“G oddamn it, Jake, if you walk out that door, don’t think you’ll walk back through it without—”

“Your fist in my face?” Jake smiled sadly. “Yeah, I figured.”

Dean brushed a hand through his shoulder-length hair. “That’s not what I was going to say.” As they locked gazes, Dean worked to control his temper. “It’s the wrong thing to do, Jake.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s my decision to make, not yours. Not anymore.” Jake’s keys were already in his hand as he walked onto the front porch. “You taught me to stand up for what I think is right, and I think this is right. They belong here, Dean.”

Dean was silent, his thoughts churning like a monsoon moving in fast from the south. “And we don’t? What about the horses, Jake? Would you feel the same if it had been one of our mares or studs?”

The sandy-haired twenty-year-old scrubbed a hand across his clean-shaven face. “We don’t know for sure that the wolves are the ones doing the killing. They deserve a shot here. It’s what Mom would have wanted.”

Jake’s words rattled through Dean’s bones. “Look, come back inside, and we’ll talk about it.” He tried to keep the heat from his words and from his eyes. Eyes that had a tendency to send people scurrying.

“You mean come back inside and let you convince me why you’re right, and I’m wrong? No, thanks.” The lanky cowboy turned and walked down the limestone steps toward the trucks parked in the drive nearby.

As Dean moved outside, a strange ache filled his chest. “Jake! Damnit. Get back in here!”

His brother ignored him and kept walking. When was the last time the boy had done that?

He’s not a boy. Not anymore, Dean.

His mother’s voice whispered through his mind as it had many times in past years. Reminding him of what it was like to be ten or sixteen or now twenty. Reminding him to try to see things from Jake’s perspective and not just from the position of the responsible older brother who wanted to keep him safe.

Dean watched as Jake threw himself inside his truck and slammed the door. The headlights came on as the motor rumbled to life. Dean stayed put as the ache in his chest slipped into his gut with a sickening lurch. He watched until the taillights of the old Ford disappeared around the curve of the granite drive.

“Damn,” Dean said. “Friggin’ goddamn.”

The encroaching night seemed to close in on him, the aroma of pine and evening primrose leaving him restless instead of calmed. Dean tensed. He knew it was coming. His hand gripped the alder door. Only one wolf—at first, but as the sun began to sink farther behind the granite peaks to the west, another and then another.

Funny, but Dean felt like howling right along with them.

 

“No, Jesse, I can’t ‘ just look’ at the GPS. I told you, it’s not working.”

Cassandra Darling jabbed at the frozen digital display, her eyes flicking from it to the empty stretch of highway in front of her.

She heard a pointed sigh through her headset. “Right.” Cassie bit her tongue to keep from letting Jesse know what she really thought about his comment and said instead, “Jesse, are you going to help me or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on.”

The clickety-clack of fingers on a keyboard told Cassie he’d been helping all along. She smiled. Jesse could be exasperating, but he was efficient.

“All right, you’re going to take the next right at …. oh, let’s call it Nowhere Lane Number One. You’ll travel approximately ten more miles, and then turn left on Nowhere Lane Number Two. That should lead you directly through the center of … what did you call it?” Cassie heard a snort. “Oh, yes, the rip-roarin’ town of Granite Hollow. Try to keep your powder dry, sweetheart.”

Cassie laughed as she turned onto the nearly invisible side road—lane—and was still grinning when she said, “Will do. Same goes for you.”

She could almost see Jesse’s dimpled smirk. “Don’t count on it. I deserve a little fun. So do you, actually, which is why I still don’t understand why you jumped at this assignment. You know it’s going to be nothing but angry hotheads and bleeding-heart toadies. Just what you need after your breakup with Mr. Rocking Climber Cheat and Run.”

Cassie grimaced. “I’m not here to make friends, Jesse, or to prospect for a more reliable boyfriend. This release was supposed to be as smooth as butter. The perfect setting—the perfect opportunity for the pack.”

“Nothing’s ever perfect, Sunshine. Not even you. Remember that, and don’t get too down on yourself when you can’t craft a solution that pleases everyone. Someone, or something, always ends up on the losing end.”

A knot of tension hardened in Cassie’s stomach. “I don’t buy that. There can be a win-win.”

Jesse’s chuckle was affectionate but edged with concern. “You keep telling yourself that, Cass, and it just might come true.”

Cassie flicked on her headlights as the twisted road began to darken. “I’d better go. Don’t want to miss this next turn—wherever it is.”

“Right. We wouldn’t want you ending up in Vail, doing anything so foolish as relaxing.”

Smiling, Cassie touched the headset. “Ranger One, signing off.”

Another sigh. “How many times have I told you? You’re number two. I’m number one.”

“Good-bye, Jesse. Have a great night.”

“Night, Cass. Be a bad girl whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

Cassie punched off her phone and freed it from behind her ear. She hadn’t expected it to get dark so soon or for the drive to take so long. It had been a very strange thing to leave the crazy big-city bustle of Phoenix and begin the snaking drive east. Only an hour up the Beeline Highway, and the landscape had morphed from majestic saguaros, mesquite, and pale paloverde to leafy cottonwoods and vast grasslands surrounded by juniper and towering ponderosas.

Once she’d turned off the main highway and began winding her way down the cracked and patched back roads, it was plain to see why the government, in conjunction with the Wilderness Preservation Coalition, had chosen this spot for the wolf release. Cassie’s eyes drifted to the rim of granite spears that rose to the north like an imposing citadel. All rights to the thirty thousand acres had been given to the coalition by a foreign investor, and when the coalition had approached Fish and Wildlife about possibly using the area for a release, they’d jumped at the opportunity.

It was near perfect. Or so everyone had thought. Simon Alistair, the coalition’s chairman, had volunteered to oversee the project himself, which had surprised Cassie. She’d met the man on a few different occasions and never figured him for a field controller. He struck her as more of a big-bash fund-raiser and PR events type of guy.

The pack had been ensconced in their new home for nearly five months now, and from the reports she’d read, the small community of Granite Hollow hadn’t raised much opposition to the release until recently. Cassie needed to find out what their concerns were, investigate both sides, and hopefully make a recommendation that would ease tension. It didn’t help any that the agent assigned had quit a month ago without giving notice. Her bosses hadn’t even realized he was gone until one of the coalition members had called to ask if Peter was coming back.

Peter had never been a reliable guy, in Cassie’s opinion, but her opinion hadn’t been asked when Peter was assigned.

“Holy shit!” Cassie slammed on her brakes and the T-Bird screeched to a halt. She squinted to see past the glare on her windshield. Something big. In the middle of the road. Thank god she hadn’t been the one to hit it.

The car door creaked as she stepped out into the night, and then silence washed over her as if she had dove into the deep end of a pool. She could hear the strange echo of her own labored breath and imagined her heartbeat was nearly as loud.

“Oh,” Cassie said as she drew closer and knelt. It was a deer. The metallic tang of blood hit her at the same time she spotted the deer’s belly. Entrails were splattered across the asphalt, along with other parts and chunks.

A tingle vibrated up from the base of her spine to the top of her head, and Cassie’s gaze snapped to the inky darkness that lined the roadway to her left. The silvery reflection of several pairs of eyes blinked back at her from the dense foliage. Cassie’s jaw tightened, and beads of sweat broke out across her chest and back.

“No problem, Cass,” she whispered to herself. Wolves didn’t attack people, and they weren’t about to fight her for rights to the roadkill. She scanned the dead animal with a practiced eye. Taking advantage of roadkill was a dangerous and lethal habit for the wolves to have established, and as Cassie backed up confidently to her car and slipped inside, she was certain this roadway wasn’t part of the preserve. The one thing the government and wildlife conservationists had had to concede to citizens in each release area was boundaries. Invisible lines the animals were not allowed to cross, or they risked capture, relocation, or worse.

A low rumble reached Cassie’s ears through her open window, and she leaned out to look up and down the dark road. Nothing. She could have sworn it had sounded like a car engine. Actually, like an old Jeep. Her father had owned one for twenty-five years, and Cassie would never forget that telltale rumble. In her mind it always signaled that trouble was on its way.

She looked at the corpse again and tried to relax the death grip she had on the steering wheel. “Bet you never figured I would be doing this, Dad.”

C assie bumped her front tire into the cracked curb as she parked. She squinted up at the badly faded marker, lit only by a weak garden up-light. “Flanagan’s Place,” she said aloud. Looking down at her Blackberry, she used the stylus to scroll forward and sighed in relief. “This is it.”

Finally. It might have taken her an extra hour, but hopefully it wasn’t so late she couldn’t grab a bite to eat before bed. She’d taken about fifteen minutes on the side of the road by the downed deer to write a quick account and to take pictures. She would have to report the incident to the sheriff and the ranger assigned to this district in the morning.

Slinging her briefcase over her shoulder, Cassie exited the car and closed the door behind her. She breathed in deeply. The air was crisp, clean, so different from the LA smog she was used to. And was that—yes—she could smell flowers of some sort, and pine, and other earthy aromas that reminded her of Wisconsin, where she grew up.

“No time for old memories, Cass,” she said aloud to herself, smoothing a hand down her A-line skirt and then tugging her form-fitting jacket into a more professional position.

It was too dark to get a solid impression of the small town, but Cassie was certain she’d not passed more than six or seven businesses lining the main street, with maybe a home or two sprinkled in between, their lights burning softly through faded curtains.

If not for the faded sign, the two-story farm-style home in front of her—the only registered hotel/bed-and-breakfast within fifty miles—would be indistinguishable from the other homes scattered around. In fact, there weren’t even any lights on inside. She checked her watch again: 8:05 PM. Surely they wouldn’t have turned in this early. She had said she wouldn’t be in until around seven.

After several knocks and phone calls with no answer, Cassie rubbed tired eyes and conceded that they must be out. “Okay … guess I’ll go find something to eat and come back.”

“They’re at the meeting.”

Cassie cried out and spun around. A broad figure filled the space at the bottom of the porch steps, arms crossed, face in shadow.

“I didn’t hear you,” Cassie stammered, working to compose herself. She swallowed and walked forward. “Do you know what time they’ll return?”

“Depends.”

Cassie’s feet slowed as the man’s deep tone set off alarm bells. She stopped at the top of the stairs. If she were to walk down, she would end up directly in the man’s face, and he looked about as intent on moving as a mountain might. “Depends on?”

“On whether or not the result of the meeting sends them to Callahan’s for a stiff drink.”

Cassie’s heart thrummed, and her mouth went dry. “And you are?”

His head came up, and he pushed his hat back on his forehead. “Just a concerned citizen, ma’am.”

The dim porch light left much of the man’s face and body in shadow, but there was no shadowing his eyes. They glowed like golden torches, and Cassie had to force herself not to step backward. Golden eyes. She’d only seen eyes like that on one other creature—

“They were concerned you would show up late without any clue where to go.”

Cassie couldn’t stop staring. The man was huge, six-four or maybe -five, with powerful arms and dressed like he’d stepped straight out the screen of Hondo or Deadwood—literally. Leather boots, a gnarled and dusty Stetson, and—was that a gun on his hip?

“Something wrong?”

Her gaze snapped up from her perusal back to his face. He stepped forward. The light from the porch illuminated a weather-toughened face grounded by an authoritative jaw and, again, those eyes.

And something else.

It wasn’t until he tilted his head a fraction that Cassie noticed the scar. It ran from the middle of his ear down his cheek to nearly his chin. It looked old, the skin softly ridged and tanned a shade lighter than the brown skin on the rest of his face.

“What hap—?” Horrified at what she’d almost asked, Cassie cleared her throat and tried to find something neutral to look at. Like the stinkbug that was scuttling across her Milani pumps. “Uh, where did you say the proprietors are?”

He didn’t answer right away. Cassie looked up to find his eyes narrowed, his gaze resting intently on her face. “My gun makes you nervous?”

His words were soft, and Cassie couldn’t control the shiver that ratcheted down her spine. She couldn’t decide if he was hitting on her or ridiculing her. “Not really. Should it?”

He smiled, and a powerful wave of desire hit Cassie. She felt the tips of her breasts tingle and her clit tighten. What is wrong with me?

“It is loaded, but so are a lot of things in life. Like thinking our government always works in its citizens’ best interests.”

Cassie ignored the strange sensations that pulsed through her and forced herself down the flight of stairs to stand directly in front of the rugged cowboy. She stopped on the bottom step, and, even elevated six inches, she was dwarfed by the man’s bulk. She thrust out a hand. “Cassandra Darling. You should know I work for that very government.” She smiled, hoping to put him at ease. Hoping to erase the inexplicable curl of desire that had somehow harnessed itself to her at the cowboy’s arrival.

He didn’t take her hand. Silence stretched between them, and Cassie dropped her arm to her side, her stomach churning. Only inches apart, Cassie could sense the tension in his shoulders, and the twitch of a rather prodigious muscle in his neck confirmed it. Even so, she kept her cool. She was all about cool. Offend no one, and reserve judgment until you have all the facts. It was the mantra she’d lived by in her job, and it had served her well.

“Do you have something you would like to say to me?” Cassie looked him directly in the eyes, which was hard to do, as her gaze wanted to stray to his fine pecs or to the chiseled outline of his broad chest through his denim shirt. “I’ll listen if you do, and if not, I’ll kindly ask you to step aside so I can go find something to eat.”

His golden eyes never flinched, nor did he look away. Cassie found herself breaking eye contact first, as staring into their warm amber depths left her a little light-headed and her mouth so dry she doubted she could say another word without choking.

“They’ll be back in an hour.”

Cassie looked up, her mouth open and ready to reply—but the cowboy had already started walking down the street. “Wait!” she called, wondering if she’d lost her mind to be yelling at an angry mountain man with a gun. “You didn’t tell me your name!”

Without turning, she heard, “Dean McCabe. Might be good to remember it.”

 

A cupie doll. They’d sent a goddamn cupie doll.

Dean yanked off his hat and pounded it against his jeans before running a hand through his dark hair and shoving the hat back onto his head. When Carla and Floyd had told him they were expecting a boarder—the new agent sent to mediate—he was sure it would be the typical park-ranger-turned-bean-counter like they’d had before. Dean had never received a straight answer as to why the agent had left abruptly or who was supposed to be replacing him. And his recent calls to Washington hadn’t gotten him anything other than the message that things were “being handled.”

He’d planned on giving the new agent the lowdown before the coalition whack jobs got their hooks in him—and then he’d spotted her.

Silhouetted on the shadowed porch, she looked a hell of a lot like Jessica Rabbit, minus the furry sidekick. For some reason, as soon as he’d set eyes on her, Dean was angry all over again. Furious, actually. While he’d intended to engage whoever they’d sent in an open discussion of the issues they’d been facing and the government’s total lack of response, all he could think of when faced with the petite, knockout blond was how kissable her soft, pink lips looked and how her tits would feel in the palms of his hands. She looked more like a high-powered mortgage broker than a US Fish and Wildlife agent, and she smelled a hell of a lot better than Peter had, too.

Dean closed his eyes as her scent came back to him—honeysuckle. Sunshine and toasted sugar. “Damn,” he murmured, his thoughts now shifting from her scent to her curvaceous body, pixie face, and wide blue eyes. He’d gotten an instant hard-on when she had sashayed down the steps to stand directly in front of him, her tits pointing at his chest like an open invitation to see if they tasted as good as they looked.

And even though he’d been a total asshole, she’d been as cool as a six-pack stashed in the creek in January. For some reason, that knowledge filled Dean with a flush of hot pleasure and then, just as quickly, foreboding. Maybe it meant she would have enough common sense to see through the coalition’s slipshod excuses, or it meant she’d already been paid off and was just biding her time to tell the good folks of Granite Hollow to go fuck themselves.

Dean ground his teeth and tried to shake off the play-by-play of their encounter as he walked toward the double doors of the meeting room. The heavy oak smacked the back of the wall as Dean entered. Twenty-something heads turned, and the yelling died down.

“They’re saying it’s not the wolves that’re doing it, Dean!”

Dean stared at the red, shiny face of his closest neighbor, Ted Cochran, before his gaze cut to the dais where four people sat. “Mayor? You believe that?”

The mayor stood, his jowls jiggling with the force of his shifting bulk. “Take a seat, Dean. We were just discussing what the experts have told us regarding the latest attack.”

“I can listen standing up,” Dean said, his gaze arrowing to the profusely sweating grad student sitting on the mayor’s right side. Their qualified “expert.”

Mayor Grimble raised caterpillar-sized eyebrows. “Well, say it again, Calvin.”

Calvin swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork in a storm-driven sea. “Well, uh, like I was saying…the attacks aren’t consistent with the pack’s normal behavior.”

“Was Cochran’s sheep killed by a wild animal?” Dean asked.

“It appears as though—” His head came up as Dean moved to stand directly in front of him. “Yes. Yes, it was definitely killed by some animal, but it could have been a wildcat or a cougar or even a badger—”

“A sheep-killing badger?” Dean said, eyebrows arched. Snickers broke out through the room.

Calvin flushed crimson and looked to the mayor for help. If they actually had a qualified animal behaviorist monitoring the incidents, Dean wouldn’t feel the need to torment the coalition so mercilessly—maybe—but how they were running things was a joke. A slap in the face to the citizens of Granite Hollow, who had at first been, if not supportive, at least tolerant of the release. His gaze rested on the coalition’s leader, Simon Alistair. The rumpled, finger-tapping businessman always seemed distracted, and it was obvious the man was way out of his depth. Dean had tried to discuss the issues with Simon, but somehow he always seemed to slip just beyond Dean’s reach.

“Listen,” the mayor said as he cleared his throat and sat back down. “The coalition is doing what they can to track the pack’s movements. So far they’ve seen no indication that they’ve been in town at all.”

Ted stood up again. “Then what in the hell’s been after our livestock and pets, Mayor? Explain that!”

The mayor lumbered back up, rattling the entire table. “We don’t know, Ted. If we did, we would already have taken care of the problem.”

“What about the prints, Mayor? Anyone with half a damn brain could see they were canine, not a goddamn mountain lion or badger.” Ted slammed his hat against the seat in front of him and then leveled a finger at the coalition leader. “No more games, Alistair. If your people won’t do something about it, then we will.”

Shouts of assent filled the room as the faces of the coalition members paled, which was when Dean spotted Jake. He was all the way to the side of the dais, his face creased with worry, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

Dean held up a hand and silence fell. “Simon, why the hell aren’t you tracking the wolves? We know they’re collared.”

Simon cleared his throat and shook his head. “We are. But we don’t know where they are every second. We don’t have that kind of man power or equipment.”

Jake stepped forward. “We’ve never seen any of the pack below Rustler’s Ridge. And think about it, Dean, if it were wolves they would be eating what they killed. You wouldn’t have found any parts of the Flanagans’ cat—” He tipped his head to the older redhead in the front row and said, “Sorry, Carla,” before his gaze came back to rest on Dean—“let alone the body. Same with Cochran’s sheep. It’s got to be something else.”

Dean wondered at the narrow gaze Simon threw his little brother’s way. As though he didn’t want Jake to divulge even that small of a detail, which was one of the reasons Dean had been so pissed off about Jake siding with the coalition. Something just wasn’t right about the entire operation.

After Jake had walked out earlier that night, Dean had thought long and hard about what this might mean for them. For the ranch. But so help him, if the kid was sure enough to stand opposite him on this issue, he’d better be prepared to defend his position. “So, are you the new expert on the pack’s behavior, Jake?”

“He might not be, but I am.”

All heads shifted toward the doorway and the strong, unfamiliar female voice.

C assie forced her pulse back to a reasonable level as she scanned the room. Dean McCabe was squaring off with a younger, lighter, and definitely smoother version of the hulking cowboy. The young man was nearly as handsome as the intimidating Mr. McCabe. Even so, Cassie found her herself wanting to examine every inch of her gun-toting cowboy, now that she had him in a well-lit room, but there wasn’t time for that.

She strode forward. “Good evening.” She moved past Dean, her arm brushing his as she passed. A thread of electricity pulsed through her at the contact, and Cassie suppressed another shiver as she stopped at the front of the room and turned. “My name is Cassandra Darling, and I’m with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.”

Her eyes lighted on Simon, and Cassie nodded almost imperceptibly. It wouldn’t be prudent for her to seem too friendly with anyone involved with the coalition. He nodded back, his expression neutral. Cassie turned back to the twenty-some people who were crammed into the small room. “I look forward to meeting each of you individually to discuss your concerns—”

“What took you so long?” came a booming voice, and Cassie shifted to view a good-looking, dark-haired woman, her face painfully flushed. “We were told all this would be monitored and controlled! It’s been nearly a month, and the only ‘experts’ available have been the coalition members, and nothing’s been done!”

Cassie forced her expression and voice to stay neutral. “I’m sorry. That’s something I’m here to determine as well. We will get to bottom of the situation and figure out what needs to be done. You have my word.”

The woman’s gaze never wavered, but Cassie detected a hint of curiosity and maybe hope. “And how do you intend to do that?” the woman asked.

“I need to get input from those who have experienced the depredations,” Cassie said loudly. Voices rose in unison, and Cassie raised a hand. “Individually. Once I’ve had a chance to speak to the sheriff and look at reports, I’ll be contacting the parties involved so we can—”

“So you’re saying more time can go by, and more mutilations can happen, while you chat up the locals?”

Cassie faced Dean McCabe, her stomach forming a new knot at the ringing timbre of his voice. “Mr. McCabe, I understand this is an urgent matter. I also understand the correct way to assess this situation so that a decision can be made expediently. It’s what I do.”

Dean moved in closer, but Cassie stayed put. She was forced to bend her head back to meet his brilliant amber gaze. “I suggest that whatever you ‘do,’ sugar, you do it fast, or the consequences won’t be healthy for anyone here in Granite Hollow.”

“That’s Ms. Darling to you, not ‘sugar,’” Cassie said, matching Dean’s low voice. Blood rushed to her face, and she cursed herself for being affected either way by the rough cowboy’s presence or his inflammatory words. “And thank you for that, Mr. McCabe. I’ll take that into consideration.”

She turned, nodded again to those present, and walked out, her entire body burning with irritation and something else. Something Cassie didn’t want to think about. Couldn’t think about. Not now. Not here. And definitely not with Dean McCabe.

 

Sunday had been a bad day all around, and the following week hadn’t gotten much better. Dean had done his damnedest to stay out of town and away from Miss Cassandra Darling and from Jake. Damn, but the woman had looked just as good under the bad fluorescent lighting in the meeting hall as she had half in shadow on the Flanagans’ porch.

Dean slammed the door behind him, not bothering to lock it before he strode across the lawn toward the stables.

Christ. That was all he needed, to get cross-eyed horny over a government bombshell sent to decide the future of Granite Hollow and possibly even his ranch. Without Jake around, things had been tougher, the days longer, and the nights bone-deep quiet.

Except for the howls.

The yips and long-winded yowls weaved into the encroaching darkness each night like the whispers of the trees, the hoots of the owls, and the rush of the stream nearby. Part and parcel. Jake’s exact words. The wolves were part and parcel of Granite Hollow. They belonged to the land, and the land belonged to them.

Dean grunted and tried to push his thoughts in another direction, but it was no good. The smell of fresh hay and honeysuckle filled the air around him, and Dean remembered that Agent Darling had smelled pretty damn good, too. Carla and Floyd and his neighbor Ted had kept Dean in the loop about Cassie’s agenda in town. So far she seemed pretty fair-minded, but Dean would reserve judgment until she actually concluded her findings and made a recommendation. At least there had been no more killings. Dean knew people were set on taking their own measures against the wolves, and while Dean had every intention of protecting his livestock, he wasn’t bent on hunting down the wolves. The media would have a field day if someone actually managed to take one out, which was the last thing Granite Hollow—and his ranch—needed.

The Rocking T’s reputation was everything. If word got around that wolves were a threat, it could be just the wild card to make certain people decide to take their prized mares elsewhere. Even so, he was less worried about his spread than he was about his neighbors’, whose operations were considerably smaller. It would take only one bad season for some of them to pack it in.

Trying to spin his thoughts in a different direction, Dean saddled Romulus and headed out to locate the herd of rescued mustangs that roamed the Rocking T. It was time to round them up for culling and branding, and he needed to get a head count.

As the hours ticked by, Dean’s thoughts kept wandering back to the cool blonde and then on to his brother Jake. Normally his younger brother would be riding next to him on a day like today, yakking up a storm about this idea or that opportunity until Dean wanted to shove a rag in his mouth. Funny, but now the silence stretched like the icy grip of January—cold and seemingly never-ending in its gray dullness.

“Whoa,” Dean said softly, pulling back on the stallion’s reins and looking skyward. The lake-blue skies were bisected by only a few passing clouds—and something else. Dean watched the dark, lazy circles of the turkey vultures for a few minutes, judging direction and distance before urging Romulus into a gallop.

Ten minutes later, Dean slowed the stallion to a trot and then to a walk as they drew closer. He noted recent signs of the mustang herd in the grassy meadow, and his stomach churned. As he crested the ridge, the meadow rolled out below him, and in the center of the field the vultures fed.

“Yah!” Dean spurred Romulus down the small hill toward the horde of black, sending them lumbering and careening skyward at his approach.

He reined the stallion to a halt, swung his leg over Romulus’s wide flanks, and dismounted. The grassy ground had been flattened and torn up by the struggle, and the flies had already descended on the bloody kill. “Shit,” Dean said, recognizing the old paint mare—a mustang his father had purchased nearly thirteen years ago at auction. She was one of the oldest in the herd. He knelt, placing his bandanna over his mouth as he leaned in for a closer look. The belly had been ripped open and the legs gnawed on, but the majority of the flank, shoulders, and head was still intact. An experienced tracker, Dean began to scan the surrounding field until he found what he’d been looking for—tracks. Several of them. And they weren’t mountain lion, bear, or badger.

“Goddamn,” he growled as he stared into the ponderosas that lined the clearing and then up at the granite peaks that speared the achy blue skies behind them.

“T he evidence strongly suggests that the wolves have been involved in these depredations, Mr. Alistair.”

“Simon, please, Cassandra. We’re all on first-name terms here.”

Cassie didn’t return the coalition field-operations manager’s tight smile. “What I don’t understand, Simon, is why you haven’t been able to track the wolves involved?” Cassie looked pointedly at the six members of the coalition staff that crowded the living room of the five-bedroom cabin they’d rented for the duration of their study.

Most gazes slipped away from Cassie’s, except for Simon’s. He was quiet for a moment and then said, “How much time have you spent in the field, Cassandra?”

Cassie sat back in the chair and forced her irritation into the background, ignoring his challenge. “You do realize that if we can’t distinguish which ones are doing the depredations, they will all be removed?”

Simon Alistair leaned forward on the desk, his expression unreadable. “Is that going to be your official finding? Will you be recommending relocation?”

Cassie’s gaze didn’t waver, but she did wait before answering. She didn’t want to tell him it probably would be her official finding as she still had evidence to comb through and more people to interview, and there was something disconcerting about Simon’s emotionless attitude. But she supposed a calm leader was better than a half-crazed one.

“I can’t answer that now, Simon,” Cassie finally said. “I have more research to do, which includes spending a day with your field ops to observe the pack and their habits. I would like to do that tomorrow.”

A scrape of a chair pulled Cassie’s attention to the back of the room, where a young man stood. “I can take you out, ma’am.”

Cassie realized it was the handsome sandy-blond young man who had faced off with Dean McCabe earlier in the week. “And you are Mr….?”

“Just Jake, ma’am.”

“All right, Just Jake.” She grinned. “But only if you stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ Makes me feel like my grandmother.”

His face reddened, but he smiled, and Cassie’s breath caught at the stunning quality it brought to his serious but handsome features. Jake took off his hat. “We’ll go out early on horseback. You should know we haven’t been getting signals near town, which is why these killings don’t make sense. I can’t figure why they would be killing for sport. There’s plenty of natural game on the mountain.”

Cassie returned his smile, admiring Jake’s passion, and remembering that same fire in herself when she had first started working closely with the release programs three years ago. While her passion for the majestic animals had never faded, the reality of what it took to try to reintroduce a native predatory species into the now “civilized” world quickly tempered that blind ardor. “It’s not unheard of. Sometimes an animal will develop a lust for the killing. And as far as not having picked up signals near town, it could be that one or more of the collars are defective or giving off weak signals. It’s something that needs to be checked.”

Cassie steadied her gaze back at Simon Alistair. “We have to do everything we can to get this situation under control. It’s vital to all the release programs that we maintain impeccable relations with the communities and that they follow the letter of the law exactly. If we cut corners or err on the side of the wolves at the expense of the community, we put all of the current programs and future programs at risk.”

Simon’s iron expression never wavered. “Of course, we understand that, Miss Darling.”

Cassie smiled. “Do you, Mr. Alistair?”

He didn’t answer, and Cassie stood, knowing she’d outworn her welcome. She almost felt sorry for the man, but stubborn ignorance in something as important as this wasn’t acceptable. There were lives at stake, those of the wolves and those of the domesticated animals and the livelihoods of the people in this town.

She turned back to Jake. “It was nice to meet you, Jake. The coalition is lucky to have someone with your dedication and passion assisting them.”

The young cowboy moved to the door with her, his boots clunking on the hardwood floor. “I would like to walk you out, if that’s okay.”

“Certainly,” Cassie said, curious despite her vow to remain as detached from the coalition members as she could prior to her official determination. But this young man intrigued her.

Once the door closed behind her, Cassie felt the tension lift from her shoulders, and she walked with ease to her car, with Jake mirroring her steps. “Was there something you wanted to say to me in private, Jake?”

“Actually, yes.”

Cassie studied his handsome face and was again struck with the knowledge that he looked familiar. His green eyes were shadowed with concern and something else—maybe a little trepidation.

“I don’t suppose I should be asking you this, but you seem like the type of person who might be able to talk sense into someone.”

Cassie’s curiosity flared even greater. “Whatever you say to me in confidence, Jake, will stay confidential.”

He ran a hand through his collar-length hair before looking up, his gaze somber. “There’s talk that certain people are taking things into their own hands and hunting the wolves. They intend to shoot on sight, and I know them all well enough to tell you they mean it.” He held up a hand before she could respond. “They’re good folks. I’ve known them my whole life, but they’re scared, Miss Darling. Scared for their animals, their livelihood, and even for their children’s safety. I’ve tried to talk to them, but they won’t listen.” He glanced over his shoulder at the coalition headquarters. “Not anymore. But there’s someone they will listen to, if he would speak up.”

“What makes you think this person will be influenced by me?”

The corners of Jake’s eyes crinkled, and he smiled. “Because he respects tough, knowledgeable people, and that’s exactly what you are, Cassie.”

Cassie started at the familiar use of her name, but she didn’t take offense by it. Quite the opposite. She felt comfortable with this man. As if she’d known him forever. It was a strange feeling. “All right. Who is this person?”

“Dean McCabe. My older brother and owner of the Rocking T.”

 

As Cassie checked her hair in the car visor mirror, she thought back on the day’s events, particularly her conversation with Jake McCabe. Against her better judgment, Cassie had accepted Jake’s invitation for an early dinner, and over fried chicken and mashed potatoes, she had ended up telling him things about herself she probably shouldn’t have. And Jake had been more than willing to disgorge his own history. She learned that Dean had raised Jake from the time of their mother’s death, when Jake was nine and Dean twenty. Apparently their father had been scarce before their mother died, and afterward stopped coming around altogether. Or, Dean had convinced him not to come around…. Jake didn’t sound too sure which way it had played out.

Cassie couldn’t help but think Jake might have been the lucky one by not having his father around. Too bad she couldn’t say the same.

He’d also told Cassie that Dean had been running the ranch pretty much on his own since that time, and Cassie couldn’t help a grudging amount of respect begin to color her initial opinion of Dean McCabe. It was a pretty amazing accomplishment for a twenty-year-old to raise his younger brother by himself and manage a successful horse ranch.

Cassie smiled and flipped the visor back up. She looked out the window at the quiet, one-story, sprawling ranch home and took a deep breath. “Well, it’s not going to get any easier five minutes from now.”

When she’d agreed to speak to Dean, Cassie had thought it wouldn’t be such a difficult thing, but now it was all she could do not to run in the opposite direction and pretend she and Jake had never had that discussion. Late afternoon was already winding down, and Cassie wanted to get it over with and get back into town before the pitch black of Granite Hollow settled in like velvet drapes.

“Quit being such a wuss, Cass,” she said under her breath as she walked toward the front steps. Jake had assured her that Dean would be a perfect gentleman, if a little brash, and that he wasn’t prone to shooting people.

Cassie wiped sweaty palms on her skirt before she knocked. As her fist connected, the dark wood eased inward, throwing Cassie off balance. She caught the edge of the door and steadied herself, her eyes blinking to adjust to the change in light. “Uh, hello? Mr. McCabe?”

No answer. Cassie backed out and rapped loudly on the wood, clearing her throat at the same time. “Mr. McCabe?”

Nothing.

Cassie frowned. She imagined people probably left their doors unlocked in Granite Hollow, but it seemed odd that they would leave them wide open as well. As a niggling of concern filled her abdomen, Cassie stepped inside.

A brass table lamp shone brightly on a side table, and Cassie couldn’t help but glance at the photos scattered around the large but comfortable-looking great room. A large pine-framed photo caught her eye near the door, and she picked it up for a closer look. A petite black-haired woman with an enormous smile filled the picture. She was holding a baby in one arm, her other wrapped around a tall, thin boy of about ten or eleven. Even at that young age, Cassie was struck by the brilliant amber gaze and warm, slightly devilish smile.

Dean. He looked so happy, so comfortable with his mother and baby brother. So proud.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Cassie shrieked and nearly dropped the picture as she spun around. “Dean?”

“Who in the hell else would it be? Last time I checked, this was my house.”

Every line in Dean’s granite-hard body was stretched tight, and his golden eyes seemed to flicker with barely controlled rage as he filled the doorway. Cassie was quick to set the photo back down and face him squarely, her heart thrumming in her throat. “I came to see you, and the door was open—”

“So that gives you the right to come inside and snoop?” He stepped closer, and Cassie was forced to step back.

Heat filled her face, but Cassie refused to look down. “Of course not. It’s not like that.”

Another step and Cassie found her back touching the wall and Dean blocking everything in front of her. Heat from his body filled the narrow space between them, and Cassie felt a sliver of desire curl inside her abdomen.

A sun-browned hand slapped the wall on one side of her head, followed by the other, and Cassie stared up in shock as Dean’s head lowered until their faces were only inches apart. “What is it like, then, Cassandra?”

Cassie focused on Dean’s full lips and tried to remember why she was there. The entire situation was ludicrous, surreal, and she was certain she must be dreaming.

His breath blew warm across her cheek as he settled in closer. “Well?” he growled.

Cassie pressed her fingers into her palms, her head floaty. “I—I thought you might be home and…are you going to kiss me?”

Dean smiled, and Cassandra’s nipples tightened under his smoldering gaze.

“What would you do if I did?”

Cassie shivered and forced her gaze off his lips and back to his eyes. “Depends.”

Dean raised dark brows. “On?”

“How hot the kiss makes me. I’m not known for my self-control when it comes to men who can kiss like gods and fuck like stallions. Are you one of those men, Dean McCabe?”

Cassie couldn’t believe what she’d just said, but it was too late to take it back. Too late to try to salvage her professional image—at least with Dean McCabe, and, Cassie realized as she stared into the rugged cowboy’s blazing eyes, she didn’t care.

G oddamn, but it was all Dean could do to keep his hands on either side of Cassandra’s head and not on her beautiful tits or cupping her hot mound.

He still couldn’t believe what she’d just said, but the fact that she’d said it made his cock rock hard.

Cassie’s gloss-pink lips trembled slightly under his gaze, and Dean let her sugary scent fill his senses. His mind reeled with visions of what he wanted to do to her, right now, right there.

And what was one kiss? He would just have to make certain his hands stayed on the wall. Her face was already raised as Dean’s mouth descended. He captured her lips in a crushing kiss and then lightened the pressure as her mouth yielded to his. Their tongues met, and Dean breathed in her essence. Goddamn, she tasted as good as she looked. Dean shifted, his hands sliding down the wall.

He growled deep in his throat as he palmed the curves of her hips and drew her tight against his aching cock. Dean felt her gasp against his mouth as their bodies came together.

He heard Cassie’s pumps clunk to the floor, and it was at that point that Dean realized he was actually holding Cassie off the ground. His hands had moved to cup her ass; he’d lifted her up a good six inches. “Perfect,” he murmured. “A perfect handful.”

He had also lifted her skirt to her waist, and Cassie’s exposed, tanned thighs caught his attention; his heart skipped a beat as he thought of those gorgeous legs wrapped around his waist. “Sugar, I want to bury myself between those gorgeous thighs.”

Cassandra groaned, her blue eyes easing closed, and Dean nuzzled her neck, her skin silky against his rough chin. “What do you have to say about that, Cassandra Darling?”

Dean heard her sharp intake of breath and waited to be told to go to hell, but instead, he heard a throaty chuckle and pulled away to look at the blond bombshell who had somehow managed to make him forget everything except for how badly he wanted—no, needed—to fuck her.

Her smile was sinful, and Dean’s entire body thrilled at what her expression broadcast loud and clear. “I know I’ll regret this, but—” Dean felt fingers brush across his abdomen, and every muscle in his body contracted at her touch. “I want you, Dean McCabe. I want to wrap my legs around your neck and feel you deep inside me.”

Dean hissed between his teeth as her hand eased between their bodies to rub across the front of his jeans. His cock bucked in response, and with one hand he pulled off his shirt. She kept rubbing, and Dean kissed her forehead, her eyelids, each cheek. Nothing else mattered at that moment but how she tasted and felt beneath his hands. He eased her back against the wall, his body trembling in anticipation.

Like a goddamn schoolboy, Dean thought, but didn’t care. There was no other thought but her. Her golden hair, silky skin, and knockout curves. Dean’s mouth stopped at the swell of her breast beneath her silk top.

 

“I want you to take this off,” Dean said, his voice nearly unrecognizably thick with desire, and heat flooded Cassie’s pussy.

He cupped both of her ass cheeks again, freeing her hand from between them. Ohmygod…thought Cassie as she stared at Dean’s bare chest. The deep brown skin told her his shirt was off nearly as much as it was on, and the ripple of chiseled muscles from shoulders to abs reminded her that this was a real man. Not a gym-ripped stockbroker or mortgage banker looking for a three-month nooky partner and someone to pose with at parties.

Her fingers shook as she reached down and pulled her top over her head, tossing it aside. Every nerve in her body pinged with electricity. She leaned back slightly, her back touching the wall, allowing Dean a better view.

“Damn,” Dean muttered.

Cassie smiled, her heart thudding so hard she thought surely he could hear it. Her hands went to the tiny clasp at the front of the black lace bra.

“Wait,” Dean growled, and Cassie’s hands froze as Dean lifted her until her breasts were even with his face. “Now, sugar.”

She couldn’t believe she was doing this. While she wasn’t known for her good judgment with men, this had to take the cake. Even so, Dean’s hot breath brushing the sensitive tops of her breasts and the thought of what this man could—would—do to her blocked any other doubts she might have.

Dean leaned in and lapped at her lace-covered nipples. First one and then the other. Cassie gasped as bolts of pure pleasure arrowed into her pussy.

“Still want to tease me, sugar?”

Taking a deep breath, Cassie unhooked the snap and let the bra fall open. Cool air caressed her beaded nipples, and Dean whispered, “Goddamn beautiful.”

Cassie watched as Dean kissed the top of each breast. “I’m going to taste you.”

“Yes,” Cassie said, her own voice thick. “Please….”

She almost shouted as Dean’s mouth captured her entire nipple, pulling it into his warm mouth. His hands squeezed her ass as he kept her lifted, his tongue wrapping around her areola and pulling the diamond-hard tip in and out of his mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” Cassie gasped, her head falling forward to rest against the top of Dean’s head. His thick raven hair smelled like sun and wind and pine. Cassie squirmed as his tongue continued to flick and suck in a rhythmic pattern matched by his hips against the thin sheaf of her panties.

“Hmmm,” Dean said, his voice coarse with desire. “You taste as good as you look and feel. Makes we wonder how you taste in other places.”

An image of Dean’s head between her legs, his shoulder-length hair brushing the inside of her thighs, filled Cassie’s mind, and she groaned. “Now who’s teasing?”

Dean lowered her until they were face-to-face. His strong-jawed visage, along with the intimidating scar and those wild, wolf eyes, left Cassie speechless. That was what Dean reminded her of, something wild—untamed—exactly like the animals he had pitted himself against.

“Sugar, there’s something you should know about me.” His gaze burned into hers, and Cassie could only stare. “I never tease.”

Before Cassie could respond, she was upended and she found herself hanging over Dean’s shoulder, her face nearly even with his perfect butt. She heard the door slam closed behind them as a result of Dean’s quick kick. They were striding across the great room and through an adjoining doorway before Cassie could protest.

Not that she wanted to.

Her entire body was on fire, her panties soaked in anticipation, her heart hammering like a conga drum. “Dean McCabe, what are you—”

Cassie gasped in shock as she felt a calloused hand on her upturned ass. He’d stopped walking, and even from her topsy-turvy position, Cassie knew they were in a bedroom. His hand slipped under the thin silk of her panties and caressed her bare ass cheek, his thumb trailing ever closer to her throbbing lips.

“I have a mirror above my headboard, sugar, and I can see my hand on your firm ass.”

His hand moved up and down, sending chills throughout Cassie’s entire body. “Dean, please,” Cassie whispered, hating the desperate tone of her voice, but knowing that if he didn’t touch her there she would explode.

“I can see the outline of your swollen pussy beneath your panties, Cassie,” Dean said softly, and Cassie groaned louder. He drew his thumb down the edge of her panties, barely brushing the skin just beyond her pussy lips. “Hmmm…and I can feel how wet you are.”

“Dean!” Cassie said, her body shaking. “Please!”

“Please what, Cassandra?”

Cassie knotted her hands into fists and smacked them both on Dean’s hard ass. “Please touch me! Please use those long fi—”

A scream tore loose from Cassie’s throat as Dean’s finger slipped under her panties and plunged into her creamy hole. And he didn’t stop there. His finger slipped in and out of her pussy with the same mesmerizing rhythm he’d used to attend to her breasts earlier, and Cassie bit her lower lip to keep from shouting Dean’s name with each magnificent thrust.

As the heat from her juices filled the room with the smell of sex, Cassie felt herself spiraling toward climax.

“That’s it, sugar, let me see your beautiful pussy come.”

Dean’s rough voice and gently twisting finger was all it took. The orgasm shook Cassie from head to toe, and she couldn’t help her scream or the sweet contractions around Dean’s still plunging finger. Her head spun as the waves crashed over her again and again.

“Ohmygod,” Cassie moaned against the muscled indentation at the small of Dean’s back. Gently she felt his hands move to either side of her hips and pull her over his shoulder and down in front of him. The room was still spinning as Dean laid her on the bed, her skirt still up around her waist and her panties askew.

“That’s what I want to see,” Dean said softly, and Cassie looked up. He smiled wolfishly, and Cassie couldn’t believe it, but her desire was as sharp as it had been two seconds ago before she had started orgasming all over the place. “Your eyes go smoky green, darlin’, when you orgasm and when you’re angry.”

Cassie blinked up at him. How had he noticed that? No one had ever noticed that before but her, and half the time Cassie thought it was a figment of her imagination. “I don’t think so,” Cassie said, feeling like his observation was too personal. Which almost made her giggle. Too personal…after what he just did to me? Am I crazy?

To her surprise Dean laughed and put his hands on his hips. Which was when Cassie got her first visual of the bulge in Dean’s pants. Cassie licked her lips unconsciously and almost brought her own finger back to her throbbing pussy. She came up to her knees, fighting not to act like a complete bubbleheaded tramp at the thought Dean’s cock in her hand and in her mouth.

“That was incredible,” Cassie said. She moved closer to where Dean stood at the edge of the bed. She placed a hand on the flat of his stomach and drew her finger down the ridges of his abs. A myriad of scars bisected the otherwise perfect flesh, but Cassie didn’t care about them. In fact, they intrigued her. She was certain they were born by a dozen interesting stories surrounding Dean’s rough-and-tumble life, and she would be thrilled to hear every one of them—at some later time.

But now, now all Cassie wanted to hear was the sound of her own lips touching his skin, tasting every inch of it. As she tenderly kissed each muscled ridge, her hands slid down the sides of Dean’s waist to hook into belt loops at the front of his jeans. She nuzzled her cheek against the bulge of his cock as her other hand cupped his balls through his pants, and she was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath.

With her other hand Cassie began to unbutton his fly, her mind so focused on her task she failed to notice that Dean’s own hands had moved forward to cup her swinging breasts. She hissed in pleasure as his fingers found her nipples and squeezed.

“God, woman, you’re going to make me come before my cock is even out of my pants.”

Cassie smiled against his bulge. “Oh, no, cowboy, we’re not having any of that. The only place you’re allowed to come is in my mouth or in my pussy.”

A growl reached her ears a fraction before Cassie felt hands lifting her up and bearing her back onto the bed. With one hand, Dean ripped down his jeans and his cock sprang free. Cassie’s eyes widened, and her mouth watered as she stared.

God, he was huge and beautifully proportioned. His cock rocked with the force of his erection, and Cassie reached out to caress the pearly bead that had formed at its tip.

“Darlin’, I need to feel myself inside you.”

Cassie lifted herself onto her elbows and raised up to kiss Dean’s neck, her tits pressing against his chest. “Then do it, cowboy.”

D ean could barely see straight as he stared at the nearly naked woman lying in front of him. Sure he’d had great sex before, but this was different. He was a schoolboy all over again. All Dean could think of was pleasuring her, making her come around his finger again, watching her eyes darken and change color with passion.

What in the hell was wrong with him?

He grabbed her around her waist and spun her around, facing away from him, exposing her beautiful ass once again to his perusal. With a quick yank he pulled her skirt past her knees and then all the way off, along with what was left of her lace panties, leaving her completely bare, her golden skin gleaming with beads of moisture. Now up on her knees, her ass pressed into the air and her hands flat on the bed in front of her, Dean couldn’t imagine anything or anyone more intoxicating, more fucking sexy.

Dean palmed his erection with one hand and ripped open a condom he’d grabbed off the bureau with other, sliding it onto his cock. He kissed her above the line of her ass and breathed in her musk, his heart hammering with anticipation, his cock so rigid it was almost painful. “Are you ready, Cassandra?”

Cassie tossed a glance over her shoulder, and Dean almost lost it right there as she smiled, her pink lips full and moist. “Fuck me, Dean.”

With one hand pressed against the small of her back and the other parting her damp, swollen lips, Dean placed the head of his cock at her entrance and slid in only a fraction. He felt Cassie press back, but he held her still with his hand. “In my own time,” Dean said between clenched teeth as he reveled in the sensations of Cassie’s hot, tight channel stretching to accommodate him. He slipped in a little farther, and Dean couldn’t believe how unbelievably tight she was.

He heard Cassie panting softly, her hands clutching the quilt. “I’m coming in all the way, darlin’,” Dean said with a growl.

Before she could respond, Dean gripped her hips and pulled back on her at the same time he lunged forward.

They shouted in unison, and Dean paused, letting the sensations of Cassie’s pussy gripping his entire length pulse through him. He pulled back slowly and then thrust forward, reveling in the feel of her sliding around his cock. Cassie absorbed his thrusts and met them by pushing back until their bodies were smacking together, and Dean’s balls were bouncing against her soaked pussy lips.

“Oh, god!” Cassie cried out, and Dean swore, sweat beading over his entire body as his cock pumped in and out in a manic rhythm.

He heard Cassie call out again, and Dean knew he couldn’t hold back. He roared as his own climax tore through him, shattering any thoughts and raising goose bumps on every inch of his skin.

He pumped until the spasms eased and then held himself slightly above Cassandra, one hand wrapped around her waist.

Un-fucking-believable.

Dean didn’t know any other way to describe what he’d just experienced.

After another deep breath, he pulled out and checked the condom, relieved when he saw that it had held. Deftly he pulled it off and tossed it into the trash by the bed before rolling over and taking Cassandra with him. Dean was pleased to find that Cassie fit perfectly into the curve of his body, her firm ass pressed up against his groin, her fragrant hair nestled just beneath his chin.

Words felt out of place, but Dean knew one of them would have to say something. He just hoped it wouldn’t have to be him, as he knew he would likely screw things up the moment he opened his mouth.

As Dean caressed Cassie’s side, his thoughts replayed their incredible sex. Christ, Dean swore silently, I wouldn’t mind screwing her all over again. Right now. His cock started to harden at just the thought, and Dean smiled grimly. I’ve been possessed, bewitched by a five-foot-something, blond bombshell with eyes bluer than a sapphire lake and a smile wider than the Arizona sky.

He nuzzled her diminutive ear and then nipped the lobe and was rewarded by Cassie squirming her rear end tighter against him. Dean’s hand migrated to the flat of her belly. “Sugar, that was incredible.”

Cassie rolled over to face him, and her flushed features and open, honest gaze mesmerized Dean. “That was, hands down, the best sex I have ever had, Dean McCabe.” They studied each other for a moment, and Cassie reached up to stroke the fine ridge of scar tissue that ran from his left ear almost to his chin. “How did this happen?”

Dean took her hand and kissed her fingers, his gaze never leaving hers. “You don’t want to know.”

She smiled, and Dean’s heart almost stopped. “I do,” she said.

For the first time that Dean could remember, he wanted to talk about it. “It’s not a pretty story.”

Cassie snuggled closer and kissed the scar before leaning back. “But it’s part of your story, and I want to hear it.”

The memory slid into Dean’s mind like it was yesterday, and only the sensation of Cassie in his arms kept his anger on simmer. “When I was seventeen my mom started getting sick. It was so bad one night I knew we had to get her to the hospital, but she wouldn’t go without…” He paused, fury burning in his throat at the memory. “She wouldn’t go without our dad. So I went to town to collect him.”

Dean rolled onto his back, and Cassie continued to gently stroke the side of his face and neck. “He was deep in a game of poker at the bar, as usual. Problem was, the asshole playing with him was convinced my dad was cheating and decided he couldn’t leave until he gave back all the money he’d won.”

“And did he?” Cassie asked.

“Fuck, no. It was more important to teach the asshole a lesson than just to give him his money and get the hell out of there to be with his wife.”

“What happened?”

“They fought,” Dean grunted. “But instead of gutting my father, the prick sliced me instead.”

“Jesus, Dean,” Cassie whispered. “What did your dad do?”

“He beat the guy to a pulp and then pulled me out of there, screaming that any normal dumbshit would have had enough sense to stay out of the way.”

Cassie gasped, her hand finding his and squeezing. “He was a complete jerk-off!”

Dean chuckled, the sting of the memory fading in light of Cassie’s heated words. Her tits pressed up against him didn’t hurt to distract him either. “Yeah. He was. At least one good thing came out of it. After that my mom refused to let him back into the house.”

“And your mom?” Cassie asked tentatively. “Did she get to the hospital?”

“Yeah,” Dean said softly. “She did.”

“Was…was she okay?”

Dean lifted Cassie’s silky hair and breathed in its fresh scent. “That’s not a good story either, sugar. Can we save it for another time?”

Cassie snuggled closer, and Dean groaned as her hand cupped his balls. “Yes. I’m sorry, Dean, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just…I feel like I know you, but there’s so much I really don’t know—”

Before she could say anything else, Dean slid Cassie beneath him and found her lips with his own in an intoxicating kiss that left them both breathless. “I can think of better things to do than talk,” Dean growled.

Cassie took his lower lip between her teeth and then released it, her tongue snaking out to trace its contours. The feel of her tongue arrowed straight to Dean’s cock, and it bucked in response. Cassie reached up and pushed on his chest until he rolled over onto his back.

Dean watched as she flipped around, her ass in his face, her tan legs straddling his chest, and her mouth near other critical areas. “Now let me have a taste of you, Mr. McCabe, and if I remember correctly, you—”

Before she could finish her sentence, Dean pulled Cassie’s hips low and drew his tongue across her beautiful, pink pussy lips. He flicked his tongue across her clit, eliciting more mews of pleasure, before drawing back slightly. “You were saying, Miss Darling?”

“Nothing,” Cassie choked out, “nothing at all, cowboy.” Without another word, Cassie wrapped her warm mouth around the head of Dean’s cock. She dipped her head in a steady rhythm of hand meeting mouth, and Dean clenched his teeth to keep from groaning aloud like a sixteen-year-old. Forcing himself to refocus on the beautiful, creamy flower in front of him, Dean teased, flicked, and thrust with his tongue, reveling in her sweet taste and the muted moans of pleasure vibrating against his cock. They both increased their tempo, and Dean did groan aloud against Cassie’s glistening pussy lips as she drew his cock to back of her throat.

“Come for me, Dean,” he heard her whisper, and Dean couldn’t help but oblige as she sucked him deep once again. The orgasm exploded throughout his body and mind, rendering him completely helpless. He waited until the waves eased, and he could hear his own heartbeat once more, before flipping Cassie over to stare at her flushed and sated face.

“Let me return the favor, sugar.”

Dean thrust first one and then two fingers inside Cassie’s pussy, bringing her steadily to the brink and then easing back until she shouted for release.

He captured a nipple in his mouth and flicked the crystal-hard bead as he twisted his fingers across her clit. Cassie screamed as she came, and Dean smiled against her nipple, sucking it until her contractions eased and her body collapsed beneath him.

Dean lowered himself and then rolled onto his back, keeping Cassie on top of him. He waited until his breathing eased and then pressed his lips against the top of Cassie’s head. “So, what’s the verdict, sugar? Am I ‘one of those men’?”

Cassie raised her head, and she nodded with all seriousness. “Damn straight, but with one difference.”

Dean raised a brow.

“You’re more than a stallion. You are a god, Dean McCabe.”

Smiling, Dean tucked Cassie back under his chin, his hands cupping her rear. “And you, Cassandra Darling, are one hell of a goddess.”

I nsanity. Total, utter insanity. Cassie knew she’d lost her mind. Potentially she would lose more than that if word of what she and Dean had just done got back to the wrong people. Even so, as she lay wrapped in his arms as he drifted off to sleep, Cassie realized she wouldn’t change it for the world. Not one luscious moment. Just the thought of what they’d shared made Cassie moan silently and her clit dampen.

She’d had no idea she could have that many orgasms, or even that much sex, and not be sore or completely worn out. She felt like she could do it again if Dean was to suddenly wake up and touch her just about anywhere.

“God help me,” Cassie whispered, her mind reeling. Which was when she remembered why she’d come out to see Dean in the first place. How could she now bring up what Jake had asked her to do? And what would she tell Jake if she didn’t? “Oh, by the way, instead of convincing your brother to speak to the townsfolk and convince them not to shoot the wolves, I fucked his brains out for three hours and then made myself right at home.”

“You’re thinking.”

Cassie jerked in response to Dean’s deep voice near her ear.

“You’re all tense, like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse.”

Cassie sighed, detangled herself from Dean’s embrace, and sat up. She brushed hair away from her face and looked around the now darkened room. “I should go.”

“You don’t sound like you really want to do that.”

Pinching her bottom lip between her teeth, Cassie slipped out of bed, her feet hitting the cool pine floor. “Dean, I—I didn’t come here to, well, to do what we did.”

She heard rustling behind her, and Cassie almost turned and jumped back into Dean’s arms. God, but she wanted his hands on her body and to feel his warm breath on her neck.

“I don’t imagine you did,” he said.

Cassie began searching for her clothes in the dim light.

“Looking for these?”

Cassie turned to see Dean holding up her underwear with one finger, his lips quirked in a wicked grin. She reached for them, only to have Dean grab her hand and pull her to him. Cassie hissed as her bare body met his. “Dean….”

Dean trailed a hand over the side of her face. “Listen, sugar, I’m not about to announce our time together to anyone. I may be a hard-ass, but I’m not a prick. I understand you have a job to do.” Cassie heard Dean breathe in deeply and then let it out with a whoosh. “And so do I.”

With that he pressed her panties into her hand and released her. Cassie felt bereft without Dean’s arms around her. She found her skirt by the end of the bed and hurried to dress while he was off in the corner of the room doing the same. He left and came back with her blouse, bra, and shoes, his face a study of stony neutrality, and Cassie felt a niggling of unease work its way through her abdomen. By this time she was used to the angry Dean or the sweet and sexy Dean, but not this calm and unruffled Dean. It didn’t feel right.

“Come on. I’ve got something to show you,” he said the moment she finished dressing.

Silent, Cassie followed, her thoughts twisting around her emotions until she was a knot of anxiety. She trailed Dean out of the house, across the dark yard, and down a slight hill to a well-lit shed detached from the sizable stable and barn to their right. Dean unlocked the door and ushered her inside. He walked across what looked like a medical workroom to a sealed steel door and opened it. Cassie realized it was a large walk-in cooler. She stepped around Dean as he flicked on the fluorescent overhead lights. A horse lay on the floor on top of a large tarp.

Cassie moved closer, her trained eyes taking it all in as her pulse raced and her stomach soured. “Do you have gloves?” she asked without turning her head. A pair found their way into her hands, and Cassie slipped them on. “Where?”

Dean crouched beside her, his face grim. “In my north pasture, about two miles out. She’s from one of the wild mustang herds.”

“Did you take pictures?” Cassie asked as she began to probe the animal’s mouth.

“Yes.”

“She’s an older mare.” Cassie continued her inspection, her thoughts focused, her mind taking in each detail. When she reached the areas that had been depredated, she examined the torn edges with extra care. “The eyes, and the ears; this was done by—”

“Scavengers,” Dean muttered. “Yeah. I know.”

Cassie rocked back on her heels and clasped her hands, her lips pressed into a thin line. “These other areas definitely look like a big predator.” She gazed up at Dean. “Did you see them?”

His amber eyes glowed with a simmering fury as he shook his head. “Just the tracks, and I can guarantee you they were not from a cat or badger.”

Cassie took off the gloves, her stomach burning with disappointment. “I’ll need to see those pictures and take a closer look at your mare.” Cassie couldn’t look Dean in the eye. Her body flushed with heat despite the chill of the cooler. “I’m sorry, Dean. You will be compensated for—”

“Keep it. It’s not about the money.”

Cassie looked Dean in the eye, her heart aching for him and for the wolves that would certainly suffer over what was happening in Granite Hollow. “I will make my recommendation as soon as possible, Dean.”

The fire in Dean’s eyes didn’t fade, but Cassie detected that it was no longer directed at her. Thank god. Cassie didn’t think she could deal with that. Not now. Not after what had happened tonight.

Dean turned off the lights and then plunked his hat back onto his head before ushering her out through the freezer’s door and to the front courtyard. Cassie stayed by the car while Dean went into the house for the keys she’d left on the entry table.

Cassie realized she had completely breached her own ethics, not to mention her profession’s code of conduct, by sleeping with Dean, but it was too late to regret her decision now. Her dad would have said it was just further proof that she was a no-good slut just like her mother. Fuck first and think later.

She shivered, forcing away the memory and refocusing on Dean as he walked back toward her. This was his livelihood at stake, and that of his neighbors. She needed him to know she wasn’t just blowing hot air. That she knew how imperative it was to help protect this town and the wolves under the agency’s protection. “I’ll be going out tomorrow to track and observe the pack. We’ll be looking for broken collars, disruptive behavior, and things of that sort. We need to get a handle on which animal is responsible.”

The silence stretched between them as they walked toward Cassie’s T-Bird.

“I don’t hate them.”

She stopped and faced Dean. “What?”

“The wolves.” Dean gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “My mother used to tell Jake and I stories her grandfather told her, about how his tribe interacted and honored the wolves before they were killed off.”

“Your mother was Native American?”

Dean nodded sharply. “Half. I thought the reintroduction could be a good thing. We’ve had disease these past few years among the deer herds, and the rabbit population is out of control. I knew there would be some occasional livestock loss…but not this. They aren’t even eating their kills. This is a bad situation, Cassie.”

Cassie’s heart ached for Dean. Unable to stop herself, she took Dean’s hand and turned it palm up, kissing the calluses that creased it. “I’m sorry, Dean. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

Silence stretched between them, but Cassie didn’t mind. She knew that once she got into that car, her time with Dean was at its end. They couldn’t be seen together in town, and the likelihood of them continuing any type of relationship seemed impossible. Even so, Cassie felt a connection to Dean that she couldn’t explain away as just an appreciation of mind-blowing sex. It was deeper than that. At least for her.

“I should go,” Cassie whispered.

“Yeah,” Dean said, his voice gruff.

He walked her to her car, and Cassie got inside, her throat tight with all the things she still wanted to say, questions she wanted to ask. Which was when she remembered Jake’s request. “Dean,” Cassie started.

He pushed her door closed and leaned close to her open window. “Cassandra,” he returned, his gaze steady.

Ignoring the charismatic pull of his amber eyes, Cassie said in a rush, “I heard a rumor that some people are planning on tracking and killing the wolves. Can you tell them…tell them I’ll move as quickly as I can. Tell them to be careful. It’s a federal offense, and there’s a hefty fine.”

Dean smiled. “I can do that, Miss Darling.”

“Good,” Cassie said briskly as she started her car with a shaking hand. “Good night, Dean.”

Hooking his fingers in his belt loops, Dean stepped away from the T-Bird. “’Night, sugar.”

Cassie stared at Dean a long moment longer before thumbing the window closed and forcing herself to drive away. Away from the best damn sex of her life. Away from a man she wanted to know everything about. Away from a possibility she wasn’t looking for and didn’t want. Not now. Not here. Not that it mattered now. Cassandra Darling was snagged, hook, line, and sinker.

“I t’s beautiful, Jake.”

Cassie turned in her saddle for what felt like the hundredth time to take in the view of the valley behind them and the mountain around them. Bordered by thick stands of ponderosas and junipers, meadows rolled out in front of them like green and gold carpet runners. Again Cassie felt like she was in a movie. The panoramic views were incredible.

“It’s always been special land. Dean and I spent lots of summer weekends up here camping and finding ways to torture each other.” Jake grinned, and Cassie walked her mare closer, her interest piqued.

“Torture, huh? That was your idea of fun as kids?”

Jake pulled up on his Appaloosa, and Cassie’s pinto mare stopped alongside. “Well, Dean and I really were never kids at the same time. It was more like father-son, but since he wasn’t my dad, I was more inclined to find ways to make my brother near crazy. Mostly by yapping my fool head off and picking up every snake, tarantula, or centipede I saw.”

Cassie laughed as she pictured Dean trying to rein in Jake’s wonder of the natural world. “I don’t imagine any of those friendly woodland creatures ended up in Dean’s sleeping bag, did they?”

Jake rested his arms on the pommel of the saddle and grinned slyly. “I’ll take the fifth on that.”

They’d gone out together two of the last four days to observe the pack, and Cassie never tired of Jake’s stories. Especially the ones about Dean. The jerk. He hadn’t returned any of her calls the past few days, and Cassie knew she had certainly blown any chance she might have had with the volatile cowboy. He probably thought she was some city slut who screwed anyone that posed an invitation. The sudden ache in her chest brought her back to reality, and she looked up as Jake tapped her leg and pointed.

Cassie followed his finger and gasped. Not more than fifty yards away she saw flashes through the trees…white…black…gray…and then, with a swiftness that took her breath away, a deer broke cover and crashed out of trees onto the meadow. It was running full-out, and, even so, close on its heels came the pack. Jake and she patted their horses to keep them quiet and leaned low in their saddles, hoping they would stay hidden in the trees on the opposite side. It was still early, only five P.M., and she and Jake hadn’t expected to see any activity from the wolves until much later in the evening after they’d set up in one of the blinds near the pack’s lair.

With well-orchestrated teamwork they brought the deer down, and Cassie watched in awe as the entire scene played out before them. Just as it should. The alpha and beta ate first, then the nursing mothers, and finally the omega. There was no mutilating, no shred and run, and each member seemed to know its place and rank without question.

“God, Jake, they are so beautiful,” Cassie whispered, her eyes still glued on the organized chaos of the feed.

Jake nodded, his hands shaking as he fiddled with equipment he’d yanked from his saddlebags. “All their signals are strong. I can account for each member. That’s the whole pack, Cass, except for the new pups, which they haven’t collared yet. There are no weak signals.”

Cassie recognized the bewilderment in Jake’s eyes and was sure hers reflected the same.

“Could it be coyotes? Is that possible?” he asked.

Cassie shook her head. “Unlikely. I’ve never seen coyotes attempt something as big as your mare. Not unless it was sick, and your mare didn’t look sick.” She looked back to the wolves. “But they are an efficient killing machine. For them to have adapted so well, so quickly, is a testament to the keepers that prepared them for this. I—I don’t want this to be the end of the road for them, Jake.”

Their gazes met. “Neither do I. What can we do, Cass?”

Cassie gently pulled on the reins, backing her mare farther into the brush and away from the canines whose futures she was forced to decide upon. Jake followed, and they stayed silent for almost a half mile. “I don’t know what the answer is right now, but I know I need to make a decision soon. Before there’s another killing. It’s not fair to anyone, the wolves or the ranchers, to just hang in limbo, hoping for the best.”

Jake nodded but stayed silent, his young face tight. “Do you still want to head up to the blind?”

“If you don’t mind I’d rather go back into town. I have a lot of thinking to do and reports to review. Better to start on that now, I think.”

As they crested a low rise Cassie blinked through the gloom, shocked to see a flash of light on the mountain. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

Cassie pulled her mare in and stood in her stirrups. “There. About a half mile west. I thought I saw, well, it looked like headlights from a car.”

“There aren’t any roads up here, Cass. Except for the fire road, but that’s about ten miles east of here.” Jake nodded in the direction Cassie had indicated. “That area is nothing but granite crags, shale slides, and tailings from an old copper mine. Mountain lion territory. Not a place suited for the wolves or for most people.” He grinned. “The only people who go there are mountain climbers from Phoenix in early spring. They like the challenge of the granite face on the south rim.”

“I’ve known a few of those crazy rock climbers. Dated one, in fact.”

Jake reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of Cassie’s face. It reminded her so much of Dean she nearly grabbed his hand and held it against her cheek. “No mountain climbers here, Cass. Just lonely cowboys with hot heads and strong passions.”

She smiled at the sandy-haired cowboy. “Yeah. I think I’ve met a few.”

 

“Cut him out, Frank, and get him in with Massey’s group in the south pasture!”

Dean wiped his face with his bandanna before putting his hat back on and surveying the organized chaos of the corrals and pens spread out before him. Stocky brown and black pinto mares and foals milled in corners, while their stallion rolled his eyes and snorted warnings whenever the men got too close.

He took a deep breath, tasting dust and the tangy resin of pine, and he played with the idea that tonight might be the right time to do some heavy thinking. Dean hadn’t had a moment to himself the entire week. Each night the house had been full of hired hands, and from sunup to sundown they’d been out on the range. Which, Dean reasoned, was probably a good thing. Otherwise he would have been inclined to spend every waking moment with Miss Darling, even if it was just to make certain she didn’t do something so foolish as to find interest in someone else.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get thoughts of the petite blonde out of his head. And not just of how she felt in his arms or how she felt beneath him. Dean found himself longing just to hear her voice, her laugh, and to see her smile.

It was goddamn disgusting how much he longed for it. In his thirty-one years Dean had never felt this way, never knew he could feel this way. When he’d gotten her messages the other day, he’d had to physically restrain himself from driving into town, breaking into her room, and convincing her in as many ways as he could think of to come back to the ranch.

But nothing good could come out of him panting over Cassandra Darling. Once she was done with her investigation she would go back to her world of sun, smog, and high-rise buildings and forget all about Granite Hollow. Forget all about the crazy-ass, scarred cowboy with horseshit on his shoes and a wild look in his eye.

Dean figured the best thing he could do was stay busy until the insanity passed. And since he hadn’t heard that a decision had been made regarding the wolves, a part of Dean questioned whether or not Cassie was doing anything at all to get the situation resolved. It wasn’t as if he actually knew Cassie. Not really. Not deep down.

“We’re about done here, Dean,” Frank said as he walked over to Dean. “You want me to ask Cliff and Jack to hang on for a few more days to help keep an eye on things?”

Dean forced his thoughts away from Cassandra and back to his friend and foreman, Frank Buchanan. “No, thanks, Frank. Jake’s coming home tonight, and he can help out. Plus, we still have Terry and Carl on full time.” As Dean shook Frank’s hand, the thought that things could meander back to a more reasonable pace almost made him smile. “I appreciate you bringing in your boys this week.”

“Anytime. You know those damn kids need work just to keep them out of trouble.” Frank smiled and then waved to his crew. “Day’s done, boys!”

The past week had also reminded Dean how important his family and the ranch were to him. He missed having Jake around, and just because they’d had a difference in opinion, it didn’t mean they couldn’t still work together and live under the same roof. Hell, the kid had guts to do what he was doing, following his belief. Their mother would have been proud of him.

As the crew packed up, Dean leaned on the fence to watch the mustangs. They were a good-looking bunch this year, fat and healthy, their coats shiny. The foals looked promising, too. A small light-coated mustang with a white patch down her forehead caught his eye. Even with the sudden change to her world, the filly was playful and her body language comfortable. She nipped at the other foals and then skittered sideways, egging them on. Dean smiled, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in weeks.

“You’re a keeper, darlin’,” Dean said as his eyes trailed the filly’s antics.

Just like someone else.

His mother’s voice sounded so clear sometimes it was almost as if she were standing beside him. “It’s none of your concern, Mom,” Dean muttered, his eyes still following the filly’s romp, but inside he smiled. She might be right. Hell, when was she not right?

The thought left a sinking feeling in Dean’s gut, and he ground his teeth. Damn it. He’d told himself he wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t pine for a woman he couldn’t have.

Can’t say she doesn’t want you if you haven’t had the guts to go find out, Dean….

Dean slapped his hat against his thigh and eyed his truck. “Guess it can’t hurt to find out.”

“N o! Next week isn’t good enough. It needs to get to someone who can make a decision today, Richard.”

Cassie paced the narrow room, the cell phone so tight against the side of her face she was certain her ear was redder than the magenta quilt on the double bed of her room in the B and B. “I realize decisions aren’t made overnight, but the situation here is critical. We’re past the point of taking our time with this…. I don’t care if you have to wake up the President! Get them to read my report and either agree with my recommendation, or make one of their own. It’s been a week already, and that’s a week too long!”

Cassie flipped the cell phone closed with a snap, her blood boiling and her chest rising and falling rapidly with the force of her breath.

“Stupid political bullshit!” Cassie said, throwing the phone onto the bed. A week. A fucking week, and they still hadn’t made a decision. It hadn’t happened yet, but it was only a matter of time before a wolf or more livestock was killed. Either could be disastrous for Granite Hollow.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Cassie muttered as she ran her hand through her hair and checked the clock. Nearly one o’clock. Half the day gone already.

It didn’t help any that Dean hadn’t returned her phone calls, hadn’t shown up to the town-hall meeting, hadn’t indicated in any way that he was interested in Cassie. She was beginning to wonder if she’d imagined their whole encounter. Old, dirty thoughts began to creep into her head. Thoughts about what a useless whore she was. How she screwed up everything she touched. How there was no way for a man to really want her. Love her.

A knock on the door shut out the memories of her dad’s brainwashing, and Cassie almost sobbed, pressing a fist to her mouth. Get it together, girl….

“Carla?” Cassie called.

“It’s Jake, Cassie.”

Jake. Cassie pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. She opened the door, her smile tight.

The cowboy smiled in return before his gaze turned somber. “What’s wrong?”

Cassie sighed and ushered Jake inside, closing the door behind him. “Nothing. I’m just tired.”

Jake twisted his hat in his hands, his green gaze warm and calming. “Bullshit. You can tell me, Cassie. Hell, you’ve listened to enough of my life’s story to write a novel.”

Cassie leaned against the bureau and crossed her arms. Darn, but Jake was a good-looking kid with the presence of a saint. Too bad Cassie was so hung up on his ornery brother she could barely see straight. Too bad her asshole father had messed up her head so bad where men were concerned, she didn’t have enough sense to fall for someone like Jake instead of his tough-as-nails brother.

“Jake,” she started, wondering how on earth she could broach the subject of Dean—or if she even should. She twisted her hands. “Have you spoken to your brother?” Cassie blurted it out before her reasoning brain could interfere further.

Jake studied her a moment before answering, and Cassie squirmed under his scrutiny, a fine sweat breaking out on the back of her neck. “I did, actually. We’re meeting out at the ranch tonight.”

His words sent a shiver through Cassie’s abdomen. Memories of her and Dean at the ranch in Dean’s bed filled her mind. She cleared her throat and turned toward the window, looking out over the town’s main street. “It’s just that I haven’t seen him at any of the meetings, and I wondered if he’d experienced any other issues….”

“Cassie,” Jake said softly.

She kept her back to Jake, her fingers gripping the curtains.

“You don’t have to hide it.”

“What?” Cassie said, her stomach churning.

“Your interest in my brother.”

Cassie spun, and her mouth fell open. “What makes you think—”

“Stop.” Jake’s expression was serious, his eyes warm. “We’ve been honest with each other, right?”

Cassie nodded.

“I don’t want that to change. I feel like I’ve known you forever, Cass. I can’t explain why that is, but from the first time I saw you at the meeting, I knew I wanted to get to know you. Kindred spirits, maybe.”

Their gazes met, and a wiggle of understanding worked through Cassie’s chest. “I felt that way, too,” Cassie whispered.

Jake stepped closer and took Cassie’s shoulders. “I know my brother can be a pain in the ass, but he’s also a hell of a good guy, and it doesn’t surprise me that you two have hooked up.”

“Hooked up?” Cassie shook Jake’s hands off and turned back to the window. “We have in no way hooked up.”

Jake was quiet, and Cassie rocked back and forth on her heels, her heart thumping. She felt like she’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Finally, Jake laughed.

She turned. “What’s so funny?”

“You and Dean. You two are a pair.”

“What do you mean?”

Jake grabbed Cassie’s jacket by the door and thrust it into her hands. “Come on. Let’s talk over lunch. Looks like I have my work cut out for me.”

The diner was nearly empty when they arrived, and Lila, the Bar None waitress for nearly forty years, sat them at a cozy booth overlooking the parking lot.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Cassie said as quietly as she could over her untouched mashed potatoes and shredded fried chicken. “I know this is such a bad idea.”

Jake reached out and stilled Cassie’s stabbing fork. “Cass, falling in love is never a bad idea. It’s the execution that has the potential to cause problems.”

Cassie leaned back, blood draining from her face. “What did you say?”

“Falling in love. Ever done it?”

Cassie had to force her mouth closed before she caught flies.

“I take it by your reaction that would be a ‘no’.”

“That can’t be what this is. I’ve known Dean for only two weeks, and we haven’t spent more than four hours together!”

Jake studied her from across the stable, his green eyes steady and shrewd. Cassie realized with some surprise that where life’s circumstances had made Dean a tough, driving son of a bitch, they had made Jake patient and wise beyond his years. The two complemented each other perfectly. And where did she fit in?

She couldn’t be in love with Dean. It wasn’t practical.

“Answer me this, Cass. Can you stop thinking about Dean?”

Cassie pinched her lower lip between her teeth and tried to shrug, but it wasn’t happening. She slammed down her fork. “All right! No, okay? No, I can’t stop thinking about your stubborn-ass brother.”

“Do you worry every minute that you might run into him or that your phone might ring and it will be him? Or, better yet, can you imagine getting back on a plane for Los Angeles and never seeing Dean again?”

The thought created a solid ball of dread in Cassie’s gut, and she swallowed—hard. When had things gotten this serious? It didn’t make any sense, and Cassie reached for her new friend’s hand, her distress inching up into her chest. “Jesus, Jake. What am I supposed to do about this? I don’t even think Dean feels the same.”

“He does.”

Cassie met Jake’s open gaze. “How can you know that?”

Jake removed his hand from hers, crossed his arms, and frowned. “Because the son of a bitch is grouchier than a black bear with his leg caught in a trap. It took half an hour of conversation last night for me to figure out what was wrong with him. It wasn’t until he asked about you that I finally put two and two together.”

He asked about me…. Cassie felt practically faint with relief. And, just as quickly, abashed by her reaction. “What—what did he say?”

Jake grinned. “His exact words?” Jake cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “‘How’s that agent—what’s her name? Darling or something. How’s she making out?’”

Cassie blinked, her mind trying to piece together how Jake could possibly think Dean’s offhanded comment was a good thing.

Jake chuckled, and leaned in again. “It was the lamest cover-up ever. You should have heard him clam up when I said you’d hightailed it back to the city.”

“You what!” Cassie said, nearly knocking over her soda.

He leaned back, his smile almost as wicked as his brother’s, and shrugged. “I couldn’t help myself. My brother deserves a little payback. But…” Jake reached over the table to take Cassie’s hand. “It was all the things he didn’t say that gave it away. Look, why don’t you come out to the place tonight? Dean and I have a few things to discuss, but afterward we could all have dinner. Maybe having a third wheel there will help you two get over crap you two have created. What do you say?”

Cassie shook her head, her mind reeling. “I can’t do that, Jake. If Dean wants to see me he can damn well contact me.” Cassie pulled her hand free of Jake’s and pushed aside her plate. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this with everything else that’s happening. It should be the last thing on my—our—minds.”

“Couldn’t be a better time,” Jake said, finishing off his coffee. “All this worry and bad feelings. It’s about time something good happened around here. Besides, you can’t control fate.”

“Fate?” Cassie said.

Jake took both of her hands and leaned in, his face even with hers. “My mother always said the Great Spirit brings you face-to-face with your worst enemy and your brightest gifts at the same time. The lesson is in how you deal with both and whether or not you can distinguish between them.”

“I’m no good at riddles, Jake,” Cassie said softly.

Another grin, and Jake planted a kiss on Cassie’s cheek before leaning back. “Part of you is, and that’s the part that counts.”

D ean leaned against the outside wall of the diner and fought the red fog that threatened to engulf him.

Jake. Cassie. Together.

His mind replayed the image of their hands clasped and then the kiss. Dean’s hands curled into fists.

Without turning back for a second look, Dean made a beeline for Callahan’s bar across the street. Luckily the place was open and nearly empty, and no one paid much attention to Dean as he sidled up to the darkest spot on the bar and asked Harry Callahan for a drink.

Harry must’ve recognized the look on Dean’s face because he placed the shot in front of Dean without saying a word. Dean downed it and raised the glass. “Another.”

Harry filled the glass and left the bottle. “It’s yours.”

Now Dean knew why Jake had sounded so reasonable yesterday, so calm and good-natured. Dean gripped the shot glass, his thoughts darkening by the second. He didn’t blame Jake. The kid had no defenses against the charm of someone like Cassandra Darling. Shit, all she’d had to do with him was ask if he was going to kiss her, and Dean had practically come in his pants.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean muttered as he poured himself a third. Playing two brothers against each other. Question was, whose side was she really on?

Dean downed the third shot and poured a fourth. He scowled at his reflection in the mirror, grimacing as the whiskey sliced a hot channel down his throat and straight into his gut.

A week. A week without a word from Washington, according to Cassie. How convenient that was. Maybe Miss Darling wasn’t so much about political alliances as she was about playing head games. Maybe she got off on calling the shots or letting people in little Podunk towns think she was calling the shots.

Dean stood and smashed his hat back onto his head. “Thanks, Harry.” The door swung closed behind him with a crash, and Dean thrust his hands in his jeans pockets to keep them from thinking up other things to do. Like throttling Miss Cassandra Darling where she sat. Like smacking that fine, tight ass of hers.

“Shit,” Dean barked into the bright May morning. Thoughts of Cassie’s ass were the last thing he wanted to settle on. There were more important things to consider. Like how to get Cassandra Darling out of his and Jake’s life and away from Granite Hollow for good.

 

Cassie looked at her watch again: Eight o’clock.

“You want a refill, sweetie?”

Cassie looked up into the waitress’s wrinkled face and smiled. “No, Lila. I’m done. I think I’ll just get a cheeseburger to go.”

Lila tapped the pencil lodged behind her ear as she followed Cassie’s gaze into the parking lot. “Got stood up, did you? Happens to the best of us, sweetie.”

Cassie tried to smile. “Yes, I suppose it does.” The sixty-something waitress bustled away, shouting out her cheeseburger order halfway to the counter.

The night air was cool and fragrant as Cassie left the diner, and she wished she had a clear enough head to enjoy the evening walk back to her room. Why had she ever let Jake talk her into waiting for Dean at the diner?

“I’ll have him at the diner at six, Cass, mark my words. It will work out okay. You’ll see.”

Three diet sodas later, Cassie was forced to conclude she was a complete idiot for thinking he might come. She crunched the full, greasy paper bag in her hand and considered throwing it away. Her stomach probably couldn’t take it, just like her heart probably couldn’t take any other risks where Dean was concerned.

The sound of an engine stopped Cassie in her tracks. She clutched the greasy bag to her chest and looked around, unable to help her reaction to the sound. A Jeep. Like the one she thought she’d heard the night she came into Granite Hollow and spotted the downed deer. Headlights beamed off the building to her right as the car turned the corner. Cassie stared, her heart pounding.

Not my dad…not my dad….

And of course it wasn’t. It was Simon Alistair. And someone else. It was too dark to see who sat in the passenger’s seat as the faded old Jeep jugged by, but for some reason Cassie was relieved when they didn’t see her. Their tires threw mud and rocks across the cracked asphalt of the street as they sped past and headed east. Away from the coalition’s rented house. Away from the road that led out of town.

Her cell phone buzzed on her hip, and Cassie fumbled it loose from its case to answer, hope burning in her chest. “Jake?”

“They’ve made a decision, Cass.”

“Jesse!” Cassie stopped walking, the sound of her friend’s unexpected voice a welcome beacon in an otherwise dreary night. “Sorry, thought you were someone else.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Jesse said, and Cassie heard a pointed sigh. “Richard will call you personally tomorrow morning, but I knew you would want to know sooner, so here I am, good news–bad news delivery boy.”

Cassie’s heart skipped a beat as she tossed the grease-laden bag into the nearest trash can. “Good news first.”

“The good news is that they finally got around to discussing your report, and they agreed with your conclusion.”

“What’s the bad news, then?”

“They didn’t agree with your recommendation.”

Cassie’s stomach fell into her toes. “What did they recommend, Jesse?”

“Extermination—for the pack.”

“No!” Cassie yelled and then quickly found a place to sit on the cracked curb, her heart thumping. “Why? If they don’t think the pack is stable enough for release somewhere else, they can go back into the captive breeding program and—”

“Stop, Cass.” Jesse’s firm command halted the tirade bubbling to the surface of Cassie’s brain. “They feel the pack is too dangerous to spend time and money on a capture program. They’re sending trackers in. They leave for Phoenix tonight and should be there in Granite Hollow by noon tomorrow to meet with you and Simon before they set up. This is Danny’s crew. They’re good. It won’t take them long to start culling the pack.”

Cassie pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s just as easy to dart and cage them as it is to shoot and kill them!”

“I know this is rough, Cass, but I thought it would be better for you to hear it from me than from Richard an hour before the crew arrives. And…there’s something else.”

“What?” Cassie asked. “What else?”

“Is there more going on there in Granite Hollow than the situation with the pack, Cass?”

Cassie frowned and chewed her lower lip. “I’m not sure what you mean, Jesse.”

“I think you do.”

Cassie’s gut went cold and her mouth dry. There was no way they could know about her and Dean. Right?

“There’s nothing to tell,” Cassie said, her eyes focusing on an industrious brown-spotted moth that had landed on her pumps. “Not…really.”

“Cass….”

“All right. There is this guy, here. We met, he yelled, I gave him my cool and unruffled agent response, and then…”

“And then?”

“Oh, Jesus. They know, don’t they, Jesse? They know about me and Dean.”

There was silence again on the other line and then Jesse’s pointed sigh. “They do. They received an anonymous call earlier this week. From what I could gather, the caller stated you’d had ‘relations’ with this Dean McCabe, who just happened to be the leading opposition to the wolves staying in Granite Hollow and couldn’t be trusted to give an impartial report.”

“Did—did they believe it?”

“I’m not sure, Cassie, but either way they’re pulling you from the case.”

Cassie squeezed her fingers into her palm, her mind reeling. “Well, that’s that, then. I fucked my career because I wanted to screw a guy I barely knew. I failed everybody, Jesse. The wolves, this town, the agency.” Myself. Cassie lowered the phone a few inches and stared up at the faded streetlight. There it was. The sad, horrible truth.

Jesse’s voice arrowed from the earpiece. “Cassie! Put the phone back on your ear!”

She did, her mind numb, her emotions raw.

“I mean this in a loving way…get it the fuck together! I know your recommendation wasn’t based off how you felt about Dean McCabe. You’re too good of an agent for that.”

“Who else will believe that, Jesse?”

Jesse growled, “Who cares? I don’t know how strong your feelings are for this guy, Cass, but you owe it to yourself to find out. Ask to go on leave, or take the eight billion weeks of vacation you have saved up. They’ll think up some asinine disciplinary action while you’re gone. Probably pull you off fieldwork for a while, maybe a cut in pay, but they’re not going to fire you over it. You’re the best they have, and they know it.”

“I don’t know if I can stay, Jesse. I do care for him. It’s kinda scary how much I like this guy,” Cassie said, a tiny sliver of hope at Jesse’s words already lodging inside of her. “But I don’t—”

“Cassie!”

Cassie stood, her eyes widening as she watched Jake jogging toward her. “I have to go, Jesse. I’ll give what you said some thought.”

“Cassie…don’t hang up before I tell you who they think—”

She snapped the phone closed just as Jake stopped in front of her, his face flushed. “There’s been another killing. Out at the Rocking T.”

She took hold of Jake’s arm and pulled him down to sit on the curb. He didn’t look good. His color was off and his breathing ragged as if he’d just run a mile.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. They came right into the corral, Cass. Dean and I heard the commotion and the dogs, but by the time we got out there, Remus, our Australian shepherd, was down, killed, and the Lab was cut up bad. I just dropped her off with the vet.” Jake put his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but we’ve got to stop them, Cassie.” His head came up, and Cassie recognized the steel in Jake’s gaze. “No matter what it takes.”

Cassie squeezed Jake’s arm. “We—they—are. I just got word.”

Jake sobered, and he focused on Cassie’s grim expression.

“They think the best option at this point is extermination.”

Jakes green eyes went wide, and his face paled. “That’s not what any of us wanted.”

Cassie tried to swallow away the lump in her throat. “It wasn’t what I suggested they do, I swear, Jake. I asked that they be captured and monitored before considering them for relocation.”

“I believe you, Cassie.” He paused, and Cassie was struck by the gloomy tone of Jake’s voice.

Dean.

Cassie’s stomach cramped, and a sick feeling filled her chest and throat. “Where is Dean, Jake? Did he come with you?”

“He stayed at the ranch to watch the horses.” He waited a few seconds before adding, “You should know…he…he thinks there’s something going on between us.”

Cassie jumped to her feet. “What! Why on earth would he think that?” An instant image of she and Jake in the diner filled Cassie’s mind. Of Jake holding her hand, of the innocent peck on the cheek. But…how could Dean have seen that?

Standing, Jake shoved his hands in his pockets, his expression confounded. “He was at the diner, Cassie. He wouldn’t admit it, but I know he was there to see you. To tell you how he felt. When he saw us, he jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“Don’t tell me,” Cassie said, her arms crossed on her chest to hide their shaking. “He thinks I’m a manipulative bitch working both sides.”

Jake looked sheepish. “Well, uh…something like that.”

Cassie jerked away, tears burning her eyes.

A hand on her arm pulled her back around. “I told him what a jackass he was for even thinking that.”

“And did he believe you?” Cassie said, the pitch of her voice rising, along with her fury at Dean’s ignorance.

Jake’s silence said it all, and without waiting for an answer, Cassie headed for her car a block away.

“Cassie!” Jake fell into step beside her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to go take pictures of what happened out at the Rocking T so I can give them to the trackers who will be here tomorrow. Then I’m going to thank your brother for single-handedly shit-canning my career.” She stopped at her car and faced Jake, fighting to keep the tremble out of her voice. “I’m sorry if I ended up causing an issue between you and Dean. You are a great guy, Jake.”

Jake put his hand on her car door. “You make it sound like I’m not going to see you again, Cassie.”

Cassie took a deep breath and pushed Jake’s hand aside. “You won’t. As of tomorrow, I’m off the case and out of yours and Dean’s lives for good.”

T he Rocking T was dark as Cassie drove up. “Damn you, Dean McCabe, you’d better be around somewhere, or so help me I’ll hunt you down.”

Fury had gotten her this far, but as Cassie parked in front of the sprawling ranch home, an overwhelming sense of loss filled her. Loss over the outcome for the pack, loss over what she and Dean might have had.

“Get a hold of yourself, girl,” Cassie said between gritted teeth, her eyes already misting up. This was no time to feel sorry for herself. She needed to be strong. Pissed off and ready to rip Dean a new asshole for what he did. God…she still couldn’t believe he had been the one to make the call. But who else could it have been? She never would have figured Dean for a vindictive stool pigeon. Which just showed her how much she really didn’t know about him.

A sharp ache filled Cassie’s chest again, and she shrugged it away as she slung her camera strap over her neck and started out, wishing she’d had enough sense to go by her room first and change into jeans and boots.

“Where in the hell are you, Dean?” Cassie muttered as she looked out over the sprawling cluster of lit barns, shelters, and dark corrals that surrounded the house. Her gaze stopped on a gray outbuilding. “The medical room, of course.”

With purposeful strides Cassie made her way to the building Dean had taken her to the other night.

Shadows lengthened into vast lakes of inky velvet the farther away from the house she went, and a tingling erupted at the base of her spine. Cassie’s gaze flicked from the worn path at her feet to the quiet shuffling of horses ten yards away.

“You’re spooking yourself, Cassie,” she muttered, the back of her neck pinging with electricity. The closer she got to the medical shed, the more urgent Cassie’s footsteps became, and she suddenly found herself running. She ripped open the door without knocking and stumbled inside.

It was dark.

She flicked on a light near the door. The room was empty. A sinking feeling filled Cassie’s abdomen, and she took a deep breath as she walked to the freezer. She opened the door but didn’t step inside. She could see the body of the shepherd from where she stood, it dead eyes staring into the far corners of the cooler.

Cassie squeezed her hands into her palms and stepped back, closing the door. “This shouldn’t be happening. They have plenty of prey. Plenty of range to roam. Why would they be coming here?”

Her questions hung silently in the air as Cassie turned and headed back outside, her thoughts spinning. She had to find Dean. Had to tell him that the trackers would be here tomorrow and would do everything in their power to keep something like this from ever happening again.

And give him a piece of her mind. She couldn’t lose sight of that.

As the door banged closed behind her, Cassie tried to think of where Dean might have gone. Into town? To a friend’s to enlist help? There was no way he would have tried to track the wolves. Not at night with only a half moon. Not on his own.

Right?

A niggling of doubt made Cassie’s stomach roil, and she pressed a hand there as she started back to her car. The snorts and shuffling of the horses filled her ears. She could make out their shadowed forms as they moved from one side of the corral to the other, their unshod hooves throwing up dust.

Cassie coughed and waved a hand in front of her face. Her car seemed a mile away, and the tingling was back. Cassie fought to quell the sudden surge of panic that had infected her.

The red Thunderbird gleamed in the light from the house, but Cassie knew she would never make it. Not now. Not with what stood between her and the driver’s-side door.

“Shit,” Cassie whispered, easing to a stop.

She watched as one, two, and then four dogs walked out from around each side of her car. Their tongues were lolling, their bodies thin and primed for action.

Dogs. Wild dogs.

The enormity of her—and everyone else’s—error wasn’t lost on her, but she had no time to dwell on it.

“Stay,” Cassie barked, keeping her eyes up and making herself seem as big as possible. They stopped. They were large dogs, leggy and powerful. Shepherd and Dane mixes, with possibly some boxer and chow mixed in. A dominant, low growl reached Cassie’s ears, and she looked to her left. Out of the darkness slunk a massive animal, its head low, its yellow eyes fierce, and its white and gray coat bristled.

The alpha male. Cassie’s gaze darted from him to the pack in front of her, trying to keep them all in her line of sight. “A hybrid,” Cassie whispered. Probably shepherd and wolf. Its head was huge, its muzzle long and menacing.

“This is not good,” Cassie whispered, her mind grasping for solutions even as it processed the bizarre set of coincidences that had led to this moment. How had a group of wild dogs been allowed to roam in Granite Hollow undetected?

Cassie weighed her options. The house was too far, and she would never get the car door open in time, plus she would have to go through the animals to get to her car.

Shit, shit, shit!

She looked at the corral a few feet away and the mass of snorting and seesawing horses pacing nervously in their pen. The alpha growled again as it moved in on stilted legs. Quietly Cassie pushed her pumps off one foot at a time.

The alpha lunged.

Time was up.

Cassie spun and bolted, diving between the wide fence boards and into the churned-up dirt of the corral.

Stay on your feet! Fucking run!

She heard the dogs’ mad scramble behind her, and Cassie’s legs pumped harder as she sprinted directly toward the shifting herd of wild-eyed mustangs. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted fur, and an audible snap at her calf made her pitch forward. Hot breath grazed her thigh and, in sheer terror, Cassie threw herself into the crazed mix of sweating horseflesh and flashing hooves.

“Uh!” Cassie’s shoulder was slammed sideways. She caught herself on the rump of a spotted pony. The scent of horsehair and dust filled her nose and eyes, and she lurched around one scrambling, hot body to the other. Hooves slashed the dirt around her legs, and she heard a yelp somewhere within the chaos.

Stay upright!

Cassie spotted a fawn-colored foal a second before it rocketed into her, knocking her flat onto her ass. Her breath whooshed from her lungs, and as her head smacked the lumpy ground, everything went a hazy red. Her vision came back just in time to see the wave of black and white bodies part like the Red Sea, leaving her completely exposed. The foal that had hit her stumbled sideways and froze, its nostrils flaring and its sides trembling violently.

Cassie forced her head all the way up. Oh, God….

A blood-flecked muzzle filled her field of vision. She raised a hand to cover her face and—

A sharp clap. Once. Twice. The dog’s head plowed into the compacted soil as its rear twisted around, striking Cassie’s legs with a thump.

Cassie slapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a scream. More shots. The foal next to her shuddered and then bolted toward the herd at the far end of the corral, its light-colored tail streaming out behind it like a victory banner.

Gulping lungfuls of air, Cassie forced her feet beneath her and stood. The dog was still. She kicked at it. Dead.

She looked up as a massive red stallion jerked to a halt, and Dean vaulted from the saddle.

Dean.

Without thinking, Cassie met him halfway and threw herself into his arms. He picked her up and crushed her to his chest, one hand buried in the hair at the nape of her neck.

“Jesus, are you all right? Did you get bitten or kicked?” His breath blew warm across her cheek as Cassie wrapped her fingers around his neck and drank in his pine and leather scent.

She couldn’t speak. Could only feel, and Dean’s warm, hard body felt so good. So safe and solid.

“Cassie?” Dean’s hands grabbed her arms and he held her at arm’s length as his amber gaze roamed her from head to foot, his expression grim. “Can you talk? Are you okay? Jesus, woman, answer me!”

A feeling of calm stole through Cassie, and somehow she managed to disengage Dean’s fingers from around her arms. “I’m fine.” Back on her own feet, Cassie fought to keep her balance and to maintain her earlier sense of rage. Of the real reason she’d come to find him. The reason why she’d ended up in the horrible situation in the first place.

Images of the wild dogs slammed into her mind, and she shivered.

Thank god it had happened to her and not to a child or group of children. The thought left Cassie’s stomach sour, and she turned away from Dean’s anxious gaze. “The other dogs…did you see them?”

“I shot two, including this one, but the others ran. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Dean stepped closer, and Cassie stiffened. Don’t touch me, please don’t touch me…. If he touched her, she would be done. History. A weak kitten in Goliath’s embrace.

“Why?” Cassie spun, her chest burning. “Why did you do it, Dean? I never figured you for a chickenshit rat. Not ‘Dean the mighty pillar of the community. The man of conviction and loyalty.’” Hurt and rage boiled up to replace the terror of moments before, and Cassie inched closer to Dean’s startled face. “Did you know that’s what all the people I spoke to said? They went on and on about what a great guy you are. How self-assured and honest. Guess you have all of them fooled, eh? Guess you like to make fools out of the people you care—”

Dean took hold of her face, his hands cupping either side, forcing her to look at him. Keeping her still.

“When I heard you scream, I thought I was too late.”

He brushed away the dirt that creased Cassie’s forehead then leaned in and pressed his lips against her skin. Cassie’s throat clenched, and she had to force her hands to stay at her sides. Oh, shit…he’s touching me….

“Dean, did you hear what I just said?” Cassie said, her skin tingling where Dean held her.

Dean leaned back but did not drop his hands. One eyebrow rose, and Cassie shivered, the look shooting fissures of desire straight through to her clit.

“Yeah, I heard it. I’m just not sure what in the hell you’re talking about.”

Cassie’s vision went red as she ripped his hands off her face and stumbled backward. “Don’t pull that bullshit with me! Not after what you did! Dean remained immobile as she landed a blow on his chest. “Goddamn you! I thought maybe there might be something between us. That maybe you felt something other than lust. And even if what we had was just a good fuck, why did you screw me, Dean McCabe?”

Dean was still, his expression unreadable, and Cassie felt the anger drain from her in waves, leaving her empty. Her heart a rotten void. Her mind numb. “Why?” she asked quietly, dropping her fists.

 

Son of a bitch.

Dean had never felt more like an asshole than he felt at that moment. Cassie’s pain was clear, and to think he was the one responsible left Dean disgusted with himself. And damn pissed off. Especially because he couldn’t figure out why.

As he stared at her tear-streaked, flushed face, his gut clenched. Jake had been right. What a complete jackass he’d been for figuring Cassie for a game-playing bitch. She might be as cool as a cucumber, but she was also fiercely straightforward. Not the type of person to mince words and play games.

“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled from his mouth like hot stones. “Did Jake say—”

Cassie threw up her hands. “Oh! So now it’s Jake’s fault? Is that it? Jake’s responsible for you deciding to ruin my career and fracturing my…” Cassie paused and turned her face away, her shoulders trembling.

“Fracturing your what, Cassie?”

She shook her head and avoided looking at him, her arms crossed.

Dean took a deep breath, drawing in Cassie’s intoxicating scent. Even covered in dust, she was the best-looking woman he’d ever seen. Shit…how had he ever thought he could let her go?

Don’t mess this up, Dean….

He sighed. For once, he figured he’d better listen to his mother’s advice. “Cassie.” She didn’t turn, and Dean reached out, spinning her gently but firmly to face him. The streaks of tears on her face nearly undid him, and Dean reached up with a thumb to wipe them away. “I know I’ve been a stubborn jackass this past week. I avoided you because I didn’t know what to do with you—with us.” Images of their lovemaking filled Dean’s mind, and he clenched his teeth, his cock already hardening. “Well, I knew what I wanted to do with you, but I wasn’t certain how you felt about it.”

Cassie scoffed. “You weren’t certain? What about me? I risked everything, Dean. Granted, it was my risk to take…but I thought I could trust you.” She tried to pull away, but Dean held tight.

Their bodies heaved with the forces of their breaths, and Dean had to fight the urge to press his lips against her neck and cradle her tits in the palms of his hands. “Damn it, I know I was way off base about you and Jake. But when I saw you two together, it just about killed me. Jake set me straight. I couldn’t deny that I’d been an ignorant ass and—”

Cassie’s livid expression brought Dean’s grumbled confession to a halt. “You…he…” She took a breath. “You believed Jake when he said there was nothing between us?”

A sickening lurch hit Dean’s gut like a fist. “Yeah. Did Jake tell you something different?”

Cassie laughed and pushed hair out of her flushed face. “That little shit.” She looked up. “Jake set me up. He told me you didn’t believe him.”

“Damn kid,” Dean said, not really thinking about his brother one way or the other. All he wanted to do was stare into Cassie’s blue eyes every morning of every day. The realization made his palms sweat, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him from saying what he should have said days ago. He reached for Cassie’s hand and pulled her in. “Looks like he did the right thing, then. Because I can’t get you out of my head, sugar. You’re like a drug, and I’m goddamn addicted.”

Dean couldn’t stop himself. He cupped the back of her neck and drew her in. Her body was stiff at first, but as Dean’s mouth descended, Cassie’s mouth parted, and she melded the curve of her body into his. He drank in her essence, his tongue teasing hers as he pressed his hand into the small of her back.

She groaned into his mouth, and Dean growled, deepening his kiss and drawing her in closer.

Cassie gasped and pushed Dean’s head away. “Stop! Put me down.”

He dropped his hands, his fingers trailing over the curves of her back as he let her go. “Cassie….”

She held up a hand between them as she tried to catch her breath. All Dean could stare at were her beautifully swollen lips, tousled hair, and the ample cleavage falling out of her half-open blouse. “Don’t look at me that way, Dean McCabe!”

Dean almost chuckled. Almost. Now would be a really bad time to screw up. She just looked so damn cute pissed off. And her eyes looked green again. Dean stepped closer, and Cassie kept her hand up and stepped back. “What in the hell did I do, Cassie?”

Cassie clenched her fists, her expression going from pissed off to confused and then back to pissed off. “You are either the best liar in the world, Dean McCabe, or you really don’t know.”

He stared directly into Cassie’s eyes. “I don’t lie, Cassie.”

She met his stare for several seconds and then leveled a fiery glare at the dead dog to their left. “Dean, how do you figure a pack of wild dogs was able to roam Granite Hollow undetected for nearly a month? Anyone in town missing dogs?”

A sickening fury filled Dean. “No.”

“Is there anyone you know in this town capable of loosing these dogs to manipulate the removal of the wolves?”

“Not a chance,” Dean said, certain he knew his friends and neighbors well enough to make that statement. “I can’t speak for the coalition members, but no one in town has that kind of mindset. They would be more likely just to shoot the wolves, and deal with the consequences.”

Cassie was silent for a time, as though considering his last words. “Someone called my boss in Washington this week and told them I was involved with you. I’ve been removed from the case. They’re coming in tomorrow to exterminate the wolves.”

Cassie’s words hit Dean like a blow to the chest. “Jesus Christ. And you thought it was me?”

She nodded, her expression hurt-filled and confused.

Dean ground his teeth, the idea so repugnant he felt like smashing his fist into the face of whoever had actually made that call. “I can’t believe you thought I would do that.”

“Can you blame me, Dean? You didn’t call all week. I had no idea how you felt about things, and then when Jake told me about you thinking he and I were…” Cassie stopped.

Dean took Cassie’s hand and held it between his own. “No. I don’t blame you. I didn’t give you any reason to think it wasn’t me.” Dean took her other hand and brushed the dirt off her palms. “I couldn’t do that to you, Cassandra.” He looked up. “But I’d like to know who in the hell did, so I can beat the shit out of them.”

Cassie shuddered, and her eyes went wide. “Simon Alistair.”

“What?” Dean growled. “Simon? But why in the hell would he want the wolves out?”

Cassie walked over to the dead dog. She ran her hand through the animal’s coat and around his neck. “This dog’s thin but not starved, and even though his paws are calloused, the nails are trimmed, and the animal’s been neutered.” She looked up. “I would bet my salary for a year that these animals were scheduled for euthanasia. Unadoptable dogs. They were picked up by someone who had some pull and raised to do what they’ve been doing. Only someone with specific knowledge could do that.”

Dean’s thoughts tripped through the events of the past month. The sudden killings, the disappearance of the field agent, the lack of actual wolf sightings, and Simon’s complete reluctance to request a new agent or to offer the townspeople any reassurances that they could control the wolves. Or even provide a qualified expert to investigate the occurrences.

“That son of a bitch,” Dean growled, his hands in fists. “But why the fuck would he want the wolves out?”

Cassie stood. “I thought it was odd when I first heard that Simon had volunteered to head up this release. He’s a stuffed shirt, Dean, not a field-operations manager. I was even more surprised when he requested Pete to be his liaison agent for the project. Pete isn’t known for his dedication to this cause, although he is knowledgeable about wolf behavior. This whole thing stinks.”

Cassie shuddered, and Dean pulled her in, nuzzling his face next to her ear. “We’ll figure it out, Cassie. My money’s on the idea that those assholes had this planned from the start.”

“I—I thought I saw lights on the mountain the other day when Jake and I were up there. Near an area Jake said mountain climbers sometimes go.”

Dean’s hand stilled on Cassie’s head. The old mine. It hadn’t been active since the sixties, and even then had produced only marginal copper veins. And while the demand for copper had risen with the demand for new construction, Dean couldn’t imagine it would be a lucrative enough endeavor for someone like Simon Alistair to risk what he had risked. There had to be something else. Someone bigger.

“Goddamn,” Dean whispered, the realization hitting him like a brick. He moved Cassie just far enough away to view her gorgeous face. “I bet the asshole heard about the possibility before the coalition was given the land for the release.”

“What?”

Dean swung Cassie up into his arms and started toward the house.

“Dean! I can walk!”

He scooped up her shoes in the gravel near the fence and handed them to her. “Not without these on, darlin’.”

Once inside, he set Cassie on her feet and went to the glass case in the den. The case in which the McCabe family kept their keepsakes. Jake’s baby shoes, their mother’s pottery collection, and a few pieces of rock. Dean took a key off a rolltop desk nearby and opened the case. He picked up a lumpy piece of gray and white rock and handed it to Cassie. “This is why.”

She turned it over. “What is this?”

He pulled Cassie over to the lamp and turned over the stone to reveal the shaved side. “Opal. Blue opal.”

Cassie ran a finger over the milky blue, iridescent center. “It’s beautiful.” She looked up, and Dean pulled a piece of straw from Cassie’s golden hair. “Are you saying there are opals in that abandoned copper mine?”

“My father brought this home one day, spouting off that he and a friend had found it in some forgotten offshoot of the old mine.” His gaze flicked to the pictures on the mantel. Pictures of his family, of Jake, and his mother back when there was still hope that they might be a family forever. “We didn’t believe him. No one did. He was a drunk, Cassie. We thought he made it up.”

Cassie held the stone up to the light, her face creased in thought. “How much would these be worth?”

He moved to the case and picked out a nugget of gold his uncle had given him as a kid. “More than this chunk of gold if the pieces are of good quality, and if there’s a lot of them. Blue opal is found in only one other place in Arizona. It could be worth a fortune.”

“Unbelievable,” Cassie murmured. “I wouldn’t put it past Simon to have orchestrated the donation of the land to the coalition just for this reason. The investor would think he was giving it over to a good cause, and, once deeded with all rights, the coalition could damn well do what they pleased with the land if the release didn’t work out.”

Fury burned deep in Dean’s gut. “And the son of a bitch couldn’t count on you to insist on the wolves’ removal, so he made the call to give himself a little insurance.”

“Dean, we can’t let them start culling the pack. We have to get ahold of someone tonight. Take in the dogs you killed, and make sure they try to find the others.” She slammed the rock onto the table. “And Simon. That asshole fucked with the wrong bimbo.”

“T hat’s…oh…god…”

Cassie moaned, her fingers gripping the blanket beneath her bare ass, her hips thrust forward to allow Dean better access to her drenched and aching clit.

His tongue flicked and dipped as Cassie stared up at the stars overhead. The swish and sway of the pine trees around them and the deep green scents of the forest filled her senses.

Her vision blurred as Dean suddenly buried a finger in her slick hole. Cassie cried out, her orgasm shuddering through with the force of a freight train. She collapsed back onto the quilt. “You call that a riding lesson, cowboy?” Cassie said breathlessly.

Dean stood, unbuckled his belt, and pulled it off before dropping his jeans. “That lesson’s just beginning, sugar.”

Cassie grinned and sat up on her elbows, ignoring the snort and stamp of their horses tied only a few yards away. “Better make sure I understand all the basics. You wouldn’t want me falling out of the saddle, would you?”

As Dean’s cock sprang free, Cassie licked her lips, her pussy already aching to feel Dean’s rigid length inside her.

“Stand up, Miss Darling,” Dean ordered, and Cassie obeyed. Her nipples beaded tight as they made contact with Dean’s smooth chest, and Cassie nipped at his shoulder. “Put your arms around my neck.” Cassie complied as she twisted her tongue around his nipple. “This is how you mount your stallion, sugar.” Cassie squealed as Dean cupped her ass and lifted her up. “And this is how you get off.”

He brought her down on his rigid cock until she straddled his groin fully, her legs wrapped around his waist. Cassie gripped the hair at the back of Dean’s neck and groaned. “Show me how to ride, cowboy.”

Bending slightly, Dean growled in Cassie’s ear, “Just hold tight, sugar.”

With fast upward thrusts Dean drove his point home, and Cassie hung on, her world exploding in sharp waves of pure ecstasy. Each plunge of Dean’s cock sent trills of electricity through Cassie, and she held on to the muscles of his shoulders, leaning back slightly to take him in deeper.

She shouted as she came, not caring any longer who might be within earshot. The sensation was too intense, the pleasure too wickedly perfect. Dean growled as he came along with her, his thrusts continuing until his seed was spent.

He lowered them both onto the quilt, their breaths commingling. “I could do this every hour of every day with you, sugar, and never get tired of it.”

Cassie groaned. “I believe you could do this every hour, Dean, on the hour, which makes you an extraordinary man I don’t ever intend to share.”

He rolled them onto their side and pinched Cassie’s nose. “That’s a mite selfish, don’t you think, Miss Darling?”

Cassie frowned and pinched Dean’s nipple, which made him bark with surprise and capture her hands between them. “Yeah, so what? I’m selfish. Deal with it.”

Dean chuckled and pulled Cassie into a sitting position until her breasts were even with his mouth. He sucked in her nipple and bit it lightly.

“Hey! Oh!” Cassie said as the nip turned into a series of lazy circles and flicks, and the beaded tip throbbed and ached for more.

After another round of lovemaking, Cassie and Dean relaxed on the quilt and enjoyed the sounds of the forest and the cool perfection of the late summer night. The past two weeks had been a roller coaster of great sex, candid talks, and a truckload of teamwork to drive Simon Alistair out and to gain a reprieve for the wolves and release program in Granite Hollow.

There was lots of convincing to do on both sides. It wasn’t until the government-sanctioned trackers found the kennel in the woods where the wild dogs had been kept that both sides conceded there was more afoot in Granite Hollow than a poorly run release and lots of pissed-off citizens.

They never found Pete, the government agent who had been in charge in Granite Hollow until his disappearance, but his fingerprints were all over the kennel area and the old Jeep they found at the site. Simon denied any knowledge, of course, but his reputation was already in shatters. Cassie had had to physically restrain Dean from smashing in his face; for as much as she would have liked to do that herself, neither one of them wanted to spend time in jail for assault.

There were other more pressing things they needed time for.

As they lay back down, Cassie twisted a thick strand of Dean’s hair around her finger and realized that for the first time in forever, she was comfortable around a man. She was certain that Dean wanted all of her, not just her body. Certain that her dad had been wrong. And even though her therapist had told her that a million times, it wasn’t until now, until Dean, that she finally believed it.

“You’re thinkin’ again, Cassandra Darling.”

The growl in her ear made Cassie smile, and she turned to face her rugged lover, her mind sharp with the feel of his body next to hers, his scent lingering in the space around them. “I am, Mr. McCabe, but this time it’s only good things occupying my gray matter. Things like how lucky I am to be here with you.”

Dean’s expression sobered, and he pulled her in for a long kiss. As his lips left hers, Dean cupped her chin. “You got that backward, sugar. I’m the lucky one. I never thought I would meet someone like you. You’re a gift from the Great Spirit, woman, and I need you like I need the air to keep living.”

Jake’s words at the diner scrolled through Cassie’s mind as she stared openmouthed at Dean.

“The Great Spirit brings you face-to-face with your worst enemy and your brightest gifts at the same time. The lesson is in how you deal with both and whether or not you can distinguish between them….”

“Dean,” Cassie said, the back of her neck tingling as Dean’s amber gaze captured hers. Cassie brought up a hand to trace the scar on Dean’s cheek. “I—I have always been my own worst enemy when it came to men. I fucked them first and thought about whether or not it was a good idea from a relationship standpoint afterward. And I did it with you, too. The difference is I knew right away that I’d messed up. I knew I wanted more with you, Dean, but I thought it was too late. I’d already followed the same pattern, and I didn’t see how it could work out.”

Dean pulled her hand into his chest. “And now?”

She stared into Dean’s eyes and smiled. “Now I know I was wrong. You are my greatest gift, Dean McCabe. You showed me that the risk isn’t in finding the right guy to screw, it’s in trusting my instincts when they say, ‘This might be the one.’”

A sudden howl split the night, followed by two, three, four more, and Cassie snuggled into Dean’s arms, her heart full.

“I’m so glad we never had to capture any of them,” Cassie whispered. “They deserve to be here. To be free.”

Cassie heard a chuckle and felt Dean’s lips near her ear. “You captured one, darlin’, and he’s not looking for freedom any time soon.”