Arielle and the Three Wolves (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (21 page)

“Hurry.”

She got off the bed. As she walked across the bedroom, she felt his stare follow her. She was still disoriented from sleep and could feel only aggravation. He didn’t leave her alone or give her any privacy. There was no way she would dress in front of him. That was a show he didn’t need to see. A pair of shorts lay on top of her dresser, and she picked them up and stepped into them. She went back to the bed, sat down next to Luke, and picked up her sneakers off the floor. All the time Luke would not take his eyes off her. She didn’t wear socks, but put her sneakers on anyway. As she bent to tie them she gave Luke a look that should have told him she was unhappy.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re taking me into the forest?”

“You’re very beautiful when you’re upset like this,” he said, and brushed some of her hair back across her brow. His stare penetrated her to her soul.

“Do you want to upset me?” she asked.

“You’re even a little frightened of me,” he said but didn’t seem disturbed by this.

“A little,” she admitted. “I don’t think this is a very good way for us to get to know each other.”

He didn’t answer her. As soon as her last shoelace was tied, he pulled her up by her hand and led her to the window.

“You came in through the window?” she asked in surprise. Now she knew something was up. “Luke, you’re starting to freak me out here. Tell me what’s going on.”

He climbed onto the ladder outside her window and beckoned her to follow after him. She hesitated. She didn’t like heights. He held out his hand for her. “Come on,” he told her. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall. Trust me.”

She closed her eyes and took his hand. She let him guide her out the window and onto a rung of the ladder above him. They slowly climbed down the ladder. She was glad when she finally made it onto solid ground. As soon as the night wind hit her, she realized she had made a mistake when she chose her shorts to wear. It was too cool for them. She held herself and tried to rub some heat into her body.

“This is such a bad idea, Luke,” she told him. He took her by the hand and led her across the front yard. They headed away from the circle drive and toward the stable.

“If you keep your body in motion you won’t be cold anymore,” he said.

“Hey, Luke, if you want you and me to get to know each other better, why don’t we just talk tomorrow?” she asked him. “We could talk over breakfast. You could take me for a walk out on the range.”

They had arrived at the stable. There were two horses saddled inside. “You like horses, don’t you?” he asked, but seemed to already know the answer.

“I love horses,” she told him.

“You know how to ride?”

“Yes.”

He motioned for her to mount her horse. She didn’t move, only stared at him in frustration. The lonely cry of an animal sounded loud from off the range. Arielle jumped and turned around at the sound. “What’s that?” she asked.

“That’s Kyle,” Luke explained. “He’s out on the range tonight.”

Arielle ran her hands through her hair. This whole situation was messed up. These men were fantastic, but they were so strange she could never live with them. The shifter part of their lives was hard to accept. And not only that, but it was hard to understand. They were so different from anyone else she had ever known. She knew that was part of the attraction, but it had also brought her to a bad point. It was the middle of the night. One of them had just kidnapped her. Another one had become a wolf and roamed the prairie, and still another was in the hospital with a broken leg that she had given him. She had reached the point where it had all become enough. Also, she was cold and sleepy, and that didn’t make her feel any better.

“Are you going to come with me?” he asked her.

She put her face in her hands then looked back up at him. “I don’t want to.”

He came back to her and put his arms on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

She shrugged. “All right,” she said and gave up. “I’ve already come this far. I might as well go the rest of the way. But do you have a jacket or something else for me to put on? It really is chilly out tonight.”

He lifted his arms over his head and removed his T-shirt. He handed it to her. “This should keep you warm,” he said.

She swallowed hard. He stood so close to her. Suddenly he had made her feel like a spoiled child. All of a sudden she didn’t feel very smart. She wasn’t for sure if it was because she had put up a fuss over Luke’s actions, or if it was because she had agreed to come with him. Whichever it was she knew she didn’t feel very bright in this situation.

“What about you?” she asked him. “Won’t you be cold?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “The temperature’s in the sixties, Arielle. It takes a lot more than this to make me cold.”

She put on his T-shirt. It was way too big for her and fell to her knees. The moment she had it over her head, she could smell Luke in the fabric of the material. His smell was raw and earthy. It was a smell she liked. She rubbed some sleep from her eyes and decided to get with the spirit of things.

“So we’re going for a midnight horseback ride?” she asked Luke, as she approached her horse.

Luke jumped up into the saddle of his horse and looked down at her. He gave her a laugh and motioned for her to mount up next to him. “We are going for a ride unless you keep acting like a little bitch,” he told her, and gave her a wink.

Arielle put a hand over her mouth to try and hide her smile. It had been a while since she had ridden, but knew it would all come back to her. She put her foot in the stirrup and hiked her leg over her mount.

“Okay, I promise not to be a bitch anymore,” she told him. “But only if you promise not to act like a psycho werewolf.”

He put his Stetson on and gave her a tip of the hat. Mounted on top of his horse with the cowboy hat on, his boots and tight jeans, and no shirt, bathed in moonlight, he really was a sight for sore eyes. The wicked part of Arielle wanted to eat him up right there inside the stable.

“I might be a psycho, but I’m no werewolf,” he told her. “I’m a shape-shifter. Follow me.” He gave his horse a pat and trotted out of the stable. Arielle got her horse to move and left the building right behind him.

They took the prairie range at a brisk pace. The night was lit by the moon, and it was easy to see. Luke was sure and knew exactly where he led them. When they got to the end of the prairie land, they entered a canyon that ran between two small mountains. Again Luke knew right where he went and the dark was no problem for him. Arielle wondered if he could see in the dark through his shifter eyes. At the end of the canyon Luke found a trail, and this led them into a dense forest.

Arielle was not cold anymore. The horseback ride exhilarated her. The night became warm and pleasant, and she enjoyed Luke’s shirt over her body. She also enjoyed his shirtless form on the back of his horse. He led them, and she got to watch him from behind as they rode.

He didn’t speak, and there was no need for speech. She didn’t say any more either. She knew it was wise to just keep quiet and enjoy the beauty of the mountains at night. Few people had a chance to get this close to nature. Arielle felt lucky. This midnight ride made an impression on her, and she doubted she would ever forget it. Someday when she was an old woman, she would look back on this night and smile to think that it was she who rode across the land on this horse in the moonlight.

Arielle lost track of the time, but knew they had ridden for hours. Time didn’t matter to her any longer. She wanted to see where Luke led her.

They had climbed the back of a steep hill and attained its summit when Luke finally brought them to a halt. He dismounted and helped Arielle down from her horse.

“We’re not going back to the ranch, are we?” Arielle asked him. “I didn’t bring anything with me,” she complained to him.

“I packed a couple of bags. Everything we need is in them.”

“But I don’t have any clothes to wear.”

“Then don’t wear any clothes. It’s just you and me up here. No one’s going to see us. After I shift I don’t wear any clothes either.”

“No, thanks. I’ll leave my clothes on.”

He took her hand and led her forward. “We’re going to stop and rest now, but there’s something I wanted you to see first.”

The sun had just risen behind them. From their position on the top of the rise they got a good view. The morning birds in the forest around them had started to sing. The moon had gone down, but now everything was bathed in the first rays of the new sun. Around them the forest was still and peaceful.

“I like this,” he told her in a quiet voice.

“Yeah, I like it, too,” she admitted.

“Are you glad you came with me?”

“I’m not for sure yet.” However she had to admit to herself that this was a good time, but she didn’t think she would tell him just yet.

She knew Luke had taken her out here for a long trip. They wouldn’t be back at the ranch anytime soon. She processed the information through her brain and realized she was okay with that. But Luke had no doubt brought her out here to have a heart-to-heart about the two of them as mates. She wasn’t so sure if that was all right. It would just be the two of them now, and he wouldn’t make this easy for her. She had already had sex with both of his brothers, and nothing would be easy with a guy as cute as Luke Wildback.

“This isn’t very much for breakfast,” Arielle said as Luke handed her a single breakfast bar.

“It’s nutritious.”

“When I was in college I used to go camping with my friends in the summer. We would catch fish for breakfast. Is there a creek nearby?”

“About a mile from the bottom of this hill is a pond. There aren’t any fish in there, but the stream that feeds it is full of them.”

Arielle stuck her breakfast bar in her mouth and got up from her seated position on the ground. “All right, I’m going fishing then.”

“Let me finish setting up camp, and I’ll come with you.”

She sat back down. She leaned her back against a fallen log. She had to keep her knees folded in the air because she wore shorts and the bugs on the ground had a good time with her bare skin. Luke made camp for them. He had announced that this clearing at the top of the hill was where they would stay. Arielle watched him. His butt was cute when he moved.

“You need some help with that?” she called to him.

“I brought two tents. If you want to set yours up, we can get to the fish faster.”

She climbed back up off the ground and dusted herself off. Somehow she felt like a naughty schoolgirl. She and Luke had run away together. She had done a lot of crazy things over the past two weeks, but this adventure probably took first place. However, she realized a sense of freedom had taken root in her. There was no TV out here, no Internet, and no phones. Most importantly no people. Luke had been right when he said they could run around naked if they wanted. Not that she planned to take him up on the offer. Still the isolation and the wide open of the forest provided an adrenaline rush that was probably better than drugs.

Luke told her the other tent was in one of the bags they had brought up with the horses. He had unburdened the horses of them, and they were now on the ground next to where the horses were tethered. She brought the tent out of the bag and took it across the clearing to where Luke set up the first one.

She began to remove the tent from the cellophane it was wrapped in. It weighed less than five pounds, but when she began to expand it there was a lot more of it than what first appeared. Some of it flopped down onto the ground, and it confused her as to which end she should work on first. She felt useless and stupid as she stood there ineffectively and fumbled around. God, get a grip, girl, she told herself. After all, she could perform an eye operation on a cat. The setup of this taffeta tent should be a snap.

Luke had already set his up and moved around the camp ground to gather loose wood, probably for a campfire later on. He gave her a puzzled look at her predicament. “I thought you watched me set mine up.”

No. I just watched your ass, she wanted to shout back at him. “I did watch you, but I’m all thumbs today. Sorry,” she said to him instead.

“Here, let me.” He threw aside the wood and came over to help her. She was grateful to surrender the job to him, but stayed at his side and watched what he did. However with all that had happened, her mind was working on too many other burners right now to take notes on proper tent preparation. She would leave that challenge for another time.

She arched an eyebrow at Luke when she realized what was out of place with this campsite of theirs. Two tents? He didn’t intend for them to sleep together. The outside of each tent package noted they were two-person tents. She wondered what went on inside that complicated shifter head of his. Last night he had been bold enough to kidnap her, and this morning he set up individual sleeping compartments for them, spaced away from one another at an appropriate interval. She wondered who she was up here camping with, a cowboy abductor, or Mr. Manners.

She thought about a word with him on the two tents and the reason for it since they were supposed to be mates, or at least that was the idea the men had for the future. Then she decided not to push her luck and leave things well enough alone.