Sedona Surrender (Sedona Pack #4) - Lisa Kessler Page 0,1
When I turned around, she was close enough for me to see the light dusting of freckles across her nose. A strand of her hair had fallen loose of the ponytail, draping down her neck and resting on her chest.
I forced my eyes back up, hoping she hadn’t noticed the slip. “That’ll work. Just e-mail me the link and I’ll have my office manager sync our calendars.”
She peered around the barn as a gust of wind blew in their direction. Her nose crinkled at the scent of manure. Rookie.
I smirked. “Your first ranch job?”
“Yes.” She wiped her hands on her jeans. “Does it show?”
She didn’t deny it. Refreshing to meet someone willing to be honest. I grinned. “Just a little.” I grabbed my stainless-steel bucket and carried it over to the hose to fill it. I turned on the water and looked back at her. “Where did you work before?”
“Up in Lake Tahoe, just outside Reno. I was the marketing manager for a real estate broker.”
I turned off the spigot. “Why the big change to a cattle ranch in Sedona?”
“My brother is going to be a dad soon. I took the first job I could find in the area and moved down here. I’m probably way too eager to be an aunt.”
Her bright expression warmed me more than I wanted to admit as I set the bucket next to the chute and prepared the tubing. “Do your parents live around here, too? They must be excited.”
Her smile faltered. “They’re up in San Francisco. My brother’s not really close to them. What about you? Are you from Sedona?”
She changed the subject so smoothly I almost didn’t notice. Almost.
“Yep.” I nodded. “Born and raised.”
“Lucky. It’s so pretty.” She looked up as Jorge brought up the first cow to the chute. “Hi, Jorge.”
He grinned. “Ahh so you’ve you met Cole?”
“Yes.” She raised a brow in my direction. I hadn’t told her my first name. “Dr. Vega and I met.”
“You can call me Cole,” I said with a tilt of my head. I liked her. She was sharp. “I guess I better get to work.”
She nodded and slipped her hands into her pockets. “Good to meet you, Cole. I’ll send you an e-mail with the scheduling link.”
“Thanks, Madison.”
I couldn’t help but steal a peek as she walked back up to the small outbuilding behind the main house. The way her hips swayed made it tough to look away. Besides, looking couldn’t get me into too much trouble.
Hazel mooed, breaking my fixation with the new ranch manager’s ass. I shook my head and pulled on my latex gloves. “She seems…nice.”
Jorge grinned as he walked Hazel into the squeeze chute. He stroked the cow’s wide face as I closed the chute at the back. “She’s also single and new in town. She might want a tour sometime.”
I laughed. “I’m too busy to date, you know that.”
“Well, someday you won’t be busy and you’ll be alone.” He met my eyes, stone-cold serious. “Make the time.”
Jorge had lost his wife to cancer so he knew about being alone. It was kind that he wanted me to find a love like he’d had, but he didn’t understand how complicated it would be for me. Werewolves had one mate for life, one person in the entire world that was destined for them. For a while, I tried to search for her. My parents had told me stories about how my father’s wolf had recognized my mom the moment they had touched skin to skin.
Over the years, I’d held hands, kissed, and I’d even had committed relationships, but none of them had made the wolf inside me howl—no recognition of my one true mate. And now that I’d witnessed some members of my pack finding their other halves, it made settling for less seem…meaningless.
Our previous Alpha, Allen Caldwell, had taken fate out of the equation. He’d been on a mission to expand our pack rapidly. Caldwell assigned pack members to a female, dubbing them “mates” in the hopes of bringing more werewolves into the world. I hadn’t participated in the forced coupling, drawing a line in the sand, but I had turned a blind eye to the humans Caldwell had been changing into werewolves against their will. I had chosen not to notice the bitten men and women Caldwell had kept locked in an abandoned storage facility, breeding them.
Like cattle.
I clenched my jaw, fighting the guilt that constantly dogged me. Maybe it always would. So even though the new ranch manager