Desert Bound (Cambio Springs) (29 page)

Alex looked surprised. “Years?”

“Years.”

His shoulders tensed. “You’re right.” He bent down and inhaled the scent at her neck. “She probably needs that.”

They danced for a few more minutes, winding down as the song switched to a slower one.

“I’d never ignore you, Ted.”

“I know.” Her head lay on his shoulder as the room spun around. “I’d kick your ass if you ignored me like that.”

She felt his soft laughter as he held her. Spinning around, feeling the mellow of two beers and a full dinner sink into her. Peace. Quiet. When things settled down, this would be her life. Working at her clinic. Visiting Alex at the resort. Maybe taking off to Vegas or L.A. for the weekend. Sunday dinners with friends and slow dances at the Cave… Her eyes drifted closed as she relaxed on Alex’s shoulder. 

And when she opened them, the panicked face of Joe Smith was looking at her through a window.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What are we doing?” Alex frowned as Ted pulled him toward the door of the Cave. “Ted, what’s—”

“Outside. Now. Quiet,
querido
.”

He shut up and walked.

“And make sure no one is following us.”

Holding the door open as she walked out, Alex glanced behind them, but saw no one taking note. They probably thought the two new lovers were ducking out to go home early. He glanced at Ted and hoped no one noticed her purse sitting at the end of the bar where Ollie had stashed it for her.

She led them out to the parking lot, stopping until she heard a low whistle from the bushes. Then Ted frowned and stalked toward it.

They were only a few feet into the dark brush when she stopped. Her hand flew into the darkness and he heard the solid thud as it collided with someone.

“Fuck, Ted!”

Alex stepped forward and held her back, blocking her with his body as he searched the night.

Sprawled on the ground was Joe Smith, looking dirty, ragged, and beat as he rubbed a hand over the jaw that Ted had punched.

She let loose a stream of furious Spanish, all the while reaching down to hit him again. Alex had to hold her arms, and he felt the animal energy ripple along her skin. He squeezed her arms. “Focus, Ted.”

“You bastard!” she hissed. “What are you doing here, and it better not be trying to get back with Allie, unless you want to die. You take off on her. Abandon those kids. Then come skulking in the parking lot? What are you up to, you sneak?”

“I needed to talk to you two!”

That brought both of them up short. Alex was only a few seconds away from letting Ted loose on the man, even though he knew they needed to talk to him. 

He asked, “Why do you need to talk to us?”

“Don’t tell Ollie, okay?” He was dusting off his pants, and Alex took the opportunity to assess him.

Joe had always been lean, but his clothes were now hanging off him. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks, and by the scent of things, he wasn’t getting regular showers.

“What’s going on, Joe?” Ted demanded.

“I’m trying to do right. I know I fucked up, Ted. But she’s better off without me anyway. You all knew that. So did she. She’s just too damn loyal to—”

“We are not your marriage counselors,” Alex interrupted. “What’s this about? Is it about Marcus?”

Even in the moonlight, Alex could see Joe’s face pale.

“I didn’t know,” he whispered.

“You need to explain that, Joe.”

“He… I owed him some cash. He said it was a way to pay him back. Hell, I hadn’t used that shit in years. Didn’t even think it was good. But he—”

“Who are you talking about?” Ted hissed again, glancing over her shoulder to check the parking lot when the door swung open.

“I didn’t know. I know me and Marcus fought about stupid shit. Cards and stuff, but I didn’t know. Wouldn’t even given him that shit, but he knows! Man, he knows. And he said he’d tell everyone.”

“Tell everyone what?” Ted asked.

Joe kept rambling. “I’m an asshole, yeah? But my kids, man. My kids. I can’t let my kids—”

“Joe, shut up.” Alex stepped closer and stared into the desperate man’s eyes. He let his anger rise, knowing that Joe would scent it. Knowing that, even outside the pack, the coyote would react to the stronger predator in front of him.

He did. Alex smelled the urine as Joe let out a whimper.

“Tell me who you’re talking about.”

“Avery,” Joe whispered. “I owed him money, and he asked me to—”

Joe’s voice cut off with a gasp a second after the door to the Cave slammed open and his eyes flew over Alex’s shoulder. 

A ferocious roar filled the air as Joe yelled, “Fuck!” and shifted in a blink. 

Seconds later, the coyote had disappeared into the darkness and Alex tackled Ted to the ground to escape the path of the thundering grizzly.

She scrambled to her feet and yelled, “Ollie, stop!”

It was too late. Both animals had disappeared into the night.

“Shift!” she yelled, shoving him. “You need to catch him. Catch them. Joe knows—”

“Joe knows a million burrows in this desert. More than you or me. And definitely more than Ollie. He’s fast and smart.” He kicked his boot in the dust. “Shit! He’s history, Ted.”

“You don’t know that.”

She stepped toward the bushes, acting like she was going after them. 

“Ted, do not chase that bear.”

“It’s Ollie. It’s not like he’s going to hurt—”

“A few things you need to know about Ollie, Ted, and one of them is that when that man loses it, he goes into a boar-rage that does not listen to reason or understand much past his animal.”

She blinked, but stopped walking. “What? He’s Ollie!”

“It takes a lot to get him there, but when he does, you do not fight him. You do not provoke him. You get the hell out of his way and hope he doesn’t run into anything but full animals.”

“But he’s Ollie,” Ted whispered.

“Yeah.” He put his hand on her jaw. “It doesn’t happen often. But even the quiet ones need to roar every now and then.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Ted’s voice was shaky.

“If he doesn’t come back within an hour or so, I’ll track him down.”

There was more movement in the parking lot. Sean and Allie had joined them.

“He had your purse,” Allie said. “He went to the window. I think he was going to bring it to you, but he…”

Sean took a deep breath, then his eyes cut to Alex. “Who was it?”

“Joe,” Alex said.

Allie’s eyes got huge. “Joe?”

Ted walked over and grabbed her hand. “He was talking to us. Something about Marcus. Then Ollie came out and—”

“He can’t hurt him,” Allie interrupted her, looking at Alex. “You have to stop him. He can’t hurt the kids’ dad. He’d never be able to live with himself.”

Sean and Alex exchanged a look. “Don’t think he’s going to see it that way, Allie.”

“He will eventually.” She stepped closer. Desperate. “Find him. Stop him.”

“Joe’s fast, honey,” Sean said. “He’ll be all—”

“This isn’t about Joe!” she yelled. “You have to keep Ollie from doing this, Alex!”

Alex met her desperate eyes. Saw what was swimming behind them. Then he turned and ran into the dark.

Hours later, exhausted and bleeding, he walked into the house.

“Alex?”

She was still awake, calling from the bedroom.

“I’m coming back,” he called. “Don’t get up.”

“Is he all right? Is everyone okay?”

He shrugged out of the jacket he’d retrieved from the bushes behind the Cave, and started unbuttoning his shirt as he walked to the bedroom.

Ted was already standing, so he went to her, gave her a brush on the jaw and a quick kiss. “I’m beat. Everyone’s fine. Go back to bed and let me shower, then I’ll fill you in.”

She grabbed his arm before he could turn, holding him in place.

“Ted—”

“Are
you
okay?” she whispered. “Should have asked that first.”

He smiled, reached for the back of her neck, and pulled her into a harder kiss. It was slow, deliberate, and thorough. He tasted every part of her mouth before he let her go, biting her lower lip as she let out a soft sigh.

“Let me shower,” he said. “I’ll meet you in bed.”

“Okay.”

He cleaned off quickly, always amazed at just how dusty his ears got when he shifted. Shaking off after he turned the water off, he stepped into the foggy bathroom and stopped at his cloudy reflection. 

He didn’t look different, but he felt it.

Older. Stronger. Harder.

He’d taken Ollie down quickly that night, and he knew part of it was because the bear had been exhausted and distracted. But part of it wasn’t. 

“Alex?”

Older. Stronger. Harder. 

And happier.

Having that voice to come home to, that woman at his back? He’d never been happier in his life.

Reasonably dry, he walked to bed and collapsed onto it. Ted rolled to him immediately, checking a new gash on his shoulder.

“I can see you’re going to be a full time project, McCann.”

“Yep.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Bear claws.”

“So you found Ollie.”

Alex took a deep breath and focused on the soft feel of Ted’s fingers, not the pain of his body healing. They healed plenty fast, but it still hurt. Sometimes, it seemed like the healing hurt more than the wound, but that was probably only because it took longer.

“I found him. He was already exhausted and distracted when I did, so it only took a few hard bites to snap him out of it. He hadn’t found Joe. We looked after he’d calmed down. I tracked his scent to a burrow near Gerry Wash, but after that, he was gone. Once he goes underground…

“Yeah.”

She knew from tracking desert animals herself. The ground was the best fortress a small animal could have. And as long as you could avoid snakes…

“Should have taken Sean with us.”

Ted snickered. “I have a feeling he’d spend most of his time avoiding those big bear paws.”

“Yeah… Ollie doesn’t like him much right now.”

“He’ll get over it.” She paused. Took a deep breath. “What does he know?”

“Ollie?”

“Joe. He kept saying ‘he knows, he knows.’ Can we assume he’s talking about Avery?”

Alex thought. “Probably. Piece it together for me, baby. I’m wiped.”

“Joe and Avery knew each other. Gambled together. Maybe picked up women together, too.”

“Mmhmm.” He blinked hard, trying to keep awake. “Did Joe use drugs to pick up women? Did Avery do it, too? Is that the connection?”

“I don’t think so. Remember what he said. ‘I hadn’t used them in years.’”

Which meant that, at some point, Joe Russell
had
used the drugs for something, and the most likely scenario was on the women he met and possibly even with his own wife. He felt the skin on his neck prickle, despite his exhaustion.

Ted sensed it and put a hand on his chest.

“He’s gone,” she said. “Never getting to Allie again.”

Alex cleared his throat. “He hadn’t used them in years, but he kept them. The drugs. Maybe he said something to Avery when they were drinking. He remembers it, then goes to Joe when it becomes useful.”

“Joe gives him the drugs because…?”

“He owed him money? It seemed pretty clear that Joe didn’t know he was going to use them on Marcus.”

Ted asked, “Are we sure that Avery killed Marcus, though? The man is clearly an asshole, but there’s no evidence he was directly involved.”

“No. Nothing but what Joe said, and he’s underground.”

“So there’s no connection directly, but—”

“‘He knows. He knows.’” Alex repeated Joe’s panicked words. “What does Avery know, Ted?”

“About the payoffs? The investigation?”

“I do not think Joe Russell would be worried about a criminal investigation in Las Vegas that didn’t involve him.”

They both fell silent.

“He knows about the town,” Ted whispered. “He knows about us.”

“Avery, a minute?”

The man looked up from the bed of his truck, where plans were spread out on the tailgate. He lifted his chin at Alex before he said a few more words to his foreman and started walking toward the office trailer.

Alex took a seat, mindful that he needed information, but he’d have to tread carefully. He needed to know if Avery knew about the town. If he did… 

He didn’t know how he’d handle it. In his grandfather’s day, someone like Avery would have just disappeared. But Alex was trying to bring the town into the modern age. Secrecy was important, but there had to be a better way to conceal who they were without violence.

Not that killing Chris Avery would cause Alex any sleepless nights if the man had drugged and killed Marcus Quinn.

The job was almost done, and according to Caleb, they didn’t have anything that tied Avery to Marcus’s death. Nothing that could warrant an arrest. The police in Vegas were drawing their own conclusions regarding the murder and its relationship to the bribery investigation, but they didn’t have enough either. There were still no eyewitnesses that put the two men together, and still no plausible reason that Avery would kill his brother-in-law when the man was keeping him on in the business and covering for him.

“Alex,” Avery said as he sat down in the chair across the desk. “How the hell you doing? Looking good, man. End of the week and we’re out of your hair.”

“Great.” He nodded. “That’s excellent news. Of course, you’ll be around as we’re building.”

“I’m already seeing your concrete guys come in. They have any issues, let me know. Crescent Construction will have crews in the area, and we’ll be parking some equipment on the project until you’re finished.”

“Appreciated.”

“Helps me out too. People coming in see our name, like our work, we get more.”

“True.” Why the hell was the man being so friendly? 

“This job,” Avery continued, “it meant a lot to Marcus. Means a lot to me, too, now that Josie and the kids will be here. We’ll take care of you, Alex.”

Did he suspect they were looking at him? Or was he just that confident his tracks would never be found?”