Quickdraw Slow Burn Read online

  And that brave little wolf did something he wasn’t prepared for. Her pretty blue eyes rimmed with tears. “He scared me a little.”

  Quickdraw sighed and gripped the back of her neck, pulled her close and rested his forehead on hers. He had a very strong feeling that Annabelle was used to being tough. That she didn’t allow herself to be vulnerable like this often. “That scared me, too. I don’t want you that far away anymore. How long does it take you to change into your wolf? If you have to protect yourself?”

  Annabelle tensed in his grip, and Quickdraw eased back. “How long does it usually take if you aren’t under stress?”

  “If I’m not under stress?” Her tone sounded so off right now. “Thirty seconds. Twenty if I push it.”

  “Good.”

  Her phone rang, and Hunter Kaid’s name flashed across the screen.

  “Hello?” she answered. “You’re on speaker phone with me and Quickdraw.”

  “Okay, good.” Hunter’s voice came through the speaker loud and clear. “Where is the rest of your herd?”

  “Um, in their RVs.”

  “Go get them and bring them all in for this call. Call me back. I learned you should lean on your pack. Annabelle, you ain’t got a pack, but you got a herd, and that’s the same damn thing. You and Quickdraw want to do this alone, but it ain’t that simple. Bring in your people and give me a call back, okay?”

  Annabelle swallowed hard and looked up at Quickdraw with wide eyes.

  “Okay, we’ll call you back in five,” Quickdraw said into the phone.

  He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and put a simple text into the herd loop. I need y’all.

  A knock sounded at the door three seconds later, and when he opened it up, Dead was standing there, breathing heavy like he’d run here. Of course. He’d probably been waiting on pins in needles for the last week for Quickdraw to need something. He was so damn annoying. So, really, he liked that he could depend on Dead’s weirdness but, outwardly, he would only ever tell him, “You’re annoying.”

  “Do you need me to buy you a drink or share my skittles, or are you wanting a different color of friendship bracelet, or—?”

  “Shut up, or I’ll kill you. We’re having a herd meeting.”

  “Herd meeting!” Dead screeched out into the great beyond.

  Quickdraw hunched his shoulders at the awful sound.

  Two Shots, Cheyenne, and Raven came sprinting up to the RV. Sprinting.

  “What happened?” Cheyenne asked.

  “You said something mushy in the group text!” Raven exclaimed. “There was no middle finger emoji! Something is wrong!”

  “I’m here for the beer,” Two Shots grumbled, stepping inside past him.

  Quickdraw took the seat on the couch by Annabelle to comfort her. Nah, fuck that, he was selfish by nature. He needed to comfort himself with her touch, just as much as comfort her.

  “We’re hunting the people who have been poisoning the bulls with Filsa,” Annabelle said softly and then connected the call to Hunter.

  While it rang the two times, the others settled around the RV in chairs, on the counter, on the floor.

  Hunter picked up, “Is everyone there?”

  “Yes,” Annabelle told him. “You’re on speakerphone with the entire herd.” She gestured to the phone. “Hunter Kaid is helping us out.”

  The herd greeted him and settled down, questioning glances being tossed around the room.

  “I saw the video. I watched it eight times. Quickdraw, I know you want to kill him right now, but wait. Okay? Please wait. Show the herd that video after we get off the phone so they understand the threat, all right? I don’t think he’s a big cat, but he moves like one. He’s dangerous, but he’s just one piece of the chessboard and, trust me, the people who are sabotaging the PBSRC are playing chess, not checkers. If I had to guess, I think this has been in the works for a while, and they’re just ramping up for the finale. I ran the product numbers on the camera equipment you sent me. The stand is stolen as well as the battery pack, but the camera itself was purchased online from a store called Media Addict, and I used my hacker fingers to find out the credit card information. I don’t give a shit about the number, just the name on the card. Melvin A Turner. Now, I ran the video you sent me through facial recognition software stuff and got a name for that creepy asshole hunting Annabelle. His name is Arrow Caster. His name badge was a front; his name isn’t Dante at all. He’s an unregistered shifter, and I can’t for the life of me track down any family relations, so he either changed his name to Arrow or he’s a lone shifter. Rogue, maybe. Anyway, I dug for hours looking for anything that would link Melvin Turner to Arrow Caster, and the only thing I found was a receipt at a restaurant a month ago, right around the time the bulls were poisoned with Filsa. They ate dinner together at a little hole in the wall burger joint near the venue where the poisonings happened. They each paid for their own food, but there was a third party with them. A Trevor Watkins paid with a credit card, steak finger basket, add extra Ranch. That part’s not important. I just really love Ranch. Anyway, I started researching him, pulled up financial records, address, family, you know…the first step, but didn’t find anything strange. Not until I pulled the W2s from his job. His tax records say he’s self-employed by a company called Trusted. That’s it. Just Trusted. But if a company is LLCed, it should have a website. This Trusted LLC didn’t have a detailed one, so there was a red flag right there.”

  “Tell him about the website you did find!” said another male voice in the background.

  “Shut up, Wes! I’m just getting to the good part! So the only website I did track down was this simple page with one sentence typed across it: In the business of handling your business. Underneath that line was a single contact link. So…I hacked the contact link—”

  “He hacked the motherfuckin’ contact link!” Wes crowed in the background.

  “And there were a bunch of contacts, but one stood out. A Sloan Brander had contacted the site about two weeks before the Filsa poisonings, and in the email, it stated, and I quote—”

  “Because he’s reading the actual email!” Wes called out.

  “Because I’m reading the actual email,” Hunter said excitedly. “‘To whom it may concern, my associates and I have a problem, and not of the human kind. Our company has been longstanding for three generations but is now being threatened by shifters. I’ve heard of your work against them and you have my interest. We are at the make-it or break-it point. I’ve been told of your fee, and that is not a problem for me and my backers. I need an entire organization to go down, and it all rides on a specific set of shifters’ shoulders. Very strong shoulders. Whatever means necessary is fine.’ Then he gave his contact information. And do you know what I found out from that contact information?”

  “What?” Quickdraw asked, waiting on the edge of the couch.

  “Sloan Brander is the head stock contractor for the bull riding circuit that doesn’t include shifters. He is the top breeder of non-supe bucking bulls in the world.”

  “Holy shit,” Dead whispered.

  “So, he’s making a run at eliminating our entire circuit to feed money back into non-shifter bull riding?” Quickdraw asked.

  “Probably to feed it directly back into his pockets,” Hunter murmured. “Far as I can tell, the attention is all on you right now. Their ratings and ticket sales have tanked, their bull riders are demanding the same pay as the riders in your circuit, and the stock contractors have started asking for the same winnings as the top three bulls in your circuit are now earning. That circuit can’t maintain with the financial constraints your circuit is putting on them. So…”

  “They’re gonna fuckin’ kill you!” Wes crowed in the background. He cleared his throat. “Not that that’s a good thing, but my brother is smart. I told people he’s smart. He figured out all this shit with a creepy video and some dumb numbers off a camera, so now nobody’s allowed to make fun of him for being dumb except
for me. Because I’m his brother, and it’s my right.”

  Mind racing, Quickdraw cracked his knuckles and shook his head. Beside him, Annabelle looked rattled, so he pulled her against his side and kissed the top of her head. The tension in her body faded away, and that right there made him feel more powerful than bucking off any cowboy.

  It wasn’t fair on her. She’d been pulled into a fight that wasn’t her own. She was supposed to have come here to have a relaxing time, have fun, and see what this life was all about.

  But then…

  Maybe this was a good introduction. There was always something coming at him. That’s the way it was when you were successful. You were surrounded by two categories of people—those who cheered on your success and those who prayed for your downfall. And Annabelle was getting a front row seat for those who were not only praying, but paying, for their downfall.

  He’d known exactly what Hunter was getting at. That website was a contact site for those who needed an assassination. And Trusted, run by Trevor Watkins, was an assassin site.

  “Maybe you should go back home until this is all over,” he murmured to Annabelle, massaging her lower back.

  “You want me to leave?”

  “No. I want you here with me so I can look up in those stands after I buck and see you and know everything is good. But I don’t want you hurt. God, I don’t want you hurt, Annabelle.”

  “Awwwww!” Dead cried.

  “Shut up!” Quickdraw and Two Shots said at the same time.

  “I’m not leaving.” Annabelle’s tone was full of steel and fire. “If you want me in the stands after your big buck, I’m going to be there.”

  Shocked, he jerked his attention to her and asked, “Are you sure?”

  Annabelle jammed her finger at the door. “Those people trying to hurt your circuit aren’t important. They aren’t the meat of your story, Quickdraw. They’re just noise. You…” she murmured, pressing her finger against his chest. “You’re the story.”

  She didn’t understand.

  Annabelle didn’t see it.

  Now? His story was bigger with her by his side.

  Chapter Ten

  Quickdraw gave a two-fingered wave to Cheyenne as she stepped out of his RV, and when he shut the door, exhaled an explosive sigh that tapered into a low rumbling sound she’d never heard him make before.

  When he turned to Annabelle, his eyes had darkened to the color of the night sky. He looked even bigger here, even more dangerous, but not to her. Never to her. The wolf inside of her wasn’t afraid of Quickdraw. She felt safe with him.

  “I’m not good at this,” he murmured low.

  She sank onto the couch and patted the cushion next to her. He came to sit beside her, but tension wafted from him in waves and made it hard to draw a breath. Annabelle could fix it. She knew she could. “What aren’t you good at?” she asked as she ran a gentle scratch down the length of his spine.

  Quickdraw inhaled, his nostrils flaring slightly, and then rolled his eyes closed. “I’m not good at not fixing this. I’m not good at having you threatened and letting Arrow have time to plan. I’m not good at waiting.”

  In one smooth motion, he swept her into his arms and pulled her into his lap, then rested his forehead against her cheek. “Say yes.”

  “To what?”

  “My proposition.”

  “Friends with benefits who will never be more?”

  “Call it whatever you want.”

  “Tether myself to you and your fear of commitment?”

  “See, that’s the thing about fear, Annabelle. Fears grow or they change.” He lifted his chin higher. “And sometimes fears disappear completely.”

  She slipped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight, rested her chin on his muscular shoulder. “I was with a man who dangled that temptation in front of me for years. And after a while, I accepted I would never be important enough to him. I want to be important.”

  “You will be queen.”

  “You know what I mean. I would want to be important to you.”

  “You would want a title, you mean?”

  She nodded.

  “What titles?” he asked softly, rubbing her back.

  “I want to call a man mine.”

  “You can call me yours.”

  She eased back to search his dark eyes, just to make sure he wasn’t teasing her.

  “My wolf will want to claim a mate someday. She’s loyal. She has wants. She’s always, always searched for someone. She doesn’t like being a lone wolf. She wants to be a mother. She wants to build a family.”

  “I can be her family.”

  She hadn’t missed it, though. He hadn’t made the empty promise of telling her she would be a mother someday. Not with him.

  “Can you be patient with me?” he asked. “Can you give me time to catch up?”

  “I can do patient.” She offered him a grin. “But if you think I’m wasting the rest of my good booby years on you, you’re wrong.”

  He chuckled and leaned forward, pecked her on the lips, then eased back with the devil’s smile on his lips. “If you think I’m sharing your good booby years with anyone else, you’re dead wrong too. You haven’t figured out what you’ve done to me yet, but someday you will.”

  “What have I done?” she asked.

  The smile faded from his lips, and his eyes grew so serious. “You’ve bewitched me.”

  “I’m not a witch. I’m a wolf,” she joked. “I’ve bewolfed you.”

  “Ha. And she tells lame jokes,” Quickdraw quipped. “I’ve hit the jackpot.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “We should hunt them down, and kill them all.” The wolf inside of Annabelle was roiling with a growing anger she couldn’t control. She wasn’t frozen inside of her anymore. The wolf was restless now.

  Annabelle felt more normal than she had in the last month, but one thing remained—her too-bright eyes.

  She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Cheeks pink from the slow simmering rage that hummed just beneath her skin. Blue eyes that were damn-near glowing. A snarl on her lips that she couldn’t relax away. Her face twisted into a feral expression.

  The first round of bucking was scheduled for tomorrow night. One more tiny day. Arrow would take his first shot tomorrow—Arrow and whoever else was in on the plans to derail the circuit. Hunter thought they would do something on TV while the cameras were rolling. He thought they would seek maximum attention.

  Annabelle wanted to kill them all.

  If something happened to Quickdraw… No, don’t think like that.

  Or Raven, Two Shots, Dead, Cheyenne…

  If something happened to them…

  Annabelle swallowed hard and dragged her glare off her reflection in the tiny RV bathroom mirror. She washed her hands and picked up the box Cheyenne had given her. She’d taken the two pregnancy tests inside of it that now sat on the counter. One more minute. She read the directions on the packaging again and chewed the corner of her thumbnail.

  No matter what, everything would be all right.

  If she was pregnant, the focus of her life would change, but maybe she was ready for that. Maybe she was ready to be a mom. To have a little sidekick no matter what life threw at her. She could do that. She had her resume out to a dozen places, and she could set up a crib in her little studio apartment and research bottles and diapers and baby food and stuff. Just… take the next nine months to redirect her life into something more meaningful.

  Something more meaningful.

  She glanced at the tests, but they hadn’t given a result yet.

  Or…the test could be negative, and it would mean her wolf was just yearning for a baby again. She’d pouted every time Annabelle had taken birth control during her relationship with Matthew, wishing for a little pup to nurture. But Annabelle wasn’t ever trying for a baby with him. He would’ve been a terrible dad. A terrible partner. He would’ve resented her and made her feel bad and, someday, he would
’ve made the child feel bad for existing, too. That’s what Matthew had been good at.

  Until he’d matured and wanted to commit to her, she hadn’t wanted to bring a baby into their lives, and Matthew had never matured. He’d only wasted her time. And then one spontaneous night had occurred with Quickdraw, and now she was here.

  If the test was negative, it was okay. Her life would meander on just like it always had. Find a job, work the job, sleep, eat, see Raven as much as she could, and maybe build something big with Quickdraw. She couldn’t do that is she was pregnant. He didn’t want children. He wouldn’t want to build with her.

  She’d chewed her thumbnail to the quick.

  It would be great if she wasn’t pregnant. Right? Yes.

  But a little Quickdraw would be cute. A little brute of a boy with dark eyes and a protective streak like his daddy. Little baby wranglers on his little baby butt and cowboy boots from the time he could walk. Cowboy boots? She was already shopping for cowboy boots. Her—Annabelle Faulk—who had never worn cowboy boots in her life.

  She looked down at the test, but the indicator only had one line. Not pregnant.

  She dropped if fast and staggered back a few steps, stood there, her shoulders heaving with her breath.

  Not pregnant, so no baby wranglers. No little sidekick. No mothering.

  Annabelle was shocked at the depth of disappointment she felt.

  Had she wrapped her head around a pregnancy that much? That she would feel this…this…emptiness without it?

  The wolf was quiet. Too quiet. She wasn’t howling or pitching a fit or forcing a change. She was just watching and waiting, almost smug.

  Annabelle narrowed her glowing blue eyes at her reflection in the mirror and approached the sink again. She picked up the first test and studied the results window. Was that a faint second line? So faint.