More voices were speaking now. Lance was talking with one of his crew members about sending someone to get new clothes. That’s when it dawned on Caroline that all of the bear shifters must be naked right now, since their clothes were shredded when they shifted. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment at the realization that four naked men were walking around a few feet away from her, and she tried to press herself even flatter against the wall, thinking that the men would feel awkward about her seeing them without clothes.
But her assumptions about their awkward feelings were wrong. A minute later, Lance and two of his crew members appeared next to her hiding place, all naked as the day they were born and seemingly oblivious to the fact that their manhood was on full display for Caroline. And what a sight that was. They were all well-endowed, and all had perfect muscles. Caroline would have laughed, if it hadn’t felt so wrong to do so in the middle of a room where two people had just died. She almost felt like she had stepped into a sexy male calendar photo shoot or something. She turned her head and averted her eyes. That’s when Lance knelt in front of her, gently using his finger to nudge her face back in his direction.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Caroline said. “They made a lot of threats, but they didn’t do anything more than squeeze my ribs a little too tightly. Sorry I didn’t leave like you asked. I was just worried they would get away and you wouldn’t be able to find them before they found you.”
Lance chuckled softly. “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? I have the feeling that no one tells you what to do?”
Caroline smiled sheepishly. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve taken orders from anyone.”
Lance ran his finger down Caroline’s cheek affectionately. “It’s good to be stubborn sometimes,” he said. “Just try not to let that stubbornness put you in such a dangerous situation next time.”
Caroline nodded.
“I imagine you have a lot of questions,” Lance said. “And I definitely want to answer them for you, but we’ve got to get this mess cleaned up and make sure the bartender is taken care of. Why don’t you go home for now. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you as soon as I’m done here with the guys.”
Caroline couldn’t resist a teasing jab at Lance. “Oh, so was this all just some elaborate ploy to get my number?”
Lance laughed. “I’m not that desperate.”
Caroline grinned. “Do you have something to write with?”
“Uh, hold on,” Lance said, then glanced at one of the guys standing behind him. “Ben, can you grab me a pen and paper?”
Ben nodded and left, then came back a few moments later with a permanent marker and cardboard coaster. “Best I could find,” he said.
“It’ll work,” Lance said, then turned his attention back to Caroline. “Okay, shoot.”
Caroline gave him her number, and then Lance helped her up. She grabbed her damaged phone from where it had fallen on the floor a few feet away, relieved to see that it still worked, but annoyed that it had been damaged. Lance led her to the front door and out to her car, walking next to her to shield her from the view of the dead bodies. He had grabbed her messenger bag, which she realized when she got to her car and needed her keys.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the bag from him and fishing in it for her keys. The adrenaline from the last few hours suddenly seemed to hit her all at once, and her hands started shaking as she moved to unlock her car door.
“Are you okay to drive?” Lance asked, glancing down at her hands. His voice sounded husky and concerned, and Caroline felt her heart skipping a beat. She told herself to stop being ridiculous. Why would she change her mind about pursuing a relationship with him just because he had killed two people in front of her? That didn’t make any sense.
He saved your life, a little voice in her head whispered. Caroline frowned. Well, that was one way to look at it. Although part of why her life needed saving was that she had accidentally gotten tangled up with someone who had some sort of beef with him. She had been minding her own business at the bar. Okay, she hadn’t been totally minding her own business. But it was a public place, and last she checked eavesdropping was not a crime.
“Caroline?” Lance asked, bringing her back to the moment. He was still waiting for an answer.
“I’m fine. A little shaken up, sure. But I can manage the drive home alright. It’s only a few minutes from here.”
“Alright,” Lance said, sounding only slightly appeased. “Be careful. I’ll call you as soon as we’re done here, okay?”
“Okay,” Caroline said, unlocking her car and slipping into the driver’s seat. Before she could shut the door, Lance stopped her and leaned into the doorframe.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I promise,” Caroline said. The way Lance was leaning over her car, his naked dick was just below her eye level. She couldn’t help stealing a few glances at it, marveling at how large it was. Lance seemed oblivious to her attention, or to the fact that he was still naked. He reached his hand into the car to brush a few strands of hair out of Caroline’s face.
“Okay. Be careful,” he said. Then he leaned in and gently kissed her on the lips. He lingered there for a few beats before pulling back and shutting the car door. With a little wave, he turned and headed back into the bar.
Caroline sat for several long moments with her hands gripping the steering wheel. Her stomach had filled with a frenzied flurry of butterflies, and her heart was once again pounding in her chest. She should have stopped him from kissing her, but once her lips had touched his, she had been unable to think about anything except how amazing he felt.
“Damn it, Caroline,” she said aloud to herself, then sighed. “Get your shit together. Stop falling for him just because he’s perfect.”
But as she revved her car’s engine and drove away from the bar, she knew it was too late.
She had already fallen.
Chapter Eight
Lance walked back into the bar, which now had a “Closed” sign hanging on the front door. The bartender had gone home, leaving Lance and his men to clean up the mess they had made. Lance had done his best to calm down the bartender, worried that the man was going to call the cops and tell the police that he had just seen men turning into bears and murdering people. A call like that to the authorities could have unleashed a shit storm on the pandas, but, thankfully, the bartender hadn’t been interested in contacting the police. In fact, his biggest concern seemed to be keeping the police away from his bar. Lance suspected the bartender had his own secrets to hide, and so he reassured the man that everything would be taken care of. The evidence of the two men who had been killed would be removed. Lance would wire the bartender plenty of money to cover the cost of repairing the broken chairs and tables, along with a little extra for his troubles, and the matter would be closed. The bartender seemed happy enough with this, and Lance had crossed his fingers that no further trouble would come from this situation.
“What a mess,” Ace said when he glanced up and saw that Lance had reentered the bar. “I hope that transfer to Alaska goes through, because all these attacks lately are making me pretty uncomfortable. I think our enemies are closer to finding us than we’d like to admit.” Ace tossed some clothes in Lance’s direction. While Lance had been dealing with Caroline and the bartender, Brett had gone to pick up replacement clothes for the group.
“I agree,” Ben said, as he swept up shards of glass from where several liquor bottles had been knocked over. “And, also, what the hell, Lance? Why didn’t you tell us about this girl?”
Lance sighed. “It’s a long story,” he said.
“We’ve got time,” Brett piped in. “We’re going to be here a while cleaning up this mess. Our police contact is on his way over, by the way. I think he’s a little unhappy with getting another request from us to have help covering up dead bodies.”
“Yeah,
another reason we need to get out of here,” Lance said. “I think we’re wearing out our welcome. But, anyway, the girl is a painter. Pretty famous in the art circles around here, from what I understand. She exclusively paints ocean storm scenes, and she did a series recently that incorporated a Coast Guard rescue crew. She painted the face of a crew member into a few of the paintings, and the face looked exactly like mine. I mean, exactly. I saw the paintings, and it was almost like looking at a photograph of myself. Pretty trippy, actually.”
“What the hell,” Brett said. “Did you give her permission to use your face?”
“Well, no. But she claims she didn’t intentionally model the face after me. According to her, it was a complete coincidence. She claims she painted completely from her imagination and it somehow just ended up looking like a carbon copy of me.”
“But you don’t actually believe her, do you?” Ben said. “That sounds like an awfully big coincidence.”
“Well, I’ll admit I was skeptical at first. But I changed my mind. I think she’s telling the truth.”
“Why?” Ace asked.
Lance took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before answering. “My bear wants her,” he said.
Brett whistled. “Seriously? You think she’s your lifemate?”
Lance shrugged. “It’s always hard to say until you mate with someone and confirm the bond, right? But I have a strong feeling that she is. I think she’s connected to me, even though she doesn’t realize it. She painted me because she knew me. Sure, it was on a subconscious level somewhere, but the universe has been trying to bring us together. I think we’re fated for each other, and her painting me without knowing me was a sign for both of us.”
“That still doesn’t explain how she just happened to be here today, eavesdropping on these men,” Ben said.
“Maybe it does, though,” Lance said as he righted a table that had been turned over in the scuffle. “You’ve heard stories about people sensing it when their lifemates are in danger, haven’t you? Maybe she was drawn here because we are lifemates, and she was sensing deep down that she needed to be here, to learn about these men and warn me.”
Ben still look doubtful, although maybe a little less so. “Why didn’t you tell us about her? We might have been able to avoid shifting if we had been a little more prepared for the possibility that we’d be walking into a hostage situation.”
Lance let out another exasperated sigh. “There wasn’t anything to tell. I tried to get her to go out with me, and she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even give me her phone number. I thought I didn’t have a chance with her, barring some big intervention from the universe. Which I guess just happened, although I’m not sure what she saw today is going to make her more likely to want to date me. But, anyway, when she called me to warn me about these guys, I told her they were extremely dangerous and that she needed to leave the bar. Obviously, she completely ignored my advice. I would have warned you guys if I had thought there was actually a chance she’d still be here. I guess I underestimated her.”
“I guess so,” Ace said, raising an eyebrow in Lance’s direction. “And now she knows our shifter secret. Do you think she’ll tell anyone?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Lance admitted. “I don’t know her that well, despite the fact that we seem to be connected somehow.”
“I think you should go talk to her right away,” Ace said. “Let the three of us take care of this mess here. You need to go make sure we don’t have a loose cannon on our hands.”
“I feel badly leaving you guys alone here,” Lance said.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll have bigger messes to clean up if your girl goes to the police,” Brett said.
“She’s not my girl,” Lance said. “As much as I wish she was.”
“Whatever. Just go. Deal with it, okay?” Ben said, his patience clearly wearing thin.
Lance nodded, and wiped his hands off on his jeans. He grabbed his keys and made his way to the door, thankful that he had insisted on bringing his own vehicle when they headed out to deal with this threat. He climbed into the driver’s seat, then rested his forehead on the steering wheel for a moment.
How the heck had his life become so complicated so quickly? For several years, things had been humming along smoothly. No one seemed to know where the panda shifters were hiding out, and Lance hadn’t had anything to worry about except working hard at his Coast Guard job, which he loved. But now that the threat of the scientists was back, and more malicious than ever, Lance was feeling the strain of trying to live as a shifter among humans.
He could have dealt with the pressure, if his life had been the only one at risk. But now there was Caroline. Ever since the day he met her, his bear had been on constant high alert. Despite Lance’s comment to his crew that you never knew for sure whether someone was your lifemate until you mated with them, Lance knew. He couldn’t deny the strength of his feelings for Caroline, and there was no doubt in his mind that they were fated to be together. When she had called him at the Coast Guard station earlier that day, his bear had gone into a frenzy. Lance had tried hard not to panic, but the thought of anything bad happening to Caroline had torn his insides to shreds.
And, of course, destiny would decide to bring him his lifemate in the middle of a shifter crisis so severe that his crew was about to move to Alaska. He doubted Caroline would want to leave San Diego, where her art was so well known, and move to frigid Alaska. Especially when moving there would involve danger from threats that Lance himself didn’t even know the extent of yet.
Lance lifted his head off of his steering wheel and reached into his pocket to pull out his cell phone and the cardboard coaster on which he had written Caroline’s number. He entered the digits and hit the call button, crossing his fingers that Caroline would be willing to talk to him. He was encouraged by the fact that she hadn’t pushed him away when he kissed her earlier, but he was fully aware that she had been in shock at that moment. He hoped that now that she’d had a little time to process everything that had happened, she wouldn’t refuse to speak to him or, worse, decide that she needed to report to the police that bear shifters were on the loose in San Diego.
The phone rang several times, until Lance was sure the call was going to go to voicemail. But then, Caroline came on the line.
“Hello?” she sounded tired, but just as sweet as ever. The very sound of her voice instantly put Lance’s heart at ease—another sign that his suspicions about her being his lifemate were correct.
“Caroline, it’s Lance. Can we talk?” Lance asked, resisting the urge to explain the reasons why he thought it was so important for them to discuss what had happened. He didn’t want to overwhelm her before he even convinced her to meet with him.
“Yeah,” she said. “I have a lot of questions.” Her voice seemed quiet and resigned.
“Where do you want to meet? I’m happy to come to your place, and you’re more than welcome to come over to my condo. Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”
“I’ll come to you,” she said. “What’s your address?”
Lance gave her the address, and she said she’d be there in about forty-five minutes. After Lance hung up the phone, he took a deep, nervous breath and then turned his car on to make the drive to his condo.
When he got there, he still had about twenty minutes before she had said she would arrive, and he decided to take a quick shower and change into some of his own clothes. The clothes Brett had brought didn’t fit quite right, and Lance wanted to be clean and comfortable for this meeting.
As he quickly scrubbed the grime of the day off of his skin, he told himself not to get too excited about the fact that Caroline was coming over. His most important job was to make sure that she wasn’t going to out him or his crew as shifters. Any plans for trying once more to convince her to date him had to be pushed to the back burner until he was sure she didn’t pose an exposure threat to his crew.
But despite telling himself this over and over,
Lance couldn’t keep down the stubborn hope that kept rising in his chest. His bear wanted her, and was convinced that he could have her. Lance bit his lip in frustration as he washed the suds from his body and stepped out of the shower to towel off. Why did he have to meet such a perfect, beautiful woman under such difficult circumstances?
Ignoring the little voice in his head telling him that he shouldn’t be worrying about what to wear, he spent several minutes carefully choosing his outfit. He wanted to look good, but not like he had tried too hard. He chose a pair of relaxed fit blue jeans and a snug fitting gray t-shirt that showed off his bicep muscles nicely. He frowned at himself in the mirror as he took in his appearance. “You’re acting like such a girl,” he said aloud to himself. “She’s coming over here to learn why you change into a panda, and all you can think about is how your outfit looks.”
Lance forced himself to leave the closet and his mirror behind. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he saw that it had been forty-five minutes since he’d called Caroline. She would be showing up any moment. He opened his fridge to see what kind of drinks he had to offer her, disappointed to find that the only beer he had was PBR. Unlikely to impress an artist type like Caroline, he thought. He glanced at his small wine rack, which had two bottles on it right now. A chardonnay and a pinot noir. Should he offer to open a bottle for her? Was that an odd thing to do before launching into a discussion about shifting and evil scientists?
Lance didn’t have long to ponder the question. His doorbell sounded, and he went to open it. “Here goes nothing,” he said, standing as tall as he could and making his way to his front door. He was about to find out whether he actually had even one iota of a chance with the woman destiny had chosen as his lifemate.
An Alpha's Thunder (Water Bear Shifters 3) Page 7