The Big Bad Wolf Tells All

by Donna Kauffman

  “Go on.”

  “Part of my research was reading your columns. I enjoyed them. More than I thought I would. You’re sharp, witty, but the jabs you take, while meant to be amusing, are usually dead-on, with a kind of insight that forces a person to look at things in a new way. I don’t always agree with your conclusions, but I respect the way you present your case.”

  She could only nod, stunned again, as much by his well-thought-out opinion as the obvious sincerity behind it.

  “In the meantime,” he went on, looking a bit uncomfortable again, “your aunt had given me explicit instructions. She knew that if you were aware she’d hired me, you’d hightail it out of here.”

  “Wait a minute.” She hadn’t put this part together, though she would have as soon as it had all sunk in. “Millicent set me up to stay here, didn’t she? With you.”

  He nodded. “It was the easiest way to keep an eye on you while we dug into the situation. Don’t be angry at her, she was—”

  Tanzy just laughed, though there wasn’t much warmth in it. “Oh no, this is Aunt Millicent at her manipulating best.” She sighed, her smile fading. “I’m not happy about it, but I know she only did it because she was worried.”

  “There’s more.”

  “More?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. She warned me to steer clear of you.”

  Now Tanzy laughed for real. “Oh? So much for me being worried about her meddling in my social life. I guess I should be glad she only sets me up with guys she’s paid to go out with me.”

  Riley didn’t laugh. Or smile. “She didn’t want me getting tangled up with you, didn’t want me to compromise my ability to maintain my objectivity.”

  Tanzy’s laughter faded. The expression on his face . . . the way he was looking at her . . . She thought again about their dance, the moment when she knew—knew, dammit—that he’d been going to kiss her. And last night, in the hall . . . he had wanted her, had come to her room . . . to tell her this. But the way he’d looked at her, before shutting the door between them . . .

  “I thought it was going to be a short assignment,” he went on, “so when I read your column about the wolves and the sheep . . .” He didn’t finish, merely lifted a shoulder, his expression apologetic. “It seemed like an amusing idea at the time. I didn’t intend it as an insult or anything, but . . .”

  Her mouth dropped open as his meaning became clear. Then she burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded, obviously feeling as if he’d exposed his soft white underbelly, only to have her laugh at him. Well, he deserved at least that much.

  “Nothing, it’s just that if the situation had been reversed and it had been me, I might have done the same thing.” She snorted again. “You know, I was researching you, too.”

  “What?” Now he looked confused.

  Good. She ought to get some pleasure out of this whole fiasco. “You were my Sheep Research Project. Here I am, alone, with all my friends married off and planning families. And I’m trying to figure out what the attraction is to the guy you take home to Mama. Do they marry him because they just think it’s time? Or because he will make a steady, stable mate? Or is there some underlying attraction?” She looked at him. “I had an underlying attraction to you,” she said with a half laugh. “So I decided to try to figure out why.”

  The sudden change in his expression had her realizing that perhaps she’d just revealed too much. And now the advantage was shifting again.

  “But now I realize why,” she hurried on to say. “You were just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That’s what some part of me was reacting to.”

  He got up off the settee and she started talking faster, and somehow, a lump had crept into her throat.

  “You’re not a settling down kind of guy at all. You’re just like me. Another wolf on the prowl.”

  He was crossing the room toward her.

  She kept up, almost babbling, even as her throat started to close up. “You’re not the stable, dependable, calm, rational eye of my storm. Not my shoulder to rely on, not the friend I needed, the one I’d turn to—”

  And then he was pulling her up off the couch. And to her absolute horror she realized she was crying.

  “Come here.”

  “Riley, don’t. You aren’t— You can’t—”

  “No, you’re right,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms anyway.

  He didn’t kiss her. That she could have understood, dealt with. Instead he tugged her close and tucked her against his chest, so that his heart thudded beneath her cheek. Steady, and strong.

  And there she was, being held tight inside the calm center of her storm anyway.

  And she was confused all over again.

  She felt him press his lips against her hair, heard him say, “I can’t be all those things. But I’ll be damned if you don’t make me want to be.”

  So they’re all wolves. In some way, shape, or form. Maybe that’s the key element I’ve been missing. Even herd animals have their alpha males, right? Problem is, some wolves are just plain wolves. I don’t think there are too many willing to embrace their inner sheep. Not for the long term. And maybe I fall into that category. Because, frankly, I’d still rather howl at the moon with a wolf than have a baaah-ed time with a good guy.

  Chapter 12

  She felt too damn good. Better than too damn good. And she was in his arms. The very last place she should be . . . and the only place Riley wanted her.

  He tightened his arms around her and felt her fold her body into his. His heart thudded. Might have even stumbled a little when her fingers dug into his back as he heard a muffled sniffle.

  I can’t be all those things. But I’ll be damned if you don’t make me want to be.

  What the hell was that about anyway? Where had that come from? He just wanted to get into her pants, right? That’s what the sleepless nights were about. The cold showers. Bottom line, that’s what he wanted, what all Parrish men apparently wanted. Good—make that great, mind-altering even—sweaty, headboard-banging sex. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Okay, nothing less, definitely. But he seemed to be having a little problem with that “nothing more” part.

  Maybe he could blame it on an instinctive male reaction to tears. Say anything to make them stop. Although, from the look on her face moments ago, he wasn’t sure who had been more momentarily horrified by those glassy eyes. She didn’t strike him as the sort to indulge in crying jags. And even now hers were silent tears, if she was still crying at all.

  There is one way to find out, his little voice helpfully suggested. All he had to do was touch her face, look into those eyes again. Yeah, there’s a brilliant idea. Dance even closer to the edge.

  And yet there went his hand, touching her chin, tipping it up. What he found there was like a punch to the gut.

  Huge and glassy, her eyes were completely un-Tanzy-like. And suddenly there was no edge to dance on. He was free-falling.

  “I am sorry,” he said, his voice gruff with sincerity. “About all of this.”

  She merely held his gaze, lips pressed tightly together as she visibly tried to gather her control.

  He cleared his throat, struggling mightily to land on his feet, regain some control of his own. But God almighty, he wanted to taste that mouth of hers. Wanted to do something, anything, to make them both okay.

  His fingers tensed with the desire to pull her closer, drop his mouth to hers, to finally take what he’d been wanting since the last time she was in his arms. All those lectures he’d given his dad nudged at his conscience. And helped him relax his hold on her. But he was beginning to understand at least a part of his dad’s side of the argument. That, at times, being purely professional sucked.

  He let his hands skim down her arms, but lingered, unable to break contact altogether. He might never have the opportunity to touch her again. “I can promise you that I’m doing all I can to find this guy,” he vowed.

  She sniffed, then hiccupe
d, which brought her dry smile back to life, albeit a watery one. Another hiccup followed. But instead of embarrassment, she laughed. “God.” Hiccup. “Real smooth.”

  His smile came naturally then as well. For all that her innate frankness appealed to him, her steady sense of humor, especially when it was self-directed, drew him in even more. “If I said you were cute when you hiccuped, would you whack me?”

  “No.” Another hiccup. “But I’d seriously question your sanity.” Wiping the tear tracks from her cheeks and taking several slow, deep breaths, she moved from his grasp and stepped away.

  He recalled his half-formed fantasy of how this moment would play out, of telling her who he really was. That fantasy had ended with them devouring each other. He supposed he should be happy he’d come to his senses in time.

  She put more distance between them as she collected herself, took several more deep breaths, and held them, trying to get rid of the last of the hiccups. It worked, but she stayed on the other side of the room from him.

  He decided he wasn’t all that happy.

  But the alternative was to quit. Then he could pursue her free of any other conflict of interest. Which, of course, he wouldn’t do. For business and personal reasons. No way was he walking away from this, or her, until he had SoulM8 locked down or strung up. Besides which, ending their professional relationship might mean ending the only relationship he could hope to have with her. It was pathetic, settling for what he could have instead of going for what he wanted. But there it was. And hadn’t he been doing exactly that since the day his knee blew out?

  “Is there anything we can do?” she asked, her voice still a bit rough. “I mean, I thought about telling the authorities after I got the note. Actually, I didn’t think about it, but my friends suggested it.”

  His attention snapped back—mercifully—to the real matter at hand. “You told your girlfriends about this?”

  She looked surprised by his sudden sharp tone. “I’m sorry,” she said when he merely looked at her expectantly. “I’m still not used to the other you. You keep switching back and forth. It’s confusing.”

  “The other—?” He swore silently, wishing he’d never heard of her stupid sheep/wolf theory, much less adopted it. “Never mind that. How much did you tell them?”

  “Not much, really. We were actually talking about you.”

  He refused to ask, despite the teasing spark that returned to her far too expressive green eyes. She seemed quite willing to shift the tension away from her problems, and onto his problems.

  She didn’t move closer, but her steady regard seemed to shrink the space between them nonetheless. “Don’t you want to know why I was talking to my friends about my great-aunt’s assistant? Don’t you want to know how I characterized our date?”

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  Her smile faltered and he hated that, but, like Millicent, she was a formidable opponent. He didn’t think there was an edge she wouldn’t dance too close to.

  “Right,” she said. “I forgot. For you it was surveillance. I guess you were relieved when I was forced to take you along as my escort. Beats skulking around in the halls, right?”

  Talk about a loaded question. “I was just glad to help out.” He shrugged at her wide-eyed snort of disbelief. “Okay, yes, it helped me watch out for you. But I’d have done it anyway.” Great, just hand her the edge, why don’t you?

  Still, she only managed a dry smile. “Thanks. Your loyalty is impressive.”

  He could have told her it had nothing to do with professional loyalty and everything to do with getting to touch her while she was wearing that nothing of a dress Clarisse had no doubt gleefully chosen to torture him with. But he wasn’t that suicidal.

  “Well, since you dragged it out of me,” she said, sitting down.

  Did her legs really just go on forever, or what? he caught himself thinking as she crossed her legs and tucked the toe of her slipper behind her calf. Even dressed like an unmade bed she made him sweat.

  “I was actually telling them about how you took control of the situation at the radio station and how at odds it was with the man I knew you to be.” She laughed then, but there was a sharp edge to it. “Boy, you really weren’t kidding when you said I didn’t know you.”

  He sighed and muttered beneath his breath.

  “What was that?”

  He looked over at her, hands on his hips. “It was a stupid idea, okay? The whole sheep thing. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m sure I suffered more trying to pull it off than you did having to deal with an overly polite, anal-retentive employee.”

  “Rather than what?” She folded her arms. “What are you really like, then, Riley?”

  She was infuriating. He threw up his hands. “This.” He gestured to his T-shirt and sweatpants. “I normally dress a little better, but this is pretty much what you get.” A broken-down athlete trying his damnedest to make his father’s lifelong business pay off so they could both move on to doing something they really enjoyed. Which stopped him dead in his tracks. Had he really been marking time with all this? He knew he’d been doing it for Finn, to make enough so the old man could retire. He managed not to snort. Retire from something Finn had only ever worked at hard enough to make ends meet. But it was all Finn knew. That and women.

  Standing where he was at the moment, Riley wasn’t sure he knew anything about either. And now was certainly not the time to ask what in the hell he really did want to do with his life. Because, the thing was, he thought he’d already done it. He’d made the pros. Now he was doing this. Because this was what there was to do.

  “Riley?”

  He snapped his gaze to hers. “I’m just doing the best I can, Tanzy. Your aunt wanted me to stay behind the scenes as much as possible. The rest . . . well, I take full responsibility for that.” He sighed and let his hands drop to his sides. “Maybe we should just step past this and focus on what’s important.” He let himself take one last long look at her, then reluctantly let go of every fantasy he’d had regarding her. “You said you told your friends about the note. Did you tell anyone else? Did you say anything to Martin?”

  She stared at him for another eternally long, very disconcerting moment. His control wavered, as it was wont to do around her and probably always would. He thought if it went on another second, he’d snap and just cross the room and drag her off the couch and plant one on her. He’d either get kneed in the balls . . . or her naked on the carpet. At the moment, he was almost willing to risk it.

  Then she sighed, and her gaze dipped to her hands, which she folded tightly on her knees. He wasn’t sure if she was wrestling with the same urges he was, or if she’d been thinking about the case the entire time. He was really going to have to stop lecturing Finn about women, he decided. It was quite obvious to him now that he’d been talking out of his ass.

  “I haven’t told Martin yet. I was planning to today.”

  “Well, I think maybe it’s best you don’t. For now, anyway. Is there some way you can meet him in person?”

  “You think he’s my stalker and you want me to invite him over for tea?” All teasing and sparks were gone now.

  “He may be leaving you strange notes, but that doesn’t mean he’s dangerous. Just—”

  “Deluded?” Now she snorted. “Come on, I know what you told me, but I still can’t imagine it. It’s just not in him.”

  “Well then, invite him over so I can get a print off a water glass or something. I’ll be right here the whole time, so you won’t be in any danger.”

  “Didn’t you just say he probably thinks this is some sort of fantasy romance or something?” She didn’t wait for him to respond, she just shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe this.”

  “Fine, then help me get his prints and eliminate him from the short list without ever having to let him know you suspected him in the first place.”

  She shot him a look. “I don’t suspect him.”

  “Okay, fine
. You let me do the suspecting.”

  She didn’t react to that, instead she switched gears. “My friends think I should take this to the police. But I just don’t see how that will make a difference. He’s not doing anything illegal and he hasn’t tried to harm me, or threatened me with harm. Could they do anything?”

  “Not much at this point. I explained that to Millicent when she hired me. However, she felt then, and we both feel now, that it’s important to keep pursuing this, at least to identify him. Whoever he is,” he added.

  “And if it’s not Martin—and it won’t be—what will that give us?”

  “With a name, we can do some digging, maybe determine his character, get a better handle on what he’s capable of. See if he’s done anything like this in the past, has any assumed names, that sort of thing. We can also monitor his movements and so on.”

  “You mean tail him?”

  “That’s one way. There are others.”

  She looked at him, but apparently decided she didn’t want to know just what that involved. “For how long? Until he latches on to someone else?”

  “As long as we think necessary.”

  She sat back, folded her arms again. “Or as long as Millicent pays you.”

  “Tanzy—”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I understand what she was trying to do. It’s just frustrating to have her go behind my back.” She gave a humorless little laugh. “Although why that surprises me, I have no idea.”

  “Would you have listened to her?”

  Tanzy just looked at him. “That’s not the point. I didn’t think he was a problem. I should have never have mentioned him to her. I hate it that I’ve worried her with all this.”

  “She just wants to know that you’re safe. She loves you very much.”

  Tanzy sighed and Riley found himself wondering again what was going on in her mind. He knew for a fact how much Millicent cared about her only grandniece, and looking at Tanzy now, he felt that love was most definitely reciprocated. But he’d only dug as far back as her college years, mostly to establish how she’d come to be close to her current crop of friends, to rule out the possibility that they had any hand in this.