“If you organize Gabriel, you’ll be doing me a service.”
“You?”
“I worry about him. He gives the farm away. Never learned how to haggle over prices with his suppliers so he pays top dollar. And he’s got a long list of people who come in here every day to drink his booze and run a tab that rarely gets paid. Change some of that and you’ll be making a bunch of us real happy.”
Before she could mask her reaction, Leigh realized she’d set her jaw and was giving one of the glares she was told turned people off.
This time Niles’s smile was soft. “I take it that look means you aren’t pleased?”
“My trouble is I want to cure everything yesterday. I’ve got to go a bit slowly on this but I’ll sort it out. I may look like a wimp but I can be tough.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said, with a mock salute.
“Have you always been a handyman?” she asked, looking straight at him. “If that’s what you are.”
“Nope. Not always. But I’m Mr. Fixit now. Learned everything I know at my grandpa’s knee on the ranch in Wyoming.”
“And you just decided to move from Wyoming to Washington State?”
His steady stare let her know she was being too nosy. “It’s not my business,” she told him, squirming. “Sorry.”
“I went a lot of places in between Wyoming and Washington, Leigh. I got back from the Middle East eighteen months ago.”
She could imagine him in fatigues, even maybe marching in the sand, or climbing over huge obstacles as if they were nothing; it was the leaping to attention that didn’t come easily to mind. “What did you do there?” Maybe he was in one of those groups that built buildings or something.
“I killed people,” he said.
chapter FOUR
NILES ALMOST GOT UP and left but he couldn’t do that to her. What had got into him to make him go off like that? And why at her of all people? He had thought his control was better now.
It was that last disastrous overseas assignment, he guessed. The guilt he still felt at losing one of their own. The night sweats didn’t happen often anymore. But dammit, he had to get past the guilt and past the outbursts.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her. “I don’t know why I did.” Impulsively, he caught her hand in his. “Forget it, please.”
She coughed. Her brown eyes seemed even bigger and darker in a pretty but thin, freckled face, but her thoughts were sympathetic, not frightened, and her fingers tightened around his for a moment before she let go.
Damn, he should not risk making her afraid of him, not when he hoped to build her trust.
Touching her hand only made him want to touch more of her, to hold her. How hard would this get if he couldn’t keep his mind on the goal, to mate for the good of his kind?
“I expect you were fighting,” she said with a faint little smile. “That must have been… hard… ” Her voice got weaker and trailed away.
He couldn’t believe what had happened. “It’s over,” he told her.
“War has to be terrifying.”
Leaving this dangling wasn’t wise. “It’s more disappointing than terrifying, although it’s that, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“People are still killing people because everyone thinks they’re right, that they have the only right way.” He considered how much more he should say. “When you see humans with all their defenses stripped down to just the will to live, it changes you. I’m not completely over that yet, I guess. I thought I was, but I’m not. Sometimes the anger comes back. It flashes, then it’s gone. It doesn’t accomplish a thing.”
“If it were me,” she said, “I don’t think I could ever put it behind me.”
He had to and mostly he did a good job. “I’ve come a long way. I’ll try not to snap out statements like that again. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.” She smiled and he had to stop himself from touching her again. “I’ll let you know if you’re snapping. Sometimes things just line up wrong and we want to close it all down. It seems kind of like grieving to me.”
Niles almost grinned. Though he’d only just found Leigh, something told him she really was the right one for him; that they really could offer each other what they would both need—unconditional understanding. The question was, would he be able to put his duty to the future of the werehounds first if this attraction kept growing? Just looking at her heated him and he was enjoying the burn.
Before Niles could get himself into deeper trouble, one of the men from the corner got up and headed toward Leigh. Pretty slick-looking guy for a woodsy type, Niles thought.
“Hey,” the man said. “I just realized who you are. The waiter mentioned your name. You’re the Kelly woman from Two Chimneys Cottage, right? Chimney Rock Cove?”
Niles bridled at the pushy tone. “We’re having breakfast,” he said coolly.
“Just saying hi,” the man said without looking at Niles. “I’m John Valley. I’ve got that information you people wanted.”
Leigh looked at him blankly. She pushed her strawberry blond hair behind both ears. Niles liked her straight, shiny hair but he didn’t like it that she was considering excusing herself and leaving the table. Her strong thoughts were easy to read. When she became pensive or distant he had to probe harder. He had not listened in much so far and wouldn’t in the future, he decided. Some unfair advantages were a bad idea—and dishonest.
He could often hear snippets of human thought, but only those who were sensitives of some kind came through as clearly as Leigh. He figured that could be because they were starting to share a connection that proved they were meant to be mates—or was that only wishful thinking?
“I did a rough assessment on your holdings here on the island,” Valley said.
Her mouth moved but she took a while to say, “Who are you?”
“I’m the real estate go-to on this end of the island.” The guy’s mouth turned down and a nerve twitched in his cheek.
“I don’t understand this,” Leigh said.
“Hell, maybe I shouldn’t have approached you but I wasn’t warned to keep quiet. I thought you’d be interested in the valuation. Very nice, too. Who knew the acreage was that big? But I’ll talk to your husband.”
Leigh had turned white. She put down her coffee mug slowly and with a shaky hand. Finally she said, “My husband?”
“Geez, he’s gonna be pissed with me, huh?” the salesman said. But he lowered his eyelids to leer and turned on a smile meant only for Leigh.
“What are you talking about?” She managed to find some steel for her voice and Niles admired her for it.
John Valley bristled. “Mr. Kelly called a few days ago and said you folks are thinking of selling your property.”
chapter FIVE
WHAT THE DEVIL WAS the man talking about?
Leigh could hardly breathe. With a sense of unreality, she watched Valley retreat. He pulled a camouflage bucket hat over his pale blond hair and called, “Let’s go,” to his companions.
For a moment Leigh squeezed her eyes shut. Then something inside her broke free and she exploded after the man, skidding to a halt behind him. “I want your card,” she said through her teeth. “The one that says you’re the ‘go-to’ guy for real estate around here.”
John Valley spun toward her, his light eyes popping. Color crept up his neck. “Hey, hold your horses, little lady. No need to lose your head just because a man makes a bitty mistake. How was I to know your husband hadn’t kept you in the loop?”
“You don’t know how big a mistake you’ve made,” she said, holding her voice steady. “Just give me your card and I can get back to my coffee.”
Valley patted the pockets of his camouflage gear. “Well, hell. Isn’t that always the way? You never have what you want when you want it. I wasn’t expectin’ to do any business. Why don’t I drop a card by here next time? You can pick it up when you’re in again.”
“I don’t thin
k so,” Leigh said. Blood banged through the veins in her temples. “I need to deal with this right away. You can write it down for me—including your office address. And while you’re about it, please give me the number you were told to call with your findings.”
Her anger was out of control and out of proportion and she knew it. But John Valley didn’t even know the painful thing he had done to her, and she was pretty sure there was no way he would care. He wanted to make a buck and if ingratiating himself with her would line his pockets, he would be Mr. Silk—Mr. Silk with a snake in his mouth.
“That’s why I spoke to you.” His face brightened like a man who just found the escape he never thought would come. “I can’t find a call back number. Anyway, I can’t stop now,” he said. His buddies were trailing toward the door, trying to appear deaf to anything John Valley and Leigh were saying. “Look, I’ll stop on my way home. How’s that?”
“It’s not good,” she said, hating the way her voice rose. “How long can it take to write down your name and address, and a phone number? Especially if you’d quit wasting time arguing with me.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve added to a bad day for you,” Valley said, condescendingly. He patted Leigh’s upper arm as if dismissing her. She had never put up with being brushed off, not since she was a child and couldn’t stand up for herself, and she wasn’t about to slip backward now. She planted her feet apart and held her ground.
“I asked you for something,” she said. “Don’t touch me again.”
That’s when John Valley made his big mistake. He closed his fingers around her arm and his formerly flirtatious smile turned into a malicious sneer as he gave her a small shake. She felt heat wash into her face.
Leigh felt as much as heard a whining, spinning whirl of air. Or it seemed like air. Her hair blew over her face and she stumbled, caught herself on the back of a chair—and felt a large hand steady her.
She brushed back her hair in time to see Gabriel drop a towel in the sink and start around the bar toward Valley.
Too late.
There was one movement at her shoulder, a forceful passing shadow, and John Valley yelled, “No!” His feet left the floor. He landed on his back on top of the bar, slid the length of the polished sheet of wood, shot off the end, and only stopped when his head cracked into a cedar pillar.
Unable to speak, Leigh looked up at Niles, who stood beside her, his blue eyes turned black like polished onyx. Rigid, the muscles in his neck distended, his big hands were balled into fists, and his breath expelled like a long, low growl. There was only one word for his starkly compelling face: predatory.
The breakfast crowd had been ebbing and flowing. A rapid ebb emptied most of the tables.
“My God,” Leigh said. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
He drew himself up to his full height and she had to crane her neck to see his face.
“The counter’s slippery,” he muttered as the room emptied of the last couple of customers. “Doesn’t take much momentum to slide on something like that.”
“You threw him there. I saw you. Niles, you picked up a grown man and threw him!”
“I had the right angle to get enough leverage.” He kept his voice low.
Sean Black stood behind Niles, yet Leigh had not seen him come into the bar again. He, too, had hands curled into fists resembling lethal weapons and his face was completely colorless, the lips clamped tightly shut. His eyes were almost the same pitiless black as Niles’s.
Niles and Sean glanced at each other. Only a second passed but Leigh saw what seemed like a message pass between them. With one hand, Niles hauled John Valley to his feet. He shoved him into Sean’s waiting arms, one of which hooked around the man’s throat.
“Got a pen, Gabriel?” Niles’s voice hit an even lower note, laced with danger.
“Got it,” Gabriel said.
“This is John Valley,” Niles said. “Write that down.”
“I’m gonna call the cops,” Valley whined. Spittle clung to the corners of his mouth. “Unprovoked attack, that’s what this is. I’ll sue your ass.”
“Office address,” Niles said while Sean gave John Valley’s throat an extra squeeze.
“I work out of my place,” Valley croaked and gave the address followed by the phone number. “You’re not getting away with this. I’m an innocent private citizen.”
“Innocent?” Niles said. “Treating a woman you don’t know like she’s yours to handle?”
The sound Valley made resembled a high note from a choirboy whose voice was breaking.
“Ease up, there, Sean,” Gabriel said. “A death on the premises would be bad for business.”
“If I catch you anywhere near Ms. Kelly, you won’t walk for a long time,” Niles said. “Got it?”
“Yeah,” Valley croaked. “Lemme go.”
Leigh’s attention suddenly got stuck on Sean. He didn’t seem the same as he had. His lips were pulled back to show amazing teeth. Very white, sharp, and with incisors longer than the rest. He looked… feral. And he had bowed his head over Valley’s shoulder close enough to bring his mouth within an inch of the man’s shirt.
Sean began to open his mouth wider. Leigh heard a click.
She came close to screaming but Niles hauled her against him and whispered, “Everything is cool,” before he said, “Let him go, Sean. We’ve done our part. He won’t bother Leigh again.”
Instantly, Sean released the man and stepped away. John Valley fell in a clumsy bundle on the floor where he lay, panting, for a whole lot of seconds. When he stood up his complexion was putty-colored.
“What if all the customers hadn’t left before the final show?” Leigh said under her breath.
“We would have made allowances,” Niles said, his arm still feeling like a length of iron around her shoulders. “Get out,” he told Valley. “You’d better hotfoot it down to the cops. They’ll want to hear all about how Sean and I threw you around and made a bar rag out of you. Get going.”
Valley scuttled outside and engines leaped to life as he left with his cronies.
“You were going to bite him,” Leigh told Sean. She felt weak and unreal. “Why would you do that?”
Sean laughed. “You’re imagining things, Ms. Kelly. It’s never a good idea to let your imagination run away.”
“Call me Leigh.” She felt shaky. Was this what passed for normal out here? Everyone else seemed to think so.
“Sally,” Gabriel yelled, and the woman put in an appearance looking, Leigh thought, inexplicably pleased. “Molly get here yet?”
“Nope.” Sally shook her head. “She’s havin’ her hair done. The twins are in, though.”
“If word doesn’t get out that we’re runnin’ fights here, lunch is going to be on us shortly,” Gabriel said. “Get everyone in gear. Tell Molly to come and see me when she gets here.”
“Sorry about all that,” he told Leigh. Leigh nodded and gave Gabriel a weak smile. “I’ll be in the office.”
Niles dropped his arm from her shoulders, but he spread a hand on her back and turned her toward him. “You understand what I meant now?”
“About what?” Leigh turned cold.
“Being careful. Not assuming because it seems peaceful around here that everything’s safe.” He dug the tips of his fingers into her side. “Valley’s no problem. But we get some odd ones from time to time. Best make sure one of us is around if you have to go far on your own, particularly after dark.”
Leigh nodded, but she was considering whether she should pack up and leave the area at once.
“You’ll be just fine,” Sean said. “Won’t she, Niles? No need to get scared off and run away.”
Niles raised his brows at Sean, who turned away at once and walked outside.
Leigh frowned at his back. Either her thoughts were written on her face—in detail—or some of these people could read them.
She got a soft, memorable smile from Niles, who followed Sean.
Gabriel hovered, looking around as if expecting something.
“What?” Leigh said.
“Er, I gotta go outside a while, talk to Niles and Sean. I don’t think we’ll get anyone in but just in case, do you think you can mind the bar?”
She had tended bar for a few months while she was going through school. “Sure. I’ll be fine. Go on.”
Gabriel left and Leigh went behind the bar. Her only company was country and western music played quietly over numerous speakers, and the distant sound of pots banging in the kitchen.
Two white-haired men with matching paunches pushed through the doors and scuffed up to the bar. They took side-by-side stools and the taller one said, “Who’re you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Name?” the other man said. “You’re new.”
“Leigh,” she told them quickly.
They grunted their order and she served two pints of beer, pleased she managed without sending foam all over the floor—that or poured glasses with beer that looked flat and lifeless.
Bringing the smell of grilled onions with her, Sally rocked rapidly up beside Leigh. “You okay?” she said.
“Great. I used to do this when I was in school.”
Sally nodded. “From the looks of you that would have been about last week.”
She made Leigh laugh. “Thanks.”
“You want some coffee?” Sally asked.
“No thanks.”
The men at the bar drained their glasses and Leigh refilled them.
“You see the drift this morning?” Sally asked.
With no idea what Sally meant, Leigh said, “Can’t say I did. Oh, you mean the tide coming in?”
Sally looked her hard in the eyes. “Watch out to where the rocks are. Sooner or later you’ll see what I mean. That’s what it’s all about, what makes you feel so good here.”
“Chimney Rocks, you mean?” Leigh tipped her head on one side. “They don’t show above the water, even at low tide. What will I see?”
“Being under the water doesn’t stop them from making a difference,” Sally said. “Just keep your eyes open and it’ll happen. There’s not many like you. Can’t remember the last one—not that I know.”
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