by Ashley Shay
Slipping toward the dressing room with both of her arms uncomfortably full, Carly shot a look over her shoulder at Gabe to check his reaction. He sat sprawled in one of the strategically placed chairs usually reserved for husbands and boyfriends. A sales clerk had brought him a cola, and he winked at Carly as she disappeared behind the door.
Tugging on the jeans, Carly suddenly felt…different, as though something inside herself had shifted and a new person had blossomed and emerged. She couldn’t completely define the sensation, but she felt like an entirely different woman, and somehow, it felt powerful and right. The snug-fitting denim, the turquoise leather boots adorned with rhinestones, the white felt cowgirl hat, and the flirty, thin denim shirt all produced a certain sort of magic that banished any last vestiges of dull-as-dishwater Carla. All she needed was the kiss of the sun because her arms looked too pale against the light blue of the washed-denim shirt. Feeling empowered with her new self, Carly smiled then yanked the door to see Gabe’s reaction. She wasn’t disappointed.
For a moment, he stared at her, completely frozen in his chair, with little emotion registering on his face. With a jolt, Carly wondered if her newfound sexiness was all in her head. Could she possibly have imagined her face seemed happier, her skin smoother, her body more vibrant and energetic than it had been several days ago? Surely she couldn’t have imagined such a complete transformation. She was about to ask him how bad she really looked when she finally saw the can in his hand lower until it hit his crotch. He seemed to be resting its icy coldness on the rather large bulge in the front of his pants.
“The Lucas brothers don’t stand a chance, Carly.”
She blushed, glad it hadn’t been her imagination. She twirled around so he could see the entire package. When she glanced back at him, she saw the bulge had gotten even larger. “Thank you, Gabriel, I—”
She doubled over and clutched at her stomach. Her new cowgirl hat fell to the floor, and an odd sadness passed through her as Gabe lurched to his feet and nearly trampled it.
“Carly? You’re white as a sheet.”
Within seconds, he’d put his arm around her and led her to his vacated chair. He brushed the hair back from her forehead then laid his hand over her brow.
“Your skin is clammy, Carly. What’s wrong? Are you going to be sick? Do you need a restroom?”
Carly tried to drag in a deep breath, but her heart was beating so hard and the adrenaline pumping through her body so fast that her lungs stuttered and began to spasm. As the need to breathe increased and her stomach churned, the sense of panic grew stronger and stronger until she thought she’d bolt out from under his caring hands and flee the store like she had her office in DC. A sense of danger washed over her in waves, and with it came a debilitating fear that nearly choked her.
Gabe hunkered down beside her and continued to brush her hair back. “Breathe, Carly. Just breathe. Come on. Everything’s fine.” Something finally broke loose inside her, and she gasped, drawing in a big breath. “Good girl.” He moved his warm hand down to her back and caressed her in strong, soothing circles.
She sat up a bit straighter, and her gaze darted around the store, trying to find the reason for her meltdown. The clerk that had settled Gabe in his chair had vanished, but across the room, another sales clerk glared at Carly over the top of a rack. The woman had straight brown hair and peered at her through a fringe of bangs, her eyes deep pools of malice. She had such animosity in her eyes Carly felt another wave of anxiety spear through her. She struggled to take a breath and reached out to clutch at Gabe’s hand. Finally, the woman turned her back to straighten a rack of belts.
“Carly?”
Carly shook her head and released Gabe’s hand. “It’s nothing,” she whispered. “I guess its delayed stress.”
Her gaze strayed to the clerk’s back, and Carly saw Gabe’s eyes lift to follow her stare. He frowned, let his gaze thoroughly sweep the shop, and his hand slipped inside his jacket as if he were checking for his holstered weapon. He lifted her to her unsteady feet.
“It might be wise to wear that outfit.”
Carly glanced up at him, unsure exactly what he meant. Suddenly it seemed as though he were speaking a foreign language. She glanced once again across the room, but the brown-haired woman had vanished. She took a cleansing breath then glanced down her body and ran shaky hands down her thighs. “Do I look okay?”
“You look great,” Gabe said. “I wish you had a bit more color right now though. You seem a bit better but don’t look quite capable of changing clothes right now. So you’re comfortable in that?”
Carly nodded numbly. He reached down and grabbed her hat from the floor then gestured to their original sales clerk, a young girl with a bright smile. She hurried toward them with a concerned look on her face.
“Is everything okay, sir? She looks a bit…” The girl’s gaze flickered between Gabe and Carly, and Carly wondered exactly how bad she looked. Maybe she should find a mirror. She scrubbed her hands over her cheeks, trying to bring up a bit of color.
“She’ll be fine in a moment,” Gabe said. “We’ll take what she’s wearing, and would you please go into the dressing room and collect everything there? We’ll take it all, as well as that purse she was looking at earlier, and a few of those over there.” He motioned toward a rack of printed summer dresses and flouncy, layered skirts in bright colors. “Make it an even dozen.”
The girl eyed Carly up and down, probably gauging a size, and then she removed the tags from the clothes Carly wore. “Absolutely, sir. It will just take a moment.”
When she’d rung them up and bagged the purchases, Gabe gave her an unusually cheery smile. He settled the hat back on Carly’s head, tucked her purse over her shoulder, then took her arm. “Let’s go. It’s time to get you to the ranch.”
* * * *
Gabe wanted his hands free in case he needed to draw his weapon, but she didn’t look strong enough right now to hold more than that overstuffed purse. He gathered everything in one arm, and with a backward glance, he checked to see if the brown-haired woman had returned to the sales floor. He couldn’t see her through the store’s tinted windows, but that didn’t mean a fucking thing. Jackals were notorious for their surveillance ability. He hoped her presence meant nothing—shifters lived everywhere in the country and had to work for a living along with humans—but seeing one working in customer service had been extremely unexpected. Certain shifter types like jackals usually gravitated to more solitary occupations where stealth was required. Something like a detective or a sniper wouldn’t have surprised him. They even had a few jackals working in the Marshal’s Office.
Not all of them gave off the vibe this she-jackal did. Just like bad people, bad shifters came in all varieties. In fact, one of the most notorious criminals Gabe had ever come across had been a Lepus shifter, belying the usual soft, cuddly bunny stereotype.
As he herded Carly toward the cars, his mind kept replaying her expression as she became aware of the female shifter. Gabe could sense the inherent malignancy coming from the woman, but Carly’d had an intense and sickening reaction few humans could possibly feel. If she could feel the nonhuman in the shop, why couldn’t she sense him? Or the Lucas men?
Or had she sensed something in him? Since they’d come to San Antonio, he’d sensed a new sensuality in Carly, something that made her juices flow and brought out the sexual side she’d probably buried years ago. Was it possible he’d had something to do with her transformation? He’d heard of female shifters coming into a heat phase when forced into close proximity with a male, but he’d never heard of anything like that happening with a human. Sure, there was always a certain amount of sexual tension between him and a female client—that seemed to be pretty par for the course because he was a good-looking man—but he’d never been overwhelmed by a human’s pheromones before. Carly had caught the attention of his inner beast several times now.
He’d have to compare notes with Tyler when they touched
base later and see if Carly’d had any reaction to him or him to her.
“What happened in there, Carly? Did you see someone familiar?” Gabe questioned as she opened the door to her rental car.
Carly looked up at him with her wide blue eyes, and he wanted to lean forward and kiss her. It would be the dumbest thing he could ever do, but he wanted to erase that look on her face. He wanted to see that happy look again, the one she’d worn when she’d come out in the sexiest outfit in the entire state of Texas. He wanted to kiss her desperately. Instead, he stepped back a couple of paces, keeping a safe distance between them.
“It’s crazy. I can’t explain it.”
“Try me.” Gabe had a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he waited for her explanation.
“Did you see the sales clerk straightening up the belt rack?”
Gabe nodded.
“When I looked at her, I felt sick. She made me feel…” She swallowed as though reluctant to say the word for fear it would happen again. “I was afraid, of her, of how she looked at me. She seemed evil somehow. Dangerous. It was similar to that same feeling I got with Mr. Haney’s visitor, only that was far worse of course.” Carly licked her lips and cast her eyes down in embarrassment. “I told you I’m just being silly.”
Gabe shook his head slowly and looked back toward the dress shop. He could feel eyes on him through the darkened glass.
“You go with your instinct, Carly Barnes. It could save your life. If it’s any consolation, she gave me the creeps too.” He gave her a smile.
He wasn’t about to tell Carly the woman was a jackal shifter. And a badass one at that. And then it struck him.
Carly could feel the negative energy associated with shifters, possibly humans as well. But maybe it was only negative energy, which explained why she couldn’t sense his minute emotional patterns or shifting ability or that of the Lucas men. He’d met a few empaths working for Justice, people who could feel the emotions of others. Generally, they lived like hermits until needed for an interrogation because otherwise they drowned in a turmoil of emotions, bombarded by the feelings of others. Carly had been reasonably lucky because her ability seemed to be very specialized and limited. But she’d also gotten a bum deal. She’d felt the she-jackal, and she’d felt the Viper. Poor kid. She felt the worst of the worst, those who were bad to the core.
That little talent was going to take its toll on her health if she’d drawn shifter attention to her. It was also either going to save her life, or kill her.
Chapter Five
At a few minutes after six, she arrived back at Cattail Ranch. The guard welcomed her to the Lucas homestead, giving her a piece of plastic that looked like a hotel-room key. When she glanced at it curiously, the man said, “Mr. Lucas’s idea, Miss Barnes. It’s for the private gate the family uses.” He gave her a smile. “Though you’re certainly welcome to come through here anytime, ma’am. It’s always nice to see a pretty face. Too much testosterone around here.”
Carly laughed. “Yes, I can imagine.”
“Have a great evening, Miss Barnes.”
She tucked the card into her purse, thanked him, and began the journey up the drive to her new life. She took one glance in the rearview mirror and saw a dark sedan drive slowly past the gate. A hand flashed out the window, and then the car was gone. She felt a tear track down her cheek as Gabriel Laughton vanished from her life. She was going to miss him.
She’d left everything she knew—her job, her coworkers, her condo, her friends, and Gabe—on the other side of that gate closing behind her. Despite the anxiety of the last few weeks and the fear that welled up every now and then, she’d actually begun to look forward to embarking on this new life like a grand adventure. Now though she wondered if she was she really up to the challenge of a new beginning. She also wondered if she’d be safe here, if all of this, any of this, could really offer any security at all.
She swiped a hand across her cheek. “Stop it, you big baby.”
She continued up the drive, trying to calm the irregular beat of her heart with each tenth of a mile she traveled. How long was this drive? It hadn’t seemed so long earlier today, but she’d been dealing with a different sort of stress then, worried more about her interview and less about being able to have a new life. She sat up straighter, brushed a few stray curls from her forehead, and had almost reached the house when a streak of bright yellow barreled from between the trees on the side of the drive and flashed across the road. She stomped on the brake, the squeal of the tires grating in her ears. She jerked forward then fell back against the seat. Thankfully, the air bag didn’t deploy.
She watched as Suzie Lucas, dressed in a canary-colored sunsuit and yellow cowgirl boots, bolted across the driveway, followed by a man with long dark-blond hair tied back in a ponytail. The man was doing his best not to run too fast and looked a bit ridiculous trying to contain his long strides. She recognized the man from his photo, though the man lurching across the driveway, hunched over like some kind of bumbling monster, was laughing hysterically and looked both goofy and happier than the Shane Lucas she’d seen in the photo.
One moment he was bent over, his knuckles almost scraping the cement, and the next, he stood completely upright, frozen at the side of the road. His face swiveled toward the car, and Carly held her breath as he started toward her. She hit the power button, and the window began to roll down. She saw a very perturbed Suzie whirl around and shout, “Uncle Shane! No fair!”
“Just a minute, baby girl,” he said.
He leaned down, his arm resting on the roof, and peered into her window. His eyes were the brightest green she’d ever seen, and Carly held her breath.
“Miss Barnes, I presume?”
She nodded, trying to find her smile, but it seemed lost inside her somewhere along with her breath. These Lucas men were going to be the death of her. She wet her lips, trying to find her voice as well, and Shane Lucas’s gaze dipped down to her mouth.
“May I ask what you’re doing?” Carly said, and then took a risk and decided to plow ahead. Might as well act like the new woman she was. She offered a teasing smile. “Given the family’s success, I would have thought most of the Lucas men capable of walking upright. Are you an exception?”
Shane laughed then wagged a finger at her. “Au contraire. I am quite dignified when standing upright, but when in character, I’m perfectly capable of lumbering along for my role.” He took a couple steps back, and his body leaned down and twisted up as he hulked his way back to her. “Quasimodo, at your service.”
“Ah, I should have guessed.” She tapped a fingertip against her mouth. “Why, yes, I certainly see the resemblance now.”
Shane snorted, and Suzie chose that moment to careen toward them, plowing into her uncle’s side. His arm slid around her. “And here’s my little Esmeralda now. We’ve been playing a game Suze invented today called the Hunchback of Notre Dame, as you probably guessed. We watched the movie this afternoon.” He winked at her.
Suzie came around him and grabbed hold of the door edge, bouncing up and down. “Hi, Carly!”
“Hi, Suzie.”
“So it’s Carly, is it?” Shane said. “Then why am I standing on formalities?”
“I see no reason at all,” Carly said.
He opened her car door and reached for her hand. “Apparently I am the last one to meet you.”
“I haven’t met Jus—Cougar.”
“Perhaps not, but Cougar’s met you. One look was all he needed. I’ve been hearing your praises sung all day.” When she stood in front of him, he let his eyes caress her face. “And it’s a very pretty song.”
Tyler Lucas had been singing her praises? He didn’t seem the type to talk about her one way or another. Sure, there had been a few times when she’d thought his gaze traveling across her might be a bit heated, but he’d seemed completely in control and not prone to extolling a woman’s virtues to others. Perhaps it had been Dustin.
“Dustin is
very charming to speak nicely of me,” Carly said.
“Dusty? Charming, maybe, but his praises are generally of a more…” He glanced down then put his palms over Suzie’s ears. She squirmed under his touch. He lowered his voice. “Let’s say a more carnal nature. That’s the most polite I can get. Everything I heard came from Big Brother himself.”
“Tyler?” Carly’s brow furrowed. “Really?”
“He can become enamored quite easily,” Shane said. “Anyone who can control our girl here will always hold a special place in Ty’s heart. Right, wildcat?”
He grabbed Suzie around the waist and lifted her high. Suzie shrieked and giggled, and after he’d swung her through the air several times, she finally came to land on his shoulders. He slammed the car door. “Follow us, Miss Carly.”
“But the car—”
“Will be delivered to the house. We have people we pay to do stuff like that. Right now, we need a gargoyle. Can you play the part?”
“A mean one or a nice one?”
“A nice one!” Suzie shouted.
Carly lifted her hands and curled her fingers into claws. She offered a goofy smile and stuck out her tongue.
“Yes, that’s perfect!” Suzie shouted. “Come on, everyone, let’s go!”
Shane leaned toward Carly. “We’re holding a barbecue in your honor tonight, so I hope you’re hungry. I think I saw a whole steer on the roasting pit.” When Carly’s eyes widened, Shane laughed again. “Ready, gargoyle?”
“Absolutely,” Carly said. “Let’s go.”
As Shane whirled around and lurched down the driveway, Suzie giggling and bouncing on top of his shoulders, Carly slowly trailed along behind them, walking, or rather staggering and stumbling, like a gargoyle. She didn’t even care if anyone saw her. She couldn’t help but think this was a perfect start to her new life. Anyone who’d voluntarily play Quasimodo was okay in her book. Shane Lucas had just cemented a place for himself in her heart.
