Desert Moon (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 1) Read Free Page A

back on the wheel, knuckles clenched white.
    An hour passed; it seemed an eternity. She wondered how was she going to last a week around him.
    “Not far now,” Jean said.
    Lana closed her eyes. Already way too close.
    Ty turned off the highway and onto an unmarked dirt road. Like all wolf packs, Ty’s kept their presence discrete. No sense in calling human attention to themselves.
    It was in the turn that she noticed the flaring of Ty’s nostrils. She could feel it, too. Something was wrong. Ty’s jawline tightened ever so slightly, though he didn’t show a nervous twitch or rub an imaginary beard. The tension was there though: she could see it in the pinch of his shoulders, the tight grip of his fingers on the wheel—and there—another scratch at his right ear.
    Incredible. The man was so bottled up that his only outlet was scratching an ear. His eyes slid left, eying a spot high in the hills, and though she followed his gaze, she saw nothing. What was up there that he wanted to escape to?
    She glanced around the vehicle. Did no one else pick up on it? The older women seemed oblivious. Was it always like that? Ty hid his feelings so well, it was almost as if they didn’t exist. But she saw. He was a man, not a machine, caged in by the heavy weight of responsibility. A feeling she could relate to all too well.
    The Jeep crossed over a low bridge that spanned the cracked remnants of a creek then slowed to pass under a timber gateway. The ranch brand hung overhead: two circles, side by side, overlapping by one-third. By the looks of things, Twin Moon Ranch hadn’t changed a bit. The same cottonwoods shaded two rows of buildings on either side of a central square. Take away the trucks and it would pass for a movie set, but she knew this was the real thing. The Wild West come true.
    The five men who were huddled on the porch of the first building on the right turned toward the car in anticipation. Judging by the barbed look on their faces, there was serious pack business to discuss.
    Ty did it again, one quick scratch, and she was seized with the urge to take that ear and lick it smooth, to blow the worries away. She knew a thing or two about alphas, like her father, the head of the Berkshires pack. Her brothers were the same, too. Alphas ruled at the top, but they stood alone. While victories were shared, the specter of defeat loomed over the individual. Ty had the same brooding aura.
    Most alphas found release through the support of siblings or a mate, not to mention the occasional brawl. But this man was the type to build a bigger and bigger dam, trying to hold everything inside. She wanted to reach over the seat, knead his shoulders, and whisper something reassuring in his ear. But how could she? He was a stranger, after all, and she was just passing through.
    Ty rolled to a near stop as one of the men approached, and they seemed to communicate volumes in the brief nods they exchanged.
    Jean called out a chipper greeting. “Hello, Cody, sweetheart!”
    The blond man broke into a winning smile and waved. He looked out of place among the others. A bit too young and jolly for this setting. He belonged out in the surf on a Californian beach, not on a ranch. She would bet that women lined up for him in droves, but she only had eyes for Ty. This feeling of being fully awake and alive hadn’t coursed through her blood in years. No surfer dude could do that.
    Ty concluded his private exchange and continued to a T, then turned left, cruising past several houses and barns. Everything about the place was as she remembered it: a tidy community of lawns and winding irrigation ditches that faded into paddocks and open land. In a deeply troubled world, Twin Moon Ranch seemed like a shady little pocket of paradise. How much of that was a mirage?
    Ty unloaded the two older women and luggage at Jean’s duplex, then nodded her back to the car. “You’re in the guest house,” he said. His tone supplied the rest: Let’s go. I have