Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 1) Read online

  “Your ranch?”

  “Yeah, I fuckin’ told you, Wesley, you ain’t got nothing I need to steal. You never did. And by the way?” he yelled, turning back to him. “Guess what’s been murdering the herd on the Willow Switch Ranch. Guess!”

  “I don’t fuckin know!”

  “Wolves!”

  Wes reared back, the rage on his face dissipating in an instant. Softer, he said, “There ain’t no wolves in these parts.”

  Bryson huffed a single, humorless laugh. None of them had ever talked about what they were, but it wasn’t a secret either. Not to the three of them. He could smell the dog on them, and they could smell the bear on him.

  “You and I both know that ain’t true.” He made his way toward Wes and said, “Whoooah,” as he gripped Rango’s reins. The horse was prancing, stressed. Bryson petted his sweating neck gently and looked up at Wes. “You and Hunter kill a single cow from my new herd, and I’ll gut you both.”

  “It wasn’t us,” Hunter said from behind him. Honesty rang clear in his voice.

  He stood there ten yards off, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes on Wes. And whatever they said to each other with that look, Bryson didn’t know. All he knew was he’d never seen the Kaid brothers look scared before now.

  “If it ain’t you, then who?” Bryson asked.

  The sound of a roaring truck engine blasting their way had all of them turning their attention to the road. An old cream and champagne colored Ford came barreling down the dirt drive a few seconds later like a bat out of hell, slipping and sliding this way and that as it hit the muddy potholes.

  “Who the hell is that?” Hunter asked.

  About that time, the truck got close enough in range that Bryson could see the driver. And she. Looked. Pissed.

  Today was turning out to be eternal. Bryson pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the oncoming headache. He needed a beer. And sleep. Or death at this point would be preferable to dealing with the hellion who was skidding to a stop in front of them, fishtailing muddy water in an ugly rainbow as she went.

  The truck creaked as it rocked to a stop, and out she got—his new business partner, Maris.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, her dark brown eyes lookin’ like they had hell’s flames in them.

  Bryson unhanded Rango’s reins and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nothing.” Definitely not about to get in another fight with his boss.

  “I don’t need your charity!”

  “What the hell are you goin’ on about, woman?” Wes asked from atop his settling horse.

  “None of your fuckin’ business.” She tossed him a right-furious look and stomped her way to the other side of her truck. Bryson snorted. Never in his three years working here had he ever seen anyone pop off at Wes like that…besides him. And Wes didn’t do anything about it! He just sat on his horse, looking stunned. Up until the point Maris yanked her truck door open and pulled a cow out of the front seat. A cow. One three-month-old Angus calf hit the ground and took off running down the driveway.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Wes asked.

  “Returning the cows to him!” She’d said “him” like a cussword and had jammed a finger at Bryson, who was pursing his lips so she wouldn’t see his smile. Smiles at a woman’s anger pissed them off even more and turned them into demons. He’d learned that.

  God, she was a looker. Flowing, straight hair the color of dark chocolate, freckles on her cheeks because the woman had smeared her make-up off either crying or raging, he didn’t know. She had dark smudges from her mascara under her eyes and full lips that were saying something he probably should be paying attention to, but he couldn’t on account of her wrestling the cow out of her truck had pulled her V-neck shirt down low enough to expose really perky cleavage and the edge of a black lace bra.

  Something wet hit him square in the face.

  “Ha ha ha,” Hunter laughed.

  Well that shook Bryson out of his reverie, and when he ran a rough hand down his jaw, he found a clump of thick mud there. She’d thrown it, and now that pissed-off little hen was gathering another handful. Her words lost that muddled sound and came in clear. “My face is up here, you pervert!”

  “Well, where am I supposed to look? Ain’t my fault you come onto our property, flaunting your tits!” he yelled.

  “Our property?” Wes barked, unlooping the rope from the saddle horn. “Ain’t nothin’ here belong to you, asshole.” And then he nearly ran Bryson over with Rango as he bolted to rope the escaping calf.

  He’d seen Wes rope a hundred cows so he wasn’t impressed, but Maris twisted where she stood, hand full of mud as she watched Wes race down the lane, a loop of rope swinging over his head. He threw it and pulled it tight around the calf’s neck.

  “He can do that,” she muttered. “Just randomly, he can rope a cow.”

  “We all can,” Hunter enlightened her. “Any cowboy worth his salt knows how to wrangle a cow. Look lady, you’re really pretty, but you ain’t got no brains if you come onto this ranch yelling. It’s safer for you on your side of the fence.”

  “No threats,” Bryson growled before he could stop himself. And his damn boots were taking him right for Hunter.

  “No!” Hunter said, backing up quick and throwing his hands up. “I ain’t fighting today! Go throttle Wes. He’s the one who pissed you off!”

  He couldn’t stop, though. He’d never felt rage like he did right now. He didn’t like Hunter telling Maris she wasn’t safe, didn’t like that at all.

  “Bryson? Bryson!”

  Hunter’s words didn’t stop him charging faster, and neither did the sound of Hunter cocking his pistol as he aimed it at him. “She can’t see you like this!” Hunter bellowed. “Bryson, stop!” Looking panicked, he aimed at the ground and pulled the trigger. Boom!

  Searing pain zinged through Bryson’s calf, and he pitched forward, barely caught himself before he went down hard. He looked down at the growing red stain on the outside of his left calf. “Dammit, Hunter! These are my favorite Wranglers!”

  Plop. The sound of the mud falling from Maris’s hand and hitting the wet ground was loud in this moment. Crap, there was a human here. A human woman not used to this rough lifestyle. This probably looked really bad.

  “You’re worried about your favorite jeans being torn up?” she asked incredulously. “He just shot you.”

  “Well, it was like a little shot,” Hunter said defensively. “Like a love shot. Like I aimed it at the ground to scare him off killing me, but it ricocheted and got him in the leg…a little. No arteries or nothin’.”

  Maris was standing there with her muddy hands at her sides, her pretty mouth hanging open.

  He would be healed from the flesh wound in an hour, but she didn’t know anything about bear shifter healing. All she knew was he’d been shot, and that was shocking to humans.

  “Um.” He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Everything’s fine. It barely even got me.”

  She stared in horror at his leg. “Blood is dripping down your boot.”

  Oh shit, it did look kind of bad.

  “Did you shoot him again?” Wes yelled, trotting up on Rango and dragging a very stubborn, head-tossing calf on the rope behind him.

  “Again?” Maris asked, wiping her hands on her jeans and making muddy smears on the denim. “How many times have you shot him?”

  Hunter rolled his eyes heavenward and looked like he was thinking real hard. “Six times four, carry the two—”

  “Not important,” Bryson interrupted loudly, because Hunter was actually dumb enough to say the number of times he’d pulled a trigger on him, and it was a lot. Usually it was when Bryson was on a murdering spree as a massive grizzly bear and he deserved it, but whatever. “Can I talk to you alone?” he asked Maris.

  “So you can murder me?” she asked. “No thanks, I like living.”

  Okay, her sarcasm was a little much. “Fine,” he muttered. “It’s been a long
day.” He limped past her toward the cattleman’s cabin. “Go back to your side of the fence, and we’ll figure out the business side of things later.”

  “The business side of things?” Curiosity tainted her voice.

  Bryson smiled to himself. Brave little hen. And sassy. His face still tingled from where she’d slapped him earlier. He liked her grit. “If you’re scared, you can go. I’ll just call you later.”

  “You don’t have my number.”

  Wrong, little hen. He’d already called her bank, found out how much she owed on her ranch, figured out her debts, tracked down her number, and trolled her idiot ex, Dallas Farrel’s, social media pages to try to figure out just how bad that jackass had screwed her. A woman like Maris didn’t break without good reason, and this morning, she’d been pretty damn close. He could tell losing her cows hadn’t been the first blow she’d been dealt.

  He kept walking.

  “I’m not scared of anything,” she called behind him. But she’d lied. It was there, etched into her voice. She was scared of something, and now the animal in him wanted to figure her out. Snuff out that fear and reassure her that she was safe. What are you scared of, little duck?

  Trapping a woman like Maris would be about as fruitful as trapping a man like him, so he gave her space and walked away, no look-backs. She had to be free to come or go as she pleased. That’s what injured animals needed, not pressure, and Maris had been injured on her insides. He had a sense for these things. Usually, he didn’t give a shit, but with her, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he gave far too many shits.

  He made his way inside his cabin and closed the door behind him.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  He opened the door to find her standing there, chin held high, hands clenched in front of her. “Swear not to kill me.”

  “Why would I kill you?”

  “I’ll get the whiskey,” Hunter called.

  “Why would we need whiskey?” Bryson asked, but the bigger of the Kaid brothers had already about-faced and was making his way to the main house. Over his shoulder, he called, “Everybody knows when you make a business deal you toast with whiskey.”

  “Ain’t no business deals going down on this ranch,” Wes called. He aimed his pissed-off attention at Maris. “What do you want me to do with this cow?”

  Maris enlightened him, “Her name is Marmalade.”

  Wes’s face was a study in hating-everything-on-the-planet when Bryson closed the door behind her. He would’ve laughed if his leg didn’t hurt so damn bad right now.

  He gestured to his table for her to sit down and straightened a disarrayed stack of cattle notes. His place was a mess, but he hadn’t been expecting company when he’d left this morning. Truth be told, no one but him had been in here since he’d moved to the Kaid Brother’s Ranch three years ago.

  She smelled good. Like mango shampoo and woman. Don’t get a boner right now.

  “It’s fine,” she said as he scooped dishes into the sink. “I’m not here to be impressed by your house. I just want to know what’s going on is all.”

  “What was your plan with the cow?”

  “Marmalade?”

  He sighed. “It’s bad business to name your cows unless it’s T-bone, Christmas Dinner, Prime Rib, stuff like that. Naming them means you’re too attached.”

  “How about you ranch your way, and I’ll ranch mine.” Her dark eyes were so steady on him as he stood there in the kitchen, arms locked against the counter, blood dripping onto the wood floors.

  He growled too soft for her to hear. “Fair enough. What was your plan with Marmalade.” Stupid fuckin’ name for a cow, but it was kinda cute that Maris looked at them as pets. It showed a tender heart.

  “Well, when I was leaving my place, I was mad because you think I’m some charity case, and I had a glass of wine in town—”

  “Like I suggested.” He couldn’t help his grin. She was so fun to pester. “It’s good you know how to mind.” God, he didn’t believe that at all, but her face was so fun to watch right now.

  “Scratch me being worried you’ll murder me. You’re gonna end up gutted and in a ditch, you keep going like that.” She crossed her arms and looked prickly. “As I was saying…I was leaving my place, and I had rage and a glass of wine in me, and as I drove by the herd, it entered my mind that I should bring them back to you by whatever means necessary, and I don’t have a trailer, so I’ll get them to you one at a time. In my truck.”

  “Oh good. I can’t wait until you show up with a full-grown pissed-off momma cow in your front seat.”

  “Yeah, well, at the time, it seemed like a good idea. Marmalade mooed in my ear the whole way here and shit on my front seat.”

  Despite the throbbing in his bleeding leg, she made him laugh. Him. The man who never laughed. “Well, Marmalade is very fast and tasted freedom for a minute.”

  Maris pursed her lips and ducked her gaze. Her cheeks were turning a pretty shade of pink. “Look, mister. I love my herd, I love ranching, I love my home, and I love this town.” She looked up at him, and there it was again. That bone deep sadness that emptied out his chest. “But I don’t know how I fit into this place anymore. Been trying to figure it out for the last year.”

  He blew out a breath and shook his head. “Little Duck, no one knows that. We’re all trying to figure it out, same as you.”

  “That’s a stupid nickname,” she muttered.

  Bryson shrugged. “So is Marmalade.”

  “Whatever. Your turn. Why did you buy my cows and return them to me?”

  “I didn’t return them to you. They’re still mine.” He yanked the dishtowel off the rack and leaned over, pressed it against his bleeding leg. Her frown was really judgmental. “What?”

  “Are you seriously using a dirty dishtowel to clean your gunshot wound? That’s how you get infections.”

  “The bullet isn’t in there and it’s just a scrape. Besides, I don’t get infections.”

  “Too manly for them? Made of stone? Invincible?” Maris scoffed. “Typical.”

  “Typical what?”

  “Typical man.”

  “Look, lady, I ain’t got time to pull out the first-aid kit every time I get a papercut. It’s a ranch, not a resort.” He ran the bloody rag under the faucet and, without breaking eye contact with her, he hiked his muddy boot onto the counter and pressed the rag against it. “Better?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  She was shaking her head. “I can’t watch you build an infection. Where’s your first-aid kit?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “Bandages?”

  “Newp.”

  “Antimicrobial soap?”

  He gave her a dead look. “What’s Antimicrobial soap?”

  With a put-upon sigh, she stood and made her way around the counter to him, dragging her chair behind her. The screeching sound against the hardwood floors made his sensitive ears hurt. He hunched his shoulders until she stopped.

  “Sit.”

  “I ain’t a dog.”

  “You’re a man. It’s basically the same thing.”

  “Who hurt you?” he asked, pulling his boot off the counter. He had a good idea, but she didn’t need to know he’d spent thirty minutes in his truck finding out everything he could about her life.

  She was crazy if she thought he was listening to someone come into his house and boss him around like—”

  “Sit down, or I’ll slap you again.”

  “Maybe I liked being slapped.” Holding his breath, he waited for her reaction.

  Fire in her eyes, she leveled him with a look and told him, “Then sit, and maybe I’ll slap you again.”

  The blood drained from his entire body and landed in the general vicinity of his dick. Holy hell, she was hot. She’d said that so steady, no blushing, just held his gaze. Not many people dared to do that, but for some reason, this wo
man wasn’t scared of him. Her instincts were broken, lucky for him.

  He sat like a drunk man on a bar stool. The thing creaked under his weight, threatening to give out. He really needed to secure the legs better. He wasn’t a dainty man. More like the homegrown, eats-ten-meals-a-day type that had broken a lot of furniture in his day.

  She shoved up his bloody jean’s leg and pulled off his boot and sock, then left him bleeding as she rummaged through his cabinets. Watching her, he felt a little violated because, well…he didn’t want her to see all the bachelor food, aka boxes of macaroni and cheese, he’d bought in bulk from the store.

  She opened the top cabinet and he groaned. Yep, she found them. Great.

  “Mac and cheese is my favorite,” she whispered on a breath.

  Huh.

  Hunter didn’t knock on the door, just threw it open so hard it banged against the wall. He announced, “I brought the draaaaank.”

  He held up a bottle of Jack, and Maris lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yes!”

  “Okay…” Hunter murmured with a frown as she rushed him and grabbed the bottle from his hand. “You like whiskey?”

  “Me? Oh, I can’t stand the stuff,” she told him as she opened the lid. She poured it onto a clean rag she’d found in a cupboard near the sink.

  Bryson and Hunter both chimed in, “Noooo!” as she wasted the best part of their lives. Without whiskey, nights on the ranch were boring.

  “Chill out, I’m only using a little.” She marched over to him with the sopping wet rag.

  “What in tarnation could you possibly—ssssssss!” he hissed as she pressed the rag to the deep gash in his leg. Felt like she’d stuck a hot poker right into his skin and branded his shin bone.

  “Why would you make it hurt worse?” Hunter asked, horror swimming in his eyes.

  Bryson slapped his thigh. “I would also like to know why you want to make it worse!” Betrayed. Bryson felt betrayed, okay? He’d been lulled into this notion that she was going to help, but now his entire leg had its own pulse. And all he could do was grip his knee and bear it while she pressed the rag on harder.

  “Stop being a baby. I’m cleaning it,” she said.