have made anyone shudder, but she didn’t plan to get out of the car. All she wanted was one look at the town from the front gate leading to it, to see if there were lights. She had to know if Desperado was as vacant as it was supposed to be, and if Grant had nothing to hide.
Honest to God, she hoped Grant had been straight with her. He seemed like a good guy. She got no bad vibes from him, just the odd sense that he was keeping something to himself. Some secrets were okay. She didn’t need to access his life, just his plans for Desperado.
Paxton blew out the breath she’d been holding. She couldn’t stop thinking about Grant. Only a fool wouldn’t have envisioned what life with a man like that could be like, and she was no fool... usually...except for maybe right now, as she drove on a dark road in the middle of nowhere just to prove a point.
Men weren’t always accommodating or trustworthy. She knew that firsthand. So it was important she made sure the man her father had left Desperado to had nothing to hide and therefore might be coerced into either selling his inheritance or buying her out. The key word here was selling.
Wondering if all these thoughts about Grant were truly rooted in business, she pounded the wheel with both hands. After meeting him, she was no longer sure. Still, plan B was to go after that sale tomorrow and then go home.
“Too damn dark,” she said aloud to ease the discomfort of being alone so far from civilization. The road made the going slow at twenty miles per hour. It had to have been ten minutes since she passed another car, and so far, she saw no twinkle of distant lights.
She’d traveled fifteen miles from the motel Grant had put her in, and damn it, Desperado was out here somewhere. In the old days there had been signs leading to it and paper maps that an ancient tourist attraction might have been noted on. Current technology wasn’t always so hot for things that had fallen off the radar.
Her phone, on the seat beside her, beeped, giving her a start. Paxton stopped the car and found that her battery was getting low. She sat there a couple of minutes more, trying to get her bearings and breathing in the delicious desert smells she had never really forgotten.
Reaching again for the gearshift, she hesitated, listening, hearing a noise that hadn’t come from inside the car.
Rustling brush? Desert animal?
She jolted upright as a terrible thud came from the roof of the car, sounding as if something heavy had landed there.
Her muscles seized. White-hot streaks of adrenaline shot through Paxton as her pulse began to pound with a new, raw kind of fear.
She cried out when another thud came, this one from the hood of the car, and again when something dark and shapeless peered at her through the front window.
Fear froze her in place. Her frantic mind worked to dig up an explanation for what that dark thing could be, and what was going on. Hell, was it a bear?
She was shaking so hard, the keys in the ignition rattled. Her heart exploded with wild, erratic beats she felt in her throat.
Damn it. Did Arizona even have bears?
Breathing became difficult. Each new effort she made to take in air only partially sufficed. No scream would come now. Paxton thought she might pass out. The thing on the hood had its big eyes trained on her, and those eyes looked nothing like a bear’s. Those eyes looked sort of...human.
And then, as if she had merely blinked this beast away, it was gone, leaving behind a loaded silence filled only by Paxton’s racing heartbeats as she sat there, unable to move.
Eventually, a survival instinct nudged her to get going and hightail it out of there before that awful thing came back. Finding Desperado in the dark now seemed like a ludicrous idea. What had she been thinking?
What was that thing that had landed on the hood?
Slowly, with adrenaline continuing to push her, feeling returned to her body. Enough of her focus returned for Paxton to acknowledge that although she had been born in this desert, she’d long since become citified.
She didn’t like that realization. Didn’t like feeling weak or vulnerable.
Her thoughts fluttered in much the same way her heart did.
In Hollywood horror movies, she recalled, the chick in this situation would have opened the door and stepped out of the car to see if there’d been damage to the roof and hood. That would have been a duh moment because, in the movies, monsters always returned to finish off their prey.
She didn’t intend to become a bear’s next meal. Swallowing the fear that clung to her like an unwelcome guest, Paxton shoved the car into Reverse. Backing onto the dirt lining the narrow stretch of road, she two-fisted the wheel into a U-turn without looking back.
Icy licks of fear chased away any thoughts she might have had about Desperado and Grant Wade. At the moment, she needed light. She needed people. Dents in the car were nothing when compared to the perks of civilization. She doubted that even a bear that had built up an appetite for humans could outrun an old station wagon.
At least, she hoped not.
Grant drove the last stretch of road leading to the ranch like a NASCAR driver. Relief came when he turned into the driveway between two large posts still supporting the Hall sign—a reminder that this ranch was part of Paxton’s legacy.
The house itself was dark, but one outdoor light illuminated a portion of the yard leading to the front porch. Another light flooded an area beside the barn, showing him that he wasn’t alone. The black sedan parked there was Shirleen’s.
Before he stepped out of the truck, she was beside him, utilizing the kind of speed built into most Weres. Shirleen still wore her apron, which told Grant she’d been in a hurry to get here from work.
“It’s back,” she said with a hand on the truck’s door frame.
“Back?”
“I tried to tell you in the café, but you were busy,” she said.
“Tell me what, exactly?”
“That rogue bastard’s trail was found this afternoon in the hills.”
Grant knew that none of his pack would have fired the shots he had heard, which meant the ranchers were already onboard tonight, just as he’d feared.
“What kind of trail was found?” he asked.
“An old campfire. I don’t want to tell you what else was in that fire.”
“Bones,” Grant guessed, praying he was wrong.
“Yep. Bones,” Shirleen replied.
“Cattle?”
Shirleen’s face tensed. “Human.”
Grant was out of the truck before the meaning of that word fully sank in. He didn’t have to ask Shirleen to repeat what she’d said, or quiz her. She wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t sure.
Part
