Then he pulled back. “In case you were wondering, I did that on purpose too.”
Before he could say anything else, there was a rattling sound outside the kitchen window, and then she heard muffled curses.
Zane gave a warning growl, and his face went furry. Long claws curved from his fingertips.
“What’s that?” she said. Sniffing at the air, she smelled…Gillian and Sprinkles?
“Sprinkles?” she yelled, and was answered with a flurry of high-pitched yaps.
Zane walked over and lifted the kitchen door off its hinges, holding it with one hand. He waved Gillian and Sprinkles inside, then set the door back in place.
“What the heck are you doing out there?” Wynona cried.
“We’re patrolling,” Gillian said. “You need protection.”
Wynona looked at Gillian, with her owlish glasses, who probably weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. Then she looked at Sprinkles, who might possibly tip the scales at six pounds, if you counted his fur. And his collar.
“Okay,” she said.
“Because of the shooting, and the guy following you, and the car accident,” Gillian continued.
“Wait a minute. What guy followed you?” Zane looked angry.
Wynona explained about the man in the parking lot, and the possibility that she might have scented him again outside the diner.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Zane demanded.
“Because it’s possible that I’m just imagining things.”
“And it’s possible that you’re being stalked by an assassin. If there’s even a chance you’re in danger, I’m staying right here.”
“But…you have to have lunch with Tiffany,” she protested.
“So? We’ll come back here afterwards.”
“I’m staying too,” Gillian informed her. “Sprinkles and I will take the couch.”
“Nah, you sleep in the guest room upstairs, and I’ll take the couch,” Zane said. “That way if anyone tries to come in, they’ll have to get through me first.”
“Sprinkles will wake up if anyone tries to break in,” Gillian said confidently.
Zane frowned. “Okay, first the river and then the diner. Nobody followed us to the diner, so how would they have known we were there? I didn’t tell anyone I was going there that night.”
“Somebody might have put a tracking device on your motorcycle,” Gillian suggested. “Or your cell phone. Or both.”
“Can I borrow your phone?” he asked Gillian. “If somebody has hacked into my phone, I don’t want to use it and tip anybody off.”
Gillian let him use her phone, and he called Rex at the shop and asked him to check his motorcycle. Apparently Zane had left his motorcycle at Rex’s house and had Rex drop him off half a mile from Wynona’s house. He’d run the rest of the way there in bear form, so Wynona wouldn’t hear him drive up.
A little while later, Zane got a call back.
There was a tiny tracking device planted on his motorcycle. Rex was taking the bike to the shop to check every square inch of it to make sure there weren’t any more.
Chapter Ten
Zane had his cell phone checked and found out that someone had hacked it and placed a tracking device on it. He got rid of the phone, and got a new one with enhanced security on it. He reported it to the police, as well, along with the shooting by the riverside and the car accident. Wynona went with him to help fill out the report.
She could tell that they weren’t convinced that the incidents were connected, but they promised to look into it.
Then he dressed in his custom-tailored suit and had Wynona drive him to Hamilton’s for his lunch with Tiffany.
He insisted that she stay in the area in case anyone tried to kill her again. Gillian tagged along for the ride.
Hamilton’s, located in downtown Cedar Park, was the fanciest restaurant in town. Zane looked devastatingly handsome in his suit. Somehow, the big, burly man who wore nothing but jeans and T-shirts suddenly looked as if he’d been born to wear a custom-tailored suit and buttery-soft Italian shoes.
Sitting on a park bench outside the restaurant with Gillian, Wynona felt faintly sick.
Zane was inside eating lunch with his future intended, with Cecily and Hubert sitting at a table nearby, spying on them.
“I have the distinct impression that you did not actually want Zane to have lunch with Tiffany,” Gillian said gravely.
Wynona grimaced. “Well, no. Zane, behind all the bluster, is actually a decent guy, and Tiffany’s… I mean, you’ve met her.”
Gillian gave a delicate shudder. “Yes, unfortunately. And I have been abused by her grammar,” she said, looking pained. “She hates children, dogs, and grammar. I do not normally repeat myself, but her crimes against the English language cannot be emphasized enough.”
They had wisely left Sprinkles back at Gillian’s house. Wynona was pretty sure that there would be a risk of Sprinkles escaping from his collar and making a beeline for Tiffany – in an attempt to pee on her.
She tried to distract herself by catching up on work, making phone calls to clients, checking and answering emails on her tablet computer. She felt gloomier and gloomier. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I can’t just sit here,” she said unhappily. “Let’s…go down the street and get a coffee. He’ll probably be a while.”
As they walked, Wynona’s nostrils flared. She could swear that she scented the guy from the parking lot again – just the faintest whiff. Not quite enough to be sure.
“What is it?” Gillian asked. “Do you smell something?”
Before she could answer, she smelled Zane’s scent, much stronger, and then he came jogging up to her. That suit just seemed to flow with him. He should be on the front cover of GQ.
“Where are we going?” he asked, slowing down to a stroll once he reached Wynona’s side.
“But…you…lunch?”
“Use complete sentences, Wynona,” Gillian chided her. “I know you can do it.”
Zane grinned at Wynona. “Your friend’s weird. I like her.”
“You’re finished with lunch?” Wynona managed.
“Looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“So…” She bit her lip, then forced herself to ask. “How did the lunch go?”
“It went exactly as planned.”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. Of course it had. Why had she fooled herself into thinking it would be otherwise?
“So…when do you want to see her again?” Her voice came out hoarse and shaken, and she felt ridiculous.
Zane pursed his lips, pretending to think about it before he finally answered her. “Oh, I’m thinking half past never-gonna-happen.”
Gillian’s brows puckered at that. “I don’t understand. We operate on Eastern Standard Time here. What time is that, exactly?”
Zane laughed. “That’s a fancy way of saying I’m not seeing her again.”
Wynona stopped in the street and stared at him. Gillian and Zane stopped too, looking at her expectantly. “But…you said it went perfectly.”
“No, I said it went exactly as planned. You planned out each thing you wanted me to do. I did everything on the list. I brought flowers. I showed up on time. I dressed up in this suit. I complimented her. I pretended to be interested in what she was saying.”
“What was she saying?”
He shrugged. “No idea. I think it was something like blah, blah, blah, Brittany said, blah, blah, blah, new shoes. I just nodded whenever she stopped speaking and said, ‘Really?’”
“Wow. Oh. Well…” He certainly had followed her instructions.
“You ready for some coffee?” He was acting like he hadn’t just hurled an enormous monkey wrench into the plans to get him mated to a rich heiress.
Her phone rang before she could answer, and she glanced at the screen and then answered it.
It was Cecily, demanding that she come right back to the restaurant.
She si
ghed. “I have to go talk to Cecily. Or I could just throw myself in front of a garbage truck – I imagine either possibility would be equally enjoyable.”
She turned around and walked back towards the restaurant. Zane and Gillian stood watching her, ready to run to her assistance if anyone were to come and try to murder her, she was sure.
Cecily and Hubert were standing outside Hamilton’s, fuming. Today Cecily was wearing a seersucker Lilly Pulitzer dress which had a print of giant slices of oranges on it, and Hubert wore a blue checked Armani sport coat, navy slacks and blue loafers. It was hard to tell, at a glance, which of them wore more thick chunky gold jewelry.
“Have you gone crazy? Zane said he’s staying at your house because there’s a possibility that someone is trying to kill you,” Cecily said indignantly.
“This was not in our contract,” Hubert added.
Wynona was about to interrupt and assure them that nothing was happening between her and Zane, but Cecily barreled on.
“Zane can’t stay with you if someone’s trying to kill you. We can’t risk him,” she hissed.
“Yes, he’s very precious to us,” Hubert added unconvincingly.
“In fact, we told him we were firing you, but then he said he refuses to mate with anyone ever unless you finish up his training, so I guess we’re stuck with you at the moment,” Cecily said bitterly. “I can see now that hiring you was an enormous mistake. We should have just pressed charges from the beginning.”
“But if anything happens to him because of you, I can assure you, you will go to prison for the rest of your life,” Hubert threatened.
“You don’t have that power,” Wynona said, although she prayed that was true. “A lot can happen at a trial, assuming it even got that far. And by the way, how do you know that somebody isn’t trying to kill Zane, rather than me? He was with me when somebody shot at me; they could have been aiming at either one of us.” In fact, now that they’d found out that somebody was bugging his phone and his bike, it seemed more likely that Zane was the target. Although she could swear that the grammar Nazi from the parking lot had something to do with all this, and he’d been waiting outside Wynona’s office building.
Hubert and Cecily glanced at each other in alarm.
“Well, we’ll just have to make do with this situation for now. He did make an excellent impression on Tiffany today, at least,” Cecily said. She glanced at Hubert with a wounded expression. “If he’s capable of being civilized, why can’t he always behave that way? It’s beyond me.”
“Soon he’ll be happily married to Tiffany, and that will give him all the incentive he needs to behave like a gentleman,” Hubert said with a big, false smile at his wife. Then he shot a dirty look at Wynona. “Don’t you dare screw this up for us.”
“You mean for Zane?” Wynona couldn’t help interjecting.
“Exactly,” Hubert said haughtily. “His future happiness depends on it.”
“Perhaps we should hire a bodyguard for him?” Cecily pondered, frowning.
“I doubt he’d allow it. He’s very stubborn,” Hubert said, shaking his head in exasperation.
“If you two will excuse me, Zane and I have some elocution lessons scheduled for this afternoon,” Wynona said, and left them there.
When they thought Wynona was out of earshot, Cecily said furiously, “Who could be trying to kill him? We can’t let anyone kill him – not ’til after the marriage. And not ’til after he fathers at least one cub. That would be a financial disaster.”
“You think you need to tell me that? I don’t know anyone who would have reason to try to kill Zane, but I’ll look into it, all right?”
Did they mean it would be okay for Zane to die after the marriage? She had a terrible feeling about this entire arrangement. She wouldn’t stand by and let that happen to him. If he did end up changing his mind and agreeing to marry Tiffany, she would at least warn him what he was facing. She would warn him even if it meant violating the non-disclosure agreement and possibly going to prison.
When she got back to Zane and Gillian, she said, “Did it occur to you guys that possibly someone is trying to kill Zane, not me?”
“Of course,” Zane said. “If someone’s bugging my phone and my ride, then they might be after me. But with that weird guy you met outside your office building following you around, they might be after me to get to you. We just don’t know yet. That’s why I’m going to be sticking with you like glue until we find out.” His eyes glowed an angry yellowish-brown for a second, as if he were mid shift. “And then I’m going to rip someone’s head off their body.”
Chapter Eleven
After lunch, Wynona realized she’d forgotten her laptop at her office. Zane insisted on driving her there, and walked her to her office door. He stood there and watched her turn the alarm off.
“I have to make a phone call,” he said. “I need to step outside so I can get cell reception. Will you be all right in there alone?”
“In my office? Yeah, I think I can handle it,” Wynona said. “You saw me turn off the alarm. Nobody’s been in there, it’s all good.”
She walked through the reception area and into her office, and realized she’d been overly optimistic.
The man from the parking lot stepped out from behind the door and shut it. Wynona fell back with a startled squeak. He didn’t look particularly murderous, but maybe he was the type who looked perfectly calm right up to the second he ripped your throat out.
“I can’t say that I’m surprised to see you,” Wynona said, managing to sound pretty calm, under the circumstances. “Why didn’t I scent you, though?”
“I used scent spray.”
“How did you know I’d be here on a Saturday afternoon?”
“I hacked into your phone this morning. You called your niece and told her you were stopping by your office to get your laptop.”
It simultaneously pissed her off and alarmed her that he even knew that her niece Daisy existed. She didn’t want Daisy to be on this man’s radar, at all.
“Which begs the question, why are you following me and hacking into my phone?” she asked coolly.
Instead of answering, he leaned over and peered into her purse. “Where’s the dog?” He scowled at her. “Did you take it to the pound?”
“Of course I didn’t bring it to the pound,” she said indignantly. “My crazy assistant has it. You’d like her – she’s as insane as you are about grammar.”
“Will she treat it well? What about her husband; does he like animals?”
“She treats him like a prince, there is no husband, and tell me why you broke into my office.” This was getting less scary and more annoying.
“Well, this is a violation of our code of ethics, but I’m here to warn you that your life is in danger.”
“Whose code of ethics?”
“The assassin code of ethics.” All right, now it was starting to get scary again. She could scream for Zane, but she suspected this guy could kill her before Zane reached her. And what if he had a gun with silver bullets? Then he could kill Zane.
“Assassins have a code of ethics?” she echoed stupidly.
His forehead furrowed in annoyance. “Yes, I just stated that we have. Please keep up.”
She shook her head, utterly baffled now. “I’m trying, but I don’t understand. You’re an assassin, but you’re following me around because you’re trying to help me?”
He sighed. “Originally I was hired to kill you. In fact, I had already retired, but I was convinced to take this one last job due the alleged nature of your evil ways. But then I discovered that the person who hired me had lied about you. I had been informed that you were a sadistic torturer of animals who placed bets on dog fights—”
Wynona sucked in an outraged breath, but he interrupted her before she could speak.
“And therefore I was willing to suspend my personal rule against killing females. However, I had to verify this for myself, and upon investigating you, I found tha
t that I had been deceived.”
“You kill people for a living, but you have rules? I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around that.”
He looked offended. “My personal code of ethics states that I only kill other assassins. Everyone who has every hired me has known that. As I said, I only considered making an exception in your case because of the allegations of animal torture. My client stated that you had abducted his dog and used it as a bait dog for pit bulls, and he wanted revenge. I do not appreciate being lied to.” He scowled, looking so indignant that she could barely keep herself from laughing.
She shook her head in amazement. “You know, for some reason the thing that’s surprising me the most right now is that Sprinkles actually liked you. So far, with that one exception, his taste has been infallible.”
“Of course he liked me,” the man said huffily. “I have a rescue dog organization and I am of sterling character.”
“Do you have a name, by the way?”
He peered at her as if she were insane. “Of course I have a name. Everyone has a name. I don’t understand how a woman of your limited intelligence is running a successful business.”
Wynona bit back a bitchy response. He was basically there to help her, and also, scary assassin. Probably wouldn’t do to rile him. “Would you care to tell me your name?”
“No. However, you may call me Leander. I am fond of that name.”
“Who hired you, Leander?”
He scratched at his chin and looked thoughtful. “Well, that is a violation of our—”
“Code of ethics? Listen, if you really are here to help me, I need to know who wants to kill me and why, or I will never be safe. And neither will Sprinkles,” she added. “He could be caught in the crossfire.”
Leander looked considerably more alarmed at that than he had at the thought that she might be in danger. She should be offended, but she didn’t really care right now. All she wanted to know was who had painted a target on her back.
“Sergio Molfetta hired me,” he said. “He wanted to have you killed to hurt Zane.”
A chill washed over her. “I thought he was in an asylum for the criminally insane.”
A Grizzly Kind Of Love (The Mating Game Book 3) Page 7