by Welsh, Hope
Shifting and searching the wooded area behind her building would have to wait, he decided as he shut the engine off and took sight of at least three people walking their dogs.
Feeling more at ease now that he was at least closer to Lana, he leaned back and closed his eyes. He fell asleep within ten minutes.
“Wolf!”
Cole came to attention as if a gun had fired next to his ear. He quickly looked around the car, half expecting to find someone sitting in the passenger seat. When he found it empty, he widened his search and glanced outside to make sure there wasn’t someone there playing a joke on him.
He didn’t know whose voice he had just heard, but it had a familiar ring to it—almost like Lana’s voice, but not quite.
Satisfied he was alone, and no one outside tried to scare another ten years off his life, he reached for the door handle.
His gaze landed on a wolf at the rear of the apartment complex.
He froze.
Wasn’t that what had woken him in the first place? Someone screaming ‘wolf’ in his head? Dream? Whatever it was.
Cautiously, he opened the car door and got out. It didn’t move until he stood within ten feet of it.
The wolf turned. Cole stopped just short of the edge of the woods and held perfectly still, his eyes intent on the bloodshot red eyes of the wolf. He knew a shape-shifter when he saw one.
Another shifter being in the area—in Lana’s area—caused more questions than it answered. “Who are you?” he demanded, arms crossing over his chest as he spoke.
Of course, it didn’t answer. Instead of changing back to human form, the wolf vanished before his eyes. How was that even possible?
Right now, that didn’t matter. Lana was in danger, no doubt about it, and the disappearing shifter added a whole new layer to the equation.
How long had the wolf been there? Had it gotten to Lana before the shout wakened him? He ran the short distance around to the front of the building and pounded on her door, the sound echoing in his head. “Lana!” God, he’d only fallen asleep for a few minutes. What if he was too late? He heard the chain rattle and exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, his relief palpable. He forced his heartbeat to go back to normal.
“What? What are you doing here?” Lana asked, clearly confused and slightly afraid.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his tone harsher than he intended, despite his attempt to keep it calm.
She frowned. “Of course. You just left here a few hours ago, Cole. Why are you back so soon?”
“Let me in, Lana.” This time he ordered it. “We need to talk.”
Lana stepped aside to allow him entry, never taking her eyes off of him. The door snapped shut. She glared at him, waiting for answers.
“Can we sit down?” What the hell could he say to her? “Gee, Lana, I saw a wolf behind your building, but it disappeared. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” He sighed.
Lana walked toward the kitchen, and he followed. She’d dressed in a similar fashion to his own in beat up jeans and a loose t-shirt. Looks damn good in them, too, he thought idly.
She sat across from him at the table. “What’s going on Cole?” Her tone filled with concern and just an edge of irritation.
He could tell that she sensed his mood and moved to soothe her. He wasn’t nearly ready to explain exactly what he’d seen. “I just decided to come back to check on you. I thought maybe you’d remember something that might figure this mess out.”
The look in her eyes told him she didn’t buy his excuse, but at least she didn’t question it. “I don’t know what’s going on.” She paused a moment and gave him a determined gaze. “But you do. I can see it, Cole. Just tell me.”
He studied her, trying to decide how much to tell her. The hell of it was he could sense her confusion. Almost as if he could feel what she felt, which had never happened before. There seemed to be some kind of invisible connection between the two of them, but he wasn’t ready to analyze it just yet.
“Think, Lana. Did your mom say anything to you that might lead you to think she was in danger?”
She frowned, and her brows furrowed in concentration. “No. She just seemed to be anxious for some reason. But she never said anything about it or what caused it.”
There was some detail missing, he was sure. Could she be keeping information from him? It wasn’t that he thought she was lying, but she wasn’t giving him the entire truth. “Lana, something is going on here—something dangerous. Someone is after you and we have to out whom and why. If there is anything that you’re not telling me, now is the time to spill it.”
“I don’t want to, but I think you’re right. What I know isn’t important, and you’d never believe me if I told you,” she said quietly, looking past him. “Look, you’re a P.I., right? Just think of this as you would any other case and believe me, I swear if I knew anything, or even suspected that anything I knew would help, I would tell you.”
He wanted to sigh, but didn’t. At least maybe now they would get somewhere. “What wouldn’t I believe?” She didn’t answer, so he tried another tactic. “Try me, Lana. You might be surprised what I’d believe.” Especially after seeing a shape-shifter vanish before my eyes, he added silently. One that had no scent, he realized. He should have smelled the shifter—before he even saw it. Another piece to the growing puzzle. He knew she wasn’t a shifter—he would have sensed that, but something about her….
“Last night, I had a dream. At least I hope it was a dream. I heard my mom’s voice. She told me to run. That’s what woke me up, and that’s why I heard the footsteps.” While she explained it, her eyes kept darting past him, but now that she had finished telling it, they dared him not to believe her.
He nodded. Could her mother be sending him messages, too? It would explain why the voice sounded familiar.
This got even more confusing and complicated by the second. “Tell me about your mom, Lana. What did she do for a living?”
Her lips tilted up in a small smile. “She happened to be a psychic, who, on occasion, would work with the police. Not always, but ninety-nine percent of the time, what she saw came true. She was sure I had the ‘gift’, too.” She said it with a tinge of anger and bitterness. “But I don’t, not in the way she did. Sometimes I can sense things, but nothing to the extent of what Mom could. I don’t have visions.”
She had his full attention now. “What did she see?”
“Which time? Cole, she saw things all of the time. She knew of disasters before they happened. A school bus accident, a kid drowning in a pool, my dad’s heart attack. Hell, she saw the planes crash into the World Trade Center a month before and was helpless. Those kinds of things happened all the time. Can you imagine having to see horrific tragedy after horrific tragedy and not being able to help? To not know who to warn?” she asked fiercely. “But what could that possibly have to do with me?”
Concentrating on the first part of what she’d said, he carefully asked, “Lana, do you think your mom might’ve been anxious because she knew that she was going to be killed?”
She shook her head immediately. “One thing she could never do was foresee anything to do with herself. Usually, she didn’t even know things about my dad or me. She said seeing his death had been a fluke. There was no way to stop it. He even went to the doctor for a heart check. What mom saw couldn’t be prevented.”
Cole needed time to put all this together, to collect his thoughts. He wasn’t ready to tell her about the wolf, yet. “Do you have a pot of coffee going? I could use a cup.” That would give him time to think, give her something to do, and have the added benefit of giving him a jolt.
“Sure,” she said and got up to make him a cup.
Brooding, he watched her. Her mother had to be the key. There must be something there that she was missing or not telling him. He tried to sense what she was thinking, but he guessed her mother’s dream warning had been what he’d sensed before.
Then he remembered what she’d said. She’d sensed something going on. Could she read him? He decided on a little test.
This is dangerous. We have to be very careful, he thought, concentrating on projecting the thought.
Her back stiffened. Going by that indicator, he had to say it worked.
She turned around and stared at him a moment before speaking. “What’s wrong?”
“Why do you ask?” He needed to know just how much like her mother she was. He kept his eyes intent on hers as he waited. Then again, she’d never said her mom could sense thoughts or read them—her mother had visions. This was different.
“I don’t know,” she hedged. “I guess I just felt you watching me.”
His look hardened. “Are you sure that’s all it was?”
She sighed. “No. I had the sudden feeling that we’re in some kind of immediate danger.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Lana, you have more of a gift than you realize. I projected that thought to you.”
She paled and put down the cup she’d just poured. “What?”
“Don’t look so shocked,” he said gently. “You had to have suspected something after that dream last night. I don’t know if you can read minds, but you can certainly read strong emotions.”
“No.” Her answer was immediate. “I have good intuition and I can read body language well. I’m not psychic.”
Well, he wouldn’t try to convince her of that just yet, but he had to make her understand. Their safety—her safety—could depend on it. “Lana, I want your promise on something.”
She raised an eyebrow and eyed him warily as she walked back to the table and waited.
“I want your word that you’ll listen to that intuition of yours and that you’ll tell me if you get any more strange feelings, vibes—whatever you want to call it. Promise me,” he insisted, his eyes boring into hers. This was too important for her to try to shove aside or ignore. He didn’t know what the danger would be, but he knew it was there, just as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. Somehow, it involved that damn wolf shifter.
“I don’t know that it would do any good, Cole. If I had any of my mother’s talent, don’t you think I would have known she was in danger?”
The bitterness in her voice surprised him. He reached across the table and touched her cheek. “Not necessarily, sweetheart. You said it yourself: your mom couldn’t always see things about her family and maybe that was passed on, too.” She felt guilty, and he found that it hurt him to see her hurting. That was another thing he’d think more about later.
Her eyes lightened. She apparently had never thought of it that way. “Thank you for that.”
“Anytime, Lana. But now I want your word,” he urged again, determined to have it.
“I’ll tell you,” she assured him.
He nodded and smiled. “Think I could get that coffee now?”
“Crap. Yeah, just a minute.” She went back to the counter and poured another cup for herself and the cup she’d sat down. “Sorry, it slipped my mind.”
“Thanks,” he said as she sat back down. “Did your mom live close to here?”
Sadness flashed into her eyes. “Yes, about half an hour away. She left the house to me, but I couldn’t….”
He took her hand in his. “I understand.” He didn’t want to pressure her—it was the last thing he wanted to do, but if her mother had been involved…. “I think we need to go over there. Maybe there’s more there that will give us some insight as to what’s going on.” He hoped they could find something there—otherwise, they would stay in the dark. Being a good P.I. could only get them so far—he still needed a place to start.
“I….” She took a deep breath. “I haven’t been there since I…I sorted through her things.”
The idea of going to the house didn’t thrill her, but he really believed it to be the next logical step. Somewhere there had to be answers. “You won’t be alone. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important. Did you happen to bring anything of hers here?”
“Just a few things. Some of her jewelry, books, a few special odds and ends.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully for a moment. “Anything like a diary or a journal? That seemed to be a logical place to find some answers, he thought.
“No, I didn’t come across anything like that. I remember when I was a little girl she kept a journal, but I don’t recall seeing it in years. I’m not sure what happened to it, or if she even kept it up. She only started it while she was pregnant with me, she said.”
Her eyes misted, making him feel like a heel for dredging up sad memories. He cursed himself but prodded on. “Could it still be at the house?”
“I doubt it, but I hadn’t finished going through everything.”
It might’ve been a slim shot, but it was the only one they had. “We’ll see if we can find anything.”
“I guess,” she agreed with a shrug.
He watched her, delighting in the movement of the light on her multi-toned hair. God, she had great hair. The same images he’d had before of his hand wrapping in her hair, played back in his mind. Ruthlessly, he shoved them aside. Now wasn’t the time to think of sex—not even great sex, but he knew that when he made love with her—and he would—it would be great. “Good,” he said huskily.
“I have a little bit of work I need to get done before I can go,” she said, resigned.
“You don’t have to come. Would you rather I go alone?” Though he really did not want her left alone, he didn’t want her emotionally hurt either. He could have someone watch her for a few hours. There were a few people he’d worked with in the past that he trusted.
“No,” she said, her back rigid. “I’ll go with you. If there is any kind of clue there, I want to help find it. The animal that killed her needs to pay.”
The hardness in her voice surprised him into a smile. “Good. Have you eaten anything?”
“No, I wasn’t hungry.”
He frowned. She was already a little thing and he doubted she weighed much more than one-ten. “Why don’t you fix yourself something to eat?” he suggested. “We can go later.”
“It’s okay. I’m not really much of a breakfast person, anyway,” she admitted.
Chuckling, he said, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I’ll cook. Do you have any eggs?” The impending search would come soon enough, and he hoped to keep her mind off it as long as possible—plus, he really wanted her to eat something. He’d already eaten, but she didn’t have to know that. She nodded warily and he grinned.
Within ten minutes, he’d prepared them each an omelet. He felt her eyes on him and smiled to himself as he turned off the burner. He’d bet his last dollar that no man had cooked for her before.
He found plates in the dish drainer and put the omelets on them, then pulled the toast from the toaster. It wasn’t much, but it would do. He turned around and found her watching him intently. “What?” he asked as he put the plates on the table.
“You cook!” she accused.
He laughed and sat down. “I eat, therefore I cook,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulders. “My mom made sure I could fend for myself in the kitchen. And if you want the truth, cooking relaxes me.” After she’d taken a few bites, he said, “Well?”
“It’s good,” she admitted, taking another bite.
“Were you worried?” he teased.
“Not with the way you handled yourself. I figured you must know what you’re doing.”
He grew serious. “Yeah, I do,” he said with an edge to his voice. “You’re going to be okay, Lana. I’ll keep you safe.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “I know.”
“Finish up while it’s hot,” he instructed. He watched her surreptitiously as she finished her breakfast. Something brewing there. He could see it, but decided not to ask about it. He couldn’t afford to make her guarded around him. She had to feel safe with him.
Besides the danger, he had to deal with
his attraction to her. He was a healthy thirty-year-old male. He’d felt lust before, but never the kind of hot desire that he felt for this feisty woman. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever felt this kind of almost instant attraction. It went deeper than simple desire or lust. It almost seemed like it was destined.
Could she handle his being a shape-shifter? He knew that most people wouldn’t be able to handle that. Maybe she’d be different though. She’d been raised with paranormal experiences. Still, he kept his shifting ability secret for a reason. Very few people knew about the legacy of his family.
When her plate was empty, he smiled. “Did you like it?”
“It was scrumptious. I can do breakfast, but it’s never tasted like this.”
“Glad you liked it,” he said with a grin.
Lana pushed her plate away with a sigh. “Alright, give me about an hour or so to get some stuff done, then I’ll be ready to go.”
“Sure thing. I’ll just watch some TV and keep myself occupied, if you don’t mind.”
The hour went by fast, and just as the show he’d been watching ended, she walked back into the living room. “I’m done, for now.”
“Okay,” he said as he stood up. “We should get this show on the road.”
She didn’t look happy. “I guess.”
God, he hated to see that light leave her eyes—and it had. In an instant. “It’ll be okay,” he assured her. “Believe that.”
She tilted her chin. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I will do whatever it takes you keep you safe. That’s a promise.” He intended to keep that vow.
“This isn’t your responsibility. If you don’t want to be involved, I’d understand.”
He gave her a sharp look through narrowed eyes. “Do you honestly believe that I’d leave you alone now that I know you’re in danger? After everything you’ve told me and what I’ve seen for myself?” he demanded. Damn it. She tried giving him an out, but her words just pissed him off instead.
He felt the air move around him, thick with tension as he waited for her response.
“Why are you angry?” she whispered in surprise.