Damnation: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 1) Page 2

  Mate! Her wolf whimpered in joy. Mate!

  Blue eyes the color of the coldest, clearest alpine lake locked on hers and refused to let go.

  “Jessica,” he murmured, too low for human ears.

  Her wolf did a crazy tap dance. Mate! Mine!

  “Wow!” Janna exclaimed, clueless as ever. “Simon?” Then she turned to the older brother — the one who was bigger, broader, and burlier, but only by a hair. “Soren? Oh my God! It really is you.”

  “Good to see you,” Soren mumbled as his eyes darted between Jess and Simon.

  “This is amazing!” Janna declared.

  Tina tipped her head sideways in a gesture that said, This is unexpected.

  Jessica shook her head furiously, trying to break Simon’s unwavering gaze. This is not possible. No way. No how. The man who’d pretended to love her, then cast her aside?

  “This…” Simon uttered in his deep, edgy bass. A sound like a shovel scraping against rock, guaranteed to send tingles to every fenced-off corner of her body and mind. “This will never work.”

  Jess edged toward the doorway, trying to keep the wobbling pieces of her heart together long enough to make her escape.

  She shook her head and echoed him, trying to convince her wolf. “This will never work.”

  Chapter Two

  For a split second, Simon stood stock-still, gaping while his inner bear reared up on its hind legs and roared.

  Jessica. Jess. His Jess. Alive!

  He wanted to drop to his knees and wrap himself around her legs. Wanted to crumple to the floor and cry in relief to see her alive. He wanted to roar to heaven that he finally, finally, had that second chance he’d been praying for, that all his hoping and wishing and dreaming hadn’t been in vain.

  But fuck. All he could get out were a few emotionless words. Why, why, why?

  He couldn’t think straight, that was why. Not upon seeing Jess alive but so haunted. The nervous tic in her cheek said she really, really needed the job. The full lips wobbled in fear and broken hope. The hollows around her incredible gray-blue eyes spoke of sleepless nights. Deep, dark wolf eyes that said she hadn’t forgotten. Hadn’t forgiven.

  And why the hell should she?

  “This will never work,” he’d blurted, even as his bear roared. No! No! No!

  Worse, Jess had immediately agreed. “This will never work.” She even recoiled as she said it, putting another crack in his heart.

  No. There was no way Jessica Macks could be back in his life.

  The rear door to the alley was open, and he could hear the voice of fate drifting in from the desert. Laughing at him. Again.

  Christ, how could he not have sensed that she was alive? That she was so near?

  The whole conversation he’d had with Tina two days ago echoed in his mind, and it all seemed so obvious now.

  “Good news! I think I found the help you need,” Tina had said.

  “Yeah? That would be great.” The saloon needed all the help it could get. He and Soren had done their best, but they weren’t exactly off to a good start.

  “I came across two women — shifters — looking for a job and a place to stay.”

  He’d just nodded along, not thinking for one second Tina meant two she-wolves from Black River — the pack that had been neighbors with his clan back in Montana. Back before it happened. The it that he and Soren couldn’t bear talking about, even if they thought about it all the time.

  “Now, look, they’re a little shy,” Tina warned him.

  That had caught him off guard. “What are we going to do with shy waitresses?”

  “Well, only one of them is on the shy side.”

  Never in a million years would he ever have called his Jess shy. No wonder he hadn’t suspected.

  “And they both need a chance,” Tina had said.

  That, he could relate to. He and Soren had been badly in need of a chance, and Tina had given it to them. She’d talked the ruling alpha of the local wolf pack into letting the bear brothers revive an out-of-business saloon the pack owned in town. The least he could do was give someone else a chance, right?

  “Where’d you say they come from?” he’d asked.

  Tina answered vaguely. “Better not ask too many questions. Will you give them a chance? Please?”

  So of course he’d said yes and yelled for confirmation from Soren, who nodded right along. Their previous waitress had lasted all of two days before she quit, and they couldn’t run the place on their own.

  But Jesus, he never suspected it would be them.

  Lean and lanky like any good timber wolves, but tired, too. Jessica looked as proud and fierce as ever but much too worried and much too thin. Janna still had her trademark smile and sass. A couple of capable Montana girls, unafraid of getting their hands dirty or speaking their minds. And the second Jessica’s gray-blue eyes hardened on him, his heart clenched.

  This will never work. Had he really said that before fleeing to the back room?

  Not like his brother had been any help with his flat, unimpressed greeting. “Good to see you.”

  Good to see you? His bear raged inside. Just good?

  His stomach was doing flip-flops, his blood rushing in uneven bursts. His heart pounded halfway out of his chest. Good to fucking seeing you?

  It wasn’t just good to see Jess again. It was great. Overwhelming. Amazing.

  He slumped to a chair in the back room and held his head in his hands. The only thing keeping him from dropping to his knees — even in the back room, even a minute after the shock — was the fact that the walls were too damn thin to cover the anguished noises he was likely to make if he let go the slightest, teensiest bit. So no knees. No noises. Just a hanging head and clenched fists and raspy breathing. The fervent wish that he’d died six months ago with the rest of his family. Better yet, that he’d died honorably, defending his mate. Because the life he’d been living the last six months wasn’t living. It was existing, nothing more. And now that he’d seen Jessica alive and angry as ever, that existence was just as bleak.

  Footsteps carried through the floorboards under the threadbare carpet, and Simon glanced up. His brother entered and leaned against the small bar built into the back room — the one they used for special occasions, or would, if they ever got enough business for something like that. Soren kept his distance and his hands out of his pockets, just in case. Which was good, because Simon was all too ready to lash out at the nearest punching bag, even if that was his own flesh and blood.

  Soren looked him up and down for a full minute before opening his mouth. “Want to tell me what that was about?”

  “No,” he barked and dropped his head again.

  “Fine,” Soren growled. “Then let me tell you. We need the help. And what the Twin Moon wolves say, we do.”

  God, how low had he and his brother fallen that they were beholden to a pack of wolves?

  “We have to,” Soren said in a voice raspy with regret. “Just swallow whatever pride you have left and do what you have to do.”

  Do what you have to do. That line had been their mantra in the weeks following the annihilation of their clan. They’d come home three days too late to do anything but extinguish the last burning embers of what had once been home, then spent the next weeks hunting down the rogues responsible for the massacre. Or as many of the rogues as they could track down, because the murderers had splintered into smaller groups and parted ways.

  Do what you have to do. It pushed them through the killing spree of their revenge, then teased them as they wandered aimlessly afterward, not sure where to go, what to do.

  But there were some things he just couldn’t do. Like live side by side with the woman he’d made sure would never, ever give him another chance.

  “Don’t,” he growled at his brother. At his bear, too, because the damn beast was huffing and puffing and clawing him from the inside.

  Soren pushed away from the bar and loomed over him. “Don’t tell me don’t.
”

  It shouldn’t have been enough to push him over the edge, but it was. Simon jumped to his feet and shoved his brother. Claws ripped out of his fingertips. His teeth pushed at his gums and his bear roared in fury inside. Who cared where he directed his anger? He couldn’t fight fate, so the next best thing was his brother, right?

  His brother, the only person in the world he had left.

  Soren’s eyes were dark and dangerous. Maybe Simon wasn’t the only one who needed to punch his frustration out.

  “Push me, little cub.” Soren taunted him the way he’d done when they were kids, though his words hadn’t had that murderous edge way back then.

  “Watch what you wish for,” he snapped right back.

  They circled each other, ready to fight.

  “You watch what you wish for—”

  “Ahem.”

  Both their heads snapped around at the sound of Tina, clearing her throat from two steps away. Calm, collected, kindhearted Tina Hawthorne. Christ, what other woman in a five-hundred-mile radius had the balls to break up a bear brawl? Besides maybe Jess…

  And just like that, the anger turned to shame. He dropped his eyes and forced the bristling hair on his neck to recede before any more of his bear got out.

  Soren shot him a this is your fault, asshole look, and he was right. This was Tina, and they owed her, big-time. They owed Twin Moon pack, too, for giving them a chance.

  Simon glanced up to apologize to Tina, and…shit. Her brother, Ty, the pack alpha, stood behind her looking this close to shifting into wolf form and joining the fray. If it had just been Ty, Simon might just have fought on, regardless of the consequences. But Tina — one little noise, and the room settled down. Sometimes, Simon had to wonder which sex was the more powerful one.

  “I don’t know what this is about,” Tina started. “But I’m asking you—”

  Ty’s murderous glare said, And I’m telling you—

  “—to help them out. To give them a chance.”

  She didn’t say, the same chance we gave you, but it was written in the stern lines of her brow.

  “Sure.” Soren nodded quickly. “We’re happy to give them a chance.”

  Ty socked Simon with a look that said, I’m waiting.

  He held back from baring his teeth at the Twin Moon pack alpha, but only just. Hell, if he’d been born into Ty’s position, he’d be the one glaring the wolf down. Except that’s not the way it was. He was just a bear from a tiny northern clan that had been bled right out of existence. A bear who’d failed to protect his family when it counted most. A bear who should have died the minute his rampage of revenge was over because he had nothing to live for any more. A failure of a bear who…

  He closed his eyes. A bear who owed these wolves for letting him settle on the outer fringe of their turf. He glanced up at Ty. Who could begrudge a good alpha for looking after his pack?

  He could curse him, though, if under his breath. Goddamn wolves.

  The words Simon forced out a second later, though, were resigned. “Sure. We’ll give them a chance.”

  The alpha wolf glared a second longer, then nodded. “You will.”

  Chapter Three

  “What’s wrong?”

  Jessica glanced from her own weary reflection in the bar mirror to that of her sister. God, how could Janna look so peppy at a time like this?

  “Everything is wrong,” she mumbled and let her shoulders droop. She was this close to rolling into a fetal position on the floor and giving up. But her stubborn-hearted wolf kept her on her feet.

  We can do this! We can get our mate back!

  If she wanted him back, which she didn’t. And if he loved her, which he didn’t. He’d made that absolutely clear.

  “Jess, Simon is here. That’s a good thing.”

  She shook her head, wishing she’d never told her younger sister about the fling she’d had all those years ago. How deeply she’d fallen in love with the sweetest, studliest bear. How badly he’d broken her heart.

  “A good thing? Not so sure,” she said.

  Liar, her wolf scolded.

  “Of course it’s a good thing.” Janna’s hands swept around the saloon. “And look — we’ve got jobs in this great place.”

  Jessica let her gaze travel the room, stopping pointedly at the paint peeling off the window frames, the scrape marks on the floor, the rickety chairs that might or might not support a customer after a hearty meal.

  “If we have jobs,” she mumbled.

  “Oh, come on,” Janna said. “You’ve got to believe.”

  Easy for her kid sister to say, even if the twenty-seven-year-old was no longer a kid. She hadn’t found her destined mate, only to have him laugh in her face.

  A cold shudder came over her, and her thoughts jumped to the chance meeting in a blizzard that had started it all. A long time ago, before their packs even considered the idea of a closer alliance. She’d been forced to take refuge in a cave, and Simon had come lumbering in. In bear form, no less, scaring the bejesus out of her wolf, although all she had showed was a row of bared teeth. But one thing had led to another once they’d agreed to…um…keep each other warm, and she’d practically been floating when she left the cave two days later with a promise to see him again soon. It was as if destiny had swirled into that cave along with the most determined flakes of wind-driven snow and whispered in her ear. He’s the one. He’s the one.

  They spent a whole year stealing off to clandestine trysts by the creek or behind the mills that lay where their territories intersected. A whole year of subtly convincing their families that a bear-wolf pairing would be a good thing. And she’d done it — she’d finally done it! She’d never forget her parents calling her in with the news.

  “The bears have agreed to your betrothal to the Voss boy.”

  She’d hugged them both and danced around the room in their wolf den in Montana. Headed straight out to the rendezvous she’d agreed on with Simon to celebrate. She’d settled in by their special creekside spot and waited. It was one of those beautiful summer days when you could practically taste the blackberries just by walking past or lick sweet honey out of the air. She could still see the bees buzzing happily along, hear the creek babble as it swept merrily by. The perfect place to wait for her lover. Her betrothed. Her mate. She waited…

  …and waited, and waited.

  He never came, so she’d sought him out in a panic, only to get an icy, awkward stare.

  “Listen, Jess, I’ve been thinking…”

  Her jaw had just about hit the ground when Simon confessed it all. That it was only a fling. That he was ready to move on. That he didn’t think she’d take all their mating talk seriously, after all.

  One of his clanmates had happened by and called him away, and she’d heard every word they exchanged.

  “Who was that?” the other bear asked.

  “Nobody,” Simon had replied. Not nobody, as in, that’s my sacred secret, but nobody, as in, truly a nobody. “Just some she-wolf who won’t leave me alone.”

  The other bear had laughed, and Simon had, too. Even if his laugh sounded forced, she’d just about cried herself into the creek before she finally staggered home. She hadn’t uttered a word to her parents because the betrothal was arranged for three years down the line, and by then, she’d figure out some way to wheedle her way out of it. Somehow. Or maybe by then Simon would find a way to get out of it, because obviously, he didn’t want her. Jesus, how could she ever face him again?

  But she had to face him again, on many more occasions, because her small wolf pack and his tiny bear clan were actually taking the notion of an alliance seriously and mixing more and more. And at each unavoidable gathering, he’d brush her off.

  “Nah, she’s too skinny for me,” he’d said to a friend once. “What would I want with a wolf, anyway?”

  Each time, pride made her want to believe his voice had wavered when he spoke, or that his shoulders slumped as if he didn’t mean the words. Once
he’d even glanced back at her with such pain and sorrow in his eyes, she wanted to cry for him. But a second later, some shadow would come over him. He’d go all cold and stiff and turn away as if she simply didn’t exist. As if he’d never really loved her and never really would.

  Simon rejected her over and over and over again, until she couldn’t help but want to hate him. But she couldn’t. Not the Simon she’d known, anyway. The one who used to stroke her cheek with one finger as they lay skin-to-skin on full moon nights when they’d snuck off to be alone. The one who seemed as content to hold her hand and sit by the creek in the sunshine as he was thrilled to get naked with her. The one who looked at her in awe and wonder, as if he’d never really lived, never breathed, never laughed or loved before he met her.

  That was her Simon. But this new man…he was a stranger. What had happened? Where had her Simon gone?

  She’d endured two years of loving-loathing him until the day he and Soren left. The bear clan had sent the two brothers to learn from their brethren on the East Coast before they were to assume real responsibility at home.

  Good riddance, she’d tried convincing herself.

  Her wolf, though, counted the days until his return.

  But then the rogues had struck, and she never saw Simon again. Until now.

  “You’ve got to believe,” Janna repeated, bringing Jessica out of the past.

  She blinked at the dilapidated carpet, the skewed pictures on the walls. She believed, all right – that fate was a cruel mistress to make her face Simon Voss again.

  Tina strode out of the back room and locked her eyes on Jessica’s. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  There it was — her way out. She didn’t want this.

  I need this. The glaring truth whispered through her mind. Janna needs it, too. They needed the jobs. The apartment. They couldn’t run any more.

  She gave a terse nod. “I want this.” A glance in the mirror over the bar told her the lie didn’t show, even if her exhaustion did.

  Tina studied her for a long, close minute, before nodding back. “All right, then. Follow me.”