Alphas of Red Moon Ranch Complete Series (14 page)

The Buggy thu-thunked as it puttered under the hanging Red Moon Ranch sign and started its slow crawl up the hill. At the top of the hill, Holly could see her and Jacob’s house, all dark. She put her cellphone to her ear and tried to call him for the fifth time. The phone rang and then went to voicemail.
Hey, this is Jacob Westmore. I’m probably out drinking. Leave your number and I’ll get back to you when I’m sober—

A loud whistle caught Holly’s attention. She spotted Brent standing on the side of the road and he waved her down. Holly slowed to a stop in front of him and rolled down her window.

“Hey, have you seen Jacob?” she asked. She kept her tone controlled, but a tremor of worry ran through it.

“Jacob? Uh…” He took off his Stetson and raked his fingers through his untamed hair as he glanced up at the dark house at the top of the hill. “Yeah…think he’s on a job up in the mountains.” Brent propped his elbows up on her open window and leaned over, almost too close for comfort as his eyes examined her expression. “Why, somethin’ got you worried?”

How to tell him it was just…
instinct?
Of all people, a man who shifted into a bear regularly should know about instinct. Still, Holly felt foolish mentioning it—maybe she
was
just being paranoid. She shook her head and rubbed the side of her neck, trying to ward off the sting there. “It’s…nothing. He just said he’d be back in time for dinner.”

Brent pulled a crooked smile. “Well, them mountains are awful twisty. I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Right
. Holly tried to ward off her old friend,
Mr. Disappointment
. She cleared her throat and then said, “Right. Of course.”
A man had to earn a living, after all. She knew that. So why did something not feel right?
Holly’s gaze fell behind Brent and landed on the work truck parked beside his house. It was filled with the heavy tools and supplies they needed to complete any job under the sun. “He went to work without the truck?” she asked.

Brent followed her gaze and seemed to spot the truck for the first time himself. A look flashed over his expression—guilt?—and then he cleared his throat and pulled another smile. “Small job. He didn’t need it.”

“Oh.” Holly’s unease tumbled around in her like a heavy belt caught in the spin cycle.

“Hey, city girl,” Brent said, giving her a tap on the arm and tugging her out of her worst-case-scenario thoughts. “You up for a little work? I could use a hand putting some fence posts in.”

“I…uh…” Holly didn’t have anything against getting her hands dirty, but with worry gnawing at her, all she wanted to do was go home and pace the living room until Jacob came back.

“Y’could kinda use the brownie points with the clan,” Brent added. He wasn’t wrong. Despite the fact that she’d been here for three months now, she still felt completely like an outsider.

It’s what Jacob would want you to do
, she thought.
Be a good Alpha-mate
.

“Yes,” Holly said with a tight smile. “Of course.”

When Jacob regained consciousness, he was flat on his back, staring up at the night sky between the tree branches. He could feel the warm spring breeze brush over his naked skin, blades of grass tickling. He felt sticky and tasted metal when he wet his lips.
Dried blood
. A horrific thought swept thought his mind.

Dear God. Please don’t let me have killed anyone
.

He straightened up slowly. His bones cracked and his muscles ached as though he’d run ten marathons. He wiped his mouth and spat out tufts of cat fur.

Jacob glanced around. Took in his surroundings. No signs of dead cougar. Or dead
anything
. At very least, his Beast’s rampage hadn’t been a lethal one.

But the kid. He’d bit into him, hadn’t he? The thought made his stomach clench up in a knot. He didn’t like them one bit, but he didn’t want anyone
dead
. Especially not a young boy caught up in his own animal instincts.

Been there. Done that. Had the scars to prove it.

Jacob pulled himself back up to his feet and looked down at his hands. They were dirty, mud caked under his nails, and they trembled.

One more transformation down. How long had he been the bear? By the look of the sky, it’d been hours. Maybe more. Used to be he could shift back in a matter of minutes. It was getting harder and harder to bounce back from it. He could practically
feel
his willpower slipping through his fingers.

(
Become the Beast. Be your true form.
)

No.

Jacob closed his hands into fists, containing the animal inside of him. He walked until he found his tattered clothes and then made his way to the road and stuck his thumb out.
Patience
, he tried to remind himself.

Inside, his bones rattled.

Brent led Holly around the back of the farm where the fence had mostly rotted away. He told Holly to dig deep, narrow holes in the ground while he lifted the new slabs of wood for the fence and impaled the upturned dirt with them. When he saw the shoes she was wearing, however (cream Coco Chanel heels), he sent her to Cassidy’s to borrow a pair of work boots.

“I’m fine,” Holly said with a small smile. “You’d be amazed by how fast I can run in these things.”

“The hell you are,” Brent said gruffly. “You fall and break your ankle, Jacob will have my head. Go on.” There was something
off
about him, as though if he didn’t keep working, he’d go on a drinking binge. Holly got the impression he wanted some alone time anyway when he shooed her away as though he were shepherding a duckling.

Holly felt her heart wilt. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Brent’s sister Cassidy again, not after the other woman had chewed her out for bringing Jacob a beer, of all things. She didn’t want to be lectured on how it was “unbecoming” of the Alpha’s mate to dig holes in the dirt with Brent.

Oddly enough, she got the exact opposite reaction from Cassidy. “It’s about time you got your paws dirty,” the other woman said, leaning in the doorway. She jabbed her thumb inside her house and said, “C’mon in.”

Holly made her way inside and was greeted with the smell of freshly cooked dinner, parsley and salmon lingering in the air. Cassidy’s house was cluttered—as any two-child household should be—with toys, gardening supplies, and horse-riding equipment. Picture frames hugged family photos—Cassidy, Dave, and their children; Cassidy and Dave at their wedding; a young Cassidy, Brent, and Jacob standing alongside Mama Mae and their father.. Jacob rarely spoke about his father, the same man from the newspaper article; since they’d been married, all Holly had managed to get out of him was a sentence or two about the other man. Holly’s gaze lingered on the picture, trying to imagine the story behind the man. A hard-working, tight-lipped older man who only spoke when he really had something to say, whose eyes crinkled with the rare warm smile, who drank and smoked and worked too much but always came home right on time for dinner.

Holly smiled at the thought, just as she heard, “Hi, Mrs. Holly.” Cassidy’s eighteen-year-old twins, Trish and Tanner, both sat at the dinner table, plates away, homework out, scrawling out answers in their notebooks.

“Hi.” Holly smiled and pulled up a chair next to them. “What are you working on?”

The twins exchanged a look as though telepathically deciding how much information they should share with the new woman in their clan. “Book report,” Trish said finally, tugging her hair back into a braid distractedly. Holly knew the gesture well—she used to play with her hair constantly until she began substituting hair for making chew toys out of pens. “We have to write about Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
.”

“Oooh, that’s one of my favorite books,” Holly said as she leaned in closer.

“Hang tight,” Cassidy said as she brushed through the room. “I’ll grab you a pair of my boots.”

“Thank you,” Holly said. Cassidy vanished down the hall and Holly turned her attention back to the children. “What are your papers about?”

“Mine is about the separation between Dr. Frankenstein and the monster,” Trish blurted out eagerly. “And how they’re really the same person.”

“Very interesting theory,” Holly coaxed.

Trish looked shy suddenly and turned her eyes down to her paper with a mumbled, “Thanks.” The little excited grin on her mouth, though, told Holly this girl had a real passion for learning and probably didn’t have a lot of people who understood that passion, locked up on a farm ranch.

“What about you?” she asked Tanner.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They had their mother’s sharp features and, when Tanner frowned, he looked just like Cassidy. Tanner wasn’t hard to figure out; she’d seen a million Tanners in her classes before. Kids that didn’t want to study or work—for whatever reason. Maybe they didn’t think they were learning anything important, maybe they lacked the passion, or maybe they lacked the self-discipline to sit still for so long. Even now, she noticed Tanner’s lanky knee bobbing up and down under the table as he tapped his foot repeatedly.
Hormones must hit these kids hard
, Holly thought. Not only were they maturing into full-grown adults, they were also maturing into full-grown brown bears.

“Can I take a look at what you’ve written so far?” Holly asked, putting on her teacher mode. Tanner hesitated, then reluctantly nodded and handed over the slip of paper.

Holly read through his introduction. It was vague with sloppy sentence structure, his assertions broad and directionless. “Okay…this is a good start,” she said, trying to sound encouraging. Then she found a red pen on the table and picked it up. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head, watching her warily. Holly clicked her pen and glanced down at his work. “Did your teacher give you a specific prompt?”

“Dad usually lets us write about whatever,” he said with a shrug.

And then it clicked. “You’re homeschooled?”

The twins nodded simultaneously. As a teacher, Holly knew how much work went into preparing young minds and she knew it took a very special, dedicated parent to properly homeschool. Cassidy seemed all over the place, but Dave had the patience…still, isolated on the ranch, Holly couldn’t help but worry. If anyone had faith in the school system, it was Holly. “I’m applying to colleges, though,” Trish said firmly. There was a fire in her voice, as though she had something to prove.

“Oh yeah? Which colleges?”

“I was thinking about Elmswood.”

“You know I work there, right? I could probably get you in for a night so you can see if it’s something you would like.”

Trish’s expression lit up. “Really?”

“Fat chance,” Tanner grumbled.

When Holly gave him a questioning look, Trish filled in the blank. “Mom isn’t exactly supportive of me going off. But—”

“But what’s wrong with the ranch?” Tanner shot back.

“Nothing!” Trish’s irises flashed gold suddenly as her temper flared defensively. Holly worried that she was going to have to break up a couple adolescent bears if this continued for much longer.

“What’re we hollering about?” Cassidy said as she came back in, baring a pair of cowgirl shoes.

“
Frankenstein
,” Holly said quickly, covering for the bickering twins.

Cassidy tossed the shoes down by Holly’s feet. “It’s just a book, let’s not get too excited. Here, try these on.”

Holly did, slipping out of her heels and tugging the boots over her feet. The heel sank back as the too-big shoe hung limply from her feet.

“Hell, Cinderella, what shoe size are you?” Cassidy asked, arms folded.

“Seven,” Holly said reluctantly. “But it’s fine, I can work in these, I don’t mind.”

“She can borrow one of mine,” Trish said and shot Holly a hopeful look. As though she’d suddenly found a friendly face behind enemy lines and she wasn’t going to let go anytime soon.

Holly simply smiled back. She was, after all, still the new girl in town and she wasn’t about to rock any boats, especially when she was on such thin ice with Cassidy already. “Thank you, I would like that,” she said and then turned back to Cassidy. “I’ll head out in a moment, I told Tanner I’d take a look at his paper.”

“Guess we’ve got a real teacher in the house now, huh?” Cassidy grinned and then slipped her hands over her two kids’ heads, messing up their hair playfully. “What do you think?”

She was—rightfully—proud of her children. Holly said, “They’re great. Trish is very passionate about her work.”

“Stubborn is what you mean. She gets that from her mama.” Cassidy toyed with her daughter’s hair.

“I guess stubborn runs in the family,” Holly blurted out before she could stop herself. As soon as the words echoed back in her ears, she felt horrified. She imagined erasing them, popping a badly written dialogue bubble above her head. The last thing she wanted to do was air dirty marital laundry.

Rather than looking irritated, Cassidy cocked a grin.
Amused
. “Y’got barked at, huh? I ain’t surprised. Jacob’s all gruff and snarl and you roll belly-up at the first sign of trouble.”

“I don’t,” Holly protested, but even as Cassidy said it, she knew the truth in the other woman’s words. She’d barely put up a fight in the home goods store. Jacob barked; Holly backed down.

Cassidy lifted her eyebrows skeptically. “Uh-huh. Tell you what, you and your little feet stay here and help with homework, I’ll go and lend Brent a hand. Deal?”

Holly tried not to sound relieved. “Deal.” Grading papers was far more up her alley and Trish had the look of a girl hungry to learn. And anything was better than dissecting her communication issues with Jacob.

“Alright. Don’t let them boss you around too much,” Cassidy said, shooting her children a dramatic look (
behave
) before she left.