Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Our werewolf books?” she questioned.

  “And I don’t mean fiction,” she added with a frustrated grunt. “It’s all junk science if you ask me, these so-called biographical books about sasquatches and the like.”

  “Sasquatches,” she repeated as though it was the strangest request she’d ever heard. “What do sasquatches have to do with werewolves?”

  “What do werewolves have to do with anything in the first place?” Mrs. Yeats countered angrily as though everyone in the Fist had lost their damn minds except for her.

  “We’ve barely opened our doors for the day—”

  “Voice messages,” she explained curtly. “I got in this morning to almost thirty voice messages from patrons asking me to set this or that title aside for them. I’ve a feeling there would’ve been more voice messages except that there wasn’t that much space on the device. The phone’s been ringing off the hook since I sat down.”

  Reece was about to question the comment but then the front desk phone started blaring and Mrs. Yeats groaned, “See?”

  “Devil’s Fist Library, this is Reece,” she said, answering the phone so that Mrs. Yeats wouldn’t be derailed from her objective. “A Tale of Two Wolves?” she repeated, never having heard of the title that the patron on the other end of the line was calling to make sure they carried.

  Mrs. Yeats, furious, yelled, “It’s already reserved!”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Reece politely into the phone. “That title is already reserved.”

  “Give me the phone,” she barked, snatching it out of Reece’s hand before she even had a chance to react. “Excuse me, but this is Mrs. Yeats and you’re going to have to come into the library to find the books you’re interested in. Good day!”

  The older woman slammed the phone back down into its cradle and let out an exasperated groan.

  “Reece, I think we ought to record a new outgoing message for the library. Something to the effect of not being able to handle the influx of calls and suggesting the patrons come in. Then do something where the phone doesn’t even ring, all calls go straight to the new outgoing message, but make sure no one can leave a voice message.”

  “How accommodating of us,” Reece said dryly, which Mrs. Yeats did not appreciate.

  “You can use my office,” she instructed. “Just get it done before I lose my mind.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Anything to get away from the woman. Mrs. Yeats tended to live her grumpy life oscillating between irritation and anger, but this morning the woman had taken it to a whole new level.

  Inside the library office, Reece closed the door, but didn’t shut it, then rounded to the business side of Mrs. Yeats’ immaculate desk.

  After rummaging through the desk drawers, she found the telephone manual and proceeded, slowly and carefully, to reset the entire voice messaging system as per Mrs. Yeats’ specifications.

  Just as she was finishing up the task, the purple amethyst crystal, which she’d tucked into the front pocket of her corduroy skirt pocket, became so hot that she leapt from the chair, assuming she’d just been stung by a bee.

  “Goddamn!” she swore, pulling the thing from her pocket, which scalded her hand something fierce, and throwing it to the floor.

  It was no longer purple, but white-hot and glowing.

  “What in the world?” she breathed, crouching near it.

  A man’s voice called out through the crack in the doorway, “Everything okay in here?”

  When she lifted her eyes, she saw the real estate man from the other day, and immediately rose to her feet.

  “You alright?” he asked with a polite grin.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

  “Sorry to intrude,” he said, lingering in the open doorway, “I heard a woman in distress and I couldn’t ignore it.”

  “I just—” What was she going to say to excuse her cursing? That she got burned? It wouldn’t matter or make sense. “Can I help you?”

  “I rushed off the other day,” he reminded her. “But if those titles are still available, I’d like to check them out, if you could accommodate.”

  “Certainly,” said Reece. “Would you give me a moment?”

  “I surely can,” he told her with an icy grin that set her teeth on edge worse than last night when she’d first met the strange man.

  He edged back into the library, closing the door behind him, and she let out a rocky breath.

  As he did though, the amethyst crystal on the floor cooled, its white-hot hue returning to a normal purple color. Testing its temperature with her fingertips—it wouldn’t be dangerous to touch—the unusual timing of it occurred to her.

  She set the notion of it aside, however, returned the crystal to her skirt pocket, and emerged from Mrs. Yeats’ office to find the gentleman perusing the self-help section, which was the nearest aisle.

  “So many books on finding love,” he commented. “Makes a man wonder why such a simple thing would be so elusive.”

  The crystal in her pocket warmed as she neared him, which gave her pause.

  Troy had told her that his Grandmother Sasha had given the amethyst to him. Knowing what she now knew about his entire family—that they were ancient, nearly immortal werewolves, and Royals at that—she had to wonder about the significance of this stone heating up in the real estate man’s presence.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?” she asked the man after offering him an acknowledging chuckle in response to his witty comment about self-help books on finding love.

  “Dante,” he told her easily.

  He held out his hand for her to shake, and when she did, when their hands touched, skin on skin, her mind’s eye was filled with a flashing vision.

  In it, she was running towards the black wolf, the one that she’d come to associate with Troy. Running towards his safety. This time, as she sprinted for her life, she glanced over her shoulder to see what was chasing her.

  But the vision snuffed out and she popped back into the library before she could see what, or who, had been after her.

  “Dante?” she said. “That’s an unusual name.”

  “Have you read Dante’s Inferno?”

  “Of course,” she told him. “Dante’s journey through the nine rings of hell.” She felt suddenly uncomfortable, but still managed to converse, joking, “You’re not named after Dante Alighieri, are you?”

  “Let’s hope not,” he chuckled in a charming tone, though to Reece’s ears it gave her the creeps.

  “Let’s see where those titles wound up,” she offered and immediately began padding through the library, leading Dante to the biography section on the opposite side. “You’re lucky you haven’t caught werewolf fever.”

  “That I what?” he asked with incredible interest when they reached the shelf.

  “Oh, I was making a joke,” she explained. “It seems like everyone in town has a sudden interest in checking out books about werewolves.”

  “Is that so?”

  She clammed up immediately.

  Why had she made that comment? Why had she mentioned werewolves to him? She felt odd, like her internal mental censor had gone to sleep.

  Why?

  “That is so,” she found herself saying. She mentally warned herself to shut up, collect his books, and walk him over to the front desk where Mrs. Yeats could handle the rest, but her lips were still moving. “One of the library’s own employees, this delightful young woman named Holly van Dyke, was attacked by a wolf.”

  “Really?” he asked, though there was something in the way that he was looking at her that seemed to indicate he already knew all about Holly.

  “Now everyone in the Fist thinks she was killed by a werewolf.”

  “Preposterous,” he laughed. “What do you think?” he asked, as the leering grin slipped off his face.

  She wished he hadn’t asked her that, because she was sure she wouldn’t be able to resist answering him.

  The crystal
in her pocket was white-hot and searing all over again, but Reece could barely feel it. Her entire body felt numb and her mind felt paralyzed and cracked open, exposed for this man to poke and prod through it as much as he liked.

  She was interrupted from responding, thank God, when she felt her cell phone vibrating in the other pocket of her skirt.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, quickly handing him the books he’d come to check out. “I really must take this.”

  She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and padded down the aisle away from Dante.

  It wasn’t until she rounded the corner, out of his sight, that the amethyst cooled and she answered the call.

  It was Troy.

  “Where are you?” he demanded with concern so immense that she could actually feel his worry cut through the line.

  “At the library,” she whispered.

  “Don’t you ever run off like that again,” he scolded.

  She didn’t like the paternalistic tone in his voice and immediately challenged him, “I have every right to go to work and go about my life.”

  “Reece—”

  But she’d heard enough from him.

  She ended the call and shoved her cell phone back into her pocket.

  When she lifted her eyes, Dante was staring at her from across the aisle.

  Chapter Fifteen

  TROY

  Troy couldn’t recall a time when he’d felt more furious than he did right now.

  She had hung up on him?

  Fury didn’t even begin to describe it. He felt angry and frustrated and out of control and crestfallen and worried sick, and the list of warring emotions rising up in his chest went on and on.

  He’d broken out into violent, volatile pacing and it wasn’t until he truly tried to wrangle his swelling emotions that he realized he’d shifted into his wolf form right there in the living room of Reece’s cottage.

  Christ, he needed to get a grip.

  Transforming back, he focused on dressing into a fresh pair of clothes and pulling his boots on. He hadn’t accidentally shifted in a fit of anger since he’d been a Younger himself, his father wrangling him left and right in the darkened, moonlit corners of Yellowstone nearly a century ago.

  Reece had gotten under his skin in a bad way.

  And worse, she’d gotten into his heart.

  Troy realized he’d been a fool, and the overwhelming feeling of remorse carried him out of her cottage, into his pickup truck, and all the way across the Fist to Quinn Security.

  He didn’t know what the hell Reece Gladstone was to him. Was she meant for him? He didn’t know. Was she his one true mate? He had no reason to believe she was. And yet, he’d made the grave error of hoping so, and proceeding accordingly.

  He’d been a damn idiot.

  If she wanted to run off on her own, risk her life just to get away from him, then he ought to let her. If she wanted to wind up like Holly van Dyke, or even Angel Mercer, then so be it. He’d let her. If her destiny really and truly did have anything to do with Troy Quinn, then he’d let the calculating hand of fate guide her back to him. Until then, no way was he going to deal with a headstrong woman who had the nerve to stick her button-nose up at his protective services and hang up on him.

  The man had his pride.

  With a white-knuckle grip on the wheel, he steered his truck towards the Quinn Security cabin, coming to a dirt-sliding stop, and yanked his keys from the ignition.

  They hadn’t made a lick of progress finding the rogue werewolf whose very existence threatened the entire pack, but today Troy was determined to change all that.

  As he stepped out of his truck and stomped up the handsome wooden stairs into the state-of-the-art cabin, he felt his heart sink, but as his remaining feelings for Reece gnawed at him, pulling him downward into the territory of guilt that at the end of the day the last thing he wanted was to lose her, he did what he could to ignore the emotion and get on with his day if not his life.

  Inside, he found Dean and Conor standing over the large, oval conference table in the back. They’d laid out a map of Devil’s Fist and were using a red marker to section off areas of interest.

  “Where’s Kaleb and Shane?” Troy demanded and both of his brothers locked their gazes on him in uniform surprise.

  “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Dean commented.

  “It was a pull-out couch, actually,” he corrected, “and you’re right.”

  Conor reminded him, “You asked Kaleb and Shane to talk to Lucy Cooper and Whitney Abernathy about their encounter with the rogue werewolf.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” he said, backing his aggressive tone down.

  Dean clarified, “Shane is with Whitney now.”

  “And Kaleb is with Lucy,” Conor added. “Hopefully he’ll get her talking before he gets her into bed.”

  “If he has to get her into bed to get her talking,” Dean considered, good-naturedly, “then so be it. How’s Reece?”

  “Stubborn as all hell,” he complained.

  Conor and Dean exchanged a look, then Conor suggested, “I’d take her to see Sasha, if I was you.”

  “Yeah,” he barked confrontationally. “And why’s that?”

  He didn’t much appreciate having to suffer the insult of being reminded that his gift of foresight was tardy to an unprecedented degree. It was embarrassing.

  Backing down but unwilling to give up his teasing sense of humor, Conor directed his response to Dean who might sympathize. “Oh, no reason…”

  “Let’s focus,” Troy suggested in his most professional sounding tone. But he couldn’t keep it up. “I want to find this fucking wolf and kill it.”

  “Even if it’s a Royal?” Dean questioned, trepidation ringing through his worried voice.

  “Even if it’s Jesus fucking Christ come back to life,” Troy insisted.

  “More like Satan himself,” Conor proposed. “A real devil in Devil’s Fist.”

  The brothers looked at each other and no one said a word.

  ***

  Kaleb Quinn slid into a red vinyl booth inside Angel’s Food. The breakfast rush had tapered off, and for the most part, the diner was slow and steady, a good time to catch Lucy Cooper and get her talking.

  The girl liked to talk.

  And if Kaleb was being honest with himself, he didn’t much mind watching her do just that.

  Damn near paradoxical that he’d never gotten her into bed…

  Well, he’d never put his mind to it, he reasoned. There was still time.

  He glanced around the diner for her, his gaze darting from one blue, button-down uniform dress to the next. Angel Mercer still hadn’t returned to work, he noted, and there were a number of brunettes padding about the restaurant, some Kaleb had seduced, others who had thrown themselves at him in the tipsy heat of a cold, Wyoming winter, but he didn’t spot the blonde he was looking for. Not right away.

  He skimmed the laminated menu he’d plucked from the hostess’ stand when he’d first arrived. There was a seat yourself policy so long as you got there outside of a busy rush. He wasn’t hungry, not for anything that Angel’s Food had to offer. He could use a real hunt. When was the last time he and his brothers had shifted by moonlight and hunted a full-grown deer? That was the kind of meat he was in the mood for. He set the menu aside, disappointed, and lifted his eyes.

  On the other side of the diner, Lucy emerged from the kitchen with a tired smile on her face.

  Did she look prettier than usual?

  For some reason, and especially recently, to Kaleb she’d been looking more and more ethereal, like her skin was glowing and her long, blonde hair was getting shinier and shinier. Maybe it was all those jogs through Yellowstone, the fresh spring air and exercise, that had helped her shed off the ashy, winter-born paleness that seemed to come over the residents here. Or maybe it was something else… something only Kaleb could see.

  She looked his way and they touched eyes. Those crystal blue eyes
of hers were like two Icelandic pools of freshly thawed water, and as she crossed through the diner towards him and walked into a patch of sunlight that was beaming through the large, picture windows, her eyes caught the light and flashed a bright twinkle that seemed, to Kaleb, almost otherworldly.

  “Mornin’ there, Mr. Quinn,” she greeted him with a folksy smile. “You come in to recharge the battery after defiling another of Devil’s Fist’s finest ladies?”

  “What have you heard?” he teased right back, shamelessly acknowledging the reputation he’d developed for himself over the years.

  “More than I’d like,” she volleyed back without missing a beat.

  “All good, I hope.”

  “Not according to Pamela.”

  It wasn’t great that it took Kaleb a very, very long moment to recall who in the hell Pamela was.

  “Oh, for the sake of the Lord,” Lucy blurted with an eye roll. “Pamela is one of the sales girls over at Acorn Fashion and Accessories. You took her home from Libations not a week ago!”

  “It’s all coming back to me,” he said as a dreamy grin spread across his face.

  Lucy frowned at him, screwing up her face something fierce, then asked him, “What’ll it be?”

  “Care to join me?”

  “I haven’t even gotten through half my shift, Kaleb, and I’m not looking to get fired, I’ll have you know.”

  “Angel isn’t here to fire you,” he pointed out.

  “And I’m not here to socialize,” she countered.

  He pulled his wallet from his jeans, found a few twenties, and set them on the table. “That’s your tip if you’ll give me the time of day.”

  Furrowing her brow, she told him, “It’s a quarter to ten,” and stuffed the bills into her uniform.

  “Lucy, I’m trying to talk to you.”

  “And I’m not here to work on my love life.”

  “That makes two of us,” he assured her and for the next moment she just stared down at him blankly.

  “You’re not?”

  “Not unless you’re game,” he couldn’t help but say.

  She rolled her eyes and turned, but he caught her wrist. He’d only meant to prevent her from stomping off, but the second he touched her, a surge of what felt like otherworldly electricity shot through him, unlike anything he’s ever experienced.