Five Mornings

  They walked into a room that, Alex noted absently, was about as personal as a hotel room. No pictures. No frilly pillows or art on the wall. It was a place to sleep, not her home. It didn’t come as a surprise. He’d always been the one to decorate when they’d lived together. Her home was the Springs. Any place other than that was just a rest stop on the road back.

  “Jeans,” she said quietly. He took off his jeans—dusty from the job site because he needed to do laundry—leaving him in her bedroom in nothing but a t-shirt and boxers.

  She pushed him toward the bed and he sat, immediately feeling lightheaded. He hadn’t slept well in a month. Not since he’d come out here to look over the finish work on the property. He’d avoided Palm Springs for as long as he could for that very reason, knowing he’d never find any peace being so close to her and still out of touch.

  Ted pushed his shoulders down to the bed that smelled like her.

  “Sleep.”

  He didn’t let her hand go.

  “I’ll grab the couch. It’s comfortable enough. I’ve just come off two days on call, so I’ll be dead to the—”

  “I miss you.”

  His voice was hoarse. Unused. As if every conversation he’d had in the two years since he’d spoken to her didn’t count. Two years since they’d spoken words that had broken everything. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were locked on the wall behind him. He gave her hand a slight tug.

  “I miss you so damn much, Tea.”

  The rigid line of her shoulders relaxed, and he pulled her closer. Over his body and onto the bed next to him. He didn’t pull down the covers. Just positioned her body in front of his, curling around her and shoving his face into her hair. He closed his eyes and let out a breath when he felt her relax against him.

  “Sleep,” she said.

  “Stay with me.”

  She waited to answer.

  “Okay.”

  He slept. His wolf stopped itching under his skin and settled, finally next to its mate again.

  Alex slept better than he had in two years, wrapped around Ted as the fan over them wafted cool air over their exhausted bodies. His arm lay over her waist, his hand still clutching hers. They slept for hours.

  When he woke, she was still there. The drapes let in a sliver of light, allowing him to watch her as she rested. The lines had smoothed from her face and she looked younger. The stress was gone, if only for a few hours. He waited, knowing that if he moved, she would wake up. She needed the sleep, so he waited. They hadn’t moved while they slept. Her back was still tucked up to his front and her hand was clutched in his. He ignored the inevitable erection that strained against the front of his boxers. Alex had her scent in his nose; his body didn’t care how long they’d been apart or what their relationship had become.

  He closed his eyes and listened to her breathe. It might have been hours or minutes later. He didn’t know, except that the angle of the sun had changed enough so that the beam poured across her face and she turned toward him. He pressed his lips to her hair. Then her temple.

  Her eyes fluttered open, but she didn’t move away. So Alex kept kissing her. The arch of her cheekbone. The line of her jaw. His tongue licked out under her chin, tasting salt and skin. He let go of her hand and put his palm on her belly where her scrubs parted to show the line of tan skin at her waist. He sucked in a breath and shoved his face into her neck, waiting. Scenting her desire. His own.

  Ted didn’t say anything, but he felt her nod against his cheek, and she pulled the drawstring on the pants she wore. He let out a breath and let his hand trail up, cupping her breast under her shirt, shoving the fabric away to get to her skin.

  It was silent. The only sound the soft hush of clothes disappearing. He didn’t kiss her mouth. Didn’t let himself until he was sliding inside the heat of her body. Then his mouth took hers, ignoring the tears on her cheeks. Ignoring everything but the desperate hunger that captured them both. Her first climax came quickly, and he slowed, determined to stretch the fragile peace they’d come to for as long as he could.

  He kissed the tears from her skin, bit the lobe of her ear and licked behind it the way she loved. It was an old dance, all the more precious for its familiarity. He loved her for as long as he could. Held her tight until he couldn’t hold back the climax anymore. Until she bit his neck where it met his shoulder and sent him over the edge.

  He groaned into her mouth but didn’t leave her body. Not even when he rolled to the side. He stayed with her and didn’t let go. He let go of her mouth, but kissed every inch of her skin within reach until he felt his eyes begin to droop. She held on as tightly as he did, her arms around his waist and her head tucked into his chest. He could feel her heart race against his skin as he dropped heavy into sleep.

  Alex woke to an empty bed. Ted’s scrubs lay on the floor beside the bed and the drawer that held more was hanging open. The mirror he could see in the bathroom still held an edge of fog from the shower. Not a sound from the kitchen or the hall. She’d gone back to the hospital while he slept.

  He lay in bed for a few minutes, then sat up and pulled on his jeans. The sky was dark outside and the room was cooler, the temperature in the desert dropping with the sun. He walked down the hall and headed for the kitchen where she’d put his things. There was a note and a key lying by his wallet.

  Alex, I’m back on at nine, so I had to go. Please lock up. You can put the extra key under the mat. —Ted

  He picked up the key, staring at the shiny, unused brass that lay in his palm. He checked his phone and saw a text message from an unknown number. Desert area code. He clicked on it and stared at the message he knew must have come from her.

  When are you coming home?

  He knew she was talking about the Springs. Knew she was looking for that timeline again. A timeline he couldn’t give her. It would be a promise. And Alex didn’t break promises. Ever. So he never made those he knew he couldn’t keep.

  He closed his eyes and rested his elbows on the counter, staring at the message from the only woman he’d ever loved, asking a question he couldn’t answer. The weight of expectations hung on his shoulders. He was over halfway there. He thought. But he didn’t know. So he picked up his phone and sent her the only answer he had.

  Soon.

  Then Alex palmed her key and stuffed his wallet and keys back in his pocket. He got a quick drink of water and put the glass in the empty dishwasher. He slipped his shoes on, locked up, and dropped the key in his pocket, smiling a little as he walked to the car.

  Ted may want her door locked, but Alex wasn’t leaving without a key.

  The Fifth Morning

  Cambio Springs, California

  2010

  He didn’t shift when the car pulled away. It was a sheriff’s cruiser, and Alex had pissed on every tire as soon as he’d shown up at her house. Then he paced in the stand of cottonwood at the edge of her property.

  Paced for hours.

  She stood in the doorway, watching the early sun flash on the chrome light rack of Dev’s car. The pink morning glow hit the side of her house, which he knew she’d had painted the summer she moved in. Clean whitewash over old adobe. It was a solid house, even though it was old.

  Alex paced and a low growl rumbled from his throat. He saw her eyes whip toward the trees and her nose lifted in the cool air.

  He loped out of the house in wolf form, still too furious to change back to human. His lip curled when he saw her face.

  It told him nothing. When once, it would have told him everything.

  She stared, glancing between the dust of the retreating car and the massive timber wolf that stalked her yard. Pulling her robe a little tighter around herself, she squared her shoulders at him and said, “Shift or get out of here.”

  Alex shifted, but didn’t stop pacing. Light paw steps became heavy footfalls as he walked from one end of her front yard to the other, ignoring the brambles that cut his feet. Ignoring the pain in h
is chest. Ignoring the cool breeze that bit his bare skin.

  “Stop it, Alex.”

  His lip curled again and he stopped. Right in front of her. He glared up at her, clenching his fists and resisting the urge to grab her and haul her back into the house that Devin Moon had just left.

  Dev. Not some idiot resident she had a fling with. Dev. Not some casual acquaintance she’d forget about in a month. Dev. Who knew her secrets. Their secrets. Dev, who had always teased Ted and flirted with her, even when it pissed her off.

  “What was he doing here?”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “What do you think, Alex? Were you here all night?”

  “No. Just about the time that Joey let slip at the Cave that you’ve been seeing him.”

  Her mouth twisted in annoyance. “Alex—”

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “None of your business.”

  He took a step up. “None of my business?”

  The blank look fell from her face and she snarled, “This is the most you’ve spoken to me in two years. You tell me you’re coming home ‘soon,’ then for two years, I barely see you. We never talk about what happened—”

  “What was there to say?”

  Her mouth dropped open, but she said nothing. His anger was still riding him. He wanted tear into her house and wipe every trace of the other man from her room. Cover her body with his until Dev was nothing but a hazy memory. He wanted…

  He wanted Ted. More than anything, he wanted Ted. And she was yet another thing just out of his reach.

  “Wh—what was there to say?” she asked.

  “You know why I’m in LA. You know why I can’t tell you when I’m moving back.” He stepped up again, until he was right in front of her. Naked. Angry. Let her try to ignore him. Let her try to hide. “And you know how I feel about you. You always have.”

  “It’s over, Alex. It was over four years—”

  He didn’t let her finish. Alex swooped down and took her mouth in a bruising kiss. She opened to him like they’d spent minutes apart, not years. He grabbed onto her, clutching one hand at her waist as another dug into her hair and held. She tasted like coffee and toothpaste. She tasted like Ted in the morning after he’d woken her up with his mouth. She tasted like home.

  Alex stopped his relentless assault on her mouth when the pain registered. His heart hurt. His groin ached with needing her. And Ted was gripping his bicep so hard he figured she’d leave bruises. He didn’t care.

  “You and me?” he finally said. “You and me aren’t over. We never will be.”

  She shook her head. “Why are you here?”

  “Just letting you know where we stand, baby.”

  “Baby?” she hissed, pushing him away. “Shut up. You don’t get to come back here whenever you want and try to mess with my love life, Alex. You opted out, baby, so go home. To LA. That’s where you want to be.”

  “Your love life?” He stepped back to her. “You in love with him? With Dev?”

  If she was, he was screwed. He saw the flush hit her cheeks as her anger swelled into something even more dangerous.

  Cold. She could be so cold when she wanted to be.

  “What if I am?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “He’s not the first guy I’ve dated since we broke up.”

  Alex said nothing. No, Dev wasn’t the first and he couldn’t blame her for that, even if he hated it. The fact was, he’d let her go and even tried to move on himself. But when he was back at the Springs, when the wolf came out to play, he knew the truth of the matter.

  She was his. He was hers. There would be no other mate but her.

  “You know he’s not the first. He’s just the first that matters, right?” Her eyes started heating up again, and Alex was grateful. Grateful just to be able to get a rise out of her.

  “I was—”

  “You were pissing on your territory, McCann. You don’t want me, but you won’t let me move on with any guy who might actually stand a chance, will you?”

  “I don’t want you?” He ignored the truth in her accusation and focused on the part they both knew wasn’t true. “Who the hell do you think I’m working for, Ted? Who’s the one that really matters?”

  She shook her head and took another step back into her house; Alex followed.

  “You’re working for your pack. For your family. I’m not faulting you for it, but—”

  “I’m working so this town doesn’t shrivel up and die! I want—”

  “I know what you want! I want the same thing.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes a moment before she opened them. The anger had drained away. The blank look was back.

  Back in perfectly controlled Ted mode. He hated what she was going to say before she even spoke.

  “We want the same thing for this place, Alex. There’s no avoiding each other. But we both need to move on with our lives.”

  The cool words cut into his chest like a knife.

  “We have history,” she continued. “There were hard feelings on both sides. But it’s in the past. We’re not children. For the good of everyone, we need to—”

  “Don’t.” He grabbed her by the waist and spun her against the wall, pressing her forehead to his the same way he’d done four years before.

  “If you love me you’ll come with me.”

  The memory of her words threatened to choke him.

  “Don’t say we need to move on. Don’t.”

  “Alex—”

  “Give me a little more time, Tea.” He whispered the words, afraid of breaking the fragile hold he had on her. “You know what we have. What we could have. You made me choose four years ago, and I made the only choice I could.”

  He’d been proud. Angry. Hurt. He’d been twenty-seven and an ego-ridden idiot. The four years he’d lived without her had been empty. If he had to do it again, he’d have held onto her like a drowning man on a life raft.

  She said nothing, so he kept talking.

  “Just… don’t do anything permanent. Don’t break this.”

  “Don’t break this?” He could hear the tears in her voice. “I didn’t break this. You did.”

  If she’d punched him, it couldn’t have hurt worse.

  “Tea—”

  “You broke my heart, Alex. Then you came back and broke it again.”

  “I know!” he shouted, grabbing her face in his hands. “I know I did. And I’ll break it again. And you’ll break mine. You’re still the only woman in the world I want.”

  “Don’t—”

  “Because no one can hurt me the way you do. And no one could ever love me the way you can.”

  He felt her tears catch on his thumbs and run down the edge between his palm and her flushed cheek.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered.

  “Because I love you.” He kissed her forehead. “It’s only ever been you. And you know it as well as I do.”

  She turned her head and closed her eyes, letting the tears come. She pushed his hands away from her face. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He knew how badly he’d messed things up. He knew what his actions had cost them both. And he knew he’d have a long road back to her arms.

  But he could be patient.

  Alex stepped away and went to the door. She still had her eyes closed, refusing to look at him. But her need followed him as he walked away.

  He turned when he reached the door. “Ted, if you could just—”

  “When are you coming home? I want a real answer this time.”

  Her eyes were still closed and the sun shone across her face, warming the soft tan to brilliant gold.

  “Soon.”

  A slight twitch at the corner of her mouth told him the answer disappointed her.

  “I’ll be back, Tea. I promise. As soon as I can.”

  Then Alex walked out the door and shifted back to his wolf, leaving his heart in an old adobe house in the desert, with a woman who could
hold it or crush it with a word. He ran through the desert, letting the wolf take him. And every step away from her was the first step of his return.

  Keep reading for the first look at Alex and Ted’s story:

  DESERT BOUND

  A Cambio Springs Mystery

  Fall 2014

  DESERT BOUND

  A Cambio Springs Mystery

  Chapter One

  Teodora Vasquez threw her head back and let the slow spin of the beer and the music and the crowd at the Cave wash over her. She was almost there. Almost to the buzz that would let her forget the past week. The past month. Maybe the past year…

  “Ted!” Tracey shouted at her from the other end of the bar. “Can you help me with this?”

  The waitress was carrying two trays of empties and trying to maneuver behind the bar as patrons called out orders and the blues rock band playing that night started another set.

  She stood and made her way over to Tracey. “You know, I’m not supposed to be working tonight.”

  “I know.” The waitress managed to put the tray of empties on the back counter and turn to glower at the pushy patrons sitting at Ollie’s long oak bar. Ollie was at the other end, deliberately pulling pints and keeping an eye on Ted and Tracey. No one shouted orders at him. “But Jena had to leave and I can’t imagine this is harder than surgery, right?”

  Ted frowned and glanced at the rowdy crowd. “Not too sure about that.”

  “Please?” The woman’s gaze was desperate.

  “Fine.” Ted stepped behind the bar and Tracey hurried to hand her a spare apron. No, waiting tables and making drinks wasn’t harder than operating the small medical clinic in Cambio Springs. The buzz she’d almost caught had disappeared with Tracey’s plea, and Ted couldn’t think of anything better than the whirl of activity at the Cave to quiet her mind.

  “You’re a lifesaver!” Tracey fixed her mop of wiry curls into a ponytail and washed her hands before she started mixing the list of drinks she’d written on her pad. “I have no idea why Jena had to run out, but it must have been an emergency—Ollie, I need two Blue Moons and a cider—She didn’t even ask. Just told Ollie she was leaving—And a Fat Tire when you get a chance—He didn’t argue.”