by Dakota West
“Miss?” asked the detective, and Sloane snapped back to attention. She hadn’t even realized that he was talking.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m really tired.”
“You’re free to go,” he said.
She stood from the chair and his eyes followed her as she walked out the door in her t-shirt, skirt, and hiking boots.
As soon as they got back to the ranch, Barb reheated dinner for the three of them: meatloaf, green beans, and biscuits. Sloane didn’t think that she’d ever tasted something so good in her entire life, and no one said anything the entire time that they ate.
As soon as they were finished, Barb hustled Sloane into the shower, showing her where the bathroom was and also where the washing machine and dryer were.
“You’re welcome to use it,” she said. “Most backpackers who come through here leave something to be desired, aroma-wise.”
Sloane blushed a little.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s a fact of life, dear,” Barb said, then left to go finish cleaning the kitchen.
The shower was everything she’d dreamed about. It was hot and liquid and she could see the dirt rinsing off of her and down the drain. Sloane washed her hair twice, then spent a long time just combing through the thick black mass, reveling in the feeling of being so clean.
When she got out she shoved all of her clothes into the washing machine, turned it on, and realized that the only thing not in the washing machine and therefore dripping wet was the t-shirt and skirt that Barb had lent her earlier that day.
She sighed.
Her plan had been to get to the ranch, shower, put her clothes back on, eat, and then do laundry overnight. Now, she didn’t even have a bra to wear under the t-shirt, and when she peeked through the hallway to the living room where Austin was sitting, reading a book, she could feel herself turning red.
Come on, who cares, she told herself. Earlier today you were a disgusting, sweaty, screaming mess. If he’s gonna get grossed out, he’s already grossed out.
Still, she straightened her shirt, wishing for at least the millionth time that her bosom weren’t so... bosomy.
Just one cup size less, she thought. Maybe two. I’d still have a great rack, but I could find bras at normal stores.
She gave up and walked into the living room, stubbornly ignoring the wiggle in her chest, and sat down in an overstuffed recliner. A plate of chocolate chip cookies sat on the end table between her and the couch where Austin sat with his book.
Sloane grabbed a cookie and took a big bite. Even though she’d eaten maybe an hour ago, she was hungry again — hiking ten miles a day through the mountains would do that to a girl.
Austin looked up from his book, then smiled at her.
“Barb makes the world’s best cookies,” he said.
“Thish ish uhhmashing,” Sloane said, her mouth totally full.
Nice, she thought. Be a slob in front of the ranch hottie.
She swallowed, and she meant to take a brief break, but instead she shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth.
Austin leaned toward her.
“You want to know the secret ingredients?” he asked, his already low voice slipping down another octave, like he was letting her in on a conspiracy.
Sloane swallowed, and this time, she managed not to cram another cookie into her mouth before answering.
“What’s the secret?” she said, leaning toward him, matching his tone.
He smiled, and Sloane felt her heart flutter in her chest.
“Whiskey and salt,” he said.
Sloane took a bite of another cookie, chewing more slowly and deliberately.
Whiskey, she thought. Interesting.
“It gives it just a little bit of that oaky kick,” Austin said. He took another one from the plate and took a bite out of it. “Don’t tell Barb I told you,” he said, his mouth half-full. “She’ll bury me in the woods and no one will ever find the body.”
He was kidding, but a quick shiver went through Sloane’s body, and she looked down at the half-cookie in her hand.
“Sorry, that was tasteless,” Austin said. “Even though that kid’s still alive.”
“You guys really don’t know who he is?” Sloane asked.
Austin shook his head, taking a bookmark from the end table and sliding it into his book.
“No idea,” he said.
“It’s just weird that he was on that spur trail out to the ranch,” she went on. She broke off a piece of cookie in her hands and put it on her mouth, a vain attempt to keep herself from just inhaling all the cookies. “He wasn’t scheduled to stay here or something?”
Austin shook his head again.
“He wasn’t in the ledger, and Barb didn’t have anyone but you booked,” he said. “We get walk-ins sometimes, when somebody going south-bound will tell a north-bound hiker about it, but it’s pretty rare.”
For a moment, Sloane went quiet, looking at the half-cookie in her hand. Something was occurring to her. So far, she’d been so relieved that the kid was alive, and so relieved that it was over, that she’d barely thought to be suspicious of anyone. After all, what was more likely: that there was a random psychopath rampaging through a barely-populated national forest, or the kid was someone that the locals knew and had tried to kill for some reason?
But even then, why drug him and leave the syringe? Why leave his body out, dressed in that bright blue jacket, where someone could find him so easily?
“The syringe is the worst part,” she said, a shiver passing through her body. It made her nipples hard, and they stood out beneath the t-shirt she was wearing. Sloane crossed her arms, trying to do it casually, as she hoped that Austin couldn’t tell that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “It’s that one creepy detail that throws everything else under suspicion, you know?”
Austin nodded.
“People die hiking sometimes, from heart conditions and dehydration and all that stuff,” he said. “Why leave the syringe in, even if the attacker assumed he’d die?”
“Maybe they were banking on animals coming along and... doing their thing,” Sloane said, slowly. By doing their thing she meant eating a dead body, but it felt horrible to actually say that out loud. Even though, living and working on a ranch, she was certain that Austin had seen his fair share of animal-related stuff.
“The cops were asking me whether Long Prairie had a drug problem this afternoon,” Austin said. “And, I mean, there’s meth around, but I don’t know that people go into the woods and shoot up in their necks,” he said.
“He didn’t look like a junkie,” Sloane said. “That jacket he was wearing was an expensive jacket. I know people can hide their addictions, but if you’re shooting up into your neck...”
She let her words trail off, not having to say the rest: if you’re to the point where you’re shooting up into your neck, you’re probably also not hiking in North Face gear.
Austin just nodded, and Sloane was glad that he was following her. Even if she was kind of a macabre weirdo sometimes — back in Seattle, she owned several volumes of the Death In National Parks series and had read about every single person to die hiking the Pacific Crest Trail — she didn’t necessarily want the cute shifter cowboy figuring that out.
The cute cowboy shifter could be the one who attacked the kid, she thought.
She didn’t take the thought seriously, though. Even though she barely knew Austin — hell, she didn’t know his last name, and for most of their brief acquaintance she’d assumed he was a wolf — he just didn’t have that vibe. He seemed kind and warm, and if she was being honest, the half-teasing, half-flirting way they talked about whether the kid had been a junkie was kind of getting to her.
Austin took one more cookie, then looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly eleven, and he yawned, as if on cue.
“I ought to get to bed,” he said, standing and stretching. “Gotta get up early for ranch work, you know.”
“What time
is breakfast, usually?” Sloane asked.
“Not much later than six, though Barb usually has mercy on the hikers and she’ll keep your biscuits warm until six-thirty or so,” Austin said, his eyes crinkling in a smile.
“As long as it’s after sunrise, I’m good,” Sloane said.
She brushed crumbs off of her shirt, then remembered that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and crossed her arms again.
“See you there,” Austin said, and walked away.
You could follow him, Sloane thought. She imagined herself leaning in the doorway of his bedroom, wearing his boss’s t-shirt and floral skirt and saying something sexy, like I bet you could use you company or Ride a cowboy, save a horse.
Watching him walk away, she blushed, though she didn’t take her eyes off of his butt in his jeans.
Then she ate another cookie.
They were really, really good.
Chapter Four
Austin
Even though he didn’t need to leave for another half hour, easy, Austin needed a couple of minutes to himself. Whenever he was in the same room as Sloane, he felt like she was outlined in light, and he couldn’t pay attention to anything else, his bear growling and roaring so loud that he could barely focus his mind enough to make conversation.
The thought that she was only there for another thirty-six hours made him panic, a bone-deep, awful feeling that made him feel like he was walking on jelly.
At least you know she exists now, he told himself. You thought that she didn’t — okay, maybe you were hoping that she didn’t — but here she is, so deal with it.
He had no idea how to do that. His life was complicated enough without adding a female human to the mix. Wasn’t a half-dead human and a mate who he couldn’t admit publicly enough? Did he really also need to have a day and a half with a girl he knew he could never say no to, only for her to leave on the trail again afterward?
The half-moon shone through Austin’s window. Nearby, he could hear Sloane walking through the house, putting the plate of cookies back in the kitchen, putting a glass in the sink. Beneath his door, lights went out. 11:25. Her soft footsteps padded along as she walked back and forth, switching her laundry to the dryer, then a whisper of running water as she brushed her teeth.
He sat on his bed, sighed, and waited. On his bedside stand was a wedding invitation. His cousin Julius, the lawyer who’d fought for shifter marriage rights in the first place, was marrying his two mates.
On the invitation was written Austin Leeds and guests. He was supposed to have sent it back almost a week ago already, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Why keep lying to his family? Why keep pretending that he was single, watching all his cousins so happy in public with their mates?
He couldn’t bring himself to write the truth, though.
11:30. 11:35. He couldn’t go out while she was there. He could lie to anyone else, but somehow, he didn’t think he could lie to her. One second of those perfect brown eyes saying Hey, where are you going? No matter how casually she asked, he’d tell her.
11:40. Austin was going to be late.
At last, her footsteps died down, and the last light flicked off. As quietly as he could, he opened his door, walking barefoot into the hallway, then opened the back door into the garage. Through the garage and into the ranch house’s kitchen garden.
He hadn’t thought that someday he’d been thirty-two and sneaking out of his house, but he’d gotten a lot of his life wrong when he was a dumb kid. He also hadn’t thought that he’d be perfectly happy working on a ranch run by wolves, or that he’d wind up loving who he loved.
Hell, at fifteen, he’d have told anyone who asked that he was going to be a huge rock star, the next Eddie Vedder or something. That hadn’t worked out, not that thirty-two-year-old Austin minded. The tiny taste of that life that he’d had wasn’t what he wanted.
At the edge of the garden was a small toolshed, and Austin paused there and took off his clothes quickly, sticking them on a shelf behind a row of shovels. Then he stepped back out into the moonlight and shifted, letting his bear out, the fur poking through his skin as he got taller and then hunched over, his teeth growing points and his fingers becoming long claws.
Moments later, he stood there, sniffing the air. Even though he had pretty sharp senses as a human, it was nothing compared to him in his grizzly form. Now he could hear an owl winging through the night, a quarter of a mile away, the squeak of the field mouse that it grabbed in its claws. He could smell the stream running a mile inside the forest and all the smells of spring, leaves coming out of the trees, even the seedlings in the garden behind him.
Austin set off.
He usually liked to make this walk a little slower. Once or twice he’d come across fellow shifters — almost always wolves — and he didn’t like them to think that he might be heading somewhere in a hurry. Bears going somewhere fast tended to make them suspicious, and while Austin knew a lot of the wolves from the ranches around the Double Moon, he didn’t know all of them.
He did know that not all of them were friendly.
The relationship between bears, wolves, and lions hadn’t been outwardly combative in a long time, ever since they’d had to live in close quarters with humans. Now it was more of an uneasy truce. Bears and Wolves and Lions mostly lived apart, neither shifter trusting the others very much.
Austin knew that the other bears considered him eccentric at best and traitorous at worst for even working for wolves. Because of it, there were people whose homes he wasn’t welcome in, stores in Granite Valley where he couldn’t shop. He didn’t really care about that — Barb and Bill were wonderful people, no matter what kind of animal they turned into — but he also didn’t want to make it worse.
Inter-species mating, for example, was heavily frowned upon. It was the sort of thing that no one would ever say out loud, but it was true all the same. Even having friends from a different shifter species was considered weird. The only inter-species couple that Austin had ever heard of had been a lion and a wolf somewhere way up north, close to the Oregon border. They’d been run out of town, and Austin didn’t know what had happened after that.
He didn’t think it was anything good.
Then Austin could see the light through the trees, flickering and yellow, and he knew that the cabin was just up ahead. Just like every time, his heart beat faster, his steps got more urgent, and a tingle ran through his whole body, anticipating what was coming next.
The cabin was tiny: one wooden room with a stone fireplace. At one time, Austin thought, it had been a whole little homestead in the middle of nowhere, and some family had lived there, gardening, herding goats or something even in the fairly harsh mountains. But now, it was one simple room and a fireplace.
It was all they needed.
He stood in front of the door and shifted back to human, and then stood there for one more moment, just enjoying the anticipation.
I wish it was different, he thought. But sometimes I do like the thrill.
He pushed the door open, stepping into the warmth and light of the little shack where his mate waited.
Chapter Five
Trevor
He’s not coming, Trevor thought. He poked the fire with the long, sturdy stick that he’d brought in from outside, and listened to it crackle and pop, sitting naked on the old blanket that the two of them kept in the shack.
Of course he’s coming, he told himself. Austin’s the only person who’s never let you down. He’s just late, probably because he couldn’t get out of the house on time.
He’ll be here.
He’s always here.
The door swung open, and there he was. Just like always, Trevor’s heart slammed into his chest and he got to his feet.
Just like always, Austin grinned, stepped inside, and shut the door behind himself.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said in that voice that sent waves of pleasure down Trevor’s spine.
“You get held up?” Trev
or asked.
Austin didn’t answer. Instead he walked to where Trevor stood and pressed his lips to the other man’s. They were still cool from the outdoors, but firm, solid in a way that nothing else ever was.
Trevor wrapped his hand around the back of Austin’s head, gripping him by the hair, and holding him tight as he bit Austin’s bottom lip, hard. Almost too hard, but not quite, just enough to get a gasp out of the other man.
Austin parted his lips and Trevor licked the spot he’d bitten as he pushed his tongue though, seeking out Austin’s and then there it was, snaking against his own, almost like they were fighting.
Then Austin’s hand was on him, holding his jaw, then his other hand on his hip, his fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back and ass. Trevor could feel Austin’s teeth on his own lips but he pressed himself even harder against the other man, like he could never be close enough.
The fire crackled. Neither of them spoke, even as their lips parted and the only noise besides the crackle of the fire was the sound of them panting for breath. Trevor fastened his lips against Austin’s jaw, feeling his mate’s steady heartbeat with his mouth. He had the urge to bite him, hard enough to leave a mark, or suck on that sweet, tender flesh until it bruised.
Then, everyone would know Austin was his.
Instead he brushed his lips lower on Austin’s neck, his teeth fitting against Austin’s collarbone as a long, low growl erupted out of the other man, his fingers tightening even more against Trevor’s back. He could feel Austin’s fingernails against his skin as half-circle pinpricks, the sensation hovering somewhere between pain and pleasure.
A moan escaped Trevor’s lips, and over his head, Austin chuckled.
“Any way I can make my tardiness up to you?” he asked. Trevor felt like Austin’s voice reverberated through him, shaking every cell in his body.
