DuBois, Edith - Rugged Salvation [Rugged Savage Valley, Colorado 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  As she climbed out of the shower a few minutes later, she almost slipped. She’d suddenly remembered that she’d left the dog outside. Aunt Agnes didn’t have a fence. The little turd was probably halfway to Denver by now, and as much as he annoyed her, Marina didn’t want him to fall in the lake or get run over or eaten by a mountain lion or something gruesome like that. Rushing to dry off, she scrambled to pull on a T-shirt, jeans, and some boots to go in search of the little shitter.

  When she stepped outside, a chilly breeze slapped her right in the face. “Damn,” she said, her eyes watering up. “Where did that come from?” Another gust whipped through her wet hair, and the end of one strand hit her in the eye. Crying out, she covered her stinging eye and then began calling for Roy, taking long, angry strides through the wet grass as she did.

  She walked down Treaty Lane for a few minutes, the sting in her eye receding but the cold air penetrating her thin, damp clothing while she called Roy’s name. She soon found a little paw-print trail in the dew-covered grasses leading off the road into the woods. Thinking Roy could have made the trail, she followed it, and not long after that, she found him sitting on his haunches, whimpering and shivering on a pile of dead pine needles.

  “There you are!” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well, come on. Let’s go.” She waved her hand and took a few steps back in the direction she’d come from, but he just watched her and let out a low whine. He had a dark strip of fur across his eyes that usually made him look like a ne’er-do-well rapscallion. Right now, though, he looked utterly pathetic. “Come on,” she said again, stamping her booted foot.

  Roy whined, looking away from her and putting his head down.

  “Oh man.” She looked at his forlorn body, shivering in the cold. “I’m sorry, okay.” She hated the waver in her voice. Marina Andrews never cried. Not ever. “Please just come back with me, Roy.” His head stayed down.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll come to you first, and then we’ll go home. Okay?” When she took a step toward him, he looked up at her, his brown eyes big and sad looking. With a grunt, she plopped down next to him. She pulled him into her lap and hugged him close to her body. “Damn it, I’m sorry, Roy,” she said in a fierce whisper. “It’s not your fault. I should have never kicked you out.” She buried her face in his fur. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone for so long. I’ll take care of you, Roy. From now on, you are always safe with me. I promise, I promise, I promise.”

  She held him, and she sat on the cold ground, and she watched tears splash onto dead brown needles.

  * * * *

  Jeremiah Greenwood scratched his great bear-paws at the earth-ground. He wanted to take more steps, to move farther along the stone ledge. But he could not. He strained against the feeling in his bear-heart, but the magic held his powerful body still.

  It was the old Shoshone magic.

  The magic kept him from moving one step farther away from Savage Valley. Savage Valley was his heart, was his blood. He could leave it no more than the silver-scaled fish could leave the great, shimmering lakes and rivers or the soft-feathered birds could leave the endless skies.

  He lifted his great bear-paw. He had to try. He had to make sure this was the Edge. When he tried to move forward, a great and terrible sadness, a most horrifying misery filled him up. His paws shook with the effort of moving forward, but he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t stand the breaking of his mighty bear-heart. It was too much.

  He stumbled backward, hearing the clickity-clack of stones. His huge paws dislodged them. They tumbled down the steep rock face. When he regained his footing, he took deep breaths. Suddenly he felt his bear-brothers again. Now that he was away from the Edge. It didn’t feel as if his bear-heart would explode into millions of bits of stars, expanding forever into nothing. He could sense the shaking, moving world around him again.

  He shook his head. He wanted to clear the cloud that the Edge had brought to his mind. It took him longer than on his last test. He stood still, but he could hear the Edge biz-buzzing in his mind. He could feel it thrumming through his bear-blood. He tried to walk forward again. He couldn’t. He was too exhausted.

  With a huff of resignation, he let his bear recede. He pulled his human thoughts to the surface, and he shifted back into human form. His brothers were waiting for him at the base camp they had set up about a thousand yards away from the Edge.

  “Back so soon?” Johnny asked, one eye following Jeremiah. His younger brother was stretched out on a cot, one arm thrown over his forehead to provide some relief from the high afternoon sun. Despite the sunny weather, there was a bite to the wind and an unmistakable chill in the air, and Johnny had put on a sweater for his nap.

  “No one made lunch?” Jeremiah poked through their supply bags, grumbling and cursing because there didn’t seem to be any decent food left.

  “Hey, you weren’t supposed to be back for another hour, so you can take your crying elsewhere.”

  “And you can quit being a lazy wastrel. Why didn’t anyone make anything?”

  “At least I did my whole shift last time.”

  “That’s real cute, wise-ass.” Jeremiah kicked Johnny’s cot, making it tip over precariously. He knew it was just the Edge testing that caused grumpiness to surface, but he couldn’t curb the instinct to lash out. Johnny happened to be the nearest target. As soon as the cot had resettled, Johnny exploded up and pushed Jeremiah in the chest.

  “Back off, man! Just because your delicate constitution can’t handle a whole shift of Edge-testing, don’t try to take that out on me.”

  “Are you calling me weak?” Jeremiah roared, shoving Johnny in the chest.

  “Don’t fucking push me!” Johnny shoved back, trying to knock Jeremiah’s hands away, but Jeremiah had been expecting that, so he quickly snagged one of Johnny’s wrists and twisted until he had Johnny’s arm pinned behind his back. Johnny didn’t waste a second. He slammed his free elbow into Jeremiah’s gut, and Jeremiah’s grip on Johnny’s arm relaxed enough for him to escape.

  They continued to grapple with and curse at each other. Jeremiah got Johnny pinned to the ground, and Johnny shoved his hand up against Jeremiah’s face when their older brother, James, exploded out of the tent. “What the hell is going on here?” he bellowed. He stomped over and ripped Jeremiah apart from Johnny. “We have maybe half a mile of the Edge left to test, and I’m awoken from my nap by you two squabbling.”

  Jeremiah tried to straighten his clothes and maintain his dignity, no easy feat while also digging at some pine needles that had managed to fall down his pants and were now poking him in the ass. James crossed his arms and pinned his younger brothers with a fierce glare. “So what’s going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Johnny said, not meeting James’s eye.

  “Nothing, huh? Jeremiah, do you have anything to add to that bit of eloquence?”

  Jeremiah glared at both of his brothers, annoyed that James could still make him feel like a miscreant teenager, and shook his head. As the oldest, James was usually the silent overseer unless Jeremiah or Johnny managed to annoy him past his limit. At the moment, he opened his mouth to spit out some scolding remark, no doubt, when a sharp wind blew through their camp. Jeremiah took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp, biting air deep into his lungs. Then he eyed both of his brothers. They had matching expressions—eyes bright and gleaming and enlivened.

  “You both smell that?” James asked. “There’s snow behind that wind.”

  Jeremiah nodded, seeing Johnny do the same out of the corner of his eye.

  “All right, listen up. I know the testing is strenuous and taxing and…well, it’s painful, but we only have about two more days. We have to do this. It’s tedious and exhausting, but it’s shaman’s orders. The Shoshone elders want to know exactly where our borders are, and I shouldn’t have to remind you of your duty to them. Once we’ve finished, though, it’s warm beds and home-cooked meals again. The more we bicker and argue with each other,
the longer this shit is going to take. So you two pull yourselves together. That was a cold-smelling wind. We’re high enough up, and this is going to be a long winter. I want to be finished with all this before any snow falls. Got it?” Jeremiah nodded curtly when James’s black eyes darted to his face.

  After James had retreated back into his tent and Johnny had collapsed onto the cot, Jeremiah dug out some dried fruit and granola from the supply pack. He hadn’t said anything to his brothers, but he’d picked up something else twining through the winter wind.

  It was only for an instant, and it was so faint that Jeremiah almost doubted he had smelled it at all. But there it was, the delectable smell toying with his brain.

  He thought he’d smelled something in the air. It was sweet and tantalizing.

  It tickled his bear-blood.

  Something delicious was waiting for him in Savage Valley.

  * * * *

  Marina fought back a gag as more classical music crap played in the background. Typical of Michelle to have that kind of uptight, slumber-inducing music at her engagement party. Hell, she was marrying three men. Why dress this thing up and make it all fancy? Why not just really go for it and play heavy death metal?

  Marina nabbed a third flute of the champagne cocktail her sister was serving from the bar between the kitchen and the living area. She’d only been at the Ashleys’ for fifteen minutes, and already she felt like screaming.

  “My beautiful, darling niece,” Aunt Agnes said, wrapping Marina up in a hug. In her ear she whispered, “Do try to smile. That ferocious scowl makes you look like an ostrich, dear.” With that, she kissed Marina on the cheek and floated away, her high silver bun bobbing through the crowd.

  Marina turned away from the rest of the guests, looking out the large windows of the Ashleys’ living room. Across the lawn on the opposite bank of the creek, she saw a red-tailed fox drinking from the gurgling waters. She was surprised it would venture this close to the house with so many people visible inside. After it finished drinking, the fox sat down and wrapped its tail around its feet.

  Its face snapped toward the house, and the fox looked right at her.

  “Whoa.” Its gaze transfixed her.

  “That’s funny,” Michelle said, coming to stand next to her at the window.

  “What?” Marina took a blasé sip of her champagne, executed a blasé flick of her hair over her shoulder, and then offered a blasé glance to Michelle. But Michelle wasn’t even looking at her.

  “Well, it’s funny that she’s looking at you like that.”

  “Who? The fox?”

  Michelle nodded and smiled. Marina jerked away at the smile. That was a “real” smile. She’d never seen Michelle with a “real” smile, and it gave her chills.

  Marina had a classification system for smiles, and each one had a specific purpose and meaning. “Real” smiles were a rarity, a precious diamond among the pebbles and gravel that made up other smiles. A “real” smile was untouchable. It went down deep. It came from some near-mythological place in the human soul that most people never came close to discovering, not even in a lifetime. Marina had seen maybe seven “real” smiles her entire life.

  “What about it?” she asked, feeling shaken and a little bit sick by the smile.

  “Well, I’ve seen her around here a time or two, but always in tiny glimpses. You know, I’ll see her tail flicker around a tree. Or I’ll see her splashing through the creek for a moment, but I’ve never seen her just sit and stare at someone like this.”

  Marina shrugged. It wasn’t like she cared about some dumb fox staring at her. At least that was what she told herself while ignoring the chill that continued to race across her skin.

  “But what’s really funny is that she’s a rescue fox. Up until about a month ago, she was living at the Wildlife Preservation Center over by Brown Trout Lake. The Greenwood brothers take care of the center, and they nursed her back to health.”

  “Michelle, does this story have a point?”

  Her sister smiled that smile again. “Guess what her name is.”

  “I dunno…Fox Who Ogles Humans?”

  “It’s Reba.”

  Marina glared. “No it isn’t.”

  Michelle nodded. “Apparently one of the Greenwood brothers loves Reba McEntire, and since the fox has red fur…”

  “That is so precious, Michelle.” Marina patted her sister on the cheek. It was nothing but a freaky coincidence. Just because her favorite country singer was Reba McEntire, and just because some hicks decided to name a rescue fox after her, it didn’t mean a damn thing. Besides, she didn’t know why Michelle was suddenly being so nice, not now when she was engaged to three men. It wasn’t like she would have time for Marina anyway once she signed her life and name away.

  Marina shook her head, making her braid whip across her back. “Now let’s cut the crap,” she said, meeting Michelle’s eyes. “This insanity has gone on long enough. I thought I would give you a little space and a little time to move past this, but honestly, Michelle, what the hell do you mean by getting yourself engaged to three different men? I mean…what are people going to say about this when we go back out on tour? You’re going to make me the laughingstock of country music. You know they’re all a bunch of Bible-huggers. You’ll be condemned to the deepest depths of hell, and I’ll be dragged down right along with you. This needs to stop now.” Marina leaned in close and quickly glanced around, making sure no one could overhear. Then she whispered, “And that’s not even going into what happened at…well…what I saw…that you know I saw…that you haven’t mentioned but we both know that it happened.”

  “Are you referring to the fact that my husbands-to-be are bear-shifters?” Now it was Michelle who took a blasé sip of her champagne cocktail.

  “Michelle,” Marina whispered, glaring at her sister. “Lower your voice. Shit. Do you want to be committed to an insane asylum right here and now or what?”

  Michelle looked at Marina in that way she hated the most. It was an “I feel really sorry for you” look. Then to make matters worse, Michelle put her hand under Marina’s chin. “I told you, Marina, and I meant it. I’m not going on tour with you. There’s no more ‘us.’ I’m engaged. I’m settling down here. Savage Valley is my home now. Not your tour bus. Not a hotel room.” Michelle looked out the window, her “real” smile playing at the corners of her lips. “This is my home.”

  Marina made a noise of disgust. “That is so bogus. You’ve always wanted to travel. That was like your life dream or whatever, and now you get your first real boyfriend…friends? Fuck, whatever the fuck they are. Now just because you’re engaged, you think all that is going to change? You think you’re suddenly going to be satisfied with a static life? No! You won’t! People don’t change, Michelle. You won’t want to stay here forever.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “No, you won’t,” Marina insisted.

  “Marina, yes, I will. Nothing you say—no matter how much you want it to be true—can or will change that.”

  Marina glared at her sister. There had to be something else behind Michelle’s reluctance, something more than being married that made her sound so confident.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Marina realized she already knew the answer. It wasn’t about being engaged or having a permanent home. Marina suddenly realized that the reason her sister was so happy was because she wouldn’t have to be with Marina anymore.

  “You can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?”

  “Hmm?” Michelle gazed over at her, eyes all dreamy and distant.

  “It’s not about being married or staying in one place, is it? That’s not it at all. You want to get away from me.”

  “Marina, no. That’s not it.”

  “And you took the first guy that came along. But that guy came with two others, so then you said, ‘What the heck,’ and went for it, right?”

  “Marina, please listen to me.” Michelle stepped toward her, a hand outreached, but Marina shook
her head.

  “You’re just like Mom and Dad. You can’t stand to be around me for too long.” Much to Marina’s horror, she heard herself sniffle, so she flicked Michelle’s still-reaching hand away.

  “Please, Marina, I swear this has nothing to do with you.”

  “How can it not, Michelle? We’ve spent the last six years on the road together and all of a sudden, you’re done. Easy as that, you can leave?”

  “There’s more to it. I just can’t…you wouldn’t possibly understand.”

  “I wouldn’t understand? Is that really the line you’re going to use? What makes you so sure? I honestly want to know. How can you be sure that in a couple months, maybe even a year, you won’t look around and say, ‘Enough’?”

  Michelle frowned, looking discomfited for the first time during the conversation. “There are things I want to tell you about my fiancés, Marina, things you should know about who they are, but I don’t know if I can…and not here.”

  That wasn’t the direction Marina expected the conversation to go. “If you’re referring to what I saw one of your fiancés do at Savage Convenience, you can forget it. I think I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime, thank you. And you know what”—she threw the rest of her champagne cocktail down her throat—“this engagement party blows. I’d rather hang out with the shitting puppy.” She turned to stomp away, but Michelle caught her by the elbow. “What the—”

  “I can’t leave Savage Valley, Marina. I can’t ever leave it. It’s because of them, my fiancés, because of what they are. They are bound to this land, and I am bound to them.”

  “Ew,” she said, trying to twist away from her sister. “I never took you to be one of those romantic bimbos.”

  “I’m not being romantic. I can’t leave. Literally. Their bear magic won’t let me.” Marina stopped struggling against her sister’s hold, feeling a sort of numbness spread through her body. “I don’t regret it. I’m the happiest I can ever remember being in my whole life, even before everything, when we first left Nashville, even then…it doesn’t compare.” The smile drifted back onto Michelle’s face. “This is who I am now. I’m here, and I’m with them. Please, believe me, Marina.”