WEREWOLVES OF THE WILD WEST

Grant Wade is a former Texas Ranger. He’s also a Lycan Alpha and, in the ghost town of Desperado, he’s found a perfect refuge for his desert pack and a place to shelter other werewolves in need of a safe place.

Determined to reclaim her full birthright, Paxton Hall goes home for the first time in decades. Her plan to strike a deal with Desperado’s new owner doesn’t work any better than her attempts to resist this sexy cowboy. Even as she falls for him, Paxton has no idea what he’s trying to protect her from—his animal desire, her own true nature and a rogue predator on the prowl...

“Whatever you might be thinking, I’m not the enemy.”

Another forward step brought him close to Paxton. After a second quick glance at the moon, he lowered his voice. “No one here is out to hurt you. Please remember that.”

Daring to touch her, Grant placed a finger against her lips, fighting an overwhelming urge to replace those fingers with his mouth. But that kind of unanticipated aggression would have ended any future dealings they might have. He got that.

Her lips were soft against his fingertips though. And Paxton didn’t back away from his touch.

Damn those haunted eyes of yours.

Damn those lips.

He almost said those things out loud.

Hiding a shudder similar to the one he saw pass through her, Grant spoke again. “Good night. Sleep well.”

It took all of his willpower—every last ounce of it—to leave her there...and keep walking.

LINDA THOMAS-SUNDSTROM writes contemporary and paranormal romance novels for Mills & Boon. A teacher by day and a writer by night, Linda lives in the West, juggling teaching, writing, family and caring for a big stretch of land. She swears she has a resident muse who sings so loudly, she often wears earplugs in order to get anything else done. But she has big plans to eventually get to all those ideas. Visit Linda at lindathomas-sundstrom.com or on Facebook.

Desert Wolf

Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my family, those here and those gone, who always believed I had a story to tell.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

There was no man in the moon.

Every werewolf knew this.

The moon was female and a temptress. Her kiss was cool and her love ran hot. For Weres, Madame Moon was everything—lover, mistress, redeemer, betrayer. She bestowed power, strength, enhanced senses, lightning-fast reflexes and pain...terrible racking pain that long ago had turned former Texas Ranger Grant Wade inside out, but seemed normal to him now.

Tonight, the moon took up a good portion of the wide expanse of the star-filled Arizona sky and called to Grant with a seductive, silvery promise that made his shoulders twitch.

Only two other things Grant knew of felt anything remotely like this gut reaction: beautiful women and fine, aged whiskey...neither of which were present at the moment.

“Wait.” Holding back tremors that were bubbling up inside, he addressed the moon. “Not yet. Soon.”

The night was still warm after that day’s unforgiving desert sun. Shirtless, wearing only jeans and boots, Grant rolled his shoulders to ease the growing aches of his imminent shape-shift. As a pure-blooded Lycan version of the werewolf species, shifting was part of his heritage. He liked it.

But he needed a little more time before he could do so, and he needed to keep his voice for a while longer. Long enough to corral the trespasser he was hunting out here, a rogue who brought trouble too close to home and was slippery as hell.

“Where are you?” Grant whispered to his prey. “What are you?”

The interloper whose arrival he anticipated could be human, though Grant doubted it. As a rule, humans weren’t partial to acts as grisly as this crazy son of a bitch’s grotesque taste for the raw meat of neighboring cattle. Disappearing animals had garnered the attention of angry ranchers with rifles, and those ranchers would be on the prowl tonight to protect their herds.

No. He suspected it was a half-crazed werewolf doing the damage. And if that scenario turned out to be true, the rogue had to be removed from human radar as quickly as possible. Werewolves had kept their presence and identities safe for over a thousand years and couldn’t afford to blow it all now.

But damn...

The whole raw meat thing surrounding the freak he was after was a strange twist on abnormal. No werewolf Grant knew of went after cattle on the hoof. Most Weres, including him, preferred their burgers well done and on a bun.

These days, most Weres were as civilized as their human counterparts—at least 99 percent of the time. Humans just wouldn’t like the fact that some police officers, nurses and even ER techs could actually be more than they seemed each time a full moon rolled around.

This trespasser was messing with those secrets. Grant couldn’t afford to let angry ranchers get too close to his place of business. Keeping neighbors out of his hair and away from Desperado was imperative to protect the special beings harbored behind the old ghost town’s shuttered windows.

Grant raised his head, sniffed the air.

A bittersweet scent left a tang on his tongue. Moonlight ruled the desert tonight in an almost-full phase. His inner wolf was expanding, waiting in anticipation, as the moon rose above the trees.

Unlike most Weres, Grant didn’t have to give in to the moon’s mystical allure. He could refuse the call if he chose to. A special gift had been twisted into his heritage, giving him the ability to shift with or without the moon calling the shots, when resistance for many others of his kind was futile.

“Just a few minutes more,” he mused, almost ready for his transformation. Wolf blood made him faster and more flexible. It also made him lethal.

The first claw popped out as his fingers uncurled. The rest of them followed in rapid succession, long and razor sharp.

Pressure inside him was building. Ten seconds was all it would take to complete a full shape-shift. His unique abilities, combined with the purity of his bloodline, made him alpha of his own desert pack. Rattlesnakes and crazed lunatics aside, he was probably the most dangerous creature in the area.

“As for you,” he said, speaking to the interloper he waited for. “Are you an unlucky bastard who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Were you infected by a bite or scratch from a bad wolf and surprised when the next full moon came around? Because it seems no one has taught you how to behave.”

Even after a bad bite or scratch, Grant knew, if a human being had been a good human before, he or she would be a good Were now. And good guys weren’t cattle rustlers.

“You would have garnered sympathy if you had come knocking. Now look. The problems you’ve been causing have to be dealt with.” The secrets hidden inside the town called Desperado were at stake and Grant was uncomfortable with how close to Desperado’s gates he was standing. “So, come on. What are you waiting for?”

He searched the area for a hint of the trespasser and spoke again. “I am leader, watcher, gatekeeper, secret holder, guardian and reluctant ruler of a pack of like-bodied, like-minded Weres. Do you purposefully taunt me?”

His patience was wearing thin. Grant glanced once more at the moon then did a quick scan of the mountain range, sifting through the night smells in search of anomalies.

The air was loaded with unique fragrances only found in the West: a combination of sand, brush, overheated rock, animals, cactus and the trees that tenaciously clung to the hillside despite a general lack of water. All those smells fit neatly into his mental data banks.

Except for one.

That one stood out like a shout.

Wrapped in the breeze was the unmistakable odor of blood. There had been another fresh kill, the third in as many passing months. That pissed him off.

“Damn fool.” His voice rumbled. “Who the hell do you think you are to put all of us in jeopardy? It’s only a matter of time before we find you.”

The fact that the creature out there had so far eluded capture was also an anomaly with a wolf pack on the prowl. The only question to consider was whether this trespassing idiot would turn out to be adaptable if offered a choice.

Grant turned upwind. His shoulders twitched again. “If you’re a Were, and in the vicinity, you should be able to pick up my thoughts.” Grant silently sent the message over the telepathic channel most werewolves used to communicate. “Barring that, maybe you can hear my voice.”

He detected no response at all.

“Okay. All right.” Grant raised his face to let the moonlight soak in. “It’s time to up the ante.”

Waves of cold penetrated his bronzed skin and sifted downward, layer by layer, to take control of muscles and nerves. The pain the cold brought was immediate and terrible, but was quickly replaced by a searing heat that would fuel mounds of muscle.

Grant welcomed the discomfort. He welcomed the wolf. Vestiges of his human shape began to shred as he became one with the song that sang to him now. Wolf music. The call of the wild.

I am Lycan, alpha and a servant of the moon. Whatever the hell is going on around here needs to be set straight.

Muscles trembled as they began to expand. Grant’s jeans felt tight. His boots felt cramped and his face stung. With his last speaking breath, he warned, “Time to face the consequences of your actions, whoever you are,” knowing that any rogue wolf with half a brain would run the other way.

Cheekbones rearranged with a rub of ligaments. Vertebrae crackled with sounds no human would ever want to hear. Rabbits scurried. Coyotes whimpered and tucked their tails as Grant Wade, now half man and half wolf, straightened up in the light...his transition punctuated by gunshots in the distance.

Hell, had ranchers found that rogue?

Voiceless now, his body corded with tense, fine-tuned muscle, Grant issued a roar that echoed along the red-rock canyon walls behind him...and began the steep slide downhill.

Chapter 2

Paxton Hall wrinkled her nose as she stepped off the plane.

She pressed her blond fringe of bangs off her forehead and squinted at the scene in front of her. The jet had parked its little tin-covered ass in the middle of nowhere, it seemed to her. Unlike private airports in the East, this Arizona stopover would require a long-distance sprint across an acre of molten tarmac in the blazing sun to get to the terminal. And she was wearing heels.

“We’ll unload the luggage,” someone said from behind her. “You can pick up your bags at the gate.”

Swell. Her bags were going to get a ride. Maybe she could hitch a trip to the terminal along with them.

“Thanks,” she said, watching heat rise from the asphalt like a wavering mirage. She hadn’t forgotten the extremes of Arizona weather and the scorching wind that made everything look barren, but being born here wasn’t an automatic passport to feeling familiar with it now.

Paxton didn’t reach for the metal stair rail, which would have been a sure way to scald her fingers. She was seriously reconsidering the viability of this trip, not quite sure why she was in Arizona. She had her own gig in the East and a nice rented town house. Her income was steady, if not fabulous, and good enough to support her current lifestyle.

So, why did she really need this Arizona property her father had left her, other than for a trip down Nostalgia Lane and the small chunk of change a couple of hundred acres in the middle of nowhere might bring when it sold?

Except that she couldn’t actually sell it, as things were, since her father, God rest his soul, had left the old tourist attraction that sat smack in the center of all that land she had inherited to someone else. Someone unrelated to the family. An unfamiliar name in the will.

Who the hell was Grant Wade, anyway?

How was she supposed to sell a parcel of land that circled, but didn’t include, the central piece?

“Safe journey,” the attendant said politely, interrupting her thoughts. “Will you need anything else, Ms. Hall?”

“No. Thanks,” Paxton returned absently as she headed down the steps with a tight grip on her briefcase.

That man...Grant Wade...would either have to buy her out or turn the Desperado ghost town over to her so she could sell the place and be out of here—back to civilization, green grass and cool breezes. When she was in Maryland, coming here had seemed like the thing to do. Now that she was here, Paxton hoped she hadn’t been wrong about that.

She’d worn a skirt, which allowed hot air to flow up and over her thighs as she stepped onto asphalt so overheated her heels seemed to sink in. With that hot caress on her naked legs came flashbacks...memories of sweltering desert heat on her face when she was a kid and how much she had liked the soaring temperatures back then. A very long time ago.

She remembered the distinct smells of heat-scorched land and the way her young skin had first burned before becoming a sun-kissed gold as summers wore on. Here in Arizona is where her wildness had first blossomed and where she had learned to ride and run. It’s where her mother had died, right before little Paxton had been sent away to a distant relative on the East Coast, away from this place and far from her dad.

Those old memories were more reminiscent of bad dreams now. But the tingle at the base of her neck signified something more complex than just reminisces and the firing up of a few random nerve endings. It brought home the fact that she had never seen her dad again after leaving this place. Not even once. She hadn’t heard from him—no birthday cards, Christmas packages or calls—in all that time.

Twenty frigging years.

And now Andrew Hall was dead, and she was back where she started. The land of sand and sun. Because of that, Paxton was determined to be trouble incarnate if Mr. Grant Wade didn’t listen to reason. She was going to bury her fear of confrontations and make Grant Wade assume trouble was her middle name.

Got that, Wade?

Besides, the man had to be at least sixty-five years old if he had been her father’s friend. That land might be a burden for an old guy. She’d done some research, of course, but the only person the internet had turned up with that name in this part of the United States was a Texas Ranger nowhere near an advanced age. So her Grant Wade had to be an old guy who had inconveniently stayed off everyone’s front page.

Paxton squinted as she scanned the tarmac, where the damn heat waves were manifesting into the form of a man—one lone man in all that wide-open space, seemingly walking toward her.

Shielding her eyes with a hand, Paxton wondered whether to keep walking and meet this guy or stay in place and fry in black silk on the hot asphalt.

She kept walking.

Behind her, she heard the luggage cart pull away from the plane. From somewhere far off came the static sound of a speaker. Those things were inconsequential. Her eyes were trained on the man who walked with the casual, apparently single-minded intention of meeting up with her. Had to be her, because at the moment she was the only one out here and he wasn’t headed to a parked plane.

Who was this guy?

The stranger was tall, lean, and wore a wide-brimmed hat. Broad shoulders balanced a narrow waist. Long legs were clad in jeans, and his boots made soft thudding sounds on the pavement. A silver buckle on his belt flashed in the sun the way diamonds flared beneath jewelry store lighting.

Those things screamed the word cowboy.

A white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows showed off sun-bronzed skin. As he approached, Paxton saw that enough top buttons on the shirt were open to lay bare a triangle of skin that attracted her attention for a little too long. When she looked up, he was close enough for her to see his wide, engaging smile.

And his face...

Christ almighty. It was chiseled, angular, with taut skin that fell somewhere on the golden spectrum. This guy, whoever he was, seemed to have inherited a lucky combination of genes that made him both elegant and rugged. The whole package suggested a new classification of the term handsome. Even if he was a cowboy.

“Paxton Hall?” He stopped a few feet from her and removed his hat, showing off a mass of shaggy auburn hair.

He was fine to look at, sure, Paxton noted. But what could he possibly want?

“Ms. Hall?” he repeated, with a slight variation.

“Yes.” She continued to shield her eyes. “That’s me.”

The hunk’s smile was as brilliant as the rest of him, and that was saying something. Fine lines shot out from the corners of his eyes in honor of some years in the sun without detracting from the overall hunky look.

Paxton wished she could see the color of those eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses, and wondered if they’d be blue. Light blue eyes set in sun-darkened skin would have topped the whole thing off nicely.

“I’ve come to escort you to your hotel,” he said in a deep voice that ran ridiculous circles around Paxton’s impoverished libido. It was obvious to her that she hadn’t taken enough time lately to explore the ramifications of having been without a boyfriend for several months now.

Plus...didn’t every woman have cowboy fantasies?

“Your hotel,” he repeated, probably wondering if she had hearing problems.

There was just something about his voice and how suggestive it was of star-filled desert nights and the almost unearthly scent of night-blooming flowers. Two sentences from him and Paxton was thrown back in time to when she had first noticed things like those strong, sweet Arizona scents.

Or maybe it was all just a side effect of the stifling heat.

“I didn’t call for a taxi service,” she said.

He nodded. “I thought you might like a ride.”

“Because?”

“It’s hot.” He was still grinning, and that grin was contagious.

Paxton smiled back.

“I totally agree about the heat. But I’m pretty sure you didn’t answer my question about not calling a service,” she said.

“Your attorney mentioned that you might be headed this way today.”

Okay. That made sense. She felt better.

“In that case, yes. Thanks. I’d like a ride to...” Paxton paused, mid-speech. “I didn’t book a hotel, sure there are plenty of them.”

He nodded again. “No problem. I’ll take you to one. I think you’ll find most of the accommodations around here acceptable.”

He was staring at her, not exactly rudely, but with the kind of lingering appraisal that brought on a blush. He’d be taking in the black silk shirt, the high heels and the private plane her attorney had let her use because several well-off clients needed to hitch a ride back to Maryland. This guy would probably be thinking he’d have to book her a suite in a fancy boutique hotel.

Hell, she couldn’t afford a suite. Not that she wouldn’t like one. Cash wasn’t exactly tight, but it was on close watch. She didn’t get paid for extra time off from her gig as a nurse in the ER, and her return trip to Maryland was on a commercial flight, in coach.

“That would be great,” Paxton said. “Any hotel will do. I’m not fussy and I won’t be here long.”

She just needed to get out of this heat and into different clothes. Big thanks would be due to her lawyer for thinking about her enough to send a gorgeous chauffeur.

That smile he was still offering? Dazzling. Yet Paxton’s instincts warned her that the guy’s smile hid something. A trace of concern, maybe? Concern for what? That she’d be a prissy Easterner for whom the extremes of comfort were paramount, when that was miles from the truth?

If they spent any time together, he’d find out how unprepared she was for this trip into her past. Her black silk shirt hadn’t been the greatest idea for day wear in a sun-drenched state. Cowboy would note that, too. She had worn it in honor of her father’s recent passing, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t really known her dad.

Briefly, Paxton closed her eyes, thinking that anyone would have assumed she’d have gotten over that kind of loss, along with old abandonment issues. But being here in Arizona again was causing a sudden emotional upheaval. Just a few steps off the plane had been all it took to bring the old days back.

“This way,” the cowboy said, stepping aside, waving his hat at the terminal. “I hope you don’t mind riding in a truck.”

So, no real chauffeur then. Just a favor from someone her lawyer knew.

“That would be fine,” she returned. “Would you mind confirming my attorney’s name?”

“Daniel Dunn, Esquire.”

“Do you know Dan personally?”

“As well as anyone can know a lawyer by phone.”

“Great.” Paxton moved forward, eager to get to the terminal. If this guy knew her lawyer, he had to be legit.

“Do you think we could get something cold to drink on the way to the hotel?” she asked.

“It would be my pleasure to make that happen,” her escort congenially replied.

Though she didn’t glance sideways, Paxton was aware of every move the guy made. He purposefully shortened his strides to accommodate hers. Having him beside her was both a boon and another unsettling feature of this trip. Speed hampered by the height of her heels, Paxton felt doubly foolish and out of place. She no longer belonged here. She was trespassing on the past—both its ideals and its pain.

What the hell was I thinking?

As they entered the small terminal, her companion placed a hand on her elbow to guide her toward the bags. His touch was electric, empathetic. Paxton wanted to lean into him for the kind of support she needed to get through this ordeal, when giving in to the urge to fold up like an accordion would have been the end of her.

Gently, he steered her toward her luggage, the two small bags she had seen fit to bring for a weekend in the desert. Her companion lifted the bags easily and reached to take her briefcase. She gave him a firm head shake, preferring to hold on to the paperwork she’d need for a quick sale when the reclusive Grant Wade agreed to her terms.

“There’s a watering hole down the road,” this guy said. “The truck is right out front.”

When she glanced at him, he added, “It’s a café. We can get something to drink there or take it to go.”

Paxton nodded. She followed her guide through the revolving doors and onto the street where a large blue truck sat parked at the curb. Like the cowboy beside her, its lines were tall, long and sturdy. Chrome wheels and other fancy stuff were missing. The hood was covered in dust and there was a baseball-sized dent in the passenger door. This truck was a working man’s transportation, not merely a vehicle meant to prove male bravado.

After tossing her bags in the back, her makeshift chauffeur came around to open her door. Getting in while wearing a short skirt took some feminine know-how when the truck’s cab was so high off the ground.

Once she was inside, Paxton stuck out an arm to stop the door from closing and faced the guy helping her. “I really am grateful for the ride. And I’m sorry I seem to have lost my manners. I didn’t ask your name.”

“Wade,” he said, the dazzling smile no longer in evidence. “Name’s Grant Wade.”

Chapter 3

Paxton Hall wasn’t what Grant had expected, and that came as a surprise.

She looked the part of the spoiled young woman he had expected to show up, and she dressed well, but Paxton didn’t really seem spoiled. She’d brought one bag and an overnight case that not too many fancy outfits would have traveled well in. She had been happy to let him choose her hotel and had allowed him to guide her along without complaint.

And she was beautiful. Incredibly beautiful. Though he’d seen a few pictures of her in Andrew Hall’s file, in person, Paxton Hall was a whole new deal.

He liked all the details ringing up—the big eyes that were an unusual amber color, the porcelain skin and the kind of oval face that begged a second and third look. Dark blond hair was cut in a swingy, shoulder-length style and appeared to be natural in color. Very little makeup muddied her face, just a swipe of something dark on her eyelashes and a hint of rose on her cheeks. In his estimation, she didn’t need even that.

She was antsy, her discomfort easy to read. Being beside her made his nerves buzz. Back in the terminal, when he had touched her arm, that buzz had been transmitted to a spot way down deep inside him.

The feminine perfume she wore didn’t help with his initial response to her, either. Some kind of woodsy aroma trailed her, almost completely covering up a more elusive scent he couldn’t yet place. Everything about Paxton Hall, all those details, were laced with a layer of subdued anxiety and anger. Because of him, in part.

He slammed her door and walked around the truck, acknowledging that Paxton was surprised by this unexpected meet up. She knew his name now, but he’d had the advantage of getting to see what she was like before she found him out and the arguments he anticipated began.

Did she consider him the enemy? A problem to be solved?

He had told the truth about her lawyer giving him a heads-up on her visit and knew Paxton would have questions. Plenty of them. Most of those were questions he wouldn’t be able to answer, due to secrets he had to keep, though she deserved some kind of explanation for what was written in that will.

The reason for her visit was a no-brainer. Paxton Hall wanted to sell the land her father left her and have nothing more to do with her early Arizona upbringing. But her father had left him part of that acreage in order to make sure a sale didn’t happen, so surely Andrew Hall must have foreseen that some sort of contact between his two heirs would take place.

As an ex-Ranger with connections, Grant had been tracking Paxton since her father’s death a few weeks ago. And here she sat, in his truck, putting traitor and Grant Wade together in the same unspoken breath. She’d be thinking that the man she had been trusting to get her settled for the night had turned out to be more like the personification of sabotage.

Grant climbed into the cab and rested both hands on the wheel. Without looking at his guest, he said, “Would you like to talk now or wait a while?”

“Now,” she said breathlessly.

Her attention on him was unforgiving. His Were senses told him Paxton’s heart rate had kicked up a notch and that Paxton Hall had expected someone else attached to the name Wade. Someone different. She was trying to reconcile his image with her former ideas about who might turn up to potentially oppose her.

“If you’re uncomfortable, I can call you a taxi,” he said.

“I’ve been uncomfortable since I read my father’s will, as you must already know.”

Direct and to the point. Grant liked that, usually.

She turned on the seat. “You are that same guy?”

“One and the same, if you’re talking about Andrew’s legacy,” Grant replied. “If you’re talking about anything else, I probably didn’t do it.”

Levity wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He didn’t have to look at Paxton to feel the animosity creeping into her tone.

“Why?” she demanded.

Pretending to misunderstand what she was asking would have been lame, so he said, “It was important to your father and to others that the property wasn’t sold.”

“Why?” she repeated.

“I can’t tell you about the specifics of that right now, other than to stress your father’s desire for me to hold on to the town.”

“You’re talking about an old tourist attraction that’s been closed for twenty years. I fail to see why hanging on to a defunct ghost town wins out over selling the place,” she argued. “Surely you have better things to do than keep track of it.”

“Not many people would understand my reasons for staying here,” Grant said. “Your father did.”

She zeroed in on that. “You knew my father well, then?”

“Truthfully, I didn’t know him much at all.”

The way she drew back told him that Andrew Hall’s daughter hadn’t considered that kind of an answer. Had she imagined he had goaded Andrew into handing him the town? Finessed Desperado out of a tough man like Andrew Hall?

“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense,” she eventually remarked. “Maybe you can explain things better?”

Grant nodded. “We had a deal.”

“You and my father?”

He nodded again. “Our deal was that I would inherit the town when he passed, and that I’d take care of it and never sell the land Desperado sits on or allow anyone else to sell it.”

That slice of the truth would sound absurd to the woman sitting beside him. The whole truth could never be spoken, of course, though Grant could see Paxton was firm in her resolve to get to the bottom of her father’s strange bequest. He just couldn’t let her find that reason. Paxton Hall, along with all the other humans on the planet, had to be kept from learning Desperado’s secrets—and his.

That much, at least, was clear to Grant. What wasn’t immediately clear was how he was supposed to oppose her when Paxton was here, in his damn truck, with her pale face and her black clothes that reflected her consideration for a man she hadn’t really known.

“Why didn’t he just leave the whole thing to you?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, actually. That would have made more sense.”

And it would have kept Paxton away, maybe, a fact that he had considered since meeting Andrew Hall. He had a glimmer of an idea that Paxton’s father might have sent her away in the first place so she didn’t learn about the werewolves in residence here, and that Andrew’s ongoing silence had furthered the cause of shielding his daughter from truths too difficult to explain.

“Will you sell it to me?” she asked.

And there they were, at a standstill. Checkmate. Paxton would assume her request was reasonable, and it would have been if things had been different.

Grant started the engine. “Do you still want that drink?”

“I’d rather you answered my question.”

He looked at the white-faced woman who couldn’t have been more than two or three years younger than his twenty-eight. She looked even younger than that, though. Paxton truly was an eyeful, though that couldn’t matter in their negotiations.

“Maybe you’ll want to turn right around and go home when I reiterate that I’m not going to sell,” he suggested. “Why waste money on a hotel when more time here won’t get you what you want?”

“You might change your mind,” she countered stubbornly.

“Not going to happen, Paxton. I made a deal.”

The heat inside the car was harsh. Moisture had gathered at Paxton’s temples, dampening her hair. The black silk was starting to stick to her in ways Grant shouldn’t have noticed.

In any other situation, he would have liked a close-up with Paxton Hall. As things stood, the best case scenario would be for her to go away mad and never look back. She might try to file a lawsuit in order to force him to sell, but her father’s attorney wasn’t going to condone a move like that.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to make an enemy of the daughter of the man who left something valuable to me. So how can we resolve things before that happens?”

“Too late,” she said, reaching for the door handle, “if you refuse to see my side of this argument and either buy me out or sell.”

Grant reached to take hold of her briefcase, stopping Paxton from opening the door. “Stay,” he said, removing his sunglasses.

She turned her head. Amber eyes lighted on him, connecting with his gaze. Earnest eyes. Wounded. Haunted. Wild.

A stunning jolt of something extraordinary hit Grant in the chest and then melted downward as a second jolt, larger than the first, hit. He had seen eyes like those before and didn’t want to face what that meant. He didn’t want to face her with what that meant.

What he saw in those eyes quite possibly changed everything—his future and hers.

Paxton Hall was a Were.

He had no doubt about it.

Still, Grant could see that she was ignorant of that fact and therefore didn’t know what was in store. He believed this because he couldn’t feel the thing she kept hidden inside her, in the dark. Her scent had kindled his discovery. Those big eyes of hers said it all.

Grant broke eye contact and dropped his hold on the briefcase, stung by the realization of who and what Paxton really was. Worse yet, the air in the cab suddenly seemed charged with wayward electricity that had nowhere to go due to the fact that his inner wolf had been awakened by the directness of Paxton’s gaze.

“What I mean is that we can get to know each other better if you stay as planned,” he said, wondering if he could let her go at all now that he knew what eventually would happen to her. “Maybe then we’ll both understand where we’re coming from.”

Everything about this new turn of events was dangerous, he realized. Remaining close to Paxton could be bad when wolf might call to wolf, setting free what now lay curled up inside her. Letting her go without an inkling of what she was would be equally dangerous. Her wolf had to show sometime and was long overdue. For wolves, timing was everything.

She studied him frankly as she thought over his suggestion. Her eyes never left his face.

“Will you consider buying me out?” she asked.

“We can talk about that and the reasons I can’t agree to doing what you ask.”

Grant’s mind whirled with things he wanted to say, but couldn’t.

I now think your father might have been keeping Desperado for you, leaving it in my care, he wanted to tell her. For when you...in case you needed help and a place to go for a while, among others just like you.

No way could he tell Paxton any of that, since he was only now beginning to understand it himself.

Had her father meant to bring her here for this reason, intending for his heirs to meet? Could Hall have masterminded all of this to ensure his estranged daughter’s first transition from human to Were was in safe hands? Grant Wade’s hands?

“How about if we discuss it now?” she said.

Grant shook his head. “Give me a few hours to think things over.”

She released the door handle and sat back, unable to mask her hopeful expression. “All right. A few hours.”

He couldn’t help but notice how small she looked in the truck. Although Paxton had to be at least five foot five, she was a shade too slim and as willowy as the trees along the riverbed.

She wasn’t lighthearted. Hints of sadness weighed down her shoulders. Did she possess a strong Hall family backbone under all that silk?

It seemed that Andrew had also kept Grant in the dark about a few minor details concerning this legacy. And now, secrets on top of secrets had left him in the hot seat.

Grant reached for the gearshift, mulling things over.

Most likely Paxton didn’t know that her father had followed her life from behind the scenes, and how much Andrew must have loved her.

Sooner or later, Paxton’s wolf would make an appearance. There was no way to postpone that event forever, no matter where she lived.

And that made Andrew Hall one tricky son of a bitch.

“You believe I’m your enemy, but we’re actually more alike than you know,” he said, growing more uncomfortable as the minutes passed. Because, hell...

Just one long glance at those golden eyes of hers had done more than make him realize what kind of DNA she carried. It had also done him in. Captured him completely. Put him on her side. Whatever haunted her, now haunted him.

His wolf wanted to growl in protest over the burden laid upon him, because the wolf had a heads-up on what her innate sense of sadness might actually be.

Paxton Hall was a she-wolf in waiting, and her timing couldn’t have been worse. With a full moon due the following night, she’d be too close to a shape-shifting pack. If she were to face another wolf up close, that meeting might bring out the secrets kept from her all this time. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

It seemed like more trouble had landed in his lap, and that these next few hours were not going to be easy to get through. He had asked Paxton to stay when it now might be imperative to keep his distance from her. He wanted more than anything to take her in his arms and offer comfort, something she hadn’t ever gotten from her estranged father...and that, too, could be dangerous for her.

Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.

With one more glance at Paxton, Grant said, “I think I’ll need that drink.”

The look she returned made his stomach tighten.

“Make mine a double,” she said.

Chapter 4

As Grant Wade pulled the truck away from the curb, it dawned on Paxton that there might be a downside to remaining in his presence.

From where she sat, on the opposite side of the truck, she still felt the impression of his hand on her elbow, left over from when he helped with her bags. When she had looked at his face, searching for more hints about his character, what she’d found was a man who might not be as happy to accommodate her visit as he seemed.

They were at odds about Desperado, and Grant Wade showed signs of discomfort. Although he rested one arm casually on the window frame and the other on the wheel, those bronzed forearms were corded with tension.

Were those arms sexy? Yes.

Did that matter? No.

So, why had she even thought of questions like those?

Truth was, Paxton wondered what that smooth golden skin would be like to touch and chastised herself for thinking she’d like to find out.

Her reactions to Grant Wade were as automatic as breathing. In her defense, most women liked strong, sexy men who didn’t overtly try to overpower with all that testosterone. Men who could easily take control of any situation, yet sometimes knew better than to try. Handsome men at ease in their own skins who radiated self-confidence and looked exactly like Grant Wade did, from Stetson to scuffed boots.

Weren’t those things tied to what constituted wet dreams for women? Because surely she was going to have a dream like that about this guy tonight, no matter how far apart they stood on her father’s deal.

“Name your poison,” he said to her as the truck rolled past a few strip malls and gas stations, its engine purring like a well-tuned tractor.

“Iced tea. Heavy on the ice.”

He gave her a sideways glance.

“I don’t think alcohol would further my cause much. Do you?” Not wanting to relax, Paxton leaned back against the leather seat, liking the masculine smell of the truck. The trip to Arizona had been taxing. She would have given anything to be able to close her eyes.

“Hotel choices,” he said. “Big or small?”

“Cheap.”

He nodded.

“Then you’ll give in and buy me out of all that acreage. Or vice versa,” she added.

“You’re pretty confident one of those two things will happen?”

“Aren’t you?”

Her companion didn’t reply to that question and angled the truck into a parking space beside a small roadside café.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Famished, actually.”

“I hope you like burgers.”

“Not unless they come with fries.”

“Then you, my fine lady, are in luck,” Grant Wade said as he turned off the engine. “Though you will have to sit across from me.”

“I’ll manage somehow,” Paxton returned.

The café was nearly empty this time of day. A few small tables ringed a linoleum patchwork floor and three faded red booths hugged the windows. The only waitress in sight, dressed in faded jeans and an apron, eyed them curiously when she and Grant slid into a booth. After Grant returned the glance, the waitress ambled over.

“I guess I’m conspicuously foreign,” Paxton said when their order went in.

“This is a place for regulars. Anyone new is suspicious.”

“Maybe she likes you. She’s staring.”

“Nope. Shirleen is just curious. She has imprinted with...” He stopped there without finishing the strange remark.

“Does that mean she’s engaged to someone?” Paxton asked.

Her cowboy nemesis took a swig of the iced tea Shirleen had brought over. “Yep. Western slang for people coupling up.”

Paxton didn’t share how much she might have liked to couple up with Grant Wade after first laying eyes on him, since that wasn’t going to happen. She hoped to get the paperwork signed and be back on a plane.

They ate in silence, an unspoken truce, of sorts, with the curious waitress looking on. Grant didn’t seem to notice the scrutiny, but Paxton couldn’t get much of her burger down. She was relieved when Grant took care of paying the bill. By the time they headed for the truck, evening was settling in with a pink glow on the horizon.

“It’s quite beautiful,” she said, staring at the landscape for a few minutes before getting into the truck. “I had forgotten about that. Maybe I was too young to notice.”

“You remember being here?” Grant Wade asked.

“I remember a few small things. Mostly unimportant stuff.”

“Like pretty sunsets?”

She nodded. “Yes. Like that.”

“There’s no place better for showy horizons than this one,” he said.

“Not even in Texas?” she asked, testing her new theory on Grant Wade being that former Texas Ranger.

“Similar, but not the same,” he replied, opening her door and playing the gentleman card well. He added, “You know about Texas?”

Paxton shrugged.

“Know thine enemies?” he suggested.

“Hopefully you aren’t one of them.”

“Hopefully not,” he agreed, waiting for her to climb in. “We just shared fries.”

More silence ensued as they drove to the edge of town. What more was there to say without getting back into the argument over the property? Grant had asked for time to consider everything she had suggested. That was fine, if he didn’t take too long.

“I’d like to go there tomorrow,” she finally said when a tiny motel on the edge of a wide expanse of desert came into view.

“Back to Maryland?”

She shook her head. “Desperado.”

He took a beat to reply. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

“You’ll be driving over my property every time you go in or out of that old town. I think you owe me a look, don’t you?”

His hesitation wasn’t subtle.

“I can always rent a car,” she persisted. “I wouldn’t be trespassing if I stopped at the gate. I won’t bother the ghosts.”

When he offered no comment, Paxton got the impression Grant Wade might be hiding something out there in the desert that he didn’t want anyone to discover. Had he found gold?

“You said valuable,” she noted.

He glanced at her.

“You mentioned that my father left you something valuable.”

“Did I?”

She waited him out, wondering what kind of actual reason there could be for keeping her away from the old town. Maybe Grant was planning on reopening Desperado as a tourist attraction and didn’t want to mention that. Perhaps his deal with her father had been to make the old place live again and earn Grant Wade, former Texas Ranger, a decent living. If so, the deal was terribly shortsighted, since everyone involved had to realize that no one could reach Desperado without her permission granting the right-of-way.

Surely her father’s lawyer would have pointed out to Grant that buying her out would be to his benefit? The truck had stopped without her noticing. Grant got out, took her bags from the back and again came around to open her door.

“Small and cheap,” he said with a nod to the motel.

Funny, Paxton thought. That’s exactly what she felt like as she watched Grant Wade enter the lobby of the two-story U-shaped building ahead of her. Small and cheap. She’d sell the land for a song if it meant getting back to her life without taking Grant Wade up on whatever emotion he hid behind those sunglasses.

Reluctantly, she followed Grant to the lobby, trying hard not to stare at the way his jeans emphasized his magnificently compact backside and how his auburn hair, badly in need of a trim, brushed his shirt collar. Taking stock of those things made her uneasy. Still, she had to assess her opponent and hope that the best person would win this argument.

As the hot wind caressed her face, Paxton felt even stranger, in a déjà-vu kind of way, as if it wasn’t actually possible for a person to get over their beginnings.

She looked at her feet, then tipped her face toward the motel’s neon sign. Her gaze flicked to the light of the lobby’s open doorway, filled at the moment by Grant Wade. He was waiting. But what, exactly, was he waiting for—the woman to tag along behind him, or the completion of a deal in his favor?

Maybe she was just projecting her own thoughts on the matter, because, damn it, the man was messing with her sense of justice. Grant Wade, in the flesh, suddenly seemed like the perfect guy to manage a ghost town in the Old West.

And he was looking at her in that way he had, making her feel as though she was the only woman in the world on his mind.

Chapter 5

What did Paxton think he was going to do with the old ghost town?

Grant had taken to swearing under his breath and did so repeatedly in honor of the situation he found himself in now as he stood on the threshold to Paxton’s room. Half the space in that room was taken up by a bed, and in a perfect world, he and Paxton might have worked through their differences on top of it. Of course, they weren’t going to do any such thing. He had to get in and get out without lingering.

Cautiously placing one boot inside, then the other, Grant set Paxton’s bags down on the carpet. With his hands now free, he thought seriously about reaching for her and got the feeling she might have been willing to have that happen.

Then again, maybe not.

Besides, he was needed elsewhere.

Open curtains at the window allowed the evening moonlight in. That light was a reminder that he’d need to be on guard again tonight for the return of the slippery rogue he hadn’t been able to catch in the months before. His pack would already be prowling near the hills, careful to avoid ranchers doing the same thing. After four months, most of the valley was in an uproar.

Paxton stood in the doorway behind him. She hadn’t followed him inside. Her watchful gaze burned a hole in the back of his shirt, and that was bringing up all sorts of wayward emotions that were never good for a werewolf to have in a closed space.

“Well, guess I’ll head out.” Grant brushed his hands on his jeans as if wiping away the idea of an imminent and untimely appearance of his claws. He was usually good at compartmentalizing his emotions.

“My thanks are piling up,” she said when he turned to face her. “Pretty soon I’ll be the one owing you a meal.”

Grant nodded. “No thanks are necessary. It’s an awkward situation we’re confronted with. I’ll be the first to agree.”

She remained in the doorway, blocking his exit. Maybe Paxton was afraid of what he might do if she came inside. Maybe she could read his mind about that bed.

“I’ll need a car,” she said.

“You can have the truck if you need to go somewhere.”

He fished in his pocket and tossed her the keys.

“I’m going to Desperado in the morning,” she reminded him.

“I’d advise against it, Paxton, unless I’m riding along.”

Palming the keys, she said, “How will you get home if I have these?”

“Friends.”

“Do you live nearby?”

“I live on the ranch near Desperado’s gates, as you quite possibly already knew.”

“In my old house?”

Grant noted how her voice had lowered. She’d likely be remembering the house she grew up in. My house, she had said. Did she think of it fondly?

He said, “It’s still there. A little worse for wear, but standing. I’ve made some necessary repairs.”

“After you sell, or I sell, will you go back to Texas?” she asked, which Grant thought was pretty cheeky for someone facing an opponent in a motel room located in a state she hadn’t set her stilettos in since she was six years old. Just how far would her confidence take her, though?

He didn’t glance again to the window. Didn’t need to note where the moon was. He was looking at Paxton with his wolf’s eyes, watching her unfasten the top button of her shirt because she was used to a more moderate climate.

Sensing his attention, she dropped her hands to her sides. “That was not an invitation.”

Ignoring the comment, Grant pointed to the floor-model air conditioner. “Press the button on the left and you’ll soon feel better.”

Paxton’s cheeks colored slightly. He noticed that, too. Now that dusk had come and gone, and darkness had arrived, moonlight flooded the motel’s balcony behind her as she tossed his keys back to him.

“See you tomorrow,” Grant said, with his hat in his hand like every good Texas boy under a roof. “Breakfast?”

She shook her head. Paxton’s hands were shaking, too. Why? Were her quakes a sign of pent-up anger? Maybe the moon was finally affecting her in some small way?

That was bound to happen sometime.

Moving to the window, Grant closed the curtains halfway to mute the moonlight. A random thought crossed his mind that moon children all over the world would be tuning in to that bright silver disc in the sky.

But this wasn’t the time for explaining anything about that to the woman across from him. She wouldn’t have believed him, anyway.

“I’m leaving. It’s safe to come inside now,” he announced, heading for the doorway she hadn’t yet entered.

They were face-to-face, very close for a few seconds before Paxton stepped back. Close enough for Grant to feel her warm breath on his chin and to observe the tight line of her full, lush lips. There was no eye contact between them this time, which was for the best. Any further connection with those haunted amber eyes of hers, and he might have...

Well, he might have forgotten about who she was and why she was here, and also about proper decorum with strangers.

“Breakfast?” he repeated to scatter the images of what he might have done in this room with Paxton Hall if she had been anyone else.

“I’ll meet you out there,” she said soberly. “At Desperado. I’ll find my way.”

Her black silk shirt had opened just enough below her collarbones for him to get a quick view of Paxton’s flawless ivory skin. It was rare to see pale people in the West, and the contrast between the black silk and the porcelain skin beneath it seemed to him a metaphor of sorts. All this time, she had assumed she was human. How could she have thought otherwise if things had never been explained to her? But the silk was only a top layer. Peel that back, and what lay beneath would reveal the real Paxton Hall.

Bathed in moonlight and the slanted glow from the motel’s neon sign, Paxton seemed vulnerable and alone. Her mother had died long ago. She’d never known her father. Grant hated to leave her, but he had to.

After one quick brush of his hair with his fingers, Grant set his hat on his head, feeling the need to offer Paxton something, even if what he was about to say might sound trite.

“You’re not alone. I want you to understand that,” he said.

Confusion crossed her features.

“I’ll take you there tomorrow,” he continued. “I’ll take you to Desperado first thing in the morning.”

Relief softened her expression. Happy with that, Grant added, “Whatever you might be thinking, I’m not the enemy.”

Another step brought him close to her. After a second quick glance toward the window, he lowered his voice. “No one here is out to hurt you. Please remember that.”

Daring to touch her, Grant placed a finger against her lips, fighting an overwhelming urge to replace those fingers with his mouth. But that kind of unanticipated incursion would have ended any future dealings they might have. He got that.

Her lips were soft against his fingertips, though. And she didn’t back away from his touch.

Damn those haunted eyes of yours.

Damn those lips.

He almost said those things out loud.

Hiding a shudder similar to the one he saw pass through her, Grant spoke again. “Good night. Sleep well.”

It took all of his willpower—every last ounce of it—to leave her there and keep walking.

In the back of his mind, he was sure she wanted to call him back.

* * *

Fighting the impulse to shout for him to return, Paxton watched Grant go, believing the sincerity in his voice when he’d said all those things about her not being alone. Instincts seldom led her astray and were telling her now that Grant Wade would have capitulated about the property if he had been able to. Something held him back, some part of the deal he’d made with her father that hadn’t been made public or available to her. Besides the mess she had found herself in, it seemed there were more secrets to uncover.

“Is it gold?” she mused. “The grand reopening of Desperado?”

If either of those things governed his deal with her dad, why hadn’t Grant just come out and mentioned it? They both stood to gain from public access to the old ghost town. Land value surrounding a viable business would make her property worth more. And if that were the case, maybe Grant would make enough money to eventually buy her out—if, in fact, he was short on funds at this point.

That had to be the sticking point here, right? Money? Otherwise, owning everything would be of benefit to him. Truthfully, she didn’t give a damn about his plans for the old place. Right now, she just wanted nothing more than to go home and forget about all of this.

Her cowboy stopped when he reached the truck, and turned around. He didn’t wave. He wore no smile. His only offering was a quick nod in her direction before he climbed into the truck. After that, he sat for some time before starting the engine, as if he might be reluctant to leave.

Did he have more to say?

Did she?

Paxton waited until the truck backed out of the lot, feeling caught up in the treacherous thrill of having been close to Grant Wade for a minute or two. His brief touch had contributed a lot to the current heat spell.

She was burning up, on fire and hog-tied until she got what she wanted.

Behind her, inside the room, the air conditioner waited for her to punch the button. Overhead, the small neon sign buzzed. Moonlight flowed across the desert in the distance, unbroken by barriers and buildings, having risen above the mountain range.

She remembered damp skin and unrequited longings, as if those feelings had merely been temporarily buried somewhere. Rushing back to her were more remembrances of heat, wind and moonlight, along with memories of running through the brush howling like a coyote and pretending to be one of them.

Paxton closed her eyes.

Somewhere near those distant mountains the buildings of a decrepit town nestled. The place had been legit once, a real mining hub that had fallen on hard times when the mines were tapped out. In the forties, movies had been made there with bronco-riding cowboy stars. At present, who knew what kind of shape the place was in? Twenty years had passed since she played on those dirt streets, and the buildings had been older than shit then.

The truck had disappeared. Only the hum of neon was left in a quiet night. Paxton wanted to raise her face to the night sky in search of a nonexistent breeze, and experienced a sudden feeling of abandonment that was both odd and absurd since she had just met Grant Wade.

“If you’re hiding something that affects this decision, I need to know what it is,” Paxton whispered. “I won’t care. I swear I won’t care. I just need the truth.”

Her mind turned toward a darker theory.

Knowing she’d be going to see Desperado in the morning, had Grant set out tonight to clear up whatever he was hiding? There was plenty of time between now and sunrise for him to accomplish whatever he had in mind. Hide things. Keep his secrets from her.

Backing into the room, Paxton closed the door and stripped to her underwear. She pressed the button on the air conditioner and waited impatiently for the machine to kick on. Cool air felt good on her hot, bare skin. So good, she almost discarded the plan she was formulating.

Almost.

Chapter 6

Grant pulled over a block from the motel, let the truck idle and sat awhile in thought. Should he go back? Forget that last look on Paxton’s face and move on?

She might not have realized how good his eyesight and hearing were. He now figured that she suspected money was a deciding factor in his holding out on a sale. She didn’t trust him. Her wary expression made that obvious. But how far would she go to get what she wanted? “You won’t do anything crazy?” he muttered, hoping he was right.

Though there had been a glint of wildness in her eyes when their gazes connected, Paxton didn’t seem the type to blatantly ignore his warnings about a visit to Desperado being ill-advised. Still, the look she had leveled at him from the motel balcony left him unsure about how far her defiance might take her.

“Pain in the ass is right,” he mumbled.

What an idiot he was, Grant decided, for worrying about the woman when there was a more important situation at hand that required his full attention. His pack would be hunting the rogue tonight, hoping to find where the bastard hung out, and he needed to be with them.

Turning the wheel, he put the truck in gear and stepped on the gas, heading for home. When the last of the city lights finally dimmed behind him, Grant breathed easier. Out here, in the open, he was more at ease. Far from the city, he and his pack were free to be what they were, and that kind of freedom was rare for his kind.

“Did you really think I’d open Desperado to the public, Paxton Hall?” he muttered, as if she still sat beside him.

Reopening the town was about as feasible as getting down and dirty with Paxton tonight in that motel room would have been. As for any other bright ideas, the only one pestering him at the moment was his desire to run his hands over Paxton’s incredibly soft blond hair.

“No secret there.”

Enough desert fragrances came through the open window to dislodge the scent that had taken root in his lungs. Paxton’s alluring, woodsy sent. It was no joke that his thoughts kept returning to her. She also was part wolf, and he had never met anyone quite like her. Nevertheless, Paxton couldn’t be allowed to see behind Desperado’s walls unless she was a fully formed she-wolf in on the secrets of his kind.

“Will your first shape-shift happen here, Paxton Hall?”

What would she think about the fact that behind Desperado’s facade lay cages, ropes, chains and other devices used for aiding the transition from human to Other without hurting the Were or anyone else? And that when he found creatures in need, he brought them here to help them avoid the trauma of becoming a werewolf in a human world?

This is what he did and what he was needed for.

“Somebody has to do it,” he said aloud before realizing he was again speaking to the absent Paxton. Grant supposed he was, in a way, apologizing for the uniqueness of her father’s will and how it had affected her.

“Like it or not, I have to watch over you now that your father sent you to me.”

Maybe one of those cages would have her name on it if she sought answers so close to the full moon. Possibly Paxton was here for a reason altogether different than she assumed.

But having Paxton and a dangerous trespasser here at the same time was bad news any way he looked at it. And if, without knowing it, Paxton had arrived in time to set her wolf free, and Andrew Hall had sent her, then he owed her father another round of respect for executing that plan so perfectly.

Pushing the truck to eighty on the open road, Grant voiced one more thought before vowing to shut his mind down. He spoke a final word to Paxton through clenched teeth.

“I’ll be here for you, no matter what you think of me.”

And then, hearing the echoing report of gunshots, he jammed on the brakes.

* * *

Minutes had gone by since Grant had left her, and as luck would have it, the proprietor of the motel had a car to rent. It was an old station wagon, the likes of which Paxton had only seen on late-night TV.

Dressed in an old T-shirt and jeans, she plugged into her cell’s GPS and drove along the highway for several miles before turning off on a smaller, unsigned road where she lost sight of other cars. Desperado wasn’t in her GPS app, but the ranch next to it was. If she was careful, she might avoid Grant Wade’s current residence and find Desperado on her own, though darkness might make locating the entrance to the town difficult.

Her goal, though, was to spy on Mr. Grant Wade.

The back of her neck tingled as she drove over ruts in the road. Thoughts of how many rattlesnakes existed per square yard of desert sand would have made anyone shudder, but she didn’t plan to get out of the car. All she wanted was one look at the town from the front gate leading to it, to see if there were lights. She had to know if Desperado was as vacant as it was supposed to be, and if Grant had nothing to hide.

Honest to God, she hoped Grant had been straight with her. He seemed like a good guy. She got no bad vibes from him, just the odd sense that he was keeping something to himself. Some secrets were okay. She didn’t need to access his life, just his plans for Desperado.

Paxton blew out the breath she’d been holding. She couldn’t stop thinking about Grant. Only a fool wouldn’t have envisioned what life with a man like that could be like, and she was no fool... usually...except for maybe right now, as she drove on a dark road in the middle of nowhere just to prove a point.

Men weren’t always accommodating or trustworthy. She knew that firsthand. So it was important she made sure the man her father had left Desperado to had nothing to hide and therefore might be coerced into either selling his inheritance or buying her out. The key word here was selling.

Wondering if all these thoughts about Grant were truly rooted in business, she pounded the wheel with both hands. After meeting him, she was no longer sure. Still, plan B was to go after that sale tomorrow and then go home.

“Too damn dark,” she said aloud to ease the discomfort of being alone so far from civilization. The road made the going slow at twenty miles per hour. It had to have been ten minutes since she passed another car, and so far, she saw no twinkle of distant lights.

She’d traveled fifteen miles from the motel Grant had put her in, and damn it, Desperado was out here somewhere. In the old days there had been signs leading to it and paper maps that an ancient tourist attraction might have been noted on. Current technology wasn’t always so hot for things that had fallen off the radar.

Her phone, on the seat beside her, beeped, giving her a start. Paxton stopped the car and found that her battery was getting low. She sat there a couple of minutes more, trying to get her bearings and breathing in the delicious desert smells she had never really forgotten.

Reaching again for the gearshift, she hesitated, listening, hearing a noise that hadn’t come from inside the car.

Rustling brush? Desert animal?

She jolted upright as a terrible thud came from the roof of the car, sounding as if something heavy had landed there.

Her muscles seized. White-hot streaks of adrenaline shot through Paxton as her pulse began to pound with a new, raw kind of fear.

She cried out when another thud came, this one from the hood of the car, and again when something dark and shapeless peered at her through the front window.

Fear froze her in place. Her frantic mind worked to dig up an explanation for what that dark thing could be, and what was going on. Hell, was it a bear?

She was shaking so hard, the keys in the ignition rattled. Her heart exploded with wild, erratic beats she felt in her throat.

Damn it. Did Arizona even have bears?

Breathing became difficult. Each new effort she made to take in air only partially sufficed. No scream would come now. Paxton thought she might pass out. The thing on the hood had its big eyes trained on her, and those eyes looked nothing like a bear’s. Those eyes looked sort of...human.

And then, as if she had merely blinked this beast away, it was gone, leaving behind a loaded silence filled only by Paxton’s racing heartbeats as she sat there, unable to move.

Eventually, a survival instinct nudged her to get going and hightail it out of there before that awful thing came back. Finding Desperado in the dark now seemed like a ludicrous idea. What had she been thinking?

What was that thing that had landed on the hood?

Slowly, with adrenaline continuing to push her, feeling returned to her body. Enough of her focus returned for Paxton to acknowledge that although she had been born in this desert, she’d long since become citified.

She didn’t like that realization. Didn’t like feeling weak or vulnerable.

Her thoughts fluttered in much the same way her heart did.

In Hollywood horror movies, she recalled, the chick in this situation would have opened the door and stepped out of the car to see if there’d been damage to the roof and hood. That would have been a duh moment because, in the movies, monsters always returned to finish off their prey.

She didn’t intend to become a bear’s next meal. Swallowing the fear that clung to her like an unwelcome guest, Paxton shoved the car into Reverse. Backing onto the dirt lining the narrow stretch of road, she two-fisted the wheel into a U-turn without looking back.

Icy licks of fear chased away any thoughts she might have had about Desperado and Grant Wade. At the moment, she needed light. She needed people. Dents in the car were nothing when compared to the perks of civilization. She doubted that even a bear that had built up an appetite for humans could outrun an old station wagon.

At least, she hoped not.

Chapter 7

Grant drove the last stretch of road leading to the ranch like a NASCAR driver. Relief came when he turned into the driveway between two large posts still supporting the Hall sign—a reminder that this ranch was part of Paxton’s legacy.

The house itself was dark, but one outdoor light illuminated a portion of the yard leading to the front porch. Another light flooded an area beside the barn, showing him that he wasn’t alone. The black sedan parked there was Shirleen’s.

Before he stepped out of the truck, she was beside him, utilizing the kind of speed built into most Weres. Shirleen still wore her apron, which told Grant she’d been in a hurry to get here from work.

“It’s back,” she said with a hand on the truck’s door frame.

“Back?”

“I tried to tell you in the café, but you were busy,” she said.

“Tell me what, exactly?”

“That rogue bastard’s trail was found this afternoon in the hills.”

Grant knew that none of his pack would have fired the shots he had heard, which meant the ranchers were already onboard tonight, just as he’d feared.

“What kind of trail was found?” he asked.

“An old campfire. I don’t want to tell you what else was in that fire.”

“Bones,” Grant guessed, praying he was wrong.

“Yep. Bones,” Shirleen replied.

“Cattle?”

Shirleen’s face tensed. “Human.”

Grant was out of the truck before the meaning of that word fully sank in. He didn’t have to ask Shirleen to repeat what she’d said, or quiz her. She wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t sure.

Part Native American, she’d been born and raised just twenty miles from Desperado, and she was their resident expert when it came to finding things in these hills. Being bitten by a werewolf in her eighteenth year had sent her Grant’s way just twelve months ago. What had been bad luck for her turned out to be the welcome addition of an expert tracker to this pack.

“How old is that campfire?” he asked, heading for the house with Shirleen in his wake.

“A month at least. We had missed it because the sucker used an old mine shaft and then sealed it up afterward.”

Over his shoulder, Grant said, “Those bones. Do you recall hearing about any disappearances? Has there been any mention of missing people at the café?”

Besides waitressing to pay the bills, Shirleen’s job at the café was to gather information that might be important to the pack. Like a missing hiker or two, the theft of horses or more about missing cattle. Lots of conversation went on in that diner, which was a hangout for regulars and local law enforcement. Waitresses weren’t usually given much notice during discussions like that.

“No disappearances were mentioned,” Shirleen said.

“Hell.” Grant headed for a box of battery-operated lanterns kept stored at the ranch in case Desperado’s streets needed illumination after dark. “We don’t have time to pursue that beast tonight. The priority is to shore up Desperado.”

“Why?”

“Andrew Hall’s daughter wants to see the place.”

Shirleen leaned against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest. “That’s the girl you were with?”

Paxton Hall is anything but a girl, Grant thought, remembering the sexy paleness of her skin. He kept that to himself.

“One and the same,” he said.

“Of course, she doesn’t know anything that goes on here? Right?” Shirleen pressed.

Grant gave her a wry look in response to that question.

She said, “There aren’t any new Weres coming in, so the cages will be empty when the full moon rolls around tomorrow night. There haven’t been any newbies for a few months now.”

Grant turned from the box of lanterns. “Yes, and all of a sudden I’m wondering why there haven’t been any newcomers needing our unique kind of hospitality.”

Shirleen pushed off the wall. “You don’t think...”

“It’s a viable theory, right? That rogue might be waylaying Weres before they can reach us.”

“You’re suggesting this rogue might be eating a werewolf or two for supper, as well as cattle, and that’s why the bones in that campfire belong to a human? Because a Were’s bones would look human if it wasn’t furred-up at the time of its death?” A look of utter disgust crossed Shirleen’s face.

“Either that, or our elusive bastard nabbed a hiker. I guess the bones will tell us if I’m right, if the right person looks at them. Did you move those bones?”

“Ben took them.”

“Good. Ben should be able confirm if my suspicions are viable. It’s handy to have a vet around.”

“What are you going to do, boss?”

Grant eyed Shirleen thoughtfully. “I’ll have to see to it that Hall’s daughter doesn’t stay too long or get too nosy.”

“I meant about tonight and cleaning up the town.”

Grant’s gaze moved to the truck, and he wished he could avoid Shirleen’s question. Strange sensations ruffled inside his chest. He’d felt this same kind of sensation only once before, and that was the first time he’d seen Paxton Hall.

What did those strange sensations mean now?

Hell. Could Paxton be in trouble?

Handing the box to Shirleen, Grant strode to the door. “Take these to Desperado for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Make sure things are closed up tight. Guard the place.”

He had smelled trouble the minute his boots hit the dirt. Trouble resonated in his bones, and he knew why. Christ, yes. He knew why.

Paxton Hall’s connection to him was strong enough to enable him to almost see her. That’s the way wolf to wolf communication went. Because of their attraction, a special bond had been forged. They seemed to be linked together by invisible chains that were proving to be stronger than the usual male-female kind of animal attraction. How else could he know what Paxton was feeling right that minute?

Bonds. Wolf to wolf chains binding us together...

Grant now began to fear he might have inadvertently imprinted with Paxton, settling into place an attachment that couldn’t be broken by either party, no matter how hard they might try. Imprinting brought a whole new meaning to the phrase until death do us part and upped the degree of attraction to full-on hunger. Mental and carnal hunger.

He hungered for her that minute.

Damn it all to hell, he wanted to shout. Through that connection to her, he knew that Paxton had not stayed at the motel. Contrary to his warnings, she was out there somewhere in the dark, along with a madman, a bad wolf with a taste for cattle, humans and maybe other Weres. A beast that hunted for sport and ate its prey.

Deep in his mind, the sound of Paxton’s startled cry echoed. His heart began to race, as if matching hers, beat for thrashing beat.

“Okay,” Shirleen called out as Grant jumped into his truck. “We’ll take care of things here.”

With blood pounding in his ears and the back of his neck chilling up, Grant was beyond caring about Desperado. He had to get to her. To Paxton. That’s the way imprinting worked. There was no other option. No way to avoid her call.

With his boot to the pedal and his lips moving with a litany of unuttered curses, Grant headed at breakneck speed back toward the city.

* * *

Paxton hit the highway with relief and with her heart hammering. Her knuckles were white from her grip on the steering wheel, and she kept repeating out loud how sorry she was that she had left the motel.

Though the highway was pretty much deserted, two cars heading in the opposite direction passed, and Paxton was finally able to take a deep breath. Cars meant the city wasn’t far off. But as their headlight beams bounced off the sizable dent in the hood of the station wagon, she rang up the cost of the repairs she was going to have to pay for. Worse yet, she’d have to try to explain what had caused it.

She had to be right about the bear.

Skin tingling with remnants of leftover adrenaline, Paxton kept her attention glued to the road as the speedometer inched upward. Lightheaded from lack of sleep and from being scared half out of her wits, she spoke again out loud to cover the sound of her heartbeats.

“If I didn’t actually want to think more of you, I might start to believe you set this up on purpose, Dad. So, what’s this deal you made with Grant Wade going to turn out to be?”

When a voice replied to her question, she nearly spun the car off the road. But the voice was inside her mind, and likely a remembered thought in one word. Stay.

Grant Wade had asked her to stay. Given that he might be hiding something from her, why would he have then issued an invitation to go there tomorrow and then advised her not to visit Desperado?

“Which is it, Wade? Stay or go?”

Her fear was just beginning to evaporate when she noticed a set of headlights behind her, closing in fast. Turning the wheel, Paxton hugged the right side of the road to allow the car to pass. Instead of doing so, it pulled up alongside and stayed there long enough for her to get a clear picture of the man inside that blue truck.

Grant.

Satisfied that she’d seen him, he backed off the pedal. The truck pulled in behind her, as if the man driving it knew what she had been through and was extending his job description to encompass the term bodyguard.

Swear to God though, Paxton was glad to see him.

The café where they’d shared their late-afternoon meal was the first building she saw. She pulled into the lot and turned off the engine. Grant was beside her in a flash and opening the door. Concern darkened his handsome face as he leaned in.

“What happened?”

“Bear. I think a bear jumped on the car.”

He hadn’t looked at the dent in the hood or the one that had to be on the roof. Grant Wade’s focus was on her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Paxton heaved a sigh. Having this man here with her made her feel safe. She didn’t recall ever having felt completely safe before.

“I’m fine,” she lied, not quite sure her legs would hold her up if she got out of the car. “Just scared.”

“Coffee?” he suggested.

“So you can scold me in public for driving into the desert?”

“You’re not a kid, Paxton. You could have been hurt.”

She nodded, in full agreement with that last part.

“Coffee?” Grant repeated. “Or something stronger?”

She offered him a weak smile, still gripping the wheel. Seeming to read her tension, Grant reached in to unlock her grip. He helped her out of the car and to her feet, his touch providing the same kind of charge she had experienced earlier.

She supposed she was a sucker for feeling anything at all for this tall stranger, and countered those thoughts by telling herself he merely made her feel silly about going out there.

“Come on.” His tone was gentle but firm.

When Paxton didn’t immediately start walking, he pulled her closer to him with a snap of one arm. Their chests met. Their hips met. Grant didn’t appear to think this was awkward, when, for her, their two bodies meeting in a parking lot where other people might be around seemed almost obscene.

Truly, Grant Wade—solid, somber and handsome in the extreme—was likely every bit as dangerous as that damn bear. His hold on her was light, yet supportive. His pulse was pounding as hard as hers. And he was every bit the solid he-man male she’d imagined he would be.

Was he going to kiss her? She knew he was thinking about it.

Would she allow such a thing?

With cars coming and going from the parking lot around them, Grant acted like they were the only two people here. She was in his arms and couldn’t shake herself free. Hell, she didn’t even try.

Her cowboy’s eyes didn’t meet her questioning gaze. Nor did his mouth come anywhere close to hers. He continued to steady her quaking limbs...and she was a sap for thinking he might have had other plans.

“You think you saw a bear?” he asked, reminding her of what she’d said.

She nodded. “Yes. Big, dark and like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“It got that close?”

There was no way to miss the trepidation and concern in his voice. Each word he spoke made his chest rumble. However, Paxton couldn’t figure out why he was so concerned about her when her father’s will stated that if anything were to happen to her, the land she’d been left would go to guess who, along with Desperado.

“It looked at me through the windshield before taking off, and nearly wrecked the car,” she explained.

Grant’s hold on her loosened. She didn’t ask him to wait another minute before letting her go. Didn’t confess to needing his strength a while longer. What right did she have to expect anyone to save her from her own stupidity?

“I shouldn’t have tried to follow you,” she admitted.

His voice lowered. “It was a regrettable move, but not entirely unanticipated.”

Had he read her so easily, then?

Maybe that’s why he had found her out there on the road. He had expected her to act like an idiot. Expected her to spy on him.

“Do you know about the bear?” she asked.

“I haven’t heard of one, but we’ll be on the lookout after this.”

“Then why did you advise me not to go out to Desperado on my own, if not because of that bear?”

“The desert can be a dangerous place for other reasons.”

“Such as?”

“Snakes.” He hesitated before adding, “Wolves.”

“The threat of snakes and wolves is what made you warn me off?”

“In part.”

“There are more parts?” Paxton got the fact that Grant Wade didn’t appreciate being questioned when she was the one who had been caught in an unfortunate act of defiance.

Just one more question, she told herself.

“Were you driving back to town? That’s why you saw me?”

He returned a question for a question. “You’re sure it was a bear you saw?”

She pointed at the car. “What else could it have been? No wolf or coyote I’ve ever heard of is that big.”

Paxton was sure that having coffee while sitting across from Grant in a lighted café was not going to make her feel better about that dent in the hood. In fact, she felt foolish any way she looked at tonight’s events...and that made her angry.

“I’m all right,” she repeated. “I should probably get back to the motel and face the fire about this accident.”

“I’ll follow you,” he suggested. “I can talk to Dev, the manager of the motel, about the car.”

“My insurance might cover the damage, if anyone were to believe how it happened.”

Her self-appointed cowboy bodyguard smiled weakly and said, “I’ll take care of it.”

He hadn’t let her go and seemed as reluctant as she was for him to do so. And, okay, she had to admit that having his arms around her was nice. But she also got the feeling Grant was waiting for something. What? An invitation for that kiss?

Stupid girl. How inappropriate would that have been? How absurd was it to wait for a kiss that was not going to happen, in light of them still being strangers on the opposing sides of an upcoming round of litigation?

The thought had barely receded when Grant Wade rested his mouth on hers.

Chapter 8

It wasn’t the smartest move, Grant knew. In fact, kissing Paxton was the polar opposite of smart. He just could not help himself.

The kiss was meant to be a further comfort for her, but didn’t turn out that way. Desire to devour the woman in his arms filled him the second his lips touched hers.

She was soft, and tasted good. He held her lithe body to his, thinking it might have been a fluke that she kissed him back. A kind of stunned reaction. Whatever the reason, Paxton, at least for the moment, accepted the pressure of his mouth as if she also had been waiting for this moment to arrive. As if it had been merely a matter of time before this happened, given their attraction to each other.

Possibly she needed an outlet for getting rid of her recent fear. Maybe he kissed her for the same reason, or because of the growing suspicion that his desire for her wasn’t normal. This wasn’t how strangers behaved. Something else had to be driving them together.

The kiss deepened. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her and didn’t want to stop. Distant thoughts nagged about being needed elsewhere, but Grant shook those warnings off in favor of exploring his ardent desire to possess Paxton Hall.

In that moment, he felt exactly like the animal he was. As his lips moved over Paxton’s, his sense of connection to her doubled. Flames of greed licked at his insides, piling higher and higher with each passing stroke of his palms over the fine bones of her spine. She didn’t struggle to be free or pound him with her fists. Her mouth was pliable, plush and accepting. If she had offered any hint of wanting to get away, he would have backed off.

That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Enough, his mind cautioned after more seconds slipped by. But he didn’t want to listen. He took hold of her shirt, intending to tear it from her body without giving a damn about who might be looking. The sheer force of that thought made him draw back.

Paxton’s breath came in rasps. Her face was extremely pale beneath the glare of the café’s lights. As their gazes locked and his body continued to harden in all the wrong places, Grant knew for certain he was in real trouble where Paxton Hall was concerned, and that his wolfish impulses were the instigators of those feelings.

She stood there, looking at him.

He wasn’t sure what to say.

The quick fix for this problem was to drive away and leave her there, as he should have done in order to regain his wits. But he did have to get her back to the motel. See her safely there.

Taking her hand in his, Grant led her to his truck in what amounted to a race against time. Sooner or later they would come to their senses about this connection and be able to manage the passions accompanying it. He preferred that to be later, because what he intended to do to and with Paxton was going to take some time.

Paxton’s curious expression told him she wasn’t going to stop this madness, either. Not yet, anyway. Whatever was taking place between them was seriously spiraling out of control. Not just for him, but for both of them.

She climbed into the truck when he opened the door. Grant was already mulling over the added difficulty of getting her out of the jeans she now wore.

All women should wear skirts, he thought. Black silk, preferably.

His passenger sat silently as he drove, her focus glued to the windshield. She was all legs—long, slim legs encased in dark blue denim. Her shirt was tight enough to show off curves he wouldn’t have anticipated, given the leanness of her overall silhouette.

She didn’t know what do with her hands, so they fluttered in much the same way his insides were fluttering, as she tried to rest them in her lap.

Are you pondering what might happen when we reach the motel?

Why didn’t she look at him?

Grant’s body and mind were at war with each other over those rampant desires. Emotions usually reserved for after a shape-shift were hitting him hard. Each of his fingertips stung as if his claws were going to make an unexpected appearance...all because of his sudden need for the woman across from him.

Back off, Grant said to his inner wolf.

Keep cool.

Neither he nor Paxton said anything, because what was there to say when she was in the dark about so many things? Strangers had a certain level of anonymity where one-night stands were concerned, she might have been thinking. But they’d have to deal with each other tomorrow.

Will you pack up and go away if we hit that bed together, Paxton? Will shame taint our business dealings after a night in the sack?

She might give up, he supposed, and give in, if shame played a part in a day-after scenario.

He had vowed to stay away from her for so many reasons, and look how that had turned out. The last of his willpower was fleeing because of a woman he’d just met.

All right, he wanted to say to Paxton. You can have it all, and to hell with your dad.

Of course, there was no way he could let Desperado go. Not now. Not ever. As alpha, he had responsibilities that lay beyond Paxton Hall, responsibilities to his pack and any other werewolf looking for help and direction.

How could he tell Paxton how easy it was for him to read her, or how much he shared her discomfort over this whole ordeal?

Pulling into the motel’s parking lot, Grant figured he could change the outcome here. He could drop Paxton off and say good-night. He was close to promising himself to do exactly that, in spite of his urges. Maybe, though, he should walk her to the door. Make sure she got safely inside.

She was out of the truck before he could get around it and coming straight at him. Grant thought she might finally raise a hand and slap him for that kiss. But she didn’t.

Stopping a few feet away from him, she stared. Seconds later, as though pulled by forces beyond her control, her body impacted with his.

So much for vows...

She was in his arms and looking up at him. There was only one thing to do in reaction to that.

Their mouths joined in a kiss that was hungry, angry, deep, and a heady surprise in a growing list of surprises. Touching Paxton’s hot, damp tongue with his was a torment. She nipped at him like an animal with its desire unleashed, as though her wolf was already partially in control of her actions. As if the longings of man and woman, wolf and she-wolf, had joined up, making lust a priority that could not be ignored.

Her breath, in his mouth, was hot. Her skin felt hotter. Was he supposed to brush this off and leave? Put a stop to it?

Was there actually a way to do that?

They wouldn’t get anywhere in the parking lot. Pulling back to catch a breath, Grant again took Paxton’s hand and made for the stairs, still vowing not to let the strength of his insatiable ardor take the lead. He didn’t kick in the door to her room but waited for her to open it with the key she had taken from a pocket.

Then they were inside. Two consenting adults who weren’t quite human, although one of them hadn’t realized that yet.

Maybe he could do this. Possibly Paxton’s wolf wouldn’t respond to his wolf, and it would be all right to indulge in some mind-blowing sex. She’d go away tomorrow and the chains he feared would go with her.

Telling himself that was a lie, of course, and Grant knew it.

He unbuttoned his shirt quickly, studying Paxton for any sign that she was going to change her mind. When she removed her T-shirt, silky blond hair brushed the tops of her shoulders, sending him a drift of that fragrant, woodsy perfume.

She stood by the window in her jeans and a filmy lace bra that would be no barrier whatsoever to the deliciousness beneath it. He could have looked at her like this forever, staring, thankful, ravenous. His body pulsed with longing. His temperature spiked dramatically. His inner wolf, caught up in these new emotions, wanted to get in on the fun.

Without knowing how he got there, he had Paxton on the bed, on her back, and was leaning over her with his hands on the mattress. Her face was serious, sober. She was quiet.

Kissing her again, briefly, teasingly, he drew in her breath and played with her lower lip, backing off seconds later to look into her eyes. The corners of her lips quirked to show him she was on board. Her scent already saturated his face and his skin with she-wolf pheromones that were exotic and intoxicating.

Paxton was gloriously beautiful, and also so very small when pitted against the sheer force of his desire for her. Having her for himself had become necessary. Grant felt truly possessive as he got down to the business of removing her shoes. He then rested a hand on her zipper, testing his willpower by waiting out several harsh breaths, counting each tick of passing time through the strong pulses in his neck.

The zipper hummed a siren’s tune as it slid downward. There was still time for Paxton to stop this. Once her jeans came off, it would be too late.

All you have to do is whisper one word, Paxton, and I’ll be gone.

That word didn’t come.

Fragile lace underwear, a deep midnight black, peeked out from behind the zipper, barely covering a taut belly that stretched between sharp-bladed hip bones. Grant stared at those things as if temporarily transfixed until Paxton made an impatient sound that made him glance up.

“What are you?” she asked when their eyes met.

“Hungry,” he replied.

Paxton’s amber eyes were bright. She wasn’t smiling now. He knew she couldn’t possibly have seen the wolf lurking behind the man’s facade, because she wasn’t yet in a position to recognize it. So he waited for her to back up her question.

“I’m not sure what this means,” she said.

She was confessing to being as confused as he was about ending up on this bed with a stranger. Grant supposed she thought men were often more lax about casual sex than women were.

“Does it have to mean anything?” he asked.

“I have a feeling it does.”

“Yes,” he admitted, while knowing Paxton couldn’t possibly understand the intricacies of wolf needs, even though her comment showed that she was trying to find a reason for putting herself in this situation. “I have that same feeling.”

Her face was smooth and expressionless. “If I think about it, I won’t want this to happen,” she confessed.

“Should I go?”

She shook her head. “Don’t you dare.”

Those were the words Grant wanted to hear. Two tugs over Paxton’s sleek thighs, and her jeans hit the floor. The next question Grant faced was whether he would take the time to fully undress, or if his rush to have her would win out. He was hard, aching and barely able to suppress a groan. In spite of the things she’d noted, Paxton was willing.

She sat up gracefully, bare except for the insignificant lingerie. Pushing him away, she got to her feet and backed him toward the wall by the door. With shaky fingers, she unbuckled his belt and slid his zipper downward without taking her gaze from his. In those amber eyes, Grant watched a flicker of wildness grow.

Deep inside him, his wolf moved, stirred by his racing pulse. He’d never felt so large, so strong, raw and powerful as he did right that moment. Hell, yes, he wanted this. Wanted her. What he felt for Paxton Hall, the sheer depth of emotion, was a first for him. He’d been with plenty of women. Hell, he was no saint. But he hadn’t felt the need to devour or possess any of them.

As much as he hated to believe it, signs all pointed to that damn word he had managed to avoid for all of his life so far. Imprint. Because if that were true, and that’s what was happening to the two of them, there really would be no escape clause if and when Paxton’s wolf finally emerged.

It was far too late to worry about that now. Paxton’s hands were on his zipper. Her fair hair curtained the sides of her face, contributing to that hint of wildness. Contained in the gleam of her golden eyes were flames that might have set his soul on fire.

“To hell with it,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her. “Question time is over.”

Paxton’s breath whooshed out as he took her back to the bed with the kind of speed she should have questioned. As he stretched out beside her, Grant bristled with pleasure. His wolf silently called to hers, but the moon wasn’t full tonight, and that fact was in Grant’s favor. Man to woman was how this was going down. Paxton couldn’t shift without that moon, given that now was the time for her first transformation to happen. He didn’t have to worry about intimacy tonight, though tomorrow would be another matter.

Slipping his hand between her thighs, he skimmed the black lace, seeking the soft feminine folds that lay beneath the filmy scrap of fabric. Paxton made another sound...a surprised, breathy, totally sexy sigh.

He stroked her gently with his fingers, studying each reaction she made. Paxton clutched at the covers and arched her back. The light pressure of his fingers on her sex made her reach for him. In an attempt to hold on to whatever pleasure she was experiencing, she dug into him with her nails.

“Go ahead,” Grant whispered to her, his voice hoarse with expectation. “Enjoy this. Hell, your father might have planned for things to happen this way.”

Paxton’s lips parted as if she might challenge his remark. Grant’s mouth again found hers, sealing off any argument she might care to make.

Her hands moved, sliding up his neck and into his hair to tug him closer. He didn’t need the extra invitation. His hardness, at the moment still tucked inside his jeans, pressed against her hips. She, in turn, writhed on the bed enticingly, seductively, as if she couldn’t wait much longer to accept everything he held back.

But sliding his fingers over her arms made him hesitate. What he found there made him balk. Paxton had a birthmark on her left upper arm, a few inches down from her shoulder. Without having to see it up close, Grant knew exactly what that mark meant. Christ, he had one just like it.

Paxton Hall had a moon mark—a special kind of birthmark that would look exactly like an old bite from a full set of wolf teeth. And moon marks were proof of Were heritage that went way back.

What did she assume that mark was? Wouldn’t anyone question something like that?

“Do you know?” he asked her with his lips moving over hers, hoping she was too caught up in the same sensations moving through him to understand what he was getting at. “Do you understand what this is, between us?”

Realizing there was no way for Paxton to make sense of those words, and feeling way too wolfish all of a sudden, Grant took the fragile ivory skin beneath her right ear between his teeth and bit down lightly, as if teeth were part of the mating game.

He brought his lips back to hers for more kisses, more connection, more fire, tasting Paxton’s heat and allowing the flames she gave off to sink in. Her body moved like liquid sin beneath his. Her mouth was a monstrous delight.

The time had gone for adhering to rules governing wolf behavior. These moments were full and incredibly rich. Here she was. Paxton Hall. A she-wolf in human form. And she was waiting for the very thing he wanted most without realizing it could mean they would never again accept any other partners.

The sting of her nails on his back kept Grant’s wolf tethered, so the man could have his fill of the woman beneath him without interference. Faint traces of the scent of blood filled the air. Her nails were going to leave welts.

With his hands on her hips, Grant pressed his body against Paxton’s, tight to the spot that would soon open and accept him.

She was ready.

He was ready.

To hell, he wanted to shout, with everything else.

As he pressed her into the pillows, Paxton made another sound, one that abruptly brought Grant up from the world of dreams and rapidly fading willpower. It came from deep in her throat. Not a moan, a sigh or an argument against what they were about to do.

No.

Not this time.

Paxton growled.

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