Diaries of an Urban Panther (16 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said. “On behalf of all men.”

“I’m fine now,” I said with a shrug, stabbing my salad that didn’t really look appetizing compared to the lure of future steak. “But I wasn’t then. So I packed up everything in LA and moved halfway across the country.”

“And Jessa?”

“Silly thing picked up everything and met me in the middle. Been together ever since. She was great during the whole grieving thing, prevented me from doing some stupid stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like giving him the ring back. It was the gaudy three-carat thing I never liked,” I said remembering the distasteful ring and the way it used to weigh down my finger.

“So what did you do with it? Because I’m imagining you throwing it in the Trinity,” he offered as he took a huge bit of his salad.

“Turned them into these,” I said brushing my hair back behind my ear to show off my sparklies. “The most perfect pair of diamond earrings I could find. I was all for the Trinity thing, but Jessa is much more practical.”

Chaz chuckled and continued on his salad.

I just pushed the leaves around the plate and sighed. “She is the only family I have. Taking care of Jessa is the only thing I know I do well. But enough about me, I know all about me. I want to hear much more about Mr. Garrett who stalks around in a redesigned muscle car,” I leaned back and took a sip of my wine, which was wonderfully earthy and dry at the same time.

“Not much to tell,” he said as he finished with his salad, putting the fork on the plate.

“Right, because all the men I know answer to an actual higher Power and carry around guns with silver bullets,” I whispered the last part.

Chaz leaned forward on the table and clasped his hands. His eyes took on a steady look but I matched it easily. Very little was scaring me these days and there was no way I was going to be intimidated by a deep stare from a handsome man.

“I was born here actually. And raised by my dad . . .”

I leaned forward and listened as he dropped his voice a little.

“Like I told you before, it turned out I had the same gift and he taught me the trade, got me involved with the Cause, and by 17, I was working my own missions for them”.

“And do all of them involve stalking single woman?” I asked.

“No. Some are more dangerous. Some are as simple as delivering a package.”

We were silent as the waiter brought out the meals. My mouth immediately began to water as I looked down at the pink meat. At least I could eat this without guilt. I needed the protein to keep me grounded until I went to Iris’s next full moon. She had promised a quiet place to work and shift because she was certain I was not going to be able to stop it this early in the game.

The steak was heaven on a plate. Hot and thick and juicy and not a bunny in sight. I closed my eyes on the first bite and just sorted out the spices that had been used and savored the flame-grilled taste.

“Good?”

I opened my eyes to find him watching my little display. “Perfect. Thank you.”

He just smiled and looked back down at his meal.

We really didn’t start talking again until we were both finished. Steak isn’t a really conversation meal, with all the chewing. Pasta was more of a date food. One dainty ziti at a time, with a toss of the hair and a flirty smile.

But this was not a date, I kept telling myself. It was just two people, enjoying a meal on a Thursday night together. Dressed in heels and a suit and complete with awkward silences, but this was not a date.

As the waiter cleared away the plates, Chaz drank the last of his wine. “You said something the other day.”

“I say a lot of things, mostly with my foot in my mouth.”

He licked his lips. “You said that the job wasn’t who I was, just what I did.”

“I do remember something like that.”

He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “I’ve worked my tail off for the Powers for six years now and I can’t remember the last time I did something I wanted to do.”

“Sounds like one hell of a revelation but you could have eaten steak alone.”

He shook his head. “I eat too many meals alone. Out of paper bags. I wanted some decent company for once and silverware.”

“And the car? Was that something that you wanted?”

Chaz laughed and again, I was surrounded by that golden wamrth. “God yes. Dad’s Bronco is great for lugging things around, but I’ve been eyeing the new design of the Challenger for ages.”

I laughed and drew the jealous glance of everyone around us. Something had changed. This wasn’t the Chaz that had previously been stalking me behind plastic house plants. He was different, despite the same half smile he was giving me now.

And here I was, well fed, well dressed, and willing to suspend my disbelief for at least one evening to also be sitting across from a man having a nice meal that I had no intention of paying for.

“So where to next?” I asked. “Drinks might be nice but nowhere too packed.”

“Something wrong?” he asked, arched eyebrow.

“Can’t I just want a quiet place to talk?” I countered as I leaned back.

Chaz chuckled. “And I just wanted a place to listen to music.”

I looked hard at him. “You wanted a place where you can avoid questions.”

“Guilty,” he held his hands up in defense. “Well, that, and there’s live jazz at this place down the street.”

“Jazz?”

“Got a problem with jazz?”

I shook my head. “You just don’t seem like the jazz type.”

“What type am I?” he asked, a smile curling up only one side of his mouth.

“More Motley Crüe than Miles Davis.”

The waiter stealthily put the bill on the table and he paid. I didn’t protest.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said as he stood.

The hostess held the door for us and we exited into the cool night air. It refreshed me immediately and I took in a deep breath of the downtown air. Smelled like people and coffee and rain. Didn’t remember bad weather on the forecast but the nose knows.

Chaz smiled and stretched on the corner as we waited for the pedestrian right of way. He swept back his jacket and put his hands in his pockets. Looked like a Versace ad with a small hand gun tucked into the side of his pants by the strange lump there. Knowing Chaz, there was a knife somewhere under that flawless suite.

Filled with steak and bravery because of the rising moon, I just had to ask. “Did you ever do any modeling?”

Something shimmered over Chaz’s brown eyes for a split second as he looked down the street and I knew I was right. It was like the cherry on the top of the meal. “You were a model.”

His jaw clenched. “I have to make money somehow,” he shrugged as he motioned that we needed to cross the street while the light was good.

I jogged along next to him in the high heels, still giggling to myself.

“What?” he grumbled.

“You
are
a model,” I repeated with a sing-songy voice.

“What about it?”

“Nothing. Just never imagined the guys on the billboards with shotguns in their cars saving damsels in distress.”

He stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk and turned to me, chin lowered and eyes dark.

I froze. Who would have known that of all the other things I egged him on about, this would be the touchy subject?

“Like I said. It’s a job. Pays the bills and keeps my schedule free for things like this.”

“Dates or sacred destinies?” I asked quickly.

Chaz just lifted his left shoulder briefly and the glare faded into an odd grin. “Both.”

He turned quickly and started up the street.

But I was still frozen. Damn it. He might have just admitted this was a date. My cheeks flushed and so did my senses as I caught a tendril of his scent on the wind, that starchy musk that had come over me earlier. I wanted to close my eyes and curl up in a little ball surrounded by that warmth.

He was half a block down when he realized that I wasn’t next to him. He stopped and turned around confused. “What?” he called out.

Suddenly, there was a shift in the wind and I was no longer caught up in his smell and the idea of a first date. I was surrounded by dogs, the smell of wet dog, mildewed and sewage-soaked, coming from up wind. Made part of my steak dinner come up a little. A shiver racked my spine and I moved quickly for Chaz, as quick as I could in three-inch heels.

He knew what I knew in the moment he caught my elbow.

“Lose the shoes,” he said in a low growl as he pulled me quickly down the street, gracefully guiding us through the growing night crowds.

As smoothly as I could between our long strides, I slipped off the red pumps and carried them in my free hand.

I could still smell them, the way they felt in my head. Iris had always said you could tell the good guys from the bad in an instant. I chilled, finally knowing the bad guys felt like thick, sticky fear that crept down my back.

The boot steps quickened behind us and Chaz pulled me into a run, my bare feet slapping against the cold sidewalk.

“Run,” he said, dropping my arm, stopping in our flight. “Go someplace safe.”

“Are you insane?” I snapped.

“Go!” he repeated and I caught a light in his eyes, a glint of something more powerful than I had ever given him credit for.

I simply nodded and took off down the street at panther speed.

I didn’t hear anything beyond the wind in my ears as I cleared two blocks in three seconds. I stopped and stood flush against a building to look back down the street. No one was following me, Chaz was gone, and the passer-bys didn’t even look twice at the woman breathing heavily against a building corner. I was nicely dressed and therefore not a threat to their normal Thursday night.

It was dark and quiet and there was no dog smell on the wind, no Chaz smell either. I sucked in the cool safe air.

What the hell was I doing?
I asked myself. Who were they? Haverty’s men come to collect? And why the hell had I run? I’d just left him there, to fight my battles. Just left Chaz to deal with the beasties because they were his thing; they were part of his world.

Screw that. When the last time Violet Jordan let someone else fight her battles?

Oh, that’s right, until I met Chaz, there were no battles to fight. And if there was anything that invaded my little fortress, I ran. It’s what I had always done. Run, move, and start all over with a fresh slate when things got hairy.

Wasn’t getting any hairier than this.

I looked up at the waxing moon and felt the stir of the cat in my chest. I wasn’t the Violet Jordan who ran anymore. I was the Violet Jordan who threw drinks in men’s faces and threw sensei’s across the room. I was the Violet Jordan who dated male models.

And those jerks had just ruined the first good date I’d had in years.

Without a plan, I went back. Half-way to where I’d lost Chaz, I jumped as I heard a cry carried on the wind. It was him. I looked around at the other people who walked around unknowingly of the battle going on down the street, looked at their happy faces and listened to the echoing laughter.

Chaz. I couldn’t leave him there, despite the mixed signals, despite the threats, despite his completely butting into every aspect of my life.

I could hear grunts and caught a whiff of Chaz’s starch.

It only fueled my blood as I walked past an alleyway where I could feel them again. I stepped around a garbage bin that was blocking most of the alleyway from view of the sidewalk.

I gulped and had a very vivid flashback. Two months ago, me in an alleyway, trash cans, my shoes in my hand. And we all know how wonderfully that went.

My resolve faltered and I slid behind the dumpster. What the hell was I doing again? Right: saving the boy. Me against three grown “men.” Banner idea, Violet.

Closing my eyes, I tried to swallow the steak-tasting fear rising in my throat. I should run, call Iris. She surely knew someone who was burlier than me. Hell, Iris herself could probably take these guys down with one flick of her little finger.

The distinct crack of bone echoed through the alleyway and I could taste blood like copper in the air.

He would do this for me, had done this for me. And, hell, I healed pretty fast the last time. Without Chaz, I’d be dead in an alley. Look like things were about to come full circle.

“Here kitty, kitty,” one of the men called out from the alley.

“Crap.” I had been made. Though part of me doubted they could smell my magnolia over their sewer stench.

With one last deep breath and the passing thought that I really wished I had finished the last edit on that script I’d been working on, I slid around the corner.

Chaz was on his knees. In the faint light, blood glistened as it poured from a cut in his forehead. Two men held him by the elbows as the third punched away at his ribs.

I dropped the heels and they made a wonderfully hollow echo as the sound bounced up into the night sky. I also dropped any pretense of my shields as I opened the door to my town house and let my power dance excitedly along my skin.