Brandi (7 page)

Brandi snorted and held his gaze. “Do I look stupid to you? And I didn’t fall into anything, Gareth. You insisted on us being together, remember? Junior Calder could have serviced me… or the Lafayette guy Matt kept offering up. You wouldn’t let me spend time with either of those men. We both know now my job was why. I probably would have done the same thing if our situations were reversed, but that’s beside the point. Let’s move past your big reveal. If you care about me as much as you say, tell me what kind of serious shit I’m getting into.”

Gareth released a frustrated breath. He couldn’t blame Brandi for drawing those conclusions, but it was still frustrating that their intimate connection didn’t trump her mistrust. Since that obviously wasn’t happening, blunt honesty was all he had left.

“I wouldn’t let you be with those other men because I wanted you for myself. What you did for a living was a secondary consideration. I had to have you. That is the absolute truth of the matter. Matt gave me hell for having those feelings for you and I didn’t even try to deny it.”

Brandi laughed at his earnestness. “Stop. Just stop. You don’t have to placate me to keep my cooperation. Your betrayal doesn’t top my handler’s for sending me there in the first place. Right now all I trust is my own gut about finding out what’s going on.”

Gareth frowned, but nodded. It was the smartest move for her even if it did rip at his insides. When had her opinion become his gauge of personal integrity? He’d gone two hundred years without losing sleep over what women thought about his ethics. Even his two previous mates hadn’t changed that part of him. He glared at Brandi, angry over her stoicism.

“What kind of things do you want me to tell you? Things like we’re being watched right now?”

Brandi snorted. She wasn’t about to tell him some of those watching them had deposited him on her couch yesterday. She glanced around the restaurant.

“Are you referring to the two giant blond guys dressed in all black? They obviously weren’t paying attention during the ‘blend in’ class, were they? They look like they should be playing electronic dance music in some nightclub.”

“Keep your voice down,” Gareth ordered. “Fallon and Lars can hear everything we’re saying to each other.”

“How? Are you wearing a wire, Gareth?”

“No. I’m not wearing a damn wire. They just hear well… like very, very well… as well as you can now. And this is not a proper place to have this discussion.”

Brandi’s gaze went to the guys. Lars lifted a hand and finger waved as she stared. She fought not to laugh as she finger waved back.

“Is the smart-ass who just waved at me a close friend of yours?”

Gareth shrugged. “Sort of… more like a close team mate. We’ve worked together many times.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper, baiting Gareth to see what he would tell her. “Are they more than what they seem?”

It was hard not to roll her eyes when Gareth squirmed in his chair. How had he ever been an agent? She could read his every expression.

“Fallon and Lars are unique… something like you are. But the men your handler sent after you who walked through the door a few minutes ago are just regular, annoying agents. They’re actually the ones I hate because they tend to get too nosy.”

Brandi hung her head and swore viciously. Now why would Lane put a tail on her after letting Travis tag her in his damn office? When she raised her chin, she noticed Fallon and Lars were staring intently at whoever else was watching her. She blew out a breath. What did it say that she trusted her enemies more than her old department people at the moment.

“Whoever it is, they’ll have to take a number. If they know what’s good for them, they better not come between me and food this morning. I’m freaking starved.”

Brandi calmly sipped the now full cup of coffee the waitress had reluctantly filled a few minutes ago.

Gareth kept his gaze on her as he spoke. “It’s two guys. They took a seat near the window… just watching you… not really acting concerned. One of them is the guy who cupped your crotch when he frisked you yesterday. I ought to go over there and break the bastard’s fingers for lingering too long.”

She wanted to be offended, and to swear over his possessive statement, but instead she ended up laughing at Gareth’s narrowed gaze. The guy’s intimate search technique hadn’t fazed her, but Gareth’s jealousy delighted some traitorous female part of her. Plus now she knew she hadn’t just imagined the growling she heard. Unfortunately, that also meant Gareth had betrayed her just as much as Travis had. Shit… she needed to develop better taste in men.

“Not that it’s any of your business any longer, but my gun was already in the air. He knew it so the search was cursory. There was nothing in my crotch for him to find.”

“Nothing for him anyway. That’s why I was so pissed,” Gareth said firmly.

“His grope had absolutely no effect on me… and you’re avoiding the obvious. If you knew I was visiting Lane, why did you let Travis tag me with knock-out juice?”

Gareth sighed, lifted his coffee, and sipped. There was no getting around this confession either. “Travis had orders. And at the time, I was still in shock that Reed’s grandson worked for my organization. He didn’t tell me he was going to knock you out or I might not have let him.”

“
You might not have
?” Brandi couldn’t stop her rising tone as her temper flared. “Are you hearing yourself? This is why I have no regret for trying to crack your head open yesterday. Now can we stop focusing on our fan clubs and get back to the matter at hand. While I spent the last decade chasing drug lords and money launderers, you’ve been chasing science experiments gone wrong, haven’t you?”

“Chased, caught, and delivered to my handler who directed their energies toward the good of everyone. I did special apprehensions for forty years before I burned out. I started doing this work before you were even born. I got out years ago.”

Brandi turned her head and stared off. The waitress came with their food. Not even the fragrant, sizzling steak could penetrate the icy awareness cloaking her senses about how much trouble she, Ariel, and Heidi were in. Lane might not know they had survived, but she bet Gareth’s handler did. Even if they both didn’t have possessive male werewolves in their lives, she couldn’t hide them now.

Concern for them ripped away her appetite as well as her remaining illusions about the goodness in the world. Her disappointment about Gareth was a lead weight in her chest. Worse though… not a bit of what she had learned could be changed.

She let out an exasperated breath over her indulgence of unproductive emotions and picked up her knife and fork. “Are you one of the good guys… or one of the bad, Gareth? Because I can’t fucking tell right now. I advise you to answer carefully because it might be important next time I get the chance to kill you.”

Ignoring his shock and the hurt reflected in his gaze, Brandi finally dug into her food without waiting for Gareth to answer. The question had been rhetorical anyway. She’d eventually discover the truth for herself, no matter how much it destroyed her.

“I withdraw my question. You better eat before your food gets cold, Agent Longfeather. Who knows when we’ll get to eat again? It’s not great fare, but at least it’s filling.”

Gareth stared at his steak, noting it was a good two inches bigger than Brandi’s. It was just one more thing to make him feel guilty. “When I couldn’t tell what I was becoming, I got out and returned home to Wasilla.”

Brandi nodded. “Well, in my opinion you should have stayed out.”

She cut a healthy bite of the meat and made herself focus on it instead of her disappointment.

“A fresh, juicy steak may just be the best thing ever,” she said, giving him an out to change the conversation.

“Not the best thing I can think of, but it comes in a close second,” Gareth replied.

Brandi snorted and took another bite. “You’re wasting your innuendo. We’re done with each other. It was over the minute you decided not to warn me what I was heading to face. Surely you’re smart enough to realize that’s the only way this can play out.”

“I can see why you think that, but I’m still staying with you tonight.”

“You’ll get no argument from me. I figure we’ve still got a lot to talk out. But just to clarify… the couch is available. My bed isn’t. It will never be again.”

Gareth didn’t reply or protest her statement, but she was determined that his passive aggression wasn’t going to work on her this time. She was not sleeping with him tonight.

“Change of subject… are those blond guys cats?”

Gareth snorted. “Yes. How did you figure it out?”

“I pay close attention. Plus one of them hacked up a hairball and spit it onto his plate,” she stated flatly, keeping her tone as deadpan as possible. She couldn’t help chuckling when Gareth actually swiveled in his chair and looked.

Gareth snorted when he turned back. Her dry sense of humor never failed to surprise him. “No… seriously… how did you know what they were?”

Brandi shrugged as she continued to eat. “They smell like the zoo, earthy and exotic. Lane’s guys, on the other hand, smell like cheap aftershave and greasy food.”

“Okay. Do you know what
kind
of cat?” Gareth demanded, resuming his meal.

Brandi barked out a laugh. “No… but it doesn’t matter. They’ll smell like the dead kind if they don’t keep their distance.”

Across the room, she heard Fallon and Lars fighting not to choke on their coffee as they laughed at her drama. She kept her gaze on her plate and pretended not to notice Gareth’s concern over her statement. He always took her seriously. Sometimes she liked it. Sometimes she used it to her advantage.

“Do you kill everyone that makes you unhappy?” Gareth demanded.

“Pretty much,” Brandi said. Then she pretended to think about it, not lifting her gaze. “A dead bastard doesn’t cause a woman half as much trouble as a live one.”

“Brandi, I’m being serious. I really don’t want to end up dead. I promised a certain couple of Alphas that I’d take care of you. Try to find a way to forgive me until I can make you understand my side of this situation.”

“Okay. I can see I’m going to have to repeat this like a hundred times until something gets through that thick skull of yours. Let’s recap the facts to expand your understanding, shall we?”

Brandi put down her fork and tented her fingers.

“You’ve lied to me about who you were for two months. Yesterday you let a known enemy tag me with a knock-out cocktail. You were also going to let them study me without my consent. I’m tired of waking up strapped down to gurneys, Gareth. So no—I have no plans to forgive you. I will let you live so long as you don’t keep stabbing me in the back every five seconds. Cross me again—and I will take you out.”

Gareth shook his head. All in all his revelations were going as well as he could have expected. Brandi didn’t trust him any longer and was determined to work around him. He could only imagine how much trouble she was having with the fact her former handler had lied to her too.

Now he deeply regretted his promise to help bring Brandi into his department for study. He knew it was just going to further break down things between them when she heard about the deal he’d made on her behalf. He might never be able to convince her, but he really hadn’t had any other choice. Making Brandi part of them was the only way the organization was willing to let her and the others stay alive.

Chapter 6

Gareth made a phone call and a car came to pick them up from the restaurant. Fallon and Lars took over for the drivers and snickered as they left two unhappy, frowning, and obviously green agents standing on the street. Brandi didn’t bat an eyelash at any of the driver drama, which shouldn’t have surprised him so much because she was a seasoned agent, but did given her current frustration level with anything involving him.

Once inside the vehicle, a grinning Lars had passed Brandi’s jacket and sunglasses over the seat to her. She didn’t seem shocked or upset by their magical reappearance, or by Lars’s conspiratorial wink which had made her smile briefly.

Were they trying to intimidate her? Or trying to make friends? After yesterday, they should know what a hard-ass piece of work she was.

When Brandi turned to stare out the car window, Lars turned and looked between him and Brandi with eyebrows raised in question. Gareth shook his head. Their sense of smell wasn’t as good as his… or Brandi’s. Still, there was no hiding he and Brandi had been intimate. Fallon and Lars were both probably wondering why he was forcing Brandi to go in and face an uncertain fate since she was someone he obviously cared enough about to have sex with.

He couldn’t blame them for thinking poorly of his actions. He was now wondering the same damn thing himself. He just hadn’t seen how to avoid the upcoming confrontation without Brandi becoming the next hunted hybrid. It had made more sense for the two of them to go in together, confess what had happened to her, and work within the system he’d supported for over forty years.

As Fallon drove swiftly through the back streets of Alexandria, he could feel Brandi pulling further into herself… no doubt preparing for what she would face. She acted like she didn’t care. Maybe she didn’t. For once, he wished he could read her mind. He also wished he’d told her the truth so she’d still be listening to him.