Page 1 of Deception

Chapter One

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Summer hummed to the tune on the radio as she arranged the window display in the Quarter Moon Café. Little snowmen, miniature trees, and a tiny sled. She sprayed on more fake snow and looked up at the dusting of the real stuff that had fallen on the highest ridges around town overnight. She’d been in Arizona for a few weeks now, and the place never ceased to amaze her. The contrasts, the harsh beauty of it all. She loved the red rock outcrops, the rich green pines, and the pure white of the snow. It was so different from where she’d grown up along the Great Lakes, and yet she’d never felt more at home in her life. It was as if her heart had found a niche of exactly the right size and shape and wanted to settle in forever.

Which was a dangerously appealing thought, because she couldn’t stay long. The shifters who ran the café and the neighboring saloon had been kind enough to take her in for the time being, but she knew she couldn’t move in for good. Not after what she’d done. But where would she go next? Her home pack?

Her inner wolf snorted.Never going there again.

Where, then?

She had nowhere to turn. She’d been on the road for a long time with a pack she never wanted to return to, just like she never wanted to go back to being the person she’d once been. So naïve. So gullible. She was only twenty-five, but she felt a hundred years older and about a thousand wiser than she’d been just a few months ago.

So many mistakes. So many ugly memories. So many regrets.

She tipped her chin up and tried letting the sunshine cheer her up. She’d found a safe new place and a great group of people to live among — at least, for the time being. That’s what counted most, right?

She stepped outside the café to check the display from the street, then went back in to adjust the reindeer pulling the sled.

“Perfect,” she murmured, wishing she could arrange her life the way she arranged that display.

Well, it was almost perfect. Straw stars were the last part — straw stars just like the ones her grandmother used to decorate the Christmas tree with. That was one of the only memories she had of home that wasn’t tainted by more recent events.

She sat down at a table by the window to make the stars, all the while inhaling the scent of breakfast. Jessica, her boss, was in the kitchen baking another batch of muffins, and the aroma of berries, vanilla, and cinnamon wafted through the room.

The bell over the door chimed merrily, and she looked up as a group of men filed in. As always, her heart skipped a beat in anticipation. Would Drew be among them?

“Morning, Summer.” Luke, a wrangler from Seymour Ranch, tipped his cowboy hat.

“Having a good winter, Summer?” That was Mack, the jokester of the group.

“Hi, sweetheart. Got some of that coffee today?” Sam asked.

She greeted each with a genuine smile because they were all great guys. But when a fourth man crowded the doorway, her smile stretched cheek to cheek. Her whole face heated and flushed, and a boom like waves breaking over distant rocks registered in her ears.

Drew. Drew. Drew!her inner wolf cheered.

The other three men had come striding in like it was a second home, but Drew paused in the doorway. He did that every time, wiping his boots in a practiced right-left, right-left slide that said he’d been raised to do that at home. Then he pulled off his hat and stepped over the threshold.

Such a polite bear,her grandmother would have sighed.

He rubbed a thickly muscled shoulder against the doorframe in a territory-marking move that would have been a blatant challenge to the bears that owned the place if they weren’t his cousins. And the way he did it screamed,This place might not be mine, but it’s mine to protect. Keep out, strangers. Don’t even think about bringing trouble here.

“Morning, Summer,” he rumbled, locking eyes with her. His were a pale, gold-hued green, and they sparked with wonder when they took her in.

“Morning, Drew,” she said, trying not to squeak.

A perfectly normal exchange of greetings, and yet it set off a dozen wild fantasies. Like hearing Drew utter those words while naked and sleepy in bed. Like replying and winding her leg around his as they lay skin to skin.

Morning, Summer,he’d say as she woke up, like it was the best morning ever because she was at his side.

Or maybe he’d just wake her with a quiet kiss and a touch — one that led to more touching and kissing and a long, unhurried session of making love.

Morning, Summer,he’d say when they dropped back onto the sheets, sweaty and satisfied. She’d rest her head on his chest — a chest so broad and so piled with muscle, she had dozens of options for exactly which subsection to try out — and run her hand down his thick, corded arms.

Summer cleared her throat and blinked. It was ridiculous, the way her body reacted to him. Her mind fluttered and took wing like a hysterical butterfly set loose in a meadow blooming with wild flowers.

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