Page 2 of The Werewolf Cowboy
Ignoring all of them, she kicked her mount and rode off a little ways to take a break. Something extraordinary had happened and it confused the hell out of her. Lupines couldn’t communicate telepathically.
Near the fence line dividing the Mitchell Ranch from Grayson’s property, Katy stopped her horse, climbed off and drank deeply from her water bottle. She wiped a hand across her sweating forehead as Grayson galloped closer.
Grayson dismounted and strode toward her, his short, dark brown hair hidden beneath his black Stetson. He was a big man/wolf, more than six feet five inches of pure muscle. Faded blue jeans hugged his trim legs and the taut roundness of his very taut butt. His flat belly and deep chest were hidden by a black work shirt, open at the throat. A dusting of dark hair showed in the deep V. Strain showed in his bright blue eyes, and lines bracketed his full mouth.
He was thirty-two, quite young for a Lupine, but there was something even more “Other” about Grayson than the Lupines she’d lived among most of her life. Maybe the “Other” was telepathic communication. Though she supposed it was possible, she’d never heard of such a trait.
He stopped barely two feet from her, crowding her, making her fully aware of the sweat beading on his forehead, the thin line of his kissable mouth, his dark, rich scent of sage, evergreen and leather.
And something much more earthy…like sex.
Trembling, she started to lift the water bottle to her mouth when he reached out, wrapped his lean, strong fingers around it. Grayson’s ice blue gaze met hers as he gently pulled the bottle from her grasp. Lifting it to his mouth, he tipped back his head and drank deeply, the muscles of his strong throat working.
Katy’s heart beat faster as he finished, wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and murmured thanks to her as he handed back the bottle.
Sharing water, nothing more. But the gesture indicated a deeper intimacy, as if he wanted to swap other body fluids with her, and planned to do so very soon.
He reached out, traced a droplet of sweat rolling down her cheek like a tear. “You okay?” he murmured, lowering his hand. “You look shaken.”
She studied the sweep of pasture, the jagged purple mountains as she tried to leash emotions that had her spinning around. “I’m woolgathering.”
“Skill best practiced on a sheep ranch.”
The joke made her turn back to him, and his grin relaxed her. This was the Grayson she’d gotten to know over the past few months.
“You’re very funny. Lupines and cattle are bad enough. Sheep? Too tempting.”
“Reckon there’s many things tempting to a fully mature Lupine. You’re twenty-one now, Katy. Fully come into your powers.” Grayson tipped back his hat and studied her until she felt like a bug pinned on a board. “You ever get any strange dreams with colors, purple and pink? Dreams with Fae in them and strange creatures you’ve never seen before?”
Such an odd question to ask. She frowned. “Not that I can remember. Why?”
“You ever do, call me. You ever need me, Katy, day or night. I’ll be here for you.” His gaze darkened. “Don’t tell your folks or anyone else in your pack if you have those dreams.”
“Why not?”
He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Reckon they wouldn’t understand.”
“Is it something bad?” She thought of the odd dream she’d had last night, and the wispy fragments she barely remembered. It had not been bad, just unsettling.
Much as she loved her adoptive parents and her five older brothers, she felt lately they didn’t understand her. She’d been abandoned near the ranch and had no memory of her first eight years on this earth. Sometimes she wondered if she was a normal Lupine…or something else.
Lupines like her friend Holly didn’t have these odd yearnings. Certainly Katy’s parents did not, nor did they understand how she longed to run solo beneath the full moon and flush out prey. Her parents didn’t realize how she felt restricted and stifled. No matter how much she loved her parents and pack, and how much they adored her, she felt there was something else tugging at her when she gazed at the horizon.
Grayson’s gaze intensified. “Not bad. Different. You ever feel you need to talk, I’m here for you, Katy. We’re friends.”
She nodded. All her Lupine instincts flared like sparks on dry kindling. She liked Grayson as a friend, but now she felt something deeper, more meaningful. He felt the same too, judging from the interest flaring in his gaze. But there was that odd communion between them, the wicked sexual thoughts he’d spoken into her mind…
Must have been her imagination.
She watched Kyle, Darius, and Parker finish castrating the calf. Holly, riding a spirited mare, galloped toward the trio. Sighing, Katy watched her friend begin flirting with Parker, who was single, unlike Kyle and Darius.
“She always gets the guys,” she muttered, more to herself than Grayson. “Holly’s delicate, feminine, and frail. Men like that, especially Lupines. I guess it brings out their protective instincts.”
The only male who’d ever asked her for a date was Charles, who was short and not unattractive, but he lacked a sense of humor and he had a slight cruel streak. She’d seen the way he worked with the calves.
When he’d asked her out, she politely refused him. And then he’d asked her again, in front of the whole damn pack and she had to really spurn him. Charles had gotten red-faced, but she figured his ego would recover.
Katy needed something else. She wasn’t certain exactly what, but she refused to settle for someone as dull and ordinary as Charles.
