“Froze?” He took hold of her hand, gently caressing her fingers. They were so small, so delicate. His own thick fingers were almost sacrilegious against hers. Heather’s hands were the hands of an artist, made to create, not destroy. His had shed more blood than he ever wanted to admit to her.
“Yeah.” She plucked at the blanket with her free hand, refusing to look at him. “I just…stopped. I couldn’t move. It was like being ten all over again. I even saw those men, the ones who attacked me back then.” She shuddered so hard she nearly shook loose of his hold. “I couldn’t help Chloe or Apollonia.”
“Look at me, Heather.” He tilted her chin up, forcing her to lift her head. “Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a moment like that.”
“Sure they do.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Bet you haven’t.”
Between that cute little pout and the way she said it, he was once again reminded of exactly how young his mate really was. He sighed, feeling like an ogre. “I have. First time I faced off against a Tiger rogue.”
“Yeah?” Heather glanced at him through her lashes.
“Yup.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “When that fucker shifted into his other form, I damn near shit a horse.”
“A horse?”
Man, that soft little giggle was going to be the death of him. “It was way too big to be a kitten. And considering how hard my ass was kicked, I’m pretty sure hooves were involved.”
“I bet that made it difficult to fight.” Her gaze had gone distant. He just bet she was picturing a horse-shaped turd in his jeans.
“Smelly too.”
She played with his fingers. “I managed to get Chloe in the car, though. Tried to find the keys, but Apollonia must have still had them on her.” She grimaced. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, or I would have just ducked down, locked the doors and called 911.”
“You trusted Apollonia to protect you.” Something Barney would have to thank the Tiger for, damn it. He still wanted to be pissed at her, but she wasn’t the one he needed to fight. He had to discover who’d put a bounty on Chloe’s head, after he was certain his little Hobbit was safe and sound.
“I did. Or if not me then at least Chloe.” She stared into his eyes, her own pained. “I was shot while looking for the keys so I could get Chloe to the hospital.” She shook. “I haven’t been that afraid since I was ten.”
The scent of her fear filled the room. His Bear reared, ready to eviscerate the threat.
“Shh.” Dainty hands curled around his arms. “Please, Barney. For me?”
He blinked, his Bear backing down immediately. “I will keep you safe.”
She smiled and snuggled against him despite wires and medical tape. “I know.”
And that was all she wrote for James “Barney” Barnwell. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had leaned so trustingly against him. When was the last time someone had been genuinely glad to see him? His parents, who’d died three years ago? No one was ever happy to see him. He was their pain in the ass trainer, the one they called only when they were in trouble. He wasn’t invited to family barbecues, he was asked to join Hunts gone bad.
Barney stroked her hair, listened to her content little sigh, and fell down a hole he’d never intended to even see in his lifetime.
Damn it. It was bad enough he had a mate, but to fall in love with her? That sucked big hairy donkey balls. “I’ll be here every day, so don’t go dancing without me.”
“Can you?” She tilted her head back, the dark circles under her eyes more prominent now that she was so close. “I mean, you have to work.”
“Nothing can keep me away from you.” He kissed her, careful to keep it soft and sweet. She was hurting, and he wasn’t going to add to her pain. “Now. How about a rousing game of Tic-Tac-Toe?”
She shook her head, her smile weary. “I think I might sleep some more.” She lay back down with a tiny yawn.
This wasn’t how he’d envisioned seeing her hair spread out beneath her for the first time, but he wasn’t going to complain. She was alive, and that was all that mattered. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake.”
Her bloodshot eyes closed on a sigh, but one of those small hands of hers had a grip on his arm stronger than steel. She might as well have wrapped it around his heart, because from now on it beat only for her.
Chapter Nine
Heather flipped channels on the hospital TV, bored out of her mind. She’d been in the hospital for two days now, and each successive day made her want out in the worst way. But until the doctor cleared her, no one would let her leave. Even Julian was coming down on the side of the doctors, refusing to take her home no matter how much she begged. Cyn wouldn’t allow him to come to the hospital more than necessary. Once they’d made sure that neither Chloe’s nor Heather’s lives were in danger he’d waited around long enough to deal with Barney’s Bear before heading for home and some rest.
She understood, since she had family who were Bears. For a normal Bear, being in a hospital made them…itchy. They wanted to help, to heal, even though they could only heal minor wounds. But for Julian, that itch was unbearable. If left on his own he’d go from room to room, draining himself to death taking care of the sick. He’d almost killed himself more than once healing those he cared for. Cyn was the only one who could stop him, and she did, demanding he save his powers for those truly in need.
But it didn’t make Heather’s situation any better. The wound ached and itched at the same time, and her boredom was about to reach new heights. Her parents, aunts and uncles visited all the time, but they worried over her until she was ready to pull her hair out in frustration. Keith and Tiffany were bearable but didn’t stay long enough to counteract their parents. Those visits were usually accompanied by some minor healing from her Bear relatives, but it would still take time for her to be fully functional again.
To make things worse, the shot was to her dominant side, so she couldn’t even draw. The desire to put pencil to paper was a worse itch than her wound.
“Knock knock.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Barney.” Finally, someone who wasn’t going to fuss over her and make her feel worse. She grinned, eager to see what her mate had in store for her today. The day before he’d brought Yahtzee and played with her until visiting hours were over, chatting casually with her family as they came in and out of her room. When he was there, they barely fussed at all.
If she could, she’d strap him to the bed and never let him out until they released her.
He held up a deck of cards and a wooden board. “Think you can play Cribbage?”
She frowned, intrigued. “What’s that?”
“It’s easy, but it takes some strategy to win. Interested?”
She shrugged, wincing a bit at the pull in her stitches. “Sure, why not?”
“Good.” He pulled the hospital table over her lap, then sat down on the bed, facing her. He opened the cards first, shuffling them. “I deal out six cards. You choose two to take out of your hand, and I choose two. This forms the crib, and gives the dealer extra points.”
“Well that’s not fair.” She pouted up at him and wiggled the fingers of her right hand. “I’m not sure I can deal.” She was in a sling to keep her shoulder still.
“I’ll shuffle and deal for you.” He dealt out six cards. “This is called a Cribbage board.” He placed four pegs into the board, two silver, two gold. The pegs were placed one behind the other. “You’re gold.”
“Okay.” She didn’t care what color she was. She could be chartreuse if he got rid of her boredom.
“So, here’s how you play…”
Heather frowned in concentration as he explained the rules. It was all about counting and points and moving the pegs around a wooden board, with extra points awarded for different things like a run of numbers or making fifteen. “You’ll correct me if I make a m
istake?”
He shrugged. “The first couple of rounds, sure.” He shuffled the cards quickly and efficiently. “After that, you’re on your own.”
She eyed him for a moment as he started doling out cards. “You play this a lot, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Sometimes the job is to babysit someone, like when I trained Gabriel. It helps to have different games you like to play that can be done with two players. And this one I really enjoy, so I talk everyone I can into playing it.”
She smiled, pleased that he wanted to share one of his favorite pastimes with her. “Then let’s play. I want to learn how to kick your butt.”
He chuckled. “You can try, newbie.”
They played quietly for a while, Barney correcting her as she learned the game. Heather was enjoying herself more than she wanted to admit, groaning when the cards didn’t go her way and laughing like a lunatic when they did. Barney watched her with open affection, touching her hand or stroking her hair and making her blush. By the time they’d finished the first game, she could picture doing this with him on quiet nights, sipping wine and just enjoying each other.
“What has you smiling like that?” Barney’s tone was soft as he reset the pegs.
She shrugged, unwilling to share her vision of a happy life with him. “Nothing.”
“Mm-hm.” He shuffled the cards, dealing them out deftly. Barney was turning out to be remarkably gentle despite his size and growly exterior.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t without his own worries, and it was her job as his mate to try and ease them. “How’s the investigation going? Have Derrick and Casey Lee gotten back to you?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, but they’re having a hard time getting anything out of anyone. Since they aren’t Hunters, they don’t have instant access to people the way I do, so they have to do things differently. Add in the fact that they can’t tell anyone why they’re questioning them, and it gets awkward fast.”
“What do you mean they’re doing things their way?” Heather had barely met the mercs, and what she’d seen made her uneasy. Chloe trusted them, but Heather wasn’t so sure. Casey Lee was funny, but Derrick? He looked like he ate babies for breakfast and drank kitten smoothies just because.
“They’re probably doing things I’d rather not know about. I prefer to do things the legal way, or at least legal by shifter standards.” He sighed, putting his cards on the table. “I feel like I’m running around in circles, and all the answers are somewhere in a square or an octagon.”
She bit her lip, uncertain what to do for him. He looked so frustrated she wanted to help in the worst way. “Is there anything I can do?”
His gaze bored into her. “Just talking to you helps.” He made a disgruntled face, glancing away from her. “That sounds so fucking lame.”
She patted his hand. “I liked it. Very suave.”
He chuckled and turned back to her. “I try.” But the humor didn’t last long. “I keep thinking that if I can figure this all out then everything will be fine, but I know that’s wrong.”
She squeezed his hand, hoping to convey her feelings, confused though they were. “Gabe and Alex both told me this thing with the white shifters has been going on for longer than any of us thought. This goes deeper than just Chloe or Julian.”
He stared at her intently. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She blinked, startled. “Me?”
Barney nodded. “What’s going on in that little Hobbit brain of yours?”
“I keep telling you I’m not that short. And I swear my toes aren’t hairy.” She made sure the blanket covered her feet, just in case he decided to check. There might be a little fuzz on her big toes, but he didn’t need to know that.
He smiled, but didn’t comment.
“You sure you want to know what I think?”
He nodded firmly. “Give it to me.”
She took a deep breath. “Why are they going after white shifters? And why children of mixed parentage? What’s the connection between them? They’re killing kids, Barney. There has to be a connection there somewhere.”
“You think there’s something linking white shifters and mixed blood?”
Heather shrugged. “You have a better idea?”
“It’s something to look into.” Barney freed his hand and scratched his chin. “It’s definitely something I can have Derrick and Casey Lee look into. I’ve had the same thought, but I didn’t want to focus all my attention in that direction in case I was wrong.”
She could understand that. It made sense not to get hooked, only to find out the trail you’d been following led to a dead end. “Birth and death records should be easy to access.”
“If there’s a greater instance of white shifters among those of mixed parentage it would explain why they’re going after those kids.”
She held up her hand. “There’s one problem, though. Chloe’s of mixed blood, but the Kermode are not.”
Barney held up his finger as if making a point. “But not all Kermode have Kermode children. They bite their mates, and if they’re human the spirits determine what kind of shifter their mate becomes. They might not even become a Bear.”
“Really?” She’d never heard of such a thing. As far as she knew, if you bit a human, they became the same kind of shifter as you. A Fox created a Fox, a Bear created a Bear. “Does that mean that Chloe could bite someone and have them become, say, an Ocelot?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
“Then maybe we should find one.”
He gently tapped her forehead. “What’s this ‘we’ shit? Your Hobbit ass is sitting right here and recovering, end of subject.”
“I can still use my brains, big guy. Trust me, the last thing I want to do is face another gun.” She shuddered, remembering last night’s nightmare. She’d been frozen, staring at the barrel of a gun that seemed the size of her head. There’d been no one there to save her, to keep her from—
Heather gasped as Barney pushed aside the hospital table and grabbed hold of her. He hugged her tight, his chin resting on top of her head. “Nightmares again?”
She nodded, unwilling to speak.
He grunted. “Would it help if I told you how brave you were?”
“Nope.” She snuggled in, sniffing at his shirt. His scent soothed her, driving back the memory of the nightmare. “Just…hold me for a sec.”
His grip tightened. “Can do, sweetheart.”
Barney sat with her, silent and still, the only sound his heartbeat and the hum of the machines she was hooked up to. The quiet, patient care he was showing her touched her far more deeply than any growl or snarl of protection could ever hope to. This contentment was something she’d thought she wouldn’t have with him.
She’d been wrong, and she couldn’t be happier about it.
“What are you smiling about?”
The smile she hadn’t even known she had widened. “It’s a secret.”
He grumbled a bit, but even that was somehow adorable. And that, too, was a secret she’d never tell him.
“I have to wonder, was the attack on you when you were a child meant to kill you?”
“What do you mean?” She didn’t understand what he was saying, but a shiver worked its way down her spine.
“When you were attacked and Alex saved you. Is it possible you were targeted because you’re mixed blood?” Barney’s arms tightened around her, making it difficult to breathe.
“That’s…scary.” She pushed against him and he eased his hold. “That’s super scary.”
“Yeah.” He rested his chin on her head and began rocking her. It wasn’t clear to her if he was comforting her, or himself. “Adrian has set guards on your door. Chloe’s too.”
“I saw.” The Pumas had waved to her, both of them ensuring her that they were volunteers. One even mentioned having
protected the Poconos Pack Luna when she’d been severely injured saving Adrian Giordano’s mate, Sheri, from being run down. “So Max knows what’s going on.”
“And if Max knows, then the Little General knows too. Don’t be surprised if you get a visit from her.”
She laughed at Barney’s description of the female Alpha of the Puma Pride. Emma Cannon was known for her bossiness, but she had a heart of gold. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Lord help us all,” Barney muttered into her hair.
Chapter Ten
Barney pulled into the hospital parking lot, wondering if today they’d finally let Heather go. Heather had been due to be released from the hospital the day before, but because she’d run a fever in the night they’d decided to keep her for at least a day or two longer. An infection wasn’t something to fuck around with, but at least she was in the right place to deal with it.
While he understood their concerns, Barney just wanted his mate out of the hospital. He was sick of the smell of the place. It lingered on his skin, in his hair, and nothing he did seemed to get rid of it. And it had to be worse for Heather. As a Fox, her nose was more sensitive than his. The antiseptic smell must be stinging her sinuses like crazy.
Once she was cleared to leave the hospital, Barney could get back on the trail of the Senator or Senators who’d hired the fucker to harm his mate. Oh, Barney would love to get his paws on the man who’d shot her, he really would. He’d shove the man’s head up his ass the hard way. Backward. But the gunman was only a footnote in a bigger problem. To catch the real person who’d hurt his mate, he needed to find the one who’d put the bounty out on Chloe. He was certain he’d find that person somewhere in the Senate.
He parked in the first clear spot he could find, eager to get inside and see his mate. Visiting hours were just beginning, and he had plans to spend the whole day with her. The boredom was tough on her, leaving her with only her own thoughts and fears for company. Her parents tried to soothe her, but for some reason it didn’t seem to be working. She was tense and pale until Barney walked through her door. Only then did she seem to relax. Was it because he was her mate, or because he was a Hunter?
Indirect Lines: Halle Shifters, Book 5 Page 7