Heir To The Pack (The Cursed Pack Book 1) (11 page)

“Get out of the car. We
don’t want you, buddy. We only want the young woman and the boy. After that,
you’re free to go.”

The moment seemed to drag
on forever. Annie couldn’t see a way out. Each heartbeat pounded through her
brain. Would he leave them? Could he?

Dash put his hand on the
truck’s door handle as if to open it. She turned to him in horror. Out of the
corner of his mouth, he said, “Go.”

Annie floored the truck,
not needing to be told twice. The wheels dug into the ground and the truck shot
forward, spraying mud everywhere.

Dash reached across her
and turned the steering wheel hard, plunging them off the riverbank and into
the river.

CHAPTER
NINE

Dash steadied the wheel,
and they dropped into the water. The resulting impact as they hit the bottom of
the riverbed rattled his vertebrae. In the back seat, Jack woke up and began to
cry.

“Go!” He glanced at
Annie’s face, white and tight-lipped. He released his grip on the steering
wheel so she could drive. She reclosed her fingers on it and stomped her foot to
the gas pedal. The engine growled and they shot forward, downstream through the
water.

He chanced a glance over
his shoulder. The two men stood on the riverbank, rapidly receding into the
distance.

The truck plowed through
the river, creating a huge bow wave. The water came half way up the doors. Annie
flinched.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got a
snorkel to get air into the engine, even when we’re in deep water. This baby is
designed to go through stuff like this.” He patted the dashboard. Anticipating
a day like this was the reason he’d bought this truck in the first place.

Daisy murmured words of
comfort to the little boy, and the crying quieted. “We’re swimming!” Jack said.

Dash turned to look at the
kid, who stared out the window, fascinated. Behind him, the windows and rear
windshield dripped water, and Dash chuckled, feeling smug. Trees lined the
riverbank, blocking the bad guys from following them. “I’d like to see them
follow us through here.”

He settled back in his
seat, still grinning to himself, and glanced back at Annie. She was still pale
and white-knuckled. “You okay?”

“I,” she said in a squeak,
and stopped. She cleared her throat. “I have had better days. But I’m fine. Jackie,
are you all right?”

“Sploosh, Mama,” Jack
replied. “Car go sploosh!” He giggled.

“Mom?”

“We’re both fine back
here. You concentrate on driving.”

“Right.” Her eyes never
left the riverbed in front of them.

Dash admired the way her
chin jutted out, and her upright posture. She was no coward. He reached out and
put his hand her thigh, meaning to give comfort. “Good job, Annie.”

“Thanks.” She spoke
between her teeth, holding them together in a snarl, looking almost as wolfish
as one of his pack. Although he had no doubt that was not her intention, it made
her even more attractive.

He gave her thigh a gentle
squeeze, feeling the soft flesh between his fingers. Gods, he’d like to slide
his hand up further.

“Dash.”

“Mmm-hmm?”

“Please.” Her voice was
surprisingly soft.

“What? Oh, um, sorry.” He
loosed his grip on her thigh, gave it a final, regretful pat, and put his hands
in his lap. “Hey, up there.”

The banks lowered up ahead,
and Annie drove the truck out into a flat muddy clearing on the other side of
the river from where they’d entered. The ground wore the blackened remnants of
a campfire, decorated with a couple of empty beer cans. Behind the campground,
a gravel road led away through the woods.

Annie pulled up and jammed
the truck into park, her face pale and sweating. “If you don’t mind,” she said,
“I’d prefer it if you drove.”

“You did great!” He smiled
at her. “I’m proud of you.”

“Right. Mom, do you mind
if I sit with Jack?”

Okay, she was definitely
mad at him. She wasn’t yelling at him, but she’d gone all quiet and tense. He
couldn’t figure it out. They’d made a grand escape, nobody got hurt. In silence,
they all changed seats and Daisy settled herself next to him in the front.

“This truck...it’s a bit
rustic, isn’t it?” The older woman peered through the filthy windshield and
cackled, slapping him on the shoulder. “More so now, of course.”

Dash put the truck in
drive and headed up the gravel road, and, according to the GPS, back in the
direction of the freeway.

“Both hands on the
steering wheel, young man.”

It was going to be a long
drive to the ranch.

*
         
*
         
*

Annie peered up at the
huge stone gateposts, each topped by a seated stone wolf, muzzle pointed high
in a howl. Ridiculously grandiose, considering they were in the middle of
nowhere, but she had to admit they were pretty cool statues. On either side,
meadows stretched out in both directions. In the distance, woods drew a dense
line of green, and behind them, mountains. There might not have been a soul in
the world except for the four of them.

She was relieved the road
trip had ended without any further drama. Her nerves were worn thin. She still
didn’t know why those men had chased them. Not Dash. Jack. And herself. Yes,
they were soft targets, but they were with Dash. Overanalyzing everything that
had gone wrong today had occupied her attention on the couple of hours it had
taken to make the trip up here.

She was exhausted, too. And
hungry. And ready to get out of the damn truck.

To distract herself, she
made conversation. “Interesting decorations,” she said. “Why aren’t there any
fences outside the gateposts?”

“The ranch is too big to
fence.” Dash guided the truck up the gravel drive, between endless swaths of
grass. After several minutes, Annie revised her description from “driveway” to “private
road.” Even her mom was reduced to gaping out the windshield. Everything was
bigger here—the fields, the driveways, the sky, so wide above that it
gave her vertigo if she looked up.

“How big is this place?”
she asked, her scientific mind wanting to quantify.

“The main ranch is only a
couple thousand acres, but we have leases on some other land, too.”

She couldn’t have heard
that right. How big was Montana, anyway? “Only...a couple
of...thousand...acres?”

“Why are you talking like
Captain Kirk?” Dash raised an eyebrow.

“You never mentioned you
were a land baron.”

“Cattle baron,
technically.” He shot her a lightning smile.

Annie pictured Dash in a
cowboy hat and chaps. Tight chaps. She gave herself a mental slap. But yes, he
would look perfectly at home in all that Western gear. Better stop thinking
about it. Bad enough that he’d been groping her leg earlier, when they were
trying to escape. Even worse that she’d liked it.

She still found him far
too attractive, and it was distracting her from her goal. Dash, his charm, his
body, everything, even this ridiculously hyper-masculine truck of his, hovered
permanently in her brain. There was only one thing she needed to concentrate on
right now—Jack. Consideration of Dash and where he might fit in the
scheme of things would have to wait until after Jack’s health issues were resolved.
It didn’t matter right now that Dash was hot.

So hot.

She continued to watch the
undulating scenery roll by. “It’s so empty.”

“Welcome to the real
Montana.” Dash met her gaze in the rear view mirror. “More woods than people. Why
do you think we like it here?”

They continued through a
small wood, and emerged on the other side. The road led up to a building—no,
a complex of buildings, fronted by one that looked like a cross between a log
cabin and a palace.

“It’s huge,” she said,
unbuckling her seat belt so she could lean forward for a better look. The main
part of the building was two stories high, with tall windows and wide porches
made from stained timber. On each side, single story buildings spread out to
form wings. The drive ended in a circle in front of the main house with a huge
bronze statue of a buck in the middle.

“Used to be a dude ranch
before my family bought it. The main house has a ton of space, plus there are
outlying lodges for visiting packs.”

“You don’t let the other
packs stay in your house?”

“There’s no law against it.
They feel more comfortable with the illusion of their own territory.”

“Interesting.” She wished
she knew more about wolves and their social structures. Assuming, of course,
that werewolves even followed the same rules. If she’d been thinking clearly
she would have grilled Dash on the drive, but etiquette had been the last thing
on her mind.

“You said something about
cows,” Daisy said. “Is that how you make a living?”

“We raise beef. Many of
our pack live and work here on the ranch, and we employ seasonal human labor.”

“Human labor,” Annie
repeated to herself. She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. As if humans
were second-class citizens around here.

In front of the main
house, they had a welcoming party. More of a formal receiving line, from the
way people—werewolves—had arranged themselves from the foot of the dark
wooden stairs up to the grand front porch.

Something about their
presence nagged at her. She gave voice to her thoughts. “How did they know we
were arriving now?”

“We have our ways. I’m not
sure you’d believe in them. Of course, they could have been standing there
since this morning.” Dash switched off the truck, leaving silence in the car.

She wasn’t sure he was
joking. What were their “ways”? They hadn’t called anyone to say when they were
going to arrive. Had someone been spying on them? Or was there something
stranger going on? More of this pack magic she’d seen at work back at the town
house?

Regardless of how they
knew, it was damned creepy. Annie stifled a shiver.

Dash got out, coming to
Annie’s door to open it for her and help her out. As he did so, Gaelan walked
out from behind the receiving line and helped Daisy out of her side.

She had to ask. “Where did
you come from? How did you beat us here?”

Gaelan winked. “I have my
ways.”

Magic again? She took a
step away from him, needing to put some distance between herself and all these
mysterious happenings.

 
“Come on, Gale.” Dash snorted. “We took a
long-cut off the freeway and through a farm. Speeding tickets aren’t very
expensive, out here. We didn’t have speeding laws at all, until a few years ago.”
He stepped around to Jack’s seat, and unbuckled the boy carefully.

“Do you mind if I carry
him?”

Annie’s heart wrenched in
her chest, but he had a right. Dash was Jack’s father, and well able to protect
him, if today had been anything to go by. She hovered behind him, trying not to
flutter. She’d been snarky to him this morning and was determined not to do it
again, no matter if she was frightened.

Dash picked Jack up from
the car seat. Annie saw again the unmistakable genetic bond between the two. Jack
was a miniature version of Dash. His features might have been smaller, but the
shape of the head was the same, as was the crop of shaggy black hair. The pale
blue eyes in each face drew and held her gaze the same way, and she had trouble
looking away.

Late afternoon sun broke
through the clouds overhead, illuminating the red wood of the building, the
windswept grass surrounding it, and lighting Dash and Jack in a golden glow as
they turned to face the welcoming party.

Most of the people
awaiting them made some noise—gasps, swearing, and after a pause, someone
laughed, with a high pitched note of hysteria.

Several people did not
react. Annie focused her attention on those. One, a gnarled and ancient woman, leaned
on a walking stick, her deeply lined face impassive. Beside her, a tall man with
near waist-length dark hair bent down to whisper in her ear. Her eyes flicked
open, revealing milky white orbs. She showed no other movement.

Two others had not reacted.
Even among the group they were tall, regal in their bearing, with white-pale blond
hair. They looked like brother and sister, twin prince and princess of ice. Their
faces were also still, not serene, but watching, unsurprised.

So many people staring at
her. She smoothed her hair behind her ears, conscious of her casual clothes,
wrinkled from the long car trip. Holding her head high, she kept her face
neutral, not wanting anyone to see her embarrassment.

Another man, dressed in a
dark suit that seemed out of place on a ranch, stepped forward, inclining his
head. “Welcome home, Dash Campbell of the Big Sky Pack.”

“Hello, Joel. It’s good to
see you.”

“And you.” Joel scanned
the group, his dark eyes calculating. “You brought guests?”

“My family,” Dash said.

Again, a susurration of
sound passed through the group. So they would be the subjects of pack gossip. No
great surprise, really. She would ignore it, as she’d ignored the comments
within her own family when she’d gotten pregnant.

Dash made his way along
the receiving line, greeting each of the people who awaited, Jack on his arm. Annie
followed him along the line because she didn’t know what else to do. First in
line was Joel, in the suit. She wasn’t sure if she was underdressed or he was
overdressed.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m
Annie.”

Joel looked her up and
down, as if he saw her as a piece of fruit in the market, evaluating her for
ripeness, shape, and color.