Perfect: Tales of the Were (Big Wolf Book 2) Read online

  “Cassandra.” Emma’s brows drew into a troubled frown. “I don’t want to speak out of turn, but there’s something I think you need to know about Cody. Something I saw back when he first started.” She seemed flustered, and Cassandra grew concerned. What could put such a worried look on Emma’s face?

  “What is it?”

  “I saw him going around to your back porch last night,” she admitted. “If he’s romancing you, you may need to be careful.”

  “Careful? Careful in what way?” Cassandra was truly concerned. She hadn’t thought Emma was an alarmist, but the other woman seemed truly worried about something.

  Emma wrung her hands. “Two of the hands said something that I just can’t get out of my mind, Cassandra. There was a woman in the passenger seat of Cody’s pickup when he came out for the interview. I saw her. Jones and Pepe were with me. We were working on the back side of the bunkhouse, and he’d parked back there, somewhat out of sight of the main house. Jones and Pepe were wondering if the woman was the new guy’s girlfriend and if so, if he’d been rough with her. Cassandra…she had a black eye and dark bruises all over her arm.”

  Cassandra’s heart plummeted. Sure, Cody had been a little rougher in bed than she’d expected, but she didn’t think he had it in him to hurt a woman. Did he?

  “I just thought you should know. I don’t want to see you hurt.” Emma touched her hand and gave her a meaningful look before leaving the kitchen.

  Cody returned to the ranch just as Rich and Emma took their leave. Cassandra saw his truck pull in near the front of the bunkhouse as she waved goodbye to her foreman and his wife with a troubled heart. Should she ask him about what Emma had told her? Or would he even come to her tonight? She wasn’t sure. He hadn’t said anything the night before about a repeat performance, so she just didn’t know what to think.

  Indecision and nerves got the best of her by the time there was a discreet knock on the backdoor. He’d come back.

  She rushed to open the door.

  He leaned down and kissed her before anything else, setting her senses reeling.

  “Hello, gorgeous.”

  She smiled at the blatant overstatement. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back tonight.”

  “How could I stay away?” Concern clouded his eyes. “Unless you want me to. Was I too rough last night, Cass? Do you want more? Or do you want me to go away and never darken your door again?”

  “Is that what you want?” she asked uncertainly.

  He moved forward, into the house, crowding her back against the kitchen island again. “What I want is more of you. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough.” His arms came around her waist, and he lifted her onto the island so her butt rested on the edge. Cody stepped between her legs, the denim of both their jeans rubbing together intimately. “The question is, are you too sore? I wasn’t much of a gentleman last night.”

  His grin was devilish, but his words brought back Emma’s concerns, and they wouldn’t leave Cassandra be. She had to ask. She owed Emma that much.

  “I’m okay, but Cody,” she paused, uncertain about just how to ask if he had a violent streak. Man, this was awkward.

  “What is it, Cassie?” He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles in the sweetest way.

  “It’s silly, really.” She tried to laugh. “It’s just something Emma said.”

  He backed off a little, suspicion entering his mysterious eyes. “What did Emma have to say?”

  “That there was a woman with a black eye in your truck when you came to interview for the job.” She said it fast, like ripping off a bandage. It still didn’t hurt any less when the warm light in his eyes died, to be replaced by cold fury. She backpedaled. “I mean, I didn’t think you were the kind of guy to hurt a woman, but Emma saw it with her own eyes. She was afraid for me. She warned me to be careful.”

  “And, because I like to dominate in bed, you automatically assume I could hit a woman? My God!” He left her sitting on the counter, spinning away toward the backdoor.

  “I don’t know!” All her uncertainty filled her voice. He stopped and faced her from across the entryway. “Could you?”

  He was silent for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  “When you figure that out, you know where to find me.”

  He slammed the door on his way out, breaking her heart in the process.

  *

  Cody was absolutely devastated by Cassandra’s lack of faith in him. That she could even ask that question made him sick to his stomach. He was very afraid his wolf was going to come out and snap at her, so he beat a hasty retreat, though he hated leaving her with such a misunderstanding between them. Still, she wasn’t ready to learn about his other half, right now. Her questions only proved how little she actually knew or trusted him.

  He’d have to earn that trust and school himself to patience, which had never been his strong suit. He’d have to woo her and prove to her that he wasn’t a violent man—unless the situation warranted extreme action. And never against woman. Never.

  Aside from this major disappointment, the day had been a good one. Rich had asked him, unexpectedly, to go into town to pick up the feed. Usually, that was a job the foreman liked to do himself, but his wife had needed his help with something related to her ongoing renovation projects in and around the outbuildings, so he’d trusted Cody to do it.

  That had given him the perfect opportunity to get away from the ranch for a bit so he could do some investigating. He had made a few phone calls while he was driving down the road and had set the wheels in motion. He’d found out that the sheriff, Shane, was already at the site on the back forty, out behind the Weavers’ homestead. Joe was able to get the feed ferried out there to meet Cody, so he wouldn’t actually have to go into town.

  Rather, the feed store would come to him, allowing him to pretend that he’d made the trip when, in reality, he’d gone to help with the investigation of the scene. Cody met Cal Weaver out at the end of his driveway. Joe had called ahead and asked the man to grant access to Cody, as he had earlier in the morning for the sheriff. Still, Cody could tell Cal wasn’t too pleased to have other wolves prowling around his territory.

  Wolves were Pack animals, and they liked being part of the bigger group, but some—males especially—tended to get a bit territorial about their private spaces. Cody understood Cal’s feelings and told him as much when he stopped the truck. Cody got out, and he and Cal shared a few words before Cal would let Cody drive over his land to get to the site.

  When Cody drew closer to the area he’d checked out earlier in his fur, he found Shane, the sheriff, there ahead of him. Shane drove a large SUV with the seal of the Sheriff’s Department emblazoned on the sides and a reflective stripe wrapped around the outside for safety. Cody parked his pickup truck next to the sheriff’s vehicle and got out, looking around for the sheriff.

  Shane was relatively new to the town, but he’d come to Big Wolf with the highest recommendation from his home Pack. He’d simply outgrown the small Pack to which he’d been born, and he was best friends with that Pack’s Alpha. No way would he challenge his best friend to a death match to see who would be top dog.

  Shane was too powerful in his own right to be a subordinate in a small Pack, but in a place like Big Wolf, with a large, thriving Pack and multiple areas where an authority figure was needed, he fit right in. Joe Villalobos was Alpha of the entire Pack, but he ceded authority over different segments of the much larger group to several trusted lieutenants. Shane was the newest of these, and one of the few that hadn’t been born and raised in the Big Wolf Pack.

  Cody was still trying to get to know the new guy, but his own wanderlust had kept him away from home a lot in recent years. Still, he’d heard good things about Shane, and the fact that the sheriff was newly mated made him a stable choice for a position of great power as the Pack’s primary enforcer. Cody was looking forward to getting to know the man a bit better while working with him on this situatio
n.

  That thought in mind, Cody approached the site cautiously, scanning the area as he walked. Shane was standing near the pig’s carcass, his hands on his hips as he looked all around.

  “Shane,” Cody spoke the man’s name as greeting, as he drew near.

  “Cody,” Shane replied in the same fashion. “Looks to me like two perps,” he said, pointing to some scuffed footprints left in the sandy soil. “They tried to brush away their tracks with that tree branch over there, but they missed a few.”

  Cody came closer, being careful where he stepped, and looked at the evidence the sheriff had spotted. Cody nodded. “I see what you mean.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to ask if you recognize anything from this?” Shane looked at Cody with not much hope in his expression.

  “Well, obviously, they’re man-sized, but other than that, they could’ve been made by any of the workers on the ranch, or even complete strangers,” Cody related.

  “Yep,” Shane agreed. “Two males, each about one eighty to two hundred pounds based on tread depth,” he added. Cody hadn’t thought of that.

  “Well, I suppose that narrows it down a bit. If we look among the ranch hands, there are only a half-dozen in that range. Two or three of the ranch hands and about the same number of carpenters working on the restoration crew,” Cody supplied.

  “I think it’s more likely someone working on the ranch, but I’ll keep an eye out for outliers,” Shane told him. “You’re the inside man on the ranch, so I suspect you’ll have your work cut out for you keeping tabs on all six of those. If you text me their names, I’ll run background checks. Might help narrow things down a bit.”

  “I appreciate the help, Sheriff. I’ll do that.”

  “This doesn’t look like any sort of organized rite that I’ve ever seen,” Shane commented, walking carefully around the animal carcasses. Cody noticed that Shane, like Cody himself, was being cautious not to leave any tracks.

  “Yeah, it seemed odd to me in the dark, and it looks even weirder by the light of day,” Cody admitted, scratching his head. “If they’re trying to do magic up here, they’re sure going about it in an odd way.”

  “And why leave the carcasses?” Shane asked. “It almost looks staged, in a way, but I’m certainly no expert on dark magic.”

  “Could it be misguided human kids playing at devil worship or something?” Cody ventured.

  “Possible, but there are no new scents that stand out. The only scent trails are familiar ones to the area, layered over time, which would point more toward someone who works on the ranch or someone who comes out here often,” Shane said. Cody was gaining respect for the new sheriff. He certainly sounded as if there was concrete reasoning behind his deliberative process.

  “That sounds plausible,” Cody allowed. “I’ll send you that list as soon as I have a minute. I don’t know all the last names, but I know where I can get them.”

  “If you can snap a few discreet photos of some of them while you’re at it, that could help, as well,” Shane said.

  “I’ll do my best,” Cody agreed. Though, how he was going to unobtrusively take photos of his coworkers remained to be seen.

  “I’m going to leave this untouched and see what happens. Could be the perps will come back and leave us some more clues. I’ll arrange for a few of my deputies to rotate duty watching the area, though Cal isn’t going to be happy,” Shane mused, looking back in the direction of Cal Weaver’s homestead.

  “He’ll be even more unhappy if whatever this is spills over onto his land,” Cody said, and Shane laughingly agreed.

  “There is that. Okay,” Shane started walking back toward his vehicle, “get me those names and photos, if possible. I’ll see what I can dig up. Other than that, you need me, you put me on speed dial, and I’ll be there. Whatever this is, it’s got my hackles up, and I don’t like that feeling.”

  “Agreed.” Cody walked alongside the sheriff as they headed for their rides. “Thanks for the backup. I’ll try not to need it, but it’s good to know it’s available, if it comes down to a confrontation.”

  Chapter Five

  Cody and the sheriff parted with a friendly handshake and each headed their separate ways. Cal Weaver was glad to see them go, standing by the road, his dour expression seeing them off. The sheriff went toward town, Cody went the other way, back toward the ranch. He had one stop to make on a side road where he was going to meet the truck from the feed store so he could load the supplies Rich had ordered into the back of his pickup.

  That went off without a hitch, and within twenty minutes, he was heading back toward the ranch. Toward Cassie. His mate.

  Oh, how he’d liked the thought of that. Cody had planned a night of seduction, domination and pleasure that was making him yearn in anticipation, only to be stopped short by Cassie’s cruel words.

  How could she have believed he would hurt a woman? Bedroom fun was one thing, but he’d never seriously hurt a female in his entire life. And that included his little sister when they were just kids. He’d always known that girls were to be protected, not bullied or beaten.

  That Cassie could misjudge him so badly, after what had passed between them the night before… Well, it hurt. It hurt real bad.

  Cody couldn’t even deal with it right now. He had to get his mind on other things, or he’d go mad. His inner wolf was pacing in agitation, and both sides of his nature needed something to get his mind off his troubles. Work. That would fill the gap. Cody had already sent through the list of names to Shane, but he hadn’t even tried to take any photos. There just hadn’t been a good opportunity to get any, not that he’d really tried.

  Since he had time, now that his plans for the evening had altered drastically, Cody set about his task with determination. He’d find a way to get some photos to send to Shane, by hook or by crook.

  That task kept him busy for a few hours and then, he sought his bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. Cody eased open the window and let himself out into the dark yard. Shifting silently, he prowled the area until he was satisfied that he was the biggest thing moving about in the dark night.

  If he ended up in the shadow of the tree under Cassie’s bedroom window, looking up at it forlornly, well, he was the only one who knew exactly how pathetic he’d become.

  *

  The next few days were hellish for Cassandra. Cody avoided her, and she put all her energy into a new recipe, working out her frustrations on a new kind of dough she was developing. She watched him stomp around the corral from the kitchen window on the side of the house, unable to stop herself from studying him.

  She’d slept fitfully the night he’d stormed out, waking with the realization that, if he’d been prone to beating up women, he would’ve taken a swing at her when she impugned his character. He’d certainly gotten angry enough. Instead, he’d stomped out with cutting, cold words. Based on that, she didn’t think he truly had a violent streak, but he definitely had a temper.

  Well, so did she. All she’d done was ask a simple question. He could’ve answered her calmly or given her some reassurances about what that bruised girl was doing with him. Then again, smooth assurances might have made her even more suspicious. How could a man answer allegations like the ones she’d thrown at him? The more she thought about it, the more she realized it was a no-win situation for him.

  More than likely, there was some logical explanation for the girl being in his truck. Maybe she’d been a stray in need of a ride that he’d picked up and helped, like the injured animals he nursed back to health in the empty stalls of one of the big barns. His compassion for anything injured was the topic of a lot of jokes around the ranch, but he didn’t stop taking in any little thing that was hurt. He’d probably done the same for the battered woman, and had his reputation suffer for it.

  By the third day of their stand-off, Cassandra’s temper had cooled enough for remorse to set in. She shouldn’t have doubted Cody. He was a good man. She knew that and trusted him to treat her well. M
aybe he wasn’t the gentlest lover she’d ever had, but he was certainly the best.

  The things he’d done to her that night they’d spent together had resulted in the greatest pleasure she’d ever known, and she hadn’t suffered any injuries. In fact, he’d been very careful to be sure she wouldn’t bruise from the scarf he tied around her wrists. He’d also asked more than once about her comfort. Those weren’t the acts of an abuser.

  She’d panicked and accused him falsely, but what could she do about it now? He was avoiding her like the plague. When she went outside with trays of treats for testing, he was conspicuous by his absence. More than once, Rich’s eyebrows had risen as Cody went off in the other direction when she came outside.

  She had to talk to him. She had to apologize. But getting him alone would be difficult, so she devised a plan to ambush him.

  *

  Shane had gotten back to Cody with the results of the background checks the day after their meeting, and they’d been able to eliminate the men on the carpentry crew from their suspect list. Three of the ranch hands remained active possibilities, but Cody personally thought Jones and Pepe were the likely pair who had set the scene on the back forty.

  The duo were thick as thieves, as the saying went, and they’d been acting weird the past few days. Cody remembered seeing them whispering together more than once, and since he’d been watching them even more closely, he’d noted some other strange behavior.

  Cody had come upon them in the barn that evening as the ranch was settling down for the night. They were loitering in one of the stalls, and Cody could hear—with his superior werewolf hearing—them mention the full moon and start to laugh. The laughter had a sort of evil flavor to it, as if they were plotting something. Though, that could just have been Cody’s imagination.

  He really needed proof before he could act against the men. The last thing he wanted to do was get it wrong and send whoever was truly responsible into deeper cover.

  But that full moon comment gave Cody a little breathing room. If they were planning to do something on the night of the full moon, that was still two days away. Cody would be ready.