Lift Her Up (Kaid Ranch Shifters #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,1
was alive?
She was messing with him. If he wasn’t imagining all this, then this was Summer’s revenge. Had to be.
Hunter was on Boone, trotting toward the road, when Wes pulled up at the big house. No time. No time to explain. He was the new alpha of the Kaid Pack, so Wes couldn’t let his brother see how crazy he was. Alphas were steady. They were the foundation of the pack. He couldn’t expose all his cracks right now.
“Everything all right?” Hunter called as Wes opened his truck door.
“Everything’s great.” His boots hit the gravel, and he strode for the front door.
“Then why was you tearing up the drive like your ass was on fire?” Hunter called. “You gotta take a shit?”
Wes swallowed a snarl and took the porch stairs two at a time.
“Wes!” Hunter yelled. “What’s happening?”
Gritting his teeth, Wes turned and tried to look calm. “I’m just in a hurry to get to work is all. Can you bring in Maris and Sadey’s herds? Time to sell them.”
Hunter’s eyes went wide under the brim of his cowboy hat. “Already?”
Wes looked over Hunter’s shoulder. In the corral, Bryson Locke, the bear shifter who missed nothing and looked like the spitting image of Sam, was resting on the saddle horn of his horse, Smoke, staring at Wes with suspicious, narrowed eyes. Bear smelled a rat.
“Both of y’all bring ’em in,” Wes ordered.
“Something’s happening,” Bryson murmured softly. Oh, Wes could hear it fine. He had the ears of a dog.
Sam is alive.
“Mind your business and do what I asked,” Wes barked out. “I’ll explain everything later!”
“Liar,” Hunter called out as he turned Boone toward the pasture where Maris and Sadey’s herds were grazing off in the woods somewhere. “You lied when you said you’ll explain it later. It’s in your voice, plain as day, Alpha.”
“I don’t have to explain everything I have going on, or every feeling I have, dipshit!” This was how Wes coped with feeling shitty about himself. He put people in their place. Threw an insult so they would stop looking at him, stop focusing on him, like now. Hunter didn’t even turn around, just shook his head and kept riding away.
That used to give him satisfaction, like he’d won some battle between him and Hunter, but his brother’s reaction stung enough to draw Wes up straighter now. What was this awful feeling? Hunter was frustrated with him, and it had been a couple weeks since Wes had disappointed anyone. Hunter and Bryson seemed happy. But now?
Hunter didn’t even care enough to throw an insult back. He’d just…left.
Hunter’s disappointment fueled Wes’s disappointment in himself. Joke was on Hunter, though. No one could be as hard on Wes as he was on himself.
Bryson spat on the ground from his saddle and guided Smoke toward the corral gate with his reins. “Nicely done, boss.”
“Bite me.”
“No thanks,” Bryson called. “Don’t much enjoy the taste of asshole.”
Wes could sit here all day and trade insults, but he had bigger stuff on his mind. Stuff he needed to sort out on his own.
At least he’d successfully gotten rid of Hunter and Bryson’s prying attention by sending them on that pointless errand. They weren’t ready to sell the smaller herds yet, but it wouldn’t hurt them to be moved up here and get some good feed from the troughs in the front pasture.
Sam is alive.
Heart beating his chest hard enough to hurt, Wes yanked open the door and strode straight for his room. Duffle bag, pair of Wranglers, a couple T-shirts…
He rounded the corner and made it two steps into his room before he smelled her.
Summer.
But when he jerked his gaze off the floor, the woman who sat in his chair in the corner didn’t look like Summer at all.
The Summer he’d known had been all blond highlights and an easy smile. She’d been sunshine and laughter and dimples. She’d been curves and oozed with a sweetness he hadn’t been able to resist because she’d been the opposite of him.
The only similarity he saw between the Summer he knew and the Summer who sat in his bedroom chair now was her eye color—brown. And even then, it was only in one eye. The other was silver like mercury.
She’d died her hair black as night and grown it into long waves. Her full lips were drawn into a straight line of detachment, and her dark eyebrows were drawn down. She wore smoke-gray makeup on eyes that were dead as she stared back at him.
She had