Ruthless Read online

  “Fuck!” I shouted, jumping back, then sticking my finger in my mouth, as if that was going to help.

  The machine had not only shocked me, but made a weird sizzling sound. Reaching across the counter, I grabbed the cord and tugged the plug from the outlet, afraid it was going to catch fire… the start of the house burning down. For the past few nights, the lights had been blinking upstairs, and now I got electric shock therapy from the coffee machine.

  Leaning against the aged formica, I noticed the hum of the fridge had cut off.

  “Great,” I muttered, going to the light switch, flipping it on and off to confirm the power was out, at least in this part of the house.

  The coffeemaker had blown a fuse and zapped the hell out of me. It was probably fried and that meant no coffee.

  Hearing tires crunch in the drive, I cut through the house to the front door. The contractor’s scheduled arrival couldn’t have been better planned if I’d tried. If he had a venti Americano with skim and a shot of espresso, I’d make babies with the guy.

  I squinted against the bright sunshine as he hopped from the pickup truck. On the truck’s door a cool house logo and R&N Construction in a bold font below. “You must be Natalie. Heard lots about you for a long time.”

  “Not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” I replied, setting my hands on my hips.

  As he came up the porch steps, he said, “We were all wondering when you’d show up. I’m Nash. We talked on the phone.”

  “Right,” I replied, shaking his hand. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Heard you’re the new bartender at Cody’s. The owner’s a friend of mine, so I appreciate his referral.”

  I’d answered an ad at the bar in town, and thankfully, having been a broke grad student working full-time at a bar for the past few years had paid off because Cody had hired me on the spot. Now I could pay the light bill. If I could keep the electric working.

  “He’s a nice guy,” I shared. “I’m thankful he hired me and gave me your number to help. As you can see, I’ve got a few things to fix.” I looked up, indicating the entire house.

  He offered an easy laugh. “A few things.”

  “Your timing couldn’t be better because I just blew a fuse.”

  “It’ll be easy for us to fix things since we live on this side of the mountain. We’re neighbors.”

  I arched a brow. “Oh?”

  He tipped his head away from the house. “Live in the hills above Wolf Ranch.”

  Oh. I looked him over again, this time wondering if he was one of them, a shifter. He didn’t look any different than any other big guy. He was maybe a few years older than me with sandy blond hair that curled from beneath a baseball cap with the same construction logo on it. I pegged him at six feet and close to two hundred pounds.

  Good looking, not that I was interested in a shifter. I wasn’t although my mind went to the silver wolf I’d seen at the swimming hole the night before. The one who I’d seen long ago. The one who’d worked on uncle’s ranch.

  Rand. The one I knew wasn’t this guy.

  I cleared my throat. “There are tons of issues with this old place,” I said, getting my thoughts away from Rand Tucker. “My list is long. Too long for my budget to do all at once.”

  “No problem. I assume electrical is at the top?” He followed me down the hall.

  “Yeah. The lights have been blinking, and as I said, I just blew a fuse turning on the coffeemaker.”

  He stuck his head into the kitchen. “Wow, my grandparents had a fridge like that.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, leaned against the doorframe. “Well, it’s not running right now.”

  He frowned then nodded. “Where’s the fuse box?”

  I tipped my chin toward the hallway. “Basement.”

  He stepped back and let me lead the way.

  I opened the door and flipped the switch. That light worked. Going down the rickety stairs into the creepy basement, Nash followed. There were small windows that let some natural light in but not too much, which was probably good because I didn’t want to see how many spiders were in the dark corners. If I saw one, I probably wouldn’t be coming down here ever again.

  On the far wall, there was a bigger window I remembered Uncle Adam telling me had been opened for coal delivery back in the day. He’d had to shovel it into the furnace to keep the house warm in the winter. Beneath it, the dirt floor had bits of crushed coal ground in. That had been decades ago when it had been last used, replaced with an oil burning furnace.

  The air was cooler, a dank scent filled the air. There wasn’t much on this level beyond an old washer and dryer and a few lines strung between the first floor’s cross beams for hanging things to dry.

  “Here it is.” I went over to the old box on the wall.

  “Wow, vintage fuses. Haven’t seen many screw-in ones lately.”

  I turned and pointed at my uncle’s handwriting next to each one stating what they went to in the house.

  Heavy steps came down the stairwell right before a deep voice said, “Careful, darlin’. Touch that and your hair might curl.”

  Nash and I turned, Nash’s shoulder brushing mine.

  I touched my hair, red as a rooster and already crazy curly. It always looked like I’d been electrocuted. I didn’t need that to actually happen to have that effect.

  “I told you to wait for me,” he growled at Nash, who immediately stepped away from me.

  “Rand’s right,” Nash replied. “Gotta turn off the main first.”

  I heard Nash but wasn’t paying him any attention. I felt like I’d gotten a jolt of electricity just looking at the guy who’d come down the stairs.

  Rand. The wolf from last night. I knew it was him. Felt it in my bones. My heart leapt and my pussy wept.

  I hadn’t seen him since I was ten, but I knew who he was. He’d been sixteen then, so he obviously looked older now. The time had treated him well. Really well. He was… wow. Better. Bigger.

  Holy shit. I’d been right back then, and I’d been right the night before at the swimming hole. Rand was a shifter.

  He stared at me with those blue eyes that I knew had met mine from the top of the waterfall. In the dim light of the basement, they seemed to glow, just as they had before. His hair wasn’t silver, far from it. Beneath his cowboy hat, it was almost black. His jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared.

  “Red, it’s been a long time.” He came over to me, extended a hand and pushed Nash further away.

  Red. I’d forgotten all about that nickname he’d given me all those years ago when my hair had usually been in a long braid down my back. He leaned close, and I had to tip my chin back to look up at him. His nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath. Almost like he was breathing me in.

  God, he probably was. I’d bet he had a keener sense of smell than a normal human. Wolf senses.

  “Sure has,” I replied although my mouth was dry.

  “You’ve grown up.” His gaze drifted over me from my cheap gas station flip flops to my wild hair… and everywhere in between. He reached out, tucked a curl behind my ear.

  I gulped, and my skin prickled at the action.

  Holy shit.

  “So… have you.” I didn’t remember him to ever be a gangly teenager. The opposite. He’d been tall, thickly muscled and, to a ten-year-old, cute. The first vague flutterings of a girlhood crush had been awakened by him. Now, he was even taller, even broader. His muscles had muscles. My female interest wasn’t a vague flutter any longer.

  Hell, no. It was instant attraction. Heat. A longing I’d never known before.

  Nash stood off to the side watching as if he were at a tennis match. “You two know each other?”

  Rand dropped his hand but almost reluctantly. “I used to work for Old Man Sheffield. Back in high school. Natalie was here summers when she was little.”

  Nash snapped his fingers. “That’s right.”

  I knew I blushed but hoped it didn’t show too
much. “Haven’t been back since I was ten,” I admitted. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Sorry about your uncle,” Rand said. “He was a real nice guy.” He smiled, making little crinkles form in the corner of his eyes. While he seemed intense with me, almost overwhelming, it appeared he did that alot. Smiled, that is.

  “You knew him better than me. Working here, you had to know him really well,” I admitted. “I was shocked he left me the house and property.”

  “You were his only kin, as far I know.” Rand looked up as if he could see through the subfloor. “Needs some work. What are your plans for it?”

  I shrugged. “A friend of mine suggested a bed and breakfast, so it can earn some cash.”

  Was it me or did they tense up a little when I said that?

  I’d thought Rand had been staring before, but now, I felt trapped. Caught in his blue eyes. As if he could see into me.

  “You want people to come here and stay?” he asked, as if I’d said tourists should come and shovel manure in the barn.

  I frowned, unsure of the issue. “I don’t know anything about ranching, and I don’t want to bartend forever. Income would be a good thing. I like to eat. There isn’t much in the way of jobs out here. At least for what I do.”

  “What’s that?” Rand asked.

  “Concert violinist.” That was a touchy subject, and Rand gave me the usual wide eyed stare of surprise. I couldn’t see Nash except out of the corner of my eye with Rand standing so close.

  I took a deep breath, and my chest bumped Rand’s. “Well, standing in the basement is fun and all, but I’m sure you two have other projects besides me.”

  Rand just stared, took another deep breath then stepped back.

  I sighed.

  Nash went to the fuse box, glanced over his shoulder. “Got a flashlight?” he asked Rand.

  Rand pulled one from his back pocket, handed it over along with a new fuse. Kept his gaze on me.

  “How did you know to bring that?” I asked. He was well prepared.

  His eyes crinkled warmly even though he wasn’t outright smiling. “I used to work here, remember? Nothing’s changed with the electric. I used to have to come down and replace the fuses for your uncle all the time. Got a hell of a shock once. Come on, we’ll go upstairs, and you can holler down and let Nash know when the power comes back on. Always thought this basement was creepy.”

  “Probably full of spiders, too,” I murmured, looking around. I freaking hate spiders.

  I looked to Nash who gave me a wink, then I turned to go. Walking up the old stairs, I became acutely aware of Rand following. Of his eyes on my ass. This guy had seen me naked the night before! I knew it was him, but there’s no way he knew that I knew.

  I couldn’t tell him either. Obviously, he had no intention of telling me the truth. It was like the saying about a secret being the elephant in the room. In this case, it was a sleek, gray wolf.

  “Ack!” My foot dropped through a rotted stair. I shrieked, arms flying out to steady myself as my body dropped. Before I even found the handrail, Rand caught me—one hand under my arm, the other at my waist. Instead of steadying me, he tugged me backward, and I tumbled straight into his arms, honeymoon style. I gasped again, this time from the hard feel of him holding me in his arms.

  “Easy, Red,” he rumbled. “I got you.”

  “What happened?” Nash called from below.

  “We’re good, just watch the broken step when you come up,” Rand replied, pulling me in close.

  “Oh!” That was the inane sound that came from my lips as he carried me up the remaining stairs.

  Slowly.

  Like he was in no hurry to get to the top.

  And not because I was too heavy, and it was a struggle for him. No, I felt weightless in his arms, like he could carry three of me and still not break a sweat.

  Wolf strength.

  My startled gaze found his, which had taken on an eerie, beast-like glow. “Careful, darlin’,” he murmured, his warm breath feathering against my cheek.

  For some reason, his words—or maybe it was the deep velvet rumble of his voice—seemed to reach right inside me, speaking to my tingling lady parts like he was singing a serenade. He looked even more handsome close up and personal, the strong line of his jaw made even more manly by a pair of sensual lips. He smelled like sawdust and leather and clean soap.

  “Wow. Um, th-thank you,” I managed to say as we reached the hall.

  “Might have to keep you in my arms just in case something else breaks.”

  I laughed. “In this house? Then you’ll never be putting me down.”

  “Works for me.”

  O.

  M.

  G.

  I looked back down the stairs, where Nash stood with his hands on his hips, watching us. “Huh,” he said, like he just figured something out.

  “What?” I squirmed a little in Rand’s arms, which made a deep rumble come from his chest. I felt it against my arm as much as heard it.

  He still hadn’t put me down.

  “Um, are you going to let me go?”

  “No.”

  Just no?

  Nash shook his head and disappeared, and a few beats later, the light in the basement stairwell went out indicating he’d gone back to the fuse box and turned off the main power.

  “Um. We can’t stay like this.” No matter how much I liked being in his hold, it was a little weird.

  Rand sighed then made a show of checking the floor before he gently tipped my feet to the ground. Even when I was safely standing, his hand settled on my low back, like I might fall through the floorboards at any moment.

  Which, given the state of the house, was always a possibility.

  “So, this B&B idea?”

  My heart still galloped like a wild mustang from his casually heroic rescue, and I hoped he didn’t notice how his touch, his nearness made me react. I was flushed and not from the warm summer morning. I was jittery, and I hadn’t had that hit of caffeine that had been denied.

  I shrugged again, trying for laid back. “Like I said, not many jobs around here for what I’m skilled at. I’m not sure if I’m enough of a people-person for having out of town guests, but I’ll do what I need to to get by.”

  “I remember you and your uncle sitting together fiddling,” he said, surprising me.

  I smiled at the memory. “Wow, um. Yeah. Haven’t done that since I was here, either.”

  He frowned. “I thought you said you were a concert violinist.”

  “Yes, I am. I’ve played the violin but haven’t fiddled.”

  He was watchful but said nothing.

  My uncle had bought me a violin when I was six and taught me to play. My parents couldn’t afford music lessons and thought it was a real waste of time. Especially later when I decided to go to college to study music. They’d thought I should stay home and help support them, working at the drug store where my mom worked, and when I chose to leave, they pretty much stopped speaking to me.

  Only Uncle Adam had been supportive, if from far away. I hadn’t seen him in years because after that last summer when I was ten, I’d had to stay home because there wasn’t any money to send me. Then when I was fifteen, I got a job.

  “Why are you here, then?” he asked.

  I arched a brow. “I just moved in. Getting rid of me already?” I wasn’t going to tell him I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  “Not a chance.” He smiled, and yup, my panties were ruined. He reached out, stroked a tendril of hair back behind my ear. Again. As if the gesture was something he had to do. “The house is free and clear, right?”

  I nodded, my breath caught in my chest. There wasn’t a mortgage on the property. The house and the land were all mine. “I know, all I’ve got to pay is annual taxes, heat, lights, but as anyone who’s not blind can see, there’s more to be done around here than just the electric.” I could get a mortgage to pay for the remodeling that needed to be done, but I wanted to a
void any kind of debt if possible.

  His eyes roved over my face as if he were trying to memorize it. “Willow patched the roof last summer.”

  I knew the woman because she’d impersonated me the year before as part of a case with the DEA to investigate a drug ring on the ranch next door. That had been interesting.

  “Hey! Are the lights back on?” Nash yelled from the basement.

  I blinked, having forgotten he was even here and went to the kitchen, flipped the switch on the wall. I heard the hum of the fridge and the overhead light worked.

  “Yes!” I called. I turned again, and while I didn’t bump into Rand, he was right there, as if he couldn’t stay away.

  “Um… while the fuse has been replaced, that doesn’t really solve the problem I called about.”

  He nodded, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “I saw enough. You need a new fuse box, one that’s up to code. I can pick up the supplies and be back to replace it this afternoon.”

  “Okay. I can probably swing that as long as you take payment in small bills.” When he frowned, I continued. “Tip money from Cody’s.”

  He ran a hand over his face as if he wasn’t thrilled about that or something else. “Based on what was running through the basement, it’s all knob and tube wiring,” he added. I was expecting him to comment on my job, but he stuck to his. “The whole house needs to be redone.”

  While I knew that, hearing it made my stomach twist into an anxious knot. What did I know about home ownership, much less ranch ownership? And I thought I could turn this place into a profit-turning endeavor? When it was literally falling down around my ears?

  I was so screwed.

  “I can’t afford to do it all at once. You do more than electrical, right?”

  He looked me over once again, his lips quirking. “Lots more, Red.”

  For some reason, it seemed like he was talking about more than just construction. Heat pooled between my legs under his steady gaze, and my nipples puckered in my bra.

  Nash came up the steps and into the kitchen and cleared his throat.