by Paige Tyler
Padding over to bed, she picked it up and glanced at the call screen.
“Hey, Emily. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” her sister said. “It’s you I’m worried about. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to you at the restaurant with all the police around, but they said you chased off three guys with automatic weapons? Is that true?”
Eden pulled back the blanket and sat down on the bed, tucking her legs under her. “Not quite. For one thing, I didn’t chase them off on my own—I had help. And only two of the guys had automatic weapons. I fought the other guy hand-to-hand.”
Emily was silent for so long that Eden wondered if they got cut off. “As in hand-to-hand combat? God, Eden, do you even know how badass you are?”
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Eden insisted.
“Luckily. If you hadn’t been there… I don’t even want to think about it.” She sighed. “Thanks for watching out for Brandon. I love him like crazy, but he can’t seem to walk out of the house without getting into some kind of trouble. Thank you for not letting those guys hurt him.”
Eden smiled. “Anytime.”
As she hung up the phone a little while later, she couldn’t help but think about what Emily had said about how easily her fiancé got into trouble. Eden only hoped that “trouble” Brandon got into behind the restaurant didn’t involve her sister.
Chapter Three
“So, you just got out of Special Forces, huh? Do you know Landon Donovan?” Eden asked as they waited for the waitress to bring the enchiladas they’d ordered. Despite all the seafood restaurants in Virginia Beach, she and Travis settled on a nice, quiet Mexican place for dinner.
Travis sat across the table from her, casually rubbing his thumb over the foil label on his beer bottle and looking extremely hot. His well-shaped biceps peeked out from under the short sleeves of his T-shirt, and the material was tight enough across the chest to let her clearly make out the definition of his pecs and hint at his abs. She had no doubt that if she slid her hands under there, she’d find a six-pack worthy of a good, long nibble.
Yet, as good as he looked, the thing hitting her the hardest right then was his scent. He smelled so delicious she could just about smother him in salsa and eat him up. The visual was almost enough to make her purr. She was so caught up in the fantasy she didn’t even know he was speaking until she realized his lips were moving.
“…but yeah, I know him more by reputation than anything else.” Travis was saying.
What had she asked him again? Oh, that’s right. Whether he knew Landon. Her sneaky way of figuring out if Travis had been Special Forces.
“I only actually worked with him once,” Travis continued. “He was in the 5th Group out of Fort Campbell and I was in the 10th out of Fort Carson. We handled different areas of responsibility, so there wasn’t a lot of call for us to work together very often. I knew he was good at his job, though, which was why I was shocked when I heard he’d gotten yanked out of SF to work for the Department of Homeland Security. The rumors floating around last year were that he’d pissed off somebody at SOCOM headquarters and they were sticking him in a dead-end desk job to destroy his career. But now that I’ve met you, I’m thinking maybe that was rumor was false.”
Eden smiled as she sipped her margarita. “Yeah, it was. Landon is definitely not doing a desk job and his career is anything but destroyed. Of course, I can’t really tell you what kind of work he’s doing because then I’d have to kill you.”
Everyone who’d ever dealt with classified information used that silly line about protecting top secret data, but Travis chuckled anyway. He probably would have made a comment, but the waitress arrived with their food.
“Why’d you get out of the army?” Eden asked as she began cutting up her enchilada.
He glanced at her as he picked up his knife and fork. “I loved the work and the people, but in the past eight years, I’ve seen my family for a grand total of twenty-four hours. I have parents out in Texas who are getting older, and a brother who’s married and has five kids. I haven’t even met my two youngest nephews.”
When he looked up at Eden, she was surprised at the amount of pain in his eyes. Her heart tightened a little for him.
“I realized at some point that I was out there saving the world for everyone else while my life was disappearing in the rearview mirror,” he added. “I decided it was a time for a change, no matter how much I loved being Special Forces.”
“I can understand that,” Eden said.
It was hard being away from her family, and she lived a few hours away. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a soldier who was deployed all the time, never knowing when—or if—you’d get to see your family again. She wanted to ask if Travis had a girlfriend, but something told her that he didn’t. For some reason, that made her ridiculously happy
It said a lot about Travis that he was willing to walk away from a career in the army so he could spend more time with his family. Maybe even start one of his own, a little voice whispered in her head. And since when did she start thinking of starting one?
“Are you in Virginia Beach looking for work at one of the navy bases?” she asked.
A big part of her hoped so. Tonight might not lead anywhere, but if it did, he was definitely the kind of guy she could see herself commuting three hours one way to be with.
He nodded. “I’m in town for an interview, but not at any of the bases. There are some SEALs I’ve worked with a couple times who are out of the navy now and own a small private security firm called GAPS. They’re based out of Virginia Beach and currently looking for a guy with my particular talents.”
Eden lifted a brow, a forkful of cheesy enchilada halfway to her mouth. That was cryptic. He obviously knew hand-to-hand combat and how to handle a weapon, but something told her he wasn’t talking about those skills.
“What particular talents are we talking about?” she asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind at all.” He picked up his beer and took a long drink. “The guys are thinking of opening up a side business—a special-operation-themed nightclub featuring half-naked male dancers. They need me to lock down the finale of their nightly show. I do a mean bump-and-grind.”
Eden’s jaw dropped. Not only because his words had shocked her, but because she suddenly had an extremely vivid image of a half-naked Travis suggestively gyrating his hips to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack.” The thought alone was enough to make her drool.
She gave herself a mental shake and got her naughty mind stuffed back in its box. Across from her, Travis smiled.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked.
That question flummoxed her even more, though she couldn’t say whether it was because Travis might have inadvertently stumbled over her shifter nature or because he realized where her mind had been.
“You’re very good at fibbing. For a minute there, I almost believed you,” she said with a laugh. “I have to admit, the idea of seeing you doing a striptease is intriguing.”
His grin widened. “I’m not going to be getting a job at Chippendales anytime soon, but if you’d like to see me half-dressed, all you have to do is ask.”
Eden felt warmth start to swirl in her belly at the sexy glint in his eye, not to mention the not-so-subtle offer. As they gazed at each other, she felt the fire seep lower. Damn. She couldn’t remember a guy who could get her going so fast purely with a little playful banter.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said softly.
She didn’t even realize her fangs had elongated slightly until she ran her tongue over them. That was when she noticed the lights in the restaurant were a little brighter than they should be. Crap, now her eyes were glowing, too.
She dropped her head casually, reaching up with a hand to brush her long hair back from her neck and taking the opportunity to get her inner kitty cat under control. Unfortunately, the move did nothing to quench th
e heat pooling between her thighs. Luckily, that wasn’t something that would send people running for the exits. It was incredibly distracting for her, though.
When she lifted her head again, she found Travis regarding her with that same sexy smolder she’d seen in his beautiful dark eyes last night. Maybe he hadn’t caught the shifter show, or hadn’t been concerned if he had. Her instincts told her it was the latter. He didn’t seem like the kind of man to miss anything.
Eden expected him to use the little slip-up as an excuse to bring up the subject of what he’d seen in the alley behind the restaurant, so she was surprised when he continued the previous conversation like nothing happened.
“Actually, as good as my dancing is, GAPS is more interested in computers skills. I spent most of my teen years writing code and hacking computers for fun. They thought they could use someone like that.”
They weren’t the only ones. A Special Forces troop with mad computer skills? She could see John being very interested in recruiting a person like that into the DCO. Travis was getting more fascinating by the moment.
“Are you going to take the job?” she asked.
He shrugged and loaded his fork with a piece of the beef and cheese enchilada he’d ordered. “I’m not sure yet. They’re good people, no doubt about that, but I don’t know if it’s the right fit for me. I’m still thinking about it. I’m too distracted at the moment to decide.”
“Distracted by what?”
“You,” he said simply, and the word produced another spike between her legs. “What about you? You just in town for your sister’s wedding?”
Eden had never met a man who had the ability to toy with her, then move on to another topic of conversation as if they’d simply been talking about the weather.
“Yes,” she said in answer to his question. “But I grew up here, so I’m getting a chance to spend a lot of time with family and friends, too.”
“I take it you don’t get to come down here from Washington too often?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” she admitted. “I only live about three and half hours up the interstate, but my job makes it hard to visit as often as my parents would like. They’re constantly on me to move down here and get a job at Norfolk or Dam Neck.”
He took a long drink of his beer as he considered that. “Do you like working for Homeland Security?”
She nodded. “It’s a good job and I really fit in there.”
“Because of your special abilities?
Eden didn’t answer right away. Mostly because she didn’t know what the heck to say. Luckily, her cell rang. Saved by the bell.
She pulled her phone out of her purse and glanced at the name displayed on the call screen. She gave Travis an apologetic look. “I need to take this. It’s someone from my office I asked to look into those guys who jumped Brandon and Tim.”
Travis nodded and motioned for her to go ahead. She knew it was rude as hell taking a call on a date, but Kendra might have something important for her. If nothing else, talking to Kendra would give her time to figure out what she was going to tell Travis about her “special abilities.”
“Hey, Kendra. What’d you find out?”
“Not a whole lot yet, but I figured I’d call and fill you in on what I have so far,” her friend said. “First off, I did a background check on Travis Dalton. You’ll be happy to know that he’s clean as a whistle. Top-secret security clearance, impressive military record, and hunky looking as hell, too, which never hurts. So, if you were concerned the whole thing was contrived for Travis to get close to you, I think you can stop worrying about it.”
Eden relaxed in her chair, happy to hear that her instincts about Travis had been right—not that she really ever doubted them.
“Anything on Brandon and Tim?” she asked.
God, she hoped Kendra didn’t say Brandon was crooked. Emily would be crushed—and probably blame Eden for telling her.
“I thought you’d want me to first focus on the guys who jumped you, so I haven’t had a chance to look into your sister’s fiancé and his best man,” Kendra said. “You know, this would go a whole lot faster if I could tell John what I’m doing. Then I could get some of the other intel analysts involved. I can only do so much without arousing suspicion. You sure this isn’t something I can tell him about?”
“I’m sure,” Eden said quickly. “I really don’t want to involve John in any of this. That’s all I need—him sending Clayne Buchanan down here to crash my sister’s wedding. We’d catch the bad guys, all right, but probably burn down the country club in the process. No thanks.”
The DCO’s resident wolf shifter wasn’t quite as surly and difficult to work with as he’d been before getting back together with his former partner-slash-girlfriend, Danica Beckett, but he still didn’t do subtle very well.
“Okay,” Kendra reluctantly agreed. “But I think you’re just making this harder on yourself. John is probably going to find out what you’re up to, no matter what I tell him.”
“I’ll deal with that if it happens,” Eden told her. Across from her, Travis had set down his fork and knife and was waiting for her to finish her call. “What’d you find out about the guys who jumped Brandon and Tim?”
“Well, for starters, the two guys the VBPD have in their lockup are freelance muscle out of New York City. They both have extensive arrest records up there and were apparently brought in specifically for this job. I have them on video coming down the New Jersey Turnpike the day before yesterday. I have no idea who hired them yet, but whoever it was, they must have paid them well. Neither one is saying a word about who brought them in, even though they’re looking at some pretty serious time because of those automatic weapons.”
“And the other three guys?” Eden asked. “The ones who got away.”
“Not much there. The cops found the car they fled the scene in about a mile away from the boardwalk. It was stolen and the whole thing had been wiped clean of prints. I’m doing computer searches of all the local video footage and traffic camera photos I can find, hoping we’ll get lucky. Nothing yet, though. If they took the Turnpike down like the other guys, it wasn’t within the past few days.”
“What about the wolf shifter?” Eden asked.
“Not a thing.”
Dammit. Eden found that hard to believe. The DCO was exceptionally good at finding and keeping an eye on higher level shifters. And that big-ass wolf shifter she and Travis fought in the alley should definitely have been on the DCO’s radar.
“So, what are you going to do now?” Kendra asked.
Eden sighed. “Probably dig around a little more and see what I can uncover.”
“You sure you don’t need some backup?” Kendra asked. “I can get Declan to go down there if you need him. I promise he won’t say anything to John.”
Eden glanced at Travis to find him regarding her with blatant interest. “No, I’m good. I think I have my own backup already in place. Just keep digging for whatever dirt you can find, and call me as soon as you find something.”
“I will.” Kendra promised. “Be careful.”
Eden hung up and put her phone away with an apologetic smile. “Sorry that took so long.”
Travis shook his head. “No problem. Since you mentioned something about the big guy with the claws and fangs being a wolf shifter, I’m going to assume that since you have claws and fangs as well, you’re some kind of shifter, too. Am I right?”
It was while she’d been talking to Kendra that Eden decided to tell Travis everything—at least about herself. She’d let the stuff about the guy in the alley being a wolf shifter slip on purpose, hoping it would make a good segue into the conversation.
Eden chewed on her lower lip. “You sure you want to hear this? Finding out the world is completely different than you think it is can be hard for some people to take.”
She held her breath, part of her hoping he’d say he didn’t want to hear it. Travis might not have freaked out in the alley, but that could b
e because he was a soldier used to seeing things in the heat of battle. What if finding out what she was disgusted him?
“I want to hear it,” he said. “If you trust me enough to tell me.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Yes.”
She really hadn’t needed to hear him say it. She already knew she could trust him. Still, it felt good hearing the conviction in that one simple word.
Eden took a deep breath, then plunged in. “I’m a feline shifter.”
She braced herself, waiting nervously for him to react to the bombshell she’d just dropped.
He nodded thoughtfully, the corner of his mouth edging up. “I should have guessed you were a cat with moves like that.”
Okay, that went better than she thought. “I’m not really a cat. I just have certain naturally-occurring feline genetic material buried deep in my DNA. The scientists where I work think residual animal DNA appears in all of us in the form of a recessive gene. I have the traits of a cat because that gene turned on for some reason.”
“That explains the claws and fangs, as well as the green eyes and the speed,” he mused softly as if she’d just said she was good at spelling or math.
Eden waited for him to say more, but instead, he only picked up his beer and took a long, slow drink. She grabbed her fork and scooped up some of the black beans with their sprinkle of cheese that came as a side with the enchiladas. Travis had to be thinking about what she’d told him. How could he not? He was probably trying to come to grips with the knowledge there were actually things that could go bump in the night out in the world. He hadn’t bailed, though. That had to be a good sign.
“When did you first know you were a cat?” he asked softly.
She smiled, wondering if she should let him on the secret that she couldn’t actually turn into a cat. “The gene turned on when I was eighteen, right before I graduated from high school.”