Sharon's Wolves (Wolf Masters Book 10)

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  Published by The Hartwood Publishing Group, LLC,

  Hartwood Publishing, Phoenix, Arizona

  www.hartwoodpublishing.com

  Sharon’s Wolves

  Copyright © 2016 by Becca Jameson

  Digital Release: April 2016

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Sharon’s Wolves by Becca Jameson

  Sharon Masters is the last unmated sibling in her family. Although history would suggest she is fated to mate with Cooper Hamilton, she hasn’t met him.

  For Cooper, the message is also clear. It’s the reason he hasn’t been to town in over two years. His time is up. As a seismologist, a series of earthquakes lure him to face his fate.

  Jackson Wolf is human. All he knows is the unbelievable physical attraction he has for Sharon. However, her family’s reputation for living in threesomes makes him shy away.

  Fate steps in, as She always does, to force Her hand. The land is rumbling. The citizens are fighting. The spirits are present. It’s time for Fate to arrange another mating. Her timing is never off.

  Dedication

  To my husband who tirelessly reads through my manuscripts at the eleventh hour to find the final lingering mistakes. Love you!

  Chapter One

  “Why not?”

  Jackson Wolf leaned back in his chair and stared at his sister over the top of his desk. “Jaz, no way. Not a chance in hell. Not if she were the last woman on Earth.”

  Jazmine flinched in front of him. “Really? Aren’t you being a bit dramatic? The last woman on Earth?”

  “That’s what I said.” He wasn’t about to go on a date with Sharon Masters. Ever.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why? Sharon’s cute, fun, hardworking, outdoorsy—she’s perfect for you.”

  Jackson narrowed his gaze, leaned forward, and held up one hand to count off the reasons why his sister should leave him alone and stop hounding him to go on a date with this stranger. “First of all, I’m busy. I just got finished with the largest group of tax clients I’ve ever had, and that doesn’t even take into account the ones who filed an extension.

  “Second of all, she’s a little young for me, don’t you think?”

  Jazmine interrupted. “She’s not that young. You act like you’re fifty instead of a whopping thirty-four. Sharon’s twenty-seven.”

  Twenty-seven? Wow. He would have said twenty. She looked much younger.

  A smile spread across Jazmine’s face. “So you did notice her.”

  Jackson chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Of course I noticed her. I’m not dead. Just not interested.” Even though there had been nearly a dozen women in the house when he’d stopped by to pick up some documents from Jazmine, he’d noticed Sharon.

  He’d more than noticed her. He’d discreetly ogled her without fully entering the home of Jazmine’s girlfriend’s sister. And since that night three days ago, he hadn’t managed to get her out of his mind. The imp even snuck into his dreams. All that thick dark hair waving down her back… Those damn chocolate eyes that batted at him in his sleep… And that smile…

  Jazmine perked up. “In that case, let’s double date.”

  “Double date? With you? What would that entail? A night in at your place? Or a night in at Mary’s place?” He smirked. “Or did you mean to infer you two are ready to out yourselves? ’Cause I’d almost agree if that were the case.”

  Jazmine’s smile fell, and she pursed her lips before continuing. “No, smartass. We aren’t ready to come out. It’s complicated. You know it better than I do. Half the inhabitants of both Cambridge and Sojourn would have a field day with that one.”

  “You’ve been together like two years now. Don’t you think it’s time to stop hiding?” He felt sorry for his sister. He understood why she chose to keep her private life private, but in the long run it was no way to live. So what if their parents had a conniption? So what if people in both towns didn’t like it? In his opinion, hiding who she really was hurt her more than if she faced the music. The stress was wearing on her. He could see it in the lines running from the corners of her eyes every time he saw her.

  Jazmine shook her head. “We aren’t discussing me right now. We’re talking about you and your incessant need to remain celibate.”

  He laughed outright at that statement. “Who says I’m celibate?”

  “I do. When was the last time you went on a date?”

  He shrugged. “I date.”

  “When? When do you date?”

  He honestly couldn’t remember, but he knew it was before he first laid eyes on Sharon Masters, and contrary to what Jazmine thought, that wasn’t three days ago.

  “What brought this on, anyway? Did Sharon say something about me?” He felt quite certain Sharon had no idea who he was, at least not before Friday night. His attraction for her had been a one-way street since he first saw her in January at the ski resort. The last thing he wanted to hear was that she’d asked about him.

  Who was he kidding? Of course she asked about him. Jazmine wouldn’t be working this hard to set him up if Sharon hadn’t said something to his sister during their girls’ night.

  Great. Just what he needed.

  It changed nothing.

  “Maybe…” Jazmine lifted her eyebrows several times while grinning wider.

  “Lord. Seriously? Okay, no. The answer is still no. And you never let me finish my reasons.” He held out his hand with three fingers extended and his thumb holding his pinky down. “Three. I know that family, both those families actually—the Masters and the Bartel-Hamiltons. They aren’t known for being monogamous.”

  Jazmine cringed. “Since when are you so judgmental?”

  “Since never. I’m not judgmental. I couldn’t care less who someone sleeps with. You know that better than anyone. I just don’t want to share my woman with someone else is all.” And that was the bottom line.

  He’d seen Sharon. Plenty of times in the last few months. Every time he went skiing he saw her. Hell, he’d reached a point where he wasn’t sure what his motives were each time he headed for the slopes. Skiing for sport? Or torturing himself with the sexy woman whose parents owned the place?

  But no matter how hard his dick got when he saw her, he wasn’t interested in sharing. And to the best of his knowledge, her entire family lived in strange groups of three.

  Jazmine shook her head again. “Perfect. Because Sharon isn’t interested in sharing, either.”

  Jackson sighed. “You can’t really know that. It’s what she’s surrounded with. People tend to do what they know. Aren’t every one of her brothers involved with two other people?”

  “Yes, but Sharon’s not like that. She’s—”

  He held up a hand. “No. Not interested. Now scram. I have to get home, change, and head to a logging site.”
<
br />   “Oh, all right.” Her shoulders slumped, and she stuck out her bottom lip in a fake pout. “Why are you still working two jobs anyway? You’re going to run yourself into the ground.”

  “I like it.” He stood, hoping she’d take the hint and leave him alone. “After sitting in this stuffy office for days on end working numbers at a computer, it’s refreshing to take the occasional inspection job outside where I can smell the distinct scent of fresh-cut trees and pine needles.” He inhaled slowly, letting his eyes close halfway just thinking about getting outside.

  That was why he took up skiing—to be outside. And hiking. The side job as the local logging inspector was perfect.

  Jazmine hugged him, a bit harder than usual, and left, mumbling something about how pigheaded he was.

  Jackson locked his office and headed for his truck. He needed to get home and change. He wasn’t super excited about this particular inspection. The owner of this crew, Roger Barkley, had a tendency to cut corners and over-log. The man had been doing just that in November when his site was compromised by a wildfire, erasing the evidence.

  He’d escaped recrimination that time, but Jackson had been on his ass at three more sites since then. Today’s inspection was at a new site, coincidentally just north of the ski resort. Not that he would run into any of the Masters simply by driving into the mountains around their property, but the proximity alone would make his cock stiff from knowing she was undoubtedly nearby.

  Until Saturday, he’d only ever seen Sharon in ski clothes, albeit sexy fucking ski clothes, but it was almost May now. She wouldn’t be in ski clothes soon. In the summers she led hikers through the mountain paths. If he ever saw that woman in a tank top and shorts…

  Jackson groaned as he slammed the door shut on his SUV and started the engine.

  Chapter Two

  Sharon Masters wiped the sweat off her brow and reached down to grab a bottle of water out of her backpack. She’d been working her ass off all morning and half the afternoon to get the trail leading from her family’s resort cleared so they could open for hikers the following week.

  She took a long drink of the cool water and leaned on the hoe she gripped with her gloved right hand. It was unseasonably warm, almost seventy degrees. Unheard of for late April in northwestern Montana. The six men working with her looked about as exhausted as she felt.

  Her oldest brother, Griffen, righted himself about ten yards away and glanced up the trail. He stiffened and froze in his spot at the same moment the small hairs on the back of her neck rose. Something was off.

  She planted both feet and turned her head in every direction, having no idea what she was looking for. The air was suddenly too still. Nothing moved. Even the birds stopped chirping.

  And then the ground shook.

  Sharon lurched forward when the earthquake hit, knowing in an instant what was occurring. She’d been through earthquakes in the area a few years ago, and she would never forget the sensation of having the ground seemingly yanked out from under her feet.

  Griffen shouted something, but she couldn’t hear him over the rumble of the earth.

  She lost her balance as she tried to step forward with one foot to keep from falling, but she wasn’t quick enough. Instead, she found herself stumbling, unable to get a grip on anything. From her position in the middle of the trail, she didn’t even have a branch or tree trunk to grab onto.

  She watched the hoe flip up when she fell forward as if it happened in slow motion. And the next thing she knew, the blade sliced through her pants and gouged her in the calf halfway between her knee and her ankle.

  “Shit.” She gasped for oxygen as she put out her hands to brace her fall and landed on her elbows instead of her palms when the earth rose up to meet her.

  The land shook for several more seconds, during which Sharon rolled onto her back and struggled to sit up. Her leg hurt like a son of a bitch.

  When she glanced down, drawing her knee up to inspect the damage, she cringed. The land stopped moving as she tugged her torn pants up, and she nearly passed out when she saw the blood. “Fuck.”

  A shadow fell over her, forcing her to tip her head back and meet Griffen’s gaze. “Don’t move.”

  He hunched down next to her while whipping his T-shirt over his head. In a heartbeat he had the cotton wrapped around her leg, squeezing her calf to stop the bleeding.

  Sharon couldn’t slow her breathing. She lowered herself onto her back, afraid she would indeed pass out and hit her head if she didn’t remove her gaze from the wound.

  “Sharon, look at me,” Griffen demanded.

  She blinked up at him.

  “We need to get you off this mountain.”

  “It’s bad.” She didn’t need him to tell her. She’d seen the cut. It was deep and several inches long.

  “Yes.”

  Several other men surrounded her an instant later. “Is she okay?”

  “No. We need to get her back to the lodge.” Griffen looked around as if he thought he might be able to come up with a viable solution.

  The truth was she needed to shift. Soon. But she couldn’t do so in front of the men. None of them were wolf shifters. They were hired to clear the trail. They weren’t regular employees.

  And they were several miles from the lodge. She would never be able to walk out of there.

  “There’s a service road not far from here,” one of the men said as he pointed to the east. “It runs along this trail. Maybe we can catch someone heading down from the logging site to the north.”

  “Good idea.” Griffen nodded at a group of men to one side, still gripping her leg tightly. “You three head for the road and try to flag someone down.” He angled his head toward the trail next to them. “Can someone grab my backpack and pull out some gauze and tape?”

  Sharon swallowed even though her mouth was too dry. She watched the men run off toward the service road and bit the inside of her cheek. She needed to stay alert.

  One man returned with the backpack and unzipped it hastily. He kept glancing at Sharon’s face, his eyes narrowed. I must look horrible.

  What she knew was she had to be white as a sheet. Her skin grew clammy. She recognized the first signs of shock and gritted her teeth to keep it at bay. It wasn’t blood loss that ruled her condition. It was the fact that she’d seen the gash.

  “Rebecca’s at the lodge, Sharon. All we need to do is get you down there, and she can handle the rest.” Griffen held her leg with one hand and ripped a long section of tape with his teeth.

  She nodded. That was good. Rebecca was a nurse. She could handle this.

  “Eyes on me,” Griffen demanded.

  She tried to focus on his face, but it was hard. “You’re going to be okay.”

  She nodded.

  When he finished wrapping her leg, he finally released her and turned to the men still standing on the trail. “You two go back the way we came. If you beat us to the lodge, send someone up that service road. Just in case no one comes by from the north.”

  The remaining men nodded and took off at a run.

  Sharon grabbed Griffen’s forearm. “I’m okay. It was just the blood.”

  “I know.” He wiped a lock of hair from her face that had escaped her hair band. Without another word, he bent down and lifted her into his arms. She leaned against his bare chest as he turned and headed into the trees toward the service road.

  She knew it wasn’t far. She’d heard several vehicles go by throughout the day. They had made her cringe every time. Hikers didn’t like to hear cars and trucks interfering with their wilderness experience. But it would be short-lived. The loggers never stayed in one place any longer than it took to clear the designated area and move on.

  It took Griffen only a few minutes to break through the trees and step onto the road. The men he’d sent ahead were already there.

  One of them spoke. “Nothing has gone by. Want us to head north and see if we can find someone? It might be closer than heading back to th
e bottom.”

  “Good idea. I don’t think it’s that far.” Griffen nodded his assent as he lowered Sharon to the ground next to the road.

  The men took off, leaving her with her brother.

  “You need to shift,” he muttered.

  “And you know that’s not possible,” she responded through gritted teeth. If she shifted into wolf form, she would heal quickly. And it was a viable last resort. But it would be nearly impossible to explain to any of the humans.

  That’s why it was a last resort.

  Griffen stood and spun in a circle as if looking for answers among the trees. He lifted a hand to block the sun from his eyes and set his other hand on his hip. “Fuck.”

  “I’m okay, Griff,” she reassured him.

  “You’re not.” He twisted around to face her. “Two minutes.” He glanced at her leg. “That’s it. And then you shift.”

  She pursed her lips, felt the blood pulse in her leg, and knew without looking it was oozing out to soak the gauze.

  Griffen kneeled down at her side again and wrapped his hands around the wound to hold it together.

  An engine sounded in the distance, making Sharon’s heart race. Thank God.

  When the vehicle skidded to a stop and a man jumped out of the driver’s side to rush in their direction, she stopped breathing.

  Jackson Wolf.

  What were the chances?

  She would have laughed if she hadn’t been in shock. She shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Fate was always, always, in charge.

  Jackson stopped two feet from her and froze. He hesitated several heartbeats, and then kneeled next to Griffen. “Sharon.” It wasn’t a question. He knew exactly who she was.

  Interesting.

  “Do you two know each other?” Griffen asked.

  Jackson held her gaze as he responded to her brother. “Not really. But I saw her last Friday night at the girls’ night at one of your brothers’ houses.”

  “Ah. Okay. Listen, we need to get her back to the lodge quickly. She’s lost a lot of blood.” Griffen leaned closer. He frowned. “Sharon?”