Hearts Aflame Collection II: 4-Book Bundle Read online

  Hearts Aflame Collection II: 4-Book Bundle

  Copyright © 2014 by Melissa F. Hart. All rights reserved worldwide.

  No part of this book may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written consent of the author/publisher.

  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

  http://www.melissafhart.com/

  Table of Contents

  Wolf Problem

  Eden Rising - Part 1

  New Moon

  Taming Suzanna

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Wolf Problem

  Synopsis

  Life in the small town of Broken Wheel, Wyoming tends to be a little predictable…until Sheriff’s Deputy Jade Lundgren is assigned to deal with the “wolf problem.” Now that wolves have been taken off the endangered species list, people are divided as to whether the wolves should be protected, destroyed, or simply left alone. Tasked with controlling the escalating tensions, Jade finds herself trying to make sense of seemingly unrelated crimes, while juggling her feelings for local rancher, Harlan Winters, and the mysterious, Irish wildlife biologist, Conall O’Faolán.

  “Jade!”

  Sheriff Wilson Page’s raspy baritone bounced off the faded red brick walls of the Broken Wheel Sheriff’s Department as he hung up the telephone. He always sounded a little like he was yelling, but it had more to do with being a big man in a cramped office on the second floor of the former Harrow Hill Seed Company than with the fact that he was actually shouting. Since the mayor, the county clerk, and the entire Chamber of Commerce shared the first floor, the deputies put up with the poor acoustics and felt lucky to have space for a few desks, a gun locker, and a holding cell.

  “I’m right here, Wilson.” Jade’s long ash blonde ponytail bounced on her back as she turned from the filing cabinet with a manila folder in her hand.

  “I need you to go out to the Winters’ place. Carson is hoppin’ mad.”

  Jade tried to stifle a sigh; Carson was the father of her sometime suitor, Harlan, and she could guess at the reason the rancher was worked up. “This have anything to do with the wolf problem?”

  Wilson rolled his eyes a little. “What do you think?” The sheriff drummed his fingers restlessly on the desk as he stared out the window. “Seems some of our new friends from out of town have been up to more than a little mischief. Go see what you can find out—take pictures, we need to document everything.” Spinning his creaky desk chair back to face Jade, he added, “I think I need you on the wolf problem full time.”

  “Guess this means I’m canceling lunch with Nicolette at the Brown Buffalo Café.”

  “’Fraid so.” He gave Jade a tight smile that she knew meant he was taking the escalating conflict in town seriously. “My daughter will wait. The Broken Wheel Gazette hasn’t had headlines this juicy since Cleave Masterson got drunk and went joyriding on Jim Lassiter’s stand-up mower.” Jade couldn’t help but snicker at the memory of arresting Cleave for DUI…on a lawnmower, and the hilarious story Nicolette had written for the Gazette. “I’ll call Nicolette and take the blame, but you gals will have to make another date to paint your toenails and talk about boys.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not in junior high anymore.” Jade arched an eyebrow playfully.

  “Oh, I know. I just choose to ignore the fact that you gals are grown women. Now get on out to the Winters.”

  Nodding, Jade jammed the manila folder in her hand back into the file drawer, grabbed a digital camera from her desk, and pulled her tan canvas jacket off the back of her chair. Double- checking the gun holster on her belt, she called back over her shoulder, “I’ll radio once I’ve got a handle on things.”

  Wilson waved her off, “Sounds good, in the meantime, I’ve got to see if Dougie has figured out whether that dumbass meth head blew himself up along with that trailer last night.”

  Rural Wyoming—not exactly exotic, Jade thought as she made her way out to her beat-up Bronco emblazoned with a gold star and “Broken Wheel Sheriff’s Department” on the door. Their crimes tended to be predictable: theft, drugs, domestic disputes, and the occasional assault and battery, most of which could be attributed to boredom and/or booze. The so-called “wolf problem” was injecting a whole new dynamic, though; militant environmental activists had taken up residence at Broken Wheel’s one and only motel, the Hidden Springs Inn, to protest the hunting and trapping of wolves. And then there were the local jackasses fueling the fire by bragging about how many of these “nuisances” they were going to take down, now that wolves were no longer on the endangered species list for Wyoming. Biggy Lemmons and his cousin Frank were the ringleaders, trying to get everyone to believe that the handful of wolves in the neighborhood were wreaking havoc on the local cattle herds, as well as the big game like elk. Jade’s studied opinion was that Biggy and Frank were just mean sons of bitches who enjoyed killing for the sake of killing.

  The snow-capped peaks of the Grand Tetons soared up majestically in the distance, and fields of purple heather trailed along the road as Jade headed out to the Winters’ ranch. The noise of the Bronco rumbling up the unpaved road startled a few head of pronghorn antelope that quickly bounded away, and another mile along, she caught sight of a small herd of bison that merely lifted their shaggy heads to take note of the interloper before resuming their grazing. Jade smiled; maybe human life in Wyoming wasn’t very exotic, but she certainly couldn’t fault her spacious backyard for a lack of beauty.

  At the turn-off to the Winters’ ranch, Jade reminded herself that Harlan was likely to be there with his father, and she tried to assess how that made her feel. It wasn’t like Harlan was a novelty; they’d grown up together and the fact was, they had—predictably—lost their virginity together the night of Senior Prom. After six weeks of awkward public hand-holding and shared banana splits at the local Dairy Breeze, he’d gone off to Montana State in Bozeman to get a degree in Livestock Management, and she’d headed to Colorado Springs to study Criminal Justice. In the interim, they’d been involved with other people, but now they were both pushing thirty, and still single, which meant—predictably—that everyone, including her best friend, Nicolette, and Harlan’s father, Carson, thought they were perfect for each other. Everyone, it seemed, except for her, and maybe Harlan.

  It wasn’t like there was anything terribly wrong with her old flame. Harlan was a lean, lanky westerner, a steady guy with a lopsided grin, bangs that flopped in his eyes, and friendly blue eyes. He was the kind of person you’d find building a wheelchair ramp for someone’s grandma, or out delivering Christmas hams to needy families—a good guy, from a good family. Jade sighed. Maybe she didn’t feel any spark simply because he was so…predictable. Maybe, just once, what she really needed was something truly surprising to happen to her love life.

  Two Australian Shepherds bounded toward Jade as she opened the Bronco’s door, and an old hound stood up on the porch, yawning as he stretched and shook himself. She laughed as the Aussies tried to herd her toward the steps. Just then, the front door flung open and Carson Winters stepped out.

  “Harlan!” Carson called back into the house, “Wilson did us the favor of sending not only his smartest deputy, but the prettiest one, too!”

  Jade cringed a little, trying
to ignore Carson’s lack of subtlety. “I heard you had some trouble out here. What’s going on?”

  Carson stepped down from the porch, signaling the Aussies to stand down, as the old hound pressed against Jade’s leg with doleful eyes, wanting his head to be scratched. She obliged.

  “These dogs will worry you senseless,” Carson said with feigned gruffness as he pushed back a few renegade hanks of white hair with one hand, “Of course they were the ones that tipped us off that we had trespassers. Old Sargent there got a good mouthful of pant leg.” He chuckled, “He’d never bite anybody, but he scared the bejeezus out of ’em. Grown men screaming like little girls.”

  “Hey, Jade.” Harlan stepped out of the house with a slightly embarrassed smile, “Dad, why don’t we show Jade the damage? I’m sure she’s got better things to do than to stand around listening to us jaw on about things.”

  Carson pretended to check the time on his watch. “I better go drop hay out in the west pasture. You can show Jade what the little bastards did.” He winked knowingly at Jade, “You two don’t need me gumming up the works.”

  Harlan watched his father for a moment as the older man steamed toward the barn. “My dad…” he paused self-consciously as he turned back to Jade.

  Jade put on her best deputy persona, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go see what the little bastards did before Sargent got ahold of them.”

  The most obvious act of vandalism was the spray painted graffiti marring the pristine white clapboard along one side of the house. Someone had scrawled in huge red letters, “Ranchers are Murderers,” and “The Big Bad Wolf is going to blow your house up!”

  A chill ran up Jade’s spine as she snapped pictures. This was something more than frivolous scribbling. She put her camera down. “We’ve got to treat this as a serious threat.”

  Harlan twisted his mouth, thinking, before slowly nodding. “Dad…he’s just pissed off because he’s got to deal with the insurance adjustor. And we lost two young steers.” He pointed toward a section of fence that had clearly been flattened and was now propped up. “But there’s something…creepy about all this. We’ve never minded the wolves. They keep the rodent population down, and we’ve never seen that they have much impact on what anyone around here is doing. Why would someone target us?”

  “Good question.” Jade rubbed her chin. “Maybe someone wants people to get pissed off at the activists.”

  “Maybe.”

  They walked across the field toward the damaged fence, and Jade snapped some more pictures. “Did you or your dad get a look at how many there were?”

  “Nah. By the time we got our pants on and were out of our rooms, all we could hear was some yelling. I’ve got the piece of cloth Sargent ripped off back inside.”

  “Good.” Jade turned, scanning the horizon. “I’m going to have a look around, see if I can find anything else.”

  Harlan pushed a loose strand of Jade’s hair back over her ear. “I can make some fresh coffee while you’re doing that.”

  Jade couldn’t help but soften to Harlan’s crooked smile and gentle touch. “That’d be nice. I won’t be long.”

  As Harlan walked back toward the house, Jade watched him over her shoulder. Harlan’s worn blue jeans rode low on his slim hips, and he had the slight bow in his stride that told you he spent a lot of time on horseback. And, she admitted, he had a butt any girl would drool over. He was kind, good-looking, emotionally and financially stable, everything a woman could want in a man, so why wasn’t she more enthusiastic about the idea of snagging him? Was it just a case of familiarity breeding contempt? Maybe she did have unrealistic expectations, maybe Nicolette was right: perhaps Harlan was the perfect man for her and she was being a total idiot. But if Harlan was so perfect, why was Nicolette’s head spinning over the new fox in town, Nate? Jade took a deep breath. It was not the time to be pondering her screwed up love life. Right now, she needed to figure out who’d been on the Winters’ property, why, and if there was some kind of credible threat.

  Wandering toward the nearby hills, Jade thought about the wolves. As an officer of the law, she had to publically remain neutral about “the wolf problem,” the controversy that evolved after the wolves were removed from the endangered species list for the state. In her heart, though, she was glad the wolves were back in Wyoming. They were regal, elegant, creatures that had as much right to be there as any human did, perhaps more. And the fact that a handful of people like Biggy and Frank were slaughtering them at every opportunity made her stomach turn. It didn’t help that the new state laws were confusing; depending on the time of year and where they were in Wyoming, wolves could be hunted with and without a license, shot on sight as predators, or protected because they were within a national park. The thing that worried Jade was that hunting was the reason wolves had become endangered in the first place, and bloodthirsty goons like Biggy and Frank could care less about maintaining breeding pair quotas and other nuances of the law.

  Squatting down, Jade idly poked at the ground with a finger as she tried to think like the vandals to determine which way they might have gone. The dry scrubby grass made tracking difficult, and the nearest road access north of the ranch was at least a couple of miles away. It was possible they had walked in, but Jade kept feeling like she was missing something. Then she heard a short bark-howl, the kind of vocalization that a wolf makes to warn other wolves. She stood up quickly, just in time to see a bushy tail disappear behind a cluster of rocks on the hillside. Maybe, she thought, the wolves would do a good job of taking care of themselves.

  Unable to resist the urge to get a better look at what had to be the pack’s leader, Jade slowly walked in the direction that the tail had disappeared, catching the sound of faint yips drifting toward her from the distance. She smiled to herself; the wolves were probably long gone by now, and with the likes of Biggy and Frank around, they were smart to keep their distance from humans. All the same, she couldn’t help but throw her head back in a commiserating howl.

  “Do ye do that often?”

  Jade whirled at the astonishing sound of an Irish accent, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, even as she tried not to let on how much the man had startled her. It was seldom that someone ever got the drop on her, but he had seemingly materialized out of thin air. She stammered, trying to collect herself.

  “I—I—I saw a wolf, and…you know, uh….” Jade had no idea how to explain her demented howling to the sexy dark-haired Irishman observing her with a slightly tilted head.

  He blinked slowly as he absently rubbed the close-cropped scruff covering his jaw with the back of his hand. His piercing eyes were an unusual and arresting amber color, and he had a sensuous mouth and angular cheekbones. A little more than six feet tall, his body was toned and muscular without being bulky. He had broad shoulders and a trim waist. Everything about him seemed designed to make Jade want to start ripping off their clothes. Finally, Jade thought, something absolutely surprising had arrived in Broken Wheel, and all she’d managed to do was make a complete ass of herself.

  “I do know.” He extended his hand, “Conall O’Faolán. I’m a wildlife biologist. The wolves ye just heard? They’re my pack.”

  “Your…pack?” Jade stood there, a little stupefied. There was something wolfish about him, she thought, but her heart was thumping so hard she couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.

  A smile crept across Conall’s inviting lips, “The pack…I’m studying.”

  Jade tried to shake off the spell of his amber eyes, “Yes, yes, of course, I’m sorry. I’m a little preoccupied with a case I’m working.” She shook his hand, “I’m Jade Lundgren…Deputy Jade Lundgren, Broken Wheel Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Yes, I can see that….the uniform…with the insignia…and the gun, it’s a bit of a tell.”

  Unsure of whether the Irishman was making fun of her or just teasing her a little, Jade slipped into her official mode. “You know that you’re on private property?”

&
nbsp; “Mr. Winters is quite aware of my activities. In fact, he was quite happy to give me permission to work on his property—he understands the role the wolves play in keeping the local ecology in balance.”

  Jade wondered whether Conall meant Carson or Harlan, but she supposed it didn’t matter. Both of the Winter men would know about everything going on at their ranch. Ever since Harlan’s mom had passed unexpectedly two years before, ranching business occupied most of their attention. She could relate to the way grief finds its outlets. When a drunken driver killed her own parents, she decided to devote her life to catching bad guys.

  “So…Mr. O’Faolán…are you aware that the Winters had some trouble last night?”

  “The graffiti, yes…and the fence. I saw it early this morning.”

  “You have any idea who might want to do that? See anything unusual?” Jade flipped out her notebook and took a pen from her jacket pocket.

  “Clearly someone who doesn’t know the Winters’ view on the wolves.” The edge of Conall’s mouth began to curl again, “Deputy Lundgren, am I a suspect?”

  Jade squirmed a little, and to her chagrin, she could see that Conall was suppressing a laugh. What was it about this guy that was keeping her so off-balance? It was all she could do to not stamp her foot in frustration. Squaring her shoulders, Jade tried her best to sound authoritative.

  “Not at the present, but I need to know how to reach you. Are you staying at the Hidden Springs Inn by any chance?”

  “What, with that bunch of useless sooskins who think they are saving the world? Hardly. I’m camped in an abandoned cabin, about two miles that way—in the BLM lands. There’s no mobile signal, but if you need me, perhaps ye could just howl.”

  This time, Conall’s expression gave no hint that he was joking, and Jade could feel her cheeks heating up again. She snapped her notebook shut, “Then you should be wearing blaze orange, Mr. O’Faolán. The Bureau of Land Management acreage is open to the public, and I wouldn’t want to find you on the wrong end of a hunter’s shot gun.”