Wanted By The Cowboy Tiger (Heroes of Shifter Creek 3)

©Copyright 2015 by
Clara Moore
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Wanted by the Cowboy Tiger

By:
Clara Moore

Chapter One

Krista

              It didn’t make sense.

              Krista Beucourt looked down upon the grave she had just uncovered, wiping the sweat and dirt away from her forehead as the New Mexico heat scorched the land dry. The skeleton in the grave was man on top and beast on bottom, like the cousin of a centaur, but that was not what had Krista confused. What fur remained of the man-beast appeared to belong to that of a tiger. A cougar or a panther she could understand, but not a tiger. Tigers originated from Asia, not the Americas.

              Krista studied the skeleton closer, hoping for answers. She should feel vindicated. The notoriety of her work as an anthropologist was about to sky rocket, but it was hard to embrace glory when the arms of the skeleton reached out so forlornly, as if he grasped for a lover who was not there.

              Stepping away from the grave, Krista went to the cooler next to her tent, took out a bottle of water, and pressed it against her cheek. She wore only a pair of shorts and a sports bra, showing off her chocolate skin and curvy body, but it was not enough to ward off the blazing sun. She might as well strip naked. No one would be the wiser. She was out in the desert valley alone, her work a solitary venture. But she kept her designer shorts on. An anthropologist with a passion for fashion, she had paid a small fortune for them in the city, where she lived.

              “Give me the city any day,” Krista mumbled out loud as she threw a tarp over the bones and went into her tent to hide from the sun and to process all she had learned so far from her discovery.

              She had not traveled out into the dry wilderness to find a man-beast. She’d been in search of a lost group of settlers who had disappeared from the region in the 1800’s, when it was still the Wild West. A marking on a cave nearby of a cross had led her to this area. Her radar equipment had done the rest, picking up the skeleton as she scanned the land.

              Technically, Krista was not authorized to be here. She had been unable to retrieve a permit from the local authorities, and so she could not call in a team to dig with her. She had assumed her permit had been rejected due to a bias that she was an anthropologist, meant to study human behavior, and not an archaeologist, who usually led digs for lost artifacts and people. She even suspected that the local authorities did not want a young, posh city girl uncovering the treasures of the frontier. But as she outlined a drawing of the man-beast in her sketch pad, she began to wonder if perhaps the local authorities had known the secrets within the sand, secrets they wanted to stay buried.

              But why a tiger? Unless... her mind began to race, growing excited. Perhaps the man-beast was not some ancient creature legends were created around, like she originally assumed based on numerous mythologies she had encountered in her studies. Perhaps this man was someone who had travelled from Asia, or had ancestors who did. Perhaps he was connected to the lost settlers she was looking for...

              “Hey sunshine,” a deep, sexy voice greeted, popping his head into the tent.

              “Derek! What if I had been changing,” Krista protested, though truly she’d jump at the chance to be naked around Derek, to feel his piercing blue eyes on her curves and his sturdy lips trailing kisses down her skin. Hot cowboys were hard to find in the city, especially ones with the gentle but authoritative nature Derek encompassed.

              “You’re practically naked as it is, so why would it matter?” he returned with good humor, smiling brightly under his oversized cowboy hat. “What you got there?”

              “Nothing,” Krista said and she quickly closed her sketch pad. “Just being creative.”

              Derek Shiloh was rugged and handsome, but she barely knew him. He was a local rancher who had befriended her one day when he was out looking for a lost cow. They’d made polite conversation, and since then he came to visit her often, claiming he didn’t like her camping out on her own, a sense of protection glinting out of those piercing blue eyes of his, made bluer by his tanned skin.

              That’s what she had told him – that she was camping and collecting mineral deposits. It was a half-truth. She was a scientist studying the land. But it was people she was hoping to find, not minerals. People hunting raised questions. Minerals did not.

              Krista probably could have trusted Derek with the truth, before her find. He was sincere, his need to protect her real. But she couldn’t tell him now, not with a man-beast lying so near. He may not understand like she did. Years of reading Native American legends had prepared her, eased her into the possibility that shifters existed. If she showed Derek the bones of the man-beast, his whole sense of reality could be destroyed. He wanted to protect her, but she wanted to protect him just as much.

              Derek held his hand out. “The sun is going down. Come join me in the shade. I brought some brew.”

              Krista gladly accepted his hand and followed him out of the tent. Standing next to him, she was reminded how tall and strong he was, built like a mountain of muscle, muscles that peeked through his navy blue T-shirt and jeans. As he reached down to put a six pack of beer into her cooler, she couldn’t help but glance at his broad but firm behind.

             
They don’t make them that good in the city
, she thought.

              “Over there,” Derek said, pointing to a rock formation nearby, holding the cooler. “There’s some shade over there.”

              Allowing him to take charge, she followed him to the shade. It was blissful, much cooler than her tent, but Krista couldn’t relax. Sitting with her shoulder pressed against Derek’s was electric. They were so close, a section of her long glossy brown hair cascaded over his T-shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind.

              “To new friends,” Derek toasted, cracking open a beer and handing it to her.

              “To new friends,” she said as he opened his own and she took an eager sip. Normally, she preferred a sweet mimosa over beer, but being so far away from civilization tore down her boundaries, made her more adventurous.

              “How did you get here?” she asked, realizing she didn’t see his truck.

              “Bridget dropped me off,” he explained. “She’s my right hand man at the ranch. Well, right hand woman. She needed the truck to run an errand.”

              Krista’s heart dropped. In all of his short visits, she had never considered Derek was involved with someone else. “That was nice of her,” she mumbled, setting the beer aside. Now, it only tasted of disappointment. “I can give you a ride back, if you want.”

              He laughed. “A cactus can move faster than that heap of junk,” he said, meaning her tiny smart cart. “And I don’t think I’d fit.”

              She wasn’t offended. His laughter could never offend her. And he was probably right. With all her equipment locked away in the back seat, there was little room for him. “Then how will you get back?”

              He gave her his full attention, a flicker of emotion taming his bright smile. “Maybe I don’t want to go back,” he said.

              It was an odd thought, but the first thing Krista could think of was how she didn’t know the color of Derek’s hair. He never took off his cowboy hat, wearing it like a soldier wore a helmet on the frontlines. Right now, all she wanted to do was tear his hat off and run her hands through his hair as he pulled her close.

              “Maybe you shouldn’t,” she whispered back, feeling a hot pulse run through her body that had nothing to do with the blazing sun.

              Then she remembered the woman he mentioned – Bridget. As much as Krista wanted Derek, she had some morals. Knowing they were about to kiss, she stood, breaking the moment. “I should get back to work, before the sun goes down.”

              He was disappointed, she could tell, but he also looked relieved, as if she had saved them both from some ill fate. “How is your work going?” he asked, his interest peaked. “You find anything interesting?”

              “No,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. She had never been a great liar. As an anthropologist, she sought the truth. Speaking against the truth was like having her blood flow backwards. “Nothing important.”

              He looked across the desert to where the tarp lay over the grave, protecting the bones from a new layer of sand. “That looks like a mighty big hole.”

              “Sometimes you have to dig deep to find what you’re looking for.”

              “And sometimes it’s right before you,” Derek proclaimed. “Krista... I...”

              The rumble of a truck invaded the moment. The truck belonged to Derek, she had seen him drive it before, but this time a woman with bright red hair hanging down like ivy and wearing a blue flannel shirt was behind the wheel. She pulled up beside them. “We gotta go,” she hollered at Derek, ignoring Krista. “The lambs are dropping.”

              The woman –Bridget,she assumed –was beautiful, but there was nothing friendly about her.

              “Not the season,” Derek called back.

              “You know what I mean. Get in.”

              In no hurry, Derek brushed a piece of hair from Krista’s cheek. “Until next time, sunshine,” he said, and then he jumped into the truck.

              As Krista watched the truck drive away, leaving her alone in the deserted valley once more, she forgot about the man-beast completely, wishing she had kissed Derek while she had the chance.

***

Derek

                            Derek hated leaving Krista alone in the desert. It went against everything he believed. He admired her spirit of independence as much as he admired her healthy curves and stunning amber eyes, like flames against her dark skin. But men were meant to protect women. His instincts screamed at him to turn the truck around and bring Krista with him back to the ranch where he could keep her safe.

              But that would be counterproductive. The desert was where Krista was safest. The ranch was where the true danger lie.

              He knew Krista was hiding something, that she wasn’t being completely truthful. He had seen her drawing of the man with tiger bones.

              But he didn’t think less of her for it, not when he had a secret of his own.

***