The Cougar's Bargain (7 page)

She fiddled the end of her braid and fixed her gaze through the window at the bike.

Ten. If we get there this evening, I won't be able to do anything anyway. I need time to scout around and see what I'm dealing with.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she ignored it, figuring it was Ellery trying to get her to talk to Mason.

Sean needed rest, though, and probably a good meal as he still hadn't caught up nutrition-wise from all the time he'd spent as a cat. The best thing for him at the moment was probably some heavy food and a soft bed. They'd have to drive on farther for the bed. And if they got back on the bike, they might as well go all the way.

Fuck.

“Uh. Coffee?” She crooked her thumb toward the machines.

Her phone buzzed again.

Sean eyed the dispensers as if they were some alien technology that had foreign words printed on the labels rather than plain-old English.

Yet again, her phone vibrated. She snatched it out of her pocket.

Sean gave his head a shake and moved away from the coffee in favor of the soda coolers.

“Great,” she muttered and tucked the phone away.

Apparently, for the moment, she was the one in charge.

“He's gonna
love
that.”

By the time they'd crossed Tucson's city limits, Sean's hips and ribs were bruised from Hannah's incessant pokes and prods. The last time he'd felt so tender had been about fifteen years ago when he and Hank had fallen through some rotting floorboards in the barn loft. Sean had broken his arm, and Hank had ended up with a nasty gash in the back of his head.

At a red light, Sean set down a foot and flipped up his helmet's visor. He craned his neck around to look at Hannah, who pushed up her visor, too.

“What the fuck?” he asked.

“You were swerving.”

“And you couldn't inform me of that without liquefying my vital organs?”

“Don't be hyperbolic. You'll heal in fifteen minutes or so, anyway. You're a born Cougar and have that la-di-dah Foye magic.”

His top lip twitched and a growl rumbled in his chest, but before he could let it out, an impatient motorist leaned on his horn. Sean turned around and got them moving again. He may have had faster-than-human healing, but he didn't think anyone should have been subjected to the kind of torture she'd put him through. It was almost as if she was getting some joy out of it.

Sadist.

At the next light, he turned to her again. “What's the plan?”

“The digital clock on that bank sign we just passed said it was ten-thirty. We can find a motel to stay at, and then get something to eat. I'll go out and scout in the morning.”

“What exactly are you scouting for?”

“I'll tell you when I know myself. I'll know what I need to know once I figure out what I don't know.”

“Are you kidding me? You've got me out here on an unstructured errand playing your chauffeur?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I guess I do. Take it up with Lola. Personally, I'd almost prefer to be back at home working in the E.R. trying to resuscitate dumbasses like you who can't stay in their lanes.”

His lips peeled back involuntarily, and his fangs dropped down.

She rolled her eyes. “Save it. I could show you mine, too. They're newer and shinier, and thanks to years of orthodontia, are actually straight.”

“Oh, you—”

“Bitch?” She shrugged. “So be it. I did the time, and now I get to reap the benefits.” She grinned broadly, letting her fangs down to poke at her bottom lip. Straight, white,
sharp
. “Aren't they pretty?”

They were. He wouldn't admit it, though.

Along with their receipt of their mother's red hair genes, Sean and his siblings had also received supernumerary teeth that had needed removal before their Cougar genetics kicked in at puberty. His parents hadn't been able to afford to put braces on the three boys. Belle, born twelve years after Sean, however, got lucky. Mason had paid for his own later on. Hank didn't really care about the slight crowding. Sean didn't think he did, either … until that moment.

He ran his tongue against the backs of his teeth and flipped his visor down.

Oughta get that fixed.

He steered them to a no-frills motel at the outskirts of town he'd stayed at in the past, and parked in the shadows behind the nondescript two-story building. Hannah stowed her helmet and batted the plait out of her sweaty hair as Sean unstrapped his bag.

“At this hour, dining options are going to be limited.” Her nimble fingers were a mesmerizing blur as she re-braided her hair. The twining of the pale blond locks and creation of a tidy new rope of hair was meditative to watch. He didn't realize she'd said anything else until she got to the end of her hair and thumped him on the nose.

He rubbed it and looked up from the end of the braid she was tying off with a hair elastic. “What?”

“I asked if you wanted to get something delivered. Chinese or pizza. Either that, or we grab something from a twenty-four hour grocery deli. Or there's Taco Bell or IHOP.”

“If you want something hot, I know a place.”

“Yeah? You spend much time in Tucson?”

“Some. A couple of members of the glaring went to college here. I came down sometimes for long weekends for football games and … that sort of thing.” Years of that sort of thing. It'd been one of his haunts after he'd left the ranch, along with Reno, Austin, and occasionally Miami.

She narrowed her eyes again. “So you
know
Tucson.”

“I know a little about a lot of things.”

“That wasn't what I asked, but thanks for letting me know. Let's check in. Given the emptiness of the parking lot, I doubt we'll have a problem getting two rooms.”

“You mean
one
room.”

She shook her head. “Two rooms. There's no good reason for us to share. You don't need to babysit me. I'm not going to run off and tell on ya, because how would that do me any good at this point, huh? What's a cop gonna do for me besides make my life more of a living hell than it already is? In case you didn't realize it, I've been off the leash for about three weeks, and the National Guard hasn't yet descended on the Double B ranch and done away with you kidnapping fur-heads.” She tapped her chin and made a
hmm
sound. “I wonder why that is?”

Three weeks. That's how long I was gone.
He couldn't remember much after the first week. “I, uh …
assumed
I was here to keep you out of trouble.”

“Or maybe you're here so I can keep
you
out of trouble. Did you consider that?”

“Fuck that. I don't need a keeper.” If that was why his brothers had sent him along with her, he was going to rough them both up when he got home, or go down trying.

“Well, neither do I. Shall we?” She pointed to the walkway in an
after you
gesture.

“No, no. After
you
,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Well, well, I guess you cats have some manners after all.”

“You just have to have the last word, don't you?”

She shrugged. “If it'll make your life easier to just let me have it, I won't complain if you don't talk back.”

He pressed his lips together and turned his gaze heavenward. The woman was a trial. Truth be told, most Cougar women were, but Hannah had been a Cougar for, maybe, a month. She'd acquired her knack for cruelty in other ways.

He'd always assumed that if he took a Cougar mate, he'd have to get used to it. He'd been
jubilant
that Hannah and her friends hadn't been Cougars, but in a sick twist of fate, of the three of them, the only one that could that could be called sweet went to the brother who was arguably the biggest asshole of the three of them. Neither Sean nor Hank had thought Miles was right for Hank, but apparently she was. So that meant that somehow, the braid-fondling battle-ax standing beside Sean's bike was supposed to be his counterbalance.

Gods, how?

She harrumphed, hitched her backpack up to her shoulders, and walked around the motel's corner.

He followed without a word, knowing there probably wasn't a damned thing he could say that would help more than harm their rapport … if he could even
call
it a rapport. They were barely tolerating being in each other's space.

Sean got them checked in. After stowing their bags in their respective rooms, they met in the parking lot as planned to decide about dinner.

“We can walk it,” he said when Hannah started for the bike. “It's a couple of blocks from here, and I need the exercise. The cat in me is agitated.”

She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I'm getting that vibe. Your energy is flaring. God forbid you get close to anyone who can tell what you are and you don't have that shit under control.”

“I'll shift later and run it off.”

She grimaced, then walking toward the street before she could say anything.

“What?” He followed.

“Nothing. Did you call Mason and let him know we got here?”

“No. Didn't have time to. I used the bathroom and came straight down. This way.” He crooked his thumb toward left—toward downtown, though they wouldn't be going that far. He'd discovered the little hole-in-the-wall he was taking her to somewhat by accident. GPS had sent him on a wild goose chase for a sports bar that had actually closed a year before he went looking, and he'd ended up at Sapphire's frustrated and exhausted. The food had turned out to be worth all the frustration, though.

He checked the time on his phone, and figuring Mason would still be awake, dialed in his number.

“Sean, that you?”

“Yeah. We're in Tucson, heading out now to get some dinner.”

“Cool. I was hoping you hadn't turned yourself into an organ donor out there on the road.”

“If you distrust my driving so much, why'd you put me on the bike?”

“Like I said—it's less visible than your truck with all the Foye Woodworks decals on it. The alternative would have been for you to borrow Belle's car, but I didn't think you'd want to be caught dead in a sparkly purple punch buggy.”

“Why is discretion so important? What happened in the past three weeks when I was …” He caught Hannah cutting him the side-eye and furrowed his brow at her. “When I was indisposed?”

“You know how we try to keep glaring business under wraps, but try as we might, word gets out anyway. I think Ralphie ran his mouth a lot before the guys found him hiding in Mom's barn. He was probably feeding all kinds of information to his family, and they were probably feeding some back to the Coyotes.”

“And this other shifter group here in Tucson?”

“
Los Impostores
. Lola hopes you'll be able to find out their habits and if necessary, make contact. We do want to nip whatever they're doing in the bud without it coming to a fight, so keep that in mind as you pursue them. They've got to be expecting that we'd send our Cougars out to investigate after their guys showed up at our gathering last month. They're going to be looking out for one of our trucks, probably, and not your bike, and I don't think anyone outside of our glaring would recognize Hannah. The grapevine says she's not
yet
known by outsiders to be a Cougar.”

Sean cut his gaze to her again. “Built-in spy for the glaring, huh?”

She rolled her eyes and jabbed the pedestrian light button at the street corner.

“Avenger, remember? Call me in the morning when you're up and moving about. Lola says
Los Impostores
don't tend to be morning sorts, so you may be able to gather most of your intel early on.”

“Got it.”

Mason disconnected.

Sean and Hannah crossed the street, and as soon as he got his boots on the sidewalk, the phone in his hand buzzed at the incoming text message.

He stopped walking and tried to make sense of the picture on the phone's screen. Mason had taken a picture of Hank holding open his copy of the Were-cougar handbook,
La Bella Dama, translated by E. Putnum
to a specific page. Sean zoomed in for a better look at what Hank pointed to. Half the book's pages were devoted to explaining glaring roles. Hank pointed to the century-old picture of
The Avenger
and wore a shit-eating grin.

Another message came in—this time, just text.

At his evident distress, Hannah leaned in and looked down at his phone. “Ugh. Miles scanned that, blew it up, and made a print out of it for me to put on my wall, as soon as I have a wall of my own to put it on. What the hell am I supposed to do with a picture of a lady with a gun who likes burning things down? Elizabeth Putnum obviously had a bias.”

Sean started them walking again. “Or maybe she was feminist. I would have thought you'd like seeing a strong depiction of a woman in a historical text.”

“But why does it have to be so violent?”

“Because
you
are?”