by Holley Trent
Alex groaned. “So, you haven’t talked to him. You should get to know him.”
“Okay.”
“Is that sarcasm? I’m just trying to help you, Belle.”
“I know you are, but ... there’s a lot in play you don’t understand.” Belle pulled open the door, stepped back out into the front of the diner, and then went to the sink to wash her hands.
Alex shrugged and grabbed her order pad. “If you say so. Steven’s stool is one of yours, by the way.”
Belle suppressed a sigh and made her way to the end of the counter. She drummed the end of her pen against the metal trim and waited for him to look up from his phone. He was scowling at it. Whatever was on the screen must have been particularly bothersome, because he wasn’t much of a scowler. In fact, he was probably one of the most easygoing men she knew.
“You’re not actually hungry, are you?” she asked him.
“I could eat,” he said.
Just to prove to herself that she could, she met his gaze right on.
Easy as pie.
Chocolate pie.
His eyes were a rich brown and old. She never knew what it meant for someone to have “old eyes” until recently when her mother attributed that trait to Lola. There was a depth of wisdom in the goddess’s bottomless dark gaze that couldn’t have been easy to come by. Belle knew for certain Steven was nowhere near as old, but a similar depth was there. Maybe he’d seen things ... and she wondered what.
She tapped her pen some more and gnawed at her bottom lip.
The bells on the front door chimed, and Alex hurried over to the trio of customers and got them seated at one of her window tables. Alex already had enough tables, but she probably thought she was doing Belle a favor.
Typical Alex.
“How’s the corned beef hash?” Steven asked. “I’m still feeling the pull toward breakfast.”
Swallowing, Belle pulled her gaze back to him, and thankfully, he was looking at the menu and not her. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said. “To me, it’s too salty, but as a cat, my taste buds probably aren’t reliable.”
He laced his fingers together and looked up at her.
Gods.
Of course she had to look back.
She closed her eyes against the onslaught of his intensity. Why did I look?
She was giving her damned inner cat more fodder—more reasons to fight against her—and once that animal made her decision, there’d be no negotiation. Steven would be it, and Belle would be dogged in her pursuit of him. That wasn’t a cat’s heat—it was just the animal wanting what she wanted.
“I think I’ll risk it,” he said. “I’m used to it being salty, but I come from a place where hams aren’t any good unless you have to soak them for a day to get the excess sodium out. If it’s not salty, I’ll probably think there’s something wrong with it.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Unless you can think of something better.”
Deputy Carlson on the stool beside Steven put his finger on Steven’s menu on top of the breakfast burrito picture. “That’s better. Sweartagod, it’s heaven.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“That’s my least favorite thing on the menu,” Belle said. “Chet throws everything but the kitchen sink into it.”
“I know!” Carson said. “That’s what makes it so good. The first time I had it, I was—” The guy pressed his lips together and picked up an end to his sandwich. “Well. No need to self-incriminate.”
Steven scoffed and closed the menu. “I hope you were off the clock.”
“Of course I was. And it wasn’t my fault, anyway. Some Coyote brought in a tray of brownies to the station, and like a dumb ass, I grabbed a couple on the way out.”
Belle cringed. Pot brownie gifting was a common scheme of the Coyotes. They distributed them to people who they needed to be a bit more susceptible. Then they robbed them, usually. With the cops, they’d probably just been screwing around. “You should have known better, Deputy.”
“I didn’t know who’d brought them until the next time I went in. I should have known there was a reason no one else had touched them. Those things had me frolicking through the streets for a good six hours.”
Steven raised his eyebrows and looked at Belle. “I guess Mason isn’t the only one dealing with Coyote shenanigans.”
“Individually, they don’t get into a whole lot of trouble,” Belle said with a shrug. “But as a gang, they create more than their fair share of chaos. It’s in their natures.”
The deputy pointed to Belle, then to Steven. “Did I just say too much?”
Belle shook her head. “Nah. He knows the Coyotes aren’t just a biker gang.”
“Whew. Can’t tell who knows what in this town. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but I’m on the tail end of a double shift and am exponentially less intelligent than I was yesterday.”
“No sweat. You’re good, man,” Steven said.
“You might be the only one who thinks so. You know, I—”
“So—” Belle interrupted before Deputy Carlson could descend into one of his spirited tales. Steven’s chocolate stare had her antsy as hell, and she needed to move—to go somewhere to catch her breath for a moment. “You want the hash, the burrito, or cook’s choice?”
“Do you trust the cook?”
“No.”
“Then you pick something.”
“You shouldn’t trust me, either.”
Steven shrugged and pulled the straw from his iced tea glass. “I shouldn’t, but I’m going to anyway. Consider it me extending the olive branch of peace to you. Bring me what you’d order. Do it your way.”
Belle tucked her pen behind her ear and put her pad in her apron pocket. “My way, huh?”
“Yep. Whatever you put in front of me, darlin’, I’ll eat it.”
Her eyebrow twitched and cheeks burned hot. Then she narrowed her eyes at him before walking away, muttering, “Perv.”
“Hell, for once, I didn’t even mean it that way.”
The lady wasn’t sure if she was offended that he didn’t. The cat in her certainly was. Belle may have had her hang-ups about casual sex when she was in heat, but the cat sure didn’t.
You’re really blowing this, the cat said. Chill out.
Obviously, the cat half of her brain no longer grasped that she was a Cougar. And why would she chill out when she could preemptively sabotage relationships instead?
She couldn’t get attached to him—couldn’t let herself like him—because there was no way he’d reciprocate. He’d already made that clear by implying she was too young and too obstinate.
So, that was the way it had to be. She wished it didn’t have to be.
In fact, she wondered what it’d be like to have a man pay attention to her for reasons that had nothing to do with Foye family bullshit, Cougar hormones, or hellmouth troubles for a change.
CHAPTER SIX
“You’re kidding me.” Steven used his fork to lift lettuce leaves in search of meat or anything resembling protein to no avail.
Belle rested her chin atop her entwined fingers and blinked at him. He didn’t buy the innocent act, not one bit.
“It’s good for you,” she said, and her lips quirked up fiendishly.
“You’re so mean to me.”
Damned if he wasn’t plotting ways to make her pay for being so mean, too. Unfortunately, everything he came up with so far was either depraved or scandalizing. Not that he thought the brat would mind. He was probably going to hell for so much as thinking what he would do to her.
He shifted on his stool and discretely adjusted his crotch. “You’re an awful person. You know that? This is rabbit food.”
She lifted one shoulder in a falsely bashful shrug. “Roughage. We all need a little sometimes.”
“Yes. Sometimes. But I’m a big guy. I need a few more calories than this.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I’m trying hard to,
creampuff, but you don’t make it easy.”
“You could always, you know ... go somewhere else to eat. The drugstore across the street makes okay grilled cheese sandwiches. Or if you go to Mom’s, she’ll feed you. I think she said something about pulled chicken sandwiches for lunch.”
“Ugh, you’re killing me.” He stabbed a few lettuce leaves and shoved them into his mouth.
Chew and swallow. Just chew and swallow.
No way was he going to let a sadistic waitress beat him in the game with no rules they were playing.
“I should have ordered the salty hash.”
“Too late now. That guy at the end of the counter got the last order for the day.”
“You devious little minx.”
She wriggled her eyebrows at him, and her lips parted as if to make some retort, but no words came through them.
Her eyes took on a faraway look, and the good-natured expression she wore fell away.
She passed her tongue over her lips and pushed a long breath through her open mouth. Righting her posture, she pushed away from the counter and walked to the front door without looking back.
Damn.
Steven dropped his fork into the unwanted salad and followed her.
She rounded the corner, and he kept some distance just to see where she’d lead him, but as she neared her house, that became clear.
He ran around in front of her as she stepped down the curb toward her car.
Brow furrowed, she turned on her heels and crossed the street.
The driver of the truck approaching from the north leaned on his horn as his brakes squealed, and Steven gave the guy an apologetic wave as he hustled Belle out of the road.
“Jesus Christ, woman. Are you out of your freakin’ mind?”
She didn’t seem to care or even notice that he was there. Her determined expression set in more deeply as she hooked around back toward downtown.
“Where are you trying to go?”
No answer, but he noticed her walk wasn’t quite right. Like all the Cougars, she usually had a sensual, graceful strut that didn’t go away at any speed. At the moment, she was lumbering a bit, as if there was some sort of disconnect between her brain and feet or that she was using a body that wasn’t hers.
“Shit. Belle, that you in there?”
No response.
“Goddamn it.” He waited until the lady with the jogging stroller passed them and tucked Belle into an alley. He pushed her behind the garbage skip, pressed her against the brick wall, and put his hands against her cheeks. “Belle,” he whispered.
Her throat convulsed under stress of a swallow.
“Belle Foye, are you in there?”
Her pupils were huge and pale skin even whiter than usual—so pale that every freckle seemed to make its own shadow.
“Shit.”
He didn’t know what to do or whom to call. The last time she’d been possessed, she hadn’t tried to go anywhere—besides into his pants. Although he’d been stunned at first, that had changed quickly to worry. He’d laughed and extricated her fingers from his shaft, but she’d been so spacey and out of it that he hadn’t been convinced everyone else thought it was a joke. She was keeping her problem a secret for a reason, and he understood that. He’d done the same once.
When that thing had been fucking with him overseas, there hadn’t been anyone to talk to—no one who would have taken him seriously and told him what it was. He didn’t want to betray her trust. She wasn’t a child, and it wasn’t his place to take her choices away from her, but if there was a way he could help without hindering, he’d do it.
He looped his arm around her waist and turned her so that his back was to the wall and her front pressed to his. He held her firmly with one arm and wrenched his phone out of his jeans pocket. After some fumbling, he managed to dial Hannah, who didn’t pick up until the second time he called.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“There’s something up with Belle. She’s not ... Hell, I don’t know. I think something got into her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Keep this between you and me. Don’t say anything to her brothers. It’s important, okay?”
“Shit. What’s going on with her?”
“Something besides her inner cat is steering her. She’s behaving like one of those robo-vacuums right now. Moving and only making corrective course changes when she has some sort of obstacle.”
“She’s possessed?”
“I believe so.”
“Is she somewhere safe?”
“For the moment. I followed her out of the diner, and right now, we’re in an alley off Smith Street.”
Belle let out a shuddering breath and squirmed, trying to take a step forward, but he didn’t give her an inch.
“Well, Ellery’s brother-in-law is here. He knows spirits and death magic, so if there’s some kind of ... um ... intrusion within her, he would be the one to figure it out.”
“Don’t y’all kind of need him right now?”
“We do, yeah, but ...” Hannah sighed. “Any chance you could bring her here?”
“That’s the opposite of what we’ve been trying to do for the past couple of weeks.”
“I know. But we’re all wide awake, and she’d have lot of people watching her. And if she does make a run for it, she’s not going to get far. Same holds true with you. With the collection of weirdos on the ground here, if anything comes out of that hellmouth that gives you a fright, you wouldn’t be expected to do anything to fight it. We’ve got everything under control.”
“Sounds like famous last words to me.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Steve. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. Hold on. I think the lady is trying to shapeshift on me.” He clutched his phone between his teeth, patted his pockets, and found the little square of silver Mason had given him for exactly that purpose. Maybe using it was a little cruel, but without having an alpha’s energy to throw around, silver was the only way to make a shifter morph back into his or her human shape. Most of them were allergic to it and were more sensitive to it as beasts than on two legs.
He lifted the hem of her shirt and pressed the little bar against her belly.
She hissed and kicked, writhing violently against him for a minute before she went still again. So still. Her breath was ragged and skin slick with sweat, but she was still.
“Damn, girl.” He slipped the silver back into his pocket and put the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I’m gonna head that way. Do me a favor and call the diner and let them know she’s got to take the rest of the day off.”
“I will. See you in half an hour or so. We’ll be on the lookout.” Hannah disconnected, and Steven tucked his phone away.
Turning Belle by the shoulders, he let out a breath, and passed a hand past her eyes. Her gaze didn’t track.
“All right, summer rose, let’s go on a field trip to Oz. You can be Dorothy, and I’ll be the cowardly lion.”
He got her moving, slowly and with some resistance. He wasn’t walking in the direction where her body seemed to want to go, but he suspected they both had the same destination in mind.
He rooted her keys out of her pocket and strapped her into the passenger seat of her car. He ran around to the driver’s side quickly, lest she try to escape, but he wouldn’t put it past her to push her door open and attempt a tuck-and-roll at high speed if that thing inside her thought he wasn’t going the right way.
He kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other fisted at the hem of her shirt. That made shifting gears something of a trial, but once he got them out of the small town’s grid, the driving was easier.
About halfway to the ranch, Belle swatted at his hand. “This is one of my favorite shirts!”
“Well, hey there, cupcake.” He put his hand on the wheel just in time to navigate around an armadillo whose life had been cut short by something with wheels.
“Where are we going?”
<
br /> “To the ranch.”
“Um, isn’t that the opposite of what you want?”
“I think it’s the opposite of what both of us want, but Hannah says Ellery’s brother-in-law might be able to help you.”
“Who, Claude? Ugh.” Belle slumped in her seat and flailed a bit.
“She didn’t mention him by name. What do you have against the guy?”
“I don’t have anything against him. Have you seen him?”
“I don’t think I’ve had that experience, no.”
“Well, let’s put it this way. I don’t want Claude trying to fix me any more than you’d want a supermodel proctologist checking your prostate.”
He winced.
“See.”
“I’m sure he’ll take a detached approach to figuring out what’s wrong with you.”
“Still. Shame isn’t a sensible emotion all the time. It just throws you into survival mode, and you do what you can to get away from it.”
“Why are you ashamed?”
“I—”
He caught the shake of her head in his periphery and stole a glance from the road. She was looking out the window at the uninteresting landscape. Scrubby pastures and the occasional cow. Tough place to take up ranching, but Glenda somehow eked out a living.
“You can tell me.” He gave her knee a squeeze and pulled his hand away when he realized what he was doing. No way did he want her to think he was coming on to her in a capacity beyond a platonic one. She definitely didn’t need that kind of distraction with everything else she had going on in her life at the moment.
“If I tell you, you’ll tell Hannah or one of my brothers.”
“I can’t promise that I won’t. If I think telling someone will get you help you need, I’ll do it. Obviously, you’re not equipped to ask for it yourself. I know what that’s like.”
“Really?”
He would have had to have been nearly deaf to have missed the note of incredulity in her tone. He laughed. “Seriously. I know what it’s like to be a little messed up and to not be able to talk to anyone about it because you think they’re not going to react the way you need.”
“You think you’re a little messed up?”