Desert Blood (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 2) by Anna Lowe Read Free Book Online

friend. That’s what the night air was signaling now: friend, not foe.
    Slowly, carefully, she turned the lock and cracked the door open, bracing to bash it closed, just in case.
    It was him. Cody. More than a friend; her heart knew that already. Each time he walked her to her car, another section of her heart caved in. And two nights ago, that kiss had sent the rest crumbling. She could still taste him on her lips, still feel his hand on her hip. She’d been bumping into her own furniture, pouring tea into her cereal, watching the clock for some unknown appointment.
    Now, standing before her, Cody’s eyes sparkled gold behind the brown, like coins in an ancient well. In faded denim and a beige shirt, the man was all dry tones, but his hands cupped something succulent and red. Behind him, the desert was hushed, leaning in to eavesdrop.
    They stood staring at each other for a minute, or maybe ten, bathed in silence except for the hum. It was very faint, like a power station radiating electricity, but it came from between them, out of thin air. Or maybe it was from the thirsty earth below, thrumming with the beat of a primal drum.
    The lazy, lusty heat of it wrapped around Heather’s legs and clambered up her frame. Soon she’d be engulfed with that thumping need. Did he feel it, too? She stood silent, wondering what it was that tore at her gut with a curt, urgent message:
Cody! Cody!
It might have been the call a hibernating bear gets to wake up or a flower to bloom. Every scrap of her was being pulled in his direction.
    “Hi,” he breathed. His voice, normally so smooth, had a bit of sandpaper in it tonight.
    “Hi,” she said, or at least mouthed it while her pulse hammered in her ears.
    Warning bells sounded in her mind.
Don’t trust him! Don’t trust anyone!
    His lips parted as if to speak then closed again. She could taste the kiss forming on them as he took her in. Not the way some men did, appraising and crude. No, his gaze was gentle, sincere. Hopeful, too. But he was holding back, giving her the power to choreograph what happened next.
    Danger! Danger! You don’t know what he will do!
    Heather shoved the spinster aside and swung the door wide. “Would you like to come in?”
    Grinning like a boy offered a cookie jar and trying to remember his manners, Cody stepped over the threshold. “Tina asked me to give you this.” He handed her a limp sheaf of papers. Meanwhile, all his focus—his hopes—were pinned to his other hand. The one that held out strawberries. Juicy. Sweet. Begging to be devoured.
    Temptation, there for her to take or reject.
    She was shaking inside, her mouth dry, her pulse racing. To take meant risk—risking her heart, maybe even her life. To reject meant locking herself away from a life worth living.
    She took. It was sheer instinct; the inner voice had no time to intervene. Only to react once it was too late.
I hope you know what you’re doing.
    But she had no idea what she was doing, just this crazy instinct to trust him. She rinsed the berries and covertly watched Cody make a loop through her living room. He was taking it all in, from the second-hand couch to the desert scenes she’d cut out of an old calendar to decorate the walls. Everything was improvised, like the scrap of cardboard evening out the legs of the rickety table. God, what would he think?
    He leaned over a framed photo. “Nice dog.”
    A trick! A trick! Be careful!
    “Buddy,” she said, smiling automatically.
    “Buddy?” he laughed.
    “Hey, I was nine when I named him!” Her hands went to her hips, prompting Cody to throw his palms up in surrender. “He was the best.”
    He studied the picture more closely then shot her a skeptical look. “Him?”
    That dog had been closer to her than most of her family members. A shoulder for her to cry on through her parents’ divorce and subsequent remarriages to partners who gradually pushed Heather away. From her ninth birthday until that awful day a decade later