by Anna Lowe
“Shit,” she blurted, staring at the dead end.
She turned to retrace her steps, then backed up slowly. If she ran straight out, she might bump into Jonathan or Lamar. She backed away, then whirled and tried a side door. Locked. The next one was locked too, and the one beyond that. Finally, she ran into the second to last shop on the right — a sports store. The girl at the sales counter barely looked up as Hailey rushed in and continued through the pair of saloon doors at the entrance to the changing rooms. The narrow hallway had stalls on each side and a window at the end. A big, wide window she could easily fit through, if only it weren’t too high to reach, not to mention two stories up. Mall sounds drifted up through it — footsteps, chatter, the rattle of a delivery trolley.
Hailey froze, undecided. A second later, she ducked into one of the changing stalls. The curtain screeched as she yanked it closed, and she winced.
Shit. Now she really was cornered. The area went still but for the distant sounds of shoppers, and Hailey buried her face in her hands in one of those I wish I could teleport myself into a new life moments she’d started experiencing lately. But this certainly took the prize.
Big mistake. A huge mistake…
She snorted. Running into the changing room was the least of many recent mistakes. She closed her eyes, vowing to get her life under control ASAP.
Over the next few minutes, everything remained quiet, though her heart barely slowed down. It would take a massive stroke of luck to go unnoticed by Jonathan, Lamar, and the others. Maybe she should have stayed out in public, because who knows what would happen if they found her behind closed doors? Jonathan had never been violent with her, but his piercing eyes had made her wonder how far he would go to get what he wanted. And Lamar… She shivered. Lamar had always scared her.
Maybe she should try the window. Maybe there was a fire alarm she could pull. Maybe she could—
The saloon doors squeaked, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. Quickly, she pulled her feet up and out of sight.
All she could see was the tiny cubicle of the stall, but she could hear the saloon doors swing on their hinges as someone came in. Slowly, the doors stilled, and nothing moved — including whoever had pushed those doors open. That person had to be standing just inside the doors, listening as closely as she was.
Obviously, it wasn’t a woman coming to try something on. The steps had come in heavy clomps, indicating a person in boots.
Her mind whirled. Not Jonathan, then. He would have burst in yelling her name. Was it Lamar?
Every hair on her body stood in alarm as the steps advanced, one sure clomp after another. Left. Right. Left. Right. The boots came to a stop in front of the stall beside hers, and the curtain moved.
Her hands shook as she looked up. She would never be able to climb over the divider without being spotted. She’d be caught. Exposed. Helpless.
The steps shifted sideways, and she caught a brief glance through the gap between the curtain and the edge of the stall. A piece of gray clothing flashed past, bulging with muscle. She saw combat boots. Thick legs and huge, chiseled arms.
Her mind spun. Had Lamar been wearing short sleeves?
The steps stopped directly in front of her stall until all she could see were the worn toes of those boots. The curtain rustled, and she cringed. The room grew quieter still — a silence she was sure would be broken by a shout at any time.
I found her, whoever that was would yell out, calling the others in. Then he would thrust the curtain aside, yank her out, and—
Hailey squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the worst.
Chapter Three
It wasn’t every day Tim entered the ladies’ changing rooms. But the second he’d seen the woman with the piercing blue eyes, something in his soul stirred. When she’d glanced around the mall in terror, his inner grizzly had growled to life. And when she’d started running, he’d nearly run too.
Help her. Save her. Keep her safe, something deep inside him screamed.
Which was crazy, because bears didn’t charge into action before thinking things through. Bears didn’t so much as unsheathe their claws without considering all options, exits, and backup plans. They were the quiet observers, the ones who said afterward, I told you so.
Well, okay — maybe he’d gotten into hot water a few times in spite of that. But that was in his younger, wilder days. His first two tours of duty had worn that out of him pretty quickly, and most of the messes he’d gotten into after that were a result of sticking close to his brothers, not his own hotheadedness. He was the one who tagged along to make sure things didn’t get entirely out of control, and the one who saved their asses when whatever stupid idea they came up with didn’t go according to plan.
So, what the hell was he doing, going all Lancelot with a woman he didn’t know?
Sit, damn it, he had ordered his bear back when he’d first spotted her. Calm down.
There was no reason to get mixed up in someone else’s business. For all he knew, the woman had been shoplifting. But his bear had roared and rampaged, tearing him apart. His human side might have learned to play by the rules, but his animal side still tended to rebel from time to time. The beast didn’t rile easily, but when it did…
Get moving already, it growled.
No, he would not. He was more human than bear, and he lived in a human-dominated world. He was in a food court, for goodness’ sake, not a war zone. And frankly, he didn’t have to be a hero anymore. He didn’t want to be a hero, because he’d learned the hard way that there wasn’t a nice, clean line between good guys and bad guys. More like a blur, and if a man wasn’t careful, he could find himself fighting for the wrong side.
He crossed his arms. The bear could rebel all it wanted. It wasn’t getting its way now.
But, Jesus. The beast was hollering and kicking like never before.
She needs us, and we need her.
That was the most preposterous part. He didn’t need a perfect stranger. And he wasn’t about to lumber after a woman like a wild animal in heat. So he had forced himself to sit at that cramped little table in the food court and look the other way.
That lasted about three seconds, because his bear forced him to turn right back.
Watch! Help!
He gave in the teensiest, tiniest bit. Just enough to try to calm his bear down. Okay, fine.
But he didn’t watch the woman. He watched for what she was running from.
A man yelled from the floor above and started charging down the escalator three steps at a time. A man with ruthless eyes and clenched fists who looked like he was out for blood. Tim could picture him charging through a combat zone, what with that quick, compact way he moved.
Tim sat up a little straighter. Whatever the woman had done, she didn’t deserve what that man was about to dish out.
Two other men followed the first, all of them dressed to the nines, and one of them was cussing.
“Damn it, Hailey…”
Tim glanced over toward the corridor she’d disappeared down. Hailey? Was that her name?
The bear part of his mind went all dreamy, like he’d just licked an entire pot of honey or walked through a grassy meadow filled with spring flowers. The human part, meanwhile, tried to puzzle out why a woman in a nice white dress would be running barefoot through a mall.
Tim pushed his backpack aside with one foot, clearing a little aisle in case he decided to get involved, after all. A woman could run whenever and however she wanted; that was none of his business. But a woman running from two…three…four guys? He’d make that his business, damn it.
The first man — the dangerous one — reached the bottom of the escalator, ran a few steps, then stopped and sniffed. Really sniffed the way an animal would, with his nose turned up a little, his nostrils wide, his eyes half closed.
Tim froze. Like an animal — or a shifter?
He sniffed deeply, but the tangle of scents in the food court was hard to pick apart.
The man with the murderous eyes hesitated at the intersection where the woman had peeled off to the left, and Tim found himself gripping the table. But that man waved to the others rushing up behind him and took off to the right. His accomplices fanned out in different directions, with the one in the fancy gray suit taking the hallway the woman had disappeared down.
Connor, Tim barked to his brother, using the mental connection all closely bonded shifters shared.
But Connor was all the way across Honolulu and too busy to reply.
Just go already, his bear grunted.
Tim cursed and stood, finally giving in. After a quick check of the area, he followed.
“Try this one. It’s a new scent from Chanel,” a saleswoman said, spraying perfume across the wrists of six enthusiastic girls.
To a human, that artificial floral scent might smell subtle, but to a sensitive bear snout…
Tim wrinkled his nose, trying not to gag. The good news was that smell had probably masked the woman’s trail from the man who’d sniffed the air.
His eyes locked on the back of the man stalking down that left branch-off. Video games beeped and pinged from an arcade, and a table of sport shoes stood in front of the next shop. There was a dollar store and a phone place before the hall ended in a set of double doors marked Fire Exit. Alarm will sound. Clearly, the woman hadn’t gone that way. So where was she?
The man in the gray suit peered into each shop, and Tim followed. His bear claws pinched the undersides of his fingernails, itching to be released. He balled his fists, keeping the claws safely tucked away while he—
He whipped around to the left. There, his bear cried. She’s in there.
He looked past the tennis rackets and discount shoes of the sport store. What made the bear so sure? He couldn’t pick out her scent, and there was nothing to indicate she was there.
Believe me, she’s there.
It was weird, how certain he was. The way he could always tell where his brothers were from a sixth sense that was hard to explain.
A phone rang, and Tim watched as the guy in the gray suit stopped to pat his pockets.
“Damn it,” the guy muttered, pulling out a phone. “Hello? Yes. I mean, no. No sign of her yet. What?”
Tim pretended to look at baseball caps while he listened in.
“No. She couldn’t have come through here. Call me back,” Gray Suit barked into his phone. Then he walked back toward the food court, shooting Tim an annoyed look like it was all his fault the woman had run.
You’re the one she was running from, asshole, Tim wanted to say.
But even if he had said something, he doubted the man would listen. He knew that type. The you’re not important enough to exist in my world; therefore, I will ignore you kind. A man of wealth and privilege, judging by the way he barked orders — not to mention the tailored clothes, the smooth shave, and the perfectly manicured nails.
Yeah, Tim noticed the nails. His bear got its cheap thrills by comparing weeny human nails to his own blade-like claws. What could he say? Every shifter species had its own little quirks.
“I’m on the second level,” the man in the gray suit said, walking back to the food court.
Tim dropped the baseball hat and walked into the sports store, sniffing hard. The woman’s scent was easier to track back there. It led him to a narrow hallway with a pair of saloon doors, and beyond them, a row of changing rooms with privacy curtains. He checked the store again, but the two employees took no notice of him, too busy showing each other pictures on their phones. Then he stepped through the saloon doors and stopped, wondering what the hell to do. The woman was in the last booth on the right, if his nose was right. A dead end within a dead end. How did she ever expect to get out of there?
Hailey. Her name is Hailey, his bear grunted.
Christ, he never should have listened to the beast. Now that it had gotten its way, it would never back down.
Hailey needs us. Hurry up, his bear insisted.
He put on his straightest, most expressionless face — an art that had taken years in military hot spots to perfect — and stepped toward the last booth. Her feet didn’t show under the curtain, but he could picture her huddled on the bench with her legs pulled up and a breath caught in her throat.
He inhaled, imprinting her scent in his mind. A flowery scent, like that of the highest mountain meadows in the early days of summer, when bees buzzed everywhere and berries were just beginning to show. But there was fear mixed into that scent too, and it made his bear rage.
When I get my claws on those guys…
Tim flexed his hands, reminding himself that wasn’t the point. Helping the woman — Hailey? — get away from them was.
He stepped in front of the last stall and stopped, scratching his brow. He’d stormed plenty of buildings with his Special Forces unit, not to mention bunkers, military installations, and tunnels. But how exactly did one extract a single woman from a changing booth?
Briefly, it occurred to him that she could have a weapon. That she was the bad guy being chased by good guys, not the other way around. But a split second later, he dismissed the idea. The woman was the one with fear in her eyes, while the men looked as if they were out to kill. Which meant he’d better get moving with Operation Exit Shopping Mall, quick.
“So,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. Failing miserably, because the deep rumble thundered through the silence of the changing area. “You can stay in there all you want. None of my business.”
Except she felt like his business, damn it, although he had no idea why.
“But there are at least four guys after you,” he went on. “And I reckon you’ve got five minutes, tops, before they figure out which way you went.”
Something moved behind the curtain, and a second later, she spoke. “Only four guys?”
Tim grinned. Spunky little thing, wasn’t she? Behind the snark in her voice, though, came the uneven scratch of fear.
“Call it approximate.” He squinted at the curtain, wishing he could see through it because he’d forgotten what she looked like. Her eyes were the only part that had stuck in his mind — a pure, rich blue, like the spring sky over the Rockies. “Four guys, at least, on this level of the mall. And yeah, I’d say you have about five minutes, give or take.”
“And you are…?”
He tilted his head. Even backed into a corner, she managed to keep her shit together. “Timber Hoving,” he said. “You’re Hailey, right?”
The air went very still. “How do you know that?”
He rolled his eyes. If she knew how much he could find out if he ever decided to really investigate, she’d freak out.
“I heard one of them say as much. The guy in a gray suit who’s in love with himself — and possibly his phone.”
The woman huffed. “Jonathan. Of course.”
Of course? She sounded pretty fed up with the guy. Was he her boss?
He looked at the curtain then at his watch. “Listen, are you coming or not?”
A pensive silence ensued. “Coming…where? With whom?”
“Coming with me. Getting the hell out of here.”
“You know a way out?” Her voice rose in hope. Hope he was already terrified of dashing if he somehow messed up.
He scrubbed his chin. Yeah, he did know a way out, but he doubted she’d like what he had in mind.
A hand appeared at the edge of the curtain, and she peeked then hid again, leaving him grasping at the details that had just flashed before his eyes. Blue eyes. Blond hair. Strong, sharp cheekbones covered with freckles he wished he had time to count.
“Why should I trust you?”
She was trying to sound tough, but her voice wobbled a little, and his heart ached at the loneliness in it.
He ran a hand through his hair. Why should she trust him?
He shrugged. “You just can. I promise.”
And, he supposed, because she had no choice.
The thing was,
it felt like he didn’t have a choice either. He simply had to help her because…because…
Destiny, his bear whispered.
He took a deep breath and decided not to examine that sentiment too closely. Not now, with so much rushing through his mind.
For a few quiet seconds, time ticked by. Then the curtain opened with a metallic zing of rings over a steel rod, and the woman glowered at him. Hands on her hips, chin stuck up, eyes shooting bullets as if he were the guy who’d chased her into there, not the guy who wanted to get her out.
Don’t let me down, those eyes blazed. Don’t you dare let me down.
His chest tightened, and his shoulders squared the way they would when his unit got assigned one of those Mission: Impossible operations no one else had a hope in hell of carrying out. This felt just as life-and-death — and just as heavy on his shoulders.
Which was crazy. She was a perfect stranger. And yet her trust struck a bull’s-eye in the one soft spot left on his heart.
She was lean — too lean, really — and a good five inches under his height. Still, she glared like he was the one who’d better watch out.
“Let’s say I decided to trust you,” she said. “What then?”
He sucked in a deep breath, trying not to get lost in those amazing eyes. Then he clicked his jaw a few times. Focus, damn it. Focus on getting her out.
His mind spun through the options one more time, and the same series of steps jumped out as his best plan.
“Wait here one second,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter Four
The woman — Hailey — squeaked in protest, but Tim strode back to the main area of the sports shop. His choices were limited, but hell. He grabbed a sweatshirt off one rack and several pairs of shorts off another, then hurried back to the changing area and thrust them at her.
“Pick something. Hurry.”