Love Her Better (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 4) Read online

  “Fine,” she said as he turned for the door. “You’re my favorite.”

  He spun around, his eyes wide as he searched her face. “I am?”

  Cassidy nodded. “Of course, silly man. I get excited to go to sleep because I know when I wake up, you’ll be here.”

  He stood up straighter and looked at the floor, and when he lifted those lighter brown eyes to hers, there was this little ghost of a smile stretching his face. “I can sleep here tonight if you want. On the porch. Then you know I’m here at night, too. I already run the fence lines here at night.”

  “Wait, you do?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Sam shrugged. “I make sure you’re safe. And the things you love are safe. Your horses.”

  He turned to leave, but she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Sleep inside with me tonight.”

  Sam shook his head. “I’m better outside. I feel trapped inside.”

  “Yeah? I noticed that when we first met, but pay attention to the changes Sam. You eat breakfast with me here every morning, and you don’t bolt for work anymore. You stay and talk. And you smile. And you even laugh sometimes. You’re safe here.”

  He chewed on the side of his lip and then grinned. “Little woman telling the big bad wolf he’s safe. You’re the one who is safe, Cassidy. Come on. Let me watch you eat.”

  “It’s so weird you like doing that,” she mumbled as she followed him out into the hallway.

  “I’ve never seen anyone enjoy food like you do.”

  “Mornin’, Human Cassidy,” Wes said.

  She nodded a greeting and said, “Nut Grease.”

  “I swear to God, if you don’t stop calling me that, I’m going to eat you.”

  She didn’t take it seriously as she scanned the pans of breakfast food Bryson and Hunter were making, but Sam did. He shoved Wes so hard he flew backward into the living room and flipped over the back of the couch and disappeared on the other side with a yelp. His hat went soaring, his hair flew up with the impact and she couldn’t help the laugh that belted out of her. He looked so dumb.

  Sam pulled out her chair at the dining table, then sauntered into the kitchen to join Hunter and Bryson. He was wearing his work boots, his belt and buckle, a royal blue shirt she’d never seen on him before, and Wranglers that hugged his muscular butt just right. Blue was his color. He hadn’t worn a hat today and had put gel in his mussed dark hair. His beard was getting longer. She loved it. The curves of his strong arms were so damn sexy, and she wondered if there had ever been a better made man. She didn’t think so.

  I can’t believe he’s mine.

  That thought warmed her from her middle out.

  He brought four coffee mugs to the table, filled them, and poured French vanilla creamer in hers as he told the boys about all the things he’d fixed on the Chevelle so far. He seemed so comfortable. So confident. There was such a difference from the day he’d walked into her office to talk to her about a horse that had been as broken as he was.

  She didn’t talk much, just observed. Sam was bragging on her. Talking about how good she was with animals and how she did her lessons. How hard she worked. How tough she was. How much she cared about other people. Things that made her feel good. He talked about Asshole and how far he’d come.

  In his own way, Sam was telling his brothers that the new him was okay. It was a beautiful thing to watch those boys slowly stop giving each other hell and just listen. She could see the lightbulbs going on over their heads as Sam spoke. One by one, their eyes softened and their lips twitched into little smiles.

  Sam was magic this morning.

  He was magic, and she was snarfing French toast like a hungry ranch hand. She thought she ate a lot, but those Kaids put her to shame. Werewolves and weregrizzlies sure ate a lot.

  “Want to see Asshole?” Sam asked as they were clearing the dishes.

  “I want a better look at the Chevelle, too,” Bryson murmured. “It was too dark when we got here to see much.”

  While the boys gawked at the car out front and spoke car lingo she hadn’t a guess at, Cassidy went and retrieved Asshole’s saddle. It was old and worn, but she’d been secretly working on making the horse comfortable with the weight and shape of it.

  He was trotting around the corral when she walked up. “You ready to work, big boy?” she asked.

  This was a horse that liked work. He thrived with a job. Loved a challenge. He got bored easily, but if you gave him something to focus on, he wanted to please. He was a good horse and just needed someone to see something in him the way Sam had. The way she did.

  She caught him and tied him to the corral fence. Could he rip the whole fence down if he wanted to? Absolutely, but lately, he didn’t want to. She was going to put him in the small pasture next to the barn soon. The fencing was lower so it would be a test. He would have fresh green grass, but was he a jumper? They were going to find out.

  She brushed him out and then worked on his cues to lift his hooves for her to clean them. She rewarded him with little pats and positive reinforcement, and when he kicked a little on the back right leg, she got onto him immediately and tried again until he lifted for her and earned those soothing words from her.

  She got the blanket on his back and carefully lowered the saddle, but he just stood there, ears erect as he flared his nostrils and scanned the pasture beside the corral. Slowly, gently, she tightened up the cinch on his saddle. Not too tight, they weren’t to riding him yet, but enough that the saddle stayed in place while she put him on the long lead rope and walked him in a circle around the corral.

  “You’re doing amazing, buddy,” she crooned. So focused was she that Cassidy didn’t notice the boys standing by the barn, watching them, until the third circle around the corral.

  Sam was walking her way, his eyes round. “You got a saddle on him.”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” she said. “You gotta good horse after all.”

  He leaned on the fencing and watched the horse kick up his speed into a trot as she made kissing sounds at him to get him moving.

  Sam murmured, “He’s doin’ so great. He’s gonna be okay.”

  “You both are,” she assured him, eyes on Asshole. “I think he needs a new name. Oh, he’ll pitch his attitude from time to time, but he’s not an asshole. Just hurt and working through his shit.”

  “Like me.”

  She grinned and said, “Whoaaah.” She kicked at a clump of dirt in the middle of the small arena. “Yeah. Like you. Want to come in here and do this?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t go in through the gate, but he never did. Instead, he jumped gracefully over the fence and landed with a soft thud. The horse flinched his head back and snorted, but nothing more. He was getting used to Sam and all of his Samness.

  He took the rope from her and stood in the middle of the corral, clicked his tongue, and turned slowly with the horse’s progress around the railing.

  He was smiling and saying things too low for her to hear. Good things.

  Wes, Bryson, and Hunter came to stand next to her, leaning their elbows on the fence with her. For a long time, they watched Sam work with the horse in silence.

  Bryson was the one who broke the quiet of the morning. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

  She batted the compliment away. “Oh, this is a good horse. He just needed someone to believe in him.”

  Bryson patted the fence and made his way back toward his truck. Without turning around, he said, “I wasn’t talking about the horse, Cassidy.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  He was going to be bad at this.

  He would be bad at sleeping inside, and then Cassidy would be disappointed in him. And somehow worse than that, he would be disappointed in himself.

  So here he was, ten o’clock at night, checking the barn, checking the horses, the two pastures closest to the house. He’d Changed already and ran the outer pastures as a wolf in an attempt to satisfy the animal.

  Let me have one
night with her.

  The woods were quiet tonight. There were no animals scurrying around, and the horses were all standing still, alert. Even Asshole, who he’d decided to rename Chaos.

  Sam was the only predator in these woods. That was one of the good things about being a werewolf. Bones let him know if there was a threat, and Lord help anyone who threatened this place.

  The lights were on in Cassidy’s house. She was waiting up for him. Good woman. What good deeds had he done in a past life to deserve a girl like her after all the bad he’d done in this one? He must have been a fuckin’ saint.

  Her shadow passed across her bedroom window. She was folding something. Laundry? The soft whisper of her humming floated to him on the breeze, and he froze there, just watching and listening to her.

  Yesterday, she’d said he was safe, and at the time, he’d thought she was being a silly girl. Of course, he was safe. He was the predator. No one could touch him in a fight. He’d been in enough scuffles to have that confidence. But…she hadn’t been talking about the physical. She hadn’t said he was physically safe, no. That’s not what she’d been saying at all. He’d realized that later. She was saying his heart was safe here. His mind, emotions, all the inner stuff that combined to make a man what he was…that was safe. Here. With her.

  He exhaled the breath he’d been holding, and weight slid off his shoulders.

  He couldn’t remember a time in this life that he’d ever felt safe on his insides.

  She peeled her shirt off in front of the window and turned profile. He could make out the perfect curves of her soft breasts. Even her nipples. She was cold.

  He would fix that.

  He strode for the house and pulled open the door. Didn’t bother locking it, because who in their right mind would ever enter the Den of Bones? And this was his den. It wasn’t the old cattleman’s cabin he’d been forcing himself to stay at on the Kaid Brother’s Ranch. It was here, protecting Cassidy. It was here with Chaos, the horse recognizing a soul like his. The barn and the Chevelle and the fishing pole on the porch. The pastures. The property line. All of the places his wolf had pissed on in the last weeks, slowly claiming as his to protect.

  This home was his den.

  Cassidy was his den.

  ****

  Okay, admission, Cassidy secretly was hoping that Sam was watching from outside as she peeled off her shirt. And about fifteen seconds after she did her little strip tease, his boots were echoing across the front porch.

  She hurried to put away the last pile of T-shirts she’d just folded and turned to him with a smile. Hell, yep, she’d worn her favorite pretty panties. Pink lace to entice her sexy brute to stay put in her bed tonight.

  “Are you seducing me?” he asked from the doorway.

  “Absolutely.” She put her hands on the bed and stuck her butt out. “Do you want me this way?” She flipped around and landed on the bed, her knees spread. “Or this way. Or do you want to scissor fuck? I don’t know the right term for it, but we put our legs like this…” She straightened her legs and spread them like scissor blades. “And then you—”

  “Shhh,” he hushed her, taking off his shirt.

  His six-pack abs flexed with his movement, and she got entrapped in watching his shoulder muscles move as he tossed his shirt on the floor.

  “I always fuck you from behind,” he murmured.

  “Which I love,” she assured him.

  “Let’s try something different tonight.”

  She was about to tease him by popping off something about “wolfy-style,” but he pinned her to the bed under his weight and kissed the joke right off her lips. And then he did something that shocked her right down to her heart.

  He didn’t fuck her.

  He made love to her. He was slow and controlled, hips rolling against hers until he was buried deep inside of her. He held her hand over her head, but his fingers were intertwined with hers and his touch gentle. With his other hand, he set tiny fires to her skin as he explored every inch of her. He drew her release out slowly, had her begging for him to go faster, but he didn’t. And when she did come, he eased up and watched her face. The look in his golden-eyed gaze held her captured. He looked at her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and she felt it. Felt that devotion. When her body shattered around his, he thrust into her deep and held, grunted as he came. The moment they shared, lying there connected, looking deep into each other’s eyes, changed everything.

  This wasn’t some uncertain connection anymore.

  They’d involved their souls now, and there would be no turning back. There would be no undoing the bond Sam was building between them.

  “I love you,” she rushed out on a shaking breath.

  Moments of silence were a canyon between them, but at last he leaned down and kissed her lips gently, then her neck and her collarbone, then he brought her hand to his lips and pressed another kiss there.

  “I feel when I’m around you.”

  And she wanted to cry. She hugged him up tight and watched the ceiling fan above them spin slowly. He didn’t understand what love was. He felt it, but he didn’t understand it.

  I love you.

  I feel when I’m around you.

  For her and Sam, that was the same thing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Day sixteen: Sam slept in my bed for two hours and thirteen minutes before he made a bed on the porch swing. I told him I love him, and he feels the same. I think that man is my future, and you know me, Dad. I’m a realist. I know what he is and isn’t. But I also know he’s more than enough for me.

  “Day Seventeen of Sam and Chaos’s rehabilitation: Sam slept in the bed four hours and two minutes before he went to his porch swing bed. Chaos is comfortable in a saddle, and Sam was able to lay across him this morning and keep his weight there for a while before Chaos had enough and bucked him off. The boys are doing good.

  “Day Eighteen: I had a girls’ night with Maris, Sadey, and Summer last night. It was so freaking fun. Remember when you used to tell me I needed more girlfriends? Because the boys I hung out with were too wild and got me in too much trouble? Well, you would feel that way about these girls.”

  Cassidy laughed at the memories of Sadey and Maris daring her to dance on the bar to the song “I Should’ve Been a Cowboy” playing on the jukebox.

  “They’re wilder than my guy friends ever were. We saw Brody in the bar. He was drunk, as always. He called me a C-U-N-T. I spelled it because I know you always hated that word. He didn’t mean it. Not really. He just turns mean when he’s drinking, and he’s always drinking, so…” She sighed. “Dad, I don’t know what to do about that one, and I wish you were here to help me manage him. Sam says he has plans for Brody, but I’m pretty sure he’ll just kidnap him and lock him in the barn for a few weeks and insult the shit out of Brody while he sobers up. Which, actually might not be a bad idea. I’ll let you know how that all pans out. Now, back to the happy stuff. The girls were nice about Brody making that scene and took me to the other side of the bar, and we just had fun. No guys, just us cutting up, getting to know each other, singing along with the songs…badly. The boys crashed our girls’ night, though. Wes blamed it on Sam. He said he was itching to come check and see if we were okay, but I think it was Wes. He was making out with his mate, Summer, for like an hour after that. It’s still weird to call them mates! Not wives or girlfriends. I’m learning the werewolf lingo. Look at me adapting. I think I’m Sam’s mate. Or he’s mine. Or both. Anyhoo, the night was even more fun with the guys there. Sam danced with me. He’s really good. I think it’s so hot when a man can dance. You and Mom used to dance all the time, I remember. You were always cutting a rug in the kitchen when a good song came on. Sam dances with me like that. He said he didn’t know where he learned. Wes tried to convince him their mom put him in ballet lessons when he was a kid, but Hunter said Wes is full of bullshit.

  “Sam slept five hours in bed with me and got up and made breakfast.
No sleeping outside. He said that was the first time in almost four years. I’m so damn proud of him, Dad. I know if you were here and you knew him, you would be proud, too.

  “Oh, and Chaos let me sit on him today. Just sit. He got mad if I tried to nudge him forward. Stubborn little soul, but progress is progress. I’ll have Sam up in that saddle in no time.

  “The Chevelle is almost done. I went and sat in it the other day, and you know what Sam had done? He took your picture out of the frame in the guest bedroom and put it in the visor with the spare set of keys. He didn’t even tell me. I just found it when I flipped the visor down to keep the sun out of my eyes. He’s really special. I wish you were here.” He smiled and dumped the thermos of coffee. “I’m happy, Dad.”

  The throaty rumble of a car sounded from the front of the cemetery, and a smile commandeered her face before she even turned around. She recognized the sound of that engine. Sam had started the Chevelle a few days ago before he took it in for paint.

  “I think Sam has a surprise for you,” she whispered.

  The camp chair fell backward as she stood in a rush, just in time to see her dad’s matte black Chevelle ripping down the straightaway road, leaving tire skids and smoke behind it. The car was so loud, so fast.

  Sam was behind the wheel. Her Sam. He’d done this for her to honor her dad.

  He braked hard and skidded to the side, rocked to a stop near Dad’s grave marker. She was already crying like a baby when she reached him, and he got out and hugged her up.

  Cassidy wrapped her legs around him and held onto him so tight.

  “Figured your old man would like some tire marks from his car near his grave.”

  “It’s perfect. He’s probably looking down on us cheering and shot-gunning beers with all his friends. Oh my God!” she exclaimed, crawling down so she could circle the car. It looked amazing. Like those model cars in the classic car magazines or on a showroom floor. Sam popped the hood so she could see inside. Now, she didn’t know a carburetor from an oil pan, but it sure looked impressive to her.