Down & Dirty (Bundle)
Copyright
Information
Wild Card, Calling the Bluff
& Ante Up
Copyright © 2008, 2009 Moira Rogers
http://www.moirarogers.com
Smashwords Edition
Originally published by Changeling Press.
Reissued by the author in 2012.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of
the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher except for
the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table
of Contents
Wild Card
As Alpha of the Lonely River Pack, Jack
Owens is responsible for keeping the peace between what's left of
the human population and the wolves who have taken over since the
War. All wolves are his responsibility--even the ones like Virginia
Howard, who don't recognize his authority.
Ginny's been a thorn in Jack's side since
she took over her parents’ operation and established herself as one
of the area's premiere ranchers. The fact that she's everything he
wants in a mate makes it hard to stay away from her...but any good
hunter knows how to bide his time.
Ginny fights hard to maintain her
independence from men, human and werewolf alike. The humans may not
like having a woman as their chief competition, but they're not the
ones determined to see her submit. When a group of angry wolves try
to run her out of business, she's forced to accept Jack's
assistance. But in saving her ranch, Ginny runs the risk of losing
something far greater--her heart.
Chapter One
Those bastards had cut her fence again.
Virginia Howard cursed, kicked a clump of
grass at her feet and eyed the damaged span of fence before her.
Large sections of it lay bare and broken, the barbed wire that had
stretched between the posts sliced clean through. It curled around
the posts, shiny and mocking.
“
Brand new God damned
fence.” And God knew how many cattle lost. She’d never get them all
rounded up before dark, even if they all bore the Lazy H brand. But
some were still clean skinned, new calves or additions to her stock
that weren’t due for branding until the fall.
She cursed again, though
the epithet morphed into a growl. That those cowardly asses would
pull such a stunt this close to the full moon only proved
their
real
purpose.
Driving her out of business would be good, but what they really
wanted was to drive her down. Make her submit like a good little
lady.
Some of them didn’t like independence in a
woman, especially one who’d already refused a few of them. They
obviously meant to make her an example.
“
Well, fuck that,” Ginny
muttered. A click of her tongue brought her horse, Lightning Bug,
trotting over. She’d held out on her own, just the way she liked
it, for as long as she could. Now she had no choice.
She needed the alpha’s help.
Jack Owens had an office next to the mayor’s
in the run-down old City Hall building, but the only people who
visited it were humans. When werewolves needed to speak with the
alpha of the Lonely River Pack they went to his home, a sprawling
ranch house on the edge of town that bordered on a large private
forest. Humans never strayed in the woods that belonged to the
pack, making it a safe place to run for all wolves.
And they needed that now more than ever.
More than fifty years had passed since the last Great War, when
biomechanical warfare had been introduced by both sides. No one
knew how it started, how the nanotechnology meant to incapacitate
enemy soldiers had corrupted and begun infecting civilians.
Had begun killing.
The remaining humans had reacted to the War
the only way they’d known, by shunning technology and essentially
setting themselves back into the nineteenth century. All computers
and complex machines had been destroyed. Vehicles sat, abandoned,
on cracked asphalt roads grown over with vegetation. Most cleanup
had been done in the cities, where space was at a premium. In
places like Greenbriar, people tended to let the now-useless
machinery stand and work around it.
Werewolves, once hidden, had been immune to
the Plague. And, as the numbers of humans thinned, the wolves had
been able to come out of hiding to build societies for themselves.
The humans left had no choice but to accept them, though many hated
them. Were frightened of them.
That was dangerous, and made it important
that wolves have a place of their own, away from humans, where all
were welcome.
Even Ginny. Jack had extended the invitation
more than once, always with that quiet smile that clashed with the
look in his eyes. Patient. Predatory. The alpha never pushed her,
but he was always there, letting her know with a look or a touch
that he was biding his time.
It would have been easy
enough to ignore, if only she didn’t
want
to answer the sensual challenge
in his eyes. The wolf inside her yearned for him, for the strength
and power she knew mirrored her own. And the woman wanted something
else entirely.
He was so damn
handsome
, with thick blond
hair and eyes the color of the sky on a clear winter morning. And
he was tall, broad through the shoulders, leanly muscled in a way
that made her want to press her hands against him, to test the
resilience of the hard planes of his body.
But she couldn’t. A man --
a
wolf
-- like Jack
Owens wouldn’t let her walk away after a night of hot sex. He’d lay
claim to her, keep her.
Ginny had to force down the panic that rose.
She belonged to no one. She was free to say and do anything she
wanted.
Except that now she had to knock on the door
and go inside.
The soft light of a kerosene lamp still
burned in a window downstairs. “Quit stalling, Ginny.” She dropped
from Lightning Bug’s back and lashed him to the post between the
house and the barn before making her way slowly to the porch.
It occurred to her that her heart was
pounding more loudly than her fist on the door, but she didn’t have
time to berate herself for her own foolishness. The door opened,
and Jack greeted her with that damn smile that made her crazy.
“Virginia.” He stepped back and pulled the door open wide. “Please,
come in.”
“
Jack.” He’d discarded his
vest and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and the slightly rumpled look
was sexier than anything she could recall seeing in recent years.
“Thank you.”
She tugged off her hat and walked past him,
resolute and determined. She could ignore the pull of his body
calling to hers, if only she didn’t have to look into his eyes.
“I’m afraid I’m having a little bit of trouble, and I didn’t --”
The words hung in her burning throat like glass shards. She forced
them out anyway. “I need your help.”
The sudden tension in the room was palpable.
“What did they do this time?” Jack demanded, his low voice filled
with enough anger to make her fight a flinch.
She steeled herself and turned to face him.
“Cut the fence in the south pasture. The one Ollie Russell helped
me string last week.”
Rage flooded his features for a single
heartbeat before he regained his control. “Did you recognize any
scent at the scene, or had too much time passed?”
“
I didn’t come here to get
you riled up and out for blood,” Ginny protested. “I just want it
to stop.”
He crossed the space between them in two
steps, stopping so close she could feel the heat from his body as
he leaned down until scant inches separated them. “We’ve passed the
point of pretty words and asking nicely. You came here for my help,
Virginia. You may not take it back.”
“
My name is Ginny.” She
instantly regretted the correction. The last thing she needed was
to invite more of Jack’s familiarity, especially when she’d just
put herself under his protection.
And
that’s the first step, isn’t it? First his protection, then his
authority.
“I only want you to talk to
them. I mean, it isn’t as if I’m part of your pack, not like they
are. I know that. But I don’t know how else to keep things from
sliding toward bloodshed.”
The anger flashed in his
eyes again, and this time he didn’t pull it back. His magic, the
power that gave him his strength and authority as a wolf, crackled
through the air as he growled. “You think I haven’t talked to them
already? You think I’ve watched them torment you and
done nothing
?”
“
No. I don’t know.” She
looked away, her teeth digging into her lower lip as she fought a
whimper. Everything in her demanded that she placate him with a
soothing apology. That she offer him her submission. “I know I’ve
flouted your authority.” She barely heard her own voice over the
blood rushing in her ears. “I wouldn’t blame you if you’d left it
alone. I wouldn’t blame you if you chose to do so
now
.”
Strong fingers slid along her jaw and forced
her to look at him. “Every wolf in my territory is my
responsibility. I warned Dawson and the others that there would be
repercussions for bothering you again. Which means they intend to
make sure you’re not around to lodge a complaint.”