Two of the stalls burned. None of the horses were injured, and none of the people. Jacob and Cara stood together with Owen Hutch and Eddie Tyrell, making a report. The EMTs checked out Cara's mouth and jaw and told her it would be a good idea to follow up with her doctor but otherwise she didn't even seem to have much smoke inhalation.
Made sense. The fire hadn't been smoldering and the smoke had vented out the arena. Even so, Eddie, tall, thin, with a brown face meant for the desert, kept asking her if she was all right.
Jacob kept watching her. Something about his eyes kept her on edge. The eyes were gold, and he was intense. Fiery. Watching her like she was his.
For the first time, she was afraid of him. At 17 she watched him shift to bear in her defense and fell in love.
At 22 she almost felt afraid. The power, the violence, the brute strength of the bear left her shaky. He'd held back. He hadn't killed her attacker. He could have. The man would have killed all of them and thought nothing of it.
The knowledge didn't help.
She was afraid.
But when the police finished their questions and the sheriff's deputy finished telling them to get out and the EMT finished with Cara, Jacob came to find her.
He'd held her briefly before. That didn't seem enough to explain this. But the hunger in his eyes silenced her. He took her hand, helping her down from the open back of the ambulance. He asked with a look if she'd go with him.
She answered by taking his hand and letting him lead.
One end of the arena was a mass of fire investigators, firefighters, cowboys and bears, and the random spectator or two not quite convinced the show was canceled for the day. Owen Hutch was there with Mary Beth Chaudett and her father, the CEO of the circuit. From a distance she saw Eddie Tyrell, clan leader in Holden's absence (and now in Colby's).
They didn't go that way.
They went in the other direction. Down one of the halls that branched like asterisks off the main stalls in the underground part of the arena. They kept going until they were somewhere the voices didn't echo back to them.
Somewhere alone.
He didn't ask then. She knew he would stop if she protested. She had no intention of protesting. Her fear flared up.
She let it.
He put one hand on her throat, caressing where she'd been struck, her jaw, the line of her throat, her shoulder, then let his hand drop, caressing her breast through the delicate summer top she wore.
Her back hit the wall. She reached for him, snaked her arms around his neck, turned her face up to his.
His mouth was hot, his tongue like cinnamon in her mouth, spicy and hot. He licked into her mouth with the first kiss, then pulled back and kissed her sweetly, his lips on hers, bracketing her mouth. He was hot as the fire that had just stopped burning.
Under his denim snap-front shirt his chest was thick with muscle, his shoulders broad, the caps of the delts defined like an anatomy chart.
Just as fast as he had started, he stopped, pulling away from her. He looked a little confused. "I don't usually," he said and left it like that.
So did she. "I think." She stopped, as if that were the end of the sentence, then said, "I probably should go home."
"What were you doing here?" He hadn't moved. He wasn't stopping her from going but he wasn't making it easy, either. "Who are you?"
She started to say her name, not that he hadn't heard it a dozen times during the questioning. Jacob held up a hand. "Come on. You know what I'm asking. What were you even doing at the arena at that hour? Are you a reporter?"
"Not hardly. I – " I was stalking you. I fell in love with you five years ago and despite other relationships, can't forget you.
I'm crazy. Probably I should go home now.
But she didn't say any of that. "We met five years ago," she said and tilted her head, waiting to see if he'd remember.
Jacob narrowed his honey colored eyes, considered her, then widened his eyes. "You're the girl with the horse!"
"I'm sure that narrows it down considerably, given what you do!"
He waved that aside. "You were the one with her dad's horse. The one on the road, those guys."
That was her cue to exit. Right? She could tell him she'd just been trying to say thank you, that she'd showed up early because – because? Because it would be easier to find him alone. Not because she knew after years of reading about him that he often arrived early before everyone else and stayed later.
Only she didn't. The morning's events had made her bolder. "What was that all about?"
He blinked. "You heard what I told the law." His thumbs stuck in the belt loops of his jeans, he leaned against one of the arena walls. He looked like an advertisement for the male ideal.
"I heard what you told the law," she agreed, nodding. "Now tell me the truth."
That made him laugh. "You don't believe in horse thieves, darlin'?" It came out a drawl.
She didn't respond. And finally he sighed. "You know the Tyrell clan is a family of shifters." At her nod, he said, "What do you know about the disappearances of shapeshifters throughout the community?"
"I've done some reading. Gemma Thomas was the first reporter to cover it."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Holden came unhinged on that one. And after she broke the story, Colby himself started going looking into it." He looked grim, his mouth set tight.
Cara's mind flashed back to her reading.
Colby was Jacob's cousin, just like Holden was. Colby was also law enforcement, at least when he was home in Texas. Holden was the one looking into the disappearances, at least at first, leaving Eddie in charge of the group of rodeo bears. But ever since the articles broke, Colby had been seriously looking into the disappearances too, and –
"Colby's gone missing, hasn't he?" she asked.
When he asked how she knew what she'd just said, Cara got the impression this time Jacob wasn't relaxed about what he was asking. There was nothing casual about his grip on her arm.
Maybe now if she chose to walk off, he wouldn't let her.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," she said. "Can we sit somewhere?" Reaction to the morning's events made her legs shake.
Once they were in a VIP rodeo box in the deserted arena, she looked out over the performance floor and sighed.
When she glanced back at Jacob, the smile she was used to seeing on his face in countless media photographs and online videos was gone. He watched her with suspicion, like he thought she might be a spy.
Probably she could be. But the shapeshifting rodeo bears lived their lives in the spotlight. Why would anyone going after them need a spy?
"The fact that shifters are being hunted – " she held up a hand when he sucked in a breath at the assumption – "Or that something is happening, because they keep disappearing? That's not news. Or rather, it is. It's on TV."
He gave her a long look before he nodded. "But it's usually just that. News. Why do you have such interest that the facts are at the tip of your tongue?"
"They're not," she protested. "All I said was shifters are vanishing and Colby has disappeared, hasn't he? No one's said so," she went on fast, "But no one's seen him in what, a week? Ten days?"
Jacob made a face and ran his hands through his hair, brushing cinnamon colored curls into disarray. "Damn. Yes. Colby's been looking into the disappearances. And no, no one's heard from him in a while, including Gemma."
"She's not writing about it," Cara said instantly.
"No. Holden's at least talked her into that." When she raised her brows he said, "Colby was already out of the circuit, looking for missing clansmen. For missing bears. We're keeping it quiet that he's not checking in."
"How do you know I will?" She couldn't help asking.
"I don't. But you might be able to help us. Didn't you tell the deputy you're mounted posse?"
She shrugged. "Volunteer."
"Then you know the country around here."
"Yes, but – " She squinted. "Did C
olby disappear in Nevada?"
"Shifters have vanished everywhere. But yeah, last we heard from Colby, he was out in the county." He looked miserable, staring at his hands where they clasped together between his knees.
Her response was automatic and instant. "How can I help?"
* * *
Chapter Three
"No," Holden said. Loudly. Firmly.
They were back in the arena, working the stalls with the City's repair crew sent to put the stables back together. Jacob had left Cara some distance away.
He shouldn't have bothered. She could hear them both.
"Look, she knows the area. Grew up here. Knows the rural valleys. And now she's mounted posse. Come on, Holden, Colby could be – "
"Colby could be dead," Holden said flatly.
She heard the anger flare in Jacob's voice. "Does that mean we're not even going to look?"
"Of course we're looking!"
"Then we take advantage of every chance we've got. Come on, Holden."
A sharp sound of a slap made her jump but neither man reacted and she guessed he'd just knocked dust off his hat against his knee. "What good do you think your little friend can even do? She's just some chick infatuated with the bright lights and the bull riders."
Cara stood up. "I can hear you," she said.
Both men went silent.
Cara walked across the arena between them. "Look, I want to help."
Holden looked her up and down. "Why?"
And Cara in turn looked at Jacob. But it wasn't that simple. "Did you not hear Jacob tell you I'm sheriff's volunteer posse? That's what posses do. We look for people. I'm good at it. And what Jacob's saying is right. This is my desert. My town. My territory if you want to put it that way. I know how to search here. I have ideas where to search. And I've been following the stories ever since they started to break."
Jacob looked convinced. Of course, Jacob had already looked convinced.
Holden didn't. Tall, dark, the eldest of the clan and ruggedly handsome, he stood with his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans over an enormous belt buckle. He watched her without blinking.
His stare said, Convince me. Or get out.
If he even let her leave. While they were men she didn't think any of the Tyrells would hurt her.
But if she pissed him off enough that he turned?
Two sets of golden eyes trained on her. Two amazing looking shapeshifting bears, watching her.
She realized the best way to make them believe her with the minimum amount of time spent on it.
"I have a huge crush on Jacob," she said. "I have for the past five years."
Jacob's face lit in an enormous smile. Holden made a choked sound halfway between a laugh and capitulation. But the interrogation was over.
"Get her a horse," he said over his shoulder as he started away, heading deeper into the arena.
Cara took a shaky breath. She'd convinced him. She'd also just thrown in her lot with the clan of rodeo boys half the audiences wanted to kill.
Maybe not her best move.
And then too – eventually she'd have to meet Jacob's eyes again.
Cringing, she looked up at him.
His smile couldn't be any more smug. "Crush, huh?"
She snorted. "Let's find me a horse."
They didn't. Not right away. Finding her a horse was the easy part. Finding out where to take the horse and how to search for Colby was more difficult.
"He was in Vegas," she said, following Jacob into the stables. People swirled around them now as morning grew later. Jacob obsessively checked on the horses, those that belonged to the Tyrell clan and those that were simply there and had been in danger.
"They were both here for a previous Wild West show. About a week ago." He had his hands on the lead to a beautiful Palomino.
"A week ago! Doesn't anybody – hasn't someone – oh, my god!"
He gave her a smirk over his shoulder that sent her heart pumping. His lips were full and sensual. Even twisted in derision his face was one she wanted to study for years to come.
Except all at once her attraction to him seemed like nothing more than a crush. How could it be anything else? She'd met him once when she was 17 and knew nothing about anything. She'd followed him and his career for the last five years and that proved what, exactly?
He interrupted her thoughts.
"A month ago Gemma started releasing the articles about the disappearances and Colby started coming and going like Holden. All of them were looking into the disappearances, going places where people had been when last seen. And, yeah, he was gone a lot but he'd only just hooked up with Gemma. Man needed a little space."
He still looked like a smart ass, that twisty smile and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.
"So you're not worried?"
When she asked, he became serious right away. He slowed so she walked beside him rather than following. "I wasn't until this morning. Eddie thinks I'm overreacting. He thinks the attack here was isolated." He pointed her down a hallway.
"This isn't the stables."
"No. Parking lot. Gemma and Colby were sharing a place. I want to take a look at it."
She paused, standing in front of the half ton pickup he'd led her to. She squinted. If she wasn't mistaken, this was the same beaten and exhausted Ford he'd been driving five years ago. Something about that – the way it seemed down to earth and real – pleased her.
Maybe the man she'd come to know through media releases and videos wasn't so far from the real man she was with now.
"You have a key to their place?" Cara didn't have any sisters or brothers. After her mom died it had just been her and her dad on a big ranch in a big ranch house and he respected her privacy. Which was to say he wanted to know nothing about the mysteries of a teenaged daughter, just that she was still a virgin when she left his house.
She had been.
Just barely.
Cara couldn't imagine giving her key to somebody else. She'd learned to value privacy.
"Kind of," Jacob hedged.
The place Colby and Gemma were sharing was an RV parked out in the desert at the very edge of an RV park. Cactus and corrugated green plastic lining chain link fencing separated the park from the desert itself.
"Why?" Cara wondered.
Jacob laughed. "Colby likes to travel light. Besides, his horses are stabled two miles away."
She nodded and waited for him to produce a key to the RV. He didn't. Instead, Jacob took a quick look around the empty park. Even as early in the day as it was – not yet quite ten, which shocked her given everything that had already happened – the desert was heating up. No one was outside if they didn't have to be.
When he didn't see anyone, Jacob shifted. Just for an instant.
Just long enough to force the handle to the RV.
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 112