The Mating Heat(6)

She growled.
He laughed. “You’re so cute when you snarl. I miss that, I miss you…”
When his voice trailed off, she stole a look at his face. His expression turned hard once more, as if regretting the slip.
The dirt road turned into a paved road, banked by a rushing river. They followed the river as it cut through a wide expanse of grassy meadow.
As they neared the ruins of the stone grist mill, she felt a familiar sadness. Ryder had been ten years old when his parents had shared a romantic dinner there by candlelight and the timbers caught fire. They were trapped inside and died.
Jaw clenched, Ryder stared straight ahead. She knew he avoided the mill except once a year, when he went there on the anniversary of their deaths.
Kara glanced around with interest as they approached the ranch’s gate. The broken fence rails had been replaced with new wood.
“You’ve kept up with repairs.”
Ryder guided the truck down the winding road. “Through a third party, I actually managed to convince Alastair to spend the money on regular maintenance. When the business got a small windfall from selling shares of stock that had skyrocketed, I even got him to renovate the basement and turn it into a rec room.”
“A third party… Marcus?” The Lupine had been the ranch’s business manager.
Nodding, he continued, “When Alastair found out I was behind it, he tossed me into my second home.”
“Huh?”
He gave a humorless smile. “Solitary confinement. When I became alpha, I ordered the repairs to continue.”
Glad he called him “Alastair” and not “your father,” she made an approving sound. “Aiden tried to get him to improve the ranch, but it was a slow process. All he cared about after losing mom was staying in his office in the basement and writing his book about their time together.”
Maybe if her mother had lived, things would have been different. Kara sighed. Her parents had been running in wolfskin during a rare vacation in Alaska when her mother stepped into a bear trap. The shock and loss of blood killed her. Alastair had gone mad with grief.
And then, just simply… mad.
“No one could reason with him,” Ryder said. Anger roughened his husky voice. “Not the pack elders, not anyone.”
The truck climbed up a steep hill and then descended into the valley. The lodge sat in a meadow, surrounded by derelict buildings that once housed a bunkhouse for the cowboys, a bowling alley and a pizzeria for the enjoyment of all 350 pack members. A knot formed in her stomach as she studied the abandoned structures and the tall weeds clogging the grass. Would the pack think she’d abandoned them too?
The lodge looked much better. With its angled roof and archways, the log building seemed to soar upward into the clouds. The wraparound porch held several rocking chairs, giving the home an air of warmth. Little warmth had been found inside its walls in the days before Aiden had freed her from her room, shivering and afraid, and fled with her, never to return.
The garage doors boasted a new coat of green paint and the exterior looked varnished and nearly new.
Ryder parked in the driveway, glancing at her as he shut off the engine. “We’re renovating. Weatherproofed the outside. Interior’s next.”
It looked nice. “Where did you get the money?”
His jaw went taut. “I sold my land in Wyoming.”
Stunned, Kara faced him. “Oh Ryder…why? You told me that land had been in your family for generations.”
His broad shoulders lifted. “This is my family now. Colorado is my home and this pack means everything to me. Things have been bad, Kara. Alastair sold nearly all the ranch stock and let everything slide. At the end, even Marcus couldn’t reason with your sire. He grew too violent and moody. He didn’t care what happened to the pack anymore.”
“How did you manage?” All the while she’d been miserable in Montana, thinking things were fine back here. Obviously, she’d been very wrong.
“I worked with Marcus. He taught me how to forge Alastair’s signature. We funneled most of the remaining funds from the corporate account into a new bank account Alastair couldn’t touch. Any profits the ranch received from selling the stock went into that account and that’s what I used to pay bills. Saved us from having the electric cut off. Vendors don’t care who pays, long as they’re paid.”
Deeply troubled, she mulled over this new information. Her father had been careless at times, but never irresponsible.
“How could he let everything go? This was his pack and he led them.”
His gaze remained steady. “He started to get worse after you and Aiden left. He just didn’t give a shit about anything.”#p#分页标题#e#