Cowboy in Wolf's Clothing Read online

  “Did you see his face?” Belle asked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Oh, I would have given anything to see the horror there.” Another fresh round of giggles shook her.

  Colt let out another chuckle. “It won’t kill him. Walking in on your packmates is practically par for the course in pack life, so he better get used to it, particularly if a lot of them are mated.”

  At that word, a stiff sort of silence fell between them, cutting their laughter short. The mention of mates made his heart hurt as it never had before. He’d never had a woman in his life he’d wanted to consider as a mate, but when he thought of that possibility with Belle…

  Well…it made life feel really fucking unfair.

  But Colt wasn’t ready for their night together to end. Not yet.

  “Let’s take this upstairs,” he suggested, “before anyone else hears us.”

  “I think the whole cabin likely heard the noises you were making,” she teased.

  Colt shrugged. “Serves them right for all the times I’ve had to hear them.”

  Pulling their clothes back into place, they made their way up to Colt’s bedroom, where they made love long into the early morning hours, long past when they should have. When they were both finally spent, they heard the sounds of some of his men moving around downstairs, preparing breakfast. The scent of bacon and eggs wafted up the staircase. But they stayed hidden away, nestled in the comfort of the blankets and sheets.

  Colt rested his head against the pillow, tucking Belle against the length of his body. She grinned. “I thought you didn’t do cuddling.”

  “I don’t. Not usually,” he said as his eyes caught hers. “Only with you.”

  Their time was quickly coming to an end, but he wanted to prolong this moment as much as possible.

  “So I’m not used to this cuddling-after-sex thing. What do people do?” he asked, casting a glance toward her.

  Belle shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes you just lie there. Other times you talk, make conversation about pretty much anything, sometimes the sorts of stuff you wouldn’t talk about otherwise. You know, intimacy, secrets. Often the man falls asleep.” At that last bit, she frowned.

  She stroked her fingers lazily over his chest, tracing a handful of scars there. One he’d gotten from a battle with a Rogue cougar when they’d been helping another shifter pack with an issue they’d been having.

  “Tell me about your childhood,” he whispered.

  She raised a brow. “Why?”

  “Well, I have no intention of closing my eyes and falling asleep. Not when I could be enjoying you instead,” he said. “So if that leaves conversation, why not start with the early years.”

  She smiled. “I grew up on a ranch in Florida with my mother, simple as that. My father wasn’t in the picture, so my mom was my everything. She was an amazing mother, loving and caring, but firm when she needed to be.”

  “Like someone else I know,” he said.

  Belle grinned.

  “And your mother? She was a Rogue, too?” he asked.

  Belle shook her head. “By choice, yes, but by birth, no. She was a pack wolf, but she…she didn’t like to talk about it. She’d run away from her pack when she was still young. I’d always hoped that some day she’d tell me who they were, but she never did, and now she’s gone.” She released a long sigh. “Well, the way she told it, I wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of that life anyway.”

  He nodded. “That happens sometimes. Even to the Greys themselves.”

  She quirked a brow. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Maverick had an aunt, his father’s sister, who ran away from the pack and never looked back. To this day, nobody knows why. It was a whole big scandal when we were kids. Too young to really understand why she might have wanted to leave.”

  “That’s a shame.” Belle rested her head on his shoulder.

  A beat of silence passed. Someone was laughing downstairs in the kitchen.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Tell me about your mother. What was she like?”

  Colt stiffened. The thought of his mother was still a pain so fresh, he struggled to speak about it. In part because he’d never truly worked through the grief. He’d had to shove it down deep inside himself so he could be the Grey Wolf he really wasn’t.

  He cleared his throat. “My mother was a Rogue by birth, and she wasn’t the kind of parent you could describe as amazing. She was a mess, to be honest. So wrapped up in Nolan, she couldn’t see straight. It messed with her head. She didn’t always take care of me the way she should have, but I loved her. There’s a lot of guilt when I think of her because I…”

  His voice cut off. He didn’t know if he could say it. He’d never told anyone this. Not even James.

  “It’s all right.” Belle caressed the skin of his chest and arms. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “No,” he said, the word coming out more forcefully than he’d intended. “I want to tell you, Belle. I…I need to get this off my chest.” It was such a relief to have someone know who he was and care for him anyway. He wanted to share this with her, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Because he trusted her.

  “I told you Nolan killed my mother,” he said. “But what I didn’t tell you was that it was my fault.”

  “Colt…” She reached for him.

  He let her touch him, but even she couldn’t take this pain away. “Don’t try to tell me it isn’t my fault, because it is.” He drew in a sharp breath. “My mother was Nolan’s mistress. He was married to Wes’s mom, and from my understanding, it made her real upset to think about another woman sleeping with her man, so Nolan and my mother only met in secret. I was five years old, and I’d never met the man. I knew who he was. I’d seen photos of him, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted to see him for myself.

  “So one night when my mother had fallen asleep after she’d gotten home from being with him. I snuck out. I retraced her steps. I may have been small at the time, but I had a whole plan, a system I’d been working on for months.”

  Belle’s hand flew to her mouth, but she didn’t dare make a sound. Already she could see where this was headed.

  “I snuck into the Wild Eight clubhouse, just to get a glimpse of him. I thought I was so stealthy and cool. Five years old and breaking in like I was some kind of bandit. Needless to say, I was discovered. Not just by Nolan, and the moment his wife saw me, she knew instantly who I was. I looked enough like him, even back then. I was so terrified that I ran. I managed to get out of there, but Nolan was so mad that his wife had discovered he’d not only still been sleeping with my mother, but had sired another son—a son who could someday try to thwart Wes’s rightful place as packmaster—that…he took that anger out on my mother.”

  Belle gasped, her eyes full of empathy. Colt swallowed the massive lump in his throat, unable to continue. She could fill in the details from there.

  “You can see why I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid anyone getting close to me. Even now, as a Grey Wolf, my position as commander puts anyone I care for in jeopardy, and after losing my mother, I can’t put myself in the position…”

  To let it happen again.

  Belle threw herself on him, wrapping him in her arms as if squeezing him as tight as she could would somehow heal those decades-old wounds. “I know you told me not to say this, Colt, but it wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. You were just a curious little boy who wanted to know his father. It was Nolan who was the monster. Not you.”

  If only he could bring himself to believe that. What she didn’t see was that he’d spent every day since becoming as much of a monster as Nolan had been. Sure, he was on the better side now, but he’d still spent his life waging war, fighting battles, killing his enemies without remorse, exactly like his sire before him. And how could he expect any woman to place herself
in the midst of that?

  They lay tangled in each other’s arms until, ironically, Belle was the one who finally fell asleep, tuckered out from their night together. Colt lay there for a long time, listening to the sounds of her steady breathing as she snuggled against him. Eventually, he forced himself to ease out of the bed, rising and putting on his clothes. After the results of last night, there would be plenty of work today, and he needed to find out if Blaze had managed to recover any of the leftover data.

  As he eased the door to his bedroom open and started to slip out into the hall, he glanced back over his shoulder. This woman—the only person on the planet who knew everything about him and accepted him, who cared for him anyway—was perhaps the closest thing he’d ever had to a true friend, even closer than his packmates. He cared for them, too, but it wasn’t the same. Not when they’d never known the truth.

  As he stood there, watching her, the voice of himself as a child rang as a distant memory in his head.

  I swear to you.

  He’d promised James that he’d never sully his family name by admitting he wasn’t a Grey Wolf, and he intended to keep that promise. But at the moment, it didn’t feel like that promise was saving him, protecting him as James had. It felt as if it were tearing him in two.

  Because if he’d known back then that swearing that promise to the man he now called his father would mean he’d have to choose between his pack and this woman, he would never have given his word.

  He would choose her over everything in an instant.

  Chapter 19

  Belle awoke midafternoon. As soon as she sat up, realized what time it was and that Colt was no longer beside her, her mind began to race. She needed to tell him. He’d asked her to wait until this morning, and now the time had come.

  As she dressed, her hands shook with nerves. Just as she was about to head to his office, the door to his room burst open.

  Belle jumped. “Maeve?”

  The Grey Wolf female glided into the room, not bothering to knock. Her sudden arrival at the Missoula ranch was a surprise.

  As if she could see right through her, Maeve’s jaw dropped in openmouthed glee. “I knew it! You slept with him.” Belle’s blush deepened, and Maeve’s hands flew to cover her mouth.

  “Shh,” Belle hushed her. “If you announce it any louder, every wolf in the cabin will hear you.”

  Maeve’s mischievous grin widened. “I can practically smell his scent on you. Every male on this ranch will already have a clue.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “Everyone has to know already.”

  The door behind Maeve pushed open, as if her weight against it was little consequence, which it likely was. The woman couldn’t weigh more than one hundred pounds soaking wet, despite the intensity of her hugs.

  Sierra eased through the crack in the door. “Don’t know what already?” she asked, clearly having overheard part of the conversation.

  Belle groaned.

  Maeve’s grin grew all the more wicked. “Elizabeth slept with your brother,” she announced. The use of her full name, as an intended alias, reminded Belle of what a tricky situation this was.

  Belle cringed. Better to rip it off like a Band-Aid, I suppose.

  “Oh, that,” Sierra said, her tone unimpressed, as if Maeve had just announced the sky was blue or the grass was green. “I knew it was only a matter of time as soon as he danced with her at the wedding. Colt was clearly taken with her, more than usual.” Sierra grinned in amusement.

  Maeve squealed. “My plan worked! I’m officially a matchmaker!”

  It was Belle’s turn for her jaw to drop. “You planned that horrible dress on purpose?” she gasped.

  Maeve clapped her hands excitedly. “It was partially Naomi’s idea, too.”

  As if that somehow made it better.

  Sierra was laughing, clearly mighty amused at this exchange.

  “You were in on it, too?” Belle asked.

  Sierra’s laughter stopped abruptly, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ew. No.”

  Maeve whipped out her cell phone. “I have to text Naomi. I can’t believe we were so right about the two of you. On my first matchmaking attempt, too. Even I’m impressed.”

  Belle frowned. “We had already slept together at that point.” She said the words without thinking.

  “What?” Maeve’s excitement dissipated.

  Sierra burst out laughing. “And the plot thickens.”

  Belle raised both hands to stop the other two women. “Before you two start further inquiries into my love life, what are you doing here?”

  Maeve leaned in to whisper to Sierra. “Did you notice she said ‘love life,’ not ‘sex life’?”

  As if Belle couldn’t hear her, standing two feet away, no less.

  “We’re here to take you back to Wolf Pack Run,” Sierra said.

  “What?” Belle gaped.

  “Didn’t you hear?” Sierra asked. “The guys broke into the vampires’ security system last night. The Seven Range Pact approved a counterstrike on the vampires an hour ago, which means whoever from the vampires was after you will be shaking in their boots. You’re free to go. Colt called us this morning and had us drive up here. You’ll need to come back to Wolf Pack Run and sign some more forms before you’re fully released from official protection, but then…”

  “I’ll be free,” Belle finished Sierra’s sentence.

  Colt had done it. He’d kept his promise. She’d confessed everything to him, and still he’d let her go, forgiven her, trusted her. And for the first time in years, she was fully and totally free. Free from the Wild Eight. Free from the darkness of her past, free from Wyatt, and free from…

  Her heart sank.

  Free from him…

  Oh, Colt.

  No, no. That was never what she’d wanted. Just as she’d begun to hope that maybe…

  Her hand fell to her stomach as bile rose up in her throat. Belle dove for the nearby trash can. She retched the empty contents of her stomach into the bin. Sierra rushed to her side, holding back Belle’s curls.

  “I’ll get a cold washcloth,” Maeve called as she ran to retrieve it.

  A few minutes later, when the wave of nausea and anxiety had subsided, Belle tried to stand, but Sierra lifted her, easing her onto the bedside and supporting her weight as if she weighed little at all. She’d known the other she-wolf was pure muscle, but her strength was really impressive. Maeve returned a moment later and laid the cool, damp cloth across Belle’s forehead.

  “Are you okay?” Sierra asked.

  Maeve placed a hand on Belle’s in concern. “Do you need anything?”

  Belle was so grateful to the two women that she couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed at their meddling. Without a doubt, she knew there would never be a time in which she wouldn’t call these two her friends.

  Friends. The word echoed in her mind.

  Belle sat up. Her friends gripped her to offer support, but her bout of nausea had quickly dissipated. It had been a fierce reminder that she and Colt were long overdue for a chat.

  “I need to talk to him.” She moved to stand.

  “Don’t you think you should rest after—?” Maeve started to ask, but Sierra shook her head.

  “No, let her go. She can handle this.” Sierra stood, pulling Belle into a gentle but fierce hug before she whispered, “Go give my idiot brother hell.”

  * * *

  Belle found Colt in his temporary office inside the cabin. He didn’t turn toward her when she entered. He was standing over his desk, his hands on the polished wood and his back toward her as he stared down at a stack of papers. She watched as his shoulders shifted and tensed, each movement highlighting the sinew and muscle that lay beneath his shirt.

  She closed the door behind her. When the latch clicked shut, Colt turned toward her. She was alr
eady shaking her head at him.

  He frowned. “I see Sierra and Maeve told you the news.”

  “They did.” She nodded. “I was surprised you didn’t deliver it yourself.”

  He cast the papers in his hand onto the desk. “It seemed like it would be easier if I didn’t.”

  “Easier? For you or for me?”

  Colt watched her for a long beat before making a show of scanning over his paperwork. She wasn’t sure whether he was trying to brush her off or struggling with what to say.

  “Blaze managed to recover some of the data,” he said, changing the topic. “There was more than enough evidence of Lucas’s plan to synthesize an injection that would allow vampires to consume werewolf blood—recorded data, charts. You were right. They gain power from it, and the purer the blood, the better. Though that still doesn’t explain what they wanted me for.”

  He inhaled sharply. “I forwarded all of it to Maverick this morning. If we don’t address this, the fate of the species could be at stake. I’ve already started planning.”

  He paused. “We’ve both known all along it would end like this. It’s always been temporary. We knew that from the start.”

  She sighed. “That doesn’t mean I want it to be.”

  The muscles in his shoulders tensed again. He slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned against the desk. “I know.”

  Belle wrung her hands together. She had his attention now. It was now or never. “There’s…there’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you from the start.” Sweat gathered on her palms, and she had to work to keep herself from shaking. “When I came back to Wolf Pack Run, I didn’t come to help you win over the Seven Range Pact. I didn’t plan to help you,” she admitted.

  Colt’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand…”

  “Well, I did want to help you,” she amended. Oh man, she was already royally messing this up. “But the help was secondary. The real reason I came is because I…I wanted to tell you…” She inhaled a deep breath. Anxiety gripped her like a vice. “Colt, I’m pregnant.”