The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards) (33 page)

Belle stared down at her sandwich and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Oh, you’re next, honey,” he said. “But that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To hear me say it? You know I want you. I think you’ve probably had your head dinged up or something for wanting me, but it’s okay if you’re a little daft. You’d have to be a little bit unhinged to survive living on that ranch.” Into the phone, he said, “The thing is, I can’t have those things unless I put myself face-to-face with things I don’t want to confront.”

“Logic,” Lola said. “Perhaps you need to be reminded of it when they’re near.”

“And who’s gonna be doing all that reminding?”

“I’m pretty sure I volunteered for that,” Belle said.

“When?”

“When I agreed to coordinate missions into the hellmouth. I can’t do the job without your help. At least, not well.”

“There’s no guarantee that I can do it, Belle.”

“There are no guarantees to anything in life, but think about this. We’re talking about things that can’t easily hurt you. You may not like it when they try, but it’s so much easier for a human with a gun to lay you out for good than for anything on the other side of a portal to harm you.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I’m
prepared
for guys with guns. I’m trained to deal with them, and I’m not afraid of them because I’m good at my job.”

Belle entwined her fingers atop the coffee table and just stared at him, her amber gaze giving nothing away.

“What?”

“If it’s a lack of information that’s causing your fear, then maybe we should get you information.”

She said “we,” not “you.” Whether it was just a slip of the tongue or intentional, it meant something to Steven. It implied that they were a team. It implied that she knew exactly what the hell was wrong with him, and it didn’t put her off from wanting him anyway.

“Taking me as I am, huh?” he asked softly.

She raised one shoulder in a shrug and smiled bashfully. “You’re getting the worse end of the deal. Trust me.”

Doubt that.

He switched his phone to the other ear, and said to Lola, “You’re gonna help me understand this?”

“No. I’m going to put people around you who actually can. I’ll never posture myself as some being who knows all, and I can’t be everything to every person. I do my best to put people where they need to be and with whom they need to be, though the Fates and I don’t always agree. I don’t believe they’ll fight me on this, however.”

“You’re a goddess. You just admitted you don’t know everything.”

“Never trust any minor god or goddess who’d tell you otherwise.”

Damn.

There was something about unabashed honesty that made him want to give his all for folks, even if he hated having to do it. Lola could be trusted, and of course Hannah and the rest of the folks back at the ranch could be.

His gaze fell to Belle, who watched him intently.

She could be trusted. Maybe the cat inside her made her a little bit loony. The cat made her a little bolder than he was used to women being, but not
untrustworthy
.

“All right,” he said to both. “I can’t promise you anything. Just that I’ll listen and see what’s what.”

“It’s a good enough place to start.” Lola disconnected.

Steven tossed his phone onto the sofa cushion and leaned forward to pick up the sandwich Belle pressed toward him.

“I hope you’re not just doing it for the barbecue,” she said.

He put the sandwich back down. Food could wait. He was pretty sure he’d been starving her in ways that had nothing to do with her belly, and that wasn’t fair for
either
of them.

“I’m doing it for a lot of reasons, kitten. The pork is just one of many, and it’s not even the biggest reason.”

“What is, then?”

“You want to hear me tell it? Okay. I owe you that, don’t I?”

He slid to the floor onto his knees to see her at eye level. Resting his forearms along the edge of the coffee table, he watched her expression open up. She went from her wary Foye glower to wide-eyed
terror
, and it damn near broke his heart. Hell didn’t scare her, but he did.

“I’m not gonna say anything to upset you, Belle, I swear. At least I hope not.”

She looked down at her sandwich.

“You say I’m your mate and you want to give this thing a go. Maybe I don’t understand why it’d be me and not someone better, but damn, I don’t want to think about there being someone better. Maybe I’m selfish that way. I don’t know anyone else who can frustrate me the way you do and yet make me think it was a treat.”

“Maybe you’re just hard up for company.”

“You’re joking, but it’s true, in a way. Hadn’t wanted to be with anyone, really, because I didn’t want to open up to them. Didn’t trust them enough to share the history, but I had to with you. You understand?”

“Everyone should have someone they can tell things to.”

“I agree. I’m pretty sure I told you that once, didn’t I? Still, thank you for listening and for not throwing it back at me when you could have.”

She shrugged. “Not my style. Believe it or not, I don’t
want
to hurt you. Even if you weren’t my fated mate, I’d want to keep you.”

“Is that so?” He reached across the table and skimmed his thumb along the bottom of her lip. Touching for the sake of touching was nice, and they didn’t get to do nearly enough of it for his liking.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said finding a man who could keep up with me is hard. I haven’t made it easy.”

“Because you’re a Cougar and you’re not supposed to.”

“I guess not.” She kissed the back of his hand and then held it in both of hers. “So what now?”

“Well, you’ve gotta agree to keep me for good, because if I take off from the department again, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be out of a job on this end. I hope you’re not gonna change your mind when the going gets tough.”

She gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment and canted her head teasingly. “You could always be a cowboy. The pay sucks, but the food’s good.”

“You’re doing an excellent job of selling that gig, kitten. You should make a commercial.”

She grinned and turned to face the television.

Pathetic as it was, he’d probably take the job just so he could get near her. Men had done crazier shit under the banner of love.

Like volunteering to walk into a hellmouth.

Steven dropped the check from the sale of Hannah’s condo onto her hand and pressed the sheath of papers itemizing the transaction to her.

“Thanks for being my proxy.” She tucked the envelope into the folder, tossed the folder onto the table near the front door of the house she shared with Sean, slung her free arm around Steven’s shoulder, and got him moving onto the porch and toward the ranch’s outbuildings.

She was probably trying to keep him distracted. Folks had been keeping him moving non-stop since he’d arrived in New Mexico after three days of solo driving. They probably thought he was going to chicken out and go home, but it was too late for that, really. He’d put in his two weeks at his job, and there was a renter due to move into his house on that very day. He could go back to Raleigh, but he wouldn’t have a place to live or income to afford another one.

“Never put me in that situation again,” Steven said. “I got a twenty-minute interrogation from Dad about why I was your proxy and not him.”

“He’s just got to have a finger in every pot, doesn’t he?”

“He’s nosy as hell. You still don’t have an address on record, and it drives him nuts that he doesn’t know precisely where you are. One of these days, you’re going to have to get a New Mexican driver’s license or change the plates on your SUV. Then he’ll be able to find you.”

“Where does he think
you
are?”

“I didn’t try to answer him.”

“What?”

“Unlike you, if I don’t want to answer a question, I don’t bother making up a story. I just ignore him. Drives him absolutely nuts.”

“I can picture his hairline going red and the spittle flying as he shouts at you.” Hannah laughed.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what the scene looked like. Mom just stood beside him shaking her head as if I were the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the world and that she was going to wipe her hands completely clean of me to ensure her soul’s eternal salvation. Where are you taking me, by the way?”

“Oh.” She grinned in a way that was way more Foye than Welch, so Steven knew he probably had a headache coming. “I was given clear instructions by the ranch manager to put you to work the moment you got here.”

“The ranch manager, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Does she happen to have red hair and fangs?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, boy.”

He hadn’t seen Belle in about ten days. She hadn’t wanted to leave him in Raleigh—that’d been clear—but she had commitments. Work to do. Alas, so did he. It was almost as if he were the Cougar, given the pining away he’d been doing. The last time he’d been so stuck on a girl, he’d had a lot less testosterone pumping through him and couldn’t even grow a decent beard.

“She’s out of heat, though. That’s good news.”

“It’s very good news. Not that I’d complain about a gorgeous woman having the hots for me, usually, but given the circumstances ...”

“Yeah, I get you.” Hannah led him to the four-wheeler parked near Woodworks and nodded at the passenger seat.

He sat.

“I think Sean’s nearly got your bike fixed.”

“Great. Maybe one day, I’ll have someplace to park it, too.”

“Shush.”

She drove them past the stables, where a couple of ranch hands leaning against the fence railing quickly straightened up and made themselves look busy. “Slackers,” she muttered.

They went farther down the path toward the old homestead, where a couple of Foye Woodworks pickups were parked and some familiar redheads loaded salvage wood into the beds.

“What the hell?” Steven asked. “Are they demo’ing?”

“Yep. The guys are reclaiming the wood for furniture, and they’re clearing the plot.”

“Why?”

Hannah’s grin was completely sincere and all trouble. “Those Foyes always have plans.”

“Why does hearing that not instill confidence?”

“Because sometimes their plans have ... unexpected casualties during implementation.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

“Says Mr. Beacon-to-the-Dead. I shouldn’t even be sitting next you right now. You could get me in trouble.”

“Okay, Ms. I-have-violent-dreams-and-like-to-hit-people.”

She punched his bicep.

“See.”

“Shut up, Steven. Hitting people is my job sometimes.” She parked the four-wheeler near the fence that separated the pasture from the path, and two redheads on horses came over.

Glenda could barely grab Belle’s reins before they fell out of reach. Belle had jumped down and hurtled toward him, and somehow, he managed to stand clear of the four-wheeler before she pounced on him.

“Are you ...
purring
?” he whispered and stifled a chuckle.

“I guess I am,” she muttered against his neck and tightened her legs around his waist.

He couldn’t help but to laugh. Glenda was trying not to watch, Hannah was wriggling her eyebrows suggestively at him, and there were a bunch of Foyes who’d suddenly stopped working.

“I thought only dogs got excited to see their people when they came home.”

“Obviously that’s not true, ’cause you don’t seem all that excited to see
me
.”

“Oh,
burn
, kitten. I’m plenty excited.” But there was the small matter of there being witnesses and him wanting to keel over at any second from exhaustion. He didn’t even remember the last couple of hours of driving before he hit the ranch road. He’d been on autopilot.

“Why don’t you show me how excited?” she whispered.

“What’d you have in mind?”

She rubbed down the hair at the top of his neck and purred a little longer. “Oh, I happen to know the stables are empty. Perhaps I could show you there.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I hosed them down myself. We’d only get a
little
dirty.”

Looking at the staring Foyes, Steven cleared his throat and adjusted his grip on Belle’s rump. “Uh. Need to go grab something real quick. Be right back.”

He plopped her into the passenger seat of the four-wheeler and didn’t look back as he raced them up the path.

She fidgeted her fingers and bounced her legs. “I just wanted to let you know that ... I’m not out of heat. If anyone’s told you otherwise, it’s because I lied.”

“What?”

“It was easier. Should have ended by now, but I think I had little respite so I could deal with you.”

“Deal with me, huh?”

“Yeah, so just ... do me a favor and ... forgive me.”

“For what?”

She didn’t answer.

She just yanked him from the vehicle, shoving him into the shadows in the stables until his back touched a wall.

Growling, she clawed at the front of his shirt, hands shaking too badly to unfasten the buttons. “Take this off!”

“Okay. Take it easy, kitten. I’m not gonna tell you no.”

“Gods, you better not.” She kicked off her muddy boots as he unbuttoned. Shed her shirt as he heeled off his sneakers. Wriggled out of skintight jeans as he dropped his fly.

“
Hurry
,” she hissed.

“Can I at least get a kiss out of this? You didn’t even give me a proper hello.”

She stood in front of him gloriously nude with her hands on her hips and a glower on her face.

Chuckling, he stepped out of his boxers.

She pushed him to the ground and onto his back, and straddling him, reached for his jeans. She snatched his wallet from the pocket and rooted through it, finding the condom tucked in the billfold. He never wanted to be caught unprepared again. He had rubbers tucked in every damn place he could think of. His wallet. His suitcases. His glove compartment—just in case.

Tossing the wallet aside, she squeezed his thighs between her knees as if she feared he’d get up and run, but he wasn’t that kind of stupid.