Free Desert Heart (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 4) by Anna Lowe

ones. Those, I can make out,” he said from where he stood behind her. “But the more recent ones—the last of Lucy’s, and the books Dale has been keeping—I can barely read.” He leaned in to pull another ledger from the pile, and the scent of him rolled toward her like a wave. A wave that called to her to jump in, cool off, revel, and play.
    “I don’t know if it’s me or the books.”
    She turned, hearing the waver in his voice and found him glaring at the ledgers. A vein throbbed at his temple, right next to the tiny scar. Weakness. Rick had to hate admitting weakness, just like her brothers. He had to hate the need to blink and squeeze his eyes to try to focus on the tiny, scrawling script.
    His right arm was braced on the desk at her side, and without thinking, she curled her fingers around his. Maybe the accident wasn’t as much in his past as he wanted it to be. Maybe it never would be.
    Whether or not the touch helped Rick, she couldn’t tell. It sure helped her, though, because the second they made contact, her jumpy nerves calmed down.
    Nice,
her wolf purred.
Nice.
    She forced her eyes back on the ledger and swept a finger along the page without letting go of his hand. She studied the numbers silently and eventually pulled out another ledger, and another, watching the tidy, round script of the earlier volumes grow lopsided, just as Henry Seymour’s body had aged. She turned the page and saw new entries made in Lucy Seymour’s lacy handwriting. Then there was a gap, and an entirely new script invaded the pages. Dale Gordon’s blocky print. The first few months were legible and in line with the Seymours’ conventions—date there, sum there, comment on the right. In the subsequent volume, though, Dale had started leaving out dates, or amounts, and even sticking in question marks. The print leaned more and more heavily, sometimes left, sometimes right, like a drunk winding his way down an alley late at night.
    She tilted the page toward the desk lamp.
    “It’s not you,” she assured him. “I can barely make this out.”
    “But you can read it.” For the first time ever, she heard a trace of bitterness in Rick’s voice.
    “Barely. Now shush.” She said it lightly, and his fingers tightened around hers.
    His scent surrounded her as he leaned in to read over her shoulder. It was all she could do to keep her mind on the page. She tapped each row before moving on, trying to focus there. Tap, tap, tap, doing rough sums as she went. Skimming down the left page then down the right. She leafed to the next sheet and skimmed again before skidding to a sudden stop and jumping back a line.
    April 17—$85—dynamite for…
    She leaned closer, trying to make out the rest. Dynamite for what?
    “What?” Rick asked. His breath tickled her cheek.
    She wanted to slide a hand over his cheek and pull him close.
    Concentrate. Just concentrate.
    “Dynamite for…for…” The letters were so crooked, she couldn’t make them out. “What would the dynamite be for?”
    Rick shifted closer, and everything in her screamed,
Yes! Yes! Closer!
    “No idea,” he murmured.
    Destiny,
her wolf hummed.
It’s destiny.
    Concentrate!
She tried, but her heart wasn’t in it. Everything blurred together. Hardware bills, invoices from the vet, and feed receipts crowded on a page she strained to make sense of. A Post-it note she could barely read. “Dan…Danielson…Davidson Resources?”
    He shrugged.
    “Something to do with drawing more water from the aquifer?”
    His face was blank. “There’s no plan to pump more water. I swear there isn’t.”
    The letters on the Post-it were a scrawled bird’s nest she couldn’t make sense of, especially with Rick’s cheek a hair away from hers. Warm and just a little stubbly and…wait. His cheek
was
touching hers.
    Her heart skipped faster. Her wolf licked her lips.
    She forced herself to lean away but only wound up nuzzling the arm that caged her in from the other