First Beast (14 page)

The elevator took its sweet time getting to the second floor and by the time they exited, Talia's pulse was racing so fast she actually felt lightheaded. She could turn around, of course, make a run for it. But they knew she was here now and would likely report to Josh that his wife had arrived. That she behaved extremely erratically and had taken off like the devil was on her tail.

Whichever way she looked at it, she was screwed.

The receptionist stopped outside a room facing the front of the building and tapped lightly before opening the door. She stepped back to let Talia enter.

The bed, placed behind the door, faced the huge bay window through which the afternoon sun streamed in. A screen was positioned halfway along the bed so that Talia couldn't see the person in it. Tentatively, she moved into the room and jumped as the door clicked close behind her. She peeked gingerly around the screen, only to be confronted by an empty bed.

“Who is that?” The startled voice came from behind a matching screen on the other side of the bed, and echoed around the lavishly furnished room with its copious ornaments and obviously personal memorabilia. “Who's there?”

Moving quickly, so as to allay the woman's anxiety, Talia stepped around the screen. And froze.

Sitting in an easy chair beside the woman who was her mother-in-law, was indeed her husband.

But it wasn't Joshua.

Chapter Eleven

Refusing to acknowledge her trembling knees, and forcing herself to ignore Caleb, Talia walked toward the small, fragile woman. The woman held out her hand as if she recognized Talia, but then her eyes filled with anxiety and she huddled closer to Caleb.

Not wanting to distress her, Talia sat on the bed and placed the flowers she'd brought on the table beside her. “How are you today, Mrs. McLeod?”

Vivien McLeod reached for Caleb's hand. “Who is this? She's not my nurse.”

“This is Talia,” Caleb said. “She's my wife. I told you last time I visited. Do you remember?”

Of all the things she'd been expecting, that had been the least of them. But the hard set of Caleb's jaw signaled that she was not to question, argue or elaborate.

“Your wife?” Vivien positively beamed and held out her hand again. “Yes. Yes, you're Caleb's wife. Come here, let me look at you. My, but you're pretty.” She turned to Caleb. “I wish Joshua could meet someone like her. But he's so busy, isn't he? You always tell me he's so busy. That's why he can't visit me.”

Caleb smiled. “That's right.”

“I'm not feeling my best today,” Vivien explained to Talia. “I get confused.”

Right then, Talia felt as confused as poor Vivien. She took her free hand, mindful not to crush the bony fingers. “I'm sorry I haven't visited before, Mrs. McLeod, but I'd like to visit you again, perhaps when you're feeling a little better. Will that be okay?”

“Yes. Oh, yes. That will be lovely, won't it, Caleb?”

“Talia can visit when I do.”

Vivien obviously didn't notice the harsh tone. “I want to know all about you. How did you meet him?”

“That's a long story,” Caleb leaned across to kiss the woman's cheek. “And one we'll save for another time. Okay? You rest now.”

When he stood, Talia took it as her signal to leave. On impulse, she leaned down and kissed Vivien. “It's been very nice meeting you, Mrs. McLeod. I hope you feel better very soon.”

Then she was whisked around and marched from the room.

Saying nothing, Caleb led Talia by the arm down the stairs and outside toward the car park. It felt like his heart had been sliced in two. More fucking fool him. After last night and the connection they'd shared—he knew she'd felt it too—he'd begun to believe that she would come to understand that he was her true mate. He'd hoped that she'd start to realize she had to ditch Joshua and start building a future with him. With him alone.

Then she'd walked into his stepmother's room and all his fears about her came rushing back. Had she come to do a story? Maybe to discover something about the pack that she could store away and use to her own advantage when the time was right? Had to be. What possible other reason did she have for being there?

Talia said nothing until he'd marched her to her car, but her anger was palpable. She shook off his hold. “Will you stop manhandling me?”

“What exactly did you intend to accomplish by this?” He grabbed the keys from her hand and stuffed them into his pocket. She wasn't going to escape into her car and go on her merry way until he found out exactly what her intentions were in visiting his stepmother.

“Accomplish? You make it sound like there was some sort of plan involved. I simply wanted to visit my mother-in-law. It's long overdue.”

“And why now, exactly? News a bit slow during the summer break?”

Her cheeks burned bright. “Just what are you insinuating?”

He leaned close and glared down at her. “I think you know, sweetheart. Maybe it's time for a fat juicy story about an old, mentally unstable woman who plotted to have the leader of the local shifter clan incarcerated in South America so her son could take a grab at the top job.”

“That's absurd, and bloody insulting.”

“But true.”

“No. It's not. I wanted to meet her, and for her to meet me.”

“And if there just happened to be a story in it, all the better, that it?”

“You bastard. I told you, I just wanted—”

“To meet your dear old mum-in-law. Yeah. I got that. Loud and clear.”

Lifting her chin, she looked up and met him straight in the eye. “Obviously not loud enough or clear enough to penetrate that suspicious brain of yours.”

“Hurling insults won't exactly help your case.”

He thought she might actually stamp her foot. “I don't have a case!”

“But you have a story, or would have if I hadn't marched you out of that room before you could start questioning a frail old woman.”

“I'm not here for any story, you idiot. Why won't you believe me?”

“You're a reporter.”

“Oh, and none of us are to be trusted, of course.” She planted her hands on her hips and continued to glare up at him. “You can fuck me, but you can't trust me, is that it?”

“One doesn't necessitate the other.”

Something akin to hurt flashed across her eyes, but he ignored it. He still couldn't reconcile the timing of this. Why had she chosen now to visit the nursing home when she'd never come near the place since she'd been married to his stepbrother?

“If you really want to know, I came to meet the woman you used to blackmail Josh,” she said, as if reading his mind. “Apart from anything else, she's my mother-in-law, twice over, although it seems you chose to leave out that one important detail in your conversations with her. And I deserve to meet her, to build some sort of relationship with her. She deserves the same with me. I have to question why you're so keen to visit the woman allegedly responsible for your incarceration. To wield some further power over her? Remind her who she has to thank for her freedom? You make me sick, you really do. Using a frail woman to get your way.”

Inside him something snapped. He'd been willing to let Joshua's half-baked explanation to Talia go, seeing as it basically served his interests at the time, but damned if he'd let this woman talk to him like he was some heartless monster who used the sick and vulnerable to get his way. He grabbed her wrist and frog-marched her to his SUV parked across the lot. Ignoring her vehement protests, he yanked open the passenger door and all but shoved her inside. He pushed the lock down before slamming the door closed.

Rounding the car to the driver's side, he could hear her screams of insult, her furious banging on the window. Bracing himself against the tirade of abuse she'd throw at him the minute he entered the vehicle, he pulled open the driver's door and got in.

As expected, she railed on him. “Let me out, you moron. I could press charges against you for kidnapping. You realize that, don't you?”

“You're my wife, in case you've forgotten. The law doesn't get involved in minor domestics.”

“Minor? You think this is minor?”

He pushed the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. “You may as well settle down for the ride, unless you want to wear yourself out with your protestations.”

From his peripheral vision, he saw her open her mouth, but the words she might have thrown at him were lost in a furious sputter of expletives.

“I think I just learned a few new choice words there, sweetheart.”

“Don't you make light of this,” she said, her tone lower now but no less furious. “Ever since you came back from South America, you've been a constant pain in my backside.”

“And such a fine backside.”

With a huff, she sank back into the seat, folding her arms. “There's no point talking to you. Where are you taking me anyway? I need to know so I can give the police a full account.”

He let out a laugh. “You'll want to buckle up, sweetheart.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, around here it's against the law to drive without a seat belt. For another, the terrain is about to get bumpy.”

Surprisingly, she complied and without any further backchat. She folded her arms again and turned her head to look out the passenger side window, a clear indication she wanted as little to do with him as possible during the drive.

He took the opportunity to question himself as to why he felt the need to take her onto the moor. At first, he'd thought it would be as good a place as any to tell her some home truths about the reasons behind Joshua's agreement to the ménage, but in doing so he'd be forced to betray a confidence, a promise made.

That was not an option.

So right now, he wasn't entirely sure why he was heading across the moor with his very reluctant and pissed off wife.

Talia's breathing was finally slowing down. Her heated blood had cooled and now she felt a chill trickle along her arms. Bereft of her anger, hurt filtered through her frenzied brain and now all she could think of was that Caleb still didn't trust her.

He'd actually thought she'd visited the nursing home to get fodder for a story. A story that would not only harm a vulnerable woman, but that would put the community in which she now resided at risk.

It hurt her heart to think that he considered her capable of such treachery. But at least it had put things back into perspective a little. That whole connection thing she'd felt with him last night had been a fantasy. It was merely a product of the surreal nature of her current situation.

She didn't know what to do about it. Didn't know how she was going to cope with an unconventional marriage, two alpha males who thought they could boss her around—one of whom didn't trust her—and a community which would likely never consider her one of them.

Her earlier feelings, when she'd stopped on the moor on her way to the nursing home, came rushing back. She wished to heaven she'd let her brain rule her heart…and her hormones. She wasn't sure she could bear it much longer.

She didn't know her husband anymore, and by husband she meant Joshua. What Naomi had told her had to be correct. The receptionist hadn't queried that Caleb was her husband. What did that mean? That Joshua actually never visited his mother? And why had Caleb been there if not to visit his stepmother because he cared about her? What other reason could there be? From the short visit she'd been allowed to have with the poor woman, it was obvious she wasn't exactly of sound mind.

No. Naomi had to be right. And if Joshua had lied to her about his mother, what else had he lied to her about?

Her throat tightened.
Oh God.
She would so dearly love to have her own mother to confide in. She could barely remember her anymore, and had it not been for her beloved grandmother, she might never have known what it was to experience that unconditional, nurturing love.

It was never available from her father. All she was to him was a big fat disappointment. He'd barely acknowledged the fact she'd graduated with an upper second-class degree, or that she'd chosen journalism as a profession. It was beneath his contempt. Most certainly not on the same exalted level as her brother with his first from Oxford and high-flying career in high finance. She imagined her father considered her a throwback in a family of academics.

Over the years, she'd trained herself not to care too much. She was proud of all her achievements and that was really all that mattered, wasn't it? But it didn't stop the desire for that acceptance.

She missed her grandmother with all her heart, and would give pretty much anything right then for her sage advice. Desperately, she tried to remember any words of wisdom her grandmother might have conveyed that would help her current situation, but all she could remember were those about the triangle. The triangle that had to be accepted before her true destiny was revealed.

But what the hell did it mean?

After traveling a good half hour, Caleb drove off the track. They bumped over a rocky interface toward a clearing.

“What is this place?”

“Shifter territory.”

The remnants of Talia's anger faded, to be replaced by anticipation and excitement. “You actually have places where you go to do that?”

“Well, it'd be hard to shift in the High Street. People would talk.”

“Ha, ha. What I meant was, I thought you just went onto the moor and, you know, did your thing. I thought any place would do.”

“Mostly it does, but we try and keep to the remote areas when we can.”

Desperate to keep him on subject, she turned to face him. “Does it hurt? When you shift?”

He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it and narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, right.” She leaned back against the seat. “You won't tell me that, will you? More fodder for my nonexistent article.”

The locks clicked, signaling she could now open her door. She pushed at it and jumped down. Out of her comfort zone on the moor, she nevertheless felt strangely at peace and exhilarated at the same time. Caleb stood erect, and drew in a long breath.

“Are you going to shift now?”

His eyes gleamed. “You want to watch?”

Oh, yes. She wanted to watch Caleb shift. It would be a magnificent, if terrifying sight. But since he had that superior look on his face, and he'd basically accused her of treachery against the pack, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

“No,” she said emphatically. “Not interested. Certainly not out here, alone with you.”

He moved toward her, his feral expression making her stomach jump. “You don't trust me?”

Since she knew he was taunting her, playing his much-loved power game, she folded her arms again and cocked a hip. “Hmm. No, I don't think I do. It seems that trust issue seems to work both ways.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Well played, sweetheart. I'm suitably cut to the quick.”

She huffed. “I doubt that. Why do you always have to provoke me, anyway? This whole marriage thing was your idea, yet you treat me as if I was the one who forced you into it.”

“Provoking you isn't my intention.”

He reached out and ran a hand over her cheek.