Stranded with a Cajun Werewolf (7 page)

The damp earth squished between his toes, the scent of spring ripe around him. But it
might as well have been a bitter cold winter’s day, snowing heavily. Gray and desolate.

He never should have shown himself to her. His brother would call him a fool, and
Burke wouldn't be able to deny it. Slowing, he glanced at the place he'd called home all his
life. Laurent sat atop the stone wall that circled the stately manor house, a book in his lap.

Their gazes met and locked. Without words, Laurent knew. Burke could see it in his eyes.

You showed her, didn't you, you crazy fool?

Burke laid at his brother's feet, huffing out an agonized breath. Damn, it hurt to
inhale. Was it possible for a heart to physically crack?

There was nothing to be said. No hope left for him. He'd thought Annabelle had been
the one for him. His woman. She'd looked at him with stars in her eyes.

She was gone. Darkness closed in around him.

Her screams echoed in his ears. They sounded so close, and yet, muffled.

Burke came awake with a start. Kendall.

He dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, his joints protesting the quick movement.

She lay on her right side, her face a study in pain and torment. Stuffing from the pillow in her death grip lay scattered around her.

“No!” Her hoarse cry reverberated off the polished wooden walls, filling his soul with fury. And in that same instant he lost the battle with himself and went to her, sinking down onto the edge of the bed.

“Kendall…Wake up,
chéri
.” He didn’t touch her, afraid he’d startle her. She came awake at the sound of his voice and her face relaxed. But then, as if driven by the fear that still held her in its grasp, she launched herself into his arms, chest against chest, hip against hip. Her arms circled his shoulders and she held on to him with a strength that belied her stature and yesterday’s accident.

Having had nightmares of his own for more years than he wished to count, he didn’t need to ask her what was wrong. There was nothing like being haunted night after night by a past terror you couldn’t change. And in all his years, he’d found no way to rid himself of them.

She trembled against him and he wondered if she was scared or crying. Either way the wolf inside him wanted revenge against those who’d wronged her. That possessiveness, one he hadn’t felt in centuries, scared him.

This was temporary.
She
was temporary. Just until the storm cleared and she could be on her way. But if he caught up with the bastards after her…

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pulling back ever so slightly. He kept his hands on her back, hoping his embrace felt reassuring rather than lecherous.

“Don’t be.”

Untangle yourself and get outta her bed, wolf
.

But he couldn’t, not when her fingers still clutched his shirt like he was the only thing anchoring her in this storm.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked, hoping a change of subject would lighten the mood.

“It aches, but I’m managing.” She lifted tear filled eyes to his. So blue. So vivid. “Thanks to you.”Unable to tear his gaze away, he simply stared down at her. Frozen for the moment.

He’d never seen eyes like that before. Probably wouldn’t ever again. Like aqua lasers, they were just one more thing that made Kendall unique.

That was a dangerous train of thought. He couldn’t be thinking about her in terms of her uniqueness or how lovely her eyes were or how adorable her nose was.

No siree… The air pressure around them shifted. He turned toward the patio door, surveying the landscape beyond, his senses on high alert. Everything looked still in the twilight.

But then a loud crack echoed across the mountain.

Her fingers clutched him tighter. “What was that?” The ground began trembling, along with the wooden boards beneath his feet.

“Avalanche.” He held out his hand to her. “Come on.”

“Avalanche?” she cried.

Without a moment to lose he led the way to the center of the house, pulled her inside the windowless pantry and shut the door. The roaring increased in volume and the floor shook beneath their feet.

“Oh my God,” she murmured over and over.

“It’s all right,
chéri
.”

“All right?” Her voice was shrill. “Being buried alive is not all right.”

“It’s probably further down the mountain.” But he didn’t want to take any chances. He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, holding her still. She continued mumbling into his chest. With a mountain of snow coming apart around them, he shouldn’t have found the situation endearing.

But it was impossible not to. And the way her fingers plucked at his sweater…it’d be so easy to duck his head and kiss them both into oblivion. In the darkness he saw her tip her head back. She stared up, eyes wild as the earth continued to shift and buck.

“I should have mentioned…I’m claustrophobic,” she said quickly.

“It’ll be over soon,” he murmured. Too soon.

He slid a hand up her side, over the curve of her breast and cupped her cheek.

Don’t do it Deveraux. If you do, there’s no going back.

He dipped his head and captured her luscious mouth.

No going back…

For half a second, she was utterly still. Then, as if awakening from a nap, she kissed him back. Leaning against the door, he explored her slowly. Softly at first, then more firmly.

She moaned, her head tipping back ever so slightly. He closed the distance, thrusting his tongue between her parted lips. She sucked him into her mouth and his cock went rigid.

He tightened his hold on her, not wanting any of this to end. Ever. She trembled anew and her hands tightened around his waist. Then she rose up on her tip toes, kissing him with so much passion he had to be imagining it.

She whispered his name against his mouth and shifted her hips against his. Surely she felt his cock, hard as a damn pipe, between them. But he wouldn’t make excuses for the way she turned him on. Or how he wanted to kiss every inch of her. He was so tempted to turn her against the door, bracketing her with his body, so he could continue his exploration.

Almost as if she’d read his mind, she trembled. But it was more than that. She was shivering. It was cold in here.

That’s when he noticed that the only sound he heard was their own ragged breaths. No avalanche. No quaking floorboards.

“Burke?” She said his name so sweetly, so innocently, he ducked his head again and brushed his lips across hers.

“It’s okay,
chéri
. It’s over.”

“Oh.” She didn’t sound as thrilled as she should have, now that they’d escaped being bulldozed by a stampede of snow.

He maneuvered them away from the door and then opened it. “Let’s get you back where it’s warm.”

She nodded wordlessly.

When she was tucked back in his bed and he’d thrown another log on the fire, he turned back to her.

“Can I get you anything? Hot chocolate?”

She trembled again. “Will you—“ She licked her lips. Well kissed lips. He couldn’t stop staring at them. And now that he knew how wonderful she tasted, how perfectly she responded to him, he would be dreaming of her for a long time to come. “Would you mind staying with me?”

Don’t do it. Not a good idea, Deveraux.
But the anguish in her eyes had him saying

“sure.”He paused, trying to decide where he should sit. He missed his bed but that would only lead to thoughts he shouldn’t…couldn’t be thinking. She pulled the thick red throw up around her shoulders and then settled back ever so slowly against the pillows.

He told himself to stop looking at her, stop memorizing the way she looked in his bed, but he couldn’t help himself. She was the first woman in a very long time to hold his interest.

There was something so genuine about her and he found her babbling refreshing. She wasn’t like the polished women that flaunted themselves in front of him. And she wasn’t at all like the brash shewolves that let him know in no uncertain terms what they wanted and how much they wanted it.

No, Kendall was in a league all her own. And only twenty-one years old.
And human.

But she’d endured so much.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her voice soft but not sleepy.

“Just wondering who you are and where you came from.”

“You already know who I am and where I came from.”

That he did. But the way she said those words made him feel like he’d known her much longer. Without knowing all the details of her life, he felt like he knew the important ones. The ones that made her who she was. The fact that she had a less than stellar father. The fact that she’d lashed out softly by dying her hair and piercing her nose. And when that hadn’t worked she’d taken control of her situation and escaped her old life.

“I meant things like hobbies, interests.”

“Oh.” She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Well. Ugh…”

“I like to read,” he offered, hoping if he opened up first she’d follow.

“Me too. I would love one of those e-reader things.” The corners of his lips curved upward. “I like my books old school. There’s something about the scent of paper and ink.” Plus his fingers were too big for tiny buttons.

“They’ll do in a pinch. My mom used to have hundreds of books. The collection drove my father crazy.”

There was a glimmer of sadness in her eyes when she spoke of her mother. It was obvious that she’d not had a perfect relationship with either parent, but he sensed that she would have liked to have been closer to her mom.

“Is that why you collect lip gloss?”

She didn’t answer him for a long moment. Then she nodded. One quick jerk of the head that had the pink/purple strip of hair falling forward. She tucked it behind her ear. “It was a silly love that my mom and I shared before she died. She wasn’t really into cosmetics.”
Or me
, her eyes seemed to say. “But she loved her lip gloss. I still have her favorite tube even though there’s not enough gloss left to cover a lady bug, much less my lips. But it reminds me of her.” His gaze dropped to the bottom drawer of his nightstand. He’d kept a similar memento to remind him of Annabelle. Mostly of what he’d loved and lost, but also of her betrayal. And her death. He might as well have killed her himself. It was his fault she was dead. His fault that she’d been forced to betray him.

“Ever since then,” she continued, pulling him from the past, “I’ve just kept collecting them. They’re cheap, small, ultra portable. And my father never bothered looking in my purse.”

“We really should see about getting you a new curling iron. I’m afraid yours is a fire hazard.”

She laughed. The sound washed over him, through him, like a soothing balm on an aching sunburn. How surreal that the flash of red that had caught him so unaware on the road had contained this beautiful, sweet woman.

If there was ever a woman who deserved the right to be bitter and jaded, it was Kendall Carver. And yet, she was the epitome of optimism and persistence.

He felt a pang in his heart. Though their paths had crossed, bringing them together, he couldn’t keep her in his life. The sooner he got that through his skull the better.

“Do you have any family?” she asked.

He nodded. “I have a brother and three cousins I’m close to.”

“You’ve obviously done well for yourselves.” She glanced around the spacious room.

He looked for the usual signs of a woman on the make. There’d been plenty in the past decade or so. Women, beautiful women, who wanted a wealthy husband. Sebastian had let himself be sucked into their beauty and wicked ways, more than the rest of them.

But then, Burke wasn’t surprised. His cousin had been so painfully in love with Amanda that her disappearance had crushed him for a time. Burke knew the feeling, the numbness, the loss of hope and even the will to go on.

Years ago he’d dealt with the same emotions. His weakness had almost destroyed him.

And yet, he couldn’t change his heart. He couldn’t help the softening he felt inside when he looked at the blonde, blue-eyed beauty staring back at him.

“We’ve done all right,” he agreed. Would she make another comment? Press him further about his wealth?

A cold chill went over him.

Could she possibly know who he was? Who the Deverauxs were?

“Parents?”

She continued the conversation so easily, so smoothly. There wasn’t a hint of mirth in her eyes. Not a drop of greed in her voice. Surely she would never allow herself to be shot and almost drive off a mountain to get his attention. And how would she have known he was coming to his cabin anyway? It’d been a last minute decision.

“Burke?”

Her sweet voice pulled him from his contemplation.

“Sorry,” he muttered, trying to remember her question. Parents…she’d asked about his parents.

“No. My parents are gone.” At least that’s how he preferred to think of them.

“I miss my mom.”

“But not your dad,” he concluded.

She shook her head. “Not at all. That probably sounds bad.”

“
Petit
, if there’s one thing I know it’s that not all parents are cut out to be parents.” She seemed to soak that in for a moment and then gave another quick nod. “Tell me about your brother.”

He thought for a moment, trying to decide how to encompass everything his brother was into words. There weren’t many words to describe such a loyal, noble man. He would never be able to adequately thank him for helping Burke hold it together after losing Annabelle.

And that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Burke was the eldest, but Laurent had saved his hide many times.

“His name’s Laurent. He’s shorter than me,” he said, keeping things light. She grinned.

“He was recently reunited with the love of his life and now they spend all their time making eyes at each other.”

Her smile grew and her eyes sparkled. “You miss him,” she said.

“A little. But we still see each other every day.”

“I don’t think I could stand seeing my family every day. I try to stay as far away from them as I can,” she said, gazing up at the ceiling.