The Cougar's Trade

by Holley Trent

  “Nah, talk to me now.” Get the lecture out of the way. “With the way I’m feeling, it might end up being a little more than that. Mason’s on watch tonight, and Sean tomorrow. I may take tomorrow off and just sleep. We’re caught up enough with orders.”

  “What ever came of the plan to start cycling other Cougars in the glaring in on watch duty? I’m certain you can find a handful of volunteers. Even that would be a help.”

  “The plan is still on the table. There’s just the issue of setting up the roster and implementing it.”

  “I could set it up for you. You could enforce it.”

  “I don’t want you getting mixed up in that.” The thought of her coordinating a bunch of ill-mannered, rough-and-tumble Were-cougars made his brain twitch. He could just see it—tiny, soft-spoken Miles weaving through the group with a clipboard telling this Cougar and that Cougar what he was supposed to be doing and when he should be doing it. He could imagine the smirks and leers from the assholes who weren’t on board with Team Foye yet. There would always be Cougars who were a part of the glaring, but who operated on the fringes of it. The Foyes didn’t try especially hard to loop them in, but if opportunists thought there was even the slightest possibility they could get close enough to leadership to give them a hard time, they would.

  He set the food into the refrigerator, grabbed the laundry baskets, and headed toward the bedroom.

  Miles followed on his heels. “That’s it?”

  “What’s it?” He set the baskets in the corner beneath the window. “What do you mean?”

  “You have a habit of killing conversations.”

  “How so?” He flicked on the closet light and bent to pull off his boots.

  “You…well, you tend to state the improbability of things or your displeasure of them. Or sometimes, like you just did, you’ll say what you don’t want as if you not wanting it automatically makes it illogical or unwise.”

  He tossed his socks into a new laundry pile along with his sawdust-covered shirt. “Miles—”

  “No. See, you’re doing it again. You’re throttling the conversation.”

  “How?” She had to be kidding him. He poked his head outside the closet door and found her sitting on the edge of the bed with her arms folded across her chest. She looked as serious as she ever did.

  “That voice. There’s a scold in your voice when you say my name.”

  “I assure you, it’s not intentional. Maybe you’re just mistaking—”

  “No,” she snapped. “Don’t tell me what I’m hearing or not hearing when you’re not even conscious of what you’re continuously doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You tell me. I don’t want to psychoanalyze you. I’m not qualified, and even if I were, it wouldn’t be my place. All I know is how I feel, and that very often, you’re the one who makes me feel that way.”

  Somehow, he managed to close his mouth before the quick retort fell off his tongue. Whether or not she had misinterpreted anything he’d said or done—whether or not she’d misconstrued his intentions—she was entitled to her feelings. And he needed to examine just what was triggering them.

  “I know you’re not used to dealing with women like me.”

  “That may possibly be the understatement of the year.”

  She drew in a breath. “I understand that. I think I have a good grasp on how different I am from the other women in the glaring. I don’t bite back. I can’t. I’m not built to, and so I’ve compensated in other ways. But just because I don’t immediately call you out on your shit like Ellery might to Mason doesn’t mean you’re not occasionally full of it.”

  Whoa. He took a step back, reeling as if the blow had been physical and not just verbal. And the awful part was he knew he deserved it, and worse.

  “You look at me and you see everything I’m not. You see the things you would have me be, and you mourn the lack of them. Trust me, Hank, I know my deficiencies better than anyone. I’m pretty self-aware in that way. People generally like me in spite of them.”

  “I do.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked softly. “Or are you simply rationalizing that although I wouldn’t make much of a mate, I might make an okay wife?”

  Again, he held his tongue. He hadn’t thought that—at least, not consciously. But now that the idea was at the front of his brain, he could discern the truth in it. He could accept her as a lover and a domestic partner. As a friend to his brothers and a confidante of his sister. But Cougar’s Ear or not, he couldn’t see her as the mate La Bella Dama had guided him to.

  Why was that?

  Oh. Because he was full of shit.

  “Miles, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “That’s an honest statement, and I appreciate it.” She bobbed her shoulders, and her bright eyes were wet. “I don’t want you to tell me anything, though. I don’t want you to feel around for the right words if they don’t come to you naturally. You don’t know what to say, and that’s because you don’t know how to behave. That’s okay. I can forgive you for that. I can tell you how what you do makes me feel, and I know that eventually, you’ll be more sensitive or else I’ll stop being so sensitive.”

  “I don’t want you to stop being sensitive. That’s who you are.”

  “But it’s not what you wanted.” She gestured to herself, indicating her body from head to toe. “All of this is who I am. I’m short, slight, and can’t fight worth a damn, which I think you learned that day you plucked me out of my tent.”

  He had. She’d tried to get a few good blows in—a few dirty ones, at that—but she had neither the height nor the leverage to do him any real harm. From that moment, he’d set his mind on not having her. He’d talked himself out of desiring a woman he didn’t think he could or should have. It was the same way he’d talked himself out of applying to Juilliard even when the department chair had, in person, urged him to.

  He was constantly looking for reasons to justify his strict practicality, and none of them seemed to hold water anymore.

  “I keep trying to show you that I can do other things,” she said. “Not everyone gets to be a superhero and I came to grips with that right around age eighteen when I realized that this was all I was ever going to be. I’m sorry if it’s not enough for you.”

  Sighing, he hung his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. She was right. It should have been enough. She was an amazing woman, and he wanted to get out of the way to let her care for him. He wasn’t sure he knew how, just like he wasn’t convinced music would come naturally to him again if he blew the dust off his guitar and tightened the strings. That scared him. What scared him more was Miles thinking he was some sort of coward for not reaching for the things he wanted. Including her.

  She cleared her throat. “I tried talking to Hannah, and she’s being terse, but that’s better than before, I guess. Ellery is going to try again when she gets home.”

  “Maybe she can mediate a discussion between the two of them. I’ll help if she’ll let me get close, but Mom or Belle might have better luck.”

  “Probably. I’d stick around to try again, but I’ve got to go to Amarillo to pick up Marta Fitz’s little boy,” she said. “Your mother is driving me to the airport in Albuquerque. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  “Let me take a quick shower. I’ll go with you.” He had his jeans unbuttoned and his fly down without even thinking.

  “No.” She got in front of him and blocked his passage to the bathroom, and he had no choice but to look down at her. The tenacity and calm certainty in her voice would have made him think her face would have been set with determination—chin jutted and eyes narrowed—but that wasn’t there. The hurt was still there in her moist eyes and flushed cheeks. The hurt that he’d inflicted.

  “You’re tired, so stay,” she said.

  “What’s another day? Let me come with you.”

  “So you can make sure I don’t get myself into any trouble, seeing as how your network wo
n’t be watching me through every window on Main Street?”

  He gave his hair a frustrated yank. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “No one’s going to hurt me. The Sheehans aren’t going to pop out of the woodwork and grab me. They can’t steal me and try to prevent our mate bond from completing because it already nearly has. I have your scent in my skin—your imprint. You know it’s there.”

  He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and stared at the scarred wood of the floor. He could have fixed that—made it smooth and perfect so it looked brand-new, but he’d liked that it had character. It was just like the old guitar he wouldn’t get rid of. It was cheap when Mom had bought it and it had barely made it through his puberty intact. But it had done everything he’d needed it to, even if it wasn’t what other people considered to be top of the line.

  Just because things weren’t as others expected them didn’t mean they weren’t right for the person they belonged to.

  Miles was a lot like that guitar. Something that had done well by him that he’d tried to hide away because looking at it made him feel guilty.

  He was the one in desperate need of upgrading, not them.

  “Call me when you land?” he asked.

  “I’ll leave a message if you don’t answer. You might be asleep.”

  “Don’t let that stop you from trying.”

  He looked up then and caught her wary gaze. “There isn’t much that’ll stop me from making good on my promises.”

  “Are you promising?”

  “Everything I say is a promise. Think about that.”

  She grabbed her sweatshirt off the dresser and left without another word. Just as well, because he had plenty to ponder already.

  • • •

  Hank rose around two the next afternoon and immediately reached for his phone. No messages, no texts. He threw back the covers and heaved himself out of the bed with his cell pressed to his ear. Mason answered on the third ring.

  “’Sup?”

  “Serious question.” Hank wedged the phone between his cheek and shoulder and pulled on a pair of clean-enough jeans. “What’s the quickest way to get a woman not to be pissed at you?”

  “You’re asking me? If I knew that, I’d tell it to Sean.”

  Duh. “But you got Ellery to stop being mad at you for kidnapping her.”

  “At least half of that was due to Nick being cute and irresistible. I’m not sure I would have managed to turn the tide on my own. I think I was just the means to the end. I was the box of bran flakes, and Nick was the prize inside.”

  “Whatever.” In spite of Mason and Ellery’s good-natured ribbing, she loved him. There had to be some key to that. “And I don’t have a kid, so what else do you got?”

  “Uh…I didn’t kick her cat out after she pissed on my baseboards. That seemed to ingratiate Ellery somewhat.”

  “Miles doesn’t have a cat. Give me something else.”

  “What is this about? Did you not get enough sleep? Sounds to me like you could use a few more hours.”

  “I slept okay.” Once he got to sleep, anyway. It’d been nearly dawn by the time he’d dozed off watching his flight tracker app. He hadn’t been awake to see her flight land. “She didn’t call me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Miles. She didn’t call me. She said she’d call when she got there. She promised.”

  “Maybe she’s been busy.”

  “Or maybe she ran.”

  “I doubt it. She wouldn’t abandon her friends, even if she was trying to get away from you.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Just being honest. Did you try calling her?”

  “I just got up.” Hank started down the stairs, and paused in the middle, taking in the disaster area that was his unfinished living room. “Fuck, she deserves better than this.”

  “I feel like we’re having about four different conversations at once. Pick one. I need to go screen a couple of Cougars who are seeking admission into the glaring.”

  “Cougars from where?”

  “Washington State. They come with pretty good referrals, I just need to go sniff them out and see if they’re legit. I’m going to meet them at the diner with Tito and Tiny.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me?”

  “I was going to let you sleep, and hoped you’d return the favor in a few days, since I suspect Sean’s gonna be out of it.”

  “You really think that?” Hank had thought it, but he didn’t want to think it was true. Miles had saved him from the curse out of the goodness of her heart, but Hannah probably felt no such obligation for Sean, and nobody could expect her to.

  “At this point, I can’t even pretend there’s a chance in hell they’re going to pull it together. It scares me, but I’m trying to be upbeat for Sean’s sake. I’m not sure what La Bella Dama is playing at with them. Let me take care of this transfer request, though. You deal with Miles.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Okay, well, she’ll be back, probably tomorrow. I bet you can think of some things to do to prove to her you’re more or less decent until then. You don’t need a kid or a cat. I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who needs gimmicks.”

  Hank’s gaze scanned the dusty living room. “But they couldn’t hurt.”

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  “Just a little common courtesy. I think she’s long overdue for some.”

  “That almost sounds romantic, but I’d have to check with Ellery to know for sure.”

  “Well, she deserves that, too.”

  “Good luck.” Mason disconnected, and Hank immediately brought up a text-messaging screen. He typed in a message for Miles, deemed it far too aggressive and whiny, and tried again.

  I know you’re busy. I just wanted to make sure you’re coming back.

  He deleted the end of that second sentence.

  I just wanted to make sure—

  Make sure of what? That a little distance from the ranch hadn’t changed her mind about being his mate? She could walk away and he’d be fine. Physically, at least. He wasn’t so sure the same would hold true for all the other ways.

  He tried one more time.

  I know you’re busy, but I worry.

  He hit Send only for “Not Deliverable” to pop up on his screen.

  “What the fuck?” Had to be a service problem. He needed to get her onto the Foye plan sooner rather than later. He nudged the phone’s volume up in case she tried to call, then left the phone on the stairs. He started in one corner of the living room, wadding up drop cloths and disposing of plastic sheeting. It was so easy to forget there was an actual room under all the dust and renovation garbage. He would make it comfortable for her—a space that felt safe and inviting. A den, and not a cavern of horrors, as she’d referred to it to Ellery.

  While clearing garbage from the built-in shelves, his fingers brushed against a sharp protrusion way at the back of the top one. He pulled a chair over and stood on it. The rectangular object turned out to be a small, familiar, blue leather-bound book. He blew off the coat of dust and cleaned the spine with his thumb. The faded gold embossing read La Bella Dama, translated by E. Putnum.

  “Shit, I forgot that existed.” It had been his dad’s book once. It must have gotten mixed up with the books he’d moved out of Mom’s house years ago.

  He hopped down and sat where he’d been standing, already thumbing through the pages. If memory served him correctly, Elizabeth Putnum had been a Cougar of his great-grandfather’s generation—a sort-of glaring historian. Yet another position in the group that had long since fallen by the wayside. If they’d had one, maybe they wouldn’t be so lost.

  He stopped at an entry entitled “The Cougar’s Ear” and marveled at the simple black ink illustration. It was of a maiden on a bench with her head canted toward the reclining large cat at her feet. The caption read: INTERLOCUTOR AND CONFIDANTE, THE EAR—TYPICALLY THE MATE OF
AN ASSISTANT ALPHA OR A GLARING LIEUTENANT—OFTEN INTERCEDES ON THE BEHALF OF THE IGNORED, FOR SHE MAY UNDERSTAND THE AFFLICTION WELL HERSELF.

  He let out a long breath. He’d certainly done his fair share of ignoring Miles, or trying to, anyway. He went on to read: HER MATE IS TYPICALLY A MALE WHO HAS COURTED THE FAVOR OF THE LADY.

  At that, Hank scoffed. Him with favor? He’d done little but disparage the goddess for her fickleness for the past year. It’d been a rough year. Then again, sometimes the dame’s favor wasn’t so easy to see. Mason had her seal of approval over his run as alpha, and had likely had it all along, but it had been made clear when she’d put that dark streak in his hair. That had been one of the few things they remembered about her lore, but evidence of her grace had probably always been there, should they think to look for it. Unfortunately, the Foyes weren’t good at reading subtle signs. They needed pictures and words…or being beat over the head with the truth.

  On a hunch, he turned the page.

  The Avenger.

  In the drawing, a woman in a prairie dress—he checked the copyright date: 1898—leaned against a fence with a shotgun propped against the post. She seemed calm, relaxing with her arms resting atop the post and her head lay on her forearm. Lounging behind her was a cougar with a bandaged foot—a smaller cat, probably brand new to shifting. A child.

  On the horizon was a massive fire, and he had a sneaking suspicion she was the one who’d set it.

  “Damn.”

  He didn’t even have to read the caption. If he had one guess whom that forgotten position was supposed to be filled by, he’d place his bets on the angry lady in his brother’s basement.

  Cleaning could wait. He tucked the book into his back pocket and ran for the side door. Of course Hannah wasn’t going to be an easy capture. She wasn’t supposed to be. Miles was, and he’d fucked that up royally.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Miles didn’t understand why Hank didn’t respond to her six text messages after being so insistent she phone him. She couldn’t phone him, though. Her cell reception had been spotty during the entire trip, and believe it or not—pay phones were actually not as easy to come by as one might have thought. She sent the texts and hoped they’d suffice, only to get silence in return.