“Why are you blushing?”
“I’m not blushing, I’m flushing.” And why was he so damned observant? “It’s hot in here.”
The scent of musk filled the air, proof of his arousal. She rolled the window down, as if that would help. “Ahh. Cool night air.”
“Very cool.”
Great. Awkward conversation with her sexy blackmailer.
“Your GPS is only going to get us so far,” she said, squirming in her seat again. Damn, she was like a caffeinated toddler. “Keep on the way you’re going for about twenty miles. I’ll let you know when it’s time for me to start giving directions.”
He just nodded. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white, as if he was trying very hard not to let her distract him. She sneaked another look at his lap for confirmation, then regretted it. She could see his thickness perfectly outlined against the denim of his jeans, and there was an answering pulse between her legs which made her want to whimper out loud with need.
She blamed it on her fox. Her fox was a shameless hussy. Krista, on the other hand, had pride and self-respect and… oh God, she was staring at his lap again.
And he noticed.
And his mouth twitched in a smile. He was literally and figuratively a complete son of a bitch. She tore her gaze away and stared blindly out the window.
“For the record, I wasn’t looking where you think I was, and I hate you.”
“For the record, you absolutely were, and what you saw is entirely for you, and I don’t hate you.” She could hear the smile in his voice, but she didn’t dare look at him because she was sure he was smirking, and she was mortified that he’d caught her staring in a crotch-ward direction.
They drove in silence for as long as she could stand it. The houses were fewer and farther apart, the trees hemming them in. The midsummer sun was melting into the horizon ahead of them in a lake of red fire. “Okay,” she said finally. “You know what? If we’re going to be working together, we should get to know each other.”
She was still furious with him. More than that, she felt betrayed, like he was someone she should’ve been able to trust and who’d suddenly turned on her. But that was ridiculous because he’d never promised her anything.
He leaned back, holding the wheel in one hand. He had the car on cruise control now, so he was able to get a bit more comfortable behind the wheel. “What do you want to know?”
Her mind froze. You’re single, right? Because I’ve never scented any other women on you. And I was checking. Well, my fox was checking, the shameless bitch. So, single? Favorite sexual position? Do you like cubs?
“Um, okay. What specifically do you do for Shifters, Inc.?
He rolled his shoulders back, relaxing a little. “Security, protection details, that kind of thing.”
“And you’re going down there to investigate the disappearance of a little boy? Is that something a security firm normally does?”
He tipped his head to the side and sighed. “If we’re hired to, yes. And in this case, given how high-profile his father is, it’s even more urgent. If Ethan comes to harm, his father’s liable to start an all-out war with whoever he thinks is responsible. Humans could get caught in the crossfire, and that’s bad for all of us.”
She drew his scent in through her nostrils like an intoxicating drug. Being this close to Blake was going to be a lot harder than she’d ever imagined. “Who were the last people to see Ethan before he disappeared?”
“Michael Coffman’s bodyguards. Stef—that’s my boss—has a meeting set up with the father and his bodyguards this evening to see if we can’t get some more information about exactly what happened. Between you and me, I think the only thing keeping their furry hides intact at the moment is the father’s hope that they might be able to give us something valuable.”
She heard the skepticism in his voice. “But you don’t think they will?” Then she pointed off to the right. “You’ll want to turn off there.”
He nodded and headed up the road. There were no streetlights here, but the full moon bathed the road in ghostly light. Crickets and peepers creaked their mating calls, and in the distance, an owl hooted.
Blake shook his head. “I don’t. Look at it this way. Either they’re so incompetent they managed to lose track of a nine-year-old cub. If that’s the case, they don’t know what happened.”
“Or…?”
“Or they know exactly what happened. And if they do, it’s most likely because someone got to them and they were in on the snatch.”
“Wouldn’t they have hightailed it out of town if that were the case?”
“They tried. Ethan’s father found them frantically searching for the cub, and he immediately had all of his men start helping. And the two bodyguards tried to cut out a little while later. A couple of his men caught them trying to drive off.”
She flashed him a startled glance. “Doesn’t that indicate guilt?”
“Not necessarily. The fact that they stuck around at all to search is a decent indicator that they just screwed up. Then they ran because they knew that best case scenario was Michael would scar them for life. When we question them, we’ll know. Ethan’s father is too close to the situation, too distraught and worked up to be able to rely on his instincts right now, but if the guards are hiding anything, my team and I will be able to read it all over their faces.”
Krista nodded.“Okay. Got it. Um. Sooo…. so, here we are. Driving.” Wow, that was some witty repartee. Maybe I should write it down and save it for later, in case I ever want to feel really awkward.
“Yes, here we are.”
Desperate to fill the silence, she said, “I guess you must have some kind of file on me?”
“Of course. I do my homework. There wasn’t much, other than your use of… unconventional medicines at the clinic.”
Ha! “No, there wouldn’t be. I tend to keep my nose clean.”
“Can’t exactly say the same for a lot of folks from Flowering Dogwood.”
At that, she couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh. That was an understatement.
Dawnie ran the moonshine pipeline out of Flowering Dogwood with the help of her two idiot sons and her daughter, Eva-Jo, who’d inherited all of her mother’s hardness and none of her charisma and warmth, though if anything, that made her less dangerous—Dawnie’s was a treacherous warmth, an embrace as subtle and deadly as quicksand. And the moonshine they produced wasn’t the usual rotgut and bathtub gin, either—the worst that shit could do was make you stupid or belligerent or maybe send you blind. The things Dawnie added to her concoctions—herbs from the mountains and minerals from the old mines—could make blindness seem like a blessing. The law never touched her—Dawnie was the law in these parts, and there was no court of appeal.
“Turn again,” she said, pointing.
They turned onto the dirt road that led to the Reed cabin, which—because of the time of year—was where they would be. Harvesting.
“So, you know my history,” Krista said. “What about you?” Blake knew far too much about her, and Krista knew absolutely nothing about him.
“Where’s your pack from?” Back home, they’d have said, “Who are your people?”
“Foster home,” he said in a voice that made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it any further. There was a mixture of anger and hurt that cut her to the core. She winced at the joke she’d made earlier about his mother. Never again.
Blake didn’t have people. And Krista had mostly rotten people, at least those who were directly related to her. A drunk woman who could barely be called mother, and a father who’d scampered out of town with a truck stop waitress the year before she started high school. One uncle doing life for murder, one uncle shot to death during a failed robbery. Hattie and her people were decent enough, but they’d had nothing to do with raising Krista.
She wondered which was worse. Bad people or no people.
“How did you… I mean—” She gestured at hi
m. “Were you in the military?”
“I was.” But his tone said he wasn’t going to share much more than that.
That wasn’t good enough. He knew way too much about her and her family—and she didn’t know what kind of person he was, deep down inside. Like, if he would flip out under pressure.
And more than that—something inside her wanted to know him. All of him. The good parts and the bad parts. Were his insides as pretty as his outsides? Were blackmail and manipulation a normal part of his daily routine, or was it a desperation move on his part?
“Why did you leave?” she persisted.
His jaw clenched, and he stared straight ahead in silence. She settled back in her seat. She wasn’t saying a word until she got answers.
The road bounced them a little, but Blake seemed to be experienced at maneuvering around the larger holes. The silence was thick and uncomfortable, but she just sat there, staring at him, lips pressed together.
“I was discharged for disobeying orders,” he finally said.
“So, not a happy ending then.”
“Yes.” He clamped his lips shut and didn’t speak.
Wow. This was like pulling fangs. Was the entire visit going to be like this? “What orders did you disobey? Oh, pull over here.”
He didn’t answer as he pulled to a stop.
Krista undid her seatbelt and turned to him. “Look. I need to know who I’m riding with. I need to know if you’re the kind of guy who’s liable to just blow up for no reason, or… I just need to know what I’m working with.”
He released a growl but finally turned to face her. “I was ordered not to save my team.”
Her eyes widened in shock. When shifters joined the military, their team became like their pack. They formed fierce, close bonds, and asking him to betray that bond—it would be like ordering him to tear his own limb off.
That was morally wrong, on every level. Like telling a parent to abandon their cubs. “Why would anyone tell you not to save your team?”
“Because our C.O. sent us behind enemy lines even though we didn’t have authorization to be there. Any act or mission to rescue them would have been seen as an act of war.”
“Do you still keep in touch with them?”
“Sure, when they’re not overseas. They’re still in, I’m not. I took the fall. Somebody had to. Lots of them had family counting on their paychecks. I didn’t.” His tone grew terser with every word.
So, he was alone now. That must be hard. No pack, no family, no team. And he’d signed up to the military as soon as he turned 18, so that must have been a wrench. Wolves especially seemed to crave the pack structure. Her anger uncoiled a little, and sympathy seeped in.
She wanted to question him more, but they also needed to get a move on if they wanted time to talk to the Reeds before sunset. The cub came first.
“Here,” she said, and gestured at a fallen pine tree. “Okay. Crossing past that tree with the wrong intent could be seen as an act of war, too. So do me a favor, and when we go behind these enemy lines, let me do the talking because I know these people and I know their ways. And you don’t.”
He narrowed those blazing amber orbs of his and said nothing. She could feel him bristling. He wasn’t a guy who took orders easily it seemed, and she couldn’t blame him after what had happened. He was going to have to make an exception here, though.
It was night-time, but the midsummer sun hadn’t set yet. They still had maybe another hour of daylight.
They trekked a quarter mile up a gentle slope in silence until they finally made it to a cabin nestled on the hillside. This was the main Reed house, where they lived most of the time. It was big, six bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a broad front porch with rocking chairs and a white porch swing—all paid for by moonshine. It looked peaceful, with a bubbling brook nearby and a bunch of happy little trees dotting the landscape, but this wasn’t a Bob Ross painting. She scanned the area, trying to find any indication that Dawnie or any of her kids were even around. Dawnie was the holler’s matriarch in more ways than one, and she often took in waifs and strays—Krista should know since she’d once been one of them—so she wasn’t necessarily looking for a familiar face.
Her scent was all over the place, of course, and it smelled relatively fresh, but it could have been as old as a day. Krista couldn’t scent as well in human form as she could when she was shifted.
The front door banged open, and a large bear shifter in overalls with only one strap fastened stepped out onto the porch. His T-shirt was so grimy it was impossible to tell what color it should have been. He looked and smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a year, and knowing him, that guess probably wasn’t too far off.
Great. Of course, it would be Percy come to greet her.
Her heart sank. Of Dawnie’s two sons, Percy was the smarter—and that wasn’t a good thing. Gummi was bigger and dumber, but he was like a sweet, clumsy puppy. Percy was mean as a rattlesnake, and he had just enough smarts to make him dangerous. Not enough smarts to be left in charge of the operation, though.
“Heya, Percy,” she called out, trying for a friendliness she didn’t feel.
“Do I know you?” Percy twisted and spat a stream of tobacco juice on the dirt, just missing the porch.
Krista couldn’t believe his teeth hadn’t rotted out of his mouth by now. He’d been chewing since the fifth grade. “Percy, come on. I haven’t changed that much. I lived in your house for two years. It’s Krista Ellis. I’m here to pay my respects to Dawnie.”
Percy snorted. “Ma ain’t here, and she wouldn’t have a word to say to you if she was. She knew you were comin’, and she said she was going to make you into a rug the minute she sees you.”
Blake let out a low, rumbling growl. Krista put her hand on his arm. She knew Percy was lying because if Dawnie wanted Krista dead, she’d already be dead.
Percy liked to see people scared. The trick was to stay calm and not give him what he wanted, because the more fear he sensed, the happier and meaner he got. “I know your ma didn’t leave you in charge. So where’s Eva-Jo?”
His upper lift lifted in a sneer. “Womenfolk ought to know their place.”
The air stank of testosterone and hate. Blake took a step closer, one hand on his belt. Percy’s dull eyes lit up. Oh, goodie, a fight. He was enormous in bear form, but she suspected that Blake’s military training would have included how to take down bigger shifters.
But if they started fighting, everything was lost. Dawnie would side with her son even if he was wrong—she always did—and then Krista would never get answers about Ethan. She’d be instantly banned from setting foot here—if she even made it out of the holler alive. She set her hand on Blake’s arm and leaned against him, trying to calm him. His growl sounded more animal than human; that wasn’t good.
“You talk about her like that when she can hear you?” Eva-Jo’s scent filled her nostrils.
“And when I’ve got a damn shotgun in my hands, too.” Eva-Jo’s voice was higher-pitched than her brother’s, but still low enough to carry across the meadow with ease. She stepped through the door, her sawed-off in hand, pointed at the ground—for now. “Hey, Kris. Don’t mind my brother, he’s just flappin’ his gums. Ma didn’t say nothing like that. We ain’t even talked to her today, she’s out at the mines. So, look at you. Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Didn’t reckon on comin’ back.” Now Krista sounded as if she’d never left. She couldn’t believe how easy it was to just slip back into the way of things, like putting on an old sweatshirt or pair of shoes.
“What you been up to since ya left?” Eva-Jo set the butt of the shotgun on the porch and leaned it up against the post before stepping onto the grass. She shoved her blonde hair off her shoulders and folded her arms over her chest. She was wearing grimy dungarees and a red and white plaid shirt. At least, unlike her brothers, she showered a couple of times a week.
Blake must be doing an excellent job of keeping his expres
sion neutral because folks in this area were always on the watch for an outsider looking down his nose at them. Probably not good enough, though—Eva-Jo was sharp enough to cut yourself on.
“Went to school, now I’m a nurse practitioner working at a clinic.”
Eva-Jo nodded, with a faint smile. “Well, it’s what you said you was gonna do.”
Krista glanced at Blake, who was shifting impatiently now. She knew he wanted her to cut to the chase, start getting information on the missing kid, but that wasn’t how things worked out here. Things were done in a certain way. The words that were spoken didn’t always line up with what was actually being said—for example, Eva-Jo knew damn well what Krista had been doing since leaving the holler. She probably knew more than Blake and his team of professional snoops did. There was no way Dawnie had let one of hers go without keeping tabs on her. But Eva-Jo had to pretend it was news to her, and Krista had to go along with it. It was just the way things worked.
The two women eyed each other warily for a few moments, each weighing up what this encounter was going to be—a call on family for old time’s sake, or the first shot fired.
With a sigh, Eva-Jo dropped her arms, relaxing her stance. She tipped her head to the side, thinking, then approached, stopping a couple of arms’ length from Krista. “Things have changed around here since you been gone, Kris.”
Tension coiled in Krista’s chest. If that was the case, Krista might be even less help than she had hoped, and the blackmail Blake was threatening to use against her could end her career. For good. Then what would happen to the patients like Ruth who relied on her?
Eva-Jo heaved a sigh and rolled her shoulders. “You need to see your momma. She misses you. Talks about it all the time.”
Yes, because her mother always had to be center stage—playing the victim.
“You forgotten what she put me through, Eva-Jo?” The Reed girl knew better than most how little Maybelline Ellis deserved to be called a mother. After all, it was her own ma who’d taken Krista in when Maybelline picked a coyote with wandering hands over her own flesh and blood.
Blackmailed By The Wolf (Shifters, Inc. Book 6) Page 5