Falke’s Captive (11 page)

“Hey, Lizzy.”

She ground her teeth and dropped the cooling box into her purse. “Did you find anything?”

“Some scat,” he said, coming up to her. Sweat beaded his brow, and his red T-shirt had damp stains around his neck and sides. “What’d you find out from the vet?”

She shook her head. “Nothing useful. Professor Whitmore is sending me on some errands. I left my laptop under the desk. Could you install that software if you have the time?”

“No problem. What does he have you doing?”

She shrugged. “Sending off the rest of the Falke sample to the university. He also wants me to go talk to the Falke brothers again.”

“The ones—” He looked as if he literally bit his tongue.

“The ones what?”

“Are they the…? Uhm. Are you sure you should be spending more time with them?”

Her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out how to tactfully tell Tim to mind his own business.

His voice dropped lower than before when he said, “Look, I’m not tryin’ to butt in—”

“Then don’t.” She straightened her shoulders. “I’m here to do a job. The professor wants me to get more samples from that cougar, and that means I have to convince its owners that it’s in their best interest. That’s all I’m—”

He didn’t look in her eyes. “I saw you.”

That stopped her. “What?” His face showed concern, which kept her from ignoring him. Pushing up her glasses, she asked, “What are you talking about?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the trailer, then back to her, and leaned closer. “I saw you with’m.”

“Saw me…” Even to her the innocence in her voice sounded forced.

“When I was at the lab, putting in the camera. I came out and…I could see in your window. You were…”

Her face flamed hot. The window was up high. Second floor. He couldn’t have seen that much. She tried to visualize the position of the trailer in reference to the closet door against which Kelan had taken her.

“Who—”

She cut him off. “I don’t know what or who you
think
you saw, but becoming a peeping Tom doesn’t become you, Tim.” She started to walk off again.

“Lizzy, stop. It wasn’t like that.”

“Get this straight. What I do in my room on my time is
my business
.”

“Look, I know that. I haven’t said anything to the professor, and I won’t. I promise, but I’m just worried about you. That’s all. I don’t want to see you hurt. This is a tourist town, and a fling with the locals could only spell trouble. I thought this research project was important to you.”

Warring between embarrassment and the fact Tim really was a nice guy, she forced a smile. “It is important to me. Thank you, Tim, for your concern, but it’s not necessary. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She opened the door of her Jeep. “One more thing.”

“Hmm?” he murmured, a frown on his face.

“It’s Beth,
Timmy
. Not Lizzy.”

He smiled, the worry melting away. “Sorry. Beth.”

She grinned. “Could you bring the laptop back to the hotel tonight? I’m not sure if I’ll make it back out here before you two close up shop.”

“No problem. See you tonight.” He gave a wave as she shut her door and started the vehicle.

As she drove the ten miles back to Leavenworth, she fretted over Professor Whitmore’s words. Part of her said that this was his ball game, and she was there to play backup. He was the one with the grant, the funding, the support of the university. He’d chosen her to come along for the ride because he knew she needed field experience to finish her dissertation. And if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been in the woods that day.

Regardless, she was the one who’d discovered the Falke cat, even if by total accident. She hoped he’d share the limelight if it came to that. Starting her professional career as a Ph.D. with this kind of co-discovery to her name would be huge. She’d be able to pick where she wanted to work, and with whom.

Big cats had been her passion since she was a little girl. If this was as big as she and the professor thought, she’d be able to work in her chosen field, doing whatever she wanted. A dream come true.

If the professor acknowledged her contribution.

She pulled in front of the building that housed the Leavenworth post office and frowned. Closed for lunch between eleven and one. She glanced at her watch. Eleven-fifteen. She couldn’t sit here for the next two hours waiting, so she headed to her hotel.

She put the box with the sample in it in the room’s mini fridge. It wasn’t as if she could drop it in a mailbox and hope it got to Seattle undamaged. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and downed it all. Her bed had been made by the hotel staff, and it looked inviting. She had two hours to kill and had been awake most of the night.

She should go over to Catamount Outfitters and see if she could find Kelan and Reidar. A yawn grabbed her, and she decided facing those boys would be much better when she was rested. Maybe while she napped she’d get a brilliant idea about how to ask them to help her that would make them say yes.

With a small grin on her face, she slipped her purse over her head, set it on the low dresser along with her glasses, and then unlaced her hiking boots. If the professor wouldn’t let her be out in the forest, hiking and sweating and doing what she wanted to be doing, she’d catch a little cat nap—that thought made her chuckle—while she waited for the post office to reopen after lunch. She could drop the package off on the way to the store, after some shut-eye.

“It’s almost eleven in the morning. What are we going to do? Go in with guns blazing?” Reidar asked, sarcasm dripping off his words. His gut told him this was a bad idea, no matter how well his brother thought he’d planned it.

Kelan, sitting in the driver’s seat, turned his head and gave Reidar a fierce scowl before looking back at the road. “No, smartass. We check it out now, maybe stop in and say hi to Beth while she’s working so you can get a look at the computer system, and then go hang out at the shop until dark. Then we make our move.”

Reidar yawned and rubbed his eyes, exhausted from barely sleeping last night. What terrified him was that it might be the
only
night they ever spent with Beth. The very thought made him irritable.

Kelan smirked. “One night with a woman, and you’re ready to curl up and sleep away the day.”

“I don’t like this,” Reidar said, not in the mood for Kelan’s teasing, He stared out the side window.

“She’ll never know. We go in, grab the blood sample, you do your magic and make everything disappear from the computer, and we’re out. No big deal.”

Reidar gave him a look that plainly said, “Bullshit.” This was the biggest deal of their lives, and Kelan wouldn’t admit it.

“Okay, she might figure out that it was us, but so what? She won’t be able to prove it. You know I’m a whiz at breaking and entering. How do you think I’ve been able to retrieve my collar so many times over the years without the women finding out?” He chuckled. “Some of them treat it like a trophy.”

Reidar clamped his lips shut, his teeth clenching in annoyance. His brother was a moron if he thought he could convince Reidar that everything was cool. Kelan had as much turmoil going on inside as Reidar did. He’d seen the emotion in Kelan last night. Sensed it in his passionate fury toward Beth, and then in the tender way he’d touched her later in the night. They were the same in that before Beth, sex never meant anything other than physical relief and mutual enjoyment. But, last night, all of last night, had been different. Special. They’d finally found a woman who…
fit.
Beth fulfilled their needs. Smart and sexy, kind-hearted and kinky, she was the most spectacular thing to ever happen to them.

And now they were going to go fuck it all up because Kelan made a big damn mistake. They never, ever, under any circumstances went off alone in catamount form in the middle of the day on public lands. Ever. It was a rule. One his brother never should have broken.

He wanted to punch Kelan square in the face for it. Only, Kelan was the hothead in the family, not him. Fisticuffs would not solve their problem. So he sat back and waited as they drove down Front Street then turned in behind the Bavarian Inn.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” Kelan shouted as he hit the brakes and slammed his fist against the steering wheel.

“What?” Reidar braced himself with a hand on the dashboard and searched for whatever had set his brother off.

Kelan shook his finger toward an open spot in the back parking lot. “The fucking semi is
gone
.”

Reidar’s stomach clenched.

Kelan pulled into a parking spot in front of the back door and got out. Reidar followed.

“Kel, don’t do anything stupid,” he warned.

His brother marched up to the front desk, shook off the anger, pasted on a pleasant smile and said, “Hey, Ritchie. How you doing?”

The man behind the counter—a guy who’d been in high school with Heidi and their younger brothers—glanced up from the computer screen and grinned. “Hey…uh…”

“Kelan.” He pointed to his brother and added, “Reidar.”

“Right. Sorry. Can’t ever tell you guys apart. What can I do for you?”

The idiot had dated their sister for six months and never knew which brother was threatening his life. He wasn’t all that bright, but Heidi had thought him sweet back then.

“We came to see Beth, but her big ol’ trailer is missing. She check out?”

“Naw, man. They just moved it out of town.”

“Oh?”

Ritchie seemed eager to talk. “Yeah. Because of Falke being in and around town, and all. That tall skinny guy—Tom, or Tim, I think he said his name was. Anyway, he said they had to move to a new area where Falke’s scent wouldn’t have scared off wild cougars.”

“Really,” Kelan said, leaning an elbow on the high counter in a relaxed pose. “Didn’t realize our Falke would cause such problems. Any idea where they moved it to? We were hoping to ask Beth out to dinner tonight.”

Ritchie grinned as if in on a big secret—obviously their love lives, not the moving of the lab. “Yeah. The guy said they were relocating to the fire base camp at the bottom of Biederman Ridge.”

“Yeah,” Reidar said with a grin. “That makes sense. Just off the highway with power and everything.” And secluded, so their B&E wouldn’t be accidentally seen by prying eyes.

“Yep,” Ritchie said. “That’s what he said. They’d lucked out and were still close enough to come back here every night.” He leaned closer. “You know he was askin’ about you guys.”

“He was?”

Ritchie nodded. “Wanted to know how many of you there were and if all you Falke brothers looked like.”

“Yeah, well,” Reidar began, “I guess he’s never seen grown quadruplets before.”

Ritchie chortled. “Guess not.”

“Hey, Rich, you’re awesome, man,” Kelan said, his grin looking genuine now as he shook Ritchie’s hand.

“You know Heidi’s still single, right?” Reidar asked.

Ritchie ducked his head and grinned, looking like that shy sophomore he’d been back when he panted after their sister. “Yeah, I know. But she’s a vet, and I’m just a desk clerk at a hotel.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Ritchie,” Reidar said as Kelan started down the hallway to the back door. “Give her a call sometime. You never know.”

“Yeah, maybe I will…”

“Why do you give guys like that hope?” Kelan asked as soon as they were back in the car and headed to the forestry base camp.

Reidar shrugged. “He’s a good kid. Heidi could do worse.”

Kelan shook his head and sighed. “You’re such a sap sometimes.”

“Heidi’s going to bring a guy home someday, you know. Wouldn’t it be better if that guy was someone we’ve known forever?”

“Sure, but Heidi wouldn’t give Ritchie Handleman a second look now, and you know it. It was a teenage crush, her first kiss if I remember right.”

Reidar glanced out the side window and tried to remember his first kiss. The only girl he could picture, though, was Beth. Her soft lips, her bright eyes, the way her mouth felt around his cock as she sucked…

Kelan turned the car sharply, and Reidar bumped his head on the window.

“What the—”

Kelan slid the car off the rutted dirt road and onto an overgrown ATV trail used by hunters in the fall. “We’ll go in the back way, keep an eye on the place until it’s empty, then go in and do our thing.”

“Should’ve b-brought my pickup. This c-car wasn’t made for this,” Reidar complained as he bounced around at the jostling of the car.

Kelan didn’t disagree. How could he? Reidar hoped the axels held up through the ruts and bumps in the trail. He’d hate to have to foot it back to town. He winced when the right front tire hit a deeper hole and the bottom of the car scraped ground, but Kelan somehow kept his car going.

Until an eight-foot chain link fence stopped them a half mile up the trail. “When the hell did they put this up?” Kelan demanded.

“Remember last year when they had that group of kids coming up here trashing the equipment?” Reidar said then snapped his fingers as if remembering something. “Wait, I forgot. You don’t bother to attend city council meetings.” He rolled his eyes and got out of the car. “We’ll have to go in au natural.”

Kelan dug into the glove box and pulled out a leather pouch that Reidar knew contained his B&E kit. His brother was right; he probably was the best at breaking and entering of anyone in the whole town of Leavenworth. The former lovers from which he retrieved his collar never complained, and his black-sheep brother had been caught only once as a teenager breaking into McClintock Liquor. Even though Kelan always left enough cash to cover what he took—a fact that helped keep him out of jail—one night Old Man McClintock had staked out his own store and caught Kelan red handed.

Reidar smirked. One of the few times he didn’t get the belt when his brother did. He’d been smart enough to have an alibi that night, far away from McClintock Liquor.

They quickly stripped out of their clothes and changed into catamount form. Kelan picked up the lock pick set in his mouth, and then they hopped the fence.

Just be careful
, Reidar told Kelan through their telepathic connection.
Remember they’re out here hunting cougars. Don’t get shot again.