Chapter 2
Crap, he’d been thinking about innocence and exposed bellies, and here she was, like he’d conjured her out of nothing.
The bottle sagged unnoticed in his hand while Mac let his gaze roam her hungrily. She was sitting in profile to him, unaware of his presence, so he had a moment to study her. Not quite three years ago, he’d first seen her traipsing down the side of the road outside town…
Wearing this same dress.
His eyes narrowed into hunting focus. The dress had flowers on the skirt draped over her thighs. The fantastical petals—not a poppy, not a rose, not anything he’d ever seen in any garden—were a bright, cheerful pink, a more day-glo version of her strawberry-blond hair. Shoulder-length tendrils slipped free from the knot atop her head and coiled loosely above her bare shoulders. With no sleeves and a vee neck, that dress had been too skimpy for the spring weather back then, with the nip of winter still in the air.
He’d wanted to nip her the moment he’d caught sight of her jaunty walk, the cherry petal hem flicking around her knees.
That glimpse of carefree happiness had called to him. It had been a bad time in his life, real bad. The clan floundered in chaos, lost in the midst of their leader’s betrayal. The chaos was only made worse by the change of the season.
Spring always set fires in shifter blood.
When he’d stopped his truck behind her, she’d turned, and her smile had hit him like a honeybee’s sting—a painful warning and an irresistible promise of sweetness to come.
Which way you going? he’d asked, so gallantly. She’d been on the Greyhound that zoomed past Angels Rest, on her way to visit a relative who’d just recently moved to town, she’d told him. Since the bus didn’t actually go through town—nothing of note went through town—she was walking the rest of the way. But if he didn’t mind giving her a lift…
He’d given her a lift, all right. To his rented cottage on the edge of town. Up against the door of his room. Pinned to the wall of his cramped shower. Riding his chest so he could kiss her again and again. The pink of her discarded dress had brightened the foot of his bed like the first flowers of the spring mating season.
One heady afternoon, and then she’d pulled the dress back over her head.
Just passing through, she’d explained. She had a job across the country in New York City waiting for her now that she’d graduated and she was excited to get going.
Considering he’d been mired in the collapse of his clan, her blithe freedom had stung like a thousand wasps, his impossible, wistful attraction like a dry paper nest crumbling to dust in disappointment.
Which had been stupid. She’d been just an oblivious city girl, not a shifter’s mate.
And he was a lesser son of an impoverished, broken clan, so he could just forget about ever finding a mate.
But here she was again, looking better than ever.
Back then, the dress had been a little loose on her, as if she hadn’t quite finished growing into it. Now it hugged her curves, skimming the indent of her waist and the flare of her hip, outthrust a bit as she sat with her leg crossed away from him.
And her breasts were larger. Last time, the little mounds had scarcely filled his palm. Now… Well, in the interests of full disclosure, he’d have to get his hands on her again to be sure, but he knew he’d at least have to spread his fingers this time to contain those luscious mounds. Did she still have the sprinkle of freckles there, like drops of honey down that delicate skin?
He’d done his damnedest to lick them off.
He straightened away from the bar, tilting his hips to loosen the sudden uncomfortable restriction in the front of his jeans. There was no reason for his reaction; the spring mating season was past. In fact, the town was gearing up for the Summer Solstice Jubilee. If he was restless, it was only because his crew at the landscaping company was between gigs at the moment, and he hadn’t been able to sweat off his aggravation with the slow pace of repairing the clan’s relationship with the community.
If only he could sweat off somewhere else…
Had he made that noise aloud, that low, hungry growl?
He didn’t think so, but she turned her head slowly to meet his gaze. Her cinnamon-brown eyes widened, and the blush that swept over her cheeks was as cherry-pink as her lips.
Shouldn’t have skipped lunch today.
His work boots seemed to take on a life of their own, as if the steel toes were locked on a magnet he couldn’t resist. In four steps, he was standing beside her table, looking down at her.
When she tilted her head to keep her eyes on his, the red silk flower in her hair glinted, revealing the single long, straight pin that held the strawberry-blond coils in place, exposing the pretty arch of her neck. Aw hell, he wanted to yank that flower right out, strip that achingly familiar dress right off, lay her across the table—
The stereo sound of other throats clearing made him realize his boots were right up against the feet of her chair, his knees about one wet paper napkin’s width away from pressing into her pink-flowered thigh. Another step and he’d be spreading her wide.
Her cheeks flushed almost as red as the flower in her hair.
“Mac,” she said softly. “I… Wow. I can’t believe… I mean, you’re here.”
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he countered. “What are you doing?”
“Oh. Just having a drink with my sisters.” She waggled her fingers around the table. “Rita, Gin, this is Mac. Mac, my sisters.”
He forced himself to stop staring at her and follow her gesture. He could’ve guessed they were sisters. They looked cut from the same mold but colored in differently, as if a red filter had been applied over a blonde, a brunette, and a goth. With effort, he twisted his surprise-slackened jaw into something that hopefully looked like a welcoming smile. “Nice to meet you.” Despite his best effort, his gaze slid back to Brandy. “Of all the roadhouses near interstate highways that connect to New York, you ended up here?”
Her lips curled inward, and her lashes dropped for a moment, hiding the spice brown of her eyes. “You remembered?”
Dull heat burned in his neck. He remembered everything. “You were pretty thrilled about it. Mentioned it a couple times.”
The goth sister with the too-red hair—Gin—snickered. “Oh yeah, we heard a lot about”—she drew out a yokel accent—“New York City.”
Rita, the prim-looking brunette, tsked. “It was a great opportunity.”
Mac stiffened. “Was?”
With a quick glance at her sisters, Brandy gave him a smile that seemed almost as pained as his own. “I’m actually freelance now, doing specialized audits and forensic accounting.”
He tapped one finger against the beer bottle still clutched in his hand. “That’s”—so completely not like his life of digging in the dirt—“great.”
“Yeah.” When she looked down at her drink, the red flower in her hair glinted at him again. “I, uh, was looking for a change—”
Gin coughed. “Speaking of which, we were just leaving.” She shoved to her feet, her chair squeaking louder than the TV blather behind him. Her all-black ensemble seemed odd not just for Angels Rest but for anywhere in the summer.
It took everything he had to step back from Brandy’s side. “Well, it was a surprise to see you again.”
Rita stood also, smoothing down her pure-white blouse, which was almost as out of place as the all black. She grabbed a pair of forearm crutches and slid her hands through the cuffs. “Oh, Brandy is staying.”
He clipped a glance at Brandy. With her brows furrowed upward, she looked like she dearly wanted to follow her sisters.
Gin leaned past him to buss her sister’s cheek. “We won’t wait up for you.” When she straightened, her elbow caught him in the gut.
But he’d been digging ditches with his crew for almost two years, showing the town that the clan was willing to work hard and stay humble to regain their trust. One girly elbow in his liver wasn’t going to kill him or even leave a bruise.
Too bad he couldn’t say the same of the thought of his last encounter with Brandy.
***
Could her sisters be any less subtle?
Brandy gritted her teeth as they threaded around the big shifter male—did Rita deliberately grind the rubber tip of one of her crutches into his foot?—and made their escape.
Oh, how she longed to join them. But she’d made her bed three years ago and now she had to lie in it.
Er, but not with Mac this time. Even though he was as enticing as ever. The wayward tousle of his finger-length black hair made him look like a naughty boy who needed a scolding and/or a hug. But his body—the solid muscle sheathed in a soft gray cotton T-shirt and worn-out denim—was all man.
Except he wasn’t a man, was he? And that was the problem.
“Okay then,” he drawled into her awkward silence as he backed away. “I guess you’re probably waiting for someone—”
“Wait.” The word jumped out of her mouth like there were a bunch more words waiting impatiently behind it.
Except there weren’t.
He stared at her. “For?”
She frowned. “Four what?” Four legs? Four orgasms? Or had it been five…
“That’s what I asked. Wait for what?”
“Oh.” She nibbled at her bottom lip, the lemon juice burning. She’d been lying in wait for him; why hadn’t she come up with a smooth, sultry, pick-up line? A bit of discreet questioning when she got to town had confirmed he wasn’t seeing anyone, so at least she didn’t have to feel bad about that. “I thought we could have a drink.”
He frowned back at her. “Wasn’t that what you were doing with your sisters?”
“Right! Yes.” She squinted at her drink as if maybe she’d left all the rest of her words in that half-empty martini glass. Maybe the words were at the bottom. She drained the glass. “But now I need another one.”
“Oooh-kay.”
When he glanced over his shoulder toward the bar, she let out a long, soundless gasp at the cheap heat of the bottom-shelf alcohol.
He took a step toward an open spot. “Another one of those?”
“God no,” she sputtered.
He lifted one dark eyebrow in that cute, semi-confused guy way that had made her heart flutter.
God yes. It wasn’t even the booze talking. At least not much. He’d been cute when he’d pull off the side of the road to ask her if she was okay.
She’d been very okay. Newly graduated, newly employed, ready to make a new start in the big city, on her own. Sidetracking for a brief visit with Aunt Tilda had seemed like the least she could do for the woman who’d basically raised her and her sisters.
It wasn’t so much the least she could do before changing her life, as the last thing she’d do.
She’d done Mac with all the enthusiasm of a co-ed who’d roomed for four long, frustrating years with her watchful sisters. Not that they were prudes, but the Wick girls knew the risks of getting too close to anyone outside their circle. With her shiny new accounting degree in hand and a shiny brass nameplate awaiting her in a shiny New York skyscraper, Brandy had calculated the risks and while they weren’t zero, her sexual experience was a big zero, and that seemed the greater shame.
So Mac’s crooked smile and large hands had gotten her where she wanted to go…and totally sidetracked her in the process.
Now it was time to get back on track.
“What do you want?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. Oh, she couldn’t tell him any of it. He’d never—
“To drink?” he finished.
Right. To drink. Getting drunk would make this so much easier. Not her being drunk. He needed to be drunk. But willingly. “Want to split a pitcher?”
He tilted his head. “Of margaritas? Or Long Island ice teas? Or are those your sisters’ drinks?”
She restrained a wince. “Rita doesn’t like to be reminded that our mother named us after everything she drank the night of our conception. And Gin doesn’t even like Long Islands.”
Those lips she remembered so well—half hidden now behind a scruff of beard—quirked. “I’m guessing she goes more for the absinthe.”
Brandy laughed. “Makes the heart grow fonder.”
The tentative curve of his mouth flattened, and her heartbeat followed. Why had she accidentally reminded him of their one-day stand?
Oh man, if he only knew about the real reminder…
He’d never find out, she told herself firmly. That was why she was here, after all.
While he went to the bar, she toyed nervously with the flower in her hair. The hot, loud confines of the roadhouse seemed to press down on the back of her neck, and when she swiveled restlessly on her chair, she caught Mac staring at her from where he waited for their drinks.
Despite being caught, his dark stare didn’t waver.
He was different, somehow. He still looked like the boy picking up hitchhikers that she’d jumped into bed with, but now… He had more edges and yet also seemed more worn. Like the mesa that towered over the town, its stony spires exposed to the brutal elements of storms and sun that only made it more striking.
Her fists curled with the phantom sensation of his dark hair. She’d run her fingers through that shaggy blackness over and over, delighted by the thick, heavy texture. He was even shaggier now, with that scruff of beard that would be rough and tingly on her skin wherever he touched her—
Whoa! He was not touching her again. That was not the plan.
Her breaths were coming too fast, as if she couldn’t get enough oxygen, and the grumbles and cheers of the sports-ball-watching males grated on her like way too many beards all over her…
Ooh, she shouldn’t be thinking about any hairy parts against her lady parts. She had entirely too much hair in her life as it was.
And yet somehow, not quite enough. It had been sooooo long since she’d indulged in her own desires, no wonder she was turned on. Dangerously, distractingly so.
She gulped another painful breath, startled as Mac plunked a glass of something on the table in front of her. He was close enough that inward huff of air was flavored with him. A barely remembered scent that caught her in the deepest primitive part of her brain: fresh wood, cool air, a hint of deeper musk that made her heart skitter sideways.
His animal.
This was exactly where she wanted him, and yet everything in her told her to run. If it had been only her, she would’ve.
Instead, she took another breath, slower and steadier this time, and lifted her gaze without lifting her head, looking at him through her lashes. “It’s so hot in here. Shall we go out to the gazebo where it’s quieter?”
From this distance, she couldn’t miss the wary flare of his nostrils. Did his animal sense the trap? The boy from three years ago hadn’t hesitated when she’d leaned in to give him a bold thank-you kiss for picking her up.
But even though his eyes narrowed, his pupils dilated—an unmistakable sign of his desire.
He stepped back, and for another stuttering heartbeat, she thought he was going to leave… But then he gestured toward the door.
She grabbed her drink—she’d take all the flammable courage she could get—and stood.
He grabbed her elbow when she wavered a little.
“Oops. I guess these weren’t the right shoes for a roadhouse.” She angled one heel outward, as if checking her ankle.
He followed her downward glance, and she felt his gaze like a hot touch over the curve of her bare leg to the four-inch red heel. Honestly, these shoes weren’t right for any place in the Four Corners region.
The little gold moon charm on the anklet glinted in the jukebox’s neon light, and when Mac raised his eyes back to hers, there was an even brighter gleam there. “Gypsy pours a mean drink.”
Brandy couldn’t hold back a snort. “I think she does everything mean.”
His crooked smile flicked out again. “I think you’re not wrong.”
But she was. So, so wrong.
And yet she couldn’t change course. Not if she wanted to have the future she’d always dreamed of.