Come Moonrise (13 page)

"Step away from the door, little bit."

His superior hearing could discern no
movement on the other side of the door, but then there was a bump
and sliding sound.

She was sitting against the door on the
floor.

Now, what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t
knock down the door with her on the other side. Then he remembered
the other one. The bathroom opened to both the bedroom and the
living area.

He went quietly into the bedroom and
approached the door. He tried the handle, but she’d locked it too.
"Are you still against the door, Frankie?"

She didn’t answer, but he put his ear to the
wood and could hear no heartbeat on the other side.

He kicked, one swift hit against the handle
and the door swung inward. She was sitting on the floor, huddled up
in a little ball and sobbing as if her heart was broken.

It probably was and it was his fault.

He joined her on the floor, pulling her into
his lap over her protests. "Let’s get one thing straight, you did
not rape me."

"I did too! No wonder your dad was furious
at me. He had a right. I deserve to have to marry a man who doesn’t
love me. Rapists have to go to prison. I guess mine’s a life
sentence."

"Marriage to me is not a prison," he growled
out, offended.

"No, but it should be and it will be for
you, won’t it? You didn’t get to choose." She started crying again
in earnest.

"You didn’t rape me, damn it."

"What would you call it?" she demanded
between sobs. "You told me a werewolf couldn’t control himself
around a female in heat."

"I said the urge to mate
is
almost
uncontrollable."

"But you were really mad at me yesterday and
now I understand why. It was all my fault! It really was. Oh,
gosh...and I just thought you were shirking responsibility. You've
never done that in all the time I've known you."

"No. Oh, baby...I’m sorry. I was mad and I
said stuff I shouldn’t have because I get stupid and stubborn when
I’m angry."

She grabbed his shoulder and tried to shake
him. "You’ve never lied to me. Don’t start now."

"I’m not." He'd all but forgotten how
unreasonable Frankie got in guilt mode. "Remember, I told you Duke
didn’t mate with Marigold. She was still in heat when Leah stormed
out, but he walked away. Just like I could have walked away from
you...if that’s what I really wanted."

"No. I didn’t give you the chance."

He’d have to tell her about Olivia and hope
it helped, rather than hurt. "Olivia was in heat too."

She looked up at him with rainwater grey
eyes. "She was?"

"Yes, but I had no desire to mate with
her."

"None? I don’t believe you. You said you
wanted to marry her."

"I thought we agreed I don’t lie to
you."

"Then you really don’t want to marry me. You
said so."

"I wasn’t lying to you then, I was lying to
myself."

She shook her head. "Olivia..."

"Was another moment of male idiocy for me. I
never really courted her, but planned to mate her in the fur. She
was in heat and I knew it. So did she. She would have sought a mate
if she ran with the pack, she couldn't help herself and I planned
to be the mate she found. But when we saw her at the ranch, the
only female I wanted was you."

"You were going to use her impulses against
her?"

"She would have had a choice."

"But you just said..."

"Even in our wolf forms, our humanity
exists. If she really wanted to avoid a mating, she could have. In
fact she did."

"That's why she insisted on going out of
town."

"Yes. She planned to run alone."

"Is that safe?"

"It depends on where she
ran. I'm sure she chose where she went carefully, but that’s not
the point right now. The point is,
I made
love to you because I wanted you
. And you
are my mate because it is meant to be that way."

"If that’s true then why were you so against
mating a human, why were you so furious this morning when you were
telling me we had to be together forever?"

He explained about pack law and watching a
man as close to him as an uncle have his throat ripped out by
King.

"That must have been horrible."

"It was and it made me determined never to
risk putting myself in that position. King wanted it to be a life
lesson for me and Duke and it worked."

"A little too well. You just assumed that if
we mated, I would walk away some day? That's ridiculous."

"The risk was there." He'd seen so many
human relationships end, even ones where both parties said they
loved each other more than life.

He'd spent high school watching one couple
after another have sex, say they loved each other and then break up
to move on to someone else. By the time he'd gone to college, he
was totally convinced that affection between humans was a very
precarious thing. As he'd gotten older, he'd seen more lasting
relationships, but his mind had already been set.

She stared at him like he'd gone nuts. "I’ve
spent over ten years loving you. Do you honestly think that’s going
to end one day? Ever? If I could have gotten over you, I would
have. Believe me."

He didn't like hearing that and tightened
his hold on her. "You got engaged to another man."

"After you told me we would never be more
than friends. I tried to love him—"

"You had sex with him."

"And that really bothers you, doesn’t
it?"

"Hell, yes."

She smacked him on the chest, openhanded,
unlike the day before. "It was your own darn fault."

Like hell. He hadn't shoved her into bed
with another man. "How do you figure that?"

"I told you...I got engaged to another man
trying to get over loving you. I made love with him for the same
reason. It wasn’t fair to him. It hurt me, but you can take a
flying leap if it bothers you because you shouldn’t have rejected
me in the first place. You loved me then, didn’t you? But you were
too stubborn to admit it."

There was no use denying it now, even if
he'd blinded himself to it then. "Yes."

She went completely still, her gray eyes
wide with vulnerability. "Say that again."

"I loved you then. I love you now. I’ll love
you tomorrow and every tomorrow after." The words were surprisingly
easy to say and he finally realized they should have been said a
long time ago.

He would have saved them both a boatload of
heart ache.

She started to cry again, but she was
hugging him and kissing him. "I love you too. So much. Oh, Ty, I
thought I was going to die if I had to let you go."

"You never have to let me go again and you
can be damn sure I'll never walk away from you."

"Because of pack law?" she asked, shocking
him with her uncertainty.

"Because I would rather face pack justice
than live without you. I love you," he stressed.

She smiled and it was like the sun coming
out after the rain. "I love you too. So much, Ty, so much."

Finally, he believed her. "I have been
stupid."

"But not anymore."

"No, not anymore." And he had a lifetime to
prove it to her.

It took Duke until the next day to get them
out of the cabin. He took them back to the ranch, correctly
assuming Ty would not allow Frankie to sleep anywhere but with him
in his den ever again.

They planned a Christmas wedding and she
said she intended to make sure Leah was one of the guests.

He didn’t tell Duke, but his brother could
do worse than to make it up with the mate of his heart.

Ty had never been happier and marveled at
how stubbornly he had rejected that happiness. He couldn’t believe
he’d been capable of turning Frankie down six years before, but
he’d never turn her away again.

She was his and he was hers.

Like he’d told her...werewolves mated for
life and when it came to humans like his wife, they did too.

He was one lucky wolf.

The End

CHANGE THE GAME Excerpt

Available in
Hometown Heroes - Hotter Ever
After
Charity Box Set until Dec 15

Individual Release December 1, 2014

© Lucy Monroe

CHAPTER ONE

"I think we’ve got a spy."

Marcus Danvers’s announcement erupted in
Alex’s mind like Mt. St. Helens on a bad day.

Pushing his chair back slightly from the
massive walnut desk that sat in the center of his office, Alex met
Marcus’s expectant stare. "Why?"

Leaning in the open doorway, his
six-foot-two-inch frame exuding casual relaxation while, Marcus’s
blue eyes glittered with anticipation and amusement. "Harrison’s
daughter called this morning."

The closer they got to seeing John
Harrison’s company dismantled, the less humor Alex found in
anything.

"Explain."

Marcus crossed the oversized office and sat
down in one of the chairs facing Alex’s desk. "She wanted to know
if I liked the idea of changing employers. Ms. Harrison said that
she had a client interested in someone with my skill set and
experience."

Alex shrugged, making a concentrated effort
not to overreact and feed Marcus’s off-beat sense of humor. "She
works for one of the most exclusive headhunting agencies in the
Portland area. She makes a lot of calls like the one you received
this morning."

Although he’d never met Isabel, Alex had no
doubt she was a lot like her father. He stole men’s ideas. She
stole employees, specializing in the hi-tech industry. According to
his sources, she was very good at her job.

Marcus stretched out his long legs and
crossed them at the ankle. "If you ask me, it’s too much of a
coincidence right now. Our client is only months away from closing
the deal on her dad’s company and she calls your most valuable
employee trying to lure him away."

"My most valuable employee being you?"

"Well, yes." Marcus attempted a modest look
of acceptance. "Not to mention an employee with inside information
St. Clair’s plans to take Hypertron apart."

Alex nodded. "I’ll look into it."

Marcus stood up to leave.

"What did you say to her?"

Marcus turned around, his brows raised in
mockery. "If I’d said yes, I wouldn’t have told you about the phone
call, now would I?"

"With your twisted sense of humor, that’s
not a given."

"I told her no, boss. I’m not interested in
leaving CIS. Working for you gives me a chance to use my hunter’s
instincts without dressing up in fatigues and chasing some poor
animal through the forest."

With a sardonic smile, Marcus left.

He was right. Operating CIS satisfied
something both male and primitive inside him as well. Some called
him a corporate raider, but that wasn’t accurate. He was a purveyor
of highly specialized information. He evaluated companies,
identifying their strengths and weaknesses for investment groups. A
few of those groups were led by true corporate raiders, men who
made their money in the warlike world of hostile takeovers.

Alex had created CIS, or Corporate
Information Systems on the advice of his dad, just a few years
before the older man’s death. Just out of college, Alex had
considered pursuing a career in the field of arbitrage. His dad had
suggested he would be happier participating in the hunt than in the
kill. He’d been right.

Providing information that could help
companies grow and change the landscape of the hi-tech industry was
a deeply satisfying job. He’d discovered that the power to build up
was more satisfying than that to tear down, hence the fact that he
seldom took on corporate raiders as clients.

Guy St. Clair was one of those exceptions.
Alex looked forward to being in on the kill, the hostile takeover
of Hypertron, with the primal anticipation of a predator ready to
bring down its prey.

John Harrison owned Hypertron. Both the man
and the company had played their role in the untimely death of
Alex’s father. He had been biding his time for two years, waiting
for an opportunity to redress that inequity. It had finally come
three months ago when two unrelated, but necessary events had taken
place.

The first had been John Harrison’s
overextension of his company in an untimely bid for expansion. The
second had been when Guy St. Clair, a true corporate raider, had
approached Alex for information on several companies including
Hypertron. St. Clair bought companies and made his money taking
them apart and selling off the pieces, in this case, product
patents.

Alex considered it the perfect ending for
the company that had destroyed his father by refusing him the right
to patent the results of his personal research and development.

***

One hour and several information gathering
phone calls later, Alex surveyed the notes he’d taken. No overt
behavior on Harrison’s part or that of his company indicated he
knew of the impending hostile takeover or CIS’s role in it.

There was a chance Harrison was playing a
deep game though. If he suspected anything, his first order of
business would be to secure accurate inside information. Hiring
Marcus away from CIS would be a brilliant move in that
direction.

Alex tapped his pen against the yellow pad
on his desk and then pulled open a file next to it.

A picture of a young woman stared up at him.
The black and white image couldn’t tell him her hair or eye color,
though that information was listed on her fact sheet. Hair: light
brown. Eyes: green. The photo taunted him as it had for the two
years since he’d opened the file on Hypertron, John Harrison and
his family. Because in that candid shot, Isabel Harrison looked
innocent and too damn appealing for Alex’s piece of mind.

The heart shaped face and sparkling eyes
called to him on a level he didn’t understand.