if she might say something. When she finally murmured, “Call for help if you need it,” Meghan knew those weren’t the words that had lingered on the tip of her tongue. Those words would have been something more like What’s up with you, woman?
Just as well Anica hadn’t asked. Meghan had no answers.
She finished pulling off Dolan’s boots and did her best to straighten the twisted leather jacket; then she grabbed a quilt off the foot of the iron bed frame and spread it over him, here in the cool interior of the house. All the while, her blood thrummed and heated, and she had a weird duplicity of perception, as though she felt Dolan’s vague impression of the moment along with her own.
And even though she tried to busy her mind with such practical matters, she found herself lingering at the side of the narrow bed, watching the little flickers of movement in his face. At the moment she should have walked away, she instead crouched by the bed and watched her hand touch his cheek, trembling along the contours of his brow and the dark hair at his temple.
Not all of the shifters reflected their other form. Her mother hadn’t. Her mother had looked like Meghan, all dark hair and dark eyes and sharp jaw in clean, exacting features. The coyote showed only in her laughing eyes. But Dolan…Dolan somehow looked exactly like what he was. Blue eyes, holding all the shadowed power of his past. Black, sleek hair, falling across his forehead just a tad too long. But mostly it was in the way he moved, the way he held himself…and now all the sinuous power hidden beneath the incantations she’d fed into his system with her herbs.
Her fingertips tingled. Her body throbbed. She touched his jaw; she ran the backs of her fingers along the stubble there. She let herself feel what came from him.
Longing and need and…
He growled, deep in his throat; he tensed, a quiver passing through his arms and torso. She held her breath, startled as arousal reverberated through her, uncertain if it was him or her or both of them. She closed her eyes; bit her lip. She had the sudden, startling revelation that if she stayed here with him, if she kept the contact between them, she would quiver herself right into an orgasm, right here beside the bed with both of them fully clothed and barely touching and barely knowing each other at that.
She wrenched herself away, so hard that she lost her balance and tipped over to land on her butt. After that, she didn’t linger. She climbed to her feet and marched out to the kitchen with long, deliberate strides, pulling chipped ice through the refrigerator door and grabbing a spoon. She returned to the bedroom and made short work of spooning a few chips into his mouth. And when the plastic tumbler was half-empty, she left it on the bedside table and marched herself off to the shower, shedding filthy clothes along the way.
A nice, cool shower. She might even be tempted to call it cold.
Chapter 6
Meghan strode out into the yard with purpose. Jenny’s dog, a mixed cattle dog—all pricked ears and foxy face, mottled blue coat and short, stout tail—circled her with excitement, barking at the sudden energy and movement in the yard. Meghan hushed her with a gesture and stood in the center of the packed-dirt hub of the ranch, reassuring herself that some things were still normal.
The main house. All one floor, it had started small and grown over the generations. It had belonged to her mother’s family…although Meghan knew little of them. Only her mother had manifested the coyote, after her grandmother’s long-lost Sentinel lover had ended the happily-ever-after story of the ranch. Until then, generations of Lawrence ranchers had raised horses, grazed cattle and escorted tourists around the mountain ranges that formed the inviting sky islands of southern Arizona. And then came Meghan’s grandmother, who’d had Margery Lawrence and never married when her Sentinel lover didn’t return for her. Margery followed Meghan’s grandmother’s path and loved a man who died before Meghan was even born.
So here she was, raised by her mother and then by her aunt, who hadn’t taken to the Southwest and had moved back East as soon as Meghan came of age.
And so Meghan had decided to choose her own family.
The ranch house, tiny casita—Jenny’s and Anica’s—and storage shed made up the yard. There, where the cleared flatland elongated to a point, lived the smaller livestock, all damaged or behaviorally problematic or simply in need of hospice care.
The horses took up most of the space, occupying a long mare motel with covered, open-sided stalls, paddock runs, several communal paddocks and even a separate quarantine area. This generation, Encontrados was purely a rescue ranch, funded by donations, investments, volunteers and a grant or two. Never enough to get comfortable, but…
Successful.
And those who helped her run it…they were her people now.
People she intended to keep safe from Dolan Treviño and whatever trouble he’d brought with him.
She headed for the three-stall quarantine barn, the ranch barn, made of sturdy timbers and thick planking from rough-sawn wood. A detour through the mare motel showed her Luka, groomed, relaxed and happily munching on hay. One of a kind, her dangerous Lipizzan gelding turned indispensable ranch horse.
Inside the quarantine barn, Meghan found a wideopen stall filled with fresh, deep wood shavings and a welcoming flake of hay already shoved into the hay rack. The cool, dim light of the little barn made her realize how warm the day had grown. It might still be spring out there, but it was looking real hard at summer.
There was no sign of Jenny or Anica, but Jenny’s dog had darted back toward the casita—Jenny, at least, was there. And all looked to be ready here, so…
It gave Meghan a moment to realize how tired she was. Bone-tired, after a night of no sleep, wrestling with the effects of a mysterious Atrum Core poisoning and sometimes wrestling with the jaguar himself. And fit as she was, the hike back to the ranch had been a long one. If she was lucky, she’d grab a nap before the new horse arrived—an event that could occur any minute now, or late in the afternoon. With a volunteer at the wheel, she wasn’t inclined to nag.
She emerged from the barn, cast another thoughtful look around the place…felt another surge of protectiveness.
I shouldn’t have brought him here.
He’d said the Core thought him dead. He’d argued it, even.
She hoped he was right. But she didn’t think the only threat to Encontrados came from the Core. The Sentinels, too, knew how to focus on a goal…and how to sacrifice others along the way.
It made her realize just how very much she’d been taking the ranch’s safety for granted. It had been so many years since her mother’s death…so many years since she’d seen even a hint of Sentinel or Atrum Core activity.
Well, you’ve seen it now.
So she stood in the doorway to the barn, and she listened. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, falling into unconscious habit. Sometimes she listened to a horse, sometimes to the land, sometimes to the true mood of those around her…sometimes she just listened to see what was there.
And this time she heard something.
It was small and slippery and whispery, a harsh and discordant sound. She tipped her head, followed it.
It
