined by the time she made it to the chicken coop.
As time passed, she was growing more listless in her work. She had not seen Nathan’s wolf in several days and was worried about him. Maybe he had moved on. Perhaps she would never see him again.
Her dark thoughts would drive her crazy if she kept up like this. Somehow she had to get her mind on other things and distract herself from all that had gone wrong. But what she had to look forward to was another day of hard, lonely work.
She had only finished her shower less than twenty minutes before, and already she felt dirty from all the mud in the chicken yard. She kept telling herself to get a grip and just go with things. Something would come along. Something always did. Life never stayed the same for long.
She put the chicken feed away in the little barn and got out the two buckets that contained the hog’s morning meal. She carried one dangling from each hand as she made her way across the yard and tried to keep avoiding all the mud.
One wrong step and Morgan went flying to the ground. The buckets of hog food fell out of her hands, and sh
e landed facedown in the biggest mud puddle of the yard. Her jeans and her shirt were devastated. Her hair would probably never be clean again. Mud cakes packed her cheeks, and wiping a hand across her eyes, she just barely got the mud cleared from her vision.
Sprawled on the ground in the middle of the puddle, she took her time in getting up. She’d had low points in her life before, but this moment right here took the cake. She decided instead of crying all she wanted to do was laugh. It certainly couldn’t get any worse than this. Lucky for her there was no one else around to see her in her moment of indignity.
“You’ll be fine…you’ll be fine…” she repeated as a mantra to herself. “Everything is just fine…”
At first she tried to brush off her jeans but quickly gave it up. They weren’t worth the struggle. They were old, and their day had passed. Morgan mused that she rather felt the same about herself.
Suddenly a shadow crept over her. Then there were two shadows. Morgan refocused her vision. Standing before her were two of the toughest men she’d ever seen in her life. Living around Wolf Creek, Morgan had seen her share of tough customers, but these two had to take the prize. They wore cowboy hats and boots. Both were staring down at her prone position on the ground with quizzical looks on their faces.
The younger of the two offered her his hand. He pulled her back up to her feet. The other cowboy put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. One was on each side of her.
“Looks like you could use a little help here, ma’am,” the younger one said. His voice was slow and so very sure. From out of his unwavering stare, he exuded a sexuality that burned Morgan to her core.
“Are you okay, miss?” the other one asked her. There was concern in his voice. This was the first time anyone had expressed any real concern about her well-being in months. It felt so nice and welcome it almost made Morgan want to break down and cry right there in front of them.
For a long moment she was speechless. Who were they? Why were they on her land? What did they want with her? She got an unnerving feeling that she had seen them somewhere before.
