The Werewolf Cowboy: Werewolves of Montana Mating Mini #6 Read online

  The Werewolf Cowboy

  Werewolves of Montana

  Mating Mini #6

  Bonnie Vanak

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Branding time at a werewolf ranch always took on extra meaning for single Lupines, and Katy Thomas knew exactly which wolf she wanted beneath tonight’s moon.

  Grayson Moore.

  Owner of the Double D Ranch bordering the Mitchell Ranch, where Katy lived. Lone Lupine. Mysterious wolf and a great cowhand.

  Aiden, her alpha, had asked Grayson to help out with rounding up and branding Mitchell Ranch calves today. Not that they needed extra wranglers. But Aiden had been real neighborly after Grayson purchased the Double D a year ago.

  A cool wind whipped through the tall grasses and ruffled the curls in her long ponytail. Overhead, the sky was a crisp Montana blue, and the sun warmed her shoulders as she rode her gelding through the western pasture, her long brown curls bouncing against her shoulders.

  Aiden had assigned her to work with Grayson, roping the calves, tying them up for Kyle to brand and vaccinate and then leaving the ugly work of castrating the bull calves to Darius and their new vet, Parker.

  On his gelding, riding next to her, Grayson whistled a familiar song. The tune always tugged at her, for it was the only vague recollection from her childhood before she came to the Mitchell Ranch.

  Nat King Cole’s “Smile.”

  “I love that song,” she told him as he finished.

  Grayson winked at her. “I know. You told me before, Katy.”

  Watching him gallop off toward the herd, she followed. What did he look like naked? With his thick shock of dark hair, faint stubble shadowing a taut jaw, and tall, muscled body, Grayson epitomized all the good things she knew about male Lupines.

  Sexy, handsome, strong. But alone, no pack, using only Skins to work his ranch. It was the one characteristic that other female Lupines disapproved of, but intrigued Katy. Tonight was the traditional barbecue and dance, and then the running as wolves beneath the moon. She hoped Grayson would be there. At all the previous social events at the Mitchell Ranch, Grayson participated in the dining and dancing, and left when it came time to shift.

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think he didn’t want anyone seeing him shift into his wolf form.

  Pulling his horse up to an expert stop, Grayson tipped back his black Stetson and regarded her with his ice blue eyes. “Ready to rope the next one, Katy?” he asked.

  She nodded, jerked out of her daydream of envisioning him nude, lying sprawled out in bed, his gaze inviting.

  Pale yellow sunlight dappled the thicket of pines and oaks bordering the pasture where the gushing river tumbled over boulders and rocks, uncaring, unjudging. The vista, with jagged mountain peaks soaring in the distance, seemed serene. But her stomach churned and her heart pounded from Grayson’s nearness.

  She galloped toward the next target, roping him as Grayson leapt off his gelding and then tied up the bawling calf.

  He hunkered down, speaking in a low, soothing voice to the animal. Most wranglers treated calves like future McDonald’s hamburgers, but Grayson had a soft side that she really liked.

  Now that she’d turned twenty-one and was fully wolf, she became well aware of his other assets as well. She drifted back into the fantasy of Grayson lying nude in bed…wondering what he wanted with her.

  A deep male voice spoke into her mind.

  Tied up, naked and helpless, at my mercy. I would make you scream with pleasure. Fuck you hard and fast, and you would know you were mine and no other male’s. I would pound into you so hard, trap you in my bed until your belly grew big with my young. Yeah, that’s what I’d like to do to you in the dark of night, Katy.

  Shocked, she blinked hard. The loud chugging of three ATVs drew nearer. Grayson looked up.

  “Release the rope,” he ordered in the same deep voice that had spoken in her mind seconds ago.

  She released her rope, staring at Grayson. Kyle, her pack’s best hunter, stopped his machine and took the branding kit toward the calf. On separate ATVs, Darius and Parker stopped as well.

  “Nice work, Katy,” Darius called out.

  High praise from the pack’s beta wolf. She shuddered as Darius helped Parker prepare the calf for castration, and turned away.

  “Watch and learn if you want to be a rancher’s mate, Katy,” Grayson told her in that same velvet-smooth, deep timbre.

  The other Lupines in her pack could have been branding and castrating trolls for all she cared. She gave Grayson a long, cool look. “Why would I need to know that? I thought male Lupines cherished their balls,” she shot back.

  Darius laughed while Kyle and Parker grinned, but Grayson said nothing. He only continued to gaze at her as if he wanted to tie her up naked in his bed.

  Ignoring all of them, she kicked her mount and rode off a little ways to take a break. Something extraordinary had happened and it confused the hell out of her. Lupines couldn’t communicate telepathically.

  Near the fence line dividing the Mitchell Ranch from Grayson’s property, Katy stopped her horse, climbed off and drank deeply from her water bottle. She wiped a hand across her sweating forehead as Grayson galloped closer.

  Grayson dismounted and strode toward her, his short, dark brown hair hidden beneath his black Stetson. He was a big man/wolf, more than six feet five inches of pure muscle. Faded blue jeans hugged his trim legs and the taut roundness of his very taut butt. His flat belly and deep chest were hidden by a black work shirt, open at the throat. A dusting of dark hair showed in the deep V. Strain showed in his bright blue eyes, and lines bracketed his full mouth.

  He was thirty-two, quite young for a Lupine, but there was something even more “Other” about Grayson than the Lupines she’d lived among most of her life. Maybe the “Other” was telepathic communication. Though she supposed it was possible, she’d never heard of such a trait.

  He stopped barely two feet from her, crowding her, making her fully aware of the sweat beading on his forehead, the thin line of his kissable mouth, his dark, rich scent of sage, evergreen and leather.

  And something much more earthy…like sex.

  Trembling, she started to lift the water bottle to her mouth when he reached out, wrapped his lean, strong fingers around it. Grayson’s ice blue gaze met hers as he gently pulled the bottle from her grasp. Lifting it to his mouth, he tipped back his head and drank deeply, the muscles of his strong throat working.

  Katy’s heart beat faster as he finished, wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and murmured thanks to her as he handed back the bottle.

  Sharing water, nothing more. But the gesture indicated a deeper intimacy, as if he wanted to swap other body fluids with her, and planned to do so very soon.

  He reached out, traced a droplet of sweat rolling down her cheek like a tear. “You okay?” he murmured, lowering his hand. “You look shaken.”

  She studied the sweep of pasture, the jagged purple mountains as she tried to leash emotions that had her spinning around. “I’m woolgathering.”

  “Skill best practiced on a sheep ranch.”

  The joke made her turn back to him, and his grin relaxed her. This
was the Grayson she’d gotten to know over the past few months.

  “You’re very funny. Lupines and cattle are bad enough. Sheep? Too tempting.”

  “Reckon there’s many things tempting to a fully mature Lupine. You’re twenty-one now, Katy. Fully come into your powers.” Grayson tipped back his hat and studied her until she felt like a bug pinned on a board. “You ever get any strange dreams with colors, purple and pink? Dreams with Fae in them and strange creatures you’ve never seen before?”

  Such an odd question to ask. She frowned. “Not that I can remember. Why?”

  “You ever do, call me. You ever need me, Katy, day or night. I’ll be here for you.” His gaze darkened. “Don’t tell your folks or anyone else in your pack if you have those dreams.”

  “Why not?”

  He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Reckon they wouldn’t understand.”

  “Is it something bad?” She thought of the odd dream she’d had last night, and the wispy fragments she barely remembered. It had not been bad, just unsettling.

  Much as she loved her adoptive parents and her five older brothers, she felt lately they didn’t understand her. She’d been abandoned near the ranch and had no memory of her first eight years on this earth. Sometimes she wondered if she was a normal Lupine…or something else.

  Lupines like her friend Holly didn’t have these odd yearnings. Certainly Katy’s parents did not, nor did they understand how she longed to run solo beneath the full moon and flush out prey. Her parents didn’t realize how she felt restricted and stifled. No matter how much she loved her parents and pack, and how much they adored her, she felt there was something else tugging at her when she gazed at the horizon.

  Grayson’s gaze intensified. “Not bad. Different. You ever feel you need to talk, I’m here for you, Katy. We’re friends.”

  She nodded. All her Lupine instincts flared like sparks on dry kindling. She liked Grayson as a friend, but now she felt something deeper, more meaningful. He felt the same too, judging from the interest flaring in his gaze. But there was that odd communion between them, the wicked sexual thoughts he’d spoken into her mind…

  Must have been her imagination.

  She watched Kyle, Darius, and Parker finish castrating the calf. Holly, riding a spirited mare, galloped toward the trio. Sighing, Katy watched her friend begin flirting with Parker, who was single, unlike Kyle and Darius.

  “She always gets the guys,” she muttered, more to herself than Grayson. “Holly’s delicate, feminine, and frail. Men like that, especially Lupines. I guess it brings out their protective instincts.”

  The only male who’d ever asked her for a date was Charles, who was short and not unattractive, but he lacked a sense of humor and he had a slight cruel streak. She’d seen the way he worked with the calves.

  When he’d asked her out, she politely refused him. And then he’d asked her again, in front of the whole damn pack and she had to really spurn him. Charles had gotten red-faced, but she figured his ego would recover.

  Katy needed something else. She wasn’t certain exactly what, but she refused to settle for someone as dull and ordinary as Charles.

  Yet, seeing Holly flirt with Parker, she wished a man would tell her how beautiful she was for once, and shower her with attention the way some men did with her friends.

  “Some men don’t want china dolls. Some men need a strong woman, who can take the roughness they need to give them,” Grayson said quietly.

  Red flushed her face at that comment. Her heart began pounding hard. After that interlude in her head earlier, she had a good idea of how rough he liked it.

  “Your scent changed. You’re afraid of me now.” He watched her, not drawing near, not smiling, either.

  “No. Curious. Why don’t you have a mate, Grayson?”

  He turned toward the group working with the calves. “Reckon I haven’t found the right one yet, who won’t be afraid of living with a lone wolf.”

  That comment intrigued her. Always alone, and yet he liked being with her, liked being around the Mitchell pack and always came over when invited.

  “Why are you a lone wolf? You told me you never had a pack before buying the Double D. Why don’t you have a pack?”

  Grayson’s mouth thinned out. “Don’t go there, Katy. I am who I am, and I’m not a pack wolf around here. Never will be.”

  She couldn’t imagine life as Grayson lived—never having other Lupines around for support, friendship, good times, and to run with through the woods on a full moon.

  He mounted his horse and gestured to the herd. “Let’s go.”

  Mounting Star, she cantered toward the next calf as Grayson rode beside her. For a few moments, he said nothing. Then he spoke in a quiet voice above the gurgle of the river, the cattle and the laughter of the other Lupines. “Katy, much as I’d like to run as wolf with you tonight, understand that I won’t.”

  Bewildered, she studied his sharp profile beneath the shadow of the black Stetson. “Why?”

  “I have my reasons. Someday you’ll find out,” he finally said.

  Watching him gallop off to the next calf, Katy followed, totally flummoxed.

  Who exactly was Grayson Moore and why did she suspect he was hiding something dark and dangerous that had nothing to do with sex?

  Chapter 2

  Two weeks later

  The scent of a woman swirled in his nostrils, tempting, sweet as honeysuckle and deadly as hemlock.

  Deadly, because he knew it was too dangerous to unleash his raging desire. This woman—no, this wolf—Katy Thomas, lived one fencepost away from his spread, but she might as well have lived on Mars. She was a Mitchell Ranch Lupine, adored by her Lupine pack.

  Even if they had no idea exactly what she was.

  Even if she had no idea exactly what she was.

  Katy, a lovely Lupine, laughing green eyes and a mane of tangled curls who was a terrific rider. Not as pretty as some females in the Mitchell pack, but striking in her own way. She could tempt a celibate Lupine male, if there ever were such a creature.

  Always careful to keep his desires at bay, Grayson curled his calloused fingers around the frosted mug of amber beer. The rich fragrance of Katy tightened his body with hard need. It evoked an image of her naked on all fours in the traditional Lupine mating position, a sultry look in her eyes as he gripped her hips and sank deep inside her.

  Stop it. Thoughts were dangerous in a crowded bar. They could dance around and slip into unknown heads.

  He tipped the rim of his black Stetson, dragged in a deep breath and more scent, and stared at the mirror in front of him, the rows of whiskey and liquor lined on dusty glass shelves.

  What the hell was Katy doing here? He stole a glance over his shoulder, saw her with her two girlfriends at a corner table. Dust motes swirled in the air like fairies as muted light from the grimy overhead lamps glinted in the mass of long, dark curls spilling down her back.

  Holly and Sherry, her two good friends, were with her. Katy was legal now, fully legal to drink, and do other things.

  The other things a Lupine enjoyed in the dark of night, with a woman whose crimson mouth was made for sin, hot kisses and passion…

  Grayson shoved aside the beer, signaled the bartender. When the shot of amber whiskey arrived, he downed it neat. He’d never been a heavy drinker, but with the delectable Katy in his scent range, he needed a crutch.

  She was the coziness of pack, family, and settling down.

  He was a lone wolf who’d vowed to never join a pack here.

  They would never let her go. She would have to leave on her own, and judging from her woebegone look and that remark about pack during the roundup, she wasn’t ready to abandon her people.

  Yet.

  Grayson wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and tried to ignore the gnawing need in his gut. He ordered another shot of whiskey. Tonight it would do little more than warm him, he was so cranked up with sexual need.

  The Bar was frequented
by grizzled Lupine cowhands and tough trolls, Fae and bear shifters. Her pack enjoyed the more refined digs at Spuds Saloon, especially now that Aiden Mitchell, pack alpha, had purchased it as a gift for his mate, Nia.

  Grayson preferred The Bar because of the slim odds of running into anyone from the Mitchell pack. The toughest Skins—the word Lupines used for humans—wouldn’t venture close to The Bar. They sensed the otherworldly aura about the place, and the air of danger. Hell, the place didn’t even have a name. Grayson liked that. The Bar was like himself—isolated and alone, with dark corners one didn’t dare peer into too closely.

  The outside door opened, and he felt a draft that had nothing to do with the chilly air. Grayson froze, keeping his gaze centered on the drink before him. He didn’t need the mirror to see who was behind him. He knew these three, knew their scents. It had been ten years since he’d last seen them.

  Someone clapped him on the back, a friendly cuff. “Hey, cowboy.”

  “Mad Dog,” he murmured.

  “Dude, is this where you hang your hat? I’ve seen prettier mugs in prison.”

  “Go to hell, Chase,” Grayson told him in an amiable tone. Chase, his best friend. He missed the guy.

  “We came to check on you,” a silver-haired male told him. Cedric. The alpha.

  Grayson considered. “Now, after all this time? Why?”

  “Because it has been ten years since you last checked in with us, son,” the alpha said.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Grayson saw the alpha slowly climb onto the barstool on his right, as if his body pained him.

  An uncomfortable silence descended. He wondered what was going on that both Chase and Mad Dog accompanied Cedric. Chase was silent and swift, and Mad Dog was the pack’s muscled enforcer, but having both as bodyguards was like elephants guarding an ant. Was the old man starting to slow down?