Rachel's Totem (8 page)

She shrugged. “I don’t know. My aunt didn’t tell me anything useful about the totem.”

54

“What did she say, exactly?” Burke asked.

Rachel flushed, distinctly remembering her aunt’s thoughts about what to do with Burke. “She told me to forget about my loser ex-husband, to find my inner beast, and …”

“And?” Burke’s gaze intensified.

“And to take my responsibility for the totem seriously.” As if she was going to tell him her aunt wanted them to marry after hot, wild sex. Embarrassing.

“Right.” Did Burke sound disappointed?

“What did she tell you?”

“To protect you and to help you in any way that I can.”

“So how do we do that?”

Grady held up a hand. “I think we should start with Rachel’s beast. You need to get in touch with yourself first. Charlotte was always preaching that to me.”

“Yeah. So.” Dean paused. “You want us to mark you now or later? Maybe some lunch first for strength?”

“Dean.” Burke rolled his eyes. “Give her some room to breathe, okay? Rachel, it’s a lot to digest. How about we go for a walk and I’ll show you around? You can see Charlotte’s, I mean, your house from on top of the hill near the eastern cabins.”

Rachel nodded and stood. “Some air would be nice.” Looking at Grady and Dean, she clearly read their disappointment. But honestly, she didn’t know what to think about what she’d been told. Marking? Mating? Ac-taw that were real? And why couldn’t she stop thinking about what Burke would look like when he shifted? About how hard his muscles would be under her palm before his skin turned to fur?

Burke couldn’t help a quiet sigh of regret that Rachel hadn’t taken Dean up on his offer to mark her. Though her scent was tamped, his arousal kept building the longer he was around her. She just kept getting prettier every time he looked at her.

She’d taken their news well, so far that he could tell. The only glitch on this morning was the knowledge she’d been married. He’d bet the ranch her ex was the business 55

partner she’d spoken of with bitterness. Some asshole who didn’t appreciate a woman like Rachel didn’t deserve her.

They walked outside along the spring, the deep grasses, wild flowers and honeybees a symphony of nature that couldn’t compare to Rachel’s feminine beauty.

“So you were married huh?” Dumb, Burke. Real dumb.

She frowned but nodded. “Three years. He cheated on me, I left, and he tried to bilk me out of our joint business assets and every dollar I’d broken my back to earn.”

“What a dick.”

She blinked at him and smiled, a genuine grin that made his heart pound with desire.

“Truer words were never spoken.” They walked in silence a few moments before she said, “How about you? Ever married? Been heavily involved? It wasn’t Sarah Duncan was it?”

“Hell no.” Horrified at the thought, he caught her nasty chuckle. “Funny. No, it wasn’t Sarah. You blasted me for talking down to her, and maybe I deserved it. But that woman will not take no for an answer. She’s been bugging me for years.”

Rachel stared. “No kidding.”

He flushed, feeling stupid. “I like sex. It’s just that for me, it has to be with a person I care about.” So why did you take Rachel up against a wall? A woman you’d just met? He quickly hurried the topic. “I’ve never been married. Never found a woman I wanted to commit to. We Chastells marry for life. No infidelity, no divorce. Sounds corny, but we marry for love. Always have. And hopefully always will.”

“That sounds lovely.” Her voice was thick, and when he turned to her, he saw tears in her eyes. “I should have waited. Every instinct told me Jesse was wrong for me. Even Aunt Charlotte told me to forget about him. But I was lonely. My parents had just died and I felt so lost.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and they walked beside the stream. Being with her felt so right, as if he’d found the other half of himself long missing.

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“I felt the same way when my parents died. Hell, they’d survived clan wars and a rash of poachers. Even land developers who made a real nuisance of themselves before I was born. And then they died in a stupid plane wreck.”

She squeezed his hand by her shoulder, and he squeezed back.

“I still miss the hell out of them,” he admitted. “Raising Grady and Dean through high school was a bitch, as I’m sure you can imagine.” He met her laughing gaze. “And the holidays are never the same. But I guess unlike you, I went in the other direction.

Instead of looking for someone, I kind of hid back here at the ranch. I mean, who wants to find love when it can leave you in an instant?”

As soon as he said it, he realized he spoke the truth…and that he sounded like a complete, emotional asswipe.

Embarrassed, he turned her attention to an eagle cresting in the distance. But her touch on his face startled him into turning back to her.

“Burke?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” The kiss she gave him was nothing like anything he’d ever experienced.

Full of promise, tenderness and affection, it pulled him deeper into the quagmire of emotion he didn’t want to feel for this woman, yet was helpless to deny.

57

Rachel swore as she sneezed again. Damn, Aunt Charlotte might have dusted the attic at least once every ten years.

For the past week and a half, Rachel had spent every morning with Burke trying to figure out how to find the totem and every evening sifting through more of Charlotte’s stuff. Moving in had been easy. Rachel had no furniture, just a bunch of clothes and toiletries she’d brought with her. She still rented a small storage facility back in Chicago full of books and odds and ends from her prior life.

As much as she regretted some things she’d done, Rachel didn’t regret a single minute spent in Cougar Falls. She absolutely loved the town. Though she’d returned her rental car to the airport and knew she needed to find her own transportation, she’d found it easier to ride into town with Burke when he stopped by, which was at least three times a day. She couldn’t help the jolt of lust, and what felt like growing affection, every time she saw him.

Thoughts of Jesse paled next to remembrances of Burke. Rachel could drown in Burke’s eyes, and never got tired of his broad, sexy grin. Much as she’d tried to forget it, she could still feel him pounding against her in that alleyway as if it had just happened.

And several times she’d felt on fire, as if she’d die if he didn’t make love to her.

Fortunately, she’d been in bed during those instances, and she’d taken care of the problem herself. She flushed, recalling how often she’d had to do that during her brief marriage. Another sign Jesse hadn’t been “The One”.

She had no doubt, however, that life with Burke would be nothing so tame. A man like Burke would want sex often, and he’d want it hot.

Shit. Again with the libido. She fanned her chest and then said to hell with it. She was alone and in her home. The sun had set. Who would see her up in her aunt’s 58

windowless attic? Shrugging out of her oppressive shirt, she continued to clean the attic, looking for any sign of instruction pertaining to the totem.

During the past week, she’d learned more from Burke and his brothers, and Gerald as well. Though, as the lawyer had stated, he refused to answer any questions she had about the totem, he told her a lot about the town and its inhabitants. Gerald was a silver fox Shifter. A “wily bastard,” as Burke often pointed out, and a ladies’ man. Gerald had been a perfect gentleman with her, however. Maybe due to the hissing and rumbled warnings Burke sent the man anytime they ran into him.

Dean and Grady still voiced their worries that she’d choose another clan to bond with. And they made it plain they wanted her. Maybe it was a power thing with the totem. Yet the looks they gave her, the ones that spoke of carnal hungers they’d love to assuage, made her wonder just what kind of sexual practices the catamounts observed.

Burke seemed the possessive type, but she remembered the sexual vibes coming off of him and his brothers that day at his house. She shivered at the thought. Three men who looked like the Chastells and Rachel? Wow. She could just imagine taking them all on, and had used the inspiration to cool her jets a time or two.

The temperature rose and she shed her jeans. Though it had to be around fifty outside, the attic sweltered. Thoughts of sex with the Chastells didn’t help any either, and she told herself to flat-out stop it. Focus, Rachel. Sex is not one of your priorities right now. She couldn’t help her wicked conscience that added , But it should be.

Taking a deep breath, Rachel stood and crossed her arms over her chest, staring around her. “Okay, Aunt Charlotte, help me out here. How do I find your totem and take care of Cougar Falls?”

Several times during her visits into town she’d seen more of the hairy, unkempt wolf clan loitering around. They threatened with just their presence, and they always seemed to be near when she walked anywhere. Gerald had noticed just today and remarked on the fact. But she refused to say anything to Burke, afraid he’d stop taking her into town. And come on, not being able to sample any of Millie’s ice cream was just plain cruel.

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She felt Burke’s urgency daily, and wanted to find the totem as much for the town as for him. According to Burke, the magic in the relic would keep the wolves away, and those “pesky humans”. How the heck a piece of old wood could hide an entire town from society she didn’t know. But she didn’t understand shifting either, and she’d seen it with her own two eyes.

Sighing, she looked behind several boxes, glad she’d batted down the cobwebs and dust balls earlier. Rachel found a box tucked behind an old mirror she hadn’t previously seen and dusted the grime off the top. The cardboard ripped as she opened it, and she stared inside at old pictures. Interesting stuff, but not now, not when she had a mission to fulfill. If only that damned totem would turn up. No one had seen it anywhere on Charlotte’s property. It had just vanished from its position in a shaded glen when Charlotte passed away. Very, very strange. And her aunt had ordered Burke to help Rachel find the thing.

Honestly, how could Burke guide her to find the missing totem when he had no idea where to look? No passwords, no maps, just Charlotte’s frustrating letter telling Rachel to

“trust yourself, look deep into your heart and follow your beast, for he’ll show you the way.”

So did that mean she had to choose an animal soul to find the blasted totem? Because it sure was looking that way. She’d taken Grady’s demonstration as truth and had peppered Burke, his brothers and Gerald for information about the clans. Bear, cougar, eagle, raptor, wolf and fox Shifters all lived together in Cougar Falls. The majority of the town seemed to consist of the fox and eagle clans, followed closely by the bears and raptors. Not so many wolves, though the few that Burke had pointed out looked nothing like their hairy brethren from Glacier Park.

She thought perhaps that was why Burke and his brothers wanted her, seeing as how few catamount Shifters there were. Burke said that many of the cats had died during clan wars, when the totem went missing a long time ago. The rest had left in the years since, striking out to claim their own territories. But Burke insisted he and his brothers had no plans to leave. Catamounts were loners, but the Chastells definitely weren’t, nor were the 60

members in their pride. Though the Ac-taw held animal souls, they also lived as humans.

And they loved and laughed with one another, needing the close companionship their kind brought. Which was what made Cougar Falls such a remarkable place. Shifters of all clans were welcome, and they lived together to form a solid unit. Though Burke was a catamount, he protected the totem. Sheriff Tyler Roderick was a silver fox, as was Gerald, but the two worked so that the law would function. Joel was a bear, Millie a raptor, and yet they both served the town in different ways.

Rachel nodded to herself and shoved the box of pictures to the side. She needed to serve a purpose in this town too, and not just to contribute to the local economy. Her Internet had been connected yesterday, and her business was ready to roll as soon as she fixed the totem problem. Money wouldn’t be a concern for quite a while thanks to Aunt Charlotte’s generosity, and anything else she might need Burke had already offered to give her. He, Grady and Dean had done a thorough inspection on the house the day she’d moved in, fixing the hot water heater and the leaky faucet in the upstairs bathroom.

Burke had also insisted on a state of the art security system that he’d paid for himself, to her chagrin. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate it, but she didn’t want to feel beholden to him. She wanted them on equal footing when they… When they what?

She groaned at the sudden image of them entwined, naked, on her bed. Rachel just couldn’t stop fantasizing about having real sex with Burke, and she didn’t know what to think. Ever since that walk by the stream she’d softened toward him, having found a kindred spirit of sorts. She loved how he’d shared his feelings, then been totally embarrassed by doing so. It made him so human, so down-to-earth approachable for a man who looked as handsome as he did. And it also showed how completely different he was from Jesse.

Jesse would have taken Sarah Duncan up on her offer for sex in a heartbeat. Jesse would never have offered to fix Millie’s car or taken Rachel into town whenever she needed something with no strings attached. Burke wanted to find the totem, yes, but more, he seemed to like spending time with Rachel. They’d caught a movie, played spades with his cheating brothers, and watched the sun set last night, sitting together on a 61

picnic blanket behind his house holding hands. And Burke always made sure either he, Grady or Dean were around to chase off the encroaching wolves near her property.

No, Jesse would never have lifted a finger to help her with anything that didn’t get him something in return. He wasn’t even half the man, or cat, she thought with a grin, that Burke was. Jesse was…

“A man I no longer need to think about with anything but pity.” She grinned at the notion, realizing she was finally over the jerk. It had taken nine months of wrangling, and three more months of sour grapes, but she felt free. At last.