Claimed by the Mate, Volume 3

by Kate Douglas

  “Good girl.” He was acting like such an ass. It wasn’t her fault she was being stalked. He hugged her shoulders and tried to relax, but it was impossible, now that he’d seen actual proof of a threat to her safety. Proof that the threat knew where she lived, had trespassed in her space. “Let’s go through the office and up the back stairs. Can you lock the door in the office that leads to the apartment?”

  She led him into the small room and turned a dead bolt. “It’s accessible from inside, but you have to know how it works. That will keep it shut. It’s a solid wood door. C’mon.”

  They went out through the office. The back door opened into a parking area that appeared to serve several businesses. The scent of wolf was stronger out here, though not fresh, and not the same wolf. Trak wasn’t willing to risk shifting here, even though his wolf could set the time the others had been here to within an hour or so. As he followed Chelo up the stairs, he was positive their visitors were long gone.

  She stopped at the landing outside the door to the apartment. Trak tried the door. It was open, the lock destroyed. He didn’t notice the same scent of the intruder downstairs, though the scent of the other wolves lingered. Trak pushed the door open. Chelo’s little apartment had obviously had visitors.

  “Oh, no. Damn it! Look at this mess.” Chelo stepped into the main room of a small studio apartment ahead of Trak and they both surveyed the damage. Her clothes were ripped from the closet, the drawers on her small dresser open and tossed about the room. Food had been thrown around the kitchen and smeared on the walls, and from the smell, it had obviously been done either Saturday or Sunday.

  A potted orchid lay broken in the middle of the floor. She walked over and picked it up, but the bloom-covered stem had been snapped and the roots torn to pieces. Trak watched her for a moment, unsure what was going through her mind, but then her legs just folded and she sat on the floor, cradling the broken plant.

  Trak was kneeling beside her in a heartbeat. “Ah, sweetheart. We’ll clean this up. I’ll get a couple of the guys out here to take care of the mess for you, but you can’t stay here.” He sat on the floor and pulled her into his lap. Still clutching the broken orchid, she sobbed against his chest. “I want you to come back with me, but we should probably report this to the sheriff. The department should know to keep an eye on things here.”

  “How can we involve the authorities? They don’t know about us, do they?”

  “No, but they know we’re good citizens. The wolf preserve is a draw for the community and brings in tourists, and we patrol a large area of land around here and keep an eye on things. They know we’re quiet and fairly reclusive, that we’ve got a terrific vet the people here have come to count on, and they are always willing to help us.”

  The words spilled out of her. “I thought I was finally free of them. This wasn’t just Rube. I recognize the stench of at least three others from the pack. They’re all big and dangerous, Trak. I can’t bring that danger to your pack. I won’t do that to you.”

  He tightened his arms around her. “It’s not just my pack, Chelo. It’s yours, too. You’re one of us now. As a member of the Trinity Alps pack, you deserve the same protection as any member, and we’ll give it willingly.”

  His phone chimed with a message, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “It’s Tuck. He’s downstairs, looking for us.” He sent a message back. Stay there. We’ll be right down. Standing, he helped Chelo to her feet.

  She set the broken orchid on a table and went into the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel, got it wet, and scrubbed away the tears. “Okay. Do I look presentable?”

  “You are always beautiful. C’mon.” He tugged her hand and they went down the staircase that led to the shop. Chelo showed him how the lock worked and they stepped into the office. Elle and Tuck waited in the showroom.

  * * *

  Chelo stayed back to put a couple of arrangements together while Tuck, Elle, and Trak went out the back door and up the stairs to her studio. She’d been so excited about moving into the cute little apartment, excited about opening her new shop. Now she just wanted to go away. She didn’t care where, but she was so afraid of that bastard Rube and furious that, once again, he’d found her.

  She looked at the rose stem in her hand and threw the tattered flower back on the counter. She’d gone from stripping thorns to essentially mutilating the entire stem of the poor thing. She reached for another one when she heard voices, realized that Tuck, Elle, and Trak had come down the stairs into the office.

  Tuck and Elle stepped into the showroom. “We’ve picked up four different wolves,” Tuck said. “And you say the one that’s after you, this Rube, it’s his scent that’s strongest in here? I didn’t pick it up in the apartment, don’t smell the others down here.”

  “I agree.” Chelo leaned against the worktable. “His is the only scent in here. I imagine he left the others to trash my apartment and then came down here to snoop around. I checked and it doesn’t look as if he tried to get into the safe, and the stuff in the cold room is fine, so this was done purely to intimidate me.”

  Elle knocked her hip against Chelo. “Did it work?” She was grinning like a fiend.

  “Nope. But it sure has me pissed off.”

  “Good.” Elle glanced at Trak as he stepped into the room. “Did you call the sheriff?”

  Trak nodded. “I just got off the phone. He wants me to text him some pictures of the damage before we clean it up, said he’d have noticed four men in town this weekend, that it was pretty quiet. I imagine they’re shifting and sleeping during the day as wolves, and probably hunting as well. I told the sheriff it was an old boyfriend who’s been stalking you, that you thought you’d lost him.”

  Chelo nodded. “That works. Can you get the pictures? I need to open the shop.”

  “I’ll do it,” Elle said. She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Just point me in the right direction.”

  Chelo led them up the stairs instead. While she was there, while Tuck was still cursing the mess, she found the broken orchid and carried it back down, along with the pot it had been in. She’d found that on the kitchen floor.

  “That poor little plant is important to you, isn’t it?”

  Nodding, she pulled out some butcher paper to protect the counter and set the plant in the middle. “It’s the first thing I bought just for me after I left the pack. It’s torn up, but it’s tough. I think I can save it.”

  “I’ve heard orchids are a lot tougher than they look.”

  She glanced at him sideways. “So am I.”

  * * *

  Trak hung around while Chelo brought out a few potted plants and took flowers out of the cold room to make a fresh display for the store window. He took the broom and swept the sidewalk out in front and helped her set up an outside display of small arrangements filled with fall colors. Tuck and Elle came back downstairs, loaded the photos onto Trak’s phone, and then went off on their next call. A few customers stopped in to leave orders for arrangements.

  The shop was surprisingly busy, and since Trak wasn’t comfortable leaving Chelo on her own, he managed to find plenty of things to do. A broken latch on the cold room door needed repair, and there were baskets in cabinets out of Chelo’s reach that he was able to move into a handier spot. Drew arrived to clean the apartment. Around noon Trak walked down the street to a deli he liked and brought back sandwiches for the three of them.

  While Chelo was in the office eating, he went out in front and talked to a customer who was merely browsing, and ended up making a sale. The lady walked out with a beautiful fern. Feeling as if he’d just made a huge business transaction, Trak strutted back into the office, where Chelo high-fived him after the woman left.

  “You’re good. I might just have to hire you.”

  Trak sneaked a quick kiss. “You can’t afford me.”

  “Oh?” She walked her fingers down his chest and then latched her thumbs inside the leather belt riding just above his hips. “I’m willing t
o get creative.”

  This was the first time she’d instigated anything at all that could be called flirting. Trak wondered if she heard his heart pounding in his chest. In the short time he’d known her, the attraction had only grown stronger.

  Until now, he’d felt as if it was a one-way street. Maybe there was hope for him yet. “How creative? Fancy flowers for the lodge? Maybe a bouquet for my cabin?”

  “How about rose petals on the sheets, next time you have a lady friend over?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have any lady friends to invite over. Only one lady who’s staying at my house, but she’s got her own room.”

  “I can see where that might be a problem.” She stepped closer. Close enough that her full breasts rested against his chest. Close enough that she had to feel the hard length of him pressing against her stomach. “A very big problem.”

  He ran his hands over her shoulders, down the smooth line of her back. “It’s a problem I’m sure you could deal with, if you’re of a mind to help me out.”

  “Is that all it would be? Helping you? Wouldn’t I get anything out of the deal?”

  He leaned in and nuzzled the side of her throat below her ear. She shivered beneath his lips and he scented her arousal, a heady blend with the shop’s aromas of roses and daffodils, the rich perfume of gardenias. Chelo’s scent was a combination of all of that and more. Intrinsically, personally hers. He knew it, even though this was the first time he’d picked up the faintest scent that she might be aroused.

  Proof that she’d lived a life of unmitigated hell for most of her life. There was no way he was going to rush her, but he wasn’t going to make her wonder, either. “Chelo, you’ve already got me, even without the sex, but I can promise you, that if . . .”

  “When,” she said. “Say when.”

  He kissed her quickly. “When we make love, you’ll have all of me. All of me for as long as you want me.” He bent to kiss her, a deeper, more meaningful kiss, when the bell on the front door tinkled.

  “Don’t expect to be saved by the bell every time, sweetheart.”

  She laughed and brushed by him to help the customer who’d just walked in.

  * * *

  While Chelo talked to a couple of women about providing flowers for their church this coming Sunday, Trak went up to check on Drew. He stepped into the apartment, surprised at how far his pack mate had gone toward putting things in order. “You’re good,” he said, channeling Chelo. “I might have to hire you.”

  Drew flipped him off, which had both of them laughing, considering the fact that he wore pink latex gloves. “Pink? That the only color you could find?”

  “Jules bought them. Need I say more?”

  “Guess not. Find anything suspicious?”

  “Yeah. I have. There are little notes left all over the place, hidden in dresser drawers, stuck in the refrigerator, in the dishwasher.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Here.” He handed a plastic bowl to Trak. It was filled with pieces of paper obviously ripped off a tablet, notes written with a pen. The author had terrible handwriting but obviously a vivid imagination.

  “Tear the place apart if you have to, but I want all of these.”

  “You’re not going to show them to her, are you?” Drew pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I hate to think of anyone as nice as Chelo reading that filth.”

  Trak sighed. He really didn’t have a choice. “Chelo has finally taken control of her life after what amounted to a lifetime of abuse. I’m not going to make any decisions about her without consulting her. I’ll ask her if she wants to see them, but ultimately, it’s her choice.”

  “You’re right.” Drew wiped down the kitchen counter as he talked. “But if you can talk her out of reading them, I hope you do.”

  “Thanks, Drew. I promise to try. I’m not even going to mention them until you’re through in here. Just clock this time as double your hours at Growl.”

  He left Drew working and went back down the stairs. Chelo was on the phone, but she ended the call as he entered the room, turned, and leaned against her worktable. “Got it. Just ordered the flowers for delivery on Friday. Stock, delphinium, iris, calla lilies, and freesia.”

  “How’d you know what to order?” This whole business was entirely foreign to him.

  “I talked with Meg yesterday. She called Cherry to let her know the schedule. She and Zach will be here Wednesday and they want to have bachelor and bachelorette parties Thursday night, separate, of course. Ladies get the lodge, guys can have Growl, but mainly I wanted to find out about flowers. She doesn’t want a lot—just an arrangement wherever they’re going to stand for the vows, her bouquet, a boutonniere for Zach, and bouquets for her bridesmaids, Elle, Jules, and Darian. I met Darian yesterday before she and Lawz went back to Eureka. She’s really nice.”

  “That she is. You’ll be able to do all of that before Sunday?”

  “Not a problem. Are the guys dressing up for this? Like in suits and ties?”

  “I think they are. I am. I’m officiating. Does it matter?”

  “It does if you want a boutonniere.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “Mmmmm.” She cocked her head and stared at him.

  “What does that mean?” He arched an eyebrow, pushed his alpha strength.

  She never even blinked, but she practically purred. “Many women think a flower in a man’s lapel is sexy. Very sexy.”

  He was close enough to stroke a long curl of her dark hair, close enough to curl it around his fingers. “What about you, Chelo? Do you think it’s sexy?”

  She turned away but still watched him from the corners of her eyes. Flirting. She was obviously flirting with him. “I do. If the right man is wearing it.”

  “I see. I’d hate to waste a perfectly good flower. I mean, if I’m not the right man.”

  Her smile lit up her face. When she licked her lips, she lit up more than her face. He had a very low threshold when it came to Chelo. “I think you might be. I’ll order them, just in case.”

  * * *

  Tuesday morning

  Evan rolled over and ran his fingertip over the silky curve of Nellie’s breast. Even though she was still half-asleep, she arched her back to his touch. He’d never known a woman as responsive, never responded to another woman the way he did to his little Nell.

  It was fun to think of her as Nellie, to call her that when they were together. Never in front of the other guys, though. It was for the two of them, and she actually seemed to like it.

  Of course, whispering it in her ear when she was verging on orgasm might have something to do with it. He propped himself up on one elbow, leaned over, and tongued her left nipple. It immediately stood at attention, so he stroked the right one with his fingertips and sucked on the one he’d already tasted.

  “I’m sleeping.”

  He turned and looked into the one eye she’d opened. Turned her wet nipple loose. “Not now you aren’t.”

  “What time is it?” She closed her eye.

  “Almost eight. We need to go into town and get your car. Remember? The one with the flat tire?”

  “Damn. I forgot all about it.” She pushed herself up against the headboard. “So this wasn’t a seduction? You were merely waking me up?”

  “Pretty much.” He swung his legs around and got up. “C’mon, Nell. I’ll buy you breakfast in town. You can check out the sights.”

  “Certainly, Ferdinand. Whatever you say.”

  “Ferdinand?” He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Well, if you’re going to call me Nellie, a name better suited for a farm animal, then you, my dearest, will be Ferdinand.” She got out of bed and wrapped her arms around his waist. “He was a bull.”

  “Ah, that works.” He flexed his muscular arms and the tat on his left arm danced. “Me Ferdinand. Big fierce bull with big cojones.” He leered at her and twisted an imaginary mustache.

  She leaned back and grinned. “Actually, Ferd
inand was a wussy bull. He preferred sitting under a tree, smelling the flowers.” She ducked under his arm and headed into the shower.

  He watched her go. Damn but he loved the way her mind worked. And he really liked the way she looked walking away from him. Her ass was a work of art. He followed.

  * * *

  An hour later, they drove by Chelo’s flower shop on the way to pick up Nell’s car. She was still calling him Ferdinand, and funny thing was, he seemed to get a kick out of it. She wondered if anything ever pissed him off. He was a truly gentle soul with a fun sense of humor that was every bit as addictive as the rest of him.

  Evan pulled over and parked.

  Darnell rolled the window down. “Hey, Chelo. I like the shop.”

  “Thanks. Want to come see?”

  “Maybe later. We need to pick up my car. Had a flat.”

  “Okay.” She went back to sweeping the walkway, and Trak stepped out of the shop with a couple of potted plants in his arms, waited for Chelo to point, and then set them down and walked over to the truck.

  “What are you two doing in town?”

  Darnell hung out the open window. “Ferdinand here promised me breakfast and we have to pick up my car.”

  Trak glanced over her shoulder at Evan and raised one expressive eyebrow. “Ferdinand?”

  “Long story,” he said. “One day I’ll tell you, but it’s going to be over more than one beer. You might have to get me loaded first.”

  “I’ll remember that. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll be here most of the morning, but I want to get together with you and the guys sometime this afternoon.”

  “Just let me know when.”

  They pulled up in front of a small café and went inside. It appeared the morning rush had slowed—an older lady was clearing the tables and a group of guys in the back looked like they were finishing up.

  For some reason, they made Darnell think of the men after Chelo. They were rough looking, dressed like transients, and for whatever reason didn’t look like they fit the area or this cute little café. Evan seemed to have the same sense about them that Darnell did, and she noticed his gaze slide over to their table before he led Darnell in the opposite direction. He pulled out a chair for her at a table the waitress had just cleared.