by Chant, Zoe
“I think you should go have your cool fugitive hunt. The Clarkes will be impressed enough by the toys.”
“Right,” he said. He just felt at loose ends.
Gretchen marked her place with her finger and met his eyes again; this time, her gaze was more searching.
“You’re nervous about something. Because your wolf’s freaking out? Because you’re starstruck about meeting your favorite photographer? Which is still cute, by the way.”
Colby didn’t have an answer for her. Either of those reasons would have made sense, and both of them were more or less true. But there was something else, too. He had that feeling he sometimes got buying a lottery ticket, like fate was converging in on him and he was one scratch away from being a millionaire.
Only the most I’ve ever won is ten dollars, he reminded himself. I’m reading too much into things.
“All of the above,” he said. “You’re right, I’m stalling. I need to get on the road.”
About time, his wolf grumbled.
All in all, though, the mutt had put up with his waffling and delaying longer than Colby would have thought. Maybe it had the same weird case of nerves he did.
At least it was a short drive to the police station. That let him feel like he was making up for lost time.
Wilson Wynette met him at the door and arched one eyebrow at what Colby was carrying. “I always knew you were immature, Acton, but what’s with the toys?”
“I thought the kid might like them.”
Wilson’s eyebrow only went up higher.
“How do you do just the one eyebrow?” Colby said. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“A wise man never gives away his secrets. And if you’re playing Santa to some kid you’ve never met, I’m going to go ahead and assume you took a look at incredible photographer Aria Clarke’s author pic.”
“No, actually. I’m in love with her mind. And I’m a decent guy who can do something nice for reasons outside of getting a date, unlike some people.”
“Hey!” Wilson protested. “Stan and I have been together for six months now.”
Colby shrugged. “That only disproves my point if you’ve been nice to people besides your boyfriend.”
“I’m about to be nice to you. Because I can let you know that Aria Clarke is single, for the record, and you can thank my top-notch investigative skills for finding that out for you.”
He winked and then effortlessly segued into pure business:
“The Clarkes are all in the second least crappy break room, the one with the broken vending machine. You remember where that is?”
He did. “Why is it you guys collect money for the Policeman’s Ball but not for sprucing this place up a little? Even your plastic plants are dying.”
“Those decisions get made way above my head,” Wilson said. “And way above the head of anyone who actually has to park their ass here during the day. Unfortunately.” He clapped Colby on the shoulder. “Go forth, nerd boy, and get your autograph and your fugitive.”
Colby went forth.
The second least crappy break room was down a hallway with an eternally flickering light. Creepy enough, Colby thought, even for people who weren’t already unsettled. He opened the door.
Two adults and one little girl sat around a chipped table in the center of the room. At first glance, Colby guessed this was the little Clarke girl and her grandparents—an extremely elegant-looking woman with swept-back hair and regal features and a big, broad-shouldered man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a hunter-green plaid shirt.
The man reminded Colby immediately of his own dad—he had the same air of straightforward steadiness—and it made him feel another old pang of grief.
The little girl was cute as a button. Her complexion was a slightly lighter shade of brown than her grandparents’, but she had her grandmother’s strong chin and her grandfather’s curls. A slightly crushed flower crown was tangled in her hair.
Protect, Colby’s wolf said.
I will.
He smiled. “Hi, I’m Colby Acton. I’m with the US Marshals. Detective Wynette probably told you I was coming over.”
“He did.” The man stood up and held out his hand. “Ben Clarke.”
Colby shook. He had the distinct feeling that Ben was testing his grip, so he did his best not to disappoint—but also his best not to use shifter strength to inadvertently crush the man’s hand.
The woman stood up next, presenting him with her hand in such a formal manner that Colby almost felt like it would have been more appropriate to bow over it and kiss it. She wasn’t being snooty about it, either; she just had a kind of natural nobility.
“Doreen Clarke. Aria’s mother.”
Her handshake was just as firm as her husband’s. They might have looked like an odd couple, but Colby thought appearances could be deceiving there. They were really two of a kind.
“And this,” Doreen said, “is Mattie.”
“Hi,” the little girl said. Her voice was small and shy.
Colby went down into a crouch, putting them eye-to-eye.
“Hi, Mattie. Tell me something: how totally, completely, mind-numbingly boring has it been for you to be stuck here all day?”
A tiny smile started to show on Mattie’s face, and a spark of humor appeared in her dark eyes. “Pretty boring.”
“I figured. I’m going to get you out of here soon and make sure you’re safe, but I thought maybe you could use something to help kill the time.”
He held out the Slinky and the Rubik’s Cube.
“Either of these look good?”
She tentatively lifted the Rubik’s Cube out of his hand.
“I’ve never had one of these before. You try to get it so each side only has one color on it, right?”
“Right,” Colby affirmed. “And if you can do it, I’m going to be super-jealous and make you show me how, because I’ve never figured it out.”
Mattie’s smile turned into a full-on grin, letting Colby see one of her missing baby teeth.
“I will. I totally will.”
Doreen Clarke seemed to have been watching that interaction closely, and Colby guessed that she approved of it, because the severe angles of her face softened. That little bit of relaxation instantly made her a hundred percent more approachable.
She said, “My daughter just stepped out to get a bottle of water, Deputy Marshal Acton. She should be back any moment.”
He was pleasantly surprised she’d nailed the actual job title. It wasn’t like the Marshals got the widespread press of cops or FBI agents.
Still, he only really cared about getting that kind of formality from people he didn’t like. “Colby’s fine, really, Ms. Clarke.”
He hadn’t expected her to reciprocate by offering to let him call her Doreen, and she didn’t—which was fine, since he didn’t know that he could have gotten himself to actually do it. He didn’t even know if he could bring himself to slouch around her.
He heard the break room door open behind him.
Colby turned around. The movement jarred part of the Slinky out of his hand and sent it cascading to the floor in a bouncy corkscrew.
So this was Aria Clarke. He could see right away why Wilson had asked if he’d seen a picture of her.
Her skin was the same rich, smooth brown as her mom’s, and her features were just as striking, but she didn’t have her mom’s aura of cool, composed remove. Her presence in the room felt almost electric and seemed to have its own kind of warmth. She had her hair back in a poufy ponytail that looked like a soft dark cloud. Her body was all promising curves over well-honed muscles. It was as easy to imagine her curled up on the sofa with a good book as it was to imagine her hiking up a mountainside searching for the perfect angle on some sparkling valley lake.
And then his eyes met hers.
Colby’s whole life changed, like some bright sun inside of him had just come out.
Mate! his wolf cried.
She’s perfect,
his human half thought, stunned. He knew the two ideas were the same.
He’d never, ever imagined that his mate could be someone he already admired, someone whose work he’d been drawn to for years, someone who—
—looked understandably weirded out by the fact that he was standing there staring at her silently.
He tried to push his wolf’s howl aside, ignoring how it felt like it was deafening him from the inside out.
She was his mate—undeniably, eternally, impossibly, incredibly—but she was also a scared woman who was already having a hell of a day, and he had to focus on what all this must feel like to her.
She didn’t need him breaking out in a flood of primal instincts just because that was what his wolf seemed to be demanding.
He had to put her first. And—
Colby sniffed, hoping the gesture was small enough to be imperceptible.
There was a distinctly wolfish scent on Aria Clarke, a spicy smell of wildness and damp fur.
It was strange, though—if that was her scent, he wasn’t nearly as drawn to it as he should have been. Instead, the smell was making his wolf pace around inside his head, snapping and snarling at nothing, something the mutt usually only got up to under the worst of circumstances.
Had her eyes widened when they’d met his? A little, maybe. It was hard to tell. If she was a shifter, she’d have recognized him in the same instant he’d recognized her...
Colby tried to shake off his confusion. Maybe Aria Clarke was a werewolf and maybe she wasn’t, but that didn’t change the fact that he had to get his act together right now.
He hoped this moment had been a lot shorter in reality than it had felt inside his head.
The fact that no one was calling 911 about him suddenly going into a fugue state was comforting, at least.
Colby grabbed at every bit of charm he could and pulled himself together. He smiled.
“Hi. I’m Colby. Deputy US Marshal Colby. Acton.”
Yeah, that had gone about as well as expected.
He could still save this. He reached out for a handshake.
...That was the hand that was holding the Slinky.
“This is a Slinky,” Colby said.
The corner of Aria’s mouth twitched. “I think I recognize it from pictures.”
Mattie chirped up to rescue him: “Mom, Marshal Colby gave me a Rubik’s Cube!”
You are my favorite kid ever, Colby thought fervently.
“The Slinky was another option,” he said, relieved to remember that he’d had a reason for bringing the damn thing in the first place. “I wasn’t sure what she’d like, but I figured any kid would be bored being cooped up like this. Especially in here.”
He gestured at the aggressively taupe walls and the menacing posters warning people to lock their cars, protect their passwords, and wash their hands. (The last one didn’t seem to fit, and it worried him that someone had considered it necessary.) He felt the irrational need to volunteer the information that his own office had way better décor and that he also always washed his hands.
Aria Clarke’s gaze flitted around the room. “Good point. I’ve been bored too, actually.” She sounded a little surprised that the boredom had overcome the fear.
“Well,” Colby said, “I can offer you a Slinky, if you want one.”
She had a great laugh, beautiful and warm, and he was impressed that she could laugh at all under the circumstances. “I might take you up on that.”
She leaned against the table, studying him with lively, dark brown eyes. As she did, the humor faded out of her expression. Now she looked more wary than anything else.
Why?
Because you’re a weirdo with a Slinky, his mind contributed unhelpfully.
Aria said, “Detective Wynette said you hunt fugitives, right? You’re going to go after this Hebbert guy?”
Colby nodded. “Go after him, find him, and bring him in.”
“I like your confidence,” Ben Clarke said.
Colby shrugged. “It’s what I do, sir.”
“Hebbert...” Aria hesitated. “He’s dangerous. I mean, he’s really dangerous.”
“Why don’t you tell me about him?” Colby suggested, pulling out a chair for her and then one for himself. “Ms. Clarke, Mr. Clarke, would you mind taking Mattie out for a bit?”
If Eli Hebbert had said or done anything to Aria Clarke that she didn’t want her daughter hearing about—
Colby’s protective instincts had already been roused by the idea of this guy operating on his turf at all. They were infinitely stronger at the idea of Hebbert actually threatening his mate, with his mate’s child nearby.
He wasn’t going to let anything happen to any of them.
“Sure,” Ben Clarke said, giving Colby an approving glance that again reminded Colby of his dad. “We’ll take a stroll around the building together.”
“Stay inside,” Aria said immediately.
Ben tugged at his daughter’s ponytail, and somehow even Colby knew the gesture was an old, reassuring one. “We will. Scout’s honor.”
Ben and Doreen led their little granddaughter (now way closer to solving the Rubik’s Cube than Colby had ever gotten) out of the break room.
So here he was, alone with Aria Clarke, his favorite photographer and his destined mate.
Possibly a fellow werewolf.
Definitely the love of his life.
And definitely in danger.
4
Deputy US Marshal Colby Acton looked like he could have wandered in off a movie set. Aria tried to tell herself that what she felt was just a photographer’s appreciation of a stunning combination of colors and lines.
That could maybe excuse her gaze lingering on his startling cobalt blue eyes or even his long, leanly muscled body, but even artistic license couldn’t explain why she was so acutely aware of the scent of his cologne. There was something foggy and primal to it, like the smell of a building thunderstorm.
That thought was like a dash of cold water. It reminded her too much of what her day had been like before everything had gone wrong.
Her fingers tightened involuntarily on her camera bag.
Unbelievably, the cops had taken her word for it when she’d said she hadn’t been able to snap a photo of Eli Hebbert. They had let her ID him off their photos, and nobody had asked to double-check her camera.
Thank God. She had no idea how she would have explained the wolves.
She’d decided at the last minute not to bring them up at all when she’d made her report. What was she supposed to say, that she’d seen a werewolf? Possibly three werewolves? Even if she’d fudged it a little and said that Eli Hebbert had been walking around with some pet wolves, it probably would have been enough to get her kicked right back through the door. It was too crazy.
People would believe she’d seen wolves in the nature preserve. They’d also believe she’d seen a criminal in the nature preserve.
But that was an either/or situation. You only got one crazy thing per story.
Scary fugitive with wolves? Sorry, Ms. Clarke, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
Now, of course, she was stuck sitting in this police station, knowing that right there in the camera on her lap was evidence that the real story was way more complicated than she’d led anyone to believe. It made her nervous.
The thought of letting Colby Acton, a man nice enough to think to bring a toy for a scared girl, walk unknowingly into a confrontation with something straight out of a monster movie made her even more nervous.
If she could figure out some way to warn him, she had to do it.
“I should just say—” Colby Acton cleared his throat. He had the cutest, most unexpected blush. “I’m a really big fan.”
This had honestly never happened to her before.
Do I look like someone famous?
She said, “A really big fan of...?”
“Your work. Your photographs.”
Okay. Now she definite
ly had to save his life.
“Your book on your trip through the Arctic?” he said. “That picture you got of the narwhal surfacing with that little disc of ice on its horn? Those Arctic foxes rolling around in the snow? It got me to finally take a trip to Alaska.”
This, even more than the werewolves, made her feel like she’d slid sideways into some kind of Twilight Zone dimension.
“I could send you some of the Arctic shots that didn’t make it into the book,” Aria offered.
He looked like she’d just offered him a million dollars. “Really?”
Aria grinned. “Anything for my best and only fan.”
“I’m sure you have a lot of fans,” he said loyally. “Your publishers should send you on tours.”
She laughed. “I think you’d have to follow me from bookstore to bookstore to make sure I had even one person in the audience. But thank you, Deputy Acton. This is one of the nicest things to ever happen to me, really.”
“Call me Colby, please.”
“Colby,” she said, just to feel the name on her tongue. She decided she liked it. She’d never known a Colby before. “Then I’m Aria.”
“Aria,” Colby said.
She had the funny feeling that he was tasting her name in the same way she’d tasted his, but she found that almost as hard to believe as the Adventures of a Fugitive and His Pet Wolves, Really, Officer. Men like Colby Acton didn’t let their eyes linger on curvy single moms with rain-frizzed hair and dried mud all over their shoes. Even if they were—unbelievably—nature photography buffs.
He was here in the line of duty, and she had to focus on what was important. She couldn’t let him go up against Eli Hebbert without knowing at least a little of what Hebbert was capable of.
Besides murder.
“I should start telling you what happened, right?” she said. Might as well get back to business.
Colby leaned back in his chair, all business now. She could almost see him putting on a mask of crisp, flawless professionalism. “I’d like that, Aria.”
So she told him what she could. The picnic, the quest into the woods to take pictures, the rainstorm that had almost made her turn around—
She stopped midsentence, feeling an overwhelming desire to laugh. She managed to hold it in for a second or two before all the stress and fear of the day just came bubbling out of her in this one hysterical fit of giggles. It brought actual tears to her eyes.