by Paige Tyler
Oh, you’re special all right, he mused to himself as she gracefully got to her feet and looked down the alley in the direction the heavily armed men had vanished.
Very special.
CHAPTER TWO
“AM I BEING cynical, or does it seem like that guy is going out of his way to downplay what happened?”
Eden Bristow glanced at the man who’d saved her life twice in the span of five minutes. Travis Dempsey was as perceptive as he was hunky and courageous. “That guy is my future brother-in-law, but yeah, you’re right. I can’t believe he told the cops those guys were only after their wallets.”
Eden and Travis had introduced themselves after getting up and dusting off their clothes. It was a good thing they’d taken the time to do it then because by the time they got back to the Bluefin Bar and Grill, the restaurant where her sister was having her rehearsal dinner, was surrounded by cops. To say it had turned into a zoo was an understatement. It had taken Eden ten minutes to get inside so she could retrieve her purse and Department of Homeland Security badge.
She and Travis had finished giving their statements to the local cops and were now leaning against the hood of a police cruiser listening to Brandon Haywood, her future brother-in-law, and Tim Ainsley, his best man, give their statements to the cops—again. She didn’t blame the police for asking them to go over it a second time. It was a little tough to buy.
According to Brandon—whom Eden met for the first time two days ago when she came down from D.C. for the wedding—five men had approached him and Tim while they were outside getting some air. The men had demanded their wallets and when they didn’t comply fast enough, they beat up Brandon and Tim.
Eden didn’t know Brandon well enough to say for a fact he was lying—and she knew Tim even less—but she agreed with Travis. Her sister’s future husband seemed to be working unusually hard to convince the cops the mugging hadn’t been a big deal. He even said the gunfire had all been a big misunderstanding.
Travis snorted. “Does Virginia require any form of drug testing before getting married? If not, maybe your sister should pay for one before it’s too late.”
Eden couldn’t help but crack up a little at that. She hadn’t known Travis for very long, but she already liked him. Besides the snarky wit, sinful good looks, mesmerizing dark eyes, a body that wouldn’t quit, and the absolutely yummy scent coming off him, there was also his willingness to throw himself between her and a hail of bullets. She was a shifter, which meant she likely would have survived getting shot as long as she didn’t take a direct hit to the head or heart, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a bit of chivalry now and then.
But more impressive than any of that other stuff was knowing Travis had seen her shift—complete with claws and fangs—and hadn’t freaked. In fact, he’d acted like it wasn’t a big deal at all. That kind of reaction—or lack of one—was rare. Even the agents on the four-member personal security team she was part of back in Washington at the DCO—one a former US Marshal from the WITSEC program, and the other two former Secret Service who used to protect the president—had freaked out the first time they’d seen her in action, and they’d known what to expect. It made her wonder if Travis had stumbled across a shifter before tonight. Then again, maybe he was simply one of those guys who didn’t rattle easily. She knew for a fact his heart rate hadn’t sped up at all, even when those guys were shooting at them.
“So, you work for the Department of Homeland Security, huh?” he asked casually.
Travis must have seen her flash her badge to the cops when she’d given her statement. “I’m just a paper pusher up in Washington, but, yeah, I’m with the DHS.”
She hated lying to Travis, especially since he’d saved her life, but it wasn’t like she could tell him she was an agent with the Department of Covert Operations, an organization that didn’t officially exist. Nor could she tell him this nonexistent organization employed genetic mutations like her to conduct certain top-secret missions no one could ever know about. Not even her family knew what she really did for a living.
Travis slanted her a look. “Paper pusher. Right.”
Eden should have known he wouldn’t buy it, not after what he’d seen in the alley. She held her breath, waiting for Travis to press her on the subject, but he didn’t.
Over by the restaurant, Brandon finished up with the cops then walked over to where her sister was standing. Emily threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly before stepping back so his mom could do the same. Brandon’s father, as well as her and Emily’s parents, were more reserved but no less concerned.
“That your sister?” Travis asked.
“Yeah, that’s Emily,” Eden said. “And that’s my mom and dad standing on either side of her.”
Travis nodded thoughtfully. “Your parents don’t seem to share your suspicions about Brandon.”
“That’s because they didn’t see him get beat up,” she muttered. “Not that it would matter anyway. My dad thinks Brandon walks on water because he’s in the Navy. Dad’s retired Navy. Sometimes, I think he secretly wishes both Emily and I had continued the family tradition and gone to Annapolis,” she added when Travis gave her a confused look. “I guess he figured he’d have to settle for one of us marrying into the Navy.”
Travis considered that for a moment. “Navy to the core, huh?”
She sighed. “That’s my dad.”
“What about your mom? What does she think of Brandon?”
Eden shrugged. “I think Mom is a little worried about Emily marrying a man who’s going to be gone on float more than he’s home, but she just wants Emily to be happy. That’s the most important thing. And the possibility of grandkids in the near future, of course. She’s itching to get her hands on some grandkids ASAP.”
Travis chuckled. “Sounds like my mother. She’s on my sister and me all the time to settle down, get married, and have kids—not necessarily in that order. What about you? Your mother pressuring you to have children?”
Eden smiled. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with a guy she’d just met, but Travis was easy to talk to. “She tries. But I have to let you in on a little secret—the idea of having children scares the life out of me. I can barely take care of myself, much less a kid. The thought of being completely responsible for another little human being makes me want to run away as fast as I can.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m guessing that would be pretty damn quick. I’ve never seen a woman run so fast in bare feet and a dress.”
She flashed him a smile. “You should get a look at how fast I am out of it.”
His chocolate-brown eyes darkened to a sexy smolder. “Now, that’s something I’d like to see.”
“What, me running without a dress on?” She wasn’t sure why he’d be impressed. Maybe he had a thing for Olympic sprinters. “It’s not that big a deal.”
That sensuous mouth of his twitched again. “I don’t know. The idea of seeing you without anything on—running or otherwise—seems like a big deal to me.”
Eden thought she might have blushed, but she wasn’t sure. She’d meant running in a T-shirt and shorts instead of a dress. He, on the other hand, clearly meant seeing her run around completely naked. She didn’t hold it against him. She’d walked right into that one.
“Travis Dempsey, are you flirting with me?” she asked.
“Trying to,” he said. “Unless you considered that last comment rude, sexist, or inappropriate, in which case, I’m not flirting at all.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before in my life.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, drawing her attention there and making her wonder what it’d be like to kiss him.
“Funny you should mention that, since I’m absolutely, positively sure I’ve never met anyone like you in my life before, either,” he said. “Speaking of which, any chance you might explain some of the things I saw out there tonight
?”
Well, there it was.
She’d been wondering when he was going to ask. He might not have headed for the hills after seeing her inner animal come out, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious. The question was, did she follow the DCO rules and deny all, or did she go with her instincts and trust a guy she’d known for less than an hour?
Eden knew the answer without even having to think about it.
“I can.” She glanced at the cops, then her parents. “But I’d rather not get into it here.”
He nodded. “Okay. How about over dinner tomorrow night, then?”
Eden smiled. She hadn’t gone out with a guy this attractive in a long time, if ever. Working in the DCO sort of put a damper on her social life.
“Dinner sounds great.”
* * * * *
Eden waved to Travis as he drove out of the hotel parking lot. After finishing up with the police, Travis had followed her back there, not only so he’d know where to pick her up for dinner the next night, but to make sure she made it safely. Was that seriously sweet or what?
She was still smiling as she stepped off the elevator and walked down the hallway to her room. Her mother had pulled her aside before she left the restaurant to remind her she was more than welcome to stay in her old room at their house. Eden couldn’t tell her mom the reason she kept turning down the offer was because she didn’t want to put up with the constant nagging about why she couldn’t get a job at one of the local Navy bases instead of up in D.C., why she hardly ever came to visit even though Washington was three and a half hours away, and why she didn’t have a steady boyfriend. Instead, she’d convinced her mom she snored and didn’t want to keep everyone up all night. As lies went, it was pretty pathetic, but her mother seemed to buy it. Or at least nodded and went along with it.
Once inside her room, Eden dug her phone out of her purse and scrolled through her contacts until she came to Kendra MacBride’s cell number. There was a time when Eden would have tried the DCO’s resident behavioral scientist-slash-training officer’s desk phone first, but since she and bear shifter Declan MacBride had gotten married a little while ago, the department’s do-it-all specialist didn’t work a lot of overtime anymore. Not that Eden blamed her. If she had a big, tall, muscular teddy bear like Declan to come home to, Eden would never work late again. The guy was a straight-up stud muffin.
Kendra picked up on the third ring. “Hey! I thought you were still on vacation.”
“I am.” Eden walked over to look out the window at the beach below. Thanks to her excellent night vision, she could see the surf lapping gently on the sand as well as if it were daytime. “I ran into a little trouble and need you to check something out for me.”
“Trouble?” Kendra repeated. “Crap! What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She told Kendra about the fight behind the restaurant, the four armed men with automatic weapons, and the wolf shifter with them.
“You went up against guys with guns and a rogue shifter on your own?” Kendra demanded. “Are you crazy?”
“It wasn’t like I had much choice.” Eden left the window and crossed the room to sit on the bed. For a hotel, it was surprisingly soft and comfy. “Besides, I wasn’t exactly on my own. I got help from an Army Special Forces guy in town on leave named Travis Dempsey.”
“Really?” Kendra had gone from concerned to curious. “You just happened to stumble over a guy with Special Forces training in the middle of a firefight in Virginia Beach?”
“Yeah. And I’m lucky I did. I would have been in trouble without him.”
Understatement there. As a shifter, she was able to take a lot of punishment, but she wasn’t invincible. A lucky shot while she’d been fighting that wolf shifter and she’d be dead right now.
“Can you get an ID on the two guys Virginia Beach PD arrested?” Eden asked Kendra. “The cops weren’t willing to tell me anything even after I flashed my badge, so you’ll probably have to hack into their departmental database to get the info. And while you’re sniffing around, maybe you can check out Brandon and Tim, too. Travis and I think they might be more involved than they want everyone to think. Maybe they’re hiding something that’ll explain why the heck those guys used them as punching bags. Oh, and by the way, can you not mention this to John?”
John Loughlin was the director of the DCO. He was a great guy and an even better boss, but she didn’t want him sending down the cavalry to back her up when this whole thing might be nothing more than a mugging.
“Yeah sure, I can do all that,” Kendra said. “Did I hear you say you and Travis think Brandon and Tim might be involved? Travis hung around after helping you out?”
Eden mentally cringed. She really needed to watch what she said around Kendra. The woman was sharp as a tack. “Yeah. He recognized as fast as I did that Brandon and Tim were acting strangely. We’re having dinner tomorrow night to discuss the possibility.”
That and other stuff.
“Travis Dempsey sounds very interesting,” Kendra said. “You don’t want me mentioning him to John, either?”
“No!” Eden said a lot more quickly and loudly than necessary. “I mean, no. There’s no need for John to even know about him.” She cringed. “I hate to ask, but do you think you can do a background check on Travis Dempsey, too? Just in case.”
Eden didn’t want to think the entire situation in the alley could have been arranged purely so she would run into Travis, but she was only too aware of the freaky rumors that had been flying around the DCO lately. Some mad-scientist types had been trying to create manmade shifters and ended up making vicious, uncontrollable hybrids instead. Nobody knew who was behind the hybrid program, but some of her colleagues were starting to wonder if they could trust the people in power at the DCO. Worse, there were rumors that some of those powerful people wanted shifters completely eradicated. Crap like that made Eden paranoid enough to know she had to be careful, no matter how much her instincts told her Travis could be trusted.
Kendra promised she’d get the information to Eden, then told her to be careful.
Eden hung up, tossing the phone on the bed with a yawn. Between the wedding rehearsal and dinner, and the insanity in the alley, she was more than ready to call it a day. Taking off her dress, she hung it in the closet then put on a tank top and shorts. She was about to brush her teeth when her cell phone rang.
Padding over to the bed, she picked it up and glanced at the call screen.
“Hey, Emily. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” her sister said. “It’s you I’m worried about. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to you at the restaurant with all the police around, but they said you chased off three guys with automatic weapons? Is that true?”
Eden pulled back the blanket and sat down on the bed, tucking her legs under her. “Not quite. For one thing, I didn’t chase them off on my own—I had help. And only two of the guys had automatic weapons. I fought the other guy hand-to-hand.”
Emily was silent for so long Eden wondered if they’d gotten cut off. “As in hand-to-hand combat? Damn, girl. Do you even know how badass you are?”
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Eden insisted.
“Luckily. If you hadn’t been there… I don’t even want to think about it.” She sighed. “Thanks for watching out for Brandon. I love him like crazy, but he can’t seem to walk out of the house without getting into some kind of trouble. Thank you for not letting those guys hurt him.”
Eden smiled. “Anytime.”
As she hung up the phone a little while later, she couldn’t help but think about what Emily had said about how easily her fiancé got into trouble. Eden only hoped that “trouble” Brandon got into behind the restaurant didn’t involve her sister.
CHAPTER THREE
“SO, YOU’RE SPECIAL Forces, huh?” Eden asked as they waited for the server to bring the enchiladas they’d ordered. Despite all the seafood restaurants in Virginia Beac
h, she and Travis had settled on a nice, quiet Mexican place for dinner. “Do you know Landon Donovan?
Travis sat across the table from her, casually rubbing his thumb over the foil label on his beer bottle and looking beyond gorgeous. His well-shaped biceps peeked out from under the short sleeves of his T-shirt, and the material was tight enough across the chest to let her clearly make out the definition of his pecs and hint at his abs. She had no doubt if she slid her hands under there, she’d find a six-pack worthy of a good, long nibble.
Yet, as good as he looked, the thing hitting her the hardest right then was his scent. He smelled so delicious she could smother him in guacamole and eat him up. The visual was almost enough to make her purr. She quickly dunked a tortilla chip in the spicy green dip before she gave into the crazy impulse. She was so caught up in the fantasy she didn’t even know he’d answered her question until she realized his lips were moving.
“But yeah, I know him more by reputation than anything else,” Travis was saying.
What had she asked him again? Oh, that’s right. Whether he knew Landon. Her sneaky way of figuring out if Travis honestly was Special Forces.
“I thought you guys all knew each other,” she said, reaching for another chip and dipping it in guacamole. The dip was smooth and perfectly seasoned, tomatoes, onions and avocados doing a little happy dance on her tongue.
Travis chuckled. “There are thousands of people in Special Forces. He was in the 5th Group out of Fort Campbell, and I’m in the 10th out of Fort Carson. We handle different areas of responsibility, so we worked together like…once.” He dipped a chip in guacamole. “How do you know Landon?”
Her gaze locked on his mouth while he chewed, and she was so mesmerized by his sensual lips that she had a hard time forming a reply. Being near him was seriously distracting.
“He works at Homeland,” she finally managed.
Travis did a double take, then chuckled. “Huh. Rumor was that he’d pissed off somebody at Special Operations Command and they’d stuck him in a dead-end desk job to destroy his career.”
