Desert Wolf. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

when he reached the truck, and turned around. He didn’t wave. He wore no smile. His only offering was a quick nod in her direction before he climbed into the truck. After that, he sat for some time before starting the engine, as if he might be reluctant to leave.

      Did he have more to say?

      Did she?

      Paxton waited until the truck backed out of the lot, feeling caught up in the treacherous thrill of having been close to Grant Wade for a minute or two. His brief touch had contributed a lot to the current heat spell.

      She was burning up, on fire and hog-tied until she got what she wanted.

      Behind her, inside the room, the air conditioner waited for her to punch the button. Overhead, the small neon sign buzzed. Moonlight flowed across the desert in the distance, unbroken by barriers and buildings, having risen above the mountain range.

      She remembered damp skin and unrequited longings, as if those feelings had merely been temporarily buried somewhere. Rushing back to her were more remembrances of heat, wind and moonlight, along with memories of running through the brush howling like a coyote and pretending to be one of them.

      Paxton closed her eyes.

      Somewhere near those distant mountains the buildings of a decrepit town nestled. The place had been legit once, a real mining hub that had fallen on hard times when the mines were tapped out. In the forties, movies had been made there with bronco-riding cowboy stars. At present, who knew what kind of shape the place was in? Twenty years had passed since she played on those dirt streets, and the buildings had been older than shit then.

      The truck had disappeared. Only the hum of neon was left in a quiet night. Paxton wanted to raise her face to the night sky in search of a nonexistent breeze, and experienced a sudden feeling of abandonment that was both odd and absurd since she had just met Grant Wade.

      “If you’re hiding something that affects this decision, I need to know what it is,” Paxton whispered. “I won’t care. I swear I won’t care. I just need the truth.”

      Her mind turned toward a darker theory.

      Knowing she’d be going to see Desperado in the morning, had Grant set out tonight to clear up whatever he was hiding? There was plenty of time between now and sunrise for him to accomplish whatever he had in mind. Hide things. Keep his secrets from her.

      Backing into the room, Paxton closed the door and stripped to her underwear. She pressed the button on the air conditioner and waited impatiently for the machine to kick on. Cool air felt good on her hot, bare skin. So good, she almost discarded the plan she was formulating.

      Almost.

       Chapter 6

      Grant pulled over a block from the motel, let the truck idle and sat awhile in thought. Should he go back? Forget that last look on Paxton’s face and move on?

      She might not have realized how good his eyesight and hearing were. He now figured that she suspected money was a deciding factor in his holding out on a sale. She didn’t trust him. Her wary expression made that obvious. But how far would she go to get what she wanted? “You won’t do anything crazy?” he muttered, hoping he was right.

      Though there had been a glint of wildness in her eyes when their gazes connected, Paxton didn’t seem the type to blatantly ignore his warnings about a visit to Desperado being ill-advised. Still, the look she had leveled at him from the motel balcony left him unsure about how far her defiance might take her.

      “Pain in the ass is right,” he mumbled.

      What an idiot he was, Grant decided, for worrying about the woman when there was a more important situation at hand that required his full attention. His pack would be hunting the rogue tonight, hoping to find where the bastard hung out, and he needed to be with them.

      Turning the wheel, he put the truck in gear and stepped on the gas, heading for home. When the last of the city lights finally dimmed behind him, Grant breathed easier. Out here, in the open, he was more at ease. Far from the city, he and his pack were free to be what they were, and that kind of freedom was rare for his kind.

      “Did you really think I’d open Desperado to the public, Paxton Hall?” he muttered, as if she still sat beside him.

      Reopening the town was about as feasible as getting down and dirty with Paxton tonight in that motel room would have been. As for any other bright ideas, the only one pestering him at the moment was his desire to run his hands over Paxton’s incredibly soft blond hair.

      “No secret there.”

      Enough desert fragrances came through the open window to dislodge the scent that had taken root in his lungs. Paxton’s alluring, woodsy sent. It was no joke that his thoughts kept returning to her. She also was part wolf, and he had never met anyone quite like her. Nevertheless, Paxton couldn’t be allowed to see behind Desperado’s walls unless she was a fully formed she-wolf in on the secrets of his kind.

      “Will your first shape-shift happen here, Paxton Hall?”

      What would she think about the fact that behind Desperado’s facade lay cages, ropes, chains and other devices used for aiding the transition from human to Other without hurting the Were or anyone else? And that when he found creatures in need, he brought them here to help them avoid the trauma of becoming a werewolf in a human world?

      This is what he did and what he was needed for.

      “Somebody has to do it,” he said aloud before realizing he was again speaking to the absent Paxton. Grant supposed he was, in a way, apologizing for the uniqueness of her father’s will and how it had affected her.

      “Like it or not, I have to watch over you now that your father sent you to me.”

      Maybe one of those cages would have her name on it if she sought answers so close to the full moon. Possibly Paxton was here for a reason altogether different than she assumed.

      But having Paxton and a dangerous trespasser here at the same time was bad news any way he looked at it. And if, without knowing it, Paxton had arrived in time to set her wolf free, and Andrew Hall had sent her, then he owed her father another round of respect for executing that plan so perfectly.

      Pushing the truck to eighty on the open road, Grant voiced one more thought before vowing to shut his mind down. He spoke a final word to Paxton through clenched teeth.

      “I’ll be here for you, no matter what you think of me.”

      And then, hearing the echoing report of gunshots, he jammed on the brakes.

      * * *

      Minutes had gone by since Grant had left her, and as luck would have it, the proprietor of the motel had a car to rent. It was an old station wagon, the likes of which Paxton had only seen on late-night TV.

      Dressed in an old T-shirt and jeans, she plugged into her cell’s GPS and drove along the highway for several miles before turning off on a smaller, unsigned road where she lost sight of other cars. Desperado wasn’t in her GPS app, but the ranch next to it was. If she was careful, she might avoid Grant Wade’s current residence and find Desperado on her own, though darkness might make locating the entrance to the town difficult.

      Her goal, though, was to spy on Mr. Grant Wade.

      The back of her neck tingled as she drove over ruts in the road. Thoughts of how many rattlesnakes existed per square yard of desert sand would have made anyone shudder, but she didn’t plan to get out of the car. All she wanted was one look at the town from the front gate leading to it, to see if there were lights. She had to know if Desperado was as vacant as it was supposed to be, and if Grant had nothing to hide.

      Honest to God, she hoped Grant had been straight with her. He seemed like a good guy. She got no bad vibes from him, just the odd sense that he was keeping something to himself. Some secrets were okay. She didn’t need to access his life, just his plans for Desperado.