A Grizzly Kind Of Love (The Mating Game Book 3) (5 page)

The next morning, right as she walked into her office, she got a phone call, which Gillian answered for her.

“Wynona, the game warden wants to talk to you,” Gillian called out as Wynona sat down at her desk.

“Didn’t expect to hear from them again,” Wynona mused, and picked up the phone.

Tremont had unsettling news for her. “I think it may be more serious than just some careless poacher,” he told her. “We went out to the area yesterday. Do you have any enemies?”

Wynona felt a chill run through her body.

“Not that I know of. Why?” she asked. Would her ex-husband consider her an enemy? If he knew that the Shepherds were after him, would he maybe want to eliminate her and then try to blame the whole scheme on her? That seemed far-fetched, though. Hartford was a slimebag, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d have to know that with his name on the contract, and with him having filed the contract at the courthouse, he was on the hook no matter what.

“We found several silver-coated bullets out there,” Tremont said. “Highly illegal, and not anything a hunter would ever use. So someone was out there targeting shifters.”

“So…you don’t think it was an accident?”

“It’s possible, but unlikely,” he said. “Who knew you were going there?”

“Probably a lot of people, unfortunately. I mentioned it to my niece, Daisy, who knows I’m not an outdoorsy type, and she thought it was hilarious, so she posted it on her Facebook page. And Daisy has a lot of friends. But she only mentioned my name, not Zane’s.”

Daisy’s posting had said that her aunt Wynona was going fishing at Lake Serena with a friend. Wynona hadn’t told Daisy about Zane, or the legal nightmare that she was facing. She didn’t want Daisy to feel obligated to try to help; it was Wynona’s mess, not anybody else’s.

So if someone was firing silver bullets, then that meant they were after her, not Zane.

“Has anything else unusual happened to you lately? Any threats, any break-in attempts either at home or at work?”

“No, and I have alarm systems at work and at home. I would know if anyone had tried to break in.”

“Well, I’d just be cautious,” Tremont said. “It’s also possible that you’ve got some shifter-hating nut-job out there who saw what your niece posted on social media and thought you’d be alone in the woods. We’re going to be increasing patrols out there. The bullets are home-made, and we’re running tests on them, but I doubt we’ll be able to trace them. Just watch yourself, and call me if anything else happens.”

After she hung up, she called up her attorney, Roland and told him about it.

“That’s alarming,” he said. “So you think they might have been aiming for you?”

“I’m not sure of anything right now, but nobody other than me and Gillian knew I was headed out there, and I’m fairly sure Gillian doesn’t want to murder me.”

“I don’t,” Gillian called out from the front office. “Then I’d be unemployed and I would have no friends.”

“I haven’t found much more on your ex-husband, except that he and Hubert Shepherd had been involved in several real-estate deals over the years. Mostly legitimate. When the real-estate market was good, they were buying up properties from homeowners who were behind on their mortgages, and flipping them.”

“I didn’t realize they’d been that involved.”

“I’m going to look into the Shepherds’ finances as well. Something seems kind of shady about this whole deal, and I’m not entirely convinced it’s all your husband’s doing.”

“Oh, they’d have no motive to do anything financially shady, they’re as rich as sin,” she said. “Dripping in designer clothing, they drive big flashy cars, their family owns thousands of acres of timber-producing land and a very successful sawmill.”

“Nonetheless. What you see isn’t always what you get. All right, keep your head down, and if anybody else tries to kill you, let me know,” Roland said.

Gillian stuck her head in the door. “Why does someone think I want to murder you?” she asked. Sprinkles trotted in and looked as if he were about to pee on the desk. Wynona growled at him and he turned around and scampered away with a look of annoyance.

She told Gillian about the silver bullets. “There’s really no indication that somebody was aiming specifically for me, though,” she said. “I mean, how would somebody know exactly where I was going to be on the river, at that exact time?”

Gillian didn’t look particularly reassured, but she took Sprinkles out for his walk and let Wynona go back to work.

Wynona went on her computer and typed in Zane’s name to see if she could come up with anything more useful.

Most of the information she found was old – heart-wrenching articles about the murder of his parents.

His parents had been wealthy, well liked and well respected. Their clan had owned their timber land and sawmill for generations. When he was five, he and his parents had gone on a hunting trip, which they’d done every year.

They’d been expected back after two weeks, and a few days after they’d failed to return, their family had reported them missing. It had been much too late by then.

The Shepherds had gone out to the area in Tennessee where the family had a hunting cabin. It looked as if Zane and his parents had only been there for a day or two, according to the news articles. Their luggage had been there, with dust and cobwebs on it. So whatever had happened to them had happened shortly after they’d arrived.

The Shepherds had immediately begun searching the surrounding woods, and hired search parties and werewolf trackers. They’d camped out there, searching night and day. Eventually, after a few more weeks, they’d made a tragic discovery a few miles from the cabin.

The remains of his parents had been found in a forest clearing. Zane’s body had not been there, but blood had been found at the scene, and DNA testing had revealed that some of it was his. At the time, it had been assumed that his small corpse had been dragged off by wild animals.

There had been rumors at the time that Zane’s parents had been killed over business rivalry with a clan of Italian bears called the Molfetta family. The Molfetta family, who also owned a saw mill and had tried to take over the Shepherd clan’s business, had allegedly hired an assassin to kill Zane’s parents.

A few days after the discovery of Zane’s parents, the Molfetta family had suffered a mysterious car accident that had wiped out the patriarch, their top enforcers, and two of their lieutenants. A later news story revealed that the car had been tampered with, but it could never be proven who had done it. The Shepherds would be obvious suspects, Wynona mused, but if they had done it, they hadn’t left any tracks.

The Molfetta clan had dissolved after that.

As she read on, she felt a faint chill.

Zane’s parents had been killed by silver bullets.

Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. If someone wanted to kill a shifter, of course, then silver bullets would be the most effective way to do so. A regular bullet was very unlikely to kill a shifter.

She did some more research on the Molfetta family. They were definitely out of the picture; there had been one surviving son, who had been confined to an asylum for the criminally insane within a year of the fatal accident, and the rest of the family had never resurfaced.

She forwarded the stories to Roland.

News reports many years later revealed what had happened to Zane.

A hunter had stepped in a bear trap deep in the woods, and Zane had shifted from bear to human form to rescue him. Then Zane had carried the hunter into town and taken him to a fire station.

When he’d been asked how he’d survived all that time, he’d led them to a crude cabin that he’d built himself. He’d barely spoken at the time, communicating mostly in grunts and growls.

He’d been reunited with his relieved and grateful family. Experts had been brought in to see to his reintegration into society. He’d briefly moved onto the clan’s property, where the business had been run by his uncle, Cecily’s husband, in his absence.

A follow-up story indicated that he’d moved back out into the woods, and the news releases pretty much ended there.

An internet search did bring up the legal claim filed by the Coventry Clan, who wanted his family’s land.

Interestingly, the property laws, written over a hundred years ago, didn’t specifically say that he had to marry a bear, she noted.

Back then, there had been much less shifter intermarrying, so it probably hadn’t even occurred to the Bruin Congress to specify that the Prime had to marry a bear. So he could actually marry any kind of shifter.

She quickly pushed the thought from her head.

Irrelevant. Didn’t matter. Had nothing to do with her.

Her intercom buzzed, and just as Gillian said, “The Shepherds are here,” they walked into the office. They didn’t have an appointment, and they hadn’t waited to see if she was busy. What a surprise.

She quickly clicked out of the story on the Coventry bears’ claim and looked up, not bothering to hide her impatience. Cecily was wearing enough Chanel No. 5 to choke a horse, and Hubert apparently shared his wife’s taste for flashiness, with his Rolex and thick gold rings.

“How are you doing with my nephew?” Hubert asked. No hello or other pleasantries, as usual.

Well, at least she had good news to give them.

“We’re making surprisingly good progress,” she said. “He’s an excellent student. He has impeccable table manners when he wants to, and he can be quite charming.”

“Good, because we’ve got a lot of business deals already depending on this merger,” Hubert said.

Wynona looked at him with alarm.

“They haven’t even met each other yet,” she said. “You’ve given me very little time to get him ready. What if Tiffany just doesn’t like him, no matter what?”

“Tiffany doesn’t have to like him, she just has to find him tolerable,” Hubert said, waving his hand dismissively. “Her father has promised her that as soon as she gives birth to a healthy male heir, he will release a substantial portion of her trust fund. So if Zane can just play his part, it should be fine. They’ll both be permitted to live in separate wings of their mansion and carry on discreet affairs.”

“A match made in heaven,” Wynona observed drily.

“Exactly.” He nodded vigorously. Wynona imagined that he and Cecily had a similar arrangement. When she’d seen them together, they hadn’t even looked at each other.

“So, they’re going to have lunch on Saturday,” he added. “Noon. Hamilton’s. I expect him to be on time, dressed appropriately, and ready to turn on the charm.”

“Saturday? That really doesn’t give me much time,” she said with alarm.

He bared big teeth in a smile. “Then you’d better step up your game.”

Sprinkles was turning out to be a hit at the office. He also had surprisingly good judgement. Every time he growled and bared his tiny teeth at someone, Wynona found out that he’d been spot on.

The people he growled at always turned out to be the clients who lied about their backgrounds, or were rude and demanding, or who one way or another would make terrible mates.

Just that morning, though, he’d growled at the guy Wynona had fixed Gillian up with – a nerdy wolf shifter professor of archeology who, superficially at least, seemed to have a lot of the same interests as Gillian.

Maybe he was wrong about this guy. Also, maybe she was crazy for paying attention to the opinions of a tiny yapping monster who was smaller than the hairballs her mother’s Persian used to cough up.

“Did you like him?” Wynona asked Gillian. Gillian had just returned from lunch with the professor. “Did you find him attractive?”

“I believe so. He possesses desirable qualities. We share many similar characteristics. Objectively, on paper, he would be an acceptable mate.”

That didn’t exactly sound like a sizzling love match, but then, who knew how Gillian would describe her perfect mate?

“Well, what about the physical attraction?” Wynona pressed. “That’s important. Was there chemistry? A connection?”

“That’s difficult to say. I’m not sure what such a sensation would feel like.” She looked hopeful. “But it might be something that develops over time.”

Hmm. Not in Wynona’s experience. There had to be at least some initial sizzle, some spark of attraction. But again, this was Gillian. “So how did the lunch go?”

“Unfortunately, he had to leave halfway through the meal. He received an emergency text message.” Gillian’s brow wrinkled. “He must have excellent cell phone service. We were at one of those restaurants that blocks cell phone service, but somehow he was able to receive the text message anyway, and it stated that he had to leave at once.”

“Did he, now?” Wynona felt a flare of anger. Lying creep.

“Yes. I do hope everything’s all right with him. He was forced to leave so quickly that he was unable to pay for his half of the check.”

“
Really
.” Wynona struggled to keep her face neutral, but her claws shot out of her fingertips before she could stop them. She quickly retracted them.

“However, as he left, he stated that he would call me. So I imagine the appropriate thing to do is to wait for his call?” Gillian looked so sincere that Wynona had to stop herself from looking up his home address so she could shred his throat.

“Well, yes, but also let me do some more research on this guy and make sure he’s on the up and up. I’ll check with the other dating services in town, see if they know anything about him.”

She’d be talking with the other services, all right – to let them know to stay a hundred miles away from the lying jerk. She made it very clear to all her clients – she had no problem at all with clients deciding that whoever she fixed them up with was not a match. She just expected honesty from them. She did not deal with jerks who led people on and left them dangling. Or losers who stiffed women with lunch checks.

She’d come up with a reason that Gillian should never see this guy again – not that he was going to call her anyway, but this way, Gillian wouldn’t feel as rejected. She would tell Gillian that she’d found out something terribly unsavory about him, and that she had called the guy and told him never to call Gillian again.

She went back to her office, fuming.

Sprinkles was curled up on a little dog bed next to her desk. When he looked up at her and cocked his head, she thought his gaze was fairly accusatory.

“Fine.” She scowled at him. “You’re right. I should have listened to you.”

* * * * *

“There’s a couple of things we need to talk about,” Gillian said as Zane handed her a motorcycle helmet. She was wearing a jacket, jeans and boots as he’d instructed her.

“After we get where we’re going.”

She climbed onto the back of the bike behind him and settled in, arms looped around his waist. She’d never ridden on a motorcycle before. It was thrilling to hear him rev the motor and feel the vibration between her legs. Even more thrilling was the feeling of having her arms wrapped around him, pressing up against his broad muscular back.

At first, she was tense and she clung to him for dear life, but he stuck to rural roads with little traffic, and she found herself relaxing and settling against his back. The wind whipped her hair and she snuggled up to him and breathed in his scent.

It felt as if the bike was part of him, moving as gracefully as he did, leaning into the curves, racing eagerly down straight stretches of road.

They finally arrived at a small diner near the outskirts of town. It was next to a gas station, a convenience store and a garage.

“That’s where I work,” Zane said, pointing at the garage.

Rex and Tara were there at the diner, along with half a dozen other shifters from the shop where he worked, and their girlfriends, but they were just about to head out. She stood and chatted with them while Zane ordered dinner.

The shop was located on the edge of a small lake, and there were picnic tables in the back. They sat at a table and she ate her hot dogs and fries and then licked ketchup off her fingers. Then she looked at Zane, who was watching her with amusement.

“Shut up. Do as I say, not as I do,” she said sternly. “You are not allowed to do that on a date, ever.”

He scoffed. “I’ll try to remember that, thanks.”

“All right, there are a couple of things we need to go over,” she said. “First of all, I assume that Cecily and Hubert told you they want you to have lunch with Tiffany Charles on Saturday.”

“Who?”

“Tiffany Charles, the bear shifter they want you to mate with?”

He shrugged and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “Whatever. I don’t answer Cecily or Hubert’s calls most of the time.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like them.”

“Well, that’s…honest.” She met his gaze. “I mean, though, they are your family and all that.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t grow up with them. My parents were my family. My parents didn’t like them either.”

That took her aback. She wondered if he was being a bit harsh on them. Granted, they were awful people, but they were his only family. Cecily and Hubert had been among the searchers who’d rushed out to the cabin as soon as they realized that Zane and his parents were missing; she’d read that in the news article. That had to count for something; the two of them were the ultimate city shifters, and yet they’d been willing to tramp around in the woods for days trying to find their family.

“What about the rest of your clan?” she asked.

“There were a few decent ones. After my parents died and Hubert took over, they scattered around the country, joined new clans.”

“Anyway,” she resumed. “The lunch on Saturday. Noon. Are…are you okay with it?”

“Are
you
okay with it?” he echoed.

“Are you making fun of me?” she asked.

“No. I’m asking you a question.”

“Well…” She paused, trying to think of how to answer that question. She didn’t want to lie to Zane, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to put anything past him anyway. “I mean…not really. I just, uh…” She didn’t want to openly bash Tiffany. It wasn’t her place to do that, or to make his decisions for him.

“I don’t like teaching someone to be something they’re not,” she admitted. “This isn’t how I normally do things. I normally interview prospective clients, and get to know them, and get a feel for who they would be compatible with.”

He raised an eyebrow and looked her right in the eye. She looked away.

“So why did you agree to work with me?”

She felt her cheeks heat up. The Shepherds had insisted on a non-disclosure agreement. She couldn’t tell him about their deal.

“Reasons,” she muttered. “Admittedly self-centered reasons.”

He didn’t argue the point. He just shrugged indifferently. “Fine. Those suits should be ready by Friday. You can pick one for me.”

She nodded, feeling faintly queasy at the thought of him actually going out to lunch with Tiffany. Wooing her. Flirting with her. He could be very charming when he wanted to – and she knew he had incentive, because he didn’t want to lose the clan land.

But this was what she’d been hired for. Well, blackmailed for.

“All right,” she said. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. The fish and game department called me, and they said they found silver bullets at the site where we were fishing. I guess they’re considering the possibility that whoever shot at us was deliberately targeting shifters.”

He straightened up at that, and stared at her, shaking his head. “I don’t like the sound of that. You should stay with me until they get to the bottom of it.”

“Stay with you? Where?” Wait, what? She hadn’t meant to say that at all. She’d meant to tell him that it was out of the question.

“My house.”

“I can’t,” she said with regret. “It wouldn’t be professional. I have an alarm system at my house – I’ll be fine. And Gillian and I are taking turns having Sprinkles for the night, so if it’s my night to have him, you know I’ll be safe.” She smiled at that, but he didn’t.

“You’d be safer with me.”

“Cecily and Hubert would have a fit,” she said. “And really, I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time that morning.”

“You sure you don’t want the chance to make my house over too?”

She grimaced. “No, I’ll settle for your personality and eating habits and wardrobe, I guess. Am I pretty terrible?”

“Nope. If you were, I wouldn’t be here.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

His sensual lips quirked in an amused smile. “Course not. Do I strike you as the kind of guy who does anything he doesn’t want to?”

She felt a sudden warm glow spread through her.

“No, you don’t,” she admitted. So…that meant he liked spending time with her?

No, that was a treacherous road – she couldn’t let her thoughts travel there.

As they walked back to the front of the diner where his bike was parked, she thought she smelled something familiar. It smelled like…the guy from the parking lot, the one who’d eavesdropped on her. The one who had corrected her grammar.

It was just the faintest whiff, and then it was gone so quickly she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not.

She put on her helmet and climbed onto the bike behind Zane, settling in comfortably and trying not to think of his lunch with Tiffany as they drove. Why spoil an otherwise delightful ride?

As they headed towards the city, she heard the screech of tires and then the crash of two cars colliding, far behind them.

Zane heard it too. He pulled over immediately and called 9-1-1 on his cell phone. Then he turned around and headed back, getting just far enough to see a car crashed into a tree, consumed in flames.

There were already police and a fire truck on scene – they’d gotten there quickly.

There was only one car there, overturned and in flames. The driver hung upside down in his seat, limp and unmoving. The firefighters were backing away from the car. Zane and Wynona scrambled off his bike.

In one fluid movement, Zane shifted into bear form. Now he towered seven feet high at least, with paws the size of dinner plates and thick brown hair rippling over his massive body.

Without thinking, Wynona shifted too, feeling her clothing explode off her as she dropped to all fours. She followed Zane as he raced over to the burning car, not sure what she could do to help but sure, somehow, that she should be by his side if there was danger.

Zane grabbed the driver’s side door with his paws and, summoning his enormous shifter strength, pulled it off with a hideous screech of metal. Then he tore at the seatbelt, and carefully lifted the driver out as the flames from the engine leaped high in the air. Standing on his hind legs, he cradled the limp man in his arms, ran over to the ambulance, and set him down on the stretcher.

Wynona trotted over to where Zane stood. The air stank of blood and gasoline and motor oil. She felt a pang of sadness when he looked down at the limp man and shook his head.

The driver hadn’t survived.

Zane shifted back to his human form, fur receding, snout shrinking, claws retracting. In a minute he stood there tall, stark naked and magnificent, with the vehicle flaming and crackling behind him.

Wynona followed suit. She walked over to where her clothing had fallen off her and made the remains of her shirt into a kind of sarong, hiding her crotch, then stepped into her shoes, which fortunately had survived the shift. She wasn’t too terribly embarrassed, because shifters were used to being naked around people. Then she remembered that Zane was there and she was fat, so she sucked her stomach in and tried to cover herself with her hands.

Zane walked over to his motorcycle, opened up the small chest that he had strapped on the back, and pulled out a spare outfit. He handed Wynona a T-shirt and stepped into his jeans. One of the police officers questioned them as they got dressed, but all Zane could tell him was that he and Wynona had heard the accident as they were driving.