Redemption: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 3) (18 page)

Wait,
part of her mind coughed.
If Soren was a bear…

She scanned the room for danger as her mind whirred away.

If Soren was a bear, could Todd have been a bear, too? They were cousins, those two.

A shadow moved between two tables, and she tracked it with the rifle, waiting for a shot.

Wait a minute,
part of her mind protested.
How can anyone be a bear?

But the rest of her brain followed the thoughts racing along like a runaway train.

If Todd was a bear, that meant…

Her heart just about leaped out of her chest as she made the connection. Simon — a bear. Todd — a bear. Her baby…

Jesus, could it be true?

A wolf moved into the open, and she pulled the trigger, then reloaded with a curse at her miss. One shot left.

She shook every thought out of her mind and concentrated on the fight because that was all that mattered now. Everything centered around the bear, who raged and clawed and struck with fangs as long and thick as fingers. One wolf lay motionless on the floor, and another nursed a wounded foot. Three more were taking turns drawing the bear out to strike while the others leaped in, trying to get to its neck.

Her top lip lifted free of her teeth in a silent snarl of her own. She squinted down the barrel, waiting for a clear shot.

Soren,
she told herself over and over. That was Soren, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to clip him with a silver bullet tonight.

Two wolves closed on him at the same time, and she cried in alarm. The grizzly reared up on its hind legs and swiped a massive paw, scattering the wolves and sending one flying into a table that toppled and broke.

A cry slipped out of her throat as she registered the damage to the saloon. The saloon was Soren’s new life, his livelihood. He and his brother and the others worked so hard to eke out an honest living here, and it was being destroyed.

Her finger squeezed the trigger before she even realized it, and the force of the shot sent a gray-black wolf toppling out the broken windowpane.

With a quick push-pull, she loaded the gun, but the movement didn’t have the telltale resistance of the rest of her shots. The chamber was empty.

“Shit,” she muttered, groping for another round in the cash register.

Ping!

Something whizzed past her ear. The bottle of Jim Beam behind her exploded into a thousand little bits.

The bear roared. She ducked. God, the attackers did have weapons, after all. And she’d put money on the fact that it was the gray-haired one. The one who kept safely out of the action. And she’d had him in her sights, damn it!

She scrambled on her hands and knees and picked up two more bullets from the edge of the rubber mat. The last two. And there were at least five wolves out there…

She peered cautiously out from the side of the counter, not over the top, where all she could see were the flanks of the bear and the quick feet of several wolves. Where was the man with the gun?

Putting her back to the inside wall of the serving counter, she slid upward, looking in the mirror as she went. There! The man in white stepped carefully through the jagged windowpane and entered the saloon with a pistol raised, looking for her.

Her heart slammed against her chest in an uneven, staccato beat. Should she risk leaping up and shooting him? Should she crawl out the side of the bar and get him by surprise? Should she—

The gray-haired man stopped and swung the pistol toward Soren, and she nearly shrieked. What if he was packing silver bullets, too?

She jumped, about to shoot, then caught herself when the grizzly sent another wolf flying. It dashed against the man in the white suit, who stumbled and fell from view.

“Shit,” she murmured and quickly swung her head back to the bear. There’d been three wolves on him before, but now there were only two, and one moved just far enough right for her to—

She swung the rifle that way and shot. The kick of the weapon thumped into her shoulder, but she barely registered it. All that mattered was the sight of the wolf falling.

One shot left for two enemies: the wolf attacking Soren’s back, and the leader of the gang, whom she could no longer see. She took a slow step out in front of the bar. Where was he? The bear-wolf brawl went on, not two yards away to her left, and she flattened herself against the side of the bar. She couldn’t hide while Soren fought. She had to do her part, which meant finding the rogue leader and taking him out.

The left side of the bar was a blur of noise and motion, while the right was eerily still. Where was her enemy? She ducked, looking for his feet behind the pool table. Not there. By the windows? Not there. Over by the—

A chair came flying out of nowhere, and she ducked. Fast enough to protect her head, but not her shoulder, which took the bruising force of the blow.

She threw out her hands to stop her fall, and the rifle clattered to the floor, just out of reach.

A man snickered in the shadows. The bear roared.

She scrambled to her hands and knees, but she was too slow, too awkward. A shadow fell over her — a wolf, leaping in to attack. She’d been a fool, not paying attention to the wolves tossed aside by the bear. This one had been injured, but it was clearly not beaten.

She screamed as two-inch fangs spread wide, coming right for her.

A split second before she shut her eyes, a giant paw reached into view and batted the wolf aside, and another roar broke out. A huge mass stepped in front of her, glowering with rage. Even knowing it was Soren, it scared her stiff. He was so big. So furious. And Jesus, he was a bear.

His fur rippled and shone as he moved, and it would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been so terrified. Two wolves closed in on him, one from each side, filling her ears with inhuman growls.

“Get him!” the man behind the wolves hissed.

Get him!
her mind ordered her.
Get that evil man. Save Soren! Save the baby!

A switch flipped inside her, and her blood went warm. Her muscles tensed, and a rush of power coursed through her. It was like the stories she’d heard of mothers performing superhuman feats — lifting cars off injured children or pulling them out of monstrous waves. Like all the power and energy she’d ever had at different points in her life rushed through time and space to fill her with a single overwhelming urge to act.

She dove for the rifle, and all the air whooshed out of her lungs when she landed on her ribs. But better her ribs than her stomach, so she bit back the pain.

Get on your feet and end this!

She rolled and lurched to her feet, shouldering the rifle in the same move.
Click-click.
She cocked the rifle, and everything morphed into slow motion. The bear rose to its hind legs, trying to shelter her. Its roar was muffled in her ears, as if tunnel vision pushed out sound, too. The man in white brought his pistol up, following the bear’s motion, and his lips moved.

Purity. Purity.

A wolf growled somewhere far away.

Her mind superimposed cross hairs on the man’s chest, and then she pulled down and to the left.

The bear all but blocked her shot, and she could have screamed at it. She knew what Soren was doing — laying his life down for her. But damn it, that was not going to happen. Not if she had her say.

She sidestepped for a clear shot, and every nerve in her body screamed as the man in white glanced her way.

Pull the trigger!
Pull it now!

She squeezed.

The thump of her heart seemed louder than the crack of the rifle, and time moved so slowly, she swore she could see the bullet spiral through the air. She watched as it sped toward her enemy, as intent and determined as a living, breathing thing. As if it, too, needed this nightmare to end.

The gray-haired man’s eyes widened as he registered the shot and brought his pistol around.

Too late. Sarah mouthed the words. He was too late. She squeezed her eyes shut an instant before the bullet hit.

The rest of her senses exploded back into real-time, though. She heard the man’s dying grunt overlaid with the bear’s bellow of triumph. The kick of the rifle punched her shoulder, throwing her against the bar. She slammed into it then slid to the floor. Claws scratched against the saloon tiles as the remaining wolf leaped at the bear, setting off the last skirmish of a losing battle. Then came a howl of pain, the patter of paws, and the quiet clink of broken glass as the last rogue fled through the front window of the saloon.

Then silence, except for the heavy beat of her heart.

Sarah sat on the floor, propped against the lower part of the bar. All the energy that had flooded into her body drained away as quickly as it had come. She couldn’t think. Didn’t really want to think, either. She just wanted to sit and breathe and shove reality away. Reality was too screwed up to fathom right now.

For a long minute, the saloon was blissfully silent, and she sat with closed eyes, blocking everything out.

Then something padded across the floor, and the air pressure around her changed as a big body moved into her space. A musky, animal scent filled her nostrils, along with a hint of oak, and she knew it was him. Soren.

He chuffed, asking her if she was okay.

She opened her eyes and nearly burst out cackling hysterically. No, she was not okay. She was ten inches away from a looming grizzly. All that fur filled her field of vision — overfilled it, almost, as if it wrapped behind her, too, and she nearly shrank away.

But when she caught sight of his eyes, she stopped short. Those eyes were a clear, honest blue, exactly the color of the sky back home. No one else had eyes like that.

“Soren,” she whispered.

The bear’s nose quivered, eight inches away.

He stretched forward ever so slowly, and when her hands flew up on instinct, he stopped, and his eyes dimmed with sorrow.

Did he think she might ward him off now? Did he think she was afraid?

Well, yes, she was afraid. Terrified, in fact. But not of him. She was terrified of what had just happened — and what the future might hold. But Soren? She loved him. Always had, always would.

She brought her hands up quickly and cupped his giant muzzle. She stroked the surprisingly silky fur with her thumbs and rubbed the broad cheeks with her fingers. His whiskers were bristly in the same way that the stubble on his chin would be, but his ears were soft and smooth.

His eyes warmed, pouring out gratitude and love, and he inched closer.

“Soren,” she whispered again, telling herself it was real. Or maybe it was a dream, but that would be okay, too. As long as the nightmare was over and she had him.

The bear nuzzled her gently, up one side of her face and neck and down the other, and she laughed aloud. A content, rumbly sound came from his chest, and she hugged him closer, or as much of him as she could.

Soren was all right. Soren was a bear. A pretty damn ferocious one, but he was all cozy and cuddly now. Well, as cuddly as a bloody, injured bear could be.

She smiled and ruffled a clean patch of fur with her fingers. She could get used to the cozy part, for sure.

Her mind drifted with one scattered thought after another, and when she snapped herself back to reality, she was cuddled up with a man, not a bear.

She blinked at Soren’s bare chest. His bare arms. His bare…bare everything, it seemed, though he hardly appeared to notice.

“Oh, God,” she cried, seeing the tear across his shoulder and the bruise coloring his ribs. “Soren—”

“Shh.” He touched her lips. “I’m fine.”

“But—”

He shook his head and spoke quietly. “We heal pretty fast.”

We? Part of her mind caught the hint, but another part shoved it away. There was only so much she could handle at once.

“So,” she tried after a long, awkward minute passed. “Good bears, huh?”

He bit his lip. “I guess I have a lot to explain.”

She nodded firmly. “Yes, you do. But not tonight. I’ve had enough for one night.”

The minute she said it, something moved by the front windows, and Soren leaped to his feet. Her heart sank as more wolves jumped through the gaping hole. More attackers?

But instead of tensing, Soren relaxed, though his arm held her firmly behind him in a protective stance.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.

She wondered what could be okay about two wolves — no, worse — one wolf and one bear. A bear who reared up on its hind feet and…and… Slowly, gradually, the fur retreated into skin, and there was Simon, looking around the wreckage of the saloon.

“Holy shit,” he said.

The man was naked as the day he was born and not the least bit shy about it. Sarah dragged her eyes to the wolf at his side.

“Good wolf or bad wolf?” she whispered to Soren.

Simon chuckled. “I sometimes wonder myself.”

The wolf growled, then shook its head vehemently.

“That’s Jess,” Soren said.

Sarah’s eyes went wide. Jessica was a wolf? Simon was a bear?

Her mind spun, and she put a hand on Soren’s arm, murmuring, “Holy shit.”