His to Seduce (9 page)

“The land we love.”

“Right.”

“None of this adds up.” Luke couldn’t sit any longer. He’d been so sure that Brian would know something; the fact that he didn’t was both a relief and a letdown because he was no further ahead than when he’d left the ridge that morning. And definitely no closer to an answer to give Chloe. “I just don’t understand it,” he muttered as he paced the small office. “Chloe found our letterhead in the bags, which beyond the fact that we would never dump on our land, doesn’t make sense because we shred everything we have that uses our letterhead. It’s a privacy thing.”

Brian nodded.

“So who—”

“Hey boss, I wanted to talk to you about—Oh, I didn’t know you had company.” A man who looked like a younger, scrawnier version of Brian popped into the office, but the moment he saw Luke, his face hardened and his eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem?” He pointedly looked away from Luke and focused on Brian.

Brian took his time unfolding himself from his chair, but when he stood, Luke could much more clearly see both the similarities between the men as well as the differences. “Luke, this is Darryl Ackerman. My cousin from down south. Darryl, meet Luke Jackson, one of the brothers who runs Grizzly Ridge. The Jacksons are our neighbors.”

For at least the hundredth time, Luke wished his instincts weren’t still so muddled by his damn mate. Or lack of mating, whatever the case may be, because there was something off about this man. He just couldn’t pin it down. He offered Darryl his hand, but the younger man tucked both of his in his back pockets and nodded.

“I know who you are.”

Instead of reprimanding his cousin, Brian simply raised his eyebrows slightly before his face returned to neutral, but Luke hadn’t missed either Darryl’s rudeness or Brian’s reaction.

“Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of you.” Luke crossed his arms over his chest. “What brings you to Blackwood Ranch?”

“Darryl was getting into a little trouble down in Wyoming, so I brought him up here to work for me for a bit. Thought a bit of hard work could sort him out.”

“Is that right?”

Brian nodded.

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Let’s just say, Darryl’s going to learn a lot in his time here.”

The younger man shifted anxiously from foot to foot, and Luke’s instincts were on high alert. There was something shifty about this kid, and more than just the fact that he was a wolf. As a general rule, Luke didn’t have much time for wolves, but this one really rubbed him the wrong way.

“Right.” Darryl sidestepped his way to the door. “I’m sure I will. I should go.”

The second he was gone, Luke turned to Brian. “Your cousin has a lot to learn about manners.”

“He has a lot to learn, period. But he’s a good kid.”

Luke didn’t think so. “I’ll take your word for it, Blackwood. But only because you and me, we’re good.”

“We are good, Jackson. I don’t know what’s going on over there on the ridge, but you have my word, it’s not me or my guys.”

“Are you sure about that? How many men do you have working for you? How many
cousins
?”

“Tread carefully, Jackson. I don’t like what you’re implying.”

Luke held up his hands and stepped backward. “I’m not implying a thing. I’m just saying, something’s going on up on our ridge. Something that is beginning to look a lot like sabotage and there aren’t a lot of options to choose from here. That’s all I’m saying.”

Brian nodded and extended his hand, which Luke took. “I get it, Luke. I’d be the same way if it was happening on the ranch. I’ll keep my eyes open around here. You have my word.”

It was the best he could hope for.

“
T
hink with your head
, Chloe.” She repeated the words to herself. “Think with your head.” She’d lost count as to how many times she’d repeated the phrase. Since leaving the Den and her little chat with Harper, it had become her new mantra.

Think with your head.

It’s exactly what she’d thought she’d been doing, but it was easy to see now that she’d been working so hard to keep her feelings for Luke from clouding her judgment, she was doing the exact opposite. She so badly wanted what she found to not be connected with Luke and the Jacksons that she wasn’t allowing herself to look at it logically and impartially. It was kind of backward thinking, but she was still doing what she said she’d never do again: letting her emotions guide her work.

She’d sifted through the bags again. And separated everything she found into two piles.

There was the kitchen garbage. The organics.

And then there was the paper. Grizzly Ridge letterhead, with nothing written or typed. Just plain paper that had been crumpled into balls. That in itself was strange. Who threw away perfectly good letterhead? The other thing that was strange was…that was it for paper: no receipts, no evidence of shredding, no printed emails. Nothing.

When she looked at it logically, she had to admit, it looked strange. Very strange.

“Think with your head, Chloe.”

She moved away from the pile of paper and back to the organics pile. Everything in this bag looked as if it had come directly from the kitchen. And all of it was compostable. Luke had mentioned something about Kade starting a compost pile. She’d go check with him just as soon as she was done. But there had to be something else. Something she was missing.

She needed a break.

What she really needed was to let her bear out and go for a run in the forest to clear her head. But it wasn’t a good idea. After all, that’s what got her into this mess in the first place. Well, not really, but if she hadn’t been in her bear form playing in the woods that day when she’d come across Luke, would they still have the attraction to each other? Deep down she knew the answer was yes. She knew he was right. Harper was right. Dammit, everyone was right.
They were fated mates.
It wouldn’t have mattered whether they’d seen each other for the first time in a bar over drinks, or covered in manure in the back of a barn. The attraction would still be just as strong. There was no getting away from it.

With a sigh, she twisted the top off her water bottle and drank deeply. She needed to stop thinking about Luke. She needed to focus. Because the sooner she could solve this little mystery and file her report, the sooner she could get away from the Ridge and him. And that’s exactly what she needed to do. If this little incident had taught her anything, it had definitely taught her that she’d been right. A mate was nothing but trouble. She couldn’t think clearly, she couldn’t work, she couldn’t function. If that’s what it meant to have a man in her life, she didn’t want it.

Determined to get back on track, Chloe pulled out her notebook and read through the notes she’d made. Everything up until that point had pointed only to Grizzly Ridge being on the cutting edge of environmental concern. There had been no red flags. If anything, everything had pointed
away
from them. Which was why her garbage discovery didn’t make any sense. Her instinct said it was a setup, but she couldn’t file that in her report. Not without evidence. She needed evidence that it wasn’t the Jacksons; otherwise, she just couldn’t ignore it. She’d have to report it, even if it didn’t make sense.

And that would mean a consequence. Probably a fine, a big one, but maybe even jail time, depending on the prosecutor.

Footsteps approaching outside the shed alerted Chloe that she wasn’t alone. Her body reacted instantly to the idea that it might be Luke coming to find her again. But she knew better. He’d said his good-bye. And that’s what it was: a good-bye. It had felt so final in so many ways, her heart ached just thinking about their last time together. When Kade came around the corner, she was both relieved and disappointed that it wasn’t his older brother.

“Find anything?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.” She tossed her notebook on the table behind her and made room for Kade on the bench where she sat. He reached past her and grabbed the notebook, which had fallen open to the inside of the front cover. To the picture of little Jordan Adams.

“Who’s this?” Kade picked up the notebook before she could grab it back. “He yours?”

“No,” she answered quickly. “He wasn’t…I didn’t…” Chloe swallowed and let out a long sigh. “I didn’t even know him. He was a kid on a case I worked a few years ago.”

“You deal with a lot of kids in your line of work?”

Chloe shook her head. “Almost none.” She took the notebook back from him and stared at the picture. It had been a long time since she talked about Jordan Adams. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever actually talking about him. Mostly she’d just tucked away the memories. It was easier that way. She glanced at Kade out of the corner of her eye. He sat patiently, waiting for her to say more. Maybe it was time she did start talking? It couldn’t hurt.

“He was different.” Chloe ran her finger along the side of the picture the way she had a hundred, maybe a thousand times before. “He lived in the town where I was working on an investigation. My first one, actually.” She paused, but Kade didn’t push. After a moment, she continued. “I was with a team. We were hired by the town to test the water supply in their new spray park. I was pretty new so I got all the grunt jobs like actually collecting the samples. I knew right away there was something not right. The water…it didn’t look right and it had a smell to it on hot days.”

“And so you found something?”

Chloe shook her head slowly. “No. We didn’t. Or at least my team didn’t find anything.”

“But if you said the—”

“I know. I couldn’t figure it out. I ran the tests over and over. Even after hours, I’d go back and do it again. I was so certain there was something wrong with the water, but I was new and very green and…”

“Nobody would listen to you?”

“Exactly.” She nodded. “I couldn’t help but think that maybe if I looked a little harder, if I’d done my job better, I would have found something that would have been conclusive. But I didn’t.”

“And?”

“And we were wrong. The water was contaminated with bacteria. Ten kids got sick. Nine were lucky. Jordan Adams wasn’t.”

L
uke should have headed
straight up to the Den to find Axel and Kade and get to the bottom of what was going on. His meeting with Blackwood had done one thing, and that was concrete the idea in his head that even if Brian didn’t know exactly what was going on, something was definitely going on and it involved the Blackwood Ranch. The sooner they got to the bottom of what was going on, the better. Especially because as long as the Ridge was under suspicion, it made things way too complicated between him and Chloe, and that was one situation he was not willing to accept.

Despite his resolve to talk with his brothers, Luke found himself taking a left off the path that led to the Den, and instead, led directly to where he knew he would find Chloe. There were a million reasons he should stay away from her and keep his distance, not the least of which was the little coupling they’d shared the day before. That was supposed to be their good-bye. It had been their good-bye in so many ways. But not in the way that really counted. Because there was no good-bye that would ever be good enough, strong enough to make him stay away. He knew that now. Hell, he’d known that then. She was like a magnet that he couldn’t pull away from. It didn’t matter what she’d found in the woods, or what it could mean to Grizzly Ridge. None of that mattered, and not just because he knew they were innocent of any and all wrongdoing. No, it didn’t matter because now that he’d found her, there was no way he was going to let her walk away from him and out of her life. He was going to walk right into that shed, wrap her in his arms and—

Voices.

Luke stopped behind the shed and listened. At first it sounded as if Chloe was talking to herself, but then…
Kade
.

“You deal with a lot of kids in your line of work?” Kade asked.

“Almost none.” Chloe’s voice was filled with sadness, and something else.
Relief.
As if she had something she needed to say.

Luke forced himself to stay put and listen, unwilling to interrupt her as she started to tell her story.

His heart cracked a little for her as he heard the details of her story: not because it was sad, but because it clearly had made a significant impact on Chloe. An impact that had shaped her career, and obviously her life.

Her voice cracked as the story progressed. Luke could sense her hurting. He could feel her pain, even though he couldn’t see her. When she said, “Ten kids got sick. Nine were lucky. Jordan Adams wasn’t,” he couldn’t wait any longer. He moved around the outside of the wall, but neither Chloe nor Kade saw him.

“But you did your job. You tested the samples,” Kade said.

“No. That’s the thing. The samples were switched. The senior researcher on the team had been paid off. But I should have known. I was the one who collected them. I should have realized they weren’t the same. It was my fault.”

“Bullshit.”

Chloe and Kade both turned to see him there.

“Luke? What—”

“That’s bullshit, Chloe.” He strode across the space and pulled her from the table and into his arms, taking the notebook out of her hands as he did so. “You did your job. If the samples were switched, it wasn’t because of anything you did. You did everything you could.”

She shook her head against his shoulder, but didn’t speak. Soon, the cotton of his t-shirt grew damp where she rested her head. He didn’t press her; he just rubbed her back and kept repeating himself. “You did everything you could.”

“They got sick.” Her voice was thick and muffled, but he could hear her loud and clear. Kade sat silently, watching and listening with a respect Luke didn’t know his little brother was capable of. “All those kids.” She lifted her head a little to look at his face. “They were just playing the way kids should and they got sick because someone got greedy.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

She shook her head. “I could have stopped it. I should have looked harder. I should have seen something. I should have done my job.”

“You
did
do your job.”

She shook her head again. “He died, Luke.”

“I know, babe.” He rubbed her back gently and let her fold into him while she cried and finally let out the emotion she’d obviously been holding onto for far too long. “I know. But it’s nothing you did. It wasn’t your fault.”

“And more importantly,” Kade chimed in, “this case isn’t like that one. No one is going to die because you found a few bags by the stream.”

Chloe looked up and used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes before she stared at Kade. A few moments went by before she blinked, and Luke was getting a little worried that she might either start crying again or worse, was going to go after Kade. There was no telling what an emotional bear would do. Never mind an emotional
female
bear. He tightened his grip on her. Not so much to protect her, but to protect his little brother from what could be an emotional, unreasonable female.

But he needn’t have worried because the noise that came out of Chloe wasn’t a growl or a sob, but…
a laugh?

“Chloe? What?” He held her out at arm’s length to look at her, and sure enough, her beautiful face, streaked with the tears still, was crumpled up in laughter. “Chloe?” He said her name again. “Are you…are you okay?”

The woman was clearly losing her mind. The stress and emotion was getting to her.

“He’s right,” she said after a moment. “Kade’s right. No one is going to die because I found a few bags by the stream.” She burst out into a fresh round of giggles and Kade joined in. All Luke could do was stand back to watch and wait it out. She needed the emotional release; he let her have it because he knew enough about women to know what would follow.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long before Chloe looked at him and he could see the shift in her moments before the tears started to flow once more. He held out his arms and wrapped her up once more.

“You’re right,” he said into her ear. “No one will die, but we still need to figure out what’s going on. And you’re just the woman to do that.” He kissed her cheek, knowing it was breaking every spoken and unspoken rule they’d ever had between them, but he no longer cared.

“Luke.”

She was so close, he could take her lips into a kiss and she wouldn’t have time to pull away, to deny him what he wanted so badly. What he needed. Hell, what they
both
needed. And he was ready to do just that, when her eyes lifted to something just past his shoulder. Her whole body tensed in his arms and he, too, turned to see what she was looking at.

“How could I miss that?” She moved toward the table, and he made no motion to stop her. “It was right there.”

“What?”

“I don’t see anything.” Kade jumped up from where he sat on the picnic table. Luke had almost forgotten he was there. “What are you looking at?”

“That paper.” Chloe crouched on the ground by the large table where the contents of the garbage bags were spread out. “Hold on.” She reached farther under the table and pulled out a folded piece of yellow lined paper.

Once she stood again, Kade and Luke both gathered around her and watched her unfold it. “It looks like a list of names,” she said.

“No.” Luke shook his head. “Not just names. Horses.” He clapped his hands together. “Blackwood’s horses. We got ’em. This was in the bags?”

She nodded.

“You’ve found it, Chloe. It’s the missing puzzle piece and just the proof we need that we’ve been set up.”

“Wait.” Chloe shook her head. “I’m not sure about all this. I mean, a setup? I don’t understand. Why would someone go to all that trouble? And how would they know I’d find the garbage?”