The Cougar's Trade

by Holley Trent

  “And you think I can’t cut it.” A statement, not a question. She was used to people doubting her. She’d gotten so she’d expected it. No one ever thought she’d amount to much because she wasn’t loud enough, wasn’t forceful enough, but she always managed to eke by. She could never say she didn’t try. It wasn’t enough just to want something if she wasn’t willing to put the work behind it, even if it meant she had to work twice as hard as everyone else to prove herself.

  “It doesn’t really matter.” He shrugged. “I can’t have Cougar kids with anyone except my mate, and apparently that’s supposed to be you. To be honest, the sort of mother you’d make is the least of my problems with this pairing.”

  She ground her teeth and let her foot tap the stool’s rung. She’d never had anyone suggest she’d make a bad mother. Even if she didn’t have one herself, she knew what the job entailed, and she’d be damn good at it because she had something to prove. “So what does this mean? You’ll cut me loose? Return me to the life I left in North Carolina and hope I can get my job back?”

  “No, for one thing, whether I think you’re suitable for this or not, I don’t get a second chance for a mate. I wasn’t even ready to take a mate, but here we are. Second, I can’t just cut you loose, because that would be a kind of suicide for me. I have to try to make this work or I’m screwed. Do you understand that?”

  “What difference does it make if I do? You’re hostile toward me, and me understanding the circumstances isn’t going to cure you of your assumed futility.”

  “Chew on this.” He put his elbows on the countertop and locked his narrowed gaze on her. “Right now, being a Cougar in our glaring is a dangerous thing. In spite of so many people wanting to come together, there’s a lot of turmoil. There are men who don’t think my brother should be alpha and constantly challenge him on it. There are some Cougars who’d try to weaken the leaders by targeting their families—their kids, their mates. We need to not be disrupted so easily, and there’s not always going to be someone around to fight your battles.”

  She dropped her straw into her water cup and swirled the ice, watching the miniature floes bob on the surface. She listened to the quiet crackling of carbon dioxide making its way out of the solid cubes and waited for him to say something that wasn’t predictable.

  “Do you have anything to say?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m not really sure if there’s anything to say at all. You don’t trust me, don’t want me, and you’re stuck with me for…what? Two weeks?”

  “That’s how long you have to decide you want to stay. Obviously, I’m not so inclined to send you away immediately. If you don’t stay, La Bella Dama makes me a cat for good until you change your mind.”

  “Your punishment for not being a good enough man for me. For not accepting her blessing and doing enough to convince me that my place is with you.”

  “So you know that part.”

  “You may hold your tongue, but your mother doesn’t always. You had to know that she would tell us some things in a month.”

  “Because she probably cares more about you than she does me at this point, but anyway. I know you’re just biding your time. I don’t think you’ll run, but you’ll wait it out, huh?”

  Congratulations. You’ve pegged me.

  She leaned back as Belle slid a platter in front of her. Simple, good food. Roasted turkey and sides. Looked delicious, and normally, she would have dug right in, but her appetite had bottomed out the moment Hank decided to talk.

  She picked up her fork and twirled it idly between her fingers.

  “What’s wrong?” Belle asked. “Did I pick wrong?”

  “No, you didn’t.” Her goddess did, though. She’d just been the afterthought in the trio with Ellery and Hannah, and it was getting harder for her not to feel bruised by it.

  “I think you need some chocolate cake. Be right back.”

  Miles could see Hank in her periphery straightening up and grabbing his own fork.

  He was still looking at her. Watching her. The malice from minutes prior was gone and replaced with some other thing she couldn’t quite make out. Resignation? Hopelessness?

  Must have been an awful way to feel, being between a rock and a hard place. Well, actually, she knew all about that. Had been squeezed there so many times before herself.

  She hadn’t always had good choices, but she’d always had chances, even when they were hard to take. When she was a freshman in college, Ellery offered a chance to Miles when she’d wanted to drop out—when her scholarship turned out to not be enough. Ellery had quietly paid Miles’s tuition for second term using her savings. “Because it doesn’t hurt me, and it helps you,” she’d insisted when Miles asked why she did it.

  Looking back on it, it wasn’t a whole lot of money. Miles had paid it back with interest long before that inheritance hit her bank account, but it had taught her that small sacrifices sometimes made big differences. And she didn’t have to be friendly with someone to help them.

  Miles set down her fork and straightened it so the tines were perfectly parallel with the counter edge. “You might think I’m strange for this, but that’s fine. I’ve always been a bit of an odd duck for the way I think, but I don’t know any other way to be. I have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “You don’t have to like me. I don’t have to get attached to you. That doesn’t mean I can’t help. Funny how honesty makes people want to do that.”

  He furrowed his brow and pulled his spine ramrod-straight. “What are you saying?”

  “I’ve become very good at figuring out ways to minimize drama. Not every problem needs to explode into a huge ordeal.”

  “You have a solution to this, then?”

  “Mm-hmm. I think I do.” She stared at the lush, dark chocolate frosting on the cake Belle set down. “The clock’s off, Hank. You’ve got yourself a mate. That is, unless going about it this way is explicitly against the rules. I imagine this could be considered cheating.”

  It seemed to take him a moment to process what she said. His forehead furrowed and he formed silent words with his lips, but he said nothing for maybe a minute. “What just happened? Did you…just…”

  She forced on a smile before digging into the cake she wasn’t in the mood for. “I guess I did. Don’t thank me yet. Thank me in two weeks when you have proof it worked.”

  “It’s a favor. I’ll repay you for it.”

  Of course he would. Hank cut deals every day of his life, probably, and this was just one more business transaction for him.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I honestly don’t know.” But maybe she did. Deep down.

  When she looked at how happy Ellery was with Mason, and everything Ellery had gained from saying yes, Miles wondered what she could possibly get, too. The family she’d never had, perhaps? A place to belong?

  She wanted a clan—to be folded in like Ellery and to belong to a group that respected her. And perhaps, more selfishly, she wanted to be looked at the way Mason looked at Ellery when he thought she wasn’t looking. He revered the woman, and he needed her. Miles wanted to know what that felt like. She doubted she ever would, though, and certainly not with Hank.

  “I’ll let you know. We’ll figure out an equal trade.” She slipped some cake between her lips, but tasted nothing.

  She needed to figure out just how much her end of the bargain was worth.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hank led Miles down Main Street, considering his words carefully. She was doing him a huge favor, and the least he could do was act like he appreciated it. He knew he hadn’t done a great job back at the diner, but he hadn’t known what to say. Still didn’t.

  Although stunned, he’d known Miles’s words were truth the moment they came out of her mouth. Skepticism was one of his favorite pastimes, but there was no room for doubt as far as his curse was concerned. It was like a heavy log had been lifted from his shoulders and tossed away, only to be re
placed by some other burden. Not a curse, but a debt. He didn’t know what he could possibly give her besides his protection, and really, he had no choice in that.

  He needed to stick to her like glue until his scent stuck. That could take days, or even weeks, but once she took on a bit of his essence, no Cougar in his right mind would approach her because she’d smell taken. She’d smell like a Foye, and Foyes didn’t lose fights. That didn’t stop people from picking them, but most thought twice. He’d worry about the other ones later.

  “Listen,” he said, turning to her in time to catch her flinch.

  Gods, she does that every time I open my mouth.

  He kept moving backward, checking behind him on occasion to not run afoul of one of his hometown’s charming little sidewalk sinkholes. “I need to follow up on the situation from last month and see if I can shake down any new leads about where the Sheehans might be hanging out.”

  She nodded slowly and rotated one of her pearl studs, not meeting his gaze. If she had been Cougar, he might have found her averted gaze disrespectful, but he was used to it. He sure as shit wasn’t going to chastise her about something half the glaring did.

  “You still think they’ll come back after their part in hurting Ellery?”

  They rounded the corner onto Third Street, and he turned to face forward. “I don’t know,” Hank said. “Part of me feels like they’re stupid enough to try it—to expect that bygones will be bygones and that we can forgive and forget.”

  “Cougars don’t hold grudges?”

  “We hold them just fine.” Better than anyone, in Hank’s case. “The thing is, the Sheehans have been in our glaring for almost as long as the Foyes, and there are some vocal members of the group who would suggest that we put aside our differences for the overall well-being of the group.”

  She didn’t say anything, and that why, why, why part of his brain made him look down at her. She was chewing the inside of her cheek and staring at the uneven sidewalk they’d navigated. Maybe she just didn’t have anything to add, which was fine. He didn’t really expect her to, but he didn’t like feeling ignored. It made his animal side mouthy and reckless, and he couldn’t afford to lose control with so many Cougars watching his every move.

  He stopped her in front of Mike Sheehan’s veterinary practice and turned her to face him. “I’m just going to check in and see how much of a runaround the staff will give me.”

  She nodded, yet again, not bothering to meet his gaze. The needy cat in his head that wanted to be stroked and coddled was angry at the snubbing. He wanted to be paid attention to, and the man Hank was ruining it for him. Hank rolled his eyes. The cat would just have to deal.

  The receptionist let out a long, chesty sigh the moment he opened the door. Of course she knew him, and not just from his repeated visits. Katrine was in the glaring, and the Delacroixs were another old family in the area. Fortunately, they’d never made any outright overtures that they wanted someone other than a Foye in the alpha role. They were more passive in their disrespect.

  “He’s not here and I don’t know where any of them are,” Katrine said preemptively. Her gaze tracked past him to the doorway Miles remained in. Katrine scented the air and furrowed her forehead. “Who’s that?”

  Hank ignored the question. “You can’t really have me believe you’re still carrying on business as usual after a month with the good doctor being gone.”

  “I never said we were. I told you we haven’t heard from him, but we still have to come in.”

  “You can’t blame me for finding that hard to believe.”

  “Believe it or not, Hank, I can’t change your mind.”

  “You board pets?” Miles asked softly.

  “Yeah, some long-term. For deployed military personnel and those sorts of folks. Also have some horses boarded just outside the town limits. If it weren’t for the fact the office manager has access to the payroll system, we’d all be in deep shit right now. Bills are piling up and we don’t even have the right credentials to log in to Dr. Sheehan’s computer to cut checks. We’re kind of running in gray mode here. Turning away new customers and sending anyone who needs immediate care to the competition. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here myself. Too risky.”

  “Have you worked here long?” Miles asked Katrine.

  “Five years,” Katrine said.

  Miles approached the counter and rested her forearms on top, twining her fingers. It wasn’t all that high, but even that looked like a strain for her.

  She couldn’t intimidate so much as a toddler away from a pile of fresh leaves, so of course he wanted to pull her over, wrap her into his shirt, and hide her from the world. That was his inner cougar’s idea. Hank suppressed a groan. The cat was just fine with their convenient arrangement and insisted he reap the perks of having a mate, starting with the bedroom ones. His inner cougar wanted to know if she was a whisperer or a screamer. Hank had no intention of finding out. His cougar also didn’t seem concerned that Hank was going to have to pay up somehow for the favor. Animals rarely concerned themselves with the future. They were too busy getting the needs of the moment met. Obviously, his cougar thought he needed her, or at least very specific parts of her.

  Involuntarily, Hank let his gaze track down the back of her body and settled on her hips, her ass.

  I bet she’s a whisperer.

  Hank discreetly adjusted his crotch. With much more of the salacious imagery the animal half of his brain was streaming to his man half, Hank would be sporting a painful erection in under a minute. Just because a quarter of the town, probably, had seen him naked before or after shifting didn’t mean he wanted them to see him primed and ready to go. They’d be able to guess the cause.

  “Do you know where Dr. Sheehan and his family might go on vacation?” Miles asked. Apparently, while he and his inner cougar were having a battle of propriety, she was concerning herself with the glaring issues he should have been investigating.

  Already, she’s got me screwing up.

  Katrine leaned back in her seat and fidgeted with the collar of her puppy-print scrub shirt. She rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “I know what you’re getting at, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. They don’t have any time-shares or vacation property that I know of, but they do have an RV. I forgot about that old, ugly-ass thing. It’d be a miracle if they made it as far as the state line in it, though. Looks like a roving meth lab.”

  Shit. Hank dragged his hand through his hair and gave it a little tug at the end. If the Sheehans were constantly on the move, they might be impossible to nail down. They could have been making circuits around Mexico. Wouldn’t take them a lot of money to get by there, assuming they had access to any.

  “Are there other groups—um, glarings—that would take them in?” Miles asked her.

  Pointless, because he’d already asked her and every woman in the clinic that question.

  “None nearby,” Katrine said. “Any glarings in the Four Corners states would call Mason and try to get a reference about them. Nobody wants to pull troublemakers into their group.”

  “You believe they’re troublemakers?” Miles asked.

  And damn her, Katrine answered. It was just a shrug, but it was telling enough. She wouldn’t have given Hank even that much, just out of orneriness.

  His inner cat thought that was a damn hoot.

  “Sorry. I’m talking you to death and I didn’t even say hello.” Miles extended her hand across the counter. “Miles Bennett.”

  “Look how cute you are.” Katrine shook it. “Katrine Delacroix. You’re new around here, I guess. You’ll probably hear my last name a lot around here. We Delacroixs are a fertile bunch. Not too many boneheaded boys in our lot, either.” She rolled her eyes at Hank.

  He just shook his head. There was too little respect all around in the glaring. Made Mason’s job harder, and Hank always felt like he needed to go behind the guy cracking the whip to make sure everyone carried out their promises.
It was a concern for later, though. Katrine was apparently in a chatty mood for once, so as much as the lack of respect for the glaring hierarchy perturbed him, he’d have to let it slide.

  “Yep. New,” Miles said. “First day out.”

  “Well, I’ll give you a little word of advice. Don’t tell anyone you’re associated with this knucklehead just yet. You smell like him a little, so there won’t be much way around it soon, but if you want to make friends before they figure out you got saddled with Fabio for a mate, you might want to keep a few paces between the two of you.”

  Eyes wide, Miles looked back at him.

  Oh, so now she looks at me. “You make me sound like a psychopath,” he said.

  “You’ve got a reputation, and you know it,” Katrine said. “Be less of an asshole going forward and maybe the rumor will disperse.”

  “How does being practical translate into assholery?”

  Katrine leaned forward and grabbed the ringing phone off the hook. “Sheehan Veterinary, please hold.” She pressed the red button and set the handset into the receiver. “Oh, you’ve always been practical, Hank, even in high school. When everyone else was worried about what they’d be wearing to Homecoming, you were—”

  “Don’t go there,” he interrupted. It was the past. No use bringing that shit up—about what decisions he had to make long before he was ready to make them. It’d been passion versus reality, and in the end, cold, hard reality had won. When deciding between hobbies and helping his family earn money, the latter won out. He’d made his choices, and he couldn’t take them back.

  She shrugged. “Fine, but like I was saying, practicality is adult and expected, but it’s okay to be kind at the same time. Customer Service 101. First lesson’s free. Next time, I’ll charge you.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  Miles turned one of her pearls and stared at his face. Not at his eyes, but someplace lower. She didn’t say anything, just looked. Then her gaze tracked up to his eyes, and she turned to Katrine. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to your phone call.” She backed toward the door, and cringed, snapping her fingers. “Uh, just one more thing. Sorry.”